Prophecy (4) — Incheon Lotte Department Store, 5th Floor

Prophecy (4) — Incheon Lotte Department Store, 5th Floor

"Uuurrrgh! Goddammit!"

Looking at the mass of white flesh packed tight around the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠escalator on the fifth floor of the department store, I couldn't hold back the cursing. That had to be the last trace of the women the rabbit bastard had turned into his dolls.

What a waste. Fucking waste!

In a world like this, women were treasure among treasures. No good — I needed to pick up the pace. For the sake of gathering the beauties who were still out there, struggling through hard lives across the whole of South Korea, there was nothing I wouldn't do.

A good number of the dolls had apparently melted, because the floor was slick with puddles. I drifted down the escalator on a cushion of levitation, careful not to touch anything.

Men's fashion….

Hiking gear and business suits lay scattered across the floor. Clothes from brands anyone would recognize were being treated worse than garbage now.

Right. There's a lot of stuff I should farm while I'm here….

And on top of that, the second and third floors were packed wall-to-wall with women's clothing boutiques.

"Lingerie…."

The whisper slipped out before I could swallow it back. I caught myself imagining Yoon Ayoung and Seong Gaeul in shameless underwear picked to my exact taste.

Haa. No — should I grab the underwear first?

But I quickly shook my head and shoved the lazy thought aside. Confirmation first. Everything else after.

The only zone I needed was the Lotte Mart on basement level one. So I began sweeping down the connected floors, escalator after escalator.

The moment I reached the ground floor, broken revolving doors came into view, along with the zombie packs drifting quietly through the sunlight.

Clean them up first.

I had no idea what might be waiting down in the basement — walking in with a swollen knot of undead at my back was out of the question.

Thud—

With a light push of telekinesis, I toppled the trash can beside the escalator. The noise tore through a space that, until that instant, had been nothing but the groans of the dead. The zombies, who'd been swaying their heads like idiots, snapped every neck toward the source of the sound.

"Kieeeeeeek!"

Watching them charge at me with roars of pure joy, I had to laugh.

"Feels like it's been ages. We only met a few days ago, you ugly fucks."

Flashback: the zombies I'd cut through in that apartment lobby right after my awakening. A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.

Vvvrrr—

My flashlights rotated slowly like mirror balls, supplementing the sunlight and guiding the zombies' perception. Scrrrtch— I fixed my gaze on the pack tearing toward me, plowing through the cosmetics counters. Vvvrrr—

A smoothness of a completely different quality from that clumsy telekinesis of back then — and it peeled the lead zombie's head from its neck.

"Kieeeeeeek!"

I swept a hand lightly at the zombies pressing in from every direction except behind me. Crrrrk— Legs bent backward at impossible angles, as if sledgehammered, and the front-runners' balance collapsed. They toppled in absurd, sprawling heaps, and the pressure I'd been distributing with perfect economy came down on the rotting necks they'd so helpfully exposed.

The second wave stumbled over what were now, at last, genuine corpses. Vvvrrrr— For a level-20 psychokinetic, that single stagger was more than enough. Necks separated from bodies in effortless strokes, and corpse piled atop corpse.

I clicked my tongue at the wall of dead growing unnaturally high. The corpse-fortress was actually working against me — the remaining zombies were getting stranded stupidly behind it.

KRAANG—

I smashed a section of the wall apart with raw force.

"Kieeeeek!"

Through the suddenly opened gap, the zombies came shouldering into each other, arms outstretched toward me.

"People are waiting behind me, so come on in!"

A flailing zombie arm couldn't overcome the pulling force of my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠telekinesis and popped off with a soft pop—

Thwack! Thwack!

"Hurry up and get in here! Now that you've got no arms, there's plenty of room!"

I used the severed arm to slap the zombie across its rotting cheek, over and over — pure encouragement.

"Kieeeeeeeeek!"

Down to one arm, the creature clawed its way through a desperate wrestling match and finally breached the corpse wall.

SPLAT—

Before it could even finish its triumphant roar, the thing was pulped flat. The zombies that had fought so hard to squeeze through began vomiting rotten blood one after another, like ketchup.

"The gates are open! Charge! Hurry inside and bite the enemy! You can do it!"

Zero-intelligence skull-fuckers with nothing left but appetite. Did these things have any idea how moronic a one-way siege looked from the outside?

I was butchering them on autopilot now, and the flow of zombies breaching the wall began to thin. Soon, not a single one came through at all.

To gauge the survivors, I shut my continuously yammering mouth for a moment.

"…."

Perfect silence. No more howling from the dead. I nodded with a satisfied expression.

"Good, good. Faith collected, potential threats eliminated."

I checked the tally — faith had climbed by about 300. At 5 faith per standard zombie, that was roughly 60 kills.

Mana check first.

