Chapter 1 – Visitor to the Zombie Outbreak

The world was filled with dead people.

It seemed like a metaphor from a philosophy book, but it wasn’t a metaphor.

The world he saw as a survivor was no different from what he had just imagined.

Strangely enough, his companion lying next to him seemed to have the same thought.

“No matter how I look at it, it’s unbelievable. I never thought I’d prefer a zombie movie becoming reality…”

It was just as he said.

The world had recently changed into something worse than a zombie movie.

Below the hill where the two were lying, all the people walking on the park trail were the dead, commonly known as zombies.

The sight of the dead moving sluggishly, wearing blood-stained, tattered clothes, was like a scene from a zombie movie.

Zombies wandering aimlessly on the streets in broad daylight.

A grotesque yet seemingly peaceful sight.

If one only looked at the scene before them, it might even appear better than zombie movies.

However, the seemingly decent appearance of the walking trail was only because those dead ones hadn’t seen any living humans.

If they realized there were living humans hiding behind the hill, those zombies would rush madly to kill them.

Just like in a zombie movie.

That’s why he and his companion were lying on this mound, covered in dirt and with grass stuck all over their clothes, trying not to be noticed by the dead, the zombies.

It was annoying and tiring, but thanks to being so careful, he, his companion, and the group he belonged to had managed to survive until now.

But this wasn’t the end.

“Damn, instead of decreasing, their numbers have increased. Those over there, they’re old corpses, right?”

Looking where his companion was pointing, he saw half-skeletal corpses moving at the entrance of the walking trail.

Corpses moving with decayed burial clothes and half-exposed bones.

This was where reality differed from zombie movies – because of corpses like those.

Those corpses weren’t people who had died and become zombies after that day, but old corpses that had been buried in the ground long ago.

Corpses that had been dead for months, or even years.

The reason the number of corpses kept increasing despite their efforts to dispose of them was because of these old corpses.

As time passed, more and more old corpses were rising from their graves.

“I’ve heard rumors that even skeletons are moving…”

Could it be true?

Unlike zombie movies, would all those who had returned to dust start moving again?

Sighing at the bleak reality, he gestured to his companion.

“Let’s go back.”

There was nothing more to see.

His companion nodded, and the two began to retreat from the hill while lying down.

The moving corpses, the zombies, weren’t just on the walking trail.

They were on the road beyond the park, in the alleys.

And in the forest path they had come through, zombies were walking.

“Damn, I didn’t expect the way back to be blocked.”

He heard his companion’s exasperated words, but he wasn’t in the mood to nod in agreement.

They had cleared the zombies around the path sufficiently, but who would have thought the way would be blocked so unexpectedly.

Surely, there had been no change when they came here.

As expected, the zombies blocking their way back were all long-dead ones.

Probably corpses that had recently emerged, breaking through the ground.

It was frustrating that the conversation they had just moments ago had turned into something choking them.

“What should we do?”

His frightened companion asked him.

His words made him laugh bitterly.

They had already decided what to do in this kind of situation.

One person would draw attention, while the rest would escape.

For modern people who had survived this chaos but lacked proper combat skills, that was the only way to deal with zombies when encountered.

Yet he was saying such things.

In the end, that person was saying this because he wanted to live.

He must be asking him to make the sacrifice.

He sighed again and gripped the iron pipe tightly.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to live, but he didn’t want to go that far.

His family seemed to be dead, and all dreams and hopes had already disappeared.

He was only living because he couldn’t die, so maybe it was right to end it here.

He stood up, holding the iron pipe with its end sharpened.

The zombies blocking the path stirred.

How they noticed with their noses rotted, ears fallen off, and eyes gone was a mystery.

But for creatures that move without muscles, what difference does it make if they have no eyes?

Anyway, since that day, the world had become detached from science.

“I’ll buy you some time.”

Saying this, he tapped the stone in front of his feet with the iron pipe.

Clang, clang.

The stirring zombies looked precisely at the source of the sound.

“Thank you, and I’m sorry.”

