Holding the Variant and Burning the Corpses
I ended up inside a zombie apocalypse novel. The thought of getting my stomach ripped open by those sharp claws somehow made me feel good. It wasn’t like I was deliberately offering my body to get hit. It was simply that getting hit felt nice, so it was fine, and that realization gave me goosebumps. Maybe it was because I’d once heard that the brain brainwashes itself into perceiving pain as pleasure in order to protect the mind. Fortunately, this time I saw the attack clearly and managed to block it. With what? My hand, obviously. Beopbong was too heavy to swing quickly in a situation like this. So I dropped it and snatched the creature’s wrist instead.
“Grr…?”
“Got you!”
My arm got badly scratched during the grab, but it was fine. It would heal soon enough anyway. All I had to do now was hold on with my other arm too. That was when the bastard started flailing its legs like crazy. It even threw itself on the ground and went into a full tantrum, kicking me in the stomach as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The bones jutting from its hands were still exposed, so every movement shredded my palms even more. Still, I endured it. I did wonder if I’d end up unable to get pregnant after this, but I could hold on.
“Why are you so late!”
“Sorry. I was keeping an eye on the others.”
“Grrrrrrrrr!”
The variant thrashed violently. Naturally I ended up covered in bruises and my palms were torn open, but I clenched my teeth and kept holding it down. Kang Siwoo swung his sword and killed the variant in a single strike. It was a shame to end it so quickly, but it was still okay.
“Ptooey.”
Since my palm was torn, smashing it with Beopbong felt like a waste, and I’d already bled some, so I spat. As expected of a zombie, it had used that short window to absolutely pound my stomach.
“Are your hands all right…?”
“Huh? I told you. Things like this heal pretty quickly.”
“That’s incredible regenerative ability.”
Kang Siwoo’s arm drew a smooth arc. The pile of rubble flying toward me was sliced apart in midair and clattered to the ground. With a bright smile, he said that was probably the last of their forces, then vanished, leaving only an afterimage. When I turned my head, I saw a group of thrower zombies with their necks already half severed. There had been at least ten of them, but five were already dead with their heads flying through the air. By the time I blinked once more, no living throwers remained.
He really was terrifyingly strong. It was reassuring. At least if I stayed next to him, I wouldn’t die. No, since he was the protagonist, he definitely wouldn’t die. He had been a swordsman even before regressing, and now he had gotten his hands on a real blade early. He was like a fish in water, a tiger with wings. No joke, there probably wasn’t a single variant that could stop Kang Siwoo in a one-on-one fight. Baron? Maybe if that guy had grown by a full rank. Even then, in a straight duel, Kang Siwoo would eventually take his head.
The battle was winding down, so I quietly pretended to withdraw due to injury. No one was asking me to keep fighting anyway. My stomach was already turning purple and both arms were covered in blood. They weren’t going to tell me to fight while leaving other healthy people idle. I watched until the last of the zombies were dead, then wiped the blood off on a zombie’s clothes. Kang Siwoo, who couldn’t stand watching anymore, tore open a pack of wet wipes and handed it to me. I meticulously cleaned only my palms, picked up Beopbong, and slung it over my shoulder.
It was a result that truly deserved the words “Ultimate Lee Yeji” or “Lee Yeji’s Great Victory.” Aside from the three people who had minor scratches and injuries, it was safe to say everyone else was completely unharmed.
“Everyone, this is all thanks to Ms. Yeji.”
“Haha…”
“You eliminated both commanding entities in succession. You’ve truly worked hard.”
Yeah. I had worked hard. Even if I had charged in because the provocation pissed me off. Still, since I was the only one who got hurt and the only one who took them all down, it should be fine, right? Good results made the process easy to forget. Unless the people in front of me had learned mind reading, I would look like a seasoned survivor. So for a while I puffed out my chest and basked in the praise.
But for some reason Kang Siwoo’s expression was strange. He was staring only at me like a puppy that desperately needed to pee. I wondered why he was looking only at me, but I quickly figured out the reason.
“It looks like you’re troubled about disposing of the zombie corpses.”
Kang Siwoo probably knew exactly how to handle them. But since he had no way to explain it to his companions, he must have been anxious and just dealt with them roughly. Yeah, I knew. I knew everything. Wasn’t it my job to support the protagonist and rub my hands together helpfully at his side? So I waited for the “please explain” look in his eyes and immediately began.
