Zombie Apocalypse (3)
The 27th floor had been built around a zombie theme.
There were two things you absolutely did not do in a place like this.
First, make noise.
Second, let your guard down.
“There aren’t any inside?”
Ryu Jia asked as she carefully scanned her surroundings.
She had been prepared to climb her way up through hundreds of zombies, cutting them down one by one.
But the inside of the 63 Building was unexpectedly quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it was unnerving.
“Don’t relax yet,” Kim Jun warned in a low voice. “We don’t know when they’ll show up. By then, it’ll already be too late.”
Gulp—
Ryu Jia swallowed.
“Y-yeah…”
With fear tightening her throat, she gripped her staff hard enough to whiten her knuckles.
Creeeeak—
The emergency exit door opened.
Stairs.
The group moved forward slowly.
One step.
Then another.
Carefully. So carefully, trying not to make a sound.
The formation was already set.
Kim Jun in front.
Han Suin behind him.
Lee Seoyeon in the middle.
Ryu Jia next.
And at the very rear, Park Minsu.
[7th Floor]
The floor marker came into view.
Fortunately, no zombies had appeared yet.
But that only made it scarier.
Because they had no idea when something might jump out.
If they ran into a horde in this narrow stairwell, there’d be no answer.
Even if they released mana outside their bodies to sheath themselves in it, maintaining that kind of defense would drain mana at an exponential rate.
They’d be empty in a matter of minutes.
And Lee Seoyeon couldn’t keep her shield up forever, either.
Her mana was limited, too.
In the end, all they could do was keep climbing, tense with fear, and then keep climbing some more.
Please.
Even Kim Jun found himself praying desperately.
He truly didn’t want to face a companion getting infected.
Besides, the doors in this place were restricted.
[This door cannot be opened!]
They couldn’t force them open.
It was as if this were a game, and any area not yet implemented simply couldn’t be entered.
Only the 5th, 10th, 15th floors and so on could be accessed from within.
[10th Floor]
Drip—
“?!”
At the sudden sound, the group froze.
Water.
Somewhere, water was dripping. From the ceiling? Or from an upper floor?
“…”
Kim Jun raised a hand to signal them to stop.
Everyone held their breath.
Drip. Drip.
Only the steady fall of water broke the silence.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
Twenty passed, but no other sound came.
“…Let’s go.”
Kim Jun moved again.
[13th Floor]
Beep—
Park Minsu’s foot scraped the floor.
“…!”
The entire group locked up at once.
It felt as if their hearts had stopped.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Hoo—
Everyone let out a cautious breath.
Hss—
Ryu Jia, who had been holding hers in, finally dragged in air.
Cold sweat trickled down her spine.
“…I think we’re okay. Keep moving.”
Kim Jun tried to reassure them, but his hand had tightened even more around his sword hilt.
Every little thing made his nerves feel raw.
Even the smallest sound made his heart pound like it might burst.
[19th Floor]
A stench stabbed at their noses.
Rot.
“Ugh…”
Ryu Jia covered her nose.
There’s a corpse.
That meant there was a zombie somewhere nearby—or rather, the corpse of someone who had become a zombie.
Close by.
Kim Jun’s nerves sharpened even further.
[26th Floor]
Creeeeak—
Thud!
Something fell over below them.
The group stopped in unison.
Their hearts hammered.
“…”
No one could speak.
But even after they waited, nothing else came.
Huuuu.
Kim Jun gestured again, and they resumed climbing the stairs.
But the tension only mounted.
[29th Floor]
Haah…
Lee Seoyeon let out a tiny sigh.
Luckily, there had still been no sign of anything.
Was that a good thing?
Just as that thought crossed their minds—
“My… legs…”
Ryu Jia muttered weakly.
For someone who never exercised, climbing twenty-nine floors on foot was torture.
She hated moving so much that even in daily life she’d use mana to assist her body when walking.
And to make matters worse, she’d run like crazy while dodging zombies to get this far.
She’d also burned through a lot of mana killing more than a thousand of them.