Before descending, I took stock of what remained in my body. Only a sliver of mana had been used, and the rest was humming along, supporting me at full strength. Killing 60 zombies was no longer even work for me.

The real problem was that 300 faith wasn't enough to upgrade anything worth a damn anymore. With an embarrassed chuckle, I rode the escalator down toward basement level one.

Even the faint sunlight that had brightened the ground floor was gone down here. The food court — decked out in interiors flashier than the sixth floor — greeted me.

Lotte Mart should be straight down the right side.

According to the directory, I'd have to cross the food court to get there. A long corridor lined end to end with restaurants in every color of the rainbow. If zombies who'd died mid-meal came boiling out all at once, staging another easy cleanup like the one upstairs would be a lot dicier in this environment.

I fixed the spinning flashlights onto the scattered restaurants and swept the space. "Hmm…."

Nothing. Reluctantly, I doubled back to the escalator and eliminated any threat lingering in my rear.

"STOP PLAYING HIDE AND SEEeeeeK!"

My long lion's roar shook the food court. I waited for the zombies to come creeping out of their corners like cornered rats, but not a single ant crawled out of the sprawling restaurants.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

Just as I opened my mouth to shout again, a woman's scream reached my ears.

"…the fuck?"

A lovely voice, nothing like the zombie howling I'd been hoping for. The kind of honeyed sound that painted a face in your mind all on its own.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

"Where are you?!"

"The zombies dragged me away! Isn't there anyone there?!"

Zombies dragged her away? The same mindless bastards that go berserk and start chewing the second they see a person?

Rescuing the woman came first. I lifted myself slightly off the floor with telekinesis and chased the distress signal that kept repeating.

Past the food court, past Lotte Cinema — and there it was, my original destination, the Lotte Mart.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

No idea what had happened, but I'd have bet the so-called White Calamity had something to do with that woman. I began slicing across the mart's aisles at full speed.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

"I'm here to save you, so tell me your exact location!"

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

Had the girl panicked? She kept repeating the same words over and over, which meant I had no choice but to pinpoint her location myself. Between a superhuman's expanded senses and telekinetic mobility, it didn't take long.

The seafood corner.

Inside a tank in the seafood section, drained of every last drop of water, a large sack was wriggling and begging for help.

"What the — how did you even get in there?!"

"The zombies dragged me away! Isn't there anyone there?!"

"I'm talking to you right now! Just calm down a second!"

Did this girl not know zombies were hypersensitive to sound? She seemed positively desperate to summon every one of them.

Whew. Patience.

Checking her face came first, above all else. I drifted slowly down to the floor ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and stretched a hand toward the tank. The big sack wriggled, then began to slide gently toward me.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

"Oh, for — I'm saving you RIGHT NOW!"

Scrritch—

Just as irritation began to creep in, a faint noise brushed my ear and my face screwed up. I tightened the loosening grip of my attention and strained to listen again.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

"Shut your goddamn mouth, you crazy bitch!"

Scrritch—

Along with the woman's screaming, that scraping sound again — something dragging across the floor. The flashlight beams swept the floor on all four sides simultaneously.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

"You fucking bitch…!"

Crrrack—

The moment the idiot woman screamed, something crumpled. A flash burst across my vision, and every flashlight beam swung up to the ceiling in unison.

"Kieeeeeeek!"

A swarm of white dots clung to the ceiling like bats crowded into a cave. I flooded my entire body with telekinesis.

A woman who repeats the same words obsessively. White mutants glued to the ceiling. It's a trap.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, please save me!"

Vvvrrrr—

Without a moment's deliberation, I crushed the sack flat. The way the thing trembled violently at the unexpected texture of my grip confirmed my hypothesis.

This bitch was not human.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

My body threw itself backward, aisle shelving and my back colliding over and over.

KWAAANG—

The instant I cleared the spot where I'd been standing, a massive crater spiderwebbed across the tile where I'd been.

"Kieeeeeeeek!"

From the crater, a stark-white zombie rose into a crouched frog pose and let out a howling wail full of disappointment.

"Kieeeeeeek!"

Answering the call, every white zombie clinging to the ceiling screamed at once — and then, into the space I was carving through the shelves, the white mutants came raining down like meteors.

KWAANG! KWAANG! KWAANG—

I poured telekinesis into the shelving collapsing under the chaos between me and the mutants. Cans of food and bottles ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of beer scattered in every direction like shooting stars, raising a wall of noise.

Clang-g-rrang—

KWAANG—

The second aluminum hit the ground, the white mutants assaulted that exact spot, unfailingly.

"Somebody help me! Please, anybody, save me!"

That desperate voice, utterly indifferent even as the body crushing down beside it — now I could read their behavior pattern. No, their hunting method.

I shifted position rapidly and poured both hands' worth of telekinesis into the sack.

Crrrrrrk—

After a surprisingly stubborn resistance, rotten blood began dripping from the sack's torn fabric.