Moonlight Beauty (3)
Morning light broke over the dilapidated hillside apartment complex.
"This is my place," I said, opening the door. "It isn't much, but please, come on in."
"Not at all. You're giving me shelter in such a safe haven—I'm the one who should be thanking you."
We stepped inside my modest yet comforting home. Caked in dried grime, dirt, and the stench of battle, the two of us lingered awkwardly in the narrow living room, keeping a polite distance while sizing up the situation. Anyone would have grimaced at the rancid stench of Abyss Species blood rolling off our clothes, but she simply stood there demurely, hands folded in front of her.
"Well, I should probably throw our clothes into the wash first. Then we can take turns showering."
"Sounds good. Why don't you go first, Mr. TechGeek?"
"No, after you. While you're washing up, I'll start the laundry and find some spare clothes for you to change into."
With that settled, she took a clean towel and disappeared into the bathroom. I sank onto the living room floor, staring blankly into space as the hellish struggle from the previous night replayed behind my eyelids.
Swoooosh—
"Hm?"
Sitting alone in the quiet apartment, the sound of water cascading just beyond the bathroom door echoed clearly across the room. Mingled with the drumming of the shower stream came the faint, delicate sound of her humming.
Get a grip, Shin Ido. You're in the middle of a life-or-death apocalyptic survival game! You know what I'm saying?
Feeling heat prickle at the tips of my ears and flush across my cheeks, I shook my head violently. Monsters were crawling through every street out there; this was hardly the time to be blushing over a girl.
A soft click broke the silence, and the bathroom door opened. Seo Hyun stepped out, fresh from the shower, looking thoroughly bashful in the oversized white T-shirt and worn-out gym shorts I had lent her. The shirt swallowed her frame, slipping off one shoulder to expose a smooth slope of porcelain skin.
Damn, her proportions are insane.
The subtle scent of soap drifting from her damp black hair hit me, coaxing out another silent marvel—and a dry cough to cover it up. Stripped of the soot and gore of battle, her fair face was even more radiant than it had been on the hill under the moonlight.
"All done. It's all yours," she said softly.
"Ah, right. I'll be quick!"
Snatching up a towel, I practically bolted into the bathroom. The cramped space was still thick with the sweet fragrance of shampoo, making my head spin for a split second.
"Focus! Hoo-ah!"
I slapped both cheeks hard enough to make them sting, twisted the faucet all the way to cold, and stood under the freezing blast. Only after dousing my head in ice-cold water did my hammering pulse finally settle back to a normal rhythm.
Once we had both finished cleaning up, our clothes were already tumbling inside the faded dryer humming in the corner of the living room.
"Ah, this is so warm and comforting. Thank you."
"I don't know if it suits your taste, but drink up."
We sat across from each other at the small dining table, quietly sipping the hot Solomon's seal tea I had brewed. As the warmth traced down my throat, the knots of tension frozen into my chest over the course of the night gradually thawed.
"Come to think of it, we never introduced ourselves properly, did we?"
"Slurp. Now that you mention it, no. Things were so chaotic there wasn't even a moment for greetings."
"Pfft, true! My name is Seo Hyun. Just Hyun. It's my parents and my younger sister back home."
"Seo Hyun... That's a lovely name."
"Isn't it? I've always liked it, hehe. Oh, and I'm twenty-one! I attend Ilhwa Women's University."
I gave an appreciative nod, secretly stunned. It was hard to believe such a youthful, slender frame harbored the monstrous physical power capable of slaughtering hideous Abyss Species. And Ilhwa Women's University was renowned as a top-tier institution. She had the brains to match her brawn.
"I'm Shin Ido. Twenty-three. Just an ordinary tech geek who works with machinery."
"Shin Ido... That sounds very dependable."
Cupping the teacup in both hands, she offered a timid smile. I set my cup down, deliberately steering the mood toward serious business.
"Ahem. So... what was that favor you mentioned earlier? What do you need help with?"
At the weight of my question, the shy smile playing on her lips vanished as if it had never been there at all. Seo Hyun bit her lower lip, resolving herself, and began to recount her harrowing tale.
