Z Apocalypse #2

"Fuck!"

Wang Jahyun couldn't hold back his rage at the massive clump of hair clogging the bathroom drain strainer. His hair had been falling out like crazy lately. The heat rising from all the stress was clearly murdering his follicles.

"Ha Namjin, you son of a bitch!"

Shaaaaa—. Even bathing in water cold as ice did almost nothing to calm his mind and body. After roughly toweling off and stepping into the living room, Wang Jahyun grabbed his phone and searched his own name.

A rush of blood shot up his spine. Someone had actually leaked his private life.

"Who the hell was it!"

Wang Jahyun pictured the faces of the women who had signed his nondisclosure agreements, then hurled his phone at the floor in fury.

Crack!

The screen shattered instantly. It brought Wang Jahyun back to his senses a little.

"Calm down."

After all, the losers yapping on the internet would never even brush sleeves with him—the heir to a chaebol family and the main character of the world. There was no need to care what those pigs and dogs were barking about. The real world existed outside the phone.

Five minutes later, Wang Jahyun picked up his cracked phone, turned the internet back on, searched his name again, and started leaving comments. He had to stop the reckless speculation and rumors from spreading.

That was when he found one particular post.

The wound looked so raw it was horrifying.

His mood thoroughly ruined, Wang Jahyun closed the internet and opened his messenger. Countless unread messages were piled up. Among them were quite a few from idols and actresses who were rising in popularity these days.

His self-esteem, which had hit rock bottom, filled back up in an instant. It was almost funny how women who would never even make eye contact with an ordinary man in their entire lives were desperately trying to create time to spend with Wang Jahyun.

After thinking for a while, Wang Jahyun invited one of the women to his house.

"Want to come over right now?"

His father had told him to lie low and avoid causing trouble for the time being, but inviting a woman over seemed fine.

Some time passed.

"Oppa! It's been so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long! Right!"

The streamer Joo Joo-hye, with her loudly dyed blonde hair, arrived at Wang Jahyun's apartment and expressed an excessive amount of joy. She then proceeded to annoy him by asking how he'd been, whether he'd eaten dinner, and bragging that she was good at cooking ramen.

She's crossing the line.

Wang Jahyun hated women who didn't know their place. But once they lay in bed together, women would act like they were his girlfriend or wife, meddling in everything and being loud. Just like now.

"Oppa, there's a hole on the crown of your head. What is this? Hair loss? You're not even an old man—pffft!"

"……"

Since they'd already done what they came to do, he wished she would just leave. While he was thinking that, the girl who had burrowed into his side started coughing violently. His face twisted.

"Hey! Joo-hye! Did you catch a cold? Damn it, you should have said something sooner!"

"Huh? No, it's just a cough from acid reflux! Oppa, I'm serious! It's not a cold! Besides, Awakened don't catch things like colds anyway, right?"

"I just hate colds!"

While the disgusted Wang Jahyun threw her clothes at her, the streamer Joo Joo-hye desperately tried to explain that it wasn't a cold and even pulled out a medicine packet from her bag.

"See! It's just medicine for acid reflux!"

That was when Wang Jahyun noticed the bandage wrapped around Joo Joo-hye's wrist. Sensing his gaze, she opened her mouth as if she'd been waiting for it.

"This? Listen, oppa. I went to the hospital to get this medicine, and some crazy bitch bit my arm and ran away. Wow, it was so ridiculous."

Bitten by a crazy person—.

The posts he'd seen on the internet earlier flashed through his mind.

"Hey, Joo Joo-hye. Just go home."

"Why? You told me to sleep over tonight!"

"Fuck, I said go, so go! Get out!"

Wang Jahyun shoved the half-dressed Joo Joo-hye out of his house with his palm, then turned the internet back on. He frantically searched terms like "bite," "zombie," "rabies," and "kiss."

###

"You're telling me to take these things down?"

Seo Gaeul looked disgusted as she watched the zombies shuffling toward us.

Living corpses. Squelch. Squelch. Writhing.

"Groooan…."

"Uuuugh…."

Seeing their bodies crawling with maggots and leaking pus, they looked like people who had been dead for at least several days. It was revolting.

"Let me say this in advance—if you get bitten or scratched by their nails, it won't end with a few days of pain. And absolutely do not kiss them or anything like that."

As far as I knew, "zombie" was a kind of disease. It could spread through multiple routes.

"The only way to deal with zombies like this is to completely smash their heads. Finish them off properly."

"Ugh, seriously!"

Seo Gaeul spread her palms open. Soon, a round mass of energy gathered around her hands. While I watched the sight with interest, Seo Gaeul pointed her palm at the zombies and shouted.

Bang—!

Whoosh—!

The round energy fired from Seo Gaeul's palm struck a zombie's body. Its leg was blown clean off as if it had been hit by a bullet. For a long-range attack, the destructive power was surprisingly decent.

"Ugh! It's disgusting! Blood's splattering everywhere!"

"Hey, you have to aim for the head properly. It'll keep moving until its head explodes."

I gave Seo Gaeul a stern warning. As if her competitive spirit had been ignited, she frowned deeply, spread her palm again, and fired several more ki blasts.

Bang—!Bang bang bang—!Bang bang—!

Her accuracy was terrible. In the end, the memorial park in City D became even filthier with zombies whose limbs had been torn apart.

"Kyaaaaak!"

Suddenly Seo Gaeul let out a scream like a burning pterosaur. The very first zombie whose leg she had blown off hadn't died and was now biting her ankle.

