NOVEL NEXT Episode 27
Eeeeeee-
Sirens wailed from speakers installed at regular intervals, announcing the gate disaster. Simultaneously, an urgent alarm sounded from inside Sung Kyung-min’s coat hanging on the chair.
Sung Kyung-min hurriedly pulled out a touch-screen walkie-talkie from his coat and spoke into the transmitter.
“This is Gangnam branch sub-hunter Sung Kyung-min! We’re currently near the gate occurrence site. I’ll be deploying with two Han-i-yeong students as backup.”
[This is Gangnam branch lead hunter Kim Gyusan. We’re en route after confirming the gate,] came a brief transmission from the walkie-talkie.
Sung Kyung-min gestured for us to follow as he burst out of the cafe door.
Yeo Wook pulled out the pistol from his jacket and followed him. I hastily got up, grabbing Sung Kyung-min’s suit jacket that he had forgotten to take.
The outdoor scenery, which had been utterly ordinary when we entered the cafe, had completely transformed. The forest of buildings across the Han River, opposite Cheongdam Bridge, was barely visible, obscured by air shimmering red.
In the middle of the 6-lane bridge, a massive gate hung in the air like a long gash made by a knife, its flesh pulsating.
The clear sky gradually turned red around the alien gate. An eerie wind blew ominously.
“This is a real situation. A gate disaster has been detected. Please evacuate to the nearest shelter. This is a real situation.”
-Honk! Honk!
Multiple horns blared, signaling drivers to ignore traffic lights. All drivers increased their speed to flee.
The basic policy during a disaster was not to leave your vehicle: observe traffic signals but accelerate as much as possible.
I vaguely recalled my written driver’s license test.
After some recklessly drove away, ignoring center lines and sidewalks, the roads emptied in an instant.
We saw panic-stricken people frantically fleeing towards us. Three monsters moved as a pack, chasing them.
The monsters, staggering yet somehow running, wore flipped-over human skin. The difference from normal humans was that they were half-rotten and crumbling.
“Help me!”
A woman running at the tail end of the crowd collapsed with a final scream.
The pack of monsters leaped onto the fallen woman. People screamed at the horrific sounds that followed.
“Damn it…”
Blue energy swirled and gathered around Sung Kyung-min’s right hand as he muttered a curse. The energy soon materialized into an axe shape.
Having manifested a hand axe with his
-Bang, bang.
Flashes went off in rapid succession. The bright flashes, three monsters, and a terrified crowd—it was utter chaos.
The crowd split into two streams around the three of us charging towards the monsters. Sung Kyung-min leaped at the head of a monster that was mauling a civilian.
With a crack like a watermelon splitting, the monster’s head was cleaved precisely in half.
Yeo Wook gripped his pistol with both hands, aiming at the monster pack. However, with Sung Kyung-min swinging his axe like a madman in the dead center of the fierce battle, he couldn’t bring himself to fire.
Sung Kyung-min was swinging the axe so wildly that it was hard to even get close.
Fortunately, Sung Kyung-min managed to dodge the combined attack of two monsters while swinging his axe blade. The sharply honed axe blade sliced through the monsters’ flesh and bone.
Sung Kyung-min kicked the belly of the last remaining monster and plunged his axe into its fallen corpse.
He exhaled with a “Phew,” and wiped his forehead, splattered with blood and filth, with his shirt sleeve.
Although three had attacked at once, they seemed to be weak F-grade creatures, so it was easy for Sung Kyung-min to handle them alone.
I swallowed hard as I looked at the shattered monster corpses. I finally realized what kind of horror movie Tito had referenced.
The half-rotten corpse appearance, the groaning movements. They were unmistakably zombies.
「Tito’s hands move swiftly over the keyboard. Unlike previous monsters that had to be designed one by one, these are all similar enough that some copy-pasting is possible, making Tito’s work considerably easier.」
-Ksssh.
The walkie-talkie at Sung Kyung-min’s waist crackled with an incoming transmission.
[Gangnam branch lead hunter Kim Gyusan…]
“This is Gangnam branch sub-hunter Sung Kyung-min, are you requesting support?!”
Sung Kyung-min yelled into the walkie-talkie, but only garbled syllables came through, mixed with static.
[Hunter… support…!]
Sung Kyung-min’s face hardened as he rolled up his shirt sleeves above his elbows. Then he pointed to the road where civilians were fleeing.
“You know the survivor rescue protocol, right? Guide the civilians evacuating this way to the Hangnyeoul Station shelter, then join up with the support forces that will arrive. Remember, absolutely do not interfere if a dangerous situation arises.”
Before we could answer, Sung Kyung-min ran towards the bridge shrouded in a red curtain. He disappeared into the panic-stricken crowd, hand axe in hand.
Left behind, we helped evacuate civilians and then searched the surrounding commercial area for any remaining survivors. No one was left in the places where people had fled like a storm.
Just in case, we checked the shaved ice shop where we had briefly stayed. As we came out, we exchanged glances, uneasy about the ominous atmosphere.
Except for the siren, the surroundings were eerily quiet.
The gate that had been gnashing its maw on the distant Cheongdam Bridge was now gone. It meant the hunters who had deployed on the bridge had exterminated all the monsters.
Still, something felt off. Yeo Wook, who had been listening intently, muttered quietly.
“…Is the situation over?”
Oh, damn it.
Lines like “Did we get them all?” are 100% guaranteed to lead to the awakening of an undefeated enemy. I quickly grabbed Yeo Wook’s clothes to stop him.
