Free Web NovelUp until two years ago, Kim Soyoung had been a student at a high school in the so-called Yangjin New Town in Namyangju.
Why had been?
Because she had dropped out that May.
The school had tried contacting her for a month or two afterward, but no one at home had.
Not once, all the way up to now, more than two years later.
Because ever since middle school, no one in that house had cared whether she came home or not.
After dropping out, Kim Soyoung met the older guys from the Gado Union, whom some older girls she had known since middle school had introduced her to, and eventually joined them.
It was hard for guys to get in, but girls—especially pretty ones with good bodies like Kim Soyoung—had an easy time joining.
Life in the Union was fun.
The older guys gave her a place to sleep, bought her unlimited food and alcohol, and every now and then even gave her some of that for free.
When she needed cash, all she had to do was go stand outside her old school and shake down the younger kids. Four or five hundred thousand won came in fast.
If even one or two of the Union guys showed up with her, the younger kids couldn’t even look her in the eye. They just trembled and handed over money.
Or, if she really had to, she could work the street a little.
Either way, from the moment she quit school, life had been one nonstop stretch of wild, exciting freedom.
This summer break, especially, had been the peak of it all.
A huge group of the Union’s successful older alumni had shown up for the retreat.
They rented out an entire secluded mansion in Gahyeon-ri for a short stay, just two million won, and threw themselves into a full-blown insane party.
She barely remembered how much she had drunk, how many times she had done that, or how many times she had had a good time, and with who.
But anyway, it had been unbelievably fun.
Except for the part where those two fucking bitches got wasted on that and started acting up, then died.
Actually, the Union alumni guys killed them.
The girls had been causing such a scene that the guys slapped them around a few times, but they were so drunk they couldn’t even keep their balance, and one of them smashed her head on the dining table and died like that.
The other one started crying and screaming that she was going to report it later or whatever, so one of the vice-top guys got pissed off and beat the hell out of her.
She ended up with blood pooling in her eyes and went still too.
So on Top’s orders, every Union crew member at the retreat...
stabbed her once.
Kim Soyoung had been scared.
But the Gado Union alumni were even scarier.
And once they secretly buried the two dead girls in a vacant lot near the mansion, honestly, after just one day she didn’t feel much of anything anymore.
If they got caught, they got caught. It wasn’t like she was the only one who stabbed her.
Then another day passed.
They played in the stream during the day, went back to the mansion before sunset, and spent the night again drunk on alcohol, that, and the smell of flesh.
Then early the next morning—
the zombie apocalypse began.
Honestly, she hadn’t believed it.
It all just looked like fake AI-generated videos.
But when she left the slightly isolated mansion the Union had rented and went toward the area where the other villas and houses were—
she realized it was real.
It was terrifying.
People—no, zombies—were tearing people apart alive, and the people being eaten while they screamed soon turned into the same kind of zombies themselves.
Not a movie.
Not a TV drama.
Real life.
Even the Union alumni panicked.
But then Top and Brain spoke, and everything changed.
— Hey, isn’t this actually better for us? A few days ago, what was it... fuck, I don’t even remember her name. Anyway, nobody’s gonna care anymore that those two girls died, right?
— And none of us turned. Not counting those coward traitors who ran off scared shitless. So what does that mean? It means we’re the strongest group around here now. So—
— Maybe we can take over this whole neighborhood. So let’s all ride this out together! Let’s fucking go!
Let’s go! Let’s fucking go!
When the Union crew got hyped, Kim Soyoung got hyped too.
She had always lived like there was only today anyway, so wasn’t it better now that the world had become this kind of mess?
Now, as long as you had power, couldn’t you do whatever the hell you wanted?
And the strongest, coolest people nineteen-year-old Kim Soyoung knew were the Gado Union alumni.
Anyway, from that night on, the older guys took turns standing watch on the mansion roof and observing the area in detail.
Then they would secretly go at night to houses nearby that had fewer zombies and looked easy.
They would pretend to be students who had escaped zombies and get the people inside to open the door.
Then they killed them and took everything.
