The Virus Spreading Through Ulsan
Ulsan.
As most people well knew, it was a city anchored by a famous conglomerate, a place where countless people made their homes. But the landscape stretching before our eyes now was nothing of the sort. Human corpses lay scattered in every direction — that was Ulsan as it stood today.
The outskirts hadn't been too bad, but the deeper we pushed into the city, the more the stench of rotting bodies began to throb from every side. Monster corpses were few and far between. Nearly everything dead was human.
Just what the hell had happened here?
"We'll drive straight through. First stop is Ah-ra's relatives' house."
"Yes, Ssaem."
The bus engine roared to life. Even that noise drew no reaction from the surroundings. By this point, you'd expect a monster or two to come bursting out — but there wasn't a single one in sight.
What the hell is going on?
The complete absence of monsters only filled me with a deeper, more gnawing unease.
"Ah-ra, is this the right way?"
"Yes, oppa. Just keep going straight."
Jin-hwan drove on without hesitation, and in no time at all we arrived at Ah-ra's relatives' house without a hitch. I killed the engine and took a look around.
This is even weirder.
It was far too quiet. Quiet enough that besides us, not a single sound reached our ears.
"Doesn't this feel way too off?"
"I was thinking the same thing."
I couldn't put my finger on it, but the whole atmosphere was deeply suspicious. Still, we climbed off the bus. We couldn't sit inside it forever.
"Ah-ra, is this the house?"
"Yes."
A residential house with a red front gate. Ah-ra carefully pushed it open.
The iron door creaked on its hinges. In the crushing silence, the sound rang out even louder than it should have. Fortunately, the house showed no signs of a monster attack — neat, undamaged, almost untouched. Which meant there was at least a sliver of hope that someone was still here.
"Uncle?"
Ah-ra eased the front door open. It wasn't locked.
"Is nobody home?"
We stepped inside and checked every room, one after another. The house appeared empty. Then Ah-ra seemed to find something, and she brought it over to me.
"Ssaem, look at this."
"What is it?"
What she handed me was a single sheet of paper.
To the citizens of Ulsan.
We are the Got Pink Guild, currently in possession of an E-Rank Shelter. We are taking in all Ordinary Civilians and Awakened who have not yet found a shelter. Please come to Ulsan Station.
An E-Rank Shelter?
The only shelter currently listed on the System Bulletin Board was an F-Rank Shelter. And now they were claiming an E-Rank one — a shelter about which absolutely nothing was known.
"Do you think they went there?"
"That's probably what happened."
"And I think my mom and dad came here too."
"They did?"
"Yes. When I looked outside earlier, Dad's car was there."
Which meant that, given the flyer sitting inside the house, all three of them had most likely headed for Ulsan Station.
"What should we do?"
"We'll have to check out Ulsan Station, but…"
Even so, something about this didn't sit right. Looking at the state of Ulsan, nothing here was ordinary.
"Is there anything around we can use to activate the bulletin board?"
I needed information. Someone had definitely left posts about this place. At my words, Ah-ra fetched a whiteboard from one of the rooms, and I activated the System Bulletin Board on the spot. Then I used the search function to pull up whatever I could find on Ulsan.
A few posts in particular seemed to match our current situation.
⊳ This is Ulsan. Please help us. — Posted: Today
⊳ Ulsan is currently insane. — Posted: 4 days ago
Let's start with the older one.
The day after the Shelter Invasion, this place turned into hell itself.
For reasons nobody understands, some bizarre virus appeared out of nowhere, and now infected monsters are wandering the streets. Anyone bitten by those infected monsters… turns into a Ghoul.
People who become Ghouls are no longer human. They can't tell friend from foe. They're just monsters that exist to slaughter.
Because of this insane virus, we don't even dare set foot outside our shelter. If any high-rankers are out there, please — help Ulsan.
This story. It matched exactly what that couple had told us. The reason they'd fled was this very virus.
But then why is there nothing here now?
When we'd arrived in Ulsan, we hadn't seen a single monster that looked infected.
What about the comments?
I dropped my eyes to the comment thread underneath. There was a chance someone had posted something about the current situation.
What is this comment section.
A handful of replies that read like people messing around. But those words could also be true.
Did that Hunter guy actually show up and wipe everything out?
If so, the current situation would start to make a little more sense — no infected monsters anywhere. But then why had that couple run?
Hah. No idea. Let's check the other post.
I'm one of the people who saw the flyers the Got Pink Guild was handing out and went to Ulsan Station. I believed them when they said they had an E-Rank Shelter — but the moment I stepped inside, they grabbed me and locked me up.
