Surviving Every Worldview

Chapter 26: Episode 1 (3)

A cold wind whipped past me.

Behind me, the undead still screamed as they rushed at me, but it no longer mattered.

I leapt into the air, without a safety harness or a stable foothold.

“Over here!”

Seol Do-yeon reached out to me from the floor below.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me up onto the drone but it’s not enough to grab her hand.

The moment I step on top of the drone with Do-yeon already there, the impact could tip the drone over.

“Get your hands off me!”

I yell at her.

There’s enough distance between us that reaching out would only get in the way.

I have to think about how to fall and land safely.

“Whoa…….”

I took a breath and prepared myself.

The moment my foot touches the edge of the drone, the drone’s center of gravity tilts.

Without hesitation, I grabbed Seol Do-yeon in my arms and fell on top of the drone.

“Ow!”

Seol Do-yeon screamed, and the drone’s rim lit up red.

A beeping sound accompanied the red light, emphasizing the danger.

The drone didn’t regain its balance quickly enough, and it tumbled, swaying from side to side, as we scrambled to hold on to whatever we could.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

I emphasized to Do-yeon and to myself.

It was a tightrope walk between death and survival.

My body shakes, my breathing becomes ragged and my heart is racing.

As we held each other tightly, I couldn’t tell if the rapid heartbeat I was hearing was mine or hers.

After what seemed like an eternity of holding on to the drone.

Peeeeee…….

The beeping stopped, and the red light turned yellow.

The drone was still shaking, but it was stabilizing.

Seol Do-yeon, who had also realized what was happening, opened her bleary eyes and looked around.

“Ha, ha…I thought I was going to die…….”

“Is the drone okay now?”

“I think so…Oh, don’t move it just yet. Wait until it comes back to the green light…….”

Do-yeon held onto my arm with a trembling hand.

I looked up, feeling a little more relaxed, and saw that the undead were chasing after me, falling straight down the building.

……Wow, I just did something ridiculous.

If I had fallen 11 stories, I would have been dead.

It’s one of the benefits of the unwritten rules of convenience that I can already laugh about it.

The warning light returned to green, and I nudged Do-yeon.

“Are you calm? Let’s go up to the roof.”

“Huh? Uh, yeah…yeah.”

Seol Do-yeon, who had been holding on to me with her whole body, finally let go.

She fumbled in her pockets with one hand and pulled out the controller again.

Slowly, the drone lifted us to the rooftop.

Apparently exhausted, she leaned on my shoulder the entire time.

“Next time, I’ll put a chair on the drone. And a heating system, a roof, and windows.”

“Why don’t you build a helicopter instead?”

“Oh, maybe.”

As the drone neared the rooftop, I whispered quietly to Seol Do-yeon.

“I’ll get off here. You can help from a distance like you did earlier.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself? Shouldn’t we go together?”

“It’s better if we go separately. Don’t worry.”

“Well, in that case…….”

I jumped over the railing and motioned for Seol Do-yeon to climb higher.

Meanwhile, just a few meters ahead, Seorin, who had bought us time, was still fighting, surrounded by the undead.

In this situation, the only one who realized I was up here was…….

[Your story begins.]

No one.

* * *

The zombie stabbed by the scissors collapsed, bleeding profusely.

Other undead stepped over the corpse, reaching out their arms, but the scissors cut through the rotting flesh with each swipe.

Each swing of the scissors left an afterimage, like blood on paper.

[Your story is “Death Wish”].

[Use every power you’ve ever imagined.]

Taking advantage of the opening, Seorin burrowed inside.

Her body transformed into a crimson butterfly, breaking through the undead horde, before reverting back to her human form.

Soon, the Necromancer, his robe hiding his pale skin and sad eyes, came into view.

Seorin threw half of the scissors at him as he watched the situation unfold.

It flew straight for the head, but a bird suddenly flew in and hit the scissors.

The scissors were deflected and lodged near the enemy’s shoulder.

The necromancer pulled out the scissors with his hand and backed away, putting some distance between them.

“Whoa…….”

Seorin exhaled a hot breath.

Her head is too dizzy to think straight.

Fortunately, though, what she had to do was clear.

There was no need to take down the master of the Worldview alone.

All she had to do was hold on until the two of them were safely upstairs.

“……That hurt.”

Slowly, her body adjusts as she is holding her own against a horde of undead with clear weaknesses and limitations.

She also realized how to better use her story and the traits she got.

[Overdose C+]

[1st time. Beware of trait overdose]

She thought Overdose was a talent that should only be used on enemies, but that’s not the case.

She can use it directly on herself, easily fulfilling the conditions of the handicap.

That’s how she utilized the story of [Death Wish].

Even as her head rang and her body buckled, she pushed forward.

Blood flowed from the bitten and scratched wounds. The scarf wrapped around the neck absorbed it and billowed even more dramatically.

From a distance, you might not be able to tell who was undead and who was human.

Soon, she has the Necromancer almost to the ledge.

Seeing his expression still relaxed, she bit her lip.

You two…why aren’t you coming back?’

Seol Do-yeon didn’t come back and neither did Yoo Yeon-woo.

They could get there in an instant with a drone, no matter where they are……

No way.

Maybe.

Could they be attacked by the other undead in the building?

“That shouldn’t be right.”

Looking around now, the number of enemies was strange.

Fantasy undead. In particular, necromancers are beings whose core is a massive attack that cannot be handled alone.

The undead on the rooftop, on the other hand, were far too few for that characterization.

What if that’s because most of the undead are after the two of them?

What if only enough undead to stop remained on the rooftop?

“……That’s not supposed to happen.”

