episode_0129

Humans possess prominent senses.

Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch.

In the medical field, these five are designated as the five senses.

Some say life is beautiful just by having all five senses intact.

I’m not sure about it being beautiful.

However, I am aware that the five senses are essential, as much as they are taken for granted.

What if even one sense is lost?

I don’t even want to imagine the discomfort and pain that would follow.

But now, I have willingly embraced that ‘discomfort’.

The moment I moved with my back to the moving walkway, I became a blind man with open eyes, if only for a moment.

Even with my eyes open, all I could see was absolute darkness.

My two eyes were perfectly fine, but a pitch-black space without a single ray of light made it so.

For a moment, my entire body recoiled.

That’s how significant the presence or absence of sight is to living creatures.

I immediately turned on my flashlight, but the sensation of my body being restricted remained.

However, I forced myself to ignore that feeling and stepped forward.

The small light, nothing more than a single beam, seemed to be swallowed by the darkness.

I illuminated the immediate vicinity to gauge the distance.

My vision was severely limited, but moving itself was not a problem.

I did not stop running.

Even under unfavorable conditions, there was a slight advantage.

As a modern building, its straight, linear layout and store configuration meant I only needed to run forward.

The closer I ran towards the sound of gunfire, the more an unpleasant sensation arose.

A chilling feeling sweeping across my neck.

Glimmering orbs began to appear in the darkness.

I could feel on my skin that these increasing orbs were staring at me.

Things that would savor my throat began to recognize me from up ahead.

Eyes gleaming with malice and hunger in the darkness rapidly multiplied.

And the strange growls turned into monstrous roars, echoing through the air.

The ensuing stomping sounds sent vibrations through the floor.

The sounds of furniture and fixtures being pushed aside and toppling over mingled together.

The sounds of bodies colliding grew steadily closer.

An advance, or rather, a chaotic surge with no discernible order, was heading towards me.

I did not stop running.

The faint light flickering in my hand helped me gauge the distance from the zombies rushing in like a tide.

Soon, when the zombies approached within a few meters.

Click!

Whoosh!

“GRAAAAHH!!”

I pressed the light’s booster button, maximizing its illumination.

Super Bright Pro 2.0

The extreme light, which instantly pushed back the darkness and illuminated the space, performed beyond expectations.

Though the artificial coloring couldn’t compare to natural light, the space brightened as if it were midday.

And I confronted the zombies that had revealed themselves.

The zombies, who had been rushing towards me with gleaming eyes in the darkness, flailed and struggled madly. They didn’t stop charging, but a gap appeared.

I thrust my legs with enough force to shatter the floor, rocketing forward.

Matching my high-speed surge, I swung the sword in my hand.

Shk-shk-shk!

It cleaved through leather, sliced through flesh, and cut through bone.

The familiar sensation of blade penetrating flesh traveled up the sword to my hand.

With the sound of the sharp edge sweeping through flesh, the zombies struck by the sword lost their heads and collapsed.

‘I’m in.’

I began to force my way through the widened gap.

Splat!

I swung my sword without hesitation at the charging zombies.

I swung horizontally to knock them down, vertically to split them, and diagonally to cut them asunder.

There was no technique involved.

What was needed now was greater speed and power.

I was merely being faithful, utterly faithful, to the weapon’s fundamental purpose: to kill and eradicate.

And because I was faithful to the basics, the sensation in my hand became more intense.

Adding to that, the clean cutting sensation was enough to heighten my adrenaline.

I watched the flailing zombies, my eyes shining.

More, I wanted them to charge even more.

I advanced, swinging my sword like flowing water.

I tore through rotten flesh, forcibly clearing a path.

And I forced my way through the gap.

The more I did so, the more my body began to loosen.

Unlike my restricted vision, I felt my senses sharpening.

My body gradually grew lighter, bringing forth an exhilarating rush as my blood boiled.

The arm swinging the sword became faster and infused with more power.

In sync, my legs increased their forward pace.

It was a simple basic motion, but with added speed and power, it began to form a crude sword barrier.

It created a perimeter as long as the blade, cleaving and cutting everything it touched.

Everything it touched turned into dismembered chunks of meat.

Separately from my heating body, my mind remained cool.

Thanks to this, my eyes didn’t miss a single zombie.

I sliced apart all the zombies that rushed at me like moths.

My hands and feet did not stop for a moment.

The high-speed swordplay continued endlessly and smoothly.

Every time the sword tip moved, dreadful roars were cut short along with it.

The flickering light, swaying with my sword-wielding movements, blurred my vision.

And it seemed I wasn’t the only one whose vision was blurred.

The zombies hit by the intense light right in front of them reacted as if struck by a flashbang.

The zombies were certainly charging at me, but they couldn’t charge accurately.

