Episode 5
Reflexively, I rose from my seat at the sight. Thankfully, the door was locked, so it didn’t open, but a chill ran down my spine. What on earth? Who was out there? Although I could hear the occasional sound of zombies passing by, I didn’t pay too much attention since they were unintelligent and wouldn’t know we were here.
But this was different. Knocking on the door like that and turning the doorknob like that? Could it be a human then? But no sane person would wander around the hallway in a zombie nest like this.
‘…Is it a mutant zombie?’
There were definitely different types of mutated zombies… But what kind of creature was this?
Then, the turning doorknob stopped. Soon, I heard the sound of footsteps, and then the sound of something touching the window in the corridor, followed by the sound of someone turning something off. It was dark around and the curtains were drawn, so I couldn’t tell what was happening.
“Darn it…”
My eyes fixed in that direction at the shiver-inducing sound and I frantically felt around the desk. I was sure I saw a container with several ballpoint pens, scissors, and a cutter inside. When my fingertips finally touched them, I cautiously pulled them out and tightly gripped them in my hand. If it was a mutated zombie, these wouldn’t be enough, but having a weapon in my hand gave me some comfort.
In the meanwhile, the sound disappeared, leaving behind only silence. However, the person hadn’t vanished. They were clearly lurking outside. Were they doing this knowing there was someone inside?
Mutated zombies were stronger than regular zombies and had specially developed abilities like enhanced vision, hearing, or smell. They could easily detect a person’s breath or even a slight scent of blood. A zombie with exceptional vision would have eyes even on the back of their head, with a broad field of view making it hard to escape once detected. Besides agility, intelligence, strength, or physical transformation, there were all sorts of zombies.
Were they testing the waters? I couldn’t act recklessly since I didn’t know what kind of mutant was outside. Even breathing was difficult under the heavy tension. Sweat trickled down my cheek in the ongoing standoff, gathering at the tip of my chin.
“I’m going crazy. What the hell is it?”
Now I couldn’t even hear the movements of the ordinary zombies I’d heard from time to time. It was weirdly too quiet.
Let’s think, let’s think. Each zombie had a characteristic of its own…
From the way it knocked on the door and turned the doorknob, it seemed fairly intelligent. Could it be a mutated zombie specialized in intelligence? But this silence bothered me.
Even zombies funnily had a hierarchy. Regular zombies were ranked lower in the hierarchy compared to mutant ones. Mutated zombies emitted a unique aura, and even the dim-witted zombies instinctively avoided them as much as possible. However, the intelligence-focused zombies had no aura at all. They cunningly hid among the outwardly same-looking regular zombies and moved intelligently, seizing opportunities to catch and eat humans.
How clever the weak were. Ironically, the ones who recklessly charged in were easier to deal with. Anyways, if we were talking about an intelligent zombie, they weren’t avoided by regular zombies, so the outside couldn’t be as quiet as right now. That meant it was another creature, but what kind… Then, something suddenly flashed through my mind.
‘Wait a minute… That guy? No way, right, it can’t be…’
At that moment, the air instantly turned cold. It wasn’t just my imagination; my muscles contracted, and it felt as if my lungs froze due to the sudden change in temperature.
‘Huh…? That can’t be. That’s impossible! But that…!’
I couldn’t continue my thoughts. The chill I felt right behind me hardened my body, and my mind blanked. Nevertheless, I clenched my teeth and moved my body to turn around, holding onto my last strand of rationality.
There stood a zombie, half of its body exposing it’s bones, the other half being rotten flesh oozing blackened blood, emanating a black aura, it’s mouth agape.
“….!”
Too shocked to even scream, I just gasped as I fell backward. With a loud crash, I knocked over a nearby chair while falling, causing it to push against the wall, toppling a shelf displaying medications, creating a loud noise. I hastily crawled away as intact bottles of medicine poured over me. Then I grabbed the legs of a chair and slammed it right towards the zombie.
“Darn it, darn it!”
I didn’t feel any pain. Only fear consumed my mind. My breaths were heavy and my body trembled. When I applied strength into my hand, I could feel the solid texture of the scissor and the cutter. It felt almost laughable to hold them securely while knowing I couldn’t beat the creature with only this, and I felt like crying.
‘Damn it… What the hell is going on? Why is that thing coming out right now?’
While I was desperately moving my trembling hand to prop myself up and get away from it somehow, the creature’s foot appeared before my eyes.
“Oh, no…”
With tears streaming down my face, I stabbed the scissors into its ankle and twisted it to the side.
“Aargh!”
The creature howled in agony, forcing me to cover my ears. The force of the scream shattered all the windows in the infirmary.
Oh, I might actually pass out.
Why did the mid-boss appear here? The thing that was supposed to come out from the transition in the night between Day 2 and Day – why was it here right now?
“Noona… What’s going on?”
The chaos seemed to have woken him up. Well, it was impossible for anyone to sleep in this mess. Leaving that aside, I should ask him to save me… No, I should at least tell him to run away, but in the face of this pressure, I couldn’t muster the strength to speak.