"I have a younger sister who's a year younger than me. The only time I could possibly rescue her is late at night... but then those monsters become the problem..."
"Where is your sister being held?"
Her expression darkened noticeably.
"...It turns out that in this broken world, all it takes is a single day for people to lose their minds."
"I haven't set foot outside this neighborhood since the collapse, so I wouldn't know. What happened over there?"
"When the crisis hit, the surviving students fled to the campus dormitories and barricaded the doors tight."
"So it turned into a completely isolated shelter."
"Yes. But while everyone was shivering in sheer terror, a handful of people who had awakened overwhelming combat abilities stepped forward—and started using violence to take control."
The story spilling from her trembling lips wasn't some grand political power struggle. An ordinary institution of learning—a place where people studied for exams and made friends—had simply undergone a sudden environmental shift. Faced with the threat of annihilation, ordinary people bowed to raw force without resistance. Within twenty-four hours, the dormitory had degenerated into a personal kingdom ruled by thugs.
The world goes to hell, and within a single day they're playing campus warlords in an isolated pocket?
When you really thought about it, power-drunk humans were far more terrifying and grotesque than brainless monsters running amok.
Playing their little dictator games, they forced the surviving students to write down their awakened abilities and hand them over—like registering for citizenship in a newly forged tyranny.
"...That's how they discovered my sister, Seol, had awakened the 'Buff Cook' ability. The moment they realized what it meant, their eyes changed."
"Buff Cook?"
"Yes. Any food Seol prepares carries magical buff effects. The bastard wanted to monopolize all the rations and buffs for himself, so he locked my innocent sister away in the dormitory's basement cafeteria."
From what she explained, nearly every awakened individual at the university was a Superhuman Type. There was no flashy magic or high-fantasy abilities. In that sea of physical combatants, only a single outlier stood apart: her younger sister, Seo Seol, a Production Type.
Seo Hyun clenched her fists until her knuckles whitened, trembling with rage.
"Then he threatened me. He said if I wanted my sister to live, I had to shut my mouth, submit, and serve under him."
"So you couldn't stomach it and tried to break her out, but the escape failed?"
"...Yes. By then, he had already gathered a pack of awakened sycophants eager to cling to his petty authority."
Heavy tears spilled down Seo Hyun's cheeks. In the end, her sister, Seo Seol, had become a hostage trapped in that underground cage.
"He warned me that if I didn't return within two days, he would punish my sister severely."
"So you were planning to go back? To willingly make yourself a slave?"
"I wanted to. I was going to. But Seol sobbed and screamed at me never to come back. She told me that the second I walked back through those doors, we'd be strangers forever. I couldn't bring myself to turn around..."
From there, she had fled blindly into the hills in sheer desperation—until my truck caught her eye. At first, she had merely been seeking high ground to escape the beasts, but seeing me tear the creatures apart brought the Abyss Gallery notice back to mind. She sensed that I was her only lifeline through this living hell. Why? She said it was just a gut feeling.
"My sister Seol was born with albinism. Her body has always been frail, and she could barely ever leave the house."
"Albinism?"
"Yes. She barely managed to get through her college classes by taking recorded lectures online. She's so delicate... But on that exact day, she had an in-person group project and came to campus. Why did it have to be that day...?"
Overcome with grief, Seo Hyun burst into fresh tears and pushed herself up from her chair. Dropping to her knees before me once more, she clasped her hands together in desperate supplication.
"Please, I beg of you, help us! If you can just save Seol, I'll do anything you ask of me, Ido! Anything at all!"
Anything, huh...
Watching her weep, I crossed my arms and sank into deep, heavy contemplation. My own circumstances were hardly lavish. I wasn't overflowing with power yet, and above all, there was that godforsaken penalty hanging over my neck. A curse that exposed my location to the monsters thirty minutes before every sunset meant I could never afford to stay in one place.
Still, it wasn't without merit. If I had to roam rough terrain constantly in my truck, having a companion who brought information about the outside world and overwhelming close-quarters combat prowess would vastly boost my odds of survival. Especially since my coin-flip sniping accuracy left my personal survivability pretty suspect.