Thud—
“Haa… haa…”
When Ryu Jia collapsed, Kim Jun called to Park Minsu.
“Minsu.”
“Got it.”
Park Minsu turned around on his own.
“Get on.”
“Won’t it be too hard?”
“I’m fine.”
Flex— flex—
As if to reassure her, Park Minsu rolled up his sleeves and showed off his biceps.
“Relax. I’m a man with a three-lift total of two thousand.”
He even cracked a joke, just like always.
He smiled brightly.
But sweat was pouring down his forehead like a waterfall.
It ran down his back and soaked the nape of his neck.
Tension.
Even he, usually so carefree, had every nerve stretched taut right now.
I’m fine.
He wasn’t afraid of dying himself.
He was a tanker.
He had always believed it was his fate to stand in front and die there if necessary.
But Ryu Jia looking up at him with those bright, round eyes—
She was a little rude, sure, but she was still kind of cute.
…Pretty, even?
Kim Jun and Lee Seoyeon, who had made him feel a strange sense of sibling warmth for the first time in his life as an only child.
And Han Suin, who didn’t talk to him much but quietly worried about him all the same.
No. That’s not okay.
Just imagining it sent chills over his whole body.
It would be better if he died instead.
Better to die hundreds, thousands of times.
Better than watching his companions become infected.
All I have to do is suffer a little more.
The thought only made Park Minsu more tense.
“Protecting the lady is a man’s duty! Now, get on!”
He forced his voice bright, but—
“Don’t say it like that. Hmph.”
Ryu Jia grumbled in annoyance.
“???”
Park Minsu looked genuinely baffled.
He’d meant it as a joke.
Her reaction was completely different from what he expected.
So the little brat’s tense too.
Only then did he realize it.
Ryu Jia was complaining on the outside, but inside she was probably terrified out of her mind.
She was covering it by acting like her usual bratty self.
We’re all the same, huh.
Probably everyone here felt the same way.
Hyung, noona, Suin noona, the kid, too.
Not fear of his own death, of course.
Fear of a companion getting infected.
Please.
Just those beside him.
Just the people he cared about.
He prayed they wouldn’t get infected.
That they wouldn’t become zombies.
Everyone climbed the stairs with that desperate wish clenched in their hearts.
[41st Floor]
They would have reached this far much faster under normal circumstances.
But they were so tense that their pace had fallen apart.
And with Park Minsu carrying Ryu Jia, their speed dropped even more.
“Can’t we just go ahead? Doesn’t seem like there’s anything anyway.”
Park Minsu gestured for them to move first.
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
Kim Jun cut him off immediately.
If zombies appeared while he was carrying Ryu Jia, he wouldn’t be able to respond properly at all.
That was when it happened.
Thud. Thud.
“…?”
Something was coming from somewhere.
Footsteps.
Thud-thud, thud-thud.
“W-what is that?”
Ryu Jia asked in a trembling voice.
“Quiet!”
Kim Jun snapped, sharp and low.
The group froze all at once.
They held their breath.
Only the pounding of their hearts filled their ears.
Thud-thud-thud, thud-thud-thud.
The footsteps grew closer.
Fast.
Too fast.
Speed-type!
Kim Jun’s expression hardened.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-!
The sound of something coming down the stairs.
No, not from above—from below.
“It’s coming up from downstairs!”
The instant he shouted—
Everything stopped.
The footsteps.
Even the sound of their own hearts.
As if time itself had frozen.
Silence.
Too much silence.
One second.
Two.
Three.
And then—
“Kieeeeeeeek!!”
Along with a scream that seemed to tear the air apart—
Bang!
Something burst through a door and leapt out.
A mutated zombie known as a speed type.
Its skin had turned gray, and in places it was torn open, exposing raw red flesh.
Its jaw hung open at an unnatural angle, and the teeth inside were sharp, jagged points.
But the most horrifying thing was its eyes.
Bloodshot.
Completely red, with not a shred of humanity left in them.
Slobber dripped from its mouth.
Thick, yellowish saliva.
As if it had been starving for so long that the moment it finally found prey, it had gone mad.
“You son of a—!!”
Kim Jun drew his sword.
“Everyone up! Run now, right now!!”
They were on the 41st floor.
To open the door and go inside, they had to get at least to the 45th floor.
“Eek!”
Ryu Jia screamed.
Park Minsu clutched her tight and began racing up the stairs at full speed.
Creeeeak! Creeeeak! Creeeeak!
More screams echoed from below.
There wasn’t just one.
There were several.
“Faster!!”
Kim Jun shouted over his shoulder.
At the bottom of the stairwell, speed zombies were surging upward in a swarm.
At least ten.
No, more than that.
Men, women, old people, children.
They had all looked different when they were alive, but now they were the same kind of monster.
Their clothes were in tatters, their skin had rotted, and their limbs bent at grotesque angles.
But they ran.
On all fours.
Like beasts.
Their claws and nails scraped sparks from the floor.
Kikikikik—!
Graaaah—!
Kieeek—!
The screams tangled together.
The stairwell was being flooded with zombies.
They came in a seething wave.
“Get through the door!”
Kim Jun took the lead and opened the door to the 45th floor.
Tap-tap-tap-tap—!
Footsteps rattled through the stairs.
Behind them, the zombies shrieked.
Kieeek—!
Graaahk—!
They were getting closer and closer.
“Hurry, hurry and get in!”
Lee Seoyeon shouted urgently.
Han Suin went in first, followed by Lee Seoyeon.
“Grrrrk!”
Behind Park Minsu and Ryu Jia, who had fallen behind, Kim Jun unleashed sword aura toward the pouring horde of zombies.
But it was useless.
More zombies kept flooding in from behind them.
They climbed over the fallen, stepped on them, and leapt past them.
And now it was night.
The already fast speed types were moving even faster.
Kieeeeeeee—!!
The zombies had chased them right to the brink. So close that if you stretched out your hand, you could touch them.
At that moment, Park Minsu didn’t hesitate for even a second.
Whoosh—!
“P-Park Minsuuuu!!”
“Ha!”
He hurled Ryu Jia toward Kim Jun.
And then—
“You bastards!”
Thud!
The Rampart rose.
A solid, immovable wall that the zombies would never be able to reach his companions through.
A rampart sturdy enough to hold until Ryu Jia made it up to the 45th floor!
“You’re—abso—lutely not getting through! Wahahahahah!”
Bang! Crash! Thud!
Dozens of them slammed into the rampart at once.
They scraped with their claws, bit with their teeth, and rammed it with their heads.
At that instant, Ryu Jia began questioning her entire life.
I should’ve exercised.
Instead of using magic to make my body lighter every day and walking like that, I should’ve actually walked properly.
I should’ve stopped rejecting him every time with “I’m lazy,” “I’m tired,” “I’ll do it tomorrow,” and just taken Park Minsu’s hand.
I should’ve tried harder.
I should’ve moved a little more.
I should’ve been a little lazier.
If she had.
Then that muscle pig.
Then Park Minsu, the guy who always shouted, “Exercise!”
He wouldn’t have been exhausted from carrying her up these stairs.
He wouldn’t have slowed down.
He wouldn’t have fallen behind the zombies.
He wouldn’t have been driven into a corner like this.
Tears burst from her eyes.
“Damn it!”
Kim Jun’s regrets were no different.
In his memories from before regression, zombies had always come down from above.
That was why he had stood at the front.
Because the strongest among them should be the first to face danger.
Because Park Minsu, as the tanker, could stay in the rear and prepare for the worst.
That had been his judgment.
It was wrong.
Completely wrong.
This time, they had come from below.
Why?
What had changed?
Where had things gone wrong?
“Minsu!! Hurry and get up here!”
Slash—
Contact with a zombie did not necessarily mean infection.
Rrrrraaaaaah—!
This world’s infection rate was absurdly high, but there was still a chance.
Crack! Crackcrackcrack—!
In the end, it all came down to probability.
With that thought, Kim Jun kept hurling sword aura at the zombies and desperately tried to think himself into hope.
But then—
Crunch—!
67