No Malice. Probably.
No Malice. Probably.
"Huff...! Huff...!"
My breath came in ragged gasps.
My heart pounded like it was about to burst.
The roof of my mouth felt raw, my head burning white-hot.
But that was no reason to stop running.
Right behind me, hideous monsters were chasing like mad, hell-bent on chewing me to pieces.
Had I ever been this popular in my entire life?
Ridiculously enough, a scene from a famous porno suddenly flickered through my mind.
As a dry laugh slipped out, Ha Hui-ryeong, running ahead of me, shouted desperately.
"Hey! Where is it! Over there!?"
"No! Right! Building 112 over there!"
"Ah, fuck! It's at the goddamn far end!"
There was nothing for it now but regret.
Still, we'd mustered every ounce of strength and sprinted all out, so the distance to our destination wasn't far now.
The problem was that the car alarm was blaring from near my place.
I didn't know which bastard was responsible, but I sincerely hoped they hadn't died peacefully.
If they had to die, let it be as painful as humanly possible.
[Grrrrrk!!]
[GraaAAHH!!]
....
I glanced back. The bastards were still there.
No, their numbers had actually grown.
As time passed, more of them poured in from all sides, converging on the apartment complex where my place was.
"Fuck off, retard!"
Clang!
Ha Hui-ryeong swung her bat at a zombie lunging from the left.
A strike delivered without a flicker of hesitation. Its skull shattered instantly, and it toppled over, rolling across the ground.
"Wha, what the...!"
I froze for a split second but barely managed to jump over the crumpled corpse.
"Uwaaaaah!!"
After that, she didn't hesitate at all.
Fired up, she screamed like a barbarian warrior and smashed the heads of every approaching monster to a pulp.
Her spirit could put Guan Yu himself to shame.
It was reassuring, sure, but I worried her racket might draw even more of those damned things our way.
"Hey, Ha Hui-ryeong! Over there, over there!"
After running in a daze like that for who knows how long, Building 112, which had been visible in the distance, suddenly loomed right in front of us.
And at the same time, we spotted the son of a bitch responsible for all this carnage.
"That fucker jumped? It hasn't even been a day!?"
"I don't know, fuck! Stop worrying about that dumbass and just run!"
A corpse squashed like a rotten tomato lay sprawled atop a parked car's roof.
I know it might be disrespectful to the dead to say this, but the ugly sight was one fat-ass pig of a bastard.
'Mental fortitude weaker than fucking tofu... seriously!'
He must have mustered the resolve to jump, and of all places, he landed on a car.
A hopeless piece of shit who was useless in life and just as useless after death.
I offered a brief prayer for his soul, then gathered every last drop of strength and kicked into a final sprint.
That was when it happened.
"UwooaaAAAAHHH!!! Fuckfuckfuck!!!"
A man with a burly build came running straight at us from the front, leading a horde of zombies behind him like the Pied Piper.
I don't know why, but we seamlessly merged with him, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and rushed inside the apartment building.
Old and decrepit as the place was, the entrance had no barrier at all.
We ran straight through and reached the elevator.
"First floor! Lucky as fuck, damn!"
Ha Hui-ryeong, who got there first, hammered the button like crazy.
A few seconds later, the doors slid open, and without a word, we all hurled ourselves inside the elevator.
"Close, please close! You piece of shit elevator...!"
Ha Hui-ryeong's desperate cry.
Even as the doors were closing, the zombies kept charging straight at us.
[Grrrrrrk...!!]
A zombie shoved its arm through the narrowing gap in the doors.
"This bastard's lost his goddamn mind!"
Sensing shit was about to hit the fan, I reflexively kicked out, booting the thing away.
Thwack!
I must have hit a pus pocket or something. The wet, nasty sensation I felt through the tip of my shoe was seriously fucking gross.
But the blow landed true, and the creature reeled back.
Ding.
The doors closed.
True to its nature as a tin-can elevator constructed decades ago, it failed to detect my leg nearly getting caught and simply slid shut smoothly.
"Heuuuhhh...."
We collapsed onto the floor like puppets with cut strings.
No exceptions.
Even Ha Hui-ryeong, who'd flaunted such bold prowess, slumped over and caught her breath.
We'd suddenly gone from a duo to a trio, but no one was in any hurry to speak first.
We'd survived.
That was the only thing that mattered as we clutched our pounding chests.
*
An awkward silence filled the ascending elevator.
The reason was obvious.
The man who'd naturally joined our group.
Ha Hui-ryeong's eyes were brimming with wariness, too.
Of course, the man felt the same way.
The situation back there had been so dire we hadn't had the luxury to question anything, but now that we were face-to-face like this, the awkwardness was overwhelming.
I stole a glance at him.
'He's handsome. Annoyingly so.'
Even as a guy, I could see he had a striking face and a solid build.
