Walker Suit 6
After taking the grenade blast, Seo Yeong-ju began moving far more carefully than before.
She minimized exposing herself head-on, using walls and pillars as cover as she advanced like a shadow. Her movements were slower than before, but she was efficiently tightening the noose around her enemies' throats.
"(How's the situation? Are you still okay?)"
Seo Yeong-chan's worried voice came through the comms, but she didn't answer. Right now, nothing mattered except focusing on what was in front of her.
Cutting down the survivors one by one, two by two, she finally reached the third floor—having already smashed the stairway leading to the second floor with the suit's power before descending from the rooftop. That was how they'd discovered the attack, but it didn't matter. The survivors inside this building were now rats trapped in a cage with nowhere to run.
Bullets kept flying up from the lower floors, and there were two more explosions that looked like grenades, but unless they went off right beside her like before, the impact on the suit was far less severe.
Only those relatively stable figures floated up on the HUD.
"Wait! I surrender! I surrender! I'll surrender—don't shoot!"
When she stepped in front of the old shop on the third floor where most of the remaining survivors seemed to be gathered, a man walked out with both hands raised high. After staring at him for a moment, Seo Yeong-ju approached without hesitation. The instant the man opened his mouth to say something, she drove a kick straight into his chest with the full power of the suit.
Crunch.
With a horrific sound of bones shattering, the man flew into the far wall of the shop without even managing a scream.
Whether from witnessing that or not, a wail of pure despair burst out from among the survivors who had formed a defensive line behind cover.
"You monster bastard! Why the hell are you doing this to us!"
"It was the boss who shot! We didn't do anything! Why are you trying to kill us too!"
Mixed into their howling was the hollow voice of someone who had already given up on everything: "Fuck… we're all dead now…."
But Seo Yeong-ju showed no reaction to any of their words. She adjusted her grip on the massive dagger in her hand and began walking in without hesitation.
"Wh-what do we do? She's still coming!"
"…Shit, if I'd known it would end like this, I should've fucked Sum-in more while I had the chance."
Just as the rear of the defensive line was floundering in panic, a particularly large figure who looked like a leader walked out from among the survivors behind the tattered barricade. It was their boss, Park Seok-su. His face was twisted with fear and rage, but his eyes still glittered with unbroken ferocity.
"You son of a bitch!"
He bellowed at Seo Yeong-ju, raising his hand high. In his grip was a grenade with his finger hooked through the safety pin. Seeing that, Seo Yeong-ju stopped her relentless advance for the first time.
"You fucking bitch—just because you got shot once during the day, you chase us all the way here to try and kill all my guys? Fuck!"
As Seo Yeong-ju stood still, gauging how many more grenades they might have and whether this bastard was truly prepared to die together, Park Seok-su seemed to mistake her silence for fear. Emboldened, he shouted even louder.
"Just try coming closer! We've got plenty of those grenades you love so much, and behind us there are gas canisters stacked up! If you don't leave here nicely, even if we all die together, we'll blow this whole building to pieces and take you with us! You understand?!"
At his threat, Seo Yeong-ju slipped into a nearby small room with a broken door to hide herself and collect her thoughts. When she disappeared from view, cries rose again from among the survivors, who were starting to feel like they might actually live.
"Yeah! There's only eight of us left now! We'll just leave this place, so let us go nicely! We don't want to fight anymore!"
Then Seo Yeong-chan's voice came through the comms.
"(Yeong-ju, it looks like they really do have more grenades. You've cut their numbers way down, and they say they'll leave… letting them go here is also an option. Don't push yourself too hard.)"
Seo Yeong-ju was silent for a moment.
"Yeah… we've reduced their numbers a lot, so…"
Just as she seemed about to agree with Seo Yeong-chan, Park Seok-su's voice rang out again in a triumphant tone.
"Yeah! Let's call it even for me shooting you during the day and you killing a few of my men! Fair and square! How about it—good deal, right?"
At those words, Seo Yeong-ju lifted her bowed head and spoke in a voice thick with rage.
"…So it was that bastard?"
A growl like a beast's leaked from Seo Yeong-ju's mouth. She rose at once and stood again in the dark corridor. Then she began approaching the survivors with a far more intimidating presence than before.
"Wh-what?"
