Not Betting My Life
The favor the crow had asked of me wasn't anything special.
Before I went full Planet of the Apes with the black orangutan, she just wanted a modest supply of resources. When I asked how, exactly, she told me to drag a few of the corpses lying around up to the rooftop and feed them into the gear — grind them up.
It was the kind of thing that belonged in a Saw movie, and my face must have shown how unsettled I was, because she added one last line.
After hearing that, I couldn't exactly brush her off for being a hassle. I left the broadcast room at once and headed for the central stairwell.
I kept my footsteps careful, holding my breath as I walked — and then, from the floor below, came the sudden sound of glass shattering. Curious, I checked outside the window and saw a middle-aged zombie, hurled by some irresistible force, plummeting headfirst.
Thwack—
I tore my eyes away from the meat that burst apart with a dull, wet impact and picked up my pace.
I'd confirmed where the rampaging bastard was. No more reason to hesitate.
I scooped up the headless corpses that lined one wall of the corridor — one under each arm, one in each hand — four at a go. The blood had drained out of them, so they were lighter than expected, which made it possible. Still not satisfied, I jammed the corpse of a small-framed girl under my left arm as well.
I don't know what kind of help she's planning that needs resources, but more resources can't hurt.
A massive presence was closing in from the bottom of the stairs, so I hurried the haul. I threw open the rooftop door and walked straight to the gear ticking and grinding away, dumping the corpses on the floor.
I looked down once at the mess of blood and flesh, then lifted a body and rammed it mercilessly into the center of the gear.
Grrrrrind—
As if it had been waiting, the golden gear broke the corpse down into a handful of meat scraps. I watched that brilliant light slowly stain itself the color of blood, then glanced toward the door.
There was no way the thing hadn't heard this racket. It had to be getting closer.
So why couldn't I sense anything at all?
I shoved the last remaining girl's corpse into the gear and immediately went on guard.
Grind— grrrrrrind—
While the rotten bone and muscle tangled together and were absorbed into the gear, my heartbeat kept accelerating. I dropped into a lower stance. The rooftop door was still quiet. Every direction was nothing but open empty air. There was nothing to be tense about — nothing except this heart of mine.
As if bracing for the future I was about to meet, the heart pumped blood like a piston. I blinked —
and the back of my neck went ice-cold.
Whoosh—!
The instinct that punched through my brain made me duck hard, and a grotesque arm swept past, grazing my hair from behind. Right after it, a leg like a withered tree trunk slammed square into my side — hard enough to blow out the ribs and organs inside.
Even gravity couldn't hold against the force. My body lifted into the air, then I tumbled across the floor like I'd been hit by a car. I finally stopped against the rooftop railing and tried to get up, only to stagger from the imbalance of wrecked guts.
Then a blackened branch of a dead tree — no, a finger — closed around my throat.
It wasn't a metaphor. A grip stronger than any orangutan's half-crushed my neck bones, and a sickening crack rang in my ears.
Crrrack— snap—
My vision tilted on its own. Damage to the spinal cord, maybe — I couldn't put any strength into my upper body. Having subdued me with a perfect ambush, the thing looked down at me with white pupils like candle wax poured over them.
Then, from a mouth packed tight with teeth, came a single line in a grotesque tone.
"Th...at... was... f...un..."
It must have registered my injuries and decided I was finished. It said it in a voice like a saw blade, then grinned.
For the finishing touch, it yawned that huge mouth open to bite my entire head off. I answered it.
"Glad you had fun."
"...?!"
Except we hadn't even started yet.
When the prey it thought was done spoke back in the same warped voice through a misaligned windpipe, the thing's eyes went round. In that same span of time, my neck bones had fully healed and realigned on their own. I rolled them hard once, working out the stiffness.
Then, without giving a damn about my finger joints, I drove my middle and index fingers together with everything I had and stabbed them up under its jaw.
Shunk!
The open jaw and the throat it had exposed were pierced in the same motion. The shock made it drop me and clutch its neck. My fingers, of course, snapped just as viciously under the force — but I ignored that completely, scrambled to sit astride the rooftop railing, and looked back at it.
"I'm not done prepping yet. There's something I need to grab from the gym."
