Hunting Time
Hunting Time
-BABABABOOM!
The calamity struck without warning.
In the dead of night, a thunderous roar slammed against my eardrums and jolted me awake.
'The hell... is that? An attack?'
Shin Hyun-woo shot upright.
The noise was coming from below.
"What the fuck is going on!?"
"Mutants? But we didn't do shit to attract them."
"We were sleeping quietly, what is all this...!"
His comrades, roused by the commotion, scrambled to their feet, cursing as they rose.
Something was wrong.
Zombies grew more active at night, so we'd deliberately kept our movements minimal to avoid drawing attention. Everyone was supposed to be asleep except the few on watch. So what the hell was happening?
"Everyone grab a weapon. Could be a raid."
Shin Hyun-woo spoke evenly as he reached for a metal pipe.
Truth was, he was just as rattled, but seeing his comrades panicking had the odd effect of steadying his own nerves.
"Okay. Let's follow Hyun-woo's lead."
On high alert, they all moved urgently toward the railing.
What greeted them was a flash of blue light.
-Crackle-crack.
"Grrrk!!"
"You crazy bastards!! Aaaagh!!"
Sparks flew viciously as the agonized screams of the night watch on the first floor rang out.
'Is it those Songpa-gu pricks again? But fuck, attacking at night is crossing the line...!'
The scene I glimpsed below was even grimmer.
Looked like the outer wall had been smashed clean through. Debris lay scattered everywhere, and near the breach a body convulsed like a fish out of water beside a corpse with its limbs severed.
"It's an Awakened! You—go get Jung-woo, now!"
"Yessir! Senior!"
A junior who'd normally grumble clearly understood the stakes, because he followed Shin Hyun-woo's order with uncharacteristic speed.
And the bad news kept piling on.
To make matters worse, razor-edged frost began flying in from somewhere, slicing wildly in every direction.
-Sh-sh-sh-shunk!
"Urgh...!"
Glass shattered. Right next to him, a comrade who couldn't dodge fast enough took an icicle through the stomach.
"Woo-jae...!"
Shin Hyun-woo tried to help.
"Huh, huh, huh???"
But now the man beside him was yanked into the air and dragged down to the first floor as if seized by an invisible force.
-Crack!
Then the sickening sound of a watermelon being smashed reached Shin Hyun-woo's ears.
It had all gone down in a flash.
There was no time to mount a proper response. Screams and bloodshed ran wild from all sides.
"What is this...! What the hell is this...!"
So Shin Hyun-woo did the only thing that made sense to him. He ran.
Not to help anyone. He manifested his ability with the sole intention of escaping.
Acceleration.
A simple, straightforward ability that massively boosted a target's momentum. The kind of thing he'd secured by killing a frail old woman, and it was about to prove its worth right here...!
Except.
"What's this? You're weirdly fast, aren't you?"
Someone grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and he went down with a ludicrous thud.
Shin Hyun-woo twisted his head around, his movements sluggish as if lagging.
The person gripping his neck was a beautiful woman.
Sharp features, but there was no denying the beauty.
Pretty flowers come with thorns, though.
He caught intermittent blue sparks flickering around her.
So she was the source of that blue light...!
"Uh... I... could you please spare me just this once? I'll... I'll give you anything you want...!"
Shin Hyun-woo arranged his face into its most pathetic expression and begged in his most groveling voice.
He'd already concluded he stood no chance.
She'd snatched him from the fourth floor when he'd been on the first. And he'd been using his ability at the time.
What did that tell him?
Even if he somehow slipped her grasp, she'd catch him and drag him right back.
Or he'd get fried by that lightning and die on the spot.
"You want to live?"
"Yes, yes! I want to live! Hehe, if you just look the other way, I swear I'll never forget this kindness, sister!"
A sly, ingratiating smile.
The woman answered with a bright smile of her own.
'Uh... wait? Is she actually gonna let me go...?'
A sliver of hope flickered to life.
But his instincts registered something off in that smile.
Looking closer, was it... a little unnatural? Something about it didn't feel genuine.
