Chapter 113
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: Kin Devouring
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A zombie that heals its wounds.
I slashed through the zombie charging at me—the words echoing in my mind—and headed straight for the variant zombie.
Just like the other zombies, it rushed toward me.
Aside from its blue skin and flawless body, it looked no different from the rest.
"Kyaaahhh!!"
In an instant, I closed the gap, facing it up close. Its skin was a complete, uniform blue—like it had been slathered in paint.
'What the hell is the mechanism behind this...?'
Such questions were inevitable. But zombies themselves were straight out of some sci-fi fantasy that no science could explain.
I kicked and punched the charging variant with precise control while mercilessly hacking down the regular zombies around it.
But staying put and just killing them meant the corpses naturally started piling up.
"Tch..."
At this rate, I'd be boxed in with no way out.
No helping it. I shelved my questions for now and grabbed the variant zombie's face.
Kwachik—!
"Kraaaah!!"
"Oh."
I'd misjudged my strength.
My fingers had pierced straight into its scalp.
Well, it hadn't reached the brain, so it wouldn't drop dead from this.
Gazing at the still-thrashing variant zombie, I poured power into my legs and leaped up onto one of the tall shelves scattered around.
Taat—!!
"Kyaaah—!!"
I landed on the shelf with the zombie dangling by its neck, dragged along in my wake.
I severed its bucking knees and elbows, then let go.
Turning my eyes from the variant zombie twitching on the floor, I peered down below. Regular zombies were swarming disgustingly fast into the spot I'd just vacated.
"Really fucking gross."
I looked away from the horde craning their heads up at me, screeching nonstop.
They couldn't climb up here anyway.
Now then—time for a proper look.
I closely examined the limbless variant zombie flailing on the floor.
'Trying to get to me?'
With no limbs left, no teeth to bite with, it was inching toward me on its shoulders and thighs.
For starters, its urge to devour humans matched the regular zombies perfectly.
It had the kind of looks that must've drawn crowds when it was alive.
Oh, and it was female.
If this had been me before gaining power, I'd have been wagging my tail at the chance, but I'd never have laid a hand on her without getting slapped with a stalking charge.
"Grrrrr..."
'Not that I'd touch it now even if you begged.'
My girlfriend and my cherished slaves were all top-shelf beauties—no reaction down there.
Besides, a zombie corpse? If that got me going, I'd question my own tastes first.
Still, curiosity got the better of me. I rested a hand on its wriggling head, and my eyebrows shot up.
'Warm...?'
Not quite human body temperature.
A bit cool to the touch, actually.
But for a zombie with zero body heat, it held an undeniable spark of life.
Like the chill of gripping a snake or an alligator.
"Something's definitely changed."
I watched as the hole my fingers had gouged slowly knit closed—true regeneration confirmed.
Damn, faster than I'd thought.
"Felt like I went right up to the brain... Do the shattered bone fragments just slot back into place on their own?"
That wasn't regeneration so much as repair.
Restoring damage to factory specs, like following a blueprint.
I prodded the healing spot with my fingers and stood.
Circling it slowly, I scanned for any other tells.
"Even severed limbs don't just seal the stump—they regrow the missing parts..."
So where's the mass and energy coming from?
What's the recovery mechanism?
How long does it take?
Every question drove home just how utterly ridiculous this squirming corpse was.
'I'm a freak, sure—but zombies are some next-level bullshit too.'
My system ignored laws like mass conservation. This variant's healing did the same.
I sliced thin strips from its arm as it regrew—1 cm per minute, agonizingly slow—like prepping sashimi, committing every detail to memory.
Along the way, I shredded its annoying clothes, stripping it bare.
"Nipples and pussy are still nice and pink, surprisingly."
Skin turned blue, but the genitals matched a living woman's color and shape.
Someone into necro would see this and go to town, no question.
Hey, it'd probably feel great.
Felt like the real deal inside.
'Course, you'd turn zombie.'
Mucosal contact let zombie fluids invade your body—same as a bite.
No blood oozing from the cut surfaces.
Yet it reeked of rotting meat all the same.
But there was blood inside—not like my handiwork on its face hadn't come away smeared dark red.
Shouldn't regeneration kill the rot stench?
'Nothing like the zombies in Ajeol.'
By now, the shelf's top was a full-on dismemberment scene. I brushed off my hands and rose.
Think I'd gleaned everything worth knowing about variant zombies.
Not a huge leap from regulars, really.
Mass-defying recovery and slightly beefier muscles—that was it.
Physically, the healing let it move with eerie stability.
But variants showing up with this trick? Meant sooner or later, we'd see those savage, hyper-regenerating freaks from other comics and webtoons.
'Still—at this level, not a threat to civvies out zombie hunting.'
So no real worry yet. A bit of relief?
That smug thought pinged an alarm in my head—this was textbook cliché.
'Classic precursor gets brushed off, snowballs into disaster later, right?'
Your standard frustrating plot bait in stories.
In this world straddling webtoons, clichés weren't something to shrug off.
For the finale, I crushed the gurgling variant's head underfoot and scanned the zombie-choked floor below.
'Yeah, definitely not just the one.'
From up here, I spotted more with fully blue skin here and there.
Roughly one in five hundred?
Low ratio, but with tens of thousands crammed in here, that meant dozens of variants minimum.
Then something off entered my view.
A pack of zombies shambling aimlessly in the distance, oblivious to me.
Tucked in one corner, a blue-skinned variant's actions snagged my gaze.
Boosted stats meant sharper eyes—even at that range, it was crystal clear.
'Eating a zombie...?'
It suddenly seized a compliant regular zombie, wrenched off its head, gripped the spine—and chomped from neck to skull.
Zombielike savage feasting. Yet the sheer weirdness of zombie-on-zombie predation left me staring.
The exact moment I pieced together how variants evolved.
Skull cracked open, it devoured the brain with gusto before resuming its blank shuffle.
Brain goo and chunks dribbling from its mouth—nauseating.
'Ignores the body, goes straight for the head—something special up there?'
Especially rabid about the brain.
Face blank as ever, but it felt that way.
I glanced at the remnants of the beauty variant I'd pulped.
Nothing special beyond mangled flesh and brain mush.
So no mana stone organ or whatever...
I'd half-hoped some fantasy rock powered zombie movement—fit the mass-ignoring heal. Bummer.
Whatever. Cannibalism fueled evolution—strength, whatever—that much was clear.
And it clicked why those corpse piles on the way here were stacked head-hidden.
Zombie heads packed some nutrient or energy. Pool enough, one scores the power-up and evolves.
'Doesn't change my to-do list.'
I dropped back down and butchered zombies indiscriminately.
Any variants in sight? Dealt with first, nipping future trouble in the bud.
Root out evolution at the source.
Best I could manage for now.