His companion, after expressing gratitude, lowered his body as much as possible and ran to the side.

It seemed he planned to run towards the escape route as soon as the zombies rushed towards him.

However, he didn’t bid farewell to his grateful companion.

In fact, there was nothing to be grateful for.

With the visible escape route blocked, there was no way the unseen forest path would be clear.

In the end, they were both doomed.

Watching his companion flee and the zombies approach, he gripped the pipe.

Although he was prepared to die, seeing the zombies charging with their grotesque appearance was truly terrifying.

In zombie movies, the protagonists seemed to kill them easily.

But reality wasn’t a movie.

In movies, they died easily just by cutting off their heads or making a hole in their heads, but the zombies in front of him didn’t die from such methods.

Well, if they had died like that, they wouldn’t be moving like this.

Already, zombies with more than half of their heads blown off were running towards him.

Unlike in movies, to stop these monsters, you had to completely destroy the remaining body.

Burst the head, crush the ribs, cut off the arms and legs.

Only when their limbs were shattered to the point where nothing was intact would these zombies stop moving.

In fact, if they were zombies from zombie movies, the world wouldn’t have fallen like this.

With modern weapons abundant, zombies that could be stopped just by shooting their heads couldn’t possibly bring down the world.

But these zombies were beings that would only stop after being shattered by a hail of bullets.

Human firepower was insufficient to stop them.

‘Hopefully, I can stop one.’

Holding onto a hopeless expectation, he swung the sharpened iron pipe with all his might at the zombie charging at the front.

Thwack!

Luckily, the pipe pierced through the zombie’s head.

The zombie stopped abruptly.

Seeing this, he had a fleeting hope, but unfortunately, the monster that had stopped began to move again.

Grooooowl.

With its head pierced by the iron pipe, it approached him with both hands raised.

Thanks to being stuck on the iron pipe, its approaching speed was very slow, but the zombie didn’t stop.

It was slow enough that he could have pulled out the iron pipe and run away immediately, but there were more zombies besides that one.

Two zombies running from both sides with their arms flailing.

Even if he let go of the iron pipe, escape was impossible.

He prepared for death as he watched the two zombies charging at him.

That’s when it happened.

“!@!#!@#.”

A voice he had never heard before came from afar.

It was a language he had never heard before, but it was a strange sound with a melody.

At the same time, one of the zombies burst into flames.

Whoosh.

The zombie that had become a fireball rolled on the ground.

Simultaneously, the other zombie collapsed on the spot.

Thud.

Just with a single arrow stuck in its head.

The zombie crumbled without being able to do anything.

It was an absurd event, but at the same time, hope arose.

I can live.

“Please! Save me!”

He screamed almost like a shriek as he watched the zombie’s hands about to cover his vision.

The zombie’s hand brushed his face, and over the hand, he saw a large sword.

An enormous greatsword he had never seen before.

The sword crushed the head where the iron pipe was stuck.

Crunch.

The sword that crushed the head also shattered the zombie’s chest and waist.

Clang.

The crumpled iron pipe fell to the ground, and the zombie fell forward.

The zombie lying on the ground immediately stopped moving.

At the same time, the muscles that had been attached in an impossible way crumbled, and the bones separated.

The zombie had returned to being a corpse.

Behind the zombie that had returned to being a corpse stood a man.

He was a large man wearing shining armor.

A handsome Western man with blonde hair, looking like a knight from the medieval era.

Like a knight, no, he was a knight himself.

Behind the knight, a woman wearing a cloak was visible, and a middle-aged man holding a crossbow could also be seen.

He could see the ears of the woman, who was prettier than a celebrity, poking out from her hair.

‘Surely it can’t be something like an elf?’

Looking at the people standing before him, such an absurd thought crossed his mind.

While he was thinking this, the knight in front of him opened his mouth.

“This is f*cked up. I never thought my hometown I luckily returned to would have changed like this.”

Strangely enough, he could understand what the knight was saying.

It was natural.

The words the blonde knight spoke were in Korean.