Their rotten eyes, discolored grey, were wide open, but they couldn’t see me clearly.

This confirmed that even though their eyes were dead and decayed, they still relied on sight.

I didn’t hesitate, shining the light directly at the zombies and ‘blinding’ them.

And then, I easily decapitated them.

I advanced, riding against the direction from which the zombies were coming.

I did not stop moving towards the direction of the gunfire.

By the time I was covered in the flesh and fluids scattered by my sword attacks.

The number of charging zombies had noticeably decreased.

Swish-

When I cut down the two zombies that were charging furiously, the surroundings instantly became silent.

‘What is it?’

With the battle suddenly concluded, I cast my eyes around, surveying my surroundings.

Thanks to the powerful light, nothing else was visible in my clear line of sight.

Only the aftermath of the zombie rampage belatedly came into view.

Until the dark blue fluid dripped from the sword tip and splattered onto the floor.

The surroundings were simply quiet.

I had clearly cut down a large number of zombies.

But something about it didn’t feel right.

Swish!

I swung my sword in the air, shaking off the filth clinging to its blade.

I shifted my gaze forward, with the light.

Having swung my sword mindlessly, I had arrived in front of the staff passage.

The door was torn off, and the zombies’ grime-covered footprints continued beyond it.

“Hmm…”

I paused to catch my breath, then walked forward, sword still drawn.

First, I followed the zombies’ footprints as a guide.

Walking down a dark corridor illuminated by a single light felt like stepping into a scene from a horror game.

It was even more so now, with only the sound of my own footsteps echoing as I followed the dirty tracks.

The stagnant air in the corridor, unable to escape, was filled with a foul stench.

The further I walked into the unpleasant space, the worse it got.

Not only the stench, but also bloodstains, severed limbs, and bits of flesh were visible.

And a large number of spent shell casings lay scattered.

The floor and walls bore the scars of bullets.

Even at a glance, it was clear evidence of a fierce battle, a struggle.

As I followed the traces of the living, I also discovered something familiar.

‘This one….’

A corpse resembling the grotesque creature I remembered.

It was very similar to the corpse of that Old Man who had mutated like a camel cricket.

Even the fact that it was an old man was similar.

It had been a bothersome creature that crawled on walls, but now it was dead.

Riddled with bullets, it was a tattered mess.

Its head, in particular, was half-smashed.

There was another corpse of a similar-looking variant nearby.

It too was shattered in a similar state.

And quite a few zombies had been riddled like a beehive.

Seeing that, my curiosity was piqued.

Frankly, I hadn’t expected them to be capable of fighting like this.

‘…Was it simply good weapons?’

In any case, capturing the variant was unexpected.

Among the discolored, murky corpses of zombies were also bodies dressed in military uniforms and regular uniforms.

Corpses that had been torn apart or severely damaged with shattered heads.

I began to wonder if anyone was still alive.

The corridor I was following bore extensive traces of battle, and there were quite a few bodies that appeared to be from the ‘Daehan gang’.

It seemed there had been no small number of sacrifices for such a fierce battle.

As I was thinking that, not long after walking, something caught my eye.

“Look at these bastards…?”

I approached closer, mildly impressed.

In front of a large, sturdy-looking iron door, zombies lay sprawled.

And among them, one particularly noticeable behemoth stood out.

‘…It looks similar, but….’

Its appearance itself was familiar.

It was a variant I had seen a few times, even recently, mixed among the swarming hordes of zombies.

It resembled that visually disturbing creature that was hard to look at.

But its size was entirely different.

Its entire body had bulked up tremendously.

Such a creature lay dead, torn in half.

‘It must be over 2 meters tall?’

Its head seemed to have been horizontally sliced off, with nothing remaining above its nose.

Its body bore traces as if its abdomen had exploded.

Roughly estimating its severed lower body over there, it was undoubtedly a large and tall creature.

And it looked just as strong. How did they manage to catch such a creature?

A small question arose in my mind.

However, I frowned at the pungent stench that stung my nose and turned my body.

And I examined the iron door next to me.

The heavily crumpled and dented door had large fist marks imprinted on it.

Deep gouges were also scratched long across it.

A thick iron door, on the verge of being shattered.

Despite that, the door was still attached and firmly closed.

It seemed to have been designed to be incredibly sturdy.

I checked the nameplate and nodded.

[Security • Disaster Prevention Room]

If it was a place with important control facilities, that level of defense made sense.

Of course, its durability was entirely different from the iron doors typically seen in Korea.

Anyway.

It seemed I wouldn’t have to wander any longer.

From beyond the large iron door, which was barely holding on, a faint human voice leaked out.

‘…Found them.’

I wiped away the dark blue bodily fluid flowing down my cheek and smiled faintly.