Nano Warrior, Ready to Sortie
The streets of Taewang Metropolitan City had been scoured clean by the dead.
The outbreak that had swallowed the city only hours ago had not been a riot. It had been a wave. And it was not Taewang Metropolitan City alone. The entire nation of South Korea had been hit the same way.
"Lock the door!! Lock the goddamn door, you idiot!!!"
The moment the zombie virus bloomed across the city, panic took people by the throat. They fled indoors, burrowing into whatever buildings they could reach. And once the living vanished from the streets, the zombies changed.
They no longer hunted in packs. They drifted apart, shambling this way and that, idle and aimless. As the clustered dead dispersed, the true face of Taewang Metropolitan City — ravaged, defiled, left for ruin — was laid bare at last.
Cars lay overturned on their roofs. A heavy truck had rammed itself straight into the face of a building. Fires chewed through structures. The plate-glass storefronts along the first floors were almost all smashed in. And scattered through that wreckage, human corpses littered the streets.
Tens of people — hundreds — had fled from the zombies, and in that stampede the trampled dead had piled up. Those bodies had been crushed under the feet of the fleeing living. Skulls had split open. Because of that, they never turned. They had simply been torn apart and eaten where they lay, never having zombified, and now they sprawled across the pavement in that wretched state.
This was the apocalypse. A hellscape too grotesque to look at with open eyes.
A crimson sunset bled down over streets that had already become hell. Bathed in that dusk, Taewang Metropolitan City looked as though the entire city had been painted in blood.
"Holy shit, jackpot!!! Fucking goldmine!!!"
The chaos was not merely the city's skin coming apart. Human ethics were coming apart with it.
The plate glass of a downtown shop had been smashed completely in. Beyond the shattered window sat a rock the size of an adult man's head.
Looting. It was not zombies that had stormed the shop. In the confusion the dead had created, the quicker-witted among the survivors had started to plunder.
"You thieving sons of bitches!!!!!!!!"
The shop owner screamed at the looters. Rage and a raw, tearing cry lived in his voice — and fear, all at once. Fear of the zombies. Fear of the apocalypse itself. That fear kept him inside. Even as his store was being stripped, he could not step out. All he could do was scream from behind the counter in a voice hoarse with desperation.
"Thieves, my ass!!!! The world's already gone to shit — who's the owner now!!!! Finders keepers!!!!"
"Heheheheh, look at that coward! He can't even come out! Heheheheh!!!"
Two punks who looked to be in their early twenties came bolting out of the shop with their arms full, making a fast getaway.
"It's survival of the fittest now~ The ones who live are the strong ones~!"
"Kekeke! That's right. Times like this are actually an opportunity. You gotta move while everyone's losing their minds — that's how you seize the high ground. Kekeke!"
They cackled, backing each other up, right up until the moment the alley answered them.
"—KEEEEAAARGH!"
"—KREAAAK! KIEEEAAAK!!!"
"—KRHAAAAAAH!!!"
Three zombies burst from a narrow alley beside the shop and came down on the punks in a sudden rush.
"Wait— wh-what the fuck!!!!"
"Whoa... this, this is— fuck??"
Both hands full of stolen goods, running at a dead sprint — they had no chance to do anything but flounder. Then the one on the outside felt his eyes flash.
Heh. No other choice...!
Thud!!!
He drove his shoulder into the punk beside him and shoved.
"—Khah!!" "—Guh!!"
"GAAAAAH!!! You fucking—!!!"
Two of the zombies slammed into the man who had been thrown into them, jaws closing on the nape of his neck and his shoulder.
Splat!!!
"Gah!!! Fuck!! Fuck!!!"
Used as bait, the shoved punk went down hard as the zombies tore into him. They piled onto the fallen body and began to feed in earnest — wet tearing, bone crunching, flesh ripping in the alley dark.
"Fuck!!! Fuck, how could you—!!!"
The betrayed punk screamed himself raw, staring at the partner who had thrown him to the dead.
"Kekekeke! You dumbass.... The strong eat the weak, remember!"
The one who had used him as bait only sneered, a thoroughly vile little smile, as if the screaming were a joke. And that was how humanity crumbled in the apocalypse.
"What a shitshow."
A woman watching the collapse from inside a car let out a small sigh.
"If they're already like this, the real show later's going to be something else, huh?"
Glossy, long, layered-perm black hair. Pale skin. A black baseball cap pulled down over her head.
"Barricades are going up all over. If I'd been even a little later, I wouldn't have gotten in. Who knows what else is coming — I need to get there fast."
She glanced behind her. Defensive access-control barricades were going up across Taewang Metropolitan City.
"As long as cars aren't blocking the road like that, I should still be able to get through..."
She muttered it, eyeing a narrow street choked off by an overturned car.
"And the zombies half-assing a roadblock — I can just ram those out of the way."
Vroooom!
The vehicle the woman in the baseball cap was driving was a heavily armored machine.