Kim Soyoung and a few other girls played the role of pitiful schoolgirls, because without makeup they looked their age.
They took turns doing it once or twice a day.
The door would open, ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ the older guys would stab the people inside, and they would repeat the whole thing again somewhere else.
Sure, over the last month about four people had died—either fighting back victims or getting bitten by zombies.
But as long as it wasn’t her, who cared?
So today too, when those idiots drove an expensive-looking big electric SUV right into Union territory, she had figured it would be easy.
Top had said that a big electric SUV like that was exactly what they needed to haul food, solar panels, and all kinds of useful supplies.
So Kim Soyoung immediately climbed onto the back seat of Lee Woojin’s electric bike, the guy she had been sleeping with the most lately.
Out of all the Union alumni, he was the best driver.
And unlike the other guys, who just did whatever they wanted, Woojin at least paid some attention to her when they did it.
So she had thought that if anything happened, he would protect her and take care of her.
But all of that had been a delusion.
***
Crack!
With a huge impact, the top half of Lee Woojin’s white helmet shattered apart just as he was lifting his hatchet.
A long black blade had bitten more than halfway into the helmet—
then ripped free in one motion.
“Aaaagh!”
Kim Soyoung screamed and squeezed her eyes shut without even meaning to.
In that instant, maybe because Woojin had let go of the handlebars, the bike tipped over sideways.
And Kim Soyoung ended up pinned beneath the heavy machine as it fell.
“Aagh! That hurts! Get it off me! Ngh! Ah, Woojin, help me— huh?”
Still not understanding what had happened, Kim Soyoung shook Woojin—
then her eyes slowly widened.
From the split in the half-cleaved helmet, blood and gray-white matter were pouring out in thick streams.
Woojin’s arms were stretched straight out, his fingers spasming open and shut.
Then even that stopped.
“Ah... ahhh... Kyaaaaaah!”
She had seen the older guys kill zombies and people before.
But this was the first time she had seen someone die right in front of her, with his head literally smashed open.
So Kim Soyoung let out a shrill scream.
But her eyes could not leave the man who had just killed Woojin with that blade.
It was like she had been hypnotized.
“You motherfucker! Y-you fucking— guh! Khrk, krrrgh...”
One of the crew guys—she did not even know his name—was swinging around a crude spear made by taping a kitchen knife to a pole with blue tape.
One strike.
That was all it took.
The blade sank nearly a handspan into the spot below his neck, and he dropped.
Leaving him to collapse in a spray of blood, the man in black work clothes and a black helmet charged straight at the next target and swung again.
Honestly, he was moving so fast she could barely even follow it.
Only—
“Ghk!”
“Get away from me! You piece of shit, get the fuck away— uaaghk! Kaaah...”
The older guys who had always been so gutsy, so good at fighting, so used to killing people—
were getting hacked apart and dropping.
“Hiiit, hiiii!”
Kim Seongcheol, the same-age guy who had been the first to jump off because the electric scooter battery had caught fire, was now sitting on the ground, shoving himself backward with both feet.
At some point, his white pants had turned yellow.
“S-Seongcheol... help me. Help me out here.”
“Huhhh? Hwaaaah!”
Kim Seongcheol glanced at Kim Soyoung, then seemed to come to his senses. He scrambled to his feet with a scream and yanked upright another electric scooter whose rider was already dead.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck...”
He kept muttering curses without stopping as he went to start it.
Then—
Thunk! Boom!
Another hole punched through the underside of the seat where he was sitting, and the battery burst with sparks.
“Aah!? Ah, fuck! Aaaaah!”
Maybe the sparks had touched him, because his shirt caught fire.
“Aggh!? Aaaaah...!”
Kim Seongcheol desperately tried to put it out.
But unfortunately for him, his shirt was a polyester blend.
The fabric melted fast in the flames and stuck to his skin.
“Aaaagh! Aah... khk!”
That was when the dark blade bit about two-thirds of the way into Kim Seongcheol’s neck, then ripped back out.
He grabbed at his throat with the same hands he had been trying to use to put out the flames.