Then, the creature’s foot in my sight disappeared. Simultaneously, the pressure lessened slightly. I inhaled in a hurry and struggled to stand up, looking towards Lee Do-yoon.
Maybe the zombie saw I couldn’t move properly and considered me finished, so it headed in his direction instead.
Hell, what should I do? Should I run now?
‘He’ll come back to life if he dies anyway, right? But not me.’
In the face of death, I could bitterly feel my desperation to preserve my own life above all too keenly. While Lee Do-yoon needed to be there to obtain the hidden piece and make use of it, that was a matter for the future.
‘What’s the point of knowing the future!? I need to survive right now to do something later!’
While I was thinking that, I met his eyes. Fear lurked in his eyes, but there was an even greater emotion in them.
Noona, run away.
He conveyed his message with his mouth. Anger, disbelief, and guilt contorted my face.
Fuck… Why are you worrying about me in this situation, you fool? Worry about your own life!
Simultaneously, he kicked away the zombie’s abdomen as it lunged towards him with its mouth open, then threw a blanket to block the zombie’s view.
However, this was a mid-boss. True to its name, it possessed deceitful abilities…
“Behind you, behind! Be careful!”
The zombie, who was supposed to be floundering under the covers, quickly appeared behind him and reached out its hand. At this rate, it’d grab his neck, so fearing for Do-yoon’s safety, I managed to yell out a warning.
Thankfully, he immediately listened to me, turning back and ducking as the zombie’s hand missed him. My relief was short-lived, though; it was evident he’d be in danger soon if he continued like this. If only we had a proper weapon, we could hold on a bit longer…
“Ugh, Noona! Run away quickly! I’ll hold it back!”
How could I run away if it came out like that… Darn it! Clenching my fists, I bit my lip in a surge of emotions.
“I… even if I die, it’s okay… ugh, cough! Ugh… it’s fine… so go… quickly…!”
You… dork! Saying it’s okay to be beaten up even while you’re puking blood!
I was already sure he knew that he would come back to life even if he died, but.. hearing him say that he was fine with dying himself felt strange.
Ha. I would regret it. I would definitely regret this, but… I didn’t know anymore how things were going to turn out. Let it be as it may! I’d just do whatever I could.
I threw the medicines scattered on the floor and the books on the desk at the zombie without hesitation. I think Do-yoon was hit a little with my wrong aim in the process, but that wasn’t important.
The zombie, emitting an irritated growl, glared at me and then appeared in front of me in an instant. As it raised its hand to grab my neck, I stabbed its only eye with the box cutter.
“Aargh! Aahh!”
Seemingly struck well, it clutched its eye and screeched frantically. Unlike the empty eye socket on one side of its face with just bones, the other side had decaying flesh clinging to the eyeball. That was the mid-boss’s weakness.
But even this wouldn’t last long. It just momentarily disabled it. It wasn’t a surefire way to finish it off. To kill it, we’d have to relentlessly beat it until its health reached zero, but with its massive health pool, as fitting for a mid-level-boss, that was simply impossible for us in our current state.
“Lee Do-yoon!”
Twisting my body, I kicked the suffering zombie to one side and ran towards him.
“We need to run away right this moment! Can you move?”
“I can… ugh.”
I got him up to his feet and led him out of the infirmary room without a second lost. However, we had to stop shortly after. His condition was not good, making it impossible for him to walk for long. His face was drenched in cold sweat, as if to provide evidence for it.
Damn it. Soon, the zombie’s disabled period would be over. Fortunately, I’d damaged its eye, so even if we hid nearby, it wouldn’t easily find us… but it was still much better to run far away.
The mid-boss had two abilities. Firstly, teleportation. It could instantly move to wherever within its line of sight. Secondly, X-ray vision. This ability utilized the eye I damaged. It could leave traces with its hand anywhere and see clearly beyond that point.
For your information, the single remaining eyeball in that creature wasn’t a real eye. It was merely a tool used for the second ability. Even without an eyeball, it could still see ahead.
This creature was a boss-level zombie that could go anywhere on the school stage.There was a separate true final boss, so I named this guy the middle boss, but this alone posed a significant challenge.
“Whoo… Let’s rest here for now.”
Urgently, I opened a nearby door and went inside. The lights were off, but my eyes, accustomed to darkness, could roughly distinguish the interior. After confirming no one was there, I locked the door. I found what appeared to be a sofa and carefully laid him on top of it.
“Do-yoon, are you okay? Can you pull yourself together?”
“Haa, haa…. Noona.”
He was short of breath, as if breathing was difficult. I could barely make out his silhouette, so I couldn’t tell where and how badly he was hurt.
With trembling hands, I carefully wiped the sweat from his forehead. I choked up at the fact that this was the only thing I could do, but I bit my lip and held it in.
I was sorry… I was truly sorry.
He got hurt like this trying to protect me, yet I was considering abandoning him just to survive. I thought about running away while he was holding back the mid-boss. I felt so pathetic and ashamed of myself that tears kept blurring my vision.
“Sorry…. I’m so sorry, Do-yoon.”