So see you in a bit.
I flipped it off as it slammed its mouth shut with a furious clack, then tipped my body backward.
Whoooosh—
The weightlessness that wrapped my whole body lasted only a few seconds before it flipped into a brutal, dragging pull. I forced strength into my upper body, twisted around, and threw a breakfall toward the ground rushing up to meet me face-on.
KRAAASH—
The half-assed breakfall I'd taught myself actually worked — but I still couldn't avoid both arms, my left shin, and the bones in my right foot shattering to pieces. I lay there for a moment, unable to move, until the bones started knitting themselves back together with their usual wet sounds. I staggered to my feet.
And then —
KRAAAAAASH—!
A roar exploded behind me. And a shadow.
"Grrrrrrrr..."
It went past a zombie's gurgling. A raw, grinding howl vibrated against the back of my skull.
...Oh, fuck.
My legs still weren't fully healed. Distance to the thing, rough estimate: under a meter. My side was still throbbing from the rooftop backstab — and now it had me from behind again.
I could feel the murder in its eyes, the promise that this time it would chew my head to pulp. One thing in my pocket came to mind.
Right before its jaws opened to clamp down on my skull, I pulled the pack from my pocket and jammed it into its mouth.
CRUNCH—
That monstrous bite force chewed through the hand and arm holding the pack in one go.
Pssshhh—
The packaging finally tore under its teeth, and the liquid inside sprayed free.
And then —
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACK—!
I learned that the pack's name had not been an exaggeration.
...Cold.
I stared blankly at what used to be a hand, now caked white with frost. The muscle shredded by those savage teeth, the bones crushed under the pressure — even the blood that had been pouring out — all of it had frozen solid. And that cold, stabbing into my brain, was enough to remind me what pain felt like for the first time in a long while.
"Ghk-ghk-ghk...!"
But my situation was still far better than its. Its black tongue had frozen solid like it had downed liquid nitrogen by the liter, and its mouth was so packed with frost it looked like a cave in a snow mountain.
The effect's... definitely real, at least.
Watching it thrash right in front of me, eyes wild and flailing, I thought for a second that forty zombies' worth of value wasn't a total lie — then I saw those pain-twitching eyeballs sweeping every direction and realized it wasn't a fatal wound.
Wait. It was supposed to put something down in one hit.
I was briefly speechless, then decided sealing off its main weapon — the bite — was good enough, and started backing away. I needed to get to the gym while it was still reeling from that hit.
I ran for the building the crow had pointed out without looking back and locked the door behind me. At the same time, a howl even more grotesque than before — frozen vocal cords, maybe — rose up, and I saw it moving, hunting for me. I ducked low, kept myself hidden, and hurried into the gym.
...What kind of middle school gym is this? You could call it a sports university facility and I'd believe you.
Even if the chairman was a famous chaebol, there had to be limits. Honestly, a full weight room inside a school gym didn't make sense. Still — it was a win for me, so I let it go.
I came up to the second floor, and there it was at last: the weapon I'd been craving, piled up along one wall.
"...Haa."
I walked over and lifted that heavy weight in one hand.
A silver bar bent into a W-shape. Bench press, squat, deadlift — as long as you didn't exceed the weight limit, it shrugged off any impact you threw at it. The pure essence of modern science.
Part of me wanted to grab the twenty-kilo bar sitting right next to it. But I still didn't have the strength to play Guan Yu. Settling for what I could manage, I hoisted an eight-kilo light bar onto my shoulder — and then my left hand, still buried under frost, caught my eye.
...It's not going to stay like this forever, right?
Looking closer, the wounds were healing bit by bit. But those pure white ice flowers showed no interest in melting. I tried scraping the ice off roughly with my right hand, then flinched hard when flesh came away with the shards, and left it alone.
I'd have to wait here a little. Even with this perfect blunt instrument of modern civilization in my hands, fighting with one hand in this condition was a non-starter.
...So when does this thing finish healing?
The arm that had been shattered the same way was already back to normal. The ice-caked hand was the problem. I sighed and gave my new favorite weapon a few experimental swings. The solid weight of it cutting the air felt very, very good.
You orangutan bastard. One clean shot to the skull with this and you're going to love it to death.