Chapter 47

“It’s disgustingly noisy.”

A city submerged in darkness.

But the flashes of fire and screams scattered everywhere insisted that the current situation was far from peaceful.

I squinted my eyes and looked toward the direction of the military base.

“A tank… maybe?”

Seeing the source of the flames moving, it must be a tank.

This isn’t a world with bipedal robots, after all.

And the enemy is probably the monsters I saw during the day.

…But were there enough of them to warrant using a tank?

Or is there another purpose?

I slowly moved toward the rooftop near the tank under the cover of night. The buildings were generally low, making it possible.

…Hmm.

There are a disgusting number of monsters.

No wonder they’re firing the tank.

And—it doesn’t seem as effective as I thought.

I don’t know if those monsters were created by abilities or through experiments, but they seem to be quite troublesome creatures.

The soldiers gathered around the tank must be there to stop them.

To gather information, I’d need to make contact with the soldiers—but the risk is too high.

I can’t even guess how they’d react to an outsider.

I’m not from Seoul, and I’m a fugitive who escaped from the research institute, so it’s even worse.

So—I observed the monsters slowly closing in on the frontlines without contacting the soldiers.

Where on earth did these monsters come from? There are so many of them.

Their sizes vary, but they seem to have some intelligence, pushing forward with the larger ones in front.

But… can they really break through that firepower?

The fact that there’s a military base—

Means there could be heroes here too.

My gaze naturally shifted to the figure emerging from the back.

“I’ll handle this!”

“Whoa…!”

A flash of light.

And a blue lightning bolt struck the area where the monsters were charging.

Wow, that’s flashy. How is that only number three?

Just based on the impact, I’d believe it if they said he was number one.

“As expected, Lightning!”

“Hell yeah! This is it!”

The cheers from the soldiers were loud enough to reach here. He’s really popular.

I watched Lightning quickly clean up the situation from a distance, then hid when I felt a chill.

…I didn’t get caught, right?

I’m about 50 meters away, so it should be fine.

I left the building and returned to where the kids were sleeping.

—

“Boss, you look tired.”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

I had been searching the area longer than expected.

I brushed off Mina’s worried look and frowned at the foul smell wafting from somewhere.

The stench of their corpses, maybe.

“Today, we’ll quickly sweep through the hospital and get out.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah…”

We covered our mouths and noses with cloth and moved forward.

One step.

Another step.

The war that broke out last night was devastating.

“Boss…”

“Don’t think too much about it. It’ll only make it harder to keep going.”

We avoided the main road littered with corpses and turned into an alley. Soldiers and what looked like researchers were scattered around.

“Let’s move without drawing attention.”

Quickly, even quicker.

We navigated through the rubble of collapsed buildings and crossed the river, gradually getting closer to the hospital.

Strangely, the stench was even stronger across the river.

But since our destination was in that direction, we had no choice but to keep going.

We hurriedly arrived at the hospital.

“Feels like we got here early, but also late.”

“We’re a bit behind schedule, but we made a lot of progress today.”

The monsters slowed us down, but now that they’ve been wiped out, it’s fine.

I shrugged and carefully pushed open the glass door that was miraculously intact.

“Creepy.”

“Yeah…”

“Oppa, it’s chilly here…”

The hospital lobby, showing its age, had a horror game-like atmosphere.

The traces of what used to be people made it even more eerie.

If we had come here at night, it would’ve been truly terrifying. I scratched my cheek and looked around the lobby, which must have been full of patients long ago.

The lobby was quite dark even in broad daylight, but the light streaming through the cracks in the walls made it just barely visible.

“What we’re looking for is a family photo. Honestly, I doubt it’s still intact, but…”

It’s at least 20 years old, so if it’s even somewhat intact, that’d be a miracle.

“The doctor’s name was Yoo Il-han, so let’s find a door with that nameplate. That should be the office.”

Maybe we should check the counter too.

There might be keys or something. Though, looking at the state of the building, I’m not sure if keys are necessary.

I went over to the counter and rummaged through the drawers. All I found was dust, yellowed papers, and stationery so old I couldn’t even tell what it was.

Nothing useful.

Deciding there was nothing more to search in the lobby, I told the two who were rummaging through the chairs.

“Let’s head inside.”

“Yeah… Oppa, I feel uneasy. There’s a bad smell.”

“A bad smell?”

