Chapter 19 – The Witness

It was about 2 years ago when ordinary people like Byeong Seok learned about the appearance of zombies.

Of course, it seems the dead were discovered earlier, but ordinary people like him were unaware of this fact.

Actually, strange rumors had been circulating on the internet for a while.

There were stories about a cemetery being dug up in a Siberian city, and news from China about the dead breaking out of coffins.

However, such rumors were considered hoaxes and quickly disappeared.

‘Zombie incidents seem to happen often…’

Byeong Seok, like others, didn’t believe these rumors at all, so they couldn’t spread.

It was all due to zombie movies and false internet news.

What was thought to be a simple hoax turned out to be a catastrophe, revealed during the civil war in North Korea.

Although it was an information-blocked country, it couldn’t be hidden that artillery battles broke out in various cities and the capital, and people fled to China.

What was initially reported as a civil war in North Korea was soon revealed to be a civilian uprising, then an epidemic disaster, and finally, a zombie outbreak.

It was an absurd situation where, like a large-scale epidemic, the elderly and weak died en masse, and then the corpses rose to attack people.

Something that seemed possible only in zombie movies had occurred in North Korea.

While all citizens, including Byeong Seok, were shocked by the news, the Korean government, along with the Chinese and Russian governments, quickly sealed off their borders with North Korea.

Alarms rang throughout the country, and reservists were called up, but fortunately, the commotion didn’t last long.

The zombie outbreak only occurred in North Korea, Manchuria, and parts of Siberia.

People were shocked and terrified for several months, but unlike zombie movies, the zombies couldn’t break through the barriers set up by South Korea, China, and Russia.

In fact, according to incoming news, they didn’t seem to try to come out.

Of course, news from inside the barrier was completely cut off, but other countries, especially South Korea, lost interest in the northern land where news had ceased.

Since it was a place where there had been no news originally, it wasn’t considered much different from before.

Of course, the religious community, scientific community, and especially the medical community were in an uproar over the bizarre situation of the dead coming back to life, but for ordinary people like Byeong Seok, it was a story from another world.

Although things couldn’t return to how they were before North Korea’s collapse, people’s lives didn’t change much.

Just like after COVID-19.

There were more protests, and life became tougher, but because of this, people couldn’t pay attention to the changes in the north.

However, after that time passed, a week ago. The story of the northern country they had been ignoring finally became their own story.

“That day, the zombies that had been staying only above the 38th parallel suddenly poured out in all directions.”

Byeong Seok recounted the events to the three people in front of him, as if lamenting his fate.

“We had 2 years, but no preparations were made to stop the zombies.”

As he spoke, Byeong Seok looked at the people listening and wore a slightly perplexed expression.

‘A knight in plate armor, a soldier in leather armor, and an elf in North Korean military uniform… Did they escape from a cosplay event?’

It seemed too real to think that way, as the soldier’s and knight’s armor and swords looked genuine.

These rescuers were completely incomprehensible.

Anyway, since they had saved him, he intended to answer all their questions.

So Byeong Seok continued to recount the events without pause.

“Absurdly, the DMZ was breached, and in less than 3 days, zombies arrived in Seoul. There weren’t many, but at that moment, everything north of the Han River was finished.”

It wasn’t that North Korean soldiers had come down, just corpses arriving, but Byeong Seok couldn’t understand how the Korean army had been pushed back so easily.

“Well, I heard that the barriers in China and Russia were also breached, and zombies rose in various parts of the world, but we didn’t have the capacity to pay attention to such rumors.”

Even before the North Korean zombie soldiers arrived, the dead were rising again all over the country.

“The highways were blocked by people trying to escape to the south, and I got caught here after hitching a ride to leave Seoul.”

Since the south was blocked, the plan was to go slightly north before the zombies arrived and then move through the national highway cutting through the central region, but unfortunately, the zombies moved faster.

“There was a reason people didn’t come this way.”

It seemed he had gotten too excited talking to people after a long time.

Byeong Seok felt dizzy and his vision blurred.

Seeing this, the armored knight took out a glass bottle from a small bag and opened the lid.

It was water with a refreshing energy.

He was a kind person.

Byeong Seok thanked him and continued speaking.

“People who couldn’t escape the oncoming zombies gathered here to set up a defense line. We blocked doors and windows, made weapons to hide or fight back.”

Recalling the situation at that time made him shudder.

Pouring corpses and stopped cars. People fleeing in all directions and others pushing people out to get into houses.

“As expected, those who tried to fight back couldn’t last even a few minutes before being swept away by the zombie horde, but those who hid inside buildings were able to survive. At that time…”

They had survived using the people outside as bait, but he couldn’t say that.

Anyway, even those who remained inside didn’t last long.

“In the end, everyone except me who remained inside with doors and windows blocked didn’t survive. We had enough food, but there were severely injured people.”

Thanks to that, not long after, fighting broke out again inside this building.

The dead rose and attacked others, those who died from those wounds killed others, and so this place became hell.

“In the end, only I survived.”

No, he hadn’t survived. He had killed others and only Byeong Seok remained.

In the final moments, everyone had gone mad. It became difficult to distinguish between the living and the dead.

Still, he survived.

