Jeong Ji-yun (1)
I walked over to where the bastards had parked their motorcycles.
“Whew…”
Up close, they really had been torn apart. Chang-su and Jeong-hyun’s corpses were mutilated beyond anything I could describe. Still, the guy had always been happy to see a loser like me. It was a shame.
Whether he was Ji-su’s fling or not didn’t matter to me. I called Si-eun over and ordered her to hurl fireballs at the two bodies.
“....”
But Si-eun stood there without moving a muscle.
“What are you doing? I told you to use Fireball.”
Even after I spoke, Si-eun simply stared at me in silence.
‘No way…’
Just in case, I opened Si-eun’s status window.
‘Ah, shit. What kind of ridiculous skill eats this much mana? The efficiency is absolute garbage.’
Si-eun’s total mana was 15 points. Only 7 remained.
‘One Fireball burns 8 mana? So I have to wait after every shot? Unbelievable…’
I stared at Si-eun’s status window with a dumbfounded look. A short while later, her mana recovered by one point, climbing to 8. Only then could she finally launch the fireballs at Chang-su and Jeong-hyun’s corpses.
Boom!
With a small explosion, flames engulfed the two bodies. I gathered whatever flammable junk I could find nearby and piled it on top.
‘Better this than letting the monsters rip them apart and eat them.’
The corpses burned fiercely. I stood before Chang-su’s body for a moment of silence.
‘Rest in peace. I’m heading toward the downtown area, so if I run into that Ji-yun girl, I’ll let her know what happened to you. I’ll help her if I can. Not that I think we’ll actually meet.’
This much should count as fulfilling my duty as a classmate. I also paid my respects to Jeong-hyun, the guy who had been into Ji-su.
‘I’ll fuck Ji-su plenty on your behalf too. So go without regrets.’
Leaving the burning corpses behind, I sent Si-eun into the Cradle of Rest. A top-tier celebrity like Ju Si-eun really was recognizable to everyone. I’d have to be more careful about sending her outside from now on.
I looked at the two motorcycles parked beside the burning bodies. They might be useful, but… well. I didn’t know how to ride them anyway. I had a driver’s license, but didn’t big bikes like these require a separate license? Having only ever ridden scooters, I decided to just leave the motorcycles behind.
As I was about to head out again, I remembered I hadn’t distributed my skill points yet. I quickly opened my status window. The 4 points I’d gained from killing those delinquent bastards and leveling up. Hoping for Easy Restoration to appear, I invested the skill points into Rise.
Rise skill has reached Level 4.
The maximum number of thralls you can possess has increased by 1.
“Ohh…”
The number of bodies I could raise had gone up by one again. It wasn’t bad, but it felt a little disappointing. I had been hoping for Easy Restoration.
‘Please let Easy Restoration show up on the next level-up…’
Looking at the status window, I still had 1 skill point left. It seemed raising the skill from level 3 to 4 consumed 3 points. With only 1 point remaining, there was nothing else I could raise, so I’d just hold onto it.
I set off again with Ji-su. When I looked up at the sky, the sun that had been overhead was already sliding toward the west.
“Ah, how is it already this late? I need to move faster. It’ll be night soon.”
I had already completed today’s goal of activating Si-eun’s class. I had also stocked the Cradle of Rest with the survival supplies we needed. All that remained was to head downtown, hunt monsters, and level up. While I was at it, I planned to grab more clothes for Ji-su and Si-eun. They got dirty surprisingly fast.
I hurried toward the downtown area with Ji-su at a brisk pace.
The downtown area we reached again was still filled with countless stores and mutilated corpses scattered across the streets. On the way here, Ji-su and I had encountered three groups of goblins. The first two were small packs of four and seven, which Ji-su handled without any trouble. But the last group was a massive horde—the first large-scale goblin pack I had ever seen.
At least a hundred goblins, plus three of those big hulking monsters. The entire swarm had been rushing somewhere in a huge mass. Ji-su and I had quickly hidden inside the Cradle of Rest and managed to avoid any trouble.
‘What would have happened if I didn’t have the Gate of Rest skill and ran into a horde that big?’
A chill ran down my spine. I gave my shoulders a little shake.
‘Where the hell were they going? That’s the first time I’ve seen so many gathered together… Leveling up is good, but only if the numbers are reasonable. There’s no way I can fight something like that.’
Ji-su and I roamed the downtown streets, hunting small groups of goblins. If we walked around deliberately making noise, goblins that had been hiding somewhere would come charging out at us. Then it was easy hunting. We killed quite a lot of them this way, but my level still hadn’t gone up. I did notice, however, that Ji-su had gained 1 level and Si-eun had gained 2.
Even Si-eun, who hadn’t participated in any fighting at all, had leveled up. It was clear now that the three of us shared experience points.
‘Looks like goblins aren’t enough to level me up easily anymore. And since the three of us are splitting the experience… maybe I should look for one of those big hulking monsters. That would definitely get my level up.’
But aside from the one we killed at the PC bang and the three we saw mixed into that huge horde today, I hadn’t encountered a single one. If they were in smaller groups, I might be able to try hunting them. Well, I’d run into one eventually.
After hunting goblins for a while, quite a bit of time had passed. The sun had nearly set, leaving the streets dark and gloomy. Normally the area would have been bright from store lights and flashy signs, but with all the electricity cut off, not a single light could be seen.
‘I should start looking for a place to rest. Wandering around in the dark and getting ambushed by goblins from behind would be stupid…’
I looked around, searching for somewhere decent to sleep. I could just summon the Gate of Rest right in the middle of the street and rest inside, but the transparent glass walls let everything outside be seen clearly. It didn’t exactly feel secure. Plus the sunlight would blast straight in when the sun rose. Indoors was definitely better.