"See? That's what happens when you don't blow off the head. I never told you what your most fatal weakness is, did I? It's altruism. That kind heart of yours is your greatest weakness."

"...Altruism? You're saying I have a kind heart?"

Seo Gaeul looked at me like I was crazy for saying that the girl known as the 'worst bitch' had a kind heart. Of course, I was completely sincere. Seo Gaeul might have been a wicked girl, but in truth she was a kind-hearted fairy.

"You're even hesitating to damage them because you're treating these corpses as if they were still people."

It was understandable. No matter how tough Seo Gaeul was, she was still a person of common sense. Even with training, she'd probably only ever shot at round targets. The psychological barrier between shooting a mannequin and shooting a person was on a completely different level. For the highly altruistic Seo Gaeul, destroying what looked like a thirteen-year-old girl would have been even harder. Even if the zombie appeared to have been dead for over a month.

"If you want to survive, you need to become more ruthless. In the world that's about to change, the ones who can't be selfish die first."

I lifted my foot and crushed the zombie's head.

Crunch—!

The fragments flying in all directions and the horrific stench brought back many memories. Like the time I lived with other survivors gathered inside a large supermarket. It had actually been a rather pleasant memory!

Seo Gaeul, who had no such memories, couldn't endure the foul smell and collapsed to the ground, vomiting.

"Uuuuurgh!"

Seo Gaeul's Miracle concept appeared. The new Zombie concept also caught my eye. From the looks of it, "zombie" wasn't just a simple infection or pathogen—it seemed connected to a Concept. Replicated from the host, huh?

Can concepts even be replicated?

I thought the same concept couldn't exist in more than one place at the same time. But there might be exceptions. Just as Seo Gaeul could transfer her own concept to others, if the Zombie concept could spread to others through various routes…?

I suddenly felt like I understood a little about the identity of these suddenly appearing zombies.

"This is insanely good luck!"

"Hey! What the hell is lucky about this! I got bitten! What happens to me now? Am I going to die? Am I going to turn into one of those things!?"

Seo Gaeul clutched her ankle and whined. The scar where it had bitten hard enough to draw blood certainly looked painful. From what I remembered, it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠took ordinary people bitten by the infected roughly three days to go mad and rampage. For Awakened it was longer—about ten days. Of course there was some variation between individuals.

I whispered into Seo Gaeul's ear.

"Queen never cry."

Her tearful face instantly turned resolute.

"What are you even saying, you idiot? What does Naver have to do with it?"

"Don't freak out. I know how to make the cure. It's not even that hard."

"For real? You really know how!?"

"Hey now, are you doubting a real man's words? First, there's something we need to prioritize."

The problem was the Zombie itself. Zombies were like cockroaches—if you saw one, it meant there were a hundred more somewhere. I had to take care of this before my temporary happiness came to an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠end with the Z Apocalypse.

Someone with national influence needed to step up. I was thinking exactly that when—

Vrrrr—.

My phone started ringing loudly. It turned out the class D group chat was going crazy.

When I turned on my phone, the hottest video was something bizarre. A man wearing a smooth white mask with only eye holes and a golden laurel wreath on his head was speaking directly into the camera.

In the video, the man sliced his own hand and sprinkled the blood onto corpses. The bodies began to twitch grotesquely and rise. He was creating zombies. Could this bastard be the zombie host?!

Seo Gaeul, who had been watching the video with me, trembled.

"This feeling… It's him! That red-eyed Main! Look! The eyes behind the mask are bright red!"

The eyes visible through the mask were indeed a vivid red. The red-eyed Main! I never imagined we'd meet like this!

"Honestly, this is completely unexpected. The zombie host and the red-eyed Main were the same guy. This… this this…."

My body shook. Cold sweat flowed as if I were holding in an urgent bathroom emergency.

"This this this… this…."

"This?"

"Yeehaw!!!"

I really was insanely lucky!!!! Zombies and a Main! I could take care of both annoying problems at once! If I dealt with this guy, I could prevent the zombie outbreak, right?

But why did the zombie Main want the kidnapper of Seo Gaeul to surrender?

"Yeehaw? I thought something was wrong with you."

While I was lost in thought, Seo Gaeul frowned. Then she looked at me again with tense eyes.

"Hey, what are you going to do about this? If you don't surrender, ten thousand innocent people will turn into zombies! I got bitten too! Fuck!"

Thinking about ten thousand innocent lives on the line must have made her blood run cold. It was because Seo Gaeul was as kind as a fairy. People this full of altruism couldn't survive in a ruined world.

Then what about me? I was one of the 'survivors.' In other words, I knew how to be reasonably selfish.

"I'm not surrendering."

"Hey! What are you going to do if ten thousand zombies appear because of you! You son of a bitch! You crazy lunatic bastard! Ha Namjin, you're actual garbage! Ten thousand people are going to become these zombies because of you! Because of you!"

"No! That won't happen!"

Among the many disasters of the apocalypse, zombies were one of the trickier ones. They had driven people into terror until the cure was discovered. If we were only talking about the degree of fear, it was probably similar to the Darkness disaster. But? According to the apocalypse expert, unlike the Darkness disaster, zombies were one where complete preparation was possible if the timing was right.

By the way, the apocalypse expert was me—Ha Namjin.

In that sense, it was unfortunate for the zombie Main, but for me the Z Apocalypse was already a cleared genre.

The timing was perfect too.

"Seo Gaeul, I think I need to make a call to your dad!"