Taboo
Something glinted.
"Oh!"
There was an item under the work counter.
What's this?
It looked like nothing more than an ordinary brick. I scanned it with the app at once.
"Oh, it was a whetstone?"
I went straight for the options. Sharpening a blade with it amplifies cutting power for a set time? I couldn't get a feel for what that actually meant. A whetstone already makes an edge keener, doesn't it?
"What did you find?"
"Heh. An E-grade item."
I showed her the whetstone.
"Wow... Jaeha, your luck is really..."
"I told you, didn't I? I'm a little lucky. Hehehe."
"But how do you find an item every single time? Even when I go through all that..."
Sia, out of nowhere, started digging at the ground.
"Well? If you want to ride this luck, you'll have to stick with me. The big hospital, too."
"I'll think about it."
Tch. Not even that would sway her. Might as well sharpen the hand axe first.
Water on it first.
There were hunter videos on whetstone work. The stone hissed along the edge—shhk, shhk, shhk—and the work itself wasn't hard. Fifty strokes on one side, fifty on the other, then thirty each, and a finishing ten.
Oh. That actually took.
Excellent, for a first try. The edge was smooth, no grit left in it. I gave a cutting board a light tap, just to see.
It split clean through.
"Huh!"
It split? This had gone well past sharp or not.
So this is what amplified cutting power means.
At that level, it was fair to say the weapon's grade itself had been pulled up a tier. The one worry was that the whetstone was a consumable.
But this is an item.
Unlike an ordinary whetstone, repairing it at the shop would make it new again. Infinite use.
Heh heh heh.
To strike it rich in a pig's-trotter joint, of all places. What was the shopping district going to turn up?
On the way out, I caught a human shadow near the mouth of the district.
A person?
I looked to Yoo Sia to see what she meant to do. She dragged me back into the shop.
"Even if we cross them, we greet them and peel off."
"Why? Weren't you going to link up with the other hunters?"
Was there a reason to change the plan?
"It's safer if it's just the two of us now. We can use stealth strikes."
"Aha."
If we were killing quietly, fewer was safer. More people only meant more noise.
"It'll be a problem when we find an exit, too."
"That's true."
The slots could fill again, same as last time.
"Still, running into hunters is a good thing. The shopping district will get cleared faster."
"True. Then we should get going too."
"Yeah. Let's go."
As we drew near the district, the other side noticed us and stopped. I raised a hand and waved, big and obvious. They waved back. Glad to see us, most likely. Clearing all of it themselves would have been too much.
She poked my side twice and pointed into a large sportswear store. I nodded. We picked our way in, careful of the glass.
"Grrrrk."
"Grrrrr."
I marked where the zombies were and signed their positions to Yoo Sia. From the left, where she had gone in, came the dull crack of a kill. I took the one in front of me and brought the axe down.
The skull gave like tofu split in half.
Hah!
I barely caught the body as it dropped. My stomach lurched. A second later and I would have woken the others.
If I'd missed that catch—!
The nape of my neck went cold just picturing it.
How is it this sharp?!
Nothing like the test tap. An edge like this might even drop a Stage 2. Not that I had any plans to test the theory. I finished the rest with my strength held in check.
Then glass crunched behind me.
A hunter stood there, waving as if in greeting.
Have I ever seen manners this dogshit?
There is a code among hunters. You wave when you meet, to show you have no intent to attack. You don't scan another person's things without leave. You don't dump your aggro onto someone else. You don't follow another party into a building they've already entered. Coming in late, above all, was taboo. You might be taken for a zombie and struck, or make a sound. And how were you supposed to know they wouldn't put a blade in your back?
So I set my stance instead of waving back. He stowed the weapon in his subspace bag, lifted both hands, and backed out of the store.
Why the hell did he follow us in?
Heat climbed up my neck.
Clear first.
Yoo Sia was still working alone. I had to help.
The store was clear when he walked back in.
"Hiii."
He's really trying to get under my skin.
I went to meet him without putting the axe away.
"What do you want?"
It didn't come out nicely.
"Ah, nothing much. Let's party up?"
"No. We'll go on our own."
"Ha, seriously. Sorry for walking in earlier. I was gonna help you clear, and you're prickly as fuck."
What is this? Is he picking a fight?
"There's four of us, yeah? Stick with us and we farm way faster. How about we start right here?"
What the hell did he even hear?
"I just said we'll go by ourselves."
"Huh? Just you two? Hahaha."
He drew a weapon from his subspace bag.
"We got to this shopping district first, you know? If you're gonna be that uncooperative, fuck off."
It felt like my brain was melting. My grip tightened on the hand axe. To think someone would pick a fight in a place like this. I couldn't let a provocation this cheap drag me in. I held onto reason as hard as I could.
"We came here clearing zombies, with this shopping district as our goal. Let's each do our own thing. Quietly."
Crunch. Crackle. Three more people came in behind him.