Naturally, that didn't endear him to me one bit.
Especially that look he was giving Ha Hui-ryeong... something deeply impure about it grated on my nerves.
"I'm... Kim Jin-woo. Which floor do you two live on, if you don't mind me asking?"
"...Wouldn't the button already pressed tell you that?"
"Ah-ha, the 18th floor, then."
"More importantly, why do you ask?"
At Ha Hui-ryeong's somewhat sharp tone, he let out an awkward laugh, as if put on the spot.
"Haha... well, they say even a passing glance is fate. If anything comes up later, we might end up relying on each other. Maybe I'll need your help, maybe you two will need mine... who knows how things will play out in this world?"
"...."
Ha Hui-ryeong didn't even dignify him with a reply.
Typical of that haughty bitch — even when a handsome guy smiled warmly and tried to chat, she remained as cold and indifferent as ever.
"No, actually, since things have come to this, how about we travel together for a while? Given the situation, cooperating seems like the best way to survive. I'm pretty strong, believe it or not. I'll be of help."
But undeterred, the man subtly extended his hand.
An offer to shake on it.
"...."
Ha Hui-ryeong stared at his hand for a moment.
She seemed lost in thought, then finally made up her mind and parted her dry lips.
"Fine. Let's cooperate for now."
"Hey! Ha Hui-ryeong!"
At my outburst, she let out a short sigh.
"Quiet. Isn't three better than two, just like two is better than one? Honestly, it'll probably be easier going forward."
"No, do you actually trust this guy?"
"Do you trust me?"
"...."
When I fell silent, Ha Hui-ryeong took his hand and shook it.
"Just so you know, we're leaving here soon. We have business that requires us to head to Hansarang Apartment in Dobong-gu."
"Hmm, sounds fine. I've got nowhere particular to go either, so I'll stick with you to the end. You can fill me in on the details later."
Watching the two of them chatter amiably, I felt a heavy, sinking sensation in my chest.
Displeasure.
Yes, I intensely disliked this man's presence.
Thinking rationally, the guy was highly likely to be useful to us.
His physique, superior to the average person's, would definitely play a vital role in surviving a zombie apocalypse.
Yet an instinctive revulsion churned inside my head.
His hairstyle, his manner of speaking, his looks, his eyes, his smile — none of it sat right with me.
You know that feeling, right?
Even at first meeting, a sense of unease you just feel in your gut.
I had an intuition right away that we wouldn't get along.
Crack.
Maybe my anxiety was showing. I unconsciously bit my fingernail.
Just then.
Ding.
[13th floor.]
A mechanical voice announced, and the elevator doors opened.
"Then I'll head to my place first, grab some essentials, and then join you. 18th floor, you said? Which unit?"
"1805."
"Ah... right."
At my somewhat subdued reply, he glanced at me sidelong, then turned his back.
Up until that point, there was no problem.
Perfectly tolerable.
But that smile.
Just before he turned his head, the corner of his lips subtly curling up bothered me.
Having made a specialty of observing people back in the day to take at least one less beating from the school thugs, I could tell.
That bastard sneered at me.
Whether it was intentional or just an unconscious slip, I didn't know. But the fact remained: he looked at me and flashed a smirk of contempt.
This wasn't paranoia. It was intuition bordering on certainty.
The moment I realized that, my heart reignited like a fiery volcano.
— 'Hey, you really are a lucky bastard. If it weren't for that bitch Ha Hui-ryeong...'
The hellish memories of those days suddenly resurfaced.
— 'Endure. If you endure, time will reward you someday.'
A voice echoed right after.
Patience. Bear it, and endure. Then blessings will come one day.
My mother had always emphasized that.
I faithfully followed those words.
Even when the torment grew worse, even when there was no reward, even when I eventually lost everything.
Because they were the words left behind by my only family.
But every time I swallowed that bitter taste, an impure question kept swelling inside me.
'Just how much longer do I have to endure?'
Thunk.
"Huh? Wha, hey...!"
My resolve came swiftly, and I acted immediately.
I snatched the baseball bat Ha Hui-ryeong was holding right out of her hands.
In that split second, Ha Hui-ryeong, flustered, was about to demand what the hell I was doing.
CRACK...!!
But my bat swinging at the man was faster.
There was no real scream, no resistance.
A clean hit to the back of his head, and his sturdy frame crumpled easily.
CRACK! THWACK! CRUNCH!
Not satisfied with just that, I kept swinging the metal bat like a madman possessed.
Even as blood splattered and brain matter burst out, I didn't stop, vomiting out all my rage and impulse.
"Huff... huff..."
By the time I could see that half his skull was completely caved in, I stopped swinging and sucked in ragged breaths.
Ironically, after it was all done, a question arose.
Did I really need to go this far? Even if I didn't like him, wasn't this an excessive response?
Such doubts crept in.
