Chapter 74

074 – Z Apocalypse # 2

“sh*t!”

Prince Juhyun could not suppress his anger upon seeing the clump of hair clogged in the bathroom drain cover.

Recently, he’d been losing a lot of hair.

Stress.

The heat rising to his head was definitely killing his hair follicles.

“d*mn b*stard, Hanamjin!”

Shhhhaaa—.

Even taking an ice-cold shower did not calm his nerves.

Wiping himself off roughly and stepping into the living room, Prince Juhyun picked up his phone and searched for his name online.

「Writer: Anon」

「Title: Shock) Prince Juhyun’s ex-girlfriend exposes his s*xual preferences lol」

「Apparently he forced cosplay on game characters every day lol. They also signed a confidentiality agreement apparently lol」

└ Haha, this high schooler really lays it all out.

A jolt of anger surged through him.

How dare someone expose his private life like this.

“What kind of b*tch is this?”

As Prince Juhyun recalled the faces of the women who had signed confidentiality agreements with him, he grew angrier and threw his phone to the ground.

Crack—.

The shattered screen mirrored his slightly shaken state of mind.

“Let me calm down.”

After all, the noisy crowd on the internet were mere losers who would never even brush shoulders with him, the heir of a wealthy family and the protagonist of this world.

“Let the pigs talk all they want. It doesn’t matter. The real world is beyond the phone.”

Five minutes later,

Prince Juhyun reopened his damaged phone and started commenting online to stop the spread of baseless rumors and gossip.

In the midst of this, he came across a post that caught his attention.

「Writer: Anon」

「Title: Currently at the hospital, what the heck is this guy who bit me lol」

「(Picture)」

└ Ow, that must hurt so bad.

└ You’re turning into a zombie lol

The wounds were horrifyingly explicit.

「Writer: FRaptor」

「Title: My mom also got bitten by some crazy woman and came to the hospital」

「Is some kind of zombie virus spreading around or something?」

└ Could it be mad cow disease lol

└ Probably rabies due to those instant noodles made from rat feed s

Feeling increasingly disturbed, Prince Juhyun shut off the internet and opened his messenger app. He had a backlog of unread messages, many from up-and-coming idols and actresses.

「Joo Juhui (Streamer, 17, Class C): Oppa, what’re you doing?」

「Kim Eunha (Model, whose laugh is ugly): Jihyun-ah, you free today?」

「Yoo Daedam (Idol): Do you remember me? I wanted to thank you for last time and treat you to a meal…」

His self-esteem, which had hit rock bottom moments ago, quickly recovered.

It was amusing how these women, whom average men would never even get to glance at, tried so hard to spend time with Prince Juhyun.

After much deliberation, Prince Juhyun decided to invite a woman to his place.

「Do you want to come over now?」

He had heard from his father to stay out of trouble for a while, but inviting a woman over seemed harmless enough.

A little while later,

“Oppa! It’s been so long! Right?”

The streamer, Joo Juhui, dyed her hair a loud blonde and came to Prince Juhyun’s apartment, expressing excessive excitement.

She asked how he had been, whether he had eaten dinner yet, and proclaimed that she could cook ramen well, which annoyed him immensely.

‘Too much.’

Prince Juhyun disliked women who overstepped their boundaries.

Nevertheless, women who did so often ended up lying in bed beside him, acting as if they were his girlfriend or wife, interfering and making noise, just like this moment.

“Oppa, there’s a hole in your crown. What is this? Hair loss? You’re not an uncle yet!”

“…”

Having seen enough, he thought it was time for her to go.

As he was contemplating this, the girl clinging to him started coughing.

“What the hell? Juhui, are you sick? d*mn, you should’ve told me earlier!”

“Hm? No, it’s just esophagitis-related cough! Oppa, come on! It’s not a cold! Besides, Awakened Ones don’t catch colds, right?”

“Colds are just annoying!”

When Prince Juhyun threw her clothes at her irritably, Joo Juhui desperately defended herself, even pulling out a medicine packet from her bag.

“See? It’s just esophagitis medicine!”

At that moment, Prince Juhyun noticed her bandaged wrist. Sensing his look, Juhui opened up.

“This? Oppa, listen. I went to the hospital to get this medicine and some crazy person bit my arm and ran away. It was so ridiculous.”

