Waking Up as a Sickly Beautiful Girl in Hell
I ended up inside a zombie apocalypse novel.
So there was this novel. It uploaded six chapters a day like clockwork, and the author must have made some real money off it. The kind of story that set the gallery on fire in every sense of the word, good or bad. It was a zombie apocalypse tale, entertaining enough in its own way. But the author would occasionally do something stupid and hand readers the perfect excuse to roast him alive. I know because I stabbed at those moments plenty of times myself. Honestly, you don't understand how fun it is to run the hate train until you've done it. The only pitiful ones were the author and the regulars who had to keep the gallery from burning down during those frenzies. Still, I read it with genuine enjoyment. No, it was genuinely a lot of fun. I followed it all the way to the ending and cheered for it in my heart. Of course I'd counted more than a few dozen author-killing moments, but I overcame them. Since I'd helped raise the author that strongly, it was a win-win, right? The readers who enjoyed the gallery bait and the fun story, and the author who grew tough and cashed in.
"Fuck."
That said, I hadn't enjoyed it enough to actually want to be sucked into the damn thing. Every time I woke up, I'd desperately pray this would all turn out to be a dream. But the universe had other plans. It was always, always reality.
I pulled off the cat-ear headset I'd been wearing, staggered into the bathroom, and flipped the light switch on the off chance the power was still running. Of course it wasn't. The water wouldn't work either. Thank god I'd filled the bathtub beforehand.
"Sigh."
In the dark bathroom, a beautiful girl stared back at me from the mirror with lifeless eyes. Slowly I raised both hands, covered my face, and dragged them down. A heavenly beauty no human could possibly be. That was me. Me. Fuck. It was me.
Even if it had been a regular pretty girl, I could've at least made some self-deprecating jokes. But a sickly beautiful girl? What the hell kind of trope was that?
The skin of this silver-haired, red-eyed beauty couldn't be called healthy even as a stretch. It was deathly pale, giving off an eerie atmosphere, and her wrists and ankles looked thin enough to snap like twigs. It was so ridiculous I couldn't even laugh. A sickly beautiful girl in a world like this, where survival was already next to impossible. If it had at least been my original body, it would've been a little better. Sure, I'd put on some weight, but I wasn't weak. With some effort I might've even evolved into a muscle pig here.
"Haaaa........."
A sigh rose from the very bottom of my chest. The realization that I had to keep living in this godforsaken hell. It just made everything feel utterly fucking shitty. I hadn't noticed while reading the novel, but this was one seriously fucked-up setting. It was a zombie apocalypse, but not really a zombie apocalypse. Confused? Yeah, me too. I'd read it with my brain switched off. But I still remembered the general idea.
The zombie virus in this novel wasn't man-made in some lab. It started as a respiratory disease that broke out in China, mutated again and again until it became the zombie virus. But unlike typical zombie viruses, getting bitten didn't infect you right away. Every survivor was already infected. There was no such thing as immunity or antibodies. The difference was that unlike those who turned immediately after their incubation period ended, you only started turning into a zombie after all life functions completely stopped. That meant you could be rough with your body. No need to burn or cut off a bite wound just because you got nicked.
So how did they handle the usual zombie tropes then? Simple. The author had come up with a pretty decent setting. If you didn't turn immediately after incubation, the zombie virus would mutate inside the body. During that process the host's physical abilities would strengthen, and they'd gain special powers. Not that the powers were anything special. You couldn't use telekinesis or anything cool. Just becoming extremely durable or extremely fast. That was about it.
And when a host carrying this mutated zombie virus died, they became a new variant. They kept the abilities they'd developed in life and became a threat to the survivors.
But it didn't stop there. These damn zombies could even reproduce. External fertilization, internal fertilization, self-replication—they did it all. So once a variant appeared, its subspecies would swarm out in droves. In short, it was a world where you didn't get to die easily and instead suffered for a very long time.
Why am I explaining all this in detail?
"Fuck."
It's really fucking simple. Because I'd run out of food and drinking water.
Once I realized I'd been reincarnated into the novel, I'd hurriedly spent all my money on preparations. I'd stacked my studio apartment with food, bought a ridiculous amount of bottled water, and filled the bathtub before the water got cut off. I'd even bought a baseball bat just in case, thinking future me would figure it out. Not preparing anything more than that was a regret that would haunt me for life.
"Still, I managed to last two weeks."
I swallowed the rest of that thought—so that counts for something, right?
