Chapter 9
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: Zombie Apocalypse (6)
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Hearing the sound of something presumed to be a zombie ramming the door with its body, I stopped in my tracks. Na-eun quietly spoke up.
"You're not going to kill it again, are you? Sian, let's head up to the room now."
By all common sense, she was right.
Following the thoughts of Lee Sian, whose body I'd possessed, it made perfect sense. But as Yoo Sian, I felt an urge to take it down.
That damn quest kept tempting me with the promise of solid rewards if I completed it. I just wanted to hunt.
"I don't think it's a good idea to leave something like that lurking around here. While there are only a few now, clearing them out will make things easier down the line."
"In movies, people like that always die first. You know that, right?"
"Aren't they usually the protagonists who make it to the end? You go on up. I'll watch for a bit longer and join you."
Even as we talked, the sounds of it slamming into the door kept coming.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Creak.
Bang.
For some reason, it must've brushed the doorknob. The door swung open, and the zombie that burst out slammed its head into the hallway floor.
The moment I heard the creak, I'd gripped my baseball bat in both hands. Unlike my body, which was shielded by the door, my head was fully exposed. I brought the bat down hard.
Splat!
This time, I'd crushed its skull perfectly in one blow. The quest counter ticked up.
Just three more to go, and my physical abilities would get a boost?
As I pondered how to rack up the last three, Na-eun spoke to me.
"Hurry back to the room, dump this stuff, and come back. Let's grab anything useful from this dead guy's place."
Na-eun, who'd just been ignoring the noise and begging to head home, was now the one suggesting we loot.
Finders keepers in an ownerless house, after all.
I handed her the baseball bat, grabbed my bag, and dashed up to my room.
I burst in with my shoes still on, dumped out the plastic bottles, then raced back downstairs.
Lucky for me, my place was only one floor up. Any farther, and all that back-and-forth would've drained my stamina.
Back on the lower floor, I stepped over the zombie corpse and entered the apartment. Na-eun had already pulled out some food supplies worth taking, so I stuffed them straight into my bag.
There was a good haul of ramen, instant fried rice, and dumplings.
This guy could've held out a while longer if he hadn't gotten infected.
I found Na-eun in the bedroom, staring at the monitor.
She wasn't sitting at the desk—just standing back a bit, gazing at the screen. I sidled up next to her and saw the content. No wonder she looked so dazed.
[Bitten by a zombie. What do I do? It's itchy, and my heart's beating slower. What do I do? Am I gonna die?]
After that came a jumble of meaningless gibberish. She'd probably pounded the keyboard in blind panic—keycaps were scattered all over the room.
"Na-eun, let's go."
"Yeah. You got everything I set aside?"
As we headed out, I shoved the corpse into the room and shut the door.
Having glimpsed the terror of someone going through infection, Na-eun seemed drained. We made our way back to my room together.
Stamina aside, for the sake of Na-eun's mental state, I figured we should hunker down today and shore up our defenses—no more venturing out.
We crammed as much of the food as we could into the mini-fridge, washed the plastic bottles clean, and filled them with tap water.
Doing this alone would've worn me out fast. Having Na-eun here was a real stroke of luck.
The kitchen was packed floor-to-ceiling with water-filled bottles, and we'd stuffed the closet—once used for clothes—with food supplies.
As a sign we had no plans to go out, we ditched the cardboard arm guards we'd been wearing and left them by the entrance. Then we sat on the bed.
Na-eun, who'd been staring blankly into space, turned to me.
"What time is it now?"
"2:20 a.m."
I glanced at my charging smartphone and answered.
"Hard to believe only two hours and twenty minutes have passed. I hope we wake up tomorrow and someone's fixed all this."
With quests like this popping up, I had a feeling it wouldn't wrap up so neatly—but I kept that to myself.
Just today, we'd spotted three zombies around the officetel and taken them all down.
Sleep it off and wake up—who knew what tomorrow would bring.
Na-eun lay down on the bed first. I started to follow suit but then stood back up.
"Sian, where are you going?"
"Just putting the bat somewhere close."
Things were fine for now, but in zombie apocalypse clichés, humans end up being the scariest threat later on.
I rinsed off the baseball bat—the one that had crushed three zombies—with the showerhead until it was clean, set it by the bedside, and lay down.
Na-eun took my hand, interlaced our fingers, and drifted off.
I woke to a heavy weight on me.
Our fingers were still linked from sleeping side by side, but the bed was narrow. She'd shifted in her sleep and ended up on top of me.
I gently nudged Na-eun off me and checked my smartphone.
It was 8:30 a.m.—eight and a half hours since the zombie outbreak began.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I scrolled through the flood of disaster alerts and messages from friends.
'This doesn't match up with mine.'
Yoo Sian from Global Academy might call the Q Class guys "friends," but we'd never actually kept in touch.
Skimming the messages, I saw all sorts: one guy woke up to weird noises in his half-asleep daze and discovered the world had ended; another fretting over how to ration his remaining food; even someone asking if school was canceled for good.
The disaster texts were guiding people to temporary shelters, but there were so many it was just making everything more confusing.
Right now, I had plenty of supplies and the strength to handle zombies one-on-one. No need to risk the dangerous roads just yet.
No useful info in the end.
I got out of bed and checked outside.
During the night, someone besides me must've taken down zombies—there were bodies on the street. But plenty of the shambling ones were still milling about aimlessly.
Was the Plague Lord constantly summoning more Plague Seeds? Or was the infection just spreading on its own? Either way, it hit me that one person couldn't possibly contain this perfectly.
'Should've scavenged more weapons.'
I'd focused on food and water for survival overnight, and we were set for now. But supplies always felt insufficient, no matter how much you gathered.
I clenched and unclenched my empty fist.
Leveling up had definitely boosted my strength, but the bat's durability wasn't infinite.
If I had a weapon from Global Academy, my current power would make it shine—but nothing like that.
"Status Window."
Lee Sian's status window appeared naturally.
Thanks to Self-Establishment, the assimilation rate seemed capped at 75% unless I pushed it.
Raising it higher would make fighting like yesterday impossible. For now, this felt like the sweet spot.
This time, bat in hand, I cracked open the front door and cautiously stepped into the hallway.
No one around, so I relaxed and peered down at the street through the corridor window.
"Who cleared that?"
The female zombie I'd taken down near the sorting bins was gone.
Zombie corpses didn't seem to vanish on their own after a while. So who hauled it off?
Or maybe someone needed a young woman's body...
I didn't want to understand, but if I tried—as a guy—I could probably force myself to get it.
Still, this side was way cleaner than the opposite direction. Few zombies, few bodies.
I scanned the routes to the mart, department store, and university, then headed back inside.
I decided not to wake the still-sleeping Na-eun and instead dug into news and overseas reports.
Domestic zombie info showed no large groups forming.
They roamed in small numbers—avoidable if you tried? The real danger was zombies popping out of thin air. Be extra careful.
Plague Seeds weren't a one-and-done deal.
Really unlucky, you could think an area's cleared, drop your guard, and get jumped by a sudden zombie.
Overseas, the bad spots were real bad.
Zombies showing up in broad daylight crowds had started forming hordes, and dealing with their growing numbers was proving tough.
If modern firearms weren't sealed, they'd just gun them down or missile-strike them...
'What's this seal about?'
A quick search turned up a news article.
There was a photo from a military unit: bullets, grenades—all modern firearms coated in white.
They were rejecting human touch entirely, making it impossible to move or use them.
'Does that make cars the ultimate weapon right now?'
Bikes too. I figured more people would start weaponizing vehicles.
Until domestic fuel runs dry, cars are top priority to watch out for.