But then the memory of his lecherous gaze roving over Ha Hui-ryeong surfaced in a corner of my mind, and my guilt melted away like snow in an instant.
Yeah, I just cleaned up some trash.
Nothing wrong with that. Of course not. He was a son of a bitch with his dick for a brain who deserved to die.
As I repeated that to myself, my blurry focus returned, and my trembling gradually subsided.
Right after, something strange appeared before my eyes.
[Congratulations. You have acquired the qualifications of a Player. A trait is being assigned.]
[Your trait is 'Lucky One'.]
[The effect of 'Lucky One' activates. Due to the trait 'Lucky One', the additional trait 'Dark Merchant' is granted.]
[Trait 'Dark Merchant' confirmed. Authorization to use the 'Vending Machine' granted.]
[Special items will be added to the Vending Machine. Please look forward to it.]
[Due to the trait 'Lucky One', corrections are applied to equipment enhancement and draw probabilities.]
[Notice!! Firearm usage is strictly prohibited in this world! All firearms will be rendered as misfires. Please be aware!]
[Tutorial Quest: Survive in Zombie World. Countdown - D30.]
A semi-transparent window floating at the edge of my vision.
It was filled with blocks of text I couldn't make sense of.
'What the hell is this.'
"...Hic!"
My confusion was cut short by a very girlish hiccup from behind me.
When I turned around, my eyes met Ha Hui-ryeong's, frozen stiff.
Her pale lips parted.
"Y-you... you, are you crazy...?"
"I'm not crazy. I had no choice, no choice."
Seeing this strange stuff pop up, maybe I really was losing it.
"No, what, what do you mean you had no choice... you lunatic bastard..."
As she spoke, the venom from before had vanished.
Her trembling pupils, as if shaken by an earthquake, held unfiltered fear.
But I ignored that and simply did what needed doing.
I shoved the man's corpse, which was wedged in the doorway, out with my foot.
The elevator doors then closed, and we began ascending again.
"You caught on too, if only barely. The look in that bastard's eyes — he was definitely going to cause trouble later. He'd have stabbed us in the back sooner rather than later. Probably would've taken our food and car by force, then either killed me or tossed me to the zombies as bait. With the size difference, it wouldn't have been hard for him either."
"That's, that's not something you could know, you crazy bastard..."
Ha Hui-ryeong sobbed and slumped down, clutching her head.
I said, puzzled.
"You're being really weird. You were running around smashing everything like a barbarian just a little while ago, so why are you acting like this now?"
"You fucking... is that the same thing? Killing zombies and killing a person—are those the same to you...!"
"Well, they are different. But you're not one to talk."
I walked over and crouched down in front of Ha Hui-ryeong.
Only then did Ha Hui-ryeong lift her head slightly from her knees.
"You said it yourself. You have to pull out anything that could become a source of trouble by the roots beforehand."
"Hey...! How long ago was that...!"
"Well, seven years? Eight? It was so long ago I don't remember exactly. But those words, I remember them clearly."
They say first experiences always linger in memory the longest.
And among those, my first meeting with Ha Hui-ryeong was especially... memorable.
'You know what? You have to pull out seeds that'll cause trouble by the roots beforehand.'
She'd spouted that random nonsense the moment we first met, and then promptly knocked my jaw out.
Not long after, I'd become her lapdog, forced to drink toilet water and, on days when she was particularly moody, even prostrate myself in my underwear.
"You didn't forget, did you?"
"......"
Ha Hui-ryeong bit her lip hard and lowered her gaze.
Surprisingly, it seemed she hadn't forgotten that incident after all.
...An unexpected side of her.
"...Don't use me as an excuse to justify yourself."
"I know. I know, alright. But don't you pretend to be clean either. There's nothing more disgusting than the filthiest bitch acting all pristine."
Honestly, she was right.
It was all just an excuse.
I just... didn't like the man.
So I did it.
After all, in a world plunged into chaos, anything should be permitted.
Maybe I'd even wished for the world to end.
It felt like I'd been set free, somehow...? Even after killing a man, my insides were calm and unshaken.
But such dark thoughts were short-lived.
Ding.
[18th floor.]
Right on cue, the mechanical voice announced our arrival as the elevator doors opened.
"...."
"Enough. We'll talk later. Let's get to my place first."
I rose to my feet and offered my hand.
Ha Hui-ryeong stared blankly at my hand, then slapped it away.
Then she stood up on her own.
Even cowed, her stubbornness remained.
"...Just give me back my bat."
"Then you take the lead. I'll guide you."
As she walked ahead, her expression was still deeply troubled.
Of course, I wasn't much different.
[Your traits are 'Lucky One' and 'Dark Merchant'.]
[Initial funds of 300 Coins are granted.]
"....."
A block of text floating out of nowhere in the corner of my vision.
A mess of incomprehensible letters swirled inside my head, complicating everything.