Chapter 144 – The Hero and the Free Knight (1)

Zombies running through the dark tunnel.

If it weren’t for the mana, they wouldn’t have been able to see, but the hero, the saintess, and Seung-ah could see the zombies rushing toward them even in the darkness.

Dozens, hundreds of zombies dressed in old civilian uniforms.

The horde of zombies, seemingly running toward the light source the saintess had created in the air, was more terrifying than anything seen in horror movies.

Moreover, with Seung-ah’s mana completely depleted, if the hero hadn’t regained his senses in time, the three of them would have been swept away by the zombie horde without even escaping the vicinity of the hotel.

Fortunately, the hero came to his senses at the critical moment.

Once he regained his composure, the hero swung his sword at the oncoming zombies, and the zombies were sliced apart, shattered, and burned.

Even the zombies that weren’t directly hit by the sword slowed down and retreated due to the holy power flowing through the blade.

The hero, who had been underestimated by Seung-ah, performed remarkably well, surprising her.

However, unfortunately for them, more zombies emerged from the darkness than they could handle.

The three had to keep running along the railway tracks.

“Keep running! You don’t have to kill all the zombies! Just stop them from attacking us!”

Seung-ah, leading the way while holding the saintess’s hand, shouted to the hero, who was holding off the zombies from behind.

Seung-ah’s mana was depleted, but her stamina wasn’t.

She could still run while guiding one girl.

“Understood!”

The hero followed her instructions, cutting through the bodies and legs of the zombies as they charged.

It might have seemed strange for the hero to take orders from an awakened person from this world, but the three of them didn’t think about that.

After all, Seung-ah was the one who knew the most about the undead among them.

Moreover, until now, it wasn’t the hero who had been leading the party, but the imperial court mage.

He had been melted by the former hero party’s mage, who had become a lich.

Perhaps that’s why the hero didn’t mind following Seung-ah’s instructions.

And so, the three of them ran along the subway tracks heading west and arrived at a subway station platform.

[Hwanggeumbeol Station]

The station they arrived at was the closest one to the Ryugyong Hotel to the west.

“If we go up here, we’ll reach the surface.”

Seung-ah pointed to the empty staircases at both ends of the platform.

They were the stairs leading to the surface.

However, the hero shook his head after looking at the platform stairs.

“I don’t think we can go that way.”

Before the hero could finish speaking, loud noises came from both staircases.

It was the sound of numerous objects tumbling down the stairs.

All three of them knew what that sound meant.

In the next moment, undead poured out from both ends of the platform.

Seeing the undead tumbling down the stairs in a tangled mess, Seung-ah was reminded of a zombie movie she had seen long ago.

Hundreds of zombies pouring out from both ends of the platform.

Seung-ah’s face turned pale.

With this many zombies coming from both sides, it would be difficult for the hero to hold them off alone.

There was nowhere else to run, and even the hero’s face had stiffened. At that moment, the saintess, who had been dragged along by Seung-ah, stepped forward.

“I’ll hold them off. Cover my back.”

With those words, the saintess, the imperial princess, gripped her staff with both hands.

“God of humanity, with your power, strike down the enemy.”

As soon as the saintess finished her prayer.

Whoosh!

A massive wave of holy power swept across the platform.

The saintess’s holy power was immense.

The horde of hundreds of zombies began to burn.

Zombies on the railway tracks burned, and the zombies clustered on the platform burned as well.

Flames shot up into the staircases on both sides of the platform.

Screams!

The zombies screamed in the flames.

If it were ordinary fire, they would have charged through it, but this was holy fire.

The dead engulfed in the flames could no longer remain on the surface.

One by one, the undead caught in the flames stopped moving.

Seung-ah and the hero ran through the burning zombies.

The saintess, having used up all her holy power, fainted and was carried on Seung-ah’s back.

Even for an awakened person with mana, carrying another woman on her back while running wasn’t easy.

But the hero, who needed to fight, couldn’t carry the saintess.

In the end, Seung-ah, who was still physically intact, had to carry the unconscious saintess.

And so, the three of them continued running through the subway tunnel.

They passed Hwanggeumbeol Station, Geonguk Station, Gwangbok Station, Yeongung, Chilgol, Jinseong, Student Boy’s Palace, and Seongsan, all the way to Mangyeongdae Station.

They wanted to go up to the surface at some point, but they had no choice but to keep running west.

Not only were zombies chasing them from behind, but zombies also poured in from other stations, just like at Hwanggeumbeol Station.

Just as they were running west underground, the zombies on the surface were also running to catch them.

They faced several crises along the way.

Sometimes the hero missed a zombie, and other times zombies blocked their path before they could reach a station.

Each time, the three of them pooled their strength to break through.