Unfortunately.
"Okay, I'll let you live. If you're that desperate, I suppose I should."
It was rare, but his gut feeling had nailed it.
"I'll let you live, I mean. Can't speak for the others, though."
"What, wha...!"
He was just about to spit out a curse.
His body lifted into the air with a whoosh.
Flung like a ragdoll, Shin Hyun-woo went sailing over the railing toward the first floor.
"You said you'd let me live, you fucking bitch...!!!!!"
His furious scream echoed like a roar.
The ground rushed up at him, the air pressing against his skin.
Below, he spotted a man standing in a batter's stance with a crowbar.
"Alright~ Alright~."
A voice dripping with amusement.
And then.
-Crunch!
The cold touch of iron was the last thing he felt before his consciousness blinked out.
*
The room was dark.
The only light came from a small lamp, casting shadows into every corner.
A dim, crimson fixture on the ceiling.
Below it, a massive king-size bed dominated the center of the room. In the middle of that bed lay a naked woman, limbs bound.
"Sounds noisy out there. The hell are those bastards doing instead of sleeping?"
Swoosh.
The man undressing, Park Jung-woo, grumbled for only a moment. His gaze soon shifted to the woman.
"Soo-ah. Im Soo-ah. My precious Soo-ah."
Park Jung-woo climbed onto the bed and stroked the cheek of the woman, who was weeping endlessly.
At the sudden contact, Im Soo-ah flinched.
Even that fragile tremor struck him as impossibly lovely.
He hadn't even started yet, and his head was already swimming in a blissful haze.
"You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment."
Because this was the moment he had craved so desperately.
Because he had finally seized what he'd only ever dreamed of.
"I thought I'd never reach you in my whole life. Makes sense, didn't you and I live in different worlds?"
She had always been above him.
A heavenly nymph walking the clouds, reveling in her youth far beyond his reach.
But now the woodcutter had caught his goddess.
"If the world hadn't ended this way, a nobody like me having feelings for a girl like you would've been a crime."
But things were different now.
In a world where the apocalypse had arrived, everything was permitted.
"Not anymore. I can have you. I can hold you. Only me!"
Park Jung-woo's eyes glistened with base desire.
Tears trickled from Im Soo-ah's eyes.
She wanted to scream, but the gag in her mouth reduced her to nothing but wretched sobs.
Seeing this, Park Jung-woo smiled with even deeper rapture and licked the tears from her face.
"Why? Are you sad? Because a piece of trash like me is going to fuck you? Or because I killed your father? Well, either way, you'd better accept it. This is fate, decided by heaven."
Yes, this was fate.
Just yesterday afternoon, out on his usual hunting routine, he'd run into the woman he'd pined for and her father.
How could he deny that this was fate?
"For a lofty girl like you, this is your first time, right? Yeah, it has to be. It definitely has to be."
His erection had been standing tall for a while now without any foreplay at all.
Finally, the moment to realize his wish had arrived.
He aimed his rigid cock at Im Soo-ah's opening.
Just as he was about to consummate the bond─.
Bang!
"Boss! Raid, it's a raid! Some bastards broke in and they're slaughtering everyone!"
The door flew open without warning, and an interruption barged right in.
"Hah...."
Park Jung-woo let out an irritated sigh and dragged a palm down his face.
Then, fixing the intruder who'd thrown a bucket of ice water on this tender moment with a vicious glare, he spoke.
"Hey. Didn't I tell you to knock before you come in?"
"This is no time for that! Downstairs, some crazy bastards are—!"
"Far as I can see, the crazy one here is you. You must have a death wish."
"No, Boss! Didn't you hear that noise? The whole damn building shook, how can you be so calm—!"
The guy pounded his own chest in frustration.
Park Jung-woo remained unmoved.
He was aware the situation outside was turning bizarre, sure. If the building had shaken, it was clearly serious.
So what?
Was that more important than completing this great undertaking?
No. Absolutely not.
He didn't care if his underlings lived or died.
He was confident he'd survive regardless.
With this ability, he could overcome any crisis.