The special weapon issued to Nano Warrior Kim Taeshik is a steel pipe forged from nano-particles — the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe.
The moment he tapped it, the Status Window launched into an explanation of the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe.
The Nano Awakened Steel Pipe possesses extraordinary durability. Though relatively light in weight, it delivers a satisfying sense of impact to the Nano Warrior.
Under normal conditions it produces the destructive power of an ordinary steel pipe. When Kim Taeshik's mana is projected into it, however, it unleashes transcendent destructive force.
"Oh... projection with mana... now that's a special weapon for you!"
The Nano Awakened Steel Pipe. The name had a vague, almost hokey ring to it. He was a Special Hidden Warrior, and a steel pipe felt a little too humble for the title. But if it scaled with mana, that was a different story. That actually sounded legit.
When infused with mana, the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe delivers destructive power equivalent to a 25 kg sledgehammer.
That destructive power scales with the force with which Nano Warrior Kim Taeshik swings it.
"A 25 kg sledgehammer? This steel pipe? A steel pipe hitting like a 25 kg sledgehammer???"
His mouth fell open on its own at the specs the Status Window had just laid out.
"You swing a pipe that feels light in the hand, but it hits like a 25 kg sledgehammer — what happens then???"
What happens? Zombie heads get smashed, that's what. It was basically the same synergy as his sub-stats. Lightweight-class speed with super-heavyweight-class destructive power.
"They're getting wrecked! Those zombie skulls!!!"
The Status Window rolled a hologram simulation — a clip showing what the Awakened Steel Pipe could actually do in a fight. A downward smash caved a zombie's head in. A horizontal swing tore a skull clean off and sent it flying. It was only a hologram, but that was more than enough. He could feel the pipe's destructive power in his bones.
◈ When the Nano Warrior's mana is projected, sections of the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe light up with a mana glow.
◈ While that glow is active, the pipe's transcendent mana-fueled destructive power is unleashed.
◈ Even if the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe leaves the Nano Warrior's hand, the projected state persists for a set duration.
◈ If any being other than the Nano Warrior uses the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe, the power boost from mana projection will not apply.
◈ The Nano Awakened Steel Pipe's stats receive secondary enhancements as the Nano Warrior's overall level increases.
"Hmm... if the projection holds even after it leaves my hand... so I can throw it?"
Depending on the situation, sure, he could. Still, a weapon this physically gifted felt like a waste to just chuck around.
The function briefing ended. The Status Window filled the entire display with a photorealistic rendering of the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe.
"That's badass!!!"
It was cool. He hereby apologized for writing it off just because it was named after a steel pipe. Fully revealed, the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe did not look like metal at all. It had the feel of some dark-gray special material, and because it was built from nano-particles, there was a quiet strangeness to it. He liked it. It was completely his style. And the lights that would come on when he gripped it — that was the kind of presentation that actually belonged next to the words Hidden Class.
Honestly, blunt weapons had always been his thing. And a zombie apocalypse? That was blunt-weapon territory. Even when he used to play zombie games, he would toss the guns and beat everything to death with a club. The more he looked at it, the more it seemed like Awakened abilities were tailored to the Awakener's personality.
A receive button formed at the bottom of the Status Window once the explanation was done.
"No reason to hesitate! Receiving it right now!"
He stabbed the button with a triumphant little jab.
The Nano Awakened Steel Pipe may now be received. You may grasp the physical rendering displayed on the screen with your hand.
The photorealistic image on the Status Window became something he could actually take hold of.
He reached out and clamped down hard on the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe inside the screen.
I can actually feel it! The grip is real!!!!
His hand had gone into the Status Window. And in that state, the grip of the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe came through his palm as clearly as if it were already in the world.
Shhhhhhhhing—!
The instant he closed his fist around the pipe inside the window, a burst of spectacle flared, and the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe began to summon itself into reality.
Flash!
The effects peeled away, and the Awakened Steel Pipe stood in the air outside the window. Then, from the lower end of the pipe still in his grip, mana began to project. Golden electric circuits bloomed across the entire length of the weapon.
Golden circuit-light ignited along the Nano Awakened Steel Pipe.
"........Whoa....!"
It was beautiful. It was so cool he forgot to breathe. He stared at it for a long, stupid moment, brain empty.
"With this... with this, it's more than possible!!!"
He could feel it. The power of the Awakened Steel Pipe sat in his hands. The strength the Status Window had granted him was, without a doubt, something mysterious — something that belonged to another world. The instant he gripped the pipe, the instant his mana resonated with it, information poured into his head as if it were being sucked straight in: everything he could do with this weapon. And from that information, he was certain.
With this steel pipe alone, even at his current level, he could butcher zombies in a single hit without breaking a sweat.
"Then there's no reason to hesitate. Time to sortie and level up!"
Zombie Point hunting started now.
—KIEEEEEEAAAK!!!!
—KREEEEEEAAAK!!!
And with that, Kim Taeshik stepped out of the bunker.