Taking a Brutal Beating to Activate My Super Strength
I had ended up inside a zombie apocalypse novel. I could beat the General. But that only worked under a few specific conditions. Both arms needed to be working properly, or I had to have Beopbong. Or at the very least, I needed to trigger my super strength. Without any of those, I was nothing more than a durable sandbag.
I got to feel that reality all over again when something grabbed me by the hair and drove a fist straight into my gut. “Uweeeek...”
“Graaaaah!”
I couldn’t even guard properly, so the hit landed clean. My insides throbbed like hell. Even though my body was steadily recovering and it wasn’t a fatal wound, pain was still pain. On top of that, getting my hair yanked like this filled me with a terrible sense of foreboding. And that foreboding always, always came true.
My legs had gone limp and were shaking, but the thing grabbed my hair and slowly lifted me up. Then it slammed me headfirst into the ground several times. It drove me down like it was swinging a blunt weapon. “..........Kuh!”
“Graaaaah.”
It was impossible to keep my balance. I’d been smashed into asphalt—what did I expect? The only reason I hadn’t died was because I’d been throwing my body through hell for so long that I’d adapted. In this case, “adapted” meant that after one hit sent me to the brink of death, the next one I could somehow endure.
Surprisingly, I still wasn’t in a near-death state. I could tell because my super strength still hadn’t kicked in. Since I hated the pain, I just let out groans, hoping to recover a little. It didn’t seem like enough, so I even started acting. Resisting would only get me hit more anyway, so I obediently flopped face-down on the ground and pretended to be unconscious.
“Graaaaaah!”
The General stepped on my collapsed body, putting just enough weight on me to roar in triumph. It looked like it planned to take me alive. Well, that wasn’t so bad. Kang Siwoo was still alive, after all. That guy would probably come save me.
…Then why the hell were those bastards just standing there blankly behind the barricade?
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, I’d told them exactly that earlier. Everything I’d taught them was about charging together or countering an enemy charge, so they couldn’t follow me right now. They had to wait until the situation was somewhat resolved before deciding. The zombies were still reorganizing their ranks, so the fight clearly wasn’t over. Standing behind the barricade on guard duty made sense.
They should’ve watched for an opening and then come to rescue me. But the way those guys were acting, it looked like they wouldn’t care even if I got dragged away. That made me anxious. No joke—I was seriously considering if I needed to get hit one more time to finally hit near-death.
Actually, there was no need to test the waters. The current Kang Siwoo could wipe out every other zombie in an instant. Plus, I’d already taken care of roughly half of them. So why wasn’t he rushing out to save me? Of course, I knew rushing out recklessly had been my mistake. But honestly, who could’ve stayed still in that situation?
“No, shit.”
Like that, dozens of minutes passed. Dozens of minutes of nothing but a standoff. Dozens of minutes of being stepped on by this General and used as a hostage. No joke, I was starting to think they had zero intention of saving me. The zombies had already finished reorganizing and were fully prepared to fight.
If they couldn’t save me, at least give me some kind of signal. Just thinking about regenerating again only to get beaten up more made my blood boil. But what could I do? They clearly weren’t coming.
“Ugh, fuck. Seriously.”
“Graaah?”
“Yeah, you bastard!”
The General seemed to roughly understand the situation and stared at me with something like curiosity. Yeah, it had to be fascinating. After getting pummeled like that and recovering almost completely, even I would find it weird. That’s why I was provoking it to hit me harder.
Luckily, the General seemed happy to oblige. It lifted its foot and stomped down with everything it had. The air was crushed out of my lungs in an instant. For a second I thought something had ruptured and I might actually die. It had stepped lightly, but the power behind it was no joke. All strength left my body, and I couldn’t move for a while.
Then it grabbed my hair again and left me dangling. Even after all that, my body was still faithfully recovering—soon breathing felt easy again. Of course, what I wanted wasn’t the pain. I wanted to reach near-death so I could unlock my super strength. Still, after taking this much of a beating, stopping now felt wrong.
“You bastard!”
“Graaaaaaaaah!”
Maybe it didn’t like getting kicked, because the General hurled me to the ground. I bounced and rolled across the pavement a few times, but I could still endure it. Then it stomped on me hard once more, and I still endured. It was seriously driving me insane. Even a normal zombie would die from hits like that. The fact that I could still stand up fine seemed to piss it off.
Other than my left arm not moving, there wasn’t a single problem. Even that arm was slowly regaining sensation.
“No, fuck! You’re a General, right? A ridiculously strong General!”
“Graaaaah!”
“Hit me harder, you piece of shit! Why can’t you kill a person? Are you even a zombie?”
