Give Little, Take Much
To cut to the chase, the talent I was looking for wasn't there. There were a few who looked like human disasters, though.
On the eighth floor I could sense a presence, but no matter how much I knocked or called out, the place gave no answer. So I just said to hell with it and smashed the door in.
"Huff... huff, huh?! Wh-what the hell! You!"
"Ah, fucking hell. Seriously."
What met my eyes was a woman sprawled out, smeared in every kind of filth and tears, and some bastard of a man raping her.
Feeling a throbbing headache from the stress, I shooed Chaeyeon—who was peeking out from behind my back—out of the apartment.
Then I tossed my iron pipe, which was starting to wear out, onto the floor, rolled my wrists, and approached the guy.
"D-don't come any closer! You son of a bitch! How the hell did you break that door!"
"The son of a bitch isn't me—it's you."
Judging by the woman's condition, she was conscious but completely unresponsive. Her mind was shattered beyond repair.
The thought that this woman might have been the elite science major from a top university I was looking for—or maybe even a jackpot like a nurse—flashed through my head, and right then my patience snapped just like her sanity.
"Get the fuck out right now! This is my house! Or what, you wanna try something... huh?"
I grabbed the bastard by the collar with one hand and lifted him up.
Leaving Chaeyeon's admiring "Whoa" behind me, I spoke to him expressionlessly.
"What house does a piece of shit like you get to have?"
"Wh-what..."
Whoooosh—!
"Aaaaaaagh!"
I hurled him toward the balcony, and he flew off screaming from the sudden weightlessness.
I bent down to properly check on the woman, but between her nutritional state and her mental state, she was basically on borrowed time.
"...Ugh. Sob!"
Watching her scrawny frame just curl up and stream tears, I pressed my temple and reined in my anger.
Then I spoke to Chaeyeon, who was staring with a hardened face.
"Don't look. Turn away."
"I'm fine. If anything, I want to kill him myself."
What a load of nonsense.
I grabbed the face of the guy groaning on the balcony floor and dragged him along.
With that massive grip strength he wanted to scream in pain, but his jaw was locked so he could only flail.
"Just fuck off. I'm sick of looking at you."
"W-wait...?!"
I lifted him and flung him over the fence.
Crack—!
The death cry he was about to let out with his mouth wide open got cut off in advance because it was too noisy.
He took my fist midair, teeth scattering down with him as he plummeted.
With the thud of impact behind me, I stepped out of the balcony and let out a deep sigh.
"Let's go."
"...What about that woman?"
"What about her? We just leave."
"...Okay."
She was pitiful, sure, but I had no intention of taking care of her. What was the point when she didn't even seem to have the will to live anymore?
With that filthy feeling I thoroughly searched the apartment, but I only saw similar cases—no results to speak of.
After hitting the top floor and coming back down, I briefly supported Chaeyeon, who was pretending otherwise but stumbling from sore legs, when a metal object suddenly plunged into my side.
Shunk—
"Hahahaha! You son of a bitch! Die!"
"...What. Why aren't you dying?"
He stared at my face in bewilderment with his pathetic appearance, and instead of me, Chaeyeon freaked out and shouted.
"Oppa! Are you okay?!"
"How do I look to you?"
"J-just looking at the wound, you don't look okay at all... oh, now you're fine."
With the man and Chaeyeon watching, I grabbed the kitchen knife and pulled it out, and my side regenerated in an instant.
"...Have I finally gone crazy?"
As he muttered that, I stabbed the kitchen knife into his side the same way, and he went "Guh..." and collapsed limply.
Annoyed, I tapped the handle of the stuck knife with my foot, and the way he flopped like a fish was a little funny.
"Doesn't seem like his first time. He didn't touch us while we were coming up the stairs, then attacked when we let our guard down..."
"But the fact that he attacked Oppa of all people was the cause of his failure, I guess."
If you fail a murder, you die.
Crunch— Crack—!
Just to make sure he couldn't get up as a zombie, I stomped on his neck and completely snapped it.
"How's your leg?"
"I'm fine. It was bearable to begin with. Didn't you only get hurt because of me?"
"You saw earlier. Instead of worrying about me, take care of your own body first."
Chaeyeon, who had been looking at the kitchen knife stained with my blood with a strange expression, said something.
"It's really amazing. That someone like Oppa actually exists. I'm so jealous."
"Your friend is the same now. Are you jealous of her too?"
"No. That's a bit... A human heater doesn't seem like it'd help much with my combat style."
"Kang Soeun would be hurt if she heard that."
"Hehe. Let her be hurt."
Watching her giggle as we talked, before I knew it we had finished descending the stairs.