Until I grow stronger, banking on solid party members to shore up our collective strength makes a hell of a lot more sense than playing the reckless lone wolf.
"I can't say yes to everything just yet," I said slowly, "but as it happens, I'm saddled with a nasty penalty that keeps me from staying in one place for long anyway."
"Pardon?"
"Which means rolling over to that dormitory where those dictator scumbags are holed up to have a little look around might not be the worst idea."
At my calm acceptance, her wide eyes grew even larger, and she gasped in ecstatic relief.
"Really?! You'll really help me save my sister?!"
"Don't jump for joy just yet. Sit back down and let's go over the intel in detail."
At my instruction, she wiped her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand and obediently settled back into the chair.
"First, we need a precise grasp of our abilities before drawing up an extraction plan."
"My awakening is a Superhuman Type," she explained. "It allows me to move any part of my body at extreme high speed the moment I focus on it."
From the sound of it, most combatants who awakened gained Superhuman Types like hers. And as she had said, there were no flashy, fantasy-tier spells at their campus. Furthermore, aside from Seol, there were no other Production Types like me.
"Then what makes you so sure your sister is still safe?"
"Like I mentioned, Seol's ability is being a cook."
"In an apocalypse like this, why would a bunch of campus thugs covet a cook so badly? Is this 'buff' really that incredible?"
She nodded emphatically.
"It is. Besides, if this situation drags on, delicious food will become more precious than anything else in the world, won't it?"
"Hmm... That's hard to deny. Live on foul combat rations for a few days and anyone would lose their sanity."
"On top of that, the special buffs from Seol's food—stamina recovery, strength enhancement—are worth far more than a single Superhuman Type combatant."
A sickly, homebound girl with albinism awakening as a cook who granted buffs through her meals... That was a mind-boggling skill set. In a brutal wasteland where fantasy staples like healers and potions didn't exist, a buff cook was practically a walking national treasure. No wonder those scumbags kept her as a hostage rather than killing her; she was far too valuable.
Seo Hyun's reasoning held up completely.
And no doubt the striking looks of both sisters poured fuel on those thugs' disgusting desires.
That was humanity's darkest underbelly when law and order collapsed and men devolved into beasts.
I closed my eyes for a moment, sketching the path ahead for my Mobile Fortress in my mind.
Every night, the truck was destined to become the focal point of the hunt, fleeing and fighting for survival. Adding an extreme-speed close-quarters vanguard who could slice monsters apart, paired with a cook who dished out stamina and recovery buffs?
This wasn't just practical; it was a Tier-1 dream team straight out of a textbook RPG.
I would handle long-range fire support and weapon fabrication from the back, Seo Hyun would tear through the frontlines, and her sister would handle logistics and buffs. You couldn't engineer a more perfectly interlocking set of gears for survival if you tried.
"Wow. That really is one hell of an ability."
"Could it possibly match yours, Ido?" Seo Hyun let out a soft laugh, her reddened eyes sparkling with curiosity.
I stroked my chin, turning things over. Trust was a two-way street; give-and-take required showing some of my cards. Keeping my access to the Mechanics Board strictly classified as my trump card, I placed my cup down and spoke with deliberate gravity.
"My ability is called Mechanical Engineering."
"Mechanical Engineering?"
"Yeah. And I suspect it's the exact reason you risked your life to seek me out."
Reaching into my trouser pocket, I pulled out the black core harvested from the Twilight-grade Abyss Species the night before and set it on the table with a light clatter. Pointing at the core as it cast an eerie, turbid glow, the corners of my mouth curled into a smirk.
"I have a feeling I can take the parts harvested from killing these Abyss Species... and craft something truly extraordinary."
My bombshell declaration—that I could forge weapons out of monsters completely immune to conventional physical attacks—rippled quietly across the cramped living room.
Seo Hyun's eyes widened like a startled rabbit's. Cupping both hands over her mouth, she shot up from her chair.
"What?! Are you serious?!"