The Monster's Playground
I had entered a zombie apocalypse novel. Naturally, my odds of winning were practically nonexistent. At best, I could pull off a mutual destruction. At worst, death. I knew it instinctively, and I knew it rationally. Standing against that massive horde of zombies was a stupid thing to do. Every lesson my battered body had learned over countless battles screamed at me to jump back on the Jeokro and run like hell.
“Ah, screw it! Who cares about that crap!”
There was no way I could run now that I’d come this far. If your head’s bad, your body suffers, right? But if your body’s strong, you don’t have to suffer at all. And right now, it felt like killing them here was the only way to avoid suffering later.
“Huh?”
A sharp whoosh suddenly came from the upper right. I threw myself forward in a panic, and a monster’s hand sliced through the air right above me. A thunderous boom followed as the asphalt cracked in every direction.
Great. The situation had just gotten a lot worse. The monster wouldn’t be in any real danger even if it took my hits. But if I got grazed by one of those flailing limbs, I’d be screwed.
“Grrraaah.”
I was bracing myself to dodge the next attack when the monster suddenly smiled, clasped its hands behind its back, and waited. Just like that, swarms of regular zombies poured in from all sides. There were at least ten of them—maybe more. The vague number pissed me off. It was the kind of count that was hard to shake off easily.
If there had been way more or way fewer, it would’ve been fine. With fewer, I could’ve picked them off one by one while keeping an eye on the monster. With a ton, I could’ve just tanked the monster’s attacks and let the zombies pile on too.
Wait a second.
“Pile on… together?”
“Graaah…!”
I smashed the head of the first zombie to reach me with my Beopbong, then threw a quick left jab. Using that split second, I recovered the staff and swung it again to knock away the one trying to tackle me. That was when I finally realized it.
These things weren’t trying to kill me. They were trying to immobilize me completely and offer me up to the higher variant. The fact that the monster was still standing there with its hands behind its back, just watching, made it obvious.
“You… fucking bastards!”
Of course, with that many zombies, I couldn’t avoid getting bitten. Still, my body had gotten a lot tougher lately. No matter how hard the regular zombies chomped down, they couldn’t tear chunks of flesh out. I ended up covered in bite marks in an instant, but even those started healing almost immediately.
I shook off seven or eight of them in the blink of an eye and kicked another one away with my foot. And just as expected, at least ten more—probably way more—came rushing in.
“You sons of bitches!”
At this point, even I couldn’t shake them off easily. Swinging my Beopbong to take down the ones in front barely made a difference. They kept leaping onto me, biting and clinging, and the more that piled on, the less I could move.
By the time every limb except my left arm was pinned down—
Whoosh.
My consciousness cut out for a moment.
“…Kuh, hack!”
When I came to, I was draped over something. My vision was blurry, my nose felt hot, a loud ringing filled my ears, and my arms and legs stung so badly I couldn’t move them. But I had to move, so I slowly pushed myself up—only to collapse forward again.
Looking at the broken glass shards and zombie corpses scattered around, it seemed like that whoosh had sent me flying. I’d apparently flown straight into a nearby storefront, passed out for a short while, regenerated, and woken back up. That about summed it up.
No wonder my arms and legs had felt so wet earlier. I must have smashed through glass and gotten sliced up pretty badly.
“Ugh… uweeegh…”
I vomited up stomach acid a few times, then staggered to my feet using the Beopbong like a cane. My vision was still blurry, but I could still fight. All I had to do was smash every green thing I could see.
Clenching my teeth, I swung the staff in a wide arc and burst two or three zombies at the front all at once. But I’d put too much power into it. My upper body throbbed so violently it felt like it was burning.
“Aha.”
Still, the pain quickly faded as I regenerated. That was when I understood.
I could regenerate extremely fast. Which meant I could treat my body like a wrecking ball and recover in no time. In other words, I could pour every ounce of strength into every single attack without ever getting tired or seriously injured. Because no matter what, it would all regenerate like nothing had happened.
The next wave of zombies that appeared was wiped out without much effort. There seemed to be about twenty of them. I took a breath after bursting the upper body of the last office-worker zombie.
Now every part of my body was stinging and aching. I couldn’t even tell if I was standing properly anymore, so I had to judge everything moment by moment using the monster as my reference point. When I nearly fell, I braced myself with the Beopbong like a cane and gritted my teeth again.