So in the end, there were no gains. Well, if I had to say, there was some progress on the physical enhancement side.
If I get a bit stronger here, I feel like I could crush even that brute Do Wangu's muscles. Looking at how easily I lifted that rapist bastard with one hand earlier.
"Later when we get back, let's go tattoo shopping together. You need to get stronger soon too."
"Really? But I don't have that much money yet..."
"If it's not enough, I'll cover it."
"Yay!"
She raised both arms in joy, then suddenly clung to my arm and bounced up and down.
Even with her weight on me from the movement, I didn't budge an inch as I played along, and she whispered happily with a full eye smile.
"Does that mean I'll get strong like Oppa too?"
"Well. I can't guarantee that. But at least you'll get stronger proportional to the money spent."
"Then I'll be that much more helpful to Oppa. If I get stronger, will my body get bigger too or something?"
At her scheme of pressing right up against me, I lifted her by the scruff like a dog and pulled her off, then said,
"I told you. Come back when you're two years older. Two corpses up ahead, so get ready."
"Tch! When I go to Seoul in casual clothes, adults always hit on me and ask for my number!"
Sticking out her tongue and grumbling, she ran ahead, aimed her knife, and took a stance—then the tip of the blade pierced the eyes of two zombies almost simultaneously, like a gunshot.
She's gotten even faster. Talent is talent, after all.
Unaware of my thoughts, Chaeyeon habitually wiped the blade with a handkerchief and kept grumbling.
"Honestly, the world's ended, so what's the point of that minor distinction? You do all sorts of things with Yejin unnie, but you just ignore me all the time."
"What are you talking about? What all sorts of things do I do with her?"
"I heard from Yujin and Sujin last time that you hugged and kissed and stuff~? Playing dumb?"
"What kind of baseless accusation is this?"
I looked at Chaeyeon in disbelief, and she giggled as she said,
"Actually, it's a lie. I threw it out to see if you'd get flustered. Nope?"
"...Have I been too soft on you guys? Maybe I should just go alone from now on. Lock all of you up at school."
"Kyaa! No way!"
Watching Chaeyeon scurry off toward Building 108 from the entrance of Building 107 with a snort of laughter, I saw a group trudging in from the apartment complex's main gate.
At the very front, Yoo Jeong-hwan with a gloomy expression made me feel something was off.
Then people came out from Building 108's entrance, and Jeong-a ran to the heavily injured Jeong-hwan.
"Jeong-hwan! What happened?! What are all these wounds!"
"...Noona. This area around the apartments isn't just ours anymore."
"What?"
While Jeong-a disinfected the wounds that looked like they'd been slashed by something, he gulped down a water bottle and continued with a weary look.
"Gyeongseok got captured. By those crazy cannibal bastards."
"Th-that's... what..."
As Jeong-a's composed expression slowly cracked at those absurd words, Jeong-hwan spotted me and staggered over.
Then he grabbed my wrist with his blood-covered hand and said in a trembling voice,
"Sijun-ssi, no. Hyungnim Sijun. Please help us. We don't know when those bastards will raid here."
"...Let's go inside first and hear the details."
I frowned and supported Jeong-hwan.
Cannibals, huh. That unsettling word, no matter how many times I hear it—and I got to hear it twice in one day.
Maybe I'll get to see them in person sooner than expected.
"...You found them?"
"Yes. Elder. There were a bunch of people gathered in the apartment complex."
Chop chop—
Sizzle— Thud—
While the sounds of cutting, tearing, and severing something filled the air, a conversation took place in the only clean space free of the stench of blood.
"How many?"
"At least over twenty, it seems. Including women and the elderly."
"....."
The old man was silent for a moment, then glanced at the only woman in the space, who was humming as she grilled meat.
"...Not as good as the department store, but still, there should be some decent supplies. If it's an apartment."
"Because of someone buttoning things wrong, exchanges with the department store are cut off, so we'll use this as a substitute."
"Understood. Then we won't raid...?"
In contrast to the pleased expression as he watched her brightly smile and greet when their eyes met, he answered in a very cold voice.
"On hold. We'll reveal our identity, and if they refuse exchange, we go into full slaughter."
"...This might be overstepping, but then wouldn't it be better to just clean them all out first without bothering to try exchange, and collect the supplies?"
"We need to start securing a stable means of food supply soon. With that complex, food should be plenty possible besides the supplies."
"...Ah."
"And we need to make some friends for Jimin too. She looks lonely even if she pretends not to among the beasts."
"Understood, Elder."
Leaving the glasses-wearing man who finally seemed to get it and was impressed behind, the old man slowly took a bite of the meat the woman had grilled for him.
Red meat juices dripped from between his teeth.