Chapter 135 – Yeouido (1)

That night. We spent the night in an empty building next to a collapsed structure.

When we passed by earlier, it seemed like there were people around besides the collapsed building, but now there was no trace of anyone.

No one was visible at the rest stop by the highway, nor in the buildings along the road, and even here, there were no signs of life.

It hadn’t even been a few months since the incident began, yet it was already so hard to find living people.

However, just because there were no people didn’t mean the streets were completely empty.

There were things moving among the abandoned cars.

Zombies.

Clearly, we had cleared them out when we first arrived here, but they had multiplied again…

From what we’ve observed so far, some zombies seemed to repeat behaviors from when they were alive.

For that reason, the newly appeared zombies might have been those who had finished their workday and were “returning home.”

“Or maybe they’re out for a stroll.”

As I looked down at the zombies from the 20th-floor balcony, Yerim handed me a can of coffee and said.

“It’s warm.”

“Zahina unnie warmed it up for you. She warmed it just right without even lighting a fire. Magic is really amazing.”

But I’ve never seen a mage use magic like this.

Mages usually cause explosions or cast blazing spells.

They didn’t use magic to warm things up, citing it as a waste of mana.

“Mages wouldn’t use magic for something like this. They’d be grateful if you just lit a fire with some wood.”

Hoffman, sitting on the living room sofa, gulped down some warmed liquor as he spoke.

When did he even get that alcohol?

But it was hard to say anything about alcohol to a potion addict.

Seeing Priest Benedict chugging beer in front of Hoffman was absurd.

“Does the church allow drinking?”

“Huh? I don’t drink alcohol.”

“Isn’t what you’re holding right now alcohol?”

“No way. You’re joking. This is just a beverage.”

At the priest’s words, Hoffman also nodded.

“Exactly. People from this world are strange. How can that be alcohol? If you’re full and don’t get drunk, how can it be alcohol?”

I had no response to Hoffman’s words.

By Ea’s standards, Hoffman was right.

No one in Ea would call beer alcohol.

On the other side, Zahina was also drinking canned black tea. Her reddened face made it seem like she was the one who was drunk.

A starry night with zombies roaming the streets.

We were enjoying a rare moment of peace.

A while later, Hoffman, who had been drinking, asked me on the balcony.

“Even for our scouting party, is it okay for the diversion unit to move separately like this? It doesn’t seem like we’ve synchronized our timing, and there’s no way to communicate, right?”

A way to communicate. I raised my finger and pointed to the night sky.

A flickering star hung at the tip of my finger.

“We have satellites. If we send a signal, they can see it from up there.”

“Ah, you mean that observation equipment in space, right?”

At my words, Zahina, uncharacteristically, acted like she knew what I was talking about.

“Both the destination of the hero’s party and the Yeouido we’re heading to were found using satellites.”

Without satellites, the operation itself would have been impossible.

Of course, satellites alone weren’t enough.

“Before, we didn’t know what the Demon King’s army bases looked like, so even with satellites, we couldn’t pinpoint their locations. But now we know what their bases look like.”

The appearance of the bases varied depending on who led the Demon King’s army.

The bases of Liches, Vampires, and Specters all looked different.

The same was true for where the Demon King resided.

“The hero’s party can move freely thanks to the satellites.”

Finding places where the Demon King might be was also thanks to the advice of the expeditionary force and the artificial satellites.

At my words, Hoffman spoke with a serious expression.

“Then, we must ensure that the artificial satellites remain hidden from the Demon King’s army.”

I nodded at Hoffman’s words.

Finding and destroying satellites in space wouldn’t be easy, but it was better to remain undetected.

Perhaps because they were ordinary zombies, no undead attacked us during the night.

Early the next morning, we left the building.

After dealing with the zombies still loitering around, I told the group.

“We’ll take the Gangbyeon Expressway and Olympic Boulevard, heading west. There might be an ambush, so stay alert.”

It would have been faster to find an abandoned car and drive, but unfortunately, there were too many abandoned cars near Seoul.

It was faster to walk than to clear the cars as we went.

Everyone nodded at my words, but Yerim suddenly raised her hand.

“There probably aren’t many zombies by the riverside. Only those who turned into zombies while driving would be there… Surely, that octopus monster isn’t there again, right? Is it?”

Yerim cautiously asked, looking around at the party members.

“There’s no way that octopus monster would appear again.”

If such a thing were to appear again, we wouldn’t have considered taking the Gangbyeon Expressway.

As Yerim said, there wouldn’t be as many zombies as in the city.

“There are other undead besides zombies.”

At my words, Yerim tilted her head in confusion.

A few hours later, Yerim understood what I meant.

“This is too much! You should’ve told me earlier!”

Yerim looked at the approaching undead with a tearful expression and glared at me.