“Yeah. Something sticky… like if I ate it, I’d throw up?”

“Probably the smell of rotting corpses.”

I answered while looking at a skull I found under the counter.

Maybe someone who couldn’t evacuate in time.

Or someone who died while searching this place.

I couldn’t tell which.

“Boss… let’s finish quickly and get out.”

“Agreed.”

There’s no good reason to stay in a place like this for long.

I just want to get to the office and sleep like a log.

We moved past the lobby into the hallway. It wasn’t a huge hospital, so the hallway wasn’t very long.

The problem was that the hospital was partially collapsed, with broken doors and rooms.

Because of that, we had to struggle even on the first floor.

“This should be enough…”

I used my ability to clear some of the debris and looked inside.

…Creepy.

The room was filled with rotting clothes and skeletons that were now just fragments. Probably patients who were admitted here.

And the nurse uniforms scattered around… must be nurses who died while caring for the patients.

“…Horrifying.”

“Feels bad.”

“…Let’s get out of here. They’re probably not here.”

We continued exploring the first floor. But we didn’t find anything useful. We just witnessed how devastating the war had been here.

“We’ll have to go upstairs.”

“But the stairs are collapsed, and the elevator isn’t working. How?”

“Well… going up is easy. Give me your hand.”

“My hand?”

“Yeah.”

If we could cross the river, this should be no problem. I took Mina and Seolhwa’s hands and slowly walked toward the collapsed stairs.

“Don’t panic, just do as I say. Face the wall and put your feet on it.”

“Like this?”

Seolhwa lifted her leg with terrifying flexibility, almost touching her face.

Good thing she’s wearing pants. Otherwise, it’d be awkward to look.

“No, just lift it to about 90 degrees.”

“Ugh, it’s hard…”

One’s too flexible, and the other’s not flexible enough.

I grabbed Mina’s ankle and pressed her foot against the wall.

Mina flinched and blushed at my action, but I ignored it and took Seolhwa’s hand.

“I’m going to stick my feet to the wall like they’re on the ground.”

“Huh?”

“Oppa, I don’t get it.”

“Watch.”

I lifted the foot supporting my body and stuck it to the wall. Now horizontally standing, I urged the two who were looking at me in amazement.

“Hurry up.”

“Okay!”

Seolhwa got it.

Mina… is she clumsy or just scared?

I yanked Mina’s hand. Naturally, her foot left the ground and barely stuck to the wall.

“I, I feel weird… and my chest feels pressed…”

“Just bear with it. We’re only going up to the second floor.”

We literally walked up the wall to the second floor. The second floor wasn’t in great shape either.

If the first floor was relatively spared from the bombing, the second floor had holes big enough to let sunlight flood the hallway.

“Be careful, kids. If you slip, you’ll fall to the first floor.”

Getting impaled by the steel beams sticking out of the concrete would be fatal.

“Got it.”

“Yeah. I’ll be careful.”

We cautiously began exploring the second floor. Though, there wasn’t much to explore.

The fact that so much time has passed means someone else has probably been here before. Indeed, there were traces of people having passed through the rooms on the second floor.

And a horrifically mutilated corpse.

“B, Boss…”

“Stay out of the room.”

What the hell? Why is there a fresh corpse here? And in a military uniform.

I stared at the corpse, clearly a soldier.

The corpse looked like it had died less than a day ago, still holding a vivid expression.

“Ugh…”

Maybe one of those monsters from yesterday ate him.

“Oppa, I’ll stay out too.”

“Alright.”

This place is too… not good for emotional education.

I suppressed the rising nausea and examined the corpse.

The state was gruesome, but the body was somewhat intact, so I rummaged through the pockets.

Nothing useful…

I carefully closed the wide-open eyes of the corpse and prayed for his soul.

“…By the way.”

The fact that the corpse is here means—

That’s when it happened.

The ground shook so violently it was hard to stand.

I immediately used my ability to stabilize myself and shouted.

“Kids! Are you okay?!”

“B, Boss!”

What’s going on?!

I rushed out of the room and turned toward the direction of the voices.

“…Damn.”

Mina had fallen.

Seolhwa, trying to run away in shock, faced a giant mouth.

And—the mouth closed.

Swallowing Seolhwa.

“Seolhwa—!”

With Mina’s scream, the monster let out a strange roar and disappeared.