Hell, there wouldn't even be a moment you could call a crisis—was that a poor choice of words?
Letting out a short laugh—pfft—Park Jung-woo addressed the man.
"If you don't want to die, shut up and get out. No matter how many there are, it won't be a problem."
"Easy for you to say, Boss! The rest of us aren't in that position!"
"And why should I care about that?"
"You... you son of a bitch...!"
Bang!
The door slammed shut, hard.
Park Jung-woo stared at it for a moment, then let out a derisive snort.
How dare he interrupt over trivial shit like this? Now I have to set the mood all over again.
"Ah, sorry, Soo-ah. There was a little ruckus. But it's no problem. The fact that we're going to be joined won't change."
He carefully touched her chest, his gaze laden with intensity.
And once again, his manhood was aimed at her sacred opening.
Now, they would truly be joined...
-THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP!
"Ah, fuck! What now!"
Park Jung-woo screamed in irritation.
Again.
Again, at the crucial moment, his plans had been wrecked.
Should've just killed that guy.
He was still gritting his teeth as he got to his feet when it happened.
-Crash! BAAANG!
The door blew to pieces, and through the thick cloud of dust, the silhouette of that infuriating troublemaker appeared.
A man with a crowbar slung over his shoulder.
Just one...?
So those idiots had been struggling this hard against a single man?
No, that couldn't be right.
The thundering sounds still echoing from beyond the wrecked door meant he had comrades.
But he'd come in here alone.
Was this supreme confidence, or sheer recklessness?
Park Jung-woo regarded him with a heavy-lidded stare.
Soon, the man's mouth opened.
"Looks like I showed up at just the right time."
*
Truth be told, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.
There was no particular reason to target this department store.
It literally just caught my eye as we were passing by.
─ 'So you're saying there might be survivors gathered there? Not zombies?'
And Ha Hui-ryeong had specifically singled it out.
─ 'Yeah. No way a building that size is completely empty, right?'
─ 'That your gut, or a skill?'
─ 'Both.'
If that was the case, no reason to hesitate.
I'd grown to trust her intuition.
Given how many times her wild instincts had bailed us out, I figured listening couldn't hurt.
So we had Kang Ha-rin layer a protective barrier on the truck, floored it, and rammed straight in.
The plan was simple.
Use the chaos to wipe them out immediately.
Honestly, it barely even qualified as a plan.
We charged in headfirst, and everyone figured things out on the fly.
But that's what weirdly works.
Case in point—haven't I already reached the leader's location?
"Looks like I showed up at just the right time."
My eyes took in the scene: a naked, bound woman and an equally bare man.
A quick glance told me exactly what was going on.
Well, well. Sounds like we interrupted him right when he was about to have his fun.
"Leave. If you back off quietly right now, I won't kill you."
An immature glare.
The man stared me down with eyes thick with killing intent, trying to threaten me.
Does this guy not grasp the situation?
Is his dick genuinely a higher priority than his life right now?
The sheer absurdity made a laugh slip out before I could stop it.
"Ha, look at this. Is that so? Isn't that my line?"
"...I warned you."
There was no visible precursor.
Suddenly, the wind—a fierce, howling wind—whipped through the room.
To be precise, blades of razor-sharp wind came flying from all directions.
Easily blocked.
The protective barrier Kang Ha-rin had layered onto me.
The invisible blades struck that transparent membrane and scattered anticlimactically, their ferocious momentum dissolving into nothing.
"What the—!"
"Means 'don't let your guard down!'"
The bastard's eyes bulged like saucers.
He was clearly rattled.
I didn't miss the opening.
In a flash of divine inspiration, I shucked off my pants in one smooth motion and reached out with my hand.
Not at him.
At this nameless woman he cherished so much.
She was my target.
"W-wait! Hold on—!"
He realized it and tried to react, but my power had already manifested.
She was being pulled toward me.
Bound as she was, she offered no resistance and simply slid right over.
"Hahahaha!!! Get over here!!!"
Squelch!
And just like that, drawn together like opposite poles, the nameless woman and I became one.