The Bloody Ascent
I ended up inside a zombie apocalypse novel. For now, I couldn't deal with the zombies pouring in from outside. I needed a moment to catch my breath and recover some stamina. So I forced my creaking body to move. Every stride sent a sharp tug through the inside of my knees, and my legs screamed in protest. Still, there was no helping it.
"You must've fought pretty hard."
The inside of the airport, which had probably been the passenger waiting area, was a complete disaster. Corpses were draped over chairs, and chunks of mangled flesh littered the floor. The zombies that should have been patrolling inside the building were now scattered in separate groups, each howling on their own. No wonder they hadn't charged me earlier—their own racket must have drowned out the noise of our fight.
"At least that's something."
The new zombies seemed more likely to head toward the noise than toward me. They'd probably keep making a scene over there for a while. Fortunately, Noh Changhun didn't appear to be among them. He must have thrown something to draw attention before heading upstairs—probably smashed some glass. Either way, it worked in our favor.
"......Uweeegh."
Just as I was sneaking toward the stairs, something went horribly wrong. A thick, dark-red clump suddenly spilled from my mouth. I retched several more times, hacking up more lumps, then scrambled up the corpse-strewn stairs. I knew exactly why I'd vomited that mess. My injured stomach had healed and expelled the pooled blood inside. My instincts told me so. If not, then whatever.
"You...... stupid bastard......"
At the top of the stairs, a long row of partitioned seats had been tipped over, leaving just enough space for one person to squeeze through. It was like the seats were saying, "If you're coming up, do it here." And if I did, I was supposed to shove them down to completely block the stairs. I crawled to the second floor on all fours, then pushed the seats down to seal the staircase. It wouldn't hold for long, but it would buy us some time.
"Haa...... haa...... whew......"
Beopbong in hand, I scanned left first. The passenger boarding area only went up to the second floor, so I was checking because something had to be there. But all that remained were corpses. Bodies were strewn across the counters and the jet bridge corridors. Nothing was moving, which meant I only had to worry about the right side.
I whipped my head around. A massive cluster of zombies had gathered on the right. I wondered if Noh Changhun had thrown something there too, but no—it looked like he was actually over there. Otherwise, the zombies wouldn't have left the corpses behind to come after me. There had to be a few hundred of them. And there was one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.
The good news: all the dangerous variants were gone. The broken crab-like thing was a Poisoner, and the bloated toad with the burst stomach was a Toad. Thanks to Noh Changhun's rampage, only regular zombies and relatively weak variants remained. The bad news: the zombies were more organized than I'd thought. The stairs leading to the third floor were packed with them, but they weren't coming down. They just stood there, waiting for us to climb up. If Noh Changhun were here, he'd explain it properly, but I could always ask him later.
"Hey! Hey!"
I tapped the floor with the tip of Beopbong. Every zombie head snapped toward me at once. It looked like a scene straight out of a horror story. They all stared, then opened their mouths in unison and screamed. But I didn't feel like I was losing. Most of my major wounds had already closed on the way here. I could keep fighting. If things went well, Noh Changhun would come out on his own. He had that much sense, at least.
"Ah, I'm gonna get hit again."
That was the thought that crossed my mind after I knocked down the first few zombies in the front. Even though only about twenty had come at me, it was already overwhelming. Before I could even recover Beopbong, tackles came flying from every direction. I dodged the first two, then somehow avoided the third and smashed a head with Beopbong. But that was it. When I came to, I was sprawled on the floor, only able to twitch my arms and legs. I didn't feel any pain, which was strange—until I realized why. Four or five zombies had me completely pinned. From the sounds of things, Noh Changhun had figured out I was here and was fighting outside. I could tell just from the constant wet explosions. These zombie bastards had tried to neutralize me first so they could gang up on him. That was a mistake. They should've finished me off for good before going after him.
"How long have you been at this......!"
"Grgh?"
"You really think...... you can kill me?!"
The moment I tensed my body, the zombies reacted instantly. Pain flared in my limbs from every direction, and I felt something warm flowing out. Well, one of them was biting my neck, so that made sense. I shoved my left hand into its mouth to hold it open, but if it clamped down, that would be the end. My regeneration was strong, but I wasn't sure it would keep working after my carotid artery was severed. Then power began surging through my body. My body, already burning from the threat of high-level variants upstairs, now felt like it was flooding with new hormones under the threat of death. I didn't know why this only happened when I was on the verge of dying, but whatever. Couldn't it activate a little earlier? Not that it mattered now. The General and the Spider King were both dead.
"If I'm still alive at the end, that means I won!"
"Grgh!?"
I drove my hand deeper into the zombie's mouth, ripped its jaw off, then delivered a quick jab that blew its head apart. I pushed myself up. Beopbong had rolled somewhere far away while I was unconscious. Losing a five-kilogram lump of iron wasn't easy, but I'd just have to find it later. Right now, dealing with the other zombies was the priority. I grabbed the one still chewing on my flesh and shoved it away. Four regular zombies weren't enough to stop me now. Before long, four more corpses joined the pile.
I slowly checked my body, forced my blurry eyes open, and reached for my waist. Tonfa in my left hand, mace in my right. I checked that the headset was still properly on my head. Thankfully, it was. "Raaaaaagh!" Now it was time to charge without thinking. I raised the mace high and staggered forward. The stumbling steps soon became a steady walk, then a light jog, then a full sprint. I brought the mace down on the rearmost zombie's head first.
"Oh."
"Grgh!?"
"Grgh......!"
Noh Changhun had been right. It was basically a few rocks in a stocking, but it was more than enough to smash zombie skulls. It was even easier to swing than Beopbong. Made sense—after lugging around five kilograms of metal, this lighter mace felt like freedom. Like finally taking off weighted shackles. I kept smashing heads like a madman until I spotted Noh Changhun.
"You little shit! You almost died too, didn't you?"
"..........Yeah."
Noh Changhun, who had just dodged a zombie's attack and punched its head apart, gave a slow nod. Without missing a beat, he grabbed another zombie's arm, spun it around, and slammed it into the ground. He was covered in blood, but he looked far more energetic than I did. I'd been on the verge of death just moments ago—my vision had even started to fade. "Back to back."
"Got it."
"You take the front. I'll cover the rear."
"Can you still move?"
"Of course! Right now, I'm ultimate. Adrenaline's pumping through my veins instead of endorphins."
"Fine. Understood."
Noh Changhun looked like he had plenty to say, but he shut his mouth and chose to swing his fists instead. Whenever he landed a heavy blow, I filled the gap with my tonfa and mace. Honestly, I'd expected one of us to get in the way, but our coordination was surprisingly good. We weaved in and out like we'd been fighting together for years. You could say we were grinding the zombies into paste. It would've been nice if our weapons had held up a little longer, but that was asking too much. By the time we'd cleared the second floor, both the tonfa and mace were completely ruined. I tossed the broken handles aside, picked up Beopbong from where it had rolled against the wall, and slung it over my shoulder. Part of me wanted to strike a pose and declare myself Ultimate Yeji, but I was genuinely on the brink of collapse. I was barely holding onto consciousness. One good shove and I'd drop like a rock. Noh Changhun probably felt the same.
"Hey, Changhun."
"What."
"Don't you regret this now?"
"Not really."
"We still have to clear the third and fourth floors. For real?"
"Just the third. The fourth floor's probably full of non-combat types."
"Ah. Then we're good."
Just as I started by crushing a corpse's leg underfoot, the hunters who had been watching from the third floor finally jumped down and charged. The battle began again.