This time, even more zombies were charging in. At least thirty. Maybe forty. The total number of remaining zombies was at least a thousand. For easy math, let’s say 1,200. That meant I just had to get hit forty more times and it would be over.
Get hit by the monster forty times. Yeah, well. After taking a few, I realized it didn’t hurt enough to kill me.
“More importantly, are all these fuckers just here to watch the show?”
I finally noticed zombies carrying away the corpses. It was like they were saying this level of loss was acceptable. Since they could just turn the bodies into new variants anyway, it was a no-loss calculation for them. Even if I didn’t fall, they wouldn’t lose anything. And if I did fall, they’d gain a female capable of birthing an even stronger variant.
On top of that, the zombies on the rooftops had apparently learned to enjoy the spectacle. One that looked like an intelligent variant was even sitting with its legs crossed, smirking at me arrogantly. Since their losses were still negligible, I guess it could afford to smile like that.
Just wait. I’ll kill every last one of you.
“Grrraaah.”
“S-slow down, you bastard…!”
The moment I heard the whoosh, I threw myself aside. Rolling across the asphalt hurt, but it was better than getting crushed under the monster’s foot. The instant I scrambled back to my feet, something flew in from the rooftop. It was a rock thrown by a Thrower. Obviously, its power was on a completely different level from the ones I’d taken before. If it hit me wrong, I’d pass out instantly, so I had no choice but to focus on protecting my head.
“You…!”
While I was busy blocking the rocks, the zombies charged again. This time, Boxers and Witches were mixed in. My vision was still blurry so I couldn’t see clearly, but my sense of touch was working just fine. The fists hammering my stomach belonged to a Boxer. The nails that lightly pierced my flesh were from a Witch. The one that leaped from far away and slammed into me was a Runner, and the teeth that just sank into me were from a regular zombie.
“Ah.”
I thought I’d shaken them off pretty quickly, but apparently not. A monster’s fist came crashing down from above my head. Luckily, I managed to stay conscious this time. But the monster must have decided that wasn’t enough, because it started pounding me along with the zombies around me. It was like a little girl mashing grass to make pretend food during playtime.
The monster kept slamming its fists down, observing my reactions. It even knelt to get a better look, as if it were carefully adjusting its strength. The sight of it made my blood boil. Then, apparently wondering if I was really dead, it grabbed my hair and lifted me up.
If I could’ve, I would’ve kicked its jaw or thrown the Beopbong into its eye, but right now just staying conscious was my limit. Besides, I had already dropped the Beopbong when the impact knocked it from my grip, and it was rolling somewhere out of reach.
“Grrraaaah.”
“…!”
Sudden pain exploded in my head and my vision spun several times. When I regained consciousness, I was lying spread-eagle on the asphalt. It seemed my mind had temporarily blacked out again, only returning once my body had recovered enough. But the situation was even worse than before.
The monster had picked up my Beopbong in one hand, holding it upside down, and was now poking my stomach with the end of it. Then it started communicating with the variants on the rooftop. I hadn’t taken Zombie Language 101, so I couldn’t understand everything, but I got the gist.
It seemed to be saying I was still too lively and that it needed to weaken me more. Or maybe it just wanted to experiment further. It pissed me off to be treated like this, but I could understand why. With that kind of monstrous strength, humans probably looked like nothing more than toys. Just like how I looked at regular zombies.
Apparently I really did look like a toy, because the monster set the Beopbong down beside me and crossed its arms. Of course I couldn’t just stay still. I forced my creaking body upright.
One deep breath. Then—
“Agh!”
“Grr?”
“You… bastard…”
I glared at the monster like I wanted to kill it, and it immediately responded with a mocking laugh. Rocks and arrows rained down again. But this time I didn’t bother blocking them. After getting hit a few times, I realized the rocks weren’t that powerful anymore. The arrows were threatening but only pierced me lightly, like getting a shot. My body had apparently grown tougher from all the beating. I could still endure it.
So I gripped the Beopbong with all my strength, gritted my teeth, and wiped my eyes with my arm. Once I cleared away the sticky blood, my vision finally felt a little clearer. Then, as if they’d been waiting for it, the zombies charged again. I swung the Beopbong once more.