Seeing her on the verge of tears, I could only shrug.

“How could I have known it would turn out like this?”

“But…”

The undead that greeted us upon arriving at Olympic Boulevard were corpse mermaids.

Fish-like humans dressed in what could hardly be called clothing.

Seeing the corpse mermaid emerge from the Han River, Yerim’s eyes welled up with tears.

It reminded her of her father.

Her father had also appeared as a corpse mermaid at the water treatment plant, bidding her farewell for the last time.

Back then, she had wanted to see her deceased father, so I took her there.

Fortunately, she had come to terms with her father’s death and fought well against zombies.

People who saw someone they knew turn into a zombie often struggled to kill them, but Yerim was fine because her father hadn’t died as a zombie.

When I first planned this route, I hesitated because of Yerim.

I already knew there were corpse mermaids in the Han River since we had crossed it once before.

I was worried that Yerim might be hurt seeing the corpse mermaids, but there was no other way.

We couldn’t go through downtown Seoul, filled with zombies, just to avoid the corpse mermaids.

Going around Seoul to reach Yeouido was also impossible.

Thud! Thud!

I dealt with the approaching corpse mermaids while keeping an eye on Yerim.

Fortunately, she fought better than expected.

Together with Priest Benedict, she continuously burned the approaching corpse mermaids with holy power.

Whoosh!

The burning corpse mermaids stopped moving under the hands of me and the other party members.

After cutting down the last corpse mermaid, I looked at Yerim, and her expression seemed better than I thought.

“Don’t worry. I was just startled at first. Those monsters aren’t my dad. I already said my proper goodbyes to him back then.”

Her slightly sad words reassured me.

This much was manageable.

With my last concern gone, I picked up the pace.

We passed by several bridges like Gangdong Bridge, Guri Amsa, and Cheonho Bridge, continuing to walk westward.

Although everyone in the party was an awakened or semi-awakened individual who could sense mana, Yeouido was still a long way off.

Moreover, we had to fight corpse mermaids that occasionally emerged from the Han River and zombies in abandoned cars, forcing us to stop frequently.

In the end, we arrived at Yeouido two days later.

We didn’t enter Yeouido directly but walked further west.

Then, we climbed to the rooftop of a high-rise apartment in Banpo-dong, where the National Assembly building was clearly visible.

Even without infusing mana into my eyes, the National Assembly building was clearly in sight.

An old assembly hall with a green hemispherical roof.

On the roof of the assembly hall was something I hadn’t seen in my previous life.

A bone statue that looked like a winged dinosaur fossil.

No, it was an undead made of bones.

I infused mana into my eyes.

The assembly hall roof came into sharp focus.

The bones, which had only been outlines, now appeared vividly.

A long tail and wide wings made of bones.

But this undead wasn’t just bones.

Under its ribcage, moving lungs and a heart were visible.

Red blood vessels squirmed over the bones.

The undead lying on the assembly hall roof was neither dead nor alive—a peculiar undead.

“Well spotted. That’s the one.”

It was an undead I knew.

I had even seen it flying in the sky in the other world.

After confirming it, I pulled out a stick from my pocket.

A flare gun given to us by the U.S. military.

Whoosh!

Pulling the flare’s cord, it began to burn with a red light.

I threw the flare onto the center of the rooftop.

This way, the satellites watching this area would be able to detect it.

Now, it was time to wait.

We went down one floor and made the top floor apartment our temporary base, waiting for the main force to arrive.

Yeouido was teeming with skeletons, but they didn’t leave the island.

Knowing that, we had chosen this place.

Throughout the night, we periodically went up to the rooftop to set off flares, and by dawn, we received a response.

The response came from the west, over the river.

Boom! Ratatatat!

Through the morning fog, the sounds of bombardment and machine gun fire echoed from downstream, near Incheon.

It was the main force.

The expeditionary force, having secured U.S. military ships, had traveled up to Incheon and was now rushing in on hovercraft and landing craft alongside the U.S. military.

The bombardment and machine gun fire we heard were likely to fend off the corpse mermaids following the ships.

With the sounds from downstream, the quiet Yeouido began to stir.

The skeletons and zombies roaming the streets started moving in one direction, and the undead Drake lying lifelessly on the National Assembly roof—the Bone Drake—began to rise.

“We should head down too, right?”

At Yerim’s words, I shook my head.

We had already woken up and prepared to move, but it wasn’t time yet.

I stared at the National Assembly building where the Bone Drake stood.

Undead were gathering in front of the assembly hall, and the Bone Drake flapped its skeletal wings as it descended.

Then, an undead emerged from inside the assembly hall.

A knight clad in black armor.

A Dark Knight. The commander of the Demon King’s army, the master of the Bone Drake.