Hope for Sale
Clatter, clatter.
Clang!
I stared blankly as an empty tuna can lying on the asphalt got kicked by Chaeyeon's foot and went rolling this way and that.
Waiting out in the open must have been pretty boring for her; it looked like she was deliberately making noise in the hope that some nearby zombies would come charging in.
"Ah... isn't there even one corpse passing by...?"
I take that back. It didn't just look that way—she was genuinely hoping for it.
Watching her carefully gauge my reaction while scanning every little sound around us, I thought her adaptability was truly something else and shrugged.
"I don't care, so if you're that bored, go look for one. Just don't leave my sight."
"...Um. Won't the people in this apartment complex say something?"
"Dunno. I don't think there's another woman around here desperately trying to kill one more zombie besides you."
"Come on, Oppa. Stop exaggerating like that. It's not like I'm a psychopath or anything. There's no way I'd go out of my way to find and kill monsters that eat people..."
"Grrraaaah..."
"Wasn't that a zombie just now?"
She cut off mid-sentence at the sound of a sore throat and whipped her slender neck around, staring precisely toward the parking lot. Soon enough, a corpse that had been pinned under a car tire managed to free itself and started crawling this way. Her eyes lit up as she looked back and forth between the thing and me.
In the end I snorted a laugh and waved my hand roughly, giving her permission that wasn't quite permission.
"Fine. Go on, go. Money is made by gathering dust into a mountain, after all. Catch them while you can."
"Hehe, I'll finish it quick and be right back!"
Watching Chaeyeon's back as she dashed off with that fox-like eye smile of hers, racing to see who would get there first, I could only shake my head at how absurd it was. Not that I had any right to talk, but that girl was a complete mystery just by existing. What kind of parents must she have grown up with to turn out like that? If she'd been born in the Middle Ages, they wouldn't have written a fantasy—they'd have treated it as a true story and made a fairy tale out of her.
The lower-half-destroyed zombie flailed about, trembling at her madness—or rather, her guts—as the golden blade mercilessly pierced through its pleading eyes. Chaeyeon recovered the sword with a cold, expressionless face, then turned her head to look this way and beamed brightly as if nothing had happened.
I watched her approach, but suddenly her face hardened as she looked behind me, and I twisted my gaze to check the apartment entrance. A middle-aged man, leading five or six burly men, held a long gun in one hand and stared down at Chaeyeon and me. After a few seconds of silence, he spat once and opened his mouth.
"You two over there, are you dying to get yourselves killed? Even if there aren't any zombies nearby, playing around with cans like that?"
"Looked like things were pretty much cleaned up around here. Just checking if any small fry were left."
"And if that noise draws every last one from outside the complex, how are you going to take responsibility?"
"How else? Just deal with however many come swarming."
"...Huh. This guy's completely lost it."
The man spun his finger around his temple while glaring at me, then turned his head and looked Chaeyeon up and down once. Chaeyeon frowned a little at that creepy gaze and took a step closer to my side. Even though she was dressed in a slightly oversized sweatshirt with zero exposure, the lecherous vibe was so strong that even I could feel it. I wondered how he would have reacted if she'd been wearing that torn school uniform like before.
"Your girlfriend? She could put most celebrities to shame."
"State your business first. I don't have any business with you."
"You little punk, still talking back casually. You've got guts, I'll give you that."
Click—
The heavy black metal muzzle of the gun aimed at me.
"But even so, you should know your life is precious."
At the same time, Chaeyeon wiped the expression from her face and was about to draw her sword, but I stopped her with a hand gesture and replied nonchalantly.
"Enough with the bullshit. Just state your business. The reason you all came swarming down here..."
Pssht—
With a sound like air escaping, something grazed past my ear, making the side of my head twitch. And at the same time, I had the illusion of one of the threads in my brain that had been hanging by a thread snapping cleanly.
"You idiot, now you see this isn't a toy, right? It's just an air gun, but putting a hole in someone is no big deal. So first, empty out that bag of yours..."
This time the man's words had no choice but to cut off. It was because of my action of handing the bag and iron pipe to Chaeyeon—who had spotted the blood flowing from my ear and was about to shout with wide eyes—and stepping forward right away.
"...Huh, not just crazy, but no sense either."
The man clicked his tongue and jerked his chin at the people behind him.
"Hold on a second. I get that you're angry, but let's stop there, okay?"
Then one of the big guys awkwardly walked out and raised his arm to stop me.
"Huh? Ah! Aaaah!"
