Chapter 39 – Mermaid (1)

We left the apartment, leaving behind those who were disheartened, those worried about the future, and those who tried to hold us back until the end.

Although Lee Jun-ho’s position as the leader was shaken in an instant, he quickly regained his composure and calmly saw us off.

Most people wanted us to stay, but no one could stop us.

After hearing that we were crossing the Han River, no one followed us either.

Thanks to that, we were able to set out comfortably.

After passing the main entrance of the apartment, Hoffman turned his head to look at the building.

“It’s a different world, but people are not so different. It looks like an impressive place, but life here isn’t much different.”

I smiled bitterly at Hoffman’s words.

Even I, who had experienced a past life, had to admit that the people and world over there were not much different.

Moreover, with the collapse of the civilization we had built up, our way of life became no different from that world.

If it had been before the undead destroyed everything, I would have had something to say to Hoffman, but now I could only laugh it off.

Still, I couldn’t just let the comment about life being no different slide.

When I had time, I thought I should turn on a generator to show him the greatness of modern civilization.

As I was nodding to myself, surprisingly, Zahina countered Hoffman’s words.

“But it seems very different from our world.”

“Is that so? I don’t know much about your world.”

Hoffman scratched his head.

I didn’t have much to say to Zahina’s words either. I knew almost nothing about the elf world.

A world supported by giant trees called sacred trees, where all elves worship these trees as their faith.

There was no way to imagine how such a world would function.

The elves weren’t exactly forthcoming with explanations about their world, so most people, including myself, probably knew very little about the elf world.

“But isn’t it also very different from your world?”

Seeing our perplexed expressions, Zahina tilted her head and continued.

“Unlike the people living there, the content in the books was much richer and more diverse. If things were as described in the books, this world must have been an incredibly wise place before the undead appeared.”

Hoffman blinked and nodded at Zahina’s words, but I could only smile bitterly once again.

The world she saw in books was not the same as the world of modern civilization.

I explained to Zahina with an example.

“Just as the knights in fairy tales are not the same as real knights, the world in books is likely not the same as the real world.”

Zahina looked at me and tilted her head.

It seemed she had some misconceptions about me as well.

I decided to enlighten her about reality.

I glanced back slightly and asked Hoffman.

“They’re still following us, right?”

“Yes. They’ve been following us since the apartment entrance. What should we do?”

The area around the apartment had been cleared of zombies for a few days, so we could move for a while without fighting.

While we were talking briefly, we had reached a point where the apartment was hidden behind buildings.

But this was as far as the safe zone went.

We could see zombies appearing ahead of us.

We couldn’t move with someone tailing us in an area with undead.

Honestly, it wasn’t much of a tail, but having someone secretly following us would only make fighting inconvenient.

There was no reason to tolerate such inconvenience.

It wouldn’t be a problem to kill them, and this place was out of sight from the apartment, so I could make a decision easily.

“Kill them.”

At my words, Hoffman loaded an arrow into his crossbow and aimed at a distant building.

At that moment, a person suddenly stood up from behind a flowerbed in front of the building, raising their hands.

“Wait! Wait a moment! I’m sorry for secretly following you. Please let me come with you. I can fight much better than those apartment guys. I’ve killed quite a few zombies too!”

The man who stood up quickly spoke while looking at us, his eyes never leaving Hoffman’s crossbow aimed at him.

“I know this area like the back of my hand! Wherever you go, I can guide you with certainty! And…”

Thud!

He stopped mid-sentence and fell backward.

With an arrow in his chest, there was no way he could remain standing.

The man killed by Hoffman’s arrow was the one who had been expelled from the apartment earlier.

After being expelled, instead of going elsewhere, he had been lingering around the apartment buildings.

Well, having been driven out without weapons, it would have been difficult to go anywhere else where zombies roamed.

In that situation, he must have tried to follow us when he saw us leave the apartment.

He must have thought it would be okay to follow me based on my previous actions and what people had said.

While it was certainly a wrong assumption, him following us confirmed that my actions here had been successful.

‘It shouldn’t be a problem making contact with other places.’

I had been worried because my values had changed significantly from living in that other world, but it seemed there was no need for concern.

After the man fell, Hoffman ran to him, confirmed he was dead, and retrieved the arrow.

“We don’t have many arrows left. When we run out, should I start using one of those guns?”

Hoffman kept checking if the retrieved arrow was still usable.

He apparently didn’t like guns.

Well, unlike Zahina, he couldn’t imbue bullets with mana, so for him, guns were only useful against humans.

For the undead, they were more like loudspeakers that attracted zombies with their noise.

But without arrows, he would have no choice but to use guns.

‘It’ll be hard to find crossbows or crossbow arrows in Korea… Maybe we should look for shops selling compound bows or air rifles.’

If we couldn’t find such shops before running out of arrows, I’d have to let him use guns.

Between bows and arrows, the space expansion pouch was full, but the list of things we needed kept growing.

Still, it would only be until the gate opened again.

This temporary party would have to disband once the gate reopened.

Until then, I’d need to take good care of them.

The distance from the apartment complex overlooking the Han River to the river itself wasn’t far.

Though zombies appeared and blocked our path, they were mere obstacles unless skeletons or Demon King’s army troops showed up.

We managed to reach the riverside road overlooking Han River Park in less than an hour.

There were some abandoned cars on the road, but no zombies in sight.

The Han River Park across the road was the same.

The park, overgrown with weeds, showed no signs of people or zombies.

“This park is huge. And it’s not even used by nobles.”

Though it was just a long, narrow park along the river, Hoffman seemed surprised by it.

Seeing Hoffman amazed by the park, I felt a bit proud, even though it wasn’t mine.

Perhaps it was because of how he had criticized this world’s people earlier.

Though I had only smiled bitterly then, it must have bothered me.

While a knight from that world was my true form, my previous life was still closer to my homeland.

Hoffman frowned as he checked the road and park.

“Given the lack of undead on this road and in the riverside park, it must be because of them, right?”

“They couldn’t have increased their numbers just from people who drowned in the river.”

This wasn’t a medieval world where hundreds or thousands drowned in floods; it would have been impossible to build their numbers just from suicides in the Han River.

They must have dragged zombies from outside into the river to increase their numbers.

That would also explain why there were fewer zombies compared to the cars packed on the bridge.

“There must be more of them than we thought.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. We just need to avoid being dragged into the water.”

Hoffman sighed at my words.

“That’s easy for you to say, Sir Knight. For people like us, it’s dangerous enough even outside the water.”

Hoffman was right. Since I wasn’t alone, we needed to be sufficiently careful.

As we were looking at the park, Hoffman asked me.

“Should we check it out here?”

He pointed to the park adjacent to the river.

I shook my head at Hoffman’s suggestion.

“No, it’s too close to the water here. