The Uninvited Guest at Neulbom Villa
The disturbance at Neulbom Villa began the next day, after the sun had fully risen.
“Hyun-ah! Stop! Don’t just sit there—stand up straight!”
“Huuuung… I don’t want to go outside. It’s scary…”
“This isn’t the time to be stubborn. Uncle’s watching, you know. You’re going to embarrass Mom!”
Min-hee looked like she had a storm cloud parked over her face, clearly torn about whether they truly had to leave, but there was no other choice.
“Um… maybe just Hyun-ah could stay…”
She reached out to grab my arm, her expression dripping with lingering reluctance. That was when it happened.
“Hey, young man in 206! You in there? Open the door!”
A loud banging against the door.
That voice… who the hell is it?
“Young man. What were you thinking, dragging all those zombies here like that? You want us all to die? The military’s on the way, but if we just stay quiet and hold our breath, we might survive. I saw everything—you brought them all in with you when you came inside!”
It was an ordinary-looking middle-aged woman. The kind of face you’d forget five seconds after seeing it.
“If you’ve got any sense at all, shouldn’t you take responsibility for your own mistakes? It’s only been two days since this mess started, and you’re already acting this careless… tsk tsk.”
“Who are you?”
The woman blinked rapidly, clearly startled.
“You… don’t know me?”
“Should I?”
“No… you’ve been living here for a while now… I’m in 703…”
“Ah, 703. I see.”
“Goodness, young man. For someone so young, you should have better manners. We even greeted each other when that newlywed couple handed out rice cakes last time… Huh? Oh my, that newlywed woman and… the person…”
The woman had been sneaking glances inside, but when her eyes landed on Hyun-ah—whose eyes were brimming with tears—she couldn’t hide the tremble in her gaze.
And what filled them was nothing but vulgar curiosity.
I needed to cut this off before it became fresh gossip fodder.
“I just brought her in temporarily. She was being chased by zombies outside.”
“Hello.”
“Oh dear, oh my. Look at me. Miss, I understand your situation is pitiful, but if you came from outside, you should know how dangerous it is out there right now. Yet you let them swarm in like a bunch of squid stuck to the front door. What if even one gets inside? That would be a disaster. A total disaster.”
“Y-yeah…”
“So don’t we all have a moral obligation here? Morally speaking.”
“What exactly are you saying…”
“You’re leaving now, right?”
“Yes… that was the agreement…”
She shot me a resentful glance.
“In that case, young mother. Since you’re leaving anyway, could you take all the zombies swarming this area and lead them far away?”
“Excuse me…?”
“Well, you’re going out anyway. This young lady drew all those zombies here, so the responsible thing is to lead them back out. Don’t you agree?”
“Th-that’s… I mean…”
“No.”
I gently pushed the woman back—she had already shoved half her body past the front gate.
“Min-hee isn’t leaving.”
“…!”
“So please stop asking her to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. This is a disaster, isn’t it? We should help each other survive.”
Her lips kept opening and closing like she had a mountain of things she wanted to say.
“Ah, a-auntie… ugh, forget it. I don’t care anymore. Handle it yourselves. I’m just going to stay inside holding my breath. If the door breaks, you’ll die first anyway.”
She stomped away noisily, as if making a point.
“Um… is it really okay for us to keep staying here?”
“Yes. Looks like it worked out that way.”
“Really? Oh, thank you so much. You were so firm yesterday that I thought it was absolutely impossible…”
Haaa.
I felt a little bad watching her sniffle like that, but…
It seemed things had already begun.
“Did you know?”
“Hm?”
“This building only goes up to the sixth floor.”
“What does that have to do with…”
“It means there’s no such thing as a 703 in this villa.”
“…”
Confusion slowly spread across her face as she stood there, momentarily frozen in thought.
“From now on,” I whispered directly into her ear, low enough that the child wouldn’t hear, after she swallowed hard.
“If you go outside, you will definitely die.”
Neulbom Villa.
This building in Eunpyeong District was incredibly rundown. No matter how difficult it was to buy a home in Seoul, who in their right mind would choose to live here if they had any other options?
I could say with absolute certainty that this place had never been this crowded before.
“Young people these days! In a national crisis like this, instead of helping the community, they—tsk tsk. The spirit of our people, the teachings of our ancestors, has always been about self-sacrifice for the greater good. But all I see is selfishness! Listen up!”
Anomalies are flows and phenomena. They are distortions in daily life, predators that feed on twisted desires. Because in a world already warped beyond recognition, even the smallest crack allows them to slip into reality with ease.
Twisting begets more twisting.
And so one anomaly becomes the seed for another.
“Mr. Hak! Are you all ignoring me? You rotten little—!”
The one blocking our path as we staggered out of the room, barely holding onto our crumbling sanity, was some old geezer.
Is it the national default in this country for anyone who’s lived long enough to start sprouting white hair to immediately start lecturing everyone?
Living less than a hundred years and acting all high and mighty…!
A tiny rebellious spark inside me peeked its head out, but it quickly retreated like a mole clubbed over the head. What could I do?
The old man’s head was literally spinning 180 degrees.
“H-hiiiieeeek! Wh-what is this?? A murder scene?”
A young woman who happened to be passing by caught a glimpse of the spectacle and screamed.
A perfectly normal reaction.
She was probably one of the ‘real’ residents.
“You damn little brat, talking back to me!!!!”
His face flushed bright red, like it was about to burst. Then his body twisted at an unnatural angle, swelling grotesquely as he whipped his head around and charged straight at the screaming woman.
Wait, seriously? That bad?
“Hiiiieeeek!”
The woman let out another shriek and crouched down like a frog to dodge the old man’s leaping attack.
Was that luck, or skill?
Either way, impressive.
But…
Why is it coming this way!!
“Miss, go somewhere else! Anywhere else!”
“Hiiiiiiiiieeeek!!!”
Hiiiieeeek!
That was the scream I wanted to make.
The body that had slammed into the end of the hallway with a thunderous crash now spun around, preparing for another charge. It looked exactly like an enraged gorilla!
Damn it.
Could I even bring the woman into my room like this?
This wasn’t a Marvel movie, but that Hulk-like appearance was something else. Unless those bulging muscles were just balloon muscles in some ridiculous twist, it looked like it could smash through a door without breaking a sweat.
Request denied.
If I closed the door now, what would happen to her?
What else? She’d die.
Unless she turned out to be some secret agent hiding her true strength, of course.
Ha. Guess the former anomaly specialist has to step in after all.
“Keep the door shut tight.”
“Y-yes??”
I gently stroked Hyun-ah’s head. She was clinging tightly to her mother’s leg, standing behind Min-hee, whose face had gone deathly pale as she peeked out from behind the door.
Those big, round eyes looked up at me.
Yeah. This is exactly why I bother doing good deeds.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I reached out my hand to the woman who had fled all the way to my doorstep while dodging the Hulk.
“Grab on!”
“…!”
Sigh. She didn’t listen when I told her not to come over earlier, but she hears this loud and clear.
She seized my outstretched hand. I pulled her close, wrapped an arm around her waist, and hoisted her up so she could cling to my side. Then… I leaped.
Thud. Thud. Thud. The sound of the enraged monster’s charge echoed down the hallway. The elevator was too risky.
No way I was waiting for those doors to close.
So instead—
Bang.
I flung open the emergency stairwell door and vaulted straight over the railing.
“Hiiiieeeek!”
Crash!
The weight of two people slammed into the landing with a deafening boom.
I tried to lower my stance as much as possible to absorb the impact, but the brutal recoil still rattled my entire body.
Still, I couldn’t exactly perform a proper roll with someone dangling off me, could I?
That monster didn’t look particularly agile. With any luck, it wouldn’t be able to keep up with this speed.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
Good.
If I kept leaping over railings like this to put as much distance as possible and pull aggro away—!
“Stop! Hic! Stop it!!”
The woman, who had been headbanging from the repeated shocks and speed, finally managed to speak.
???
After I went out of my way to help her, and this is how she thanks me…?
“Listen! Listen to the sound!”
“???”
“It’s not chasing us anymore!”
Ah.
I stopped my frantic feet.
Whew. Looks like we lost it.
Lee Han, the Dark Knight who cannot ignore the weak.
Oh dear, I told myself to only be moderately cool! Isn’t this a bit too awesome?
I turned to the side, expecting to see sparkling eyes full of admiration for their savior.
“By the way, where are we?”
“…? The stairwell.”
“No… we were on the second floor earlier. It feels like we’ve gone down about five floors?”
“Huh?”
Only then did the surrounding scenery register.
A wide, pristine staircase with a glossy beige finish.
It smelled nothing like the musty, stale stairwell of Neulbom Villa. This was the kind of scent you’d expect in a brand-new apartment complex.
A large sign was mounted on the wall.
<37/36>
“Thirty-seventh floor… thirty-sixth floor…?”
“Are we trapped in another strange place, Mr. Lee Han?”
How the hell do you know my name again!
Dark circles under her eyes. Common black bob haircut you’d see anywhere in Korea. Slightly droopy eyes that gave her a gentle appearance.
Wait…?
“Ji-soo?”
“…You didn’t already know when you helped me?”