Chapter 98: We Partied Too Lavishly
The night they celebrated Christmas by clinging to each other and having wild, messy sex.
When Kim Jun woke up the next morning, the two beautiful girls had already vanished without a trace.
“Where did those girls go?”
The moment he sat up in bed and planted his feet on the floor, his legs trembled so badly he nearly collapsed.
They’d gone at it until dawn—sucking, biting, draining him dry like they were idols or succubi—then fallen asleep together in bed. Now he opened his eyes and they were gone.
Kim Jun washed up in the bathroom and slowly dried his hair. That was when he heard knocking at the door.
Knock. Knock.
“It’s open!”
The door clicked open and Mari stepped inside.
“Merry Christmas, oppa~♥”
“Yeah. Merry Christmas.”
Today was the holy day of Christmas.
Mari, who had come to treat the homeowner Kim Jun, entered with a faint blush on her cheeks.
“Here, let me treat you.”
“Ow! That stings… go easy…”
The second she started unwrapping the bandages, sharp pain flared up and Kim Jun let out a short cry.
Mari paused while removing the gauze. Something felt off.
“Hmm?!”
“What’s wrong?”
After she finished removing the bandages, instead of continuing the usual dressing, she suddenly tilted her head. Kim Jun asked again.
But instead of answering, she leaned in and sniffed his arm.
She sniffed a few times, then stood up as if something wasn’t right.
She wandered around the room, following an odd scent, until she stopped in front of the trash can.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Hmmm…”
Mari crouched in front of the trash can, sniffed again, then yanked the lid off and stuck her nose inside.
She stared at the pile of used tissues, sniffed once more, then quickly closed the lid.
“Hmmm.”
“…”
“So that’s what happened, huh?”
After sniffing the trash, Mari returned to Kim Jun and resumed treating him.
Kim Jun stayed silent as she quietly went about her work, clearly having picked up on the surrounding smells.
She disinfected the torn wound, applied antiseptic to the stitched area, placed fresh gauze, and wrapped it. Only then did she speak.
“Oppa, why does it smell like this?”
“Smell like what?”
“Hmmm… something’s rising up from you?”
The girl who had been sniffing nonstop since she walked in, now openly calling him out after he pretended not to know…
Kim Jun simply laughed. Mari looked at his face and continued.
“Because it’s Christmas… you did it with that body?”
“Huh?”
“It’s obvious you were with someone… I can clearly smell ‘that’.”
Even while saying she knew everything, Mari meticulously finished dressing the wound on the left side of his torso.
Back when it was just one or two girls, it might have been different. But now that everyone knew everything, a subtle atmosphere of “Who did you sleep with besides me?” seemed to linger between them.
“You won’t be able to move this arm properly for another week.”
“Got it. I won’t go outside until then.”
“So… after Christmas passes and a week goes by, it’ll be the New Year…”
“?!”
When Kim Jun widened his eyes, Mari had been aiming for exactly that reaction.
Someone unknown had visited his room on Christmas night for a full round of sex, but she was sending a clear signal not to forget her on New Year’s.
It was basically a scheduled sex appointment. Looked like that day was going to turn into a mandatory defense battle.
After finishing the dressing, Kim Jun stepped outside and saw the girls pacing around nervously. He asked,
“Why is everyone acting like this since morning?”
“Oppa, the water stopped coming out.”
“What are you talking about? I just showered a little while ago.”
At Gaya’s words, Kim Jun immediately went to the bathroom and turned on the hose, but nothing came out. Complete silence.
Clear groundwater had been flowing just an hour ago. Something was definitely wrong.
“In Ah and Do Kyung went down below just now.”
“Is there a problem with the well?”
That was when it happened.
“Kyaaaaaah!!! Kyaaaaaah!”
“D-don’t come this way! Kyaaaaaah!!!”
“!?”
The two idols’ screams echoed throughout the house. Kim Jun reflexively rushed to the wardrobe and grabbed a weapon.
The other girls tensed up, wondering what was going on, and Eun Ji opened the door first to check outside.
“What is it?”
“Unnie! Over here!!! Kyaaaaaah!!!”
Kim Jun immediately dashed out. Eun Ji, Gaya, Emily, and the others hurriedly followed.
The two girls came running out in a complete panic, stomping their feet. The moment they saw Kim Jun, they threw themselves into his arms.
There were no signs of zombies anywhere, yet they were trembling violently. It looked like they had seen something truly horrifying.
“What the hell is going on with you two?”
“I-inside the storage… the storage…!!!”
Even with her large build, Do Kyung was shaking so hard she couldn’t finish her sentence. Kim Jun opened the door, sensing something was seriously wrong.
“Oppa! A mouse…”
“What?”
“M-mouse, mouse, mouse!!!!”
“…There’s a mouse inside?”
At the word “mouse,” the other girls flinched in fear.
Some of them had used crossbows or slingshots to blow zombies’ heads off, yet the mere mention of a mouse left them completely flustered. It was both ridiculous and serious at the same time.
Kim Jun gripped the axe and stepped inside. The generator wires on the camper and the well pump had been completely chewed up.
“Ah, fuck…”
Not only had the mice gnawed through the wires, but there were mouse droppings all over the floor where the rice sacks were stacked.