Zombie corpses became food for other zombies or turned into soil for the plants that grew from them. Those plants might benefit zombies, but they could benefit us too. If we could manage it properly, gathering them and watching the plants grow would be good, but right now we had no choice but to burn them. Since I had a lighter, let’s pile them all up and set them on fire. I explained that zombie bodies burned inward so there was no risk of the fire spreading, and everyone’s faces brightened.
From what the Bumin Campus survivors told me, they had simply been gathering the corpses until now. They had concluded after a meeting that the rotting bodies could spread disease. Still, they were people who could think for themselves, which was nice. Kang Siwoo, on the other hand, hadn’t even come up with an excuse to tell the students in the two months since the outbreak and had just left the corpses lying around. Now his mouth was stretched ear to ear because he finally had something to say about handling them.
It wasn’t bad that he looked happy, but I wished he wouldn’t look at me like that while smiling. Kim Yeonhua was the same, and now even Lee Ayoung seemed to be subtly wary of me. If I could, I wanted to tell them I had a boyfriend. No, I wanted to firmly declare that we had already gone all the way. Sure, no matter how much I got beaten I recovered quickly, but I wasn’t sure if I could recover from a knife to the gut. As someone who had consumed every subculture under the sun and read this novel to the end, I knew exactly what was happening. Those bitches were already completely smitten with Kang Siwoo and had started keeping me in check. The original work wasn’t without descriptions of the heroines becoming obsessive, either. So I wanted to clearly establish my position.
I already have a boyfriend and we’ve done everything together, so I’m not interested. It’s just that I’m too competent, so Kang Siwoo keeps taking care of me. Please understand if I stick close to him like this. That kind of explanation seemed perfect… but I was terrified of what would happen if the lie was exposed. If I had actually gone all the way with Noh Changhun, it would be different. Then Kang Siwoo approaching me would make him the trash in the situation. So Kang Siwoo would have drawn a clear line. But if they found out I was lying? Then I would become the bitch who deliberately reassured everyone else so I could monopolize Kang Siwoo alone. I’d seriously get a knife in the back and be thrown away.
What about Noh Changhun? Did he seem like the type to just laugh it off? If I couldn’t persuade him, I’d probably have to take at least one hit. And that bastard’s fist was strong enough to send me straight to the afterlife. Not Hong Kong, but the three roads to the underworld, damn it. Really… My survival instinct, which had never betrayed me before, was screaming that if I didn’t make this clear now, I would die later.
“……Ah.”
Just thinking about it made my spine run cold, and a groan slipped out reflexively. The anxiety was too much to bear, so I hurriedly put my hand to my head and properly adjusted the headset. Fortunately, even in the middle of that chaos, the headset had stayed in place. It was a little cracked and damaged, but for how hard we had fought, this was pretty good. After fixing it properly, I helped the others clean up the zombie corpses.
Since we wouldn’t be staying at Bumin Campus long anyway, we decided to burn every last one.
“Wow, they burn really well.”
Someone said while watching the burning corpses. They were right. The bodies were going up like dry kindling. Ugh, now I wanted roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes. Next time I got the chance, I should coax Kang Siwoo. I could say we needed to find some potatoes and sweet potatoes and secretly ask him to let me roast a few.
Before I knew it, everyone’s eyes were fixed on my headset. Well, even I would stare if some crazy woman fought with a baseball bat and cat-ear headphones and then kept them on after the battle. It seemed like the perfect time to explain, so I took the headset off while putting on a wistful expression.
“Back when I was living alone in an officetel, I developed a habit because of the zombie moans. I kept wearing a headset even after that. I gave the old one to a little girl… This is a new one I found later. It was given to me by a male colleague who came this far with us, but we got separated on the way.”
I scratched my cheek awkwardly after speaking, and the reactions came immediately. Fortunately, they were exactly the kind I wanted. What was my relationship with that male colleague? It was a little much to say in this situation, but it was really romantic. I hope we can meet him again later. Things like that. When I added that I had liked him but couldn’t confess before we parted, the atmosphere exploded. Thanks to that, the chance of getting stabbed in the back by Kang Siwoo’s heroines seemed to have dropped even further.
I definitely needed to be careful. I had spent so much time alone that I hadn’t had many chances to cross-check how my changed body looked to others. I needed to be aware of my position as a dynamite-body beautiful girl and keep some distance from Kang Siwoo. …Even thinking it myself was a little embarrassing. Still, confidence was good, right?
After chatting for a bit while watching the corpses burn, everyone went inside the building. The rest would rest while Kang Siwoo and I took a short break before heading back out.