I grabbed it as is, twisted it, and flung him to the ground. They were momentarily flustered by the way I was tossing a person's arm around like a cheer stick, and this time two of the big guys walked out.
"No, wait... uuh? Ack!"
"What kind of strength... kuaaak!"
One arm in each hand, I twisted their arms for a few seconds like I was wringing a zombie's neck, then flung them to either side. Only then did the man sense that the atmosphere was off and start backing away while aiming the muzzle at me again. The moment our eyes met, he shuddered and pulled the trigger.
Pssht—
That's right. He shot at me again. Not once, but twice. And aiming for the face, no less. He must have thought he was just threatening me. But what if it had gone even a little off? If it had pierced my eyeball and lodged in my brain? A normal person would die instantly, and even in my case, if the brain happened to be a weak point like with zombies and I died on the spot...
Blood trickled down from my forearm where the bullet was embedded. If I hadn't blocked it, it would have gone straight through my forehead. At a distance of just about a meter. Instant death was guaranteed.
I grabbed the neck of the man who kept backing away and trying to reload. Then, barely holding back the urge to just snap his neck bones, I slowly twisted and squeezed clockwise.
"Guh... gack. Ghk!"
His grip went slack on its own, and the air gun he dropped clattered onto the entrance floor. I said a word to the bastard who was resisting while even drooling filthy spit.
"I'll put off dealing with you for a bit. The coffee pot comes first, after all."
Then I spoke to the remaining two big guys who didn't even dare think of attacking and were just hesitating.
"What floor does the guy named Yoo Jeong-hwan live on? If you don't talk, I'll wring your necks dry like laundry too."
I could feel Chaeyeon, who had somehow come up beside me, looking at my growling face with sparkling eyes and a much brighter expression, but I let it slide.
"Jeong-hwan. One last thing I want to ask. You didn't just see things, right?"
"Ah, seriously. Noona!"
Jeong-hwan, who had been restlessly pacing around the living room, looked at Jeong-ah with a surge of emotion at the sudden voice.
"How many times are you going to ask that?! I already explained it to you! It's not imagination—it's reality!"
"...Even so, I just can't believe it. A person facing nearly ten monsters alone? That doesn't make any sense."
"I couldn't believe it either the whole time I was watching in that dark club. But what can I do when it's the truth? That man's power is real."
Not some pathetic authority clinging to a mere air gun, but a more primal violence and force coming from an individual's body. If the world hadn't gone to hell, that power would have just made people click their tongues, but now it had become a value more important than anything else. A fundamental human value that could protect another value called food.
Jeong-hwan ground his teeth and glanced at Jeong-ah, who was calmly looking at him, then averted his gaze from hers. No matter how smart and rational his sister was, what good was it when his own power was lacking and he couldn't make use of those things? That perfect plan to reorganize the chaotic order of the apartment complex and save people had become completely useless because of a single air gun.
Fuck, fuck, fuuuuck!
And now, on top of that, even the lifeline they had barely grabbed thanks to the once-in-a-lifetime stroke of luck that had come yesterday was about to be cut and disappear. He didn't know exactly how strong that man was, but no matter what, once that bastard of a complex chief had a gun, there wasn't much they could do. And it wasn't even just that guy alone. Jeong-hwan heaved deep sighs as he looked at the coffee pot carefully placed on the sofa.
I don't know why this is needed when the electricity is all cut off, but...
What did that matter to him? It had been a solid opportunity to get food from Cheol-ho. In the end, Jeong-hwan had no choice but to abandon his attachment, just like his younger sibling sitting next to Noona looking enlightened.
...Starting tomorrow, I'll have to go through that shit of hunting for food again. Goddamn it.
And right at that moment.
Thump thump—
The sound of someone knocking briefly on the front door. Then a man's voice came from outside.
"Food delivery. The exchange location has been changed from the original meeting spot to right in front of your house, so I can charge an extra service fee, right?"
He added that the fee would be enough if it was some high-quality coffee beans to go with the coffee pot. Only then did Jeong-hwan come to his senses and scramble toward the front door.
"Of course, of course! I'll open it right away!"
"Take your time. I need to rough up this big mouth that keeps opening on its own. Want to try too?"
"Really? Then can I hit the eyeballs instead of the mouth?"
"If the eyes burst it'll get messy, so hit a little off to the side."
"I'm not as strong as Oppa, so it'll be fine."
But whose was that woman's voice coming from outside? And what was all this about big mouths and eyeballs? Jeong-hwan forced himself to calm the chaos filling his head as he unlocked the door lock.