Blood sprayed through his fingers like shower water, and he collapsed in a wet heap.
“Ueeek!?”
At the sight of Kim Seongcheol writhing in the fire and spilling blood, Kim Soyoung felt warmth spread between her legs.
No—
the truth was, she had pissed herself long ago.
She was only realizing it now.
Bodies and pieces of bodies were strewn everywhere.
The metallic stink of blood mixed with the sticky reek of burning clothes, burning flesh, and melting skin.
Kim Soyoung’s sight and sense of smell were so overwhelmed they were on the verge of shutting down. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
Then—
Step. Step. Step...
The footsteps of the man who had killed all seven of them in an instant came crashing into her hearing too.
“P-p-p-please spare me. P-please, please spare me!”
Pinned under the bike and thrashing helplessly, Kim Soyoung begged in desperation.
At that, the footsteps stopped.
The man—whose shoulders looked twice as broad as hers—suddenly bent one knee.
“Hik!?”
Staring down at Kim Soyoung, whose face was smeared with tears and snot, Junho said,
“You’ve killed people, haven’t you?”
“Eh...?”
“You did. Union or whatever the hell you call it. Anyway, you EoktenZ bastards killed your own friend, and the people living near that mansion where you stay too. Didn’t you?”
“Ah? N-no, I didn’t—”
“The hell you didn’t. You and the rest of those bastards took turns stabbing that girl to death and buried her in the vacant lot. And the people in that car—you were going to kill them too, or torture them. Like you always do.”
“......!!!”
Even in the middle of extreme terror, Kim Soyoung’s eyes flew wide.
How could this man she had never seen before know any of that?
“Wasn’t your motto that you only live for today? Well... your today’s already over.”
Shhk.
Not the machete this time, but a commando dagger flashed in and out, driving once, fast and deep, into the area of Kim Soyoung’s heart.
“Khk! Ggh... kk!”
Foamy blood bubbled out of her mouth along with a wet choking sound.
Her eyes rolled back, her lips moved soundlessly a few times—
and then she died.
“......”
With emotionless eyes, Junho looked over the bodies of the punks who had given up being human a long time ago.
Then he turned and walked toward the electric SUV, which had stopped moving at some point.
***
“O-oppa. W-what do we do?”
The woman in the passenger seat, who looked around twenty and resembled the young man beside her enough to be his sister, urged him frantically.
“H-hic, hic.”
“Ducky! D-do something!”
But the man in the driver’s seat could do nothing except keep hiccuping.
The slaughter that had just happened—less than thirty seconds of it—was still replaying over and over in his head.
“Y-Yuna! You...”
“Stop... please, don’t come over here.”
Their friend in the back seat had fallen into panic too, crouched down with her head covered, trembling.
Then the man in black clothes and a black helmet stopped in front of the car.
Tap. Tap.
With the same blade that had just killed seven people without caring whether they were men or women, he tapped on the car door.
“Hiiik! Don’t kill us! We had nothing to do with this!”
The woman in the back seat panicked and crammed herself against the far side of the seat.
The woman in the passenger seat only stared at the helmeted man tapping the door with the knife, her body frozen stiff.
“Open it. I won’t kill you.”
“Ah...!?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
As if under a spell, all three of them stopped what they were doing and looked at the helmeted man outside the door.
“If you don’t open it, I’ll break—”
“I’m opening it! I’ll open it!”
The doors of the electric SUV opened in a rush, and the woman in the back seat and the woman in the passenger seat jumped out.
As for the driver—
“Ghk!”
He tried to get out without unfastening his seat belt first, got yanked hard in the chest by it, and dropped right back into the seat in a pathetic heap.
“Not much of a dependable type, this one... anyway, all of you come over here.”
Sneaking glances at the helmeted man muttering words they did not understand, the two women forced their trembling legs to move and stood in front of him.
Then he took off his helmet.
“Ah...”
The face underneath was completely ordinary—
soaked in sweat, yes, but impossible to believe it belonged to the killer who had just hacked, chopped, and carved people apart.