Being bitten by a crazy person—this reminded Prince Juhyun of the posts he’d seen online earlier.

“Hey Juhui, just go home.”

“Why? I thought I could stay over today!”

“sh*t, I said just go! Get out!”

After ushering Juhui, dressed in her underwear, out of his place with the palm of his hand, Prince Juhyun reopened the internet and began searching for “bites,” “zombies,” “rabies,” and “kiss” with fervor.

*

“What do you want me to take down?”

Seugal looked with disdain at the approaching zombies in her direction.

Living corpses.

Ker-pat, ker-pat, wriggling—.

“Groarrr…”

“Ah-uhm…”

Looking at them, covered in maggots and pus, they seemed to have been dead for at least a few days.

It was repulsive.

“Let me just say this ahead of time: if you get bitten or scratched by their claws, it won’t just be a matter of a few days of pain. Absolutely no kissing.”

As far as I know, “zombies” are a kind of disease.

It spreads through various routes.

“The only way to stop these kinds of zombies is to completely destroy their heads. Handle it properly.”

“Ugh, really!”

Seugal spread her palms left and right.

Soon, a round energy-like aura gathered around her palms. As I watched with interest, Seugal pointed her palms at the zombies and shouted.

“Chi blast!”

Pang! Whoosh!

The round energy discharged from Seugal’s palms hit a zombie, severing its leg like a b*llet.

Even from a distance, the attack’s destructive power was quite impressive.

“Ugh! It’s dirty! bl**d is splattering!”

“Hey, we need to aim for the head! They’ll continue to move until their head explodes, you know.”

I sternly warned Seugal.

Then, Seugal, now determined, frowned deeply and spread out her palms again, firing a few chi blasts.

Pang! PangPangPang! PangPang-!

The accuracy of the attacks was poor.

Ultimately, the mourning park of City D became even more disordered with zombies, their limbs dismembered.

“Kiyaah!”

Suddenly, Seugal let out a scream like a burning pterodactyl.

The zombie she had initially severed the leg off from had not died and bit her ankle.

“See, that’s why you need to blow the head apart. Didn’t I tell you what your most fatal weakness is? It’s empathy. Your kindness is your biggest weakness.”

“…Empathy? My nature is kind?”

Seugal found it strange when I, who was called “the worst a**hole,” told her she had a kind nature. But I was sincere.

Seugal may have been a mischievous girl, but in fact, she was an angel with a very kind heart.

“You hesitate to damage something even when it’s a corpse in this state.”

I understood.

Even if Seugal might be a cruel girl, she’s still within the bounds of common sense.

Even with training, all she’d probably practiced was hitting round targets.

Shooting a mannequin and shooting a human are on different levels when it comes to psychological resistance. Let alone for someone like Seugal, full of empathy, it must have been even harder to destroy a 13-year-old girl, even if they appeared to have been dead for over a month.

“To survive, you need to become more ruthless. In the world we’re about to enter, the less selfish people will perish first.”

I lifted my foot and crushed the zombie’s skull.

Crack!

The splattering fragments and horrendous smell evoked many memories.

Times like when we gathered at a large mart with survivors and lived together. It was a surprisingly enjoyable memory!

But Seugal, lacking such memories, was unable to bear the stench and threw up on the ground.

“Oooohh!”

〈Name: Seugal

Possession: Click to expand details ☜

《Miracle Lv.4》 – As the name suggests, an entity beyond common sense and rules.

《Graceful Lady Lv.2》 – As elegant as a celestial maiden. Never indulges in anything unclean.

《Elasticity Lv.1》 – Can adjust the length of objects like a rubber band.

《Repair Lv.1》 – Can mend items that haven’t been broken for too long.

《Zombie Lv.1》 – Yearns for warmth like the dead. A concept replicated from a host.

Condition: 《Infection》 – Infected with a special disease. Feeling down.〉

The concept “Miracle” Seugal possessed was visible.

The addition of the “Zombie” concept stood out.

It seemed that the “Zombie” wasn’t a simple infection or germ but was connected to a “concept” replicated from a host.

A replicated concept.

Can concepts even be replicated?

Isn’t it true that the same concept can’t exist simultaneously in more than one entity?