"Wooseong, the hell are you doing? If you're done clearing, hurry up and farm."
"Oh. Other hunters."
"Hello."
They sauntered through the greeting. How had trash like this even made the second floor? Their gear looked decent enough. Some of what they had on might even have been items.
Annoying.
Fighting wasn't a good idea. Simply backing down wasn't either.
"All of you, please leave. We cleared this place first."
"Oh dear. We only came to ask if you'd like to travel together."
"That bastard Wooseong start shit again?"
"Dumbass threw another fit."
"The fuck are you talking about. He started it."
Drums, gongs, the whole performance—among themselves.
"Excuse me? Did this guy say something to start a fight?"
"We went in first. He followed us in."
I answered the one who seemed halfway sane.
"Aw, come on. That much is fine, isn't it?"
"Nah, I was tryna help him clear and the bastard threw a tantrum."
"That was way too much! He was trying to help!"
Just standing there listening, I boiled. Something ugly was on its way out of my mouth when Yoo Sia stepped in.
"Jaeha. Let's just go."
"Haa. All right. Let's go."
We slipped past them and out through the shattered glass wall.
"Whoa, the hell is that? He's walking around with a woman? This is the Tower, right?"
"Oh, so that's why he was acting all tough."
Barking, from behind us. Third-rate thugs, the lot of them.
"Hey! You!"
They shouted loud enough to ring across the shopping district.
These crazy bastards!
A bottle whistled through the air and burst. They'd even thrown a beer bottle.
"Haha, don't be so scared. We already cleared the area. Come here a second."
The one with the best-looking gear beckoned. I asked Yoo Sia what she thought. I was only a passenger being carried. I had no business acting on my own.
"We can't walk away like this. If they come at us, we put them down."
"Good."
Permission granted. I walked back toward them.
"The lady over there? We're acquainted, aren't we?"
Acquainted? I looked at Yoo Sia.
"And what do you want me to do about it?"
She answered, flat.
"It's been a while. Thought we might travel together."
"I already said no."
She said it while pointing at me.
"Oh, so you picked up a boyfriend since then?"
"Hehehe. That boyfriend doesn't look like he's got long. Dump him. Dump him."
"Guys who play squad leader don't live long. That's the rule."
This wasn't going to pass quietly.
"I'll say this one last time. We have no intention of traveling with you, so stop picking fights and go on your way."
"Whoa! Noona, you're a real alpha, huh?"
"Noona's scaaary!"
"We're telling you, it's safer with us!"
Yoo Sia shot me a glance.
"They don't seem to understand words."
I nodded.
"As they say, this is the medicine for a mad dog."
I drew a baseball bat.
"Haa, seriously. I said we should do this nicely."
"You drew first. Remember that."
They drew too.
But—
"Whoa. They're pulling blades? Are they insane?"
I'd brought out a wooden bat, meaning only to knock some sense into them. They'd drawn sashimi knives, meaning to kill.
"Jaeha, I don't think we can go easy. Please step back."
Yoo Sia drew her hammer. She was angry now, too.
"Noona's not gonna get hit, so step back. I'll only discipline that one."
"Bite down," Yoo Sia said.
No sound of her closing the distance.
The hammer ruined his arm.
"Gyaaaaaah!!!"
"Hah!"
"Hey, you lunatic! Shut up!"
"Oh, shit!"
Damn. That scream is too loud.
Yoo Sia, the one who had wrecked the arm, seized my hand.
"Run!"
We ran. We hadn't gotten far.
"Huh?! Sia?"
"Hold still."
She hauled me onto her back and took off. And then the sound came down.
A vast groan. A shriek. A wet, tearing bellow. Enormous cries cinched in around the shopping district from every side. Before the second wave could crash over us—
"Krwooooor!"
"Kweeeek!"
"Kraaah!"
We barely made the base. Our feet made no sound, so the swarm bearing down never caught us.
Good thing I set this up beforehand.
I hadn't picked the place as a base for nothing. Furniture, steel plates—I'd camouflaged the entrance with whatever I could scavenge. We climbed to the second floor, kept low, and watched the horde stream toward the shopping district.
Looks like those guys ran.
For now it was a mass of slow zombies, swarming off in one direction. They wouldn't come out of it clean. Run all they liked—more would keep adding on. They'd be fleeing for their lives.
"Haa. I'm sorry."
"Huh?"
"I got worked up and ended up doing it."
"Is that something to apologize for? I feel lighter, if anything."
Enough to make me laugh.
But had Sia gotten angry in my place? If that was it, it was a little moving. She wasn't someone who reached for force first. Not as a rule.
"Were they someone you knew?"
That one had acted familiar.
"We only crossed paths once on the second floor. I don't even know his name."
Of course not. Yoo Sia would never keep company with a man like that. She was a cat of a person—let anyone draw near, and she ran. Well. They wouldn't be crossing paths again.
Ever.