After saying this much, he could see his surroundings again.

Scattered flesh and blood everywhere.

Although it had hardened, traces of hell still remained.

The scene from that time resurfaced in Byeong Seok’s mind.

It felt like he had returned to hell.

The feeling of killing people,

Cutting his friend’s throat.

Thinking about staying alone in this hellish place, he felt angry at the people who came too late.

“Why! Why did you come now! It’s too late!”

Byeong Seok burst out in anger towards the people staring at him.

They weren’t the ones to be angry at, he should be grateful instead,

Had his mind gone wrong after experiencing hell? Byeong Seok’s anger only grew.

“Why did I have to suffer like this? Why are you all fine? Why, how, who made things like this?”

Was it because of anger? His thoughts kept scattering.

In Byeong Seok’s angry eyes, he saw the half-empty glass bottle the knight was holding.

Byeong Seok wanted to drink the water in the bottle again. It might calm his anger a bit.

But strangely, unlike before, the smell coming from the bottle was very irritating.

Then, the woman doing elf cosplay opened her mouth.

“It seems we can’t go on. He’s just bursting with anger now.”

Byeong Seok wanted to scold the woman right away for stating the obvious.

But strangely, he couldn’t move a step.

Could he be tied up? Right. He couldn’t move because he was tied up.

Byeong Seok realized he had been tricked by the three people.

He had trusted them… It was natural to be angry.

“Untie me now! I won’t let you get away with this!”

Byeong Seok shouted, but the villains no longer looked at him.

“@#&%!#$@#*%^%.”

“&*&%$&*@#$@#$.”

Moreover, the two men started talking in a language Byeong Seok had never heard before.

Hearing those sounds, Byeong Seok gave in to his anger.

His body trembled.

The more angry he got, the more his tied body started to move little by little.

Now his upper body started to move.

Just a little more.

Byeong Seok started twisting his body while watching the humans talking among themselves.

* * *

It was fortunate.

To be able to get information even before arriving in Seoul.

It was an unexpected stroke of luck.

Of course, we had to use quite a bit of holy water to get the information, but it wasn’t a losing deal.

“It seems we can’t go on. He’s just bursting with anger now.”

I nodded at Zahina’s words.

He had endured for a long time.

“Should we use more holy water?”

“We’ve heard all the necessary information.”

Instead of sprinkling more holy water, I closed the bottle cap.

Brrrrrrr.

The moment I closed the cap, the whole house shook.

He seemed angry.

However, this time I didn’t ask Zahina for interpretation.

The elf race, children of the sacred tree, communicated differently from us, something like telepathy.

It was the same when talking with us.

Strangely, this telepathy felt like hearing words, but it clearly wasn’t sound.

Because of this, when talking to us, they moved their mouths to match the telepathy for our sake, but often the moving mouth and the content heard didn’t match.

Anyway, thanks to that, we could communicate with humans from another world.

I don’t know how, but when we spoke, the elves understood the content through telepathy and conveyed their intentions to us.

And one of the reasons we came to this world with the elves was because of that ability.

The mysterious ability to understand any language.

But we never thought that ability would work on evil spirits too.

What we saw when we entered the rest area was the first evil spirit, a ghost, we encountered in this world.

Inside the rest area that had turned into a slaughterhouse with hardened flesh and blood, there was a bloody ghost standing in the back.

The ghost was floating above a corpse leaning against the kitchen wall.

A corpse with a kitchen knife stabbed in its chest as if self-inflicted. The ghost looked at us in the exact same form as that corpse.

The ghost tried to rush at us as soon as it saw us, but I was a bit faster.

Before the ghost could rush in, I reflexively took out holy water from my bag and sprinkled it on the ghost’s body.

Without a priest or cleric, exorcism was impossible, but using holy water could make it regain consciousness for a moment.

“This is… Without a sorcerer, it’s useless even if we make it regain consciousness.”

As I muttered with a troubled face, Zahina said to me.

“I can hear the ghost’s words. The ghost welcomes us.”

It was fortunate.

The sight of a bloody ghost with a kitchen knife in its chest waving at us wasn’t exactly pleasant to see, but

With Zahina’s help, we were able to get various information from the ghost.

As expected, the ghost who momentarily regained consciousness didn’t think it was dead.

Moreover, every time the effect of the holy water wore off, it tried to return to being an evil spirit, but fortunately, we were able to get the necessary information before the holy water ran out.

An evil spirit that escaped from a corpse that killed others while trapped in the house and committed suicide at the end.

It was a common evil spirit that forms in places full of resentment.

Even among the Demon King’s subordinates, there was a unit made up of those evil spirits.

It wasn’t the first time we had obtained information from an evil spirit.

And it wasn’t the first time we had eliminated an evil spirit.

The writhing evil spirit started to move little by little. To possess our bodies and drive us mad.

Kraaaaaah!

I raised my sword towards the approaching evil spirit.

The sword filled with mana began to glow faintly.

I swung my sword while hearing the angry roar of the evil spirit.

The evil spirit vanished at the glowing sword.

Although night had fallen, we couldn’t sleep in the pile of corpses where the evil spirit had formed.

We set fire to the rest area and started moving again.

Towards Seoul.