But there could be exceptions.

If Seugal could transfer her own concepts to others, then it’s possible that the “Zombie” concept could also spread through various routes.

I suddenly had some understanding of the identity of the mysterious zombie.

“d*mn, we’re just super lucky!”

“Hey! Lucky? What do you mean lucky?! I got bitten! What happens to me now? Do I d*e? Do I become one of those things?!”

Seugal clutched her bitten ankle and whimpered.

The wound where she had been bitten hard enough to draw bl**d did look painful.

Based on my memory, the average person bit by an infected person would go berserk within about three days.

Awakened Ones took longer—around ten days, I believe.

Though there could be some individual variations.

I leaned near Seugal’s ear and whispered,

“Queens never cry.”

Her expression shifted from crying to solemn.

“What? What’s that, you moron? What’s Naver?”

“Don’t be afraid. I know how to make the antidote, and it’s not that difficult.”

“Really? Are you serious? Do you really know?”

“Ho, doubting a man of his word? There’s something we need to take care of urgently.”

The problem lies in “zombies” themselves.

Zombies are like cockroaches; seeing one means there are likely a hundred more somewhere.

We need to act fast before my short-lived happiness during the Z Apocalypse comes to an end.

We need someone with national influence to step in at this critical moment.

That’s when it happened.

Whirr—.

My phone rang loudly. D Class’ group chat was in chaos.

“Did you see the broadcast just now?”

“Is it true that ten thousand people are getting infected per day?”

“Are zombies real?”

When I opened my phone, the hottest video featured something strange.

There was a man with a pale white mask that had gaping eye holes and wore a golden laurel crown, speaking directly into the camera.

“Here’s a message to the kidnapper of Seugal. If you don’t turn yourself in, I will ensure that ten thousand innocent people become infected with the virus I release every day.

This is not a joke or a lie. I’ll give you the evidence.

Behold the power that has conquered d*ath.”

And as the man cut his hand and sprinkled his bl**d on the corpses, they convulsed grotesquely and rose.

Creating zombies. Could this guy be the host of the zombie outbreak?

Seugal, watching the video with me, trembled.

“This feeling… This is him! The red-eyed Demon! Look! The eyes behind the mask are bright red!”

The eyes reflected behind the mask were indeed crimson red.

The red-eyed Demon! We’re meeting like this now!

“Honestly, unexpected. The zombie host and the red-eyed Demon being the same guy. T-T-T…”

My body quivered.

As if holding back an urgent need, cold sweat streamed down me.

“T-T-T…”

“What’s with the ‘T’?”

“TIKIHO!!!”

It’s really a stroke of luck!!!

Zombies and the Demon! I can handle both concerns at once!

You can stop the zombie outbreak by dealing with this guy, right?

But why does the zombie Demon want the kidnapper of Seugal to turn themselves in?

“Tikiho? I thought something was wrong.”

As I was lost in thought, Seugal frowned.

Then she quickly looked at me tensely again.

“Hey, but what are you going to do? If you don’t turn yourself in, ten thousand innocent people will turn into zombies! And I’m already bitten! d*mn!”

Considering the lives of ten thousand innocents at stake, one must feel chilled to the bone.

It’s because Seugal is kind like a celestial maiden.

People full of empathy like her can’t survive in a destroyed world.

Then what about me?

I am “the survivor.”

It means I know how to be properly selfish.

“I won’t turn myself in.”

“Hey! If ten thousand people turn into zombies because of you, what will you do? d*mn you! You crazy idiot! Hanamjin, you truly are garbage! Because of you, people are going to turn into zombies like this! Because of you!”

“No! That won’t happen!”

Among the many disasters of destruction, “zombies” are particularly tricky.

Before the cure was discovered, they drove people into fear.

In terms of the level of fear alone, it might be similar to the disaster of “Darkness.”

But?

According to the expert in destruction, compared to the disaster of “Darkness,” the “zombie” is a calamity that can be fully prepared for if the timing is right.

By the way, the destruction expert is me, Hanamjin.

In that sense, it’s quite unfortunate for the zombie Demon but to me, Z Apocalypse is already a genre that has been successfully overcome.

The timing is perfect.

“Seagal, I need to call your dad!”

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