“Hey, don’t say things like…!”
-Bang!
A flash went off before I could even finish my warning. Every word we uttered now was a potential flag.
Yeo Wook, caught by me, looked at me with a puzzled expression, oblivious to how screwed we were.
[SYSTEM: A 2nd wave gate has occurred in Jayang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul.]
I knew it.
A sound like rolling thunder shook the ground, and the dark sky warped and rippled like a heat haze. It was the sign of a gate.
A bright red crack, violently torn open, bulged and writhed as if about to spew something out.
-Splat, splat.
It was the sound of zombies falling through the torn sky and hitting the asphalt. The monsters, already corpses, stood up limping with their innards visible through mangled limbs.
Their number easily exceeded 100. Even at this moment, countless monsters were pouring out of the torn gate.
Yeo Wook looked up at the sky and hurriedly pulled out his mobile phone. But it was obvious that the signal would be completely disrupted right under the gate.
As expected, Yeo Wook put the phone back in his pocket and quietly asked me.
“Should we fight?”
“No. Let’s bolt to the bridge where the hunters are. There are too many for just the two of us to handle. You only have twelve bullets anyway.”
Although Yeo Wook was an A-grade hunter, there were too many monsters, and without a materialization skill, he was bound to hit his limits.
We had to act wisely to preserve our lives.
The question was how to escape…
Suddenly, my gaze fell on Sung Kyung-min’s suit jacket tied around my waist. Yeo Wook looked at me quizzically as I rummaged through the inner pocket as if hypnotized.
Finally, my hand emerged holding a car key.
Yeo Wook’s eyes widened as he seemed to grasp my intention. I put my index finger to my lips, gesturing for him to be quiet.
It wasn’t hard to find Sung Kyung-min’s personal car parked nearby. After unlocking it, I carefully climbed into the driver’s seat, keeping an eye on the surrounding zombies.
Yeo Wook, having no choice, lay flat and got into the passenger seat.
Let’s see. What was the first thing to do after getting in a car?
Yeo Wook, watching the zombies approaching us, saw me adjusting the driver’s seat forward and cried out in exasperation.
“Maeng Sun-woo! What are you doing?!”
“Ah, just wait a minute!”
「As Tito actually starts working, he feels a confused pleasure at the ‘Maeng Sun-woo’ character moving differently from the plot he had planned in advance.」
It was fortunate that even Tito felt pleasure. It suddenly occurred to me that if I played this right, the planned love line might just crumble.
I carefully fastened my seatbelt, then adjusted the side and rearview mirrors.
Whew. I took a short, deep breath before starting the engine. As I gripped the steering wheel with its foreign car emblem, a nauseating pressure washed over me.
“Sun-woo, do you know how to drive?”
“I do. I’ve… seen videos on the internet.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say I’d actually gotten a license. Yeo Wook fastened his own seatbelt, his expression full of disbelief.
But there was nowhere to insert the car key. The groaning sounds of the monsters were getting closer and closer.
After fumbling for a while, I finally noticed a round button labeled ‘Engine START’. No wonder there was no key attached to the car key.
When I pressed the start button, the car body vibrated gently with a smooth engine sound.
-“Bluetooth connected. Playing recently listened music.”-
“Huh? What’s that sound?”
A cheerful recorded voice played. Before we knew what was happening, the song’s intro began.
A thumping bass guitar melody was followed by an upbeat drum rhythm. Yeo Wook was startled by the unexpected music.
“What the! Why did you turn on the music?!”
“I didn’t! It’s auto-connected through Bluetooth!”
“Then turn it off quickly!”
“I don’t know how!”
Yeo Wook and I bickered in hushed voices. It was my first time with a push-button start car, so I was completely lost—there was no way I could manage the Bluetooth.
The center console between the driver and passenger seats was crowded with all sorts of buttons. Not knowing what to do, I started pressing them one by one. This one’s for the heated seats, and this one’s…
The moment I flipped a switch with an unknown function, an ear-splitting, scorching guitar riff blared out.
We grimaced, covering our ears. It seemed I had accidentally turned the volume up to maximum.
“Sun-woo…! What did you do?!”
Yeo Wook shouted at the top of his lungs to be heard over the music. He desperately reached out to press the buttons I might have touched.
-Whirrr-
To make matters worse, the car’s roof began to open. Yeo Wook and I stared blankly at the slowly retracting ceiling.
The deafeningly loud music filled the empty streets.
Meanwhile, a warm spring breeze carrying the stench of rotting corpses ruffled our hair as it passed.
-Graaah.
A writhing mass of zombies, which could only be described as gathering like clouds, filled the 6-lane road and screamed.
Simultaneously, a flash went off right in front of Yeo Wook and me as we turned to look back. We squeezed our eyes shut at the unexpected close-up shot.
[SYSTEM:
Oh, crap.
I instinctively slammed on the brake and shifted into Drive. The moment I moved my right foot to the accelerator, the car would lurch forward.
-Screech!
The zombies, tangling and tumbling over each other as they charged blindly forward, were all staring only at me.
I calmly gauged the direction the car would take off in. I needed to herd them in the opposite direction from where the civilians had evacuated.
Despite the chaos, the speakers shamelessly blasted the upbeat song. The car engine, ready to go, made a satisfying sound.
At this point, there was nothing left but to stake our fate on my driving skills, which had scored 95 points on the written test and 90 points on the road test.