“Graaaaaaaaah!”
“This is fucking bullshit.”
By this point the General seemed to realize something was wrong. Shock filled its expression. I seriously wondered if I should just commit seppuku next time. I could tell instinctively—I would survive even if stabbed by a sword. If my body got any tougher, I’d probably survive jumping off a rooftop too. If it came to that, I kind of wanted to try it. Jump because I wanted to die, but nothing happens. You know the kind of thing.
“Graaaaaaaaaah!”
“Ah.”
The General grabbed both my shoulders and slammed a brutal knee into my abdomen. It was so powerful I felt several ribs snap and stab into my organs. After that, the attacks continued like it was trying to keep me barely alive. When I regained consciousness, I was lying in a puddle of my own blood, completely drenched in it.
Scarily enough, breathing still wasn’t that difficult. When I touched my stomach, the broken bones already felt like they were reattaching. It had recovered again.
“Still… that was enough.”
“Graaaaaah…..!”
As I staggered to my feet, the General let out a groan of pure shock. Then it stretched its arm out like it was giving an order. Obviously telling the others to subdue me. But right now, my regeneration had completely stopped. That meant the endorphins had turned into adrenaline, creating monstrous super strength. Plus, my left arm could move perfectly again.
“C-come on then. You bastards. You should’ve killed me earlier.”
“Grrr…!”
“Ah, if you can kill me, that is.”
I slowly spat out a mouthful of blood, gritted my teeth, and clenched my fists. From now on I wouldn’t regenerate, so I had to fight carefully. But on second thought, was being careful even necessary? When your body’s in bad shape, you use your head. When your body’s in good shape, there’s no need for your head.
So I just charged straight ahead, swinging both arms like helicopter blades. It was childish and stupid as hell, but with super strength added, it became an unstoppable force. In moments, the zombies blocking my path were turned into chunks of meat scattered across the ground. Hunters and other variants were no exception—they became cold corpses in the blink of an eye.
After taking a few hits from the charging zombies and countering, the path to the General opened up. Naturally, the General couldn’t handle me anymore. Especially not with that massive hole punched through its stomach.
“Graaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“Ah. I said let’s talk, didn’t I!?”
“Graaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“I really fucking hate this, you bastard! You should’ve held back when I suggested talking earlier!”
“Gra, graaaaaaaaaah!”
With a sharp whoosh, a heavy blow landed. But thanks to the adrenaline, my entire body was boiling. I didn’t feel any pain. I took several more hits, but the pain never registered. Instead, the fire inside me burned even hotter, and it felt good. So this is why people risk their lives on extreme sports.
The General seemed to have given up on fighting entirely. It stared at me with terrified eyes, then stood its ground like the general it was supposed to be. I slowly walked up, about to lightly swing my fist, then stopped. The pocket. The precious pocket. I couldn’t risk destroying it.
So I switched to an uppercut stance and said,
“Lee Yeji Punch.”
The General’s headless body slowly toppled over. Seeing that, all the strength left my own body. I naturally dropped to my knees and collapsed forward. There were pretty much no zombies left. They’d all had something broken, died, or stopped being zombies altogether.
Still, I didn’t feel bad about it. I’d fought and won against over a hundred zombies. Lee Yeji-chan’s great victory! I could totally shout that.
Of course, I didn’t forget to shoot a look of pure contempt at Kang Siwoo, who was only now trying to butt in— Ouch. Owwww.
“It hurts!”
“Miss Yeji. I only lightly touched you with my hand just now.”
“Ah, it hurts, I said…!”
“Hmm. I think I understand the situation. I’ve been through something similar myself.”
“D-don’t touch me! Even without touching it stabs and stabs—I feel like I’m going to die…”
“You should have been more careful, then.”
“W-wait! Don’t carry me like that! I’m really going to die! I’m dying!”
“You survived getting beaten like that earlier, didn’t you?”
Seriously. The pain surging through me was so intense that just staying still was almost unbearable. If anything touched me or pressed on my flesh, I might actually die from shock. No joke—my whole body was stinging and aching that badly.
But Kang Siwoo just smiled slyly, watching me the whole time. So I had no choice but to complain even more and act pathetic. I’m seriously telling you to clean up the corpses! The way people perceived me or whatever wasn’t important right now.
“Haa. Miss Yeji.”
“Y-yes…”
“Does it hurt so much you can’t even control your body?”
“Yes…”
“Then look here. Watch the tip of this finger and roll your tongue inside your mouth.”
“My tongue… inside my mouth?”
While staring at his finger, the last thing I felt was a dull pain in the back of my head. When I regained consciousness, I was lying neatly in my room beside Beopbong.