Images of a half-destroyed drone and Yoo Seon-woo surrounded by the undead flashed in her head.

No matter how hard she tried to deny the thought, it wouldn’t go away.

She thought.

What if, just by chance, something is really wrong?

……In that case, she’d have to increase her stats.

It was better than the other two getting hurt.

That’s what [Death Wish] is for.

A simple story about how the more you ignore your body breaking down, the more you can achieve what you want.

If you give up on your own safety, you can solve any episode where something happens.

‘Isn’t the bleeding out of control?’

She’s already wounded, but she shouldn’t use her traits blindly.

If she makes every injury worse and something goes wrong somewhere in her body, it might actually hinder her ability to fight.

There are places where a big wound won’t hurt her right away.

By cutting in those places, she’s only aggravating one condition.

She brought the blade of the scissors to her arm.

With a little pressure, a shallow cut opened, and a tiny trickle of blood came out.

Seorin then activated [Overdose] on herself once more.

[2nd time. Overdose……]

Tududududu-!

Just as the message was about to be printed, a bullet from a distance pierced through the status window.

Normally, shooting an insubstantial sentence wouldn’t cancel a trait.

However, the bullet that flew past her eyes distracted her.

And just like that, the trait was canceled.

“Sorry I’m late!”

Seol Do-yeon’s voice boomed out.

The sound of her voice on the unfamiliar megaphone was enough to make even the Necromancer turn around.

“…….”

The Necromancer’s expression twisted for a moment, and his lamp glowed.

At the same time, the bodies of the undead Seoirn had slain began to burn with a color that closely resembled the embers in the lamp.

The scattered ashes gathered together to form a flock of crows, flying toward Seol Do-yeon.

The flock was dense and huge, like nothing she had ever seen in her life.

It looked as if a black mass was about to swallow her whole.

But Seol Do-yeon was excited, and she held the megaphone in her hand to her mouth and pointed it at the crows.

Then she shouted at the top of her lungs.

“You think I came back unprepared!!!”

Seol Do-yeon’s voice, amplified by the loudspeaker, turned into a sonic boom large enough to be seen and shot out.

The flock of crows in the path of the sonic blast instantly lost their senses and swooped down on the Necromancer’s head.

The zombie birds crashed onto the rooftop, fluttering and shivering.

The Necromancer shined his lantern at them again, but this time the birds didn’t burn.

‘They’re incapacitated, not dead!’

Quickly assessing the situation, Seorin charged at the Necromancer and swung her combined scissors.

With most of the undead he could control neutralized, nothing stood in her way.

With one swipe, the robe was torn to shreds.

Pale skin, dripping with black blood was exposed.

It’s clearly not undead, but it feels like it’s attacking a wooden doll or dummy.

Without further hesitation, she plunges the scissors into his abdomen.

-Puhhhhh!

……At that moment, the crows that flew in front of Seorin exploded.

The one closest to her exploded, followed immediately by the one next to it.

One by one, the bodies on the rooftop exploded, creating a fog and a foul smell of blood.

“Hey, are you okay!”

Seol Do-yeon’s drone was also shrouded in the fog, and she couldn’t see it.

Fortunately, no matter how much blood flowed and how cold her body became, an unknown power flowed into her body.

[Overdose triggers.]

At the same time, the Necromancer’s wound gaped open, bleeding profusely.

Although it had been used on herself repeatedly, it could still be used on enemies just the same.”

But now, how do we…….?

‘……Where is Seon-woo?’

Suddenly, Seorin remembered something she had forgotten.

If Seol Do-yeon had returned, it must mean that she had brought Seon-woo with her.

What could he be doing that she can’t see him?

-Jiiing―

Just then, her cell phone vibrated and a small message from Seon-woo appeared on the screen.

-Yoo Seon-woo: Talk to the enemy. When the mood is different like this, they’ll accept a few words.

– Yoo Seon-woo: Don’t worry, I’m right here with you.

She turned around and saw a handful of healing sprays lying around.

He just saw her get caught up in the explosion, and in that brief moment, he secretly left medication behind.

‘How the hell am I supposed to talk to him, anyway?’

Ziying-

A long, organized message followed.

It was a script that answered her question exactly and a note to be as non-provocative as possible.

Lee Seorin read the list one by one.

“You seem like a normal person, so why did you do this?”

A moment of silence ensued.

Even the undead that had been trying to reach her stopped dead in their tracks.

Just as the message said, the Necromancer, who didn’t look human at all, answered in a very low, skeptical voice that matched his pale features.

“A normal human… I wish.”

“You mean you’re not.”

“Not so long ago I was just a picture, a sentence, and just because I’m standing on my own two feet doesn’t mean I’m a normal person.”

The Necromancer answered the question as if it were a game where the dialog continued long after he entered battle.

It was an action close to an instinct that could not be resisted as a being that originated from a creative work.

“I can’t say that yet, not yet…….”

The Necromancer smirked self-deprecatingly.

Seorin naturally followed up with her next question.

“So you want to become a real being, to eliminate us from reality.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said.”

“… What makes you so sure that you can survive in reality if you eliminate us?”

“There’s no need to look into the basis. It’s a story that’s already been decided. It’s like defeating the enemy leads to a happy ending.”

Vague answers that sounded like they knew but weren’t quite sure.

She was curious, but she wondered if Yoo Seon-woo, who had asked her to ask the questions, had anything to gain by asking them in this situation.

‘Why is it so hard to know what he’s thinking?’

Nevertheless, she asked the last question.

The three questions were asked in such a way as to anticipate the answers, and they were easy to understand.

“Have you ever heard of……Dreams?”

She couldn’t figure out what he meant with the last question.