I slowly walked over to the veranda and looked down. It was pure hell down there. As horrifying as the gallery with no moderators. Zombies swarming together to tear at human flesh, variants wandering around here and there. Survivors? The few who charged in with pathetic weapons all got their skulls cracked open and became food.
"Look at those fuckers, still leaving a few without eating them all even in the middle of that."
When a survivor died and began turning into a zombie, their missing body parts would regenerate during the process. Losing a limb or two was no big deal. As if they knew it instinctively, the zombies were only eating the survivors within the range that could still be regenerated. No, fuck. Just kill them properly then. Instead they were nibbling away at the flesh bit by bit, not letting them die. What a bunch of shitty bastards.
"........................."
I knew it instinctively. It was time to go outside. The option of dying had never been on the table. All that talk about human dignity was nothing but bullshit. I wanted to live. I wanted to survive. I'd keep on living no matter what, you bastards.
"Fuck my life."
Feeling like I'd only get more depressed, I left the veranda and searched the studio apartment. I'd already eaten everything, but it was worth checking if there was anything left to put in my mouth. And as expected, there was nothing. Not even a single cracker crumb or a drop of water. It was obvious I'd desperately scraped up and eaten every last bit while holding on.
Fine. No other choice then.
"It's pretty heavy."
I picked up the baseball bat I'd left standing in the living room. I gave it a few light swings. The grip felt good. The grip felt good, at least.
".............Sigh."
Five times. With this frail body, five full-power swings seemed to be my limit. After that I'd probably be unable to move and just gasping for breath for a while. Considering I needed stamina to run away, two swings was probably my realistic limit. If it had been my original body, I could've swung it a few more times.
"That fucking author bastard. Couldn't even send me the raws? I read all the way to the ending, at least."
With only the vague knowledge of the original story in my head, surviving seemed hopeless. If I was lucky enough to meet the protagonist it might be okay, but this novel was an erotic one. The protagonist was an insanely overpowered munchkin. It was only natural that I'd get my ass kicked. Me, the one who used to spam the gallery with posts calling TS novels mental BL. It was only natural I didn't even want to think about any of that.
"......................................."
First, getting out of this officetel was the priority. Then I'd run to the shopping district and secure food and water. A PC bang should have something, so heading there seemed like the way to go. I'd avoid encountering zombies as much as possible during the process, and pick up some money too. Even just 500 won coins would be fine. In this world, 500 won coins functioned as promissory notes. I didn't know why, but the author had set it up that way, so that's how it was.
"First I need to cross the road though."
The shopping area was across the street. So I'd go down, exit the officetel building, then run across the road to reach it. It was a sloppy plan that I could only describe as "it'll work out somehow." Of course it was. The novel's setting was a university, not some officetel like this, so it couldn't help being sloppy. That protagonist bastard had been able to leech off everything on a university campus. A character like me, barely surviving in an officetel, was never even given any spotlight. Well, I was mentioned, but by that point the power inflation had reached the level where non-variant zombies were nothing but trash mobs. So the only useful thing I had in this situation was some basic information about zombie ecology. But did that actually help? Not really. That damn hipster author had classified the zombie ecology and behaviors using swear words. So the zombies screaming around the house. He could've just used numbers for the stages, but no, he deliberately used curses. How annoying. "Fucking shit" was stage 1. "Fuck, fucking shit" was stage 2. "Fucking fucking shit, fuck" was stage 3. Stage 4 was "Those motherfuckers are fucking disgusting." Of course, now that I was experiencing it myself, those exact curses were coming out of my mouth. But that didn't make it any less pathetic. He probably thought he was being so original.
"................................"
I slowly got dressed, pulled out the bag I'd used to go to university, emptied out everything inside it, then slung it on my back. I picked up the baseball bat. There was no time to rest. I'd already slept plenty before waking up; I wouldn't be able to sleep more anyway. Adjust for the time of day? The setting wasn't that zombies were sensitive during the day and dull at night. They tore apart survivors regardless of whether it was day or night. So leaving now, in the bright morning, was the right choice. Honestly, I was incredibly scared, but there was no other option. If I didn't want to die, I had to do this. I had to survive somehow.
So I slowly opened the front door, holding it while looking to the left. Then I looked to the right and got so startled that I let go of the door. The front door slammed shut with a bang, and the lock clicked into place.
"........Grr?"
"Fuck."
First strike wins. I smashed the head of the college student zombie from next door—who was still trying to process the situation—and ran for my life.