The Judo Teacher's Last Stand
As expected, several zombies were clustered in front of the gymnasium doors. They must have been students who had come to use the gym during lunch. One was still wearing a short-sleeved gym top and shorts, while another dragged a leg that had snapped at the knee and bent at a grotesque angle, its sneaker scraping across the floor as it stubbornly circled the entrance. A third had the back of its skull half-caved in yet still wasn’t fully dead; it kept bumping its forehead against the door with dull, repetitive thuds. Their uniforms were so soaked in blood and filth that their original colors were impossible to guess. Their faces had been chewed and torn until they no longer held any recognizable expression. Only their mouths moved with obscene life, opening and closing without pause. Slack jaws hung half-unhinged, leaking dark blood and thick strands of saliva, while wet, rattling gurgles bubbled up from their throats.
Ha-neul didn’t slow down. A handful of zombies like this posed no real danger. The problem was the noise. Killing them would create sound, and sound would bring more. So she had to end it fast, clean, and with zero wasted movement.
The moment she raised her sword, the closest one—the student still in gym clothes—reacted. Its cloudy eyes twitched, then its whole body spun and lunged at her. The dragging steps were slow, but the last two or three suddenly snapped forward like a released spring. Disgust flickered across Ha-neul’s face. She shifted sideways with minimal effort, letting it pass, and brought her blade across its neck in a clean arc.
Schunk.
The sword whispered through flesh. For a split second the head stayed balanced on the stump, then slid sideways off the shoulder like a loose hat. Blood fountained from the severed neck, pooling across the floor. Before the body even finished collapsing, Ha-neul had already turned her attention to the next target. She hadn’t swung hard; the recoil was light and the edge hadn’t caught deep on bone.
The second zombie was the one with the shattered leg. As Ha-neul began to pivot her blade, Chae-won moved from the side. The broken mop handle in her grip shot upward with surgical precision, spearing under the creature’s jaw and driving straight into the base of its skull. A wet thunk sounded. She yanked the handle free and stepped back smoothly.
Ha-neul glanced at her and allowed a faint smile to touch her lips. Not bad. Chae-won hadn’t stayed hidden in the back—she’d read the flow and linked her attack perfectly.
The third zombie was the one still knocking its ruined head against the door. Its movements were sluggish from the brain damage, making the kill almost trivial. Ha-neul flicked the blood from her blade with a short snap. The sword felt good in her hand—still perfectly balanced, the edge unspoiled.
Chae-won watched her for a moment. She had known about Ha-neul’s exceptional swordsmanship, but seeing it applied to living flesh and bone was something else entirely.
“The blade really is still perfect,” she said.
“If you swing wildly, it dulls fast,” Ha-neul answered. The reply was plain, carrying neither boast nor false modesty. Just simple fact.
Ha-neul reached for the door handle. Fortunately—or unfortunately—it wasn’t locked. She met Chae-won’s eyes once, then turned the handle and pushed the door open with excruciating slowness. The metal hinges let out a long, mournful creeeak.
The interior of the gymnasium was darker than expected. Normally the high ceiling lights and windows along the second-floor bleachers would have flooded the space with brightness. Today one bank of lights was dead, and the remaining windows were smeared with bloody handprints and streaks, turning the incoming sunlight a sickly, muddy color.
Thick training mats lay tangled across the wide floor. Some had been dragged into hasty barricades and abandoned halfway. Others remained neatly arranged. Between the heavy judo mats, a single sneaker, a water bottle, a towel, and a whistle lay scattered like forgotten toys. And there was blood. A thick smear stretched across one section of floor where someone had clearly been dragged, and bloody handprints stood out sharply on several mats. A few student corpses lay where they had fallen.
But no zombies.
Perhaps most of the people inside had panicked and fled toward the athletic field early on, taking the undead with them. Or maybe someone had already cleaned the place out. Ha-neul prodded one of the bodies with her sword. It flopped sideways with a dull thud, revealing the crushed back of its skull. The floor nearby showed clear marks where something heavy had been repeatedly slammed down. That sounded like Yoon Eun-ah’s style. Other corpses showed heads caved in by blunt force.
Their gazes naturally drifted toward the far side of the gym—to the storage room door set into the wall where equipment was kept. It was closed.
Chae-won stepped up and knocked.
“Is anyone in there?”
No answer.
She spoke again, clearer this time. “It’s Seo Chae-won. We came down from the kendo club room. Kang Ha-neul is with me.”
Silence stretched for several long seconds. The quiet felt heavier than it should. Ha-neul’s mind ran through possibilities: the person inside might already be bitten and mindless, or waiting to ambush them the moment the door opened. She lowered her stance slightly, sword ready.
Then came a sound from within—something metal scraping across the floor, a deep breath, and a low, wary voice.
“…Teacher Chae-won?”
