Chapter 40
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Police Hospital (4)
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Four humans suddenly appeared.
They stood like marionette puppets dangling from strings rather than standing on their own, all dressed in firefighter uniforms with pitch-black eyes.
‘A blessing in disguise, I suppose?’
Lee Min-jun muttered under his breath as he checked their name tags.
The good news first: So-hee’s father wasn’t among them.
The bad news… Their hearts were beating, faintly but unmistakably.
Min-jun dodged their swinging weapons as he glanced at his own sawed-off shotgun.
It hung quietly in its leather sling, as if nothing had happened.
‘The shotgun’s silence means they’re not mana beasts. Just being controlled?’
It was an awkward situation.
If they were already dead and being puppeteered, he’d swing his blade without hesitation.
But if they were merely hostages, he couldn’t strike carelessly.
They were the kind who had stayed at the fire station to protect others even in the end.
Min-jun switched to his dagger, picking off spiders while avoiding combat with those four.
‘If they’re not dead yet, there has to be a controller somewhere around here.’
Weaving through the battlefield, he scanned every inch until he spotted something lurking in the shadow of a massive officetel in the distance.
It was so perfectly blended into the building’s shadow that he might have missed it without focus—something faintly rippling.
‘That’s it…?’
Min-jun grabbed a stone and hurled it.
Splat—Crunch! Crunch!
The rock smashed through a few spiders and struck the hazy spot.
“Found me, huh?”
The silhouette’s owner stepped out of the shadows.
“…”
A massive frame nearing five tons, like a truck. Legs thicker than ordinary spiders, armored in heavy exoskeletons.
And atop its head, the beautiful upper body of a woman—an eerie hybrid form.
[You have encountered Atlnak’s first daughter and the small lord of the Labyrinth Garden, ‘Regina.’]
Hiss—
The moment Min-jun faced Regina, his brain heated up like a furnace, thoughts racing as time seemed to freeze, flowing in slow motion.
Holy power gathered at his chest, surging toward his command.
The four with blackened eyes swung their weapons in unison—the scene replayed agonizingly slow before his eyes.
The skyline clung to a thin band of twilight, the city otherwise drowned in thick evening dusk.
The unavoidable pike pole rushed toward Min-jun’s abdomen.
…Stab!
Time snapped back to normal speed.
Crunch! Stab!
An axe and metal crowbar followed, embedding in his neck.
“Kyahaha!”
Blood sprayed like a fountain from his throat, and Regina let out a cry of ecstasy.
Then.
Shrieeeek—!
A sound tearing through the air.
Clang—
Min-jun, who should have been dead, appeared out of nowhere and severed one of Regina’s legs.
* * *
A slaughterhouse.
That was the perfect word to sum up the current state of the police hospital rooftop.
“Block them there!”
“Fuuuck!! Die! Die already!!”
“G-Get away… Aaargh!!”
The green rooftop, coated for waterproofing, was already covered in graffiti of spiders’ blue fluids and humans’ red blood.
People hurling weapons from fallen comrades to fend off swarming spiders while backpedaling. Someone biting through a spider’s head clamped on their arm with bare white teeth. Others thrusting iron spears alongside a neighbor into a giant spider.
In the face of an unprecedented spider assault, the police hospital survivors fought desperately.
Crunch!
At the frontline’s outermost edge.
Blue ichor splattered onto the red axe blade that had just shattered another spider’s carapace.
“…Hoo.”
Kim Geon-ho drew a deep breath and stepped forward to bisect yet another.
No time for stray thoughts. Just crush the monster before him, again and again.
As one of the hospital’s few Silver-rankers, the harder he fought, the more lives he could save.
And that meant defending the police hospital.
To join where he was needed most, Kim Geon-ho wiped blue ichor from his eyes and surveyed the battlefield.
‘Right side.’
Kim Hak-beom slashed spiders with his beloved machete, a relic from his Vietnam War days. On the left, Director Lee Jong-seok crushed them with oversized surgical nippers.
‘And… in the center.’
So-hee stood amid a horde of spiders, taking their attacks on herself.
Her aura healed allies as she held the center line.
Without her, they wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before annihilation—so many spiders clustered there.
But the sheer numbers slowed the center survivors’ kill rate, the pressure rippling to the flanks.
“Old man Kim! We can’t hold like this!”
“Damn it! They’re all swarming that girl!”
With no other choice, Kim Hak-beom ordered everyone to converge on So-hee in the center.
Kim Geon-ho, already thinking the same, blazed the trail first.