Panicked by the sudden change, Park Seok-su yanked the safety pin from the grenade, gripping it as he raised it and shouted.
"D-don't come closer! If you come closer we all die! You too! You'll die too!"
But Seo Yeong-ju only adjusted her grip on the massive dagger and continued forward.
"(Yeong-ju? Seo Yeong-ju! What's wrong! Can you hear me? It's dangerous!)"
Seo Yeong-chan's urgent voice kept coming through the comms, but she completely ignored it and kept walking.
"U-uaaaaah—!"
Someone terrified madly emptied their remaining bullets at her, but Seo Yeong-ju no longer even dodged. With sharp ting and clank sounds, the rounds struck the suit, sparking and ricocheting off. Taking that rain of bullets, she came to a stop before the barricade the survivors had hastily thrown together. And for the first time, she spoke to them.
Her voice, filtered through the suit's speakers, rang out with a mechanical yet chilling rage.
"You—the big guy there. I'm definitely killing you today. If you've got the guts, fucking blow it!"
Having said that, Seo Yeong-ju began kicking the barricade apart. Watching her take bullets while smashing their final defensive line like paper and closing in, Park Seok-su finally began to drown in pure terror.
"Uaaaaah…! Don't come! I'll really blow it! For real!"
He screamed like that, but Seo Yeong-ju now said nothing—only advanced toward him.
And right then, from the extreme fear and tension, the sweat soaking his hand caused Park Seok-su to drop the grenade he was gripping and shaking.
The grenade that slipped from his grasp made a small, dull clunk as it hit the floor and rolled to his feet. At that tiny sound, a silence fell as if every noise in the world had stopped.
The remaining survivors, Park Seok-su, and Seo Yeong-ju all turned their gazes at once to the small green metal lump rolling across the floor. Park Seok-su looked down at the thing at his feet and muttered quietly.
"Oh… fuck."
In that instant, with a tremendous flash, a series of roars that swallowed everything erupted one after another.
The woman with no right arm, wearing military pants, was curled up as tightly as possible in the deep shadows behind an old wrecked car, trembling.
Just moments ago, right before her eyes, the five-story building she had escaped from had collapsed with a massive roar amid giant flames. From the overwhelming shock of that explosion, she had no choice but to roll across the asphalt. Terrified, she had madly crawled behind a nearby vehicle and hidden herself. Listening to the subsequent smaller explosions and the terrible sound of the building's debris raining down like a storm, she covered her ears and shook.
…I have to move. The zombies will hear this sound and come swarming like mad. I have to get out of here right now.
She knew it in her head, but her body wouldn't obey. The bone-shaking impact of an explosion she'd never felt before in her life, the flash that seemed to burn her retinas, the roar that tore her eardrums—all of it had paralyzed her every thought and action.
How much time had passed? Five minutes, or longer. When the explosions finally subsided and the surroundings grew quiet again, she very slowly poked out her trembling head.
Before her eyes, through the thick smoke and dust, the pitifully collapsed remains of the building spread out like a giant tomb.
She approached the rubble with staggering steps.
Even knowing she had to leave this place immediately, her footsteps were drawn as if by a magnet toward the place she had belonged to just moments ago—now left with only traces of death.
After a while, she simply stood there blankly staring at the building's remains. Her empty eyes held neither emotion nor thought.
And then, from within the massive building debris, something began to stir with a creeeak like metal twisting under strain.
A s-survivor…?
At that thought, a very faint spark of life returned to the eyes of the woman who had been standing blankly. Without realizing it, she ran toward where the movement was.
But when she saw what emerged from the rubble, she stopped dead in her tracks.
It was that same massive steel silhouette of mixed black and silver she had seen during the day. With unbelievable strength, it was shoving aside a concrete fragment the size of a passenger car that had been pinning it down, and pulling its lower body free from where it was wedged waist-deep among the collapsed building fragments—grabbing debris and hurling it aside. A bone-chilling screeech of metal scraping rang out from within the rubble.
In that moment, the thing that had only its upper body free and was struggling to pull out its lower half turned its head. It discovered the woman looking at it. In the darkness, its blue-glowing lenses aimed precisely at her.
Feeling that it had seen her, the woman reflexively drew the pistol from her waist and aimed it. Then, in a trembling, stammering voice, she shouted.
"D-don't move! If you move… I'll shoot!"