The food storage had been contaminated. The moment Kim Jun rummaged around inside, rice poured down onto his body.
Shhhhhhhrrrrr—
“!”
Unprocessed rice with husks poured down in a cascade. Every sack had holes chewed through it. He instinctively realized they were screwed.
“Goddamn it!”
Bang!
The moment an enraged Kim Jun punched the wall, a mouse darted out.
Bang! Bang!
Squeak— Squeak squeak—
Outside, they heard Kim Jun cursing and the sound of a mouse squealing. Do Kyung and In Ah instinctively backed away.
“Eek! Mouse! Mouse!”
“Why are you so scared of…”
In that situation, Eun Ji calmly picked up a nearby steel pipe and prepared to catch it if it came running out.
A moment later the door opened. The girls freaked out when they saw the axe covered in blood.
“Hoo… caught one.”
“Eek! Don’t come over here!”
Kim Jun told them to bring bleach, washed the axe, used tongs to pick up the mouse corpse, and threw it over the wall.
Having to deal with this first thing in the morning was enough to break anyone’s mentality. In the end, they decided to skip washing that morning and simply boiled ramen using bottled water.
“After we eat, we need to check inside… haaa…”
“How much did the mice eat?”
When Rana and Mari, who had only heard about the morning commotion later, asked, Kim Jun let out a deep sigh.
Eun Ji then explained the situation after inspecting the storage.
“The mice chewed through all the wires. And the rice we eat… we have to throw it all away.”
“Oh no, what are we going to do?”
They had generously stockpiled food in the storage, but now it looked like they might have to discard everything.
“Even if the mice ate some… couldn’t we just wash it and use it?”
When Emily asked, the others stared at her with dead-serious expressions. Mari explained with visible discomfort.
“That could cause a disaster! We don’t have vaccines. What are you going to do if we get the plague or hemorrhagic fever?”
“Is it that dangerous? Won’t the virus die if we boil it?”
“Are you crazy?! If people eat rice that mice have chewed on, everyone will collapse!”
It was something they couldn’t have imagined in the old days, but now that all medical infrastructure had collapsed, every grain of rice inside was considered contaminated.
And it wasn’t just the rice. Repairing the chewed-up wires meant they wouldn’t be able to rest at all.
“Everyone gather after we finish eating. All eight of us are working today.”
“Ugh, there aren’t more mice in there, right?”
“Jun oppa caught one earlier.”
“That was just one!”
The ones who had taught everyone how to install and wire electronics were In Ah and Do Kyung. Unfortunately, both of them were terrified of mice and didn’t want to go inside.
“Crazy… you guys killed zombies but you’re scared of mice…”
Emily said that if it was that bad, she would go in herself. Eun Ji quietly raised her hand as well.
“I’ll help.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
***
When everyone gathered in front of the storage, Kim Jun put on a mask and gloves, then handed In Ah the modified fire extinguisher sprayer he had brought last time.
“If you really can’t go inside, just spray the area around the outside thoroughly.”
After telling her to clean the surroundings with the sprayer filled with bleach, he left the exterior to Gaya.
“Eun Ji, take the kids and wipe everything down. Rana and Nanika, grab brooms.”
“Yes! Everyone gather. Let’s clean the outside.”
He called Do Kyung and Emily over for the heavy lifting.
“From now on we need to take out all the undamaged rice. Carry out whatever I hand you and stack it next to the car.”
“Okay!”
“Yes, I will.”
“Mari, in storage number two there’s some flooring we brought from the hardware store last time. Bring it and lay it out here.”
“Yes!”
After assigning each task, Kim Jun went inside with Eun Ji.
Inside the eerily quiet storage, Kim Jun first sorted out the rice sacks the mice hadn’t touched and pulled them out. Emily and Do Kyung grunted as they carried the heavy sacks.
While the idols did backbreaking labor, Kim Jun tried to clean the entire storage.
“Oh my, this one too…”
“Ah, fuck, seriously…”
The little bastards had cleverly gone for the rice deeper inside.
Because of that, they had to pull everything out from the top one by one. Just removing all the rice took a considerable amount of time.
This was the foundation of the abundant life they had enjoyed so far. He never imagined they would end up throwing away so much precious rice.
I guess we got too complacent…
The mice had eaten four entire sacks—over 100 kilograms in total.
As Emily said, washing and eating it was too dangerous, but throwing it away would be like throwing away blood.
“Mari!”
“Yes, oppa! I’ve laid out all the flooring.”
“Spray this right away!”
“Huh?”
Kim Jun dragged over a sack that was leaking rice from the holes the mice had chewed and set it on the flooring Mari had spread out.
Then they heard the sound of another creature inside.
Squeak— Squeak!
“Oh! Over there!”
The moment another mouse squeaked, Kim Jun moved to catch it, but Eun Ji rushed in first and began smashing it with the steel pipe.
Bang! Bang!
“There it is! There!”
The mouse that had been dodging Eun Ji’s swings quickly climbed up the window wires and escaped outside. In Ah, who had been spraying disinfectant, let out a scream.
“Hoo…”
It looked like they would be fighting a war against mice rather than zombies for the time being.
There was only one mouse now, but if cockroaches, rice weevils, or moths got in and destroyed all their precious food, they needed to come up with countermeasures immediately.