As Lee Geun-jae, Kim Hak-beom, and Director Lee Jong-seok began gathering around her one by one.
A figure leaped up from below the railing, charging at So-hee.
* * *
Clang—!
So-hee clutched her pounding chest.
She hadn’t expected a human to burst from the monsters and attack.
If Geon-ho hadn’t blocked it just in time, she’d have been in real danger.
Catching her breath, So-hee glared past his axe at the black-eyed freak.
The blackened eyes were different, but to her, he wasn’t much unlike Baek Ki-hyuk from school.
Except…
‘Orange work clothes and a jungle knife.’
The sudden intruder wore familiar gear to both her and Geon-ho, which nagged at her.
“Geon-ho? Do you know him?”
“…”
“If he’s a colleague you recognize, then—”
“It’s fine.”
Kim Geon-ho had seen plenty like this in the demonic realm.
And he knew once they’d been taken and turned, there was no saving them.
All he could give them.
Was peace, so their passion and noble spirit in life wouldn’t fade.
“Lee Gyu-ho!!”
Rage fueled the firefighter’s axe crashing toward Gyu-ho’s neck, igniting a small flame that glowed red-hot.
The fire spread across his body in seconds, and Kim Geon-ho kicked him over the railing.
Red-eyed, he scanned the surroundings.
Puppets meant she was here.
‘…Regina.’
The giant spider who kidnapped and puppeted his seniors like dolls. His hated foe, who deserved to be devoured.
Spotting her massive bulk was easy.
She lurked safely in the rear, manipulating his seniors.
“…!”
If he saw right, Min-jun was just dodging the other seniors’ attacks, no counter.
‘Unnecessary mercy…’
Thud-thud—
“Geon-ho! Where you going?!”
Ignoring Kim Hak-beom’s call, Kim Geon-ho vaulted the railing.
Boom!
‘…Ugh.’
A crumpled SUV cushioned his fall, but it wasn’t enough—breath caught in his throat.
Yet even now, his seniors charged at Min-jun, who’d fallen back.
No time to catch his breath.
‘No choice.’
Knowing it would cost time, he activated the skill anyway.
[Using 50 hours of Survival Time to activate ‘Emergency Dispatch Lv. 7’.]
[Success! Dash (350% movement speed) with 35% knockback effect applied.]
Luckily, the skill that usually took tries succeeded on the first go.
Spiders—giant or not—flew like bowling pins as he rocketed straight for Min-jun.
“Kill him! Just kill—!!”
His desperate shout drowned in the din of battle.
‘No.’
If this key player fell, he couldn’t protect Se-young.
He wouldn’t lose what he’d sworn to protect again.
Or stain his seniors’ hands with blood once more.
‘Please.’
He had to reach them faster, but his legs felt heavier, time flew by.
Like wading through water.
No matter how fast he pushed, the distance yawned, seniors closing on the unresisting Min-jun.
Then.
Stab—Crunch!
‘…’
A battlefield full of noise fell silent for a moment.
In that eerie quiet.
Came the sound of metal slicing flesh.
‘No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.’
Blood sprayed.
Firefighting tools meant to save lives tore into a man… no, the flesh of hundreds clinging to survival here.
“Nooooooo!!!!”
If that man died, they couldn’t hold back the endless spider waves.
‘Regina.’
The truck-sized giant spider had stolen another precious life.
His body powerless, legs creaking on momentum alone.
Lost hope gave way to despair and rage as fuel.
“…Not running this time.”
He’d kill her.
With that sole thought, he dragged his exhausted body toward the cackling Regina like a madman.
She stared upward, nailed in place—slight carelessness would give him his shot.
Shrieeeek—!
‘…?!’
A ferocious screech erupted nearby.
From above Regina’s head, the source.
‘Above?’
Kim Geon-ho’s gaze followed upward.
There floated the man who should be down, axe in neck, blood fountaining—holding a greatsword nearly two meters long, his height.
‘Hallucination?’
Blinking to clear his head.
One of Regina’s legs—fine moments ago—was gone. The man bathed in gushing blue ichor.
In disbelief, he glanced where the man had fallen.
No corpse, just seniors rushing toward Regina.
‘Block them.’
He didn’t know how, but instinct told him what to do.
Kim Geon-ho pivoted, cutting off his four seniors. They halted, black eyes fixed on him.
No regrets this time.
“Rest easy, seniors.”
Long-handled firefighter’s axe dangling, he smiled sadly.