A few of us just made a break for it and we're trying to get out of the station, but the area around it is surrounded by virus-infected monsters. Please help us.
Virus-infected monsters, concentrated over there?
Monsters gathered around Ulsan Station. If that was true, then the Hunter from the earlier thread had almost certainly been all talk. Or maybe he really had shown up — and died.
But more pressing than that was the confinement. Imprisonment had taken place at the very shelter Ah-ra's parents had most likely gone to.
"Ssaem, what on earth does this mean?"
"Why would they lock people up?"
"Is this even real?"
The students stared at the post, unable to make sense of it. Locking people up inside a shelter. Between the flyers and the imprisonment, that guild clearly had some kind of agenda.
Does this have something to do with the virus too?
The infected monsters clustered specifically around Ulsan Station. Could the Got Pink Guild be connected to the virus somehow?
Wait. There was no such guild.
Whenever a guild was created, it appeared on the bulletin board. Guilds were still being founded even now, but only about ten existed so far — and Got Pink was not among them.
"This flyer is almost certainly bait. There's a real chance that post is telling the truth."
At those words, Ah-ra's hands began to tremble. Her parents and her uncle might be in that place. Of course they did.
"What do we do now?"
"We go to Ulsan Station."
There wasn't really another option. Ah-ra's parents might be there, so we set Ulsan Station as our destination and left the house.
"Everyone, get in."
I drove the bus toward Ulsan Station. The closer we drew, the more a metallic, coppery stink and the reek of rotting corpses seeped in even through the closed doors. Something was definitely happening at that station.
We'd been creeping forward for some time when something caught my eye.
"Jin-hwan! Stop!"
The brakes shrieked as Jin-hwan slammed them on.
"What's going on?!"
"Look over there."
Everyone's eyes followed where I was pointing.
Lv. 8
"A… a Ghoul?"
"Was that thing actually a person?"
What stood there was a single Ghoul, shambling and lurching as it wandered the area. Its appearance was uncannily close to the zombies you'd see in movies.
So everything they said was true.
The posts on the bulletin board were proving more accurate by the minute. And it wasn't as if we hadn't already witnessed people turning into monsters. The claim that this Ghoul had once been human was more than believable.
The Ghoul let out a warped, gurgling groan — then its gaze locked onto us, as if it had just noticed the bus.
In that instant, it came tearing toward us at a speed so violent it looked ready to rip its own limbs off. It closed the distance in a heartbeat and slammed its body straight into the side of the bus.
The whole vehicle rocked.
"Holy shit. That impact was at least as strong as an orc ramming us."
I hurriedly summoned a few Lizardmen outside the bus. The Ghoul, which had been charging at us, immediately veered and lunged at them instead. It carried no weapon, but it drove forward with terrifying force and sank its teeth into a Lizardman's throat.
A Lizardman's scales are incredibly hard. But the bite force on that Ghoul — it clamped down so viciously its own jaw should have shattered, and it tore a chunk of flesh from the Lizardman's neck. It was only a bit of meat ripped away, so the wound didn't look all that serious.
In that opening, the other two Lizardmen took the weapons I'd thrown them and brought them down on the Ghoul's skull, bursting its head open. The Ghoul went still, as if that had finally killed it.
"Huh? Ssaem! That Lizardman looks weird!"
"What? Which one?"
Jin-ri was pointing at the Lizardman whose throat had been torn open.
It let out a deranged, shrieking roar, thrashing wildly — and then it slipped out of my control entirely, its movements turning into the same shambling lurch as the Ghoul from moments ago.
No way.
A drawn-out, gurgling groan spilled from its throat. Had it been infected from the Ghoul's bite? The Lizardman's eyes were bloodshot, burning red. It bared enormous fangs and threw itself at the Lizardmen around it.
These Ghouls. Just as the bulletin board had said, they were carrying a virus.
"What do we do about that?!"
"The other Lizardmen are going to end up like that too!"
The infected Lizardman seemed even stronger than its original physical abilities. Overwhelming the others' resistance with sheer force, it clamped down hard on another Lizardman's throat.
I'm not letting all of them get infected.
Bomb Placement
A powerful bomb is planted on the target.
I planted a bomb on the Lizardman whose throat had been bitten, pulled the remaining one back, and detonated them both.
A colossal blast. The Lizardman and the infected one were blown apart, their bodies shredded to pieces. Watching that scene, I couldn't even begin to imagine how many infected monsters were waiting for us in this part of Ulsan.