The hero fought tirelessly, cutting down zombies, and the saintess, who had fainted, regained consciousness only to unleash holy power before fainting again.

And so, the three of them finally arrived at Mangyeongdae Station, the westernmost station.

Before reaching the station, Seung-ah used the last bit of mana she had gathered to collapse the tunnel and block the pursuit. When she saw the undead gathered on the final platform, she bit her lip.

Despite running so hard, the undead—no, the Demon King’s army—had arrived faster.

Hundreds of zombies standing on the railway tracks, and zombies and skeletons on the platform and stairs.

It was impossible to guess how many undead were waiting above those stairs.

She looked to her side.

The hero, standing beside her, was breathing heavily.

The light in the sword he was holding had faded.

The hero’s mana and holy power were also depleted.

It was a pity, but she couldn’t blame him.

The young hero, who had seemed scared at first, had fought bravely until now.

He had done his best to show what it meant to be a hero.

The saintess on Seung-ah’s back was the same.

She had used her holy power so much that she fainted multiple times.

Seung-ah, who had used up the last bit of mana she had gathered to block the pursuing undead, was also the same.

All three of them had truly done their best.

And the hero still hadn’t given up.

“Let’s break through. We can still fight.”

The hero seemed to have matured during their escape.

The scared hero who had been following the imperial mage was no longer here.

The hero here was a true hero, leading everyone without giving up.

“You’re right. It’s too early to give up.”

Seung-ah adjusted the unconscious saintess on her back and followed the hero.

However, the two of them had to stop again before reaching the platform.

Skeletons stepped forward from among the zombies and blocked their path.

If they were ordinary skeletons, they would have charged through, but the hero couldn’t do that.

Because the weapons the skeletons were holding weren’t swords.

Click.

The skeletons that stepped forward were all holding North Korean military rifles, Type 98 rifles.

These skeletons weren’t made from the citizens of Pyongyang.

They were elite skeletons created from North Korean soldiers.

“This is too much.”

Seeing the rifles aimed at her, Seung-ah felt despair.

With her mana completely depleted, there was no way to deal with those rifles with willpower alone.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The rifles fired, and blood splattered in front of Seung-ah.

The hero, who had stepped forward to protect her, had been shot.

The hero had deflected the first few shots with his sword, but it was impossible to block the rapid fire of submachine guns.

Especially since it wasn’t just one person shooting.

The hero spat blood and fell to his knees.

“R-run… get out of here.”

Click.

Along with the hero’s groaning words, the sound of magazines being reloaded was heard.

The skeletons, having reloaded, aimed their rifles at Seung-ah.

Seung-ah closed her eyes.

Then, a deafening explosion rang out.

Kaboom!

This wasn’t the sound of gunfire.

It was the sound of a wall collapsing.

Startled, Seung-ah opened her eyes.

Where the skeletons had been standing, aiming their rifles at the zombies, there was now a pile of dirt and rocks instead of skeletons.

The dirt and rocks, which had half-blocked the tunnel, had fallen from the ceiling.

And the tunnel ceiling, from which the dirt and rocks had fallen, had a vertical tunnel dug through it, just like the one she had created.

But unlike the rough vertical tunnel she had made, this one was smooth, as if it had been sculpted by hand.

As both the hero’s party and the zombies froze in place at the sudden turn of events, a person dropped down from the vertical tunnel.

Thud.

He landed lightly, as if the weight of his armor meant nothing.

He was someone both Seung-ah and the hero knew.

He was the free knight of the Kingdom of Sorvia, Jansen Eger.

Knight Eger frowned as he saw the hero kneeling and bleeding profusely.

“Am I too late?”

“You’re not late!”

A voice retorted from the vertical passage.

Then, two people descended from the hole.

A woman with long ears, carrying a woman who looked like a college student, landed on the ground.

Seung-ah recognized both of them.

‘Zahina and Yerim, right?’

They were members of Knight Eger’s party.

The party members of the knight she had been chasing.

Yerim ran over to the hero as soon as she landed.

“Don’t move. I’ll heal you right away.”

Yerim placed her hand on the hero’s head and closed her eyes.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit… no, that’s not it. Just get better quickly.”

She recited a strange prayer, and at the same time, holy power surged from her hand.

A bright light illuminated the tunnel, and the undead, which had stopped moving, began to move again.

Seeing this, Seung-ah, who had regained her senses, shouted.

“We don’t know how many zombies are in the station. We need to get out of here!”

Fortunately, there was the vertical tunnel they had come down from.

If they went up that tunnel, they might be able to reach the surface without encountering the zombies in the station.

But neither the knight nor the elf—no, the daughter of the divine tree—listened to her.

Zahina spread her hands toward the oncoming undead, and the knight drew his sword and charged at the undead.

That day, Seung-ah witnessed a true knight fighting the undead.