‘Should I head toward the clothing stores? I was planning to grab more women’s clothes tomorrow anyway…’
I slowly walked in the direction of the clothing stores I had raided yesterday. As I moved while scanning the area, an ice cream shop caught my eye. Suddenly, I remembered what that mohawk-wearing delinquent bastard had said.
-We met them on the downtown street nearby. It was on the street with that OO Bank and the OO Ice Cream shop.-
‘So this is where those delinquents ran into Chang-su’s group and got into a fight. Then the place where Ji-yun, Ji-su’s friend, ran away to must be around here too…’
I glanced at Ji-su and muttered.
“...I guess I can at least pretend to look for her a bit.”
She was Ji-su’s best friend, and I did feel a little bad about how pathetically Chang-su had died. I cleared my throat loudly and shouted.
“Ji-yun! Are you there? Kim… Ji-yun?? Are you nearby?”
Was it Kim Ji-yun or Park Ji-yun? I couldn’t remember the exact surname. Anyway, after shouting roughly, I stayed quiet and listened for any sound.
Instead of hearing “I’m here~ Save me~”, six goblins came charging out while making those signature keruk sounds. I clicked my tongue and gave Ji-su the order. She immediately rushed forward and massacred the goblins.
In the now-quiet street, I called out Ji-yun’s name one more time.
“....”
No sound came back. Well, that was to be expected. Even if she was still alive, she wouldn’t still be hiding around here after all this time. She might already be dead.
I looked at Ji-su and said, “I did everything I could, right? You agree? Then let’s find a place to—”
I stopped mid-sentence and strained my ears. I had definitely heard something.
-…ere…-
Shit. It sounded like a ghost. I listened more carefully.
-…I’m here…-
It was a woman’s voice. I looked around, trying to find where the sound was coming from.
“...Over there?”
Next to the ice cream shop stood an old-looking building. I was sure the voice had come from somewhere around the second floor. I entered the building with Ji-su. Past the shattered front door, stairs led straight up. On the second floor was a small shop and, right beside it, a shabby-looking restroom.
‘Love… Toy Mall? What the hell. This is an adult products store?’
The glass door to the shop was broken, of course. I slowly approached the broken door and spoke.
“Is someone inside?”
A small “Hik!” sound came from the restroom, not the shop. I walked over and opened the restroom door. Inside the small bathroom were a urinal and two stalls. One had a sign that said “Cleaning Supplies” while the other had a picture of a woman on it. Looked like a unisex restroom.
The presence I felt was coming from the cleaning supplies closet. I slowly walked over and pulled on the door. Another “Hik!” sound came out, along with resistance.
“Don’t worry. Are you Kim Ji-yun by any chance? I’m Kang Min-gu, the one you saw this morning. I was with Ji-su.”
At my words, the door rattled and sobbing began to leak out.
“Hic, huhuhuk… Yes, it’s me, Ji-yun. Not Kim Ji-yun, Jeong Ji-yun… Uwaaang…”
Ah, so it was Jeong Ji-yun. Anyway, I really had found her. But why wasn’t she coming out?
“Um… Jeong Ji-yun? You seem to be holding the door. Shouldn’t you come out?”
“I-I want to come out, but… my hand is so stiff it won’t move… I really want to come out…”
Ji-yun began crying in earnest. It seemed her hand had cramped up after holding the door handle for so long. Good grief.
“It’ll be hard for me to do anything from out here. So try to relax your hand as much as possible and loosen your grip. Understand? There’s no one here except me and Ji-su, so you can relax.”
“Yes… I’ll try…”
After waiting outside for a moment, the door rattled several times before finally creaking open. There was Jeong Ji-yun, crouched on the floor. Her face was a mess of tears and completely pale. When she saw me and then Ji-su standing blankly behind me, she burst into loud sobs.
Her body seemed completely stiff. If it weren’t, she probably would have run straight to Ji-su, hugged her, and cried her eyes out. I spoke gently to the sobbing Ji-yun.
“Try moving your body little by little. It looks like you got stiff from staying in one position for too long. Can you do that?”
“Yes… I’ll try…”
Ji-yun did her best to stop crying. Sniffling, she struggled to move her body. After a long effort, her body seemed to loosen up a bit. She slowly used the wall for support and stood up. Then she lost her balance, fell toward me, and ended up in what looked like an embrace.
‘Hm? What’s that smell?’
It was a restroom, so it wasn’t going to smell great to begin with, but when Ji-yun fell against me, a strong stench of urine hit me. The front of her jeans was a darker shade of blue. It looked like she had wet herself.
Ji-yun’s face turned bright red as she tried to cover the stain on her pants with her hands.
“It’s… because I was squatting here for so long…”
She spoke hesitantly with a pitiful expression, then, as if overcome with sorrow, began shedding tears again.
‘Ha, this is going to take some getting used to.’
After dealing only with Ji-su and Si-eun, who stayed expressionless no matter what I said, facing a woman who showed every single emotion so openly felt incredibly awkward and difficult. At the same time—
‘Ugh, why is this happening?’
My cock suddenly stiffened. Come to think of it, this was the first time I had been this close to a living woman. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant smell, but something about it seemed to stimulate a part of my mind.
Still in that half-embrace with Ji-yun, I thought with a dumbfounded expression.
‘Ha, I’m not a damn dog… Am I seriously getting aroused by the smell of piss right now?’