The moment she heard it, Ha-neul knew. It was Yoon Eun-ah. The voice that usually rang out bright and crisp when calling students’ names during gym class now trembled with the caution of someone who had been holding her breath for far too long.
“It’s me, Teacher Eun-ah. Kang Ha-neul,” she called back.
Another pause. Then the sound of heavy objects being moved—one by one. The barricade of equipment she had piled against the door was being cleared. Finally came the click of a latch.
The door swung open.
Yoon Eun-ah stood there in her gym clothes, utterly drenched in sweat, blood, and dust. The fabric clung to her body like a second skin, especially across her upper body. The soaked material molded so tightly to her that it was impossible not to notice the sharp definition of her shoulders, the heavy swell of her breasts, and the powerful, toned lines of her torso. Sweat had darkened the cloth in streaks along her sides and chest, emphasizing both raw sensuality and the dense muscle earned through years of athletic training. Dried blood was smeared across her cheeks and arms. In one hand she gripped a heavy metal dumbbell. She must have used it to crush skulls.
The instant Ha-neul confirmed she was alive, relief flooded through her. Right behind it came a different heat. The sight of Eun-ah’s sweat-soaked gym clothes glued to every curve was far more raw than she had anticipated. The lines normally hidden beneath loose athletic wear were now blatantly on display, and every ragged breath made her heavy chest rise and fall with obvious weight. The combination created a strangely fierce, intensely carnal atmosphere.
In any other situation, Ha-neul might have questioned why such thoughts surfaced first. Instead she simply let out a small, amused huff. Yoon Eun-ah was alive, just as expected—and far more intense than expected.
When the door opened wider, Eun-ah’s tense expression shattered in an instant.
“…It really was you two.”
She stepped forward almost reflexively and pulled Ha-neul into a fierce embrace. Powerful arms wrapped around her back. The heat of Eun-ah’s body burned through the soaked fabric, and her breathing—still rough like she had just finished a match—washed over Ha-neul. Her face was pressed between soft, heavy breasts and a firm shoulder, the dense, elastic pressure squeezing against her. Then Eun-ah suddenly stiffened as she realized something. Her gaze slid past Ha-neul’s shoulder.
Chae-won was standing right there.
Eun-ah jerked back as if burned. The relief on her face flipped instantly to awkward embarrassment. She cleared her throat unnecessarily.
“Ah, no… I mean, once I saw you were alive, I just…”
Her words trailed off. The usual bold, straightforward Yoon Eun-ah would have brushed off a hug like that without a second thought. The slight panic in her voice now was telling.
Ha-neul swallowed a laugh, keeping it internal. The reaction was honestly kind of cute.
Chae-won looked between them but didn’t seem to catch the deeper meaning behind the brief embrace. In this situation, hugging a fellow survivor wasn’t strange at all.
She spoke first. “I’m glad you’re alive. You’ve been holding out in here?”
Eun-ah quickly composed herself. Given the circumstances, she snapped back into focus with impressive speed.
“Early on, a bunch of students rushed into the gym. They were tripping over each other, screaming—it was total chaos. Then the bitten ones went crazy and started attacking. I tried to drag the closest ones into the storage room, but we got separated halfway…”
She glanced down at the blood on the end of her dumbbell.
“After I locked the door, I had to deal with a few more myself. I threw them, tripped them, then smashed their heads with this thing. I hit them so many times I thought my arm might fall off. But I couldn’t stop. If I did, I was finished.”
“You did well,” Chae-won said. “The most important thing is that you’re safe, Teacher Eun-ah.”
Some of the tension left Eun-ah’s shoulders. Ha-neul felt her own body relax a fraction as well. Knowing Eun-ah was alive—and that she had held her own this well—was a massive gain in fighting strength. It was exactly what she had hoped for. The mental image of her grabbing zombies by the collar and slamming their heads into the floor no longer felt like fantasy. Looking at the bloody dumbbell and the wrecked state of the storage room, it was clear she had done exactly that.
Chae-won asked the crucial question. “You weren’t bitten, right?”
Eun-ah immediately spread both arms and turned in a slow circle. Her gym clothes were filthy, but there were no teeth marks or torn flesh visible.
“It’s all someone else’s blood. Nothing got through the clothes. No scratches, no bites.”
As they spoke, the faint sound of dragging feet drifted in from outside the gymnasium—far away but unmistakable. All three of them tensed at once. They had only just caught their breath, but the real problems were only beginning. Confirming Eun-ah’s survival didn’t make the school safe. If anything, now that their group had grown to three, they needed to decide their next move even faster.
Ha-neul lowered her sword and looked at Eun-ah.
“I’m really glad you’re alive.”
Despite her exhaustion, Eun-ah flashed a tired grin.
“Same goes for you.”
The air inside the gymnasium was still damp and thick with the metallic stench of blood. Yet in this place that had felt like a tomb only moments ago, the breathing of three living survivors now filled the space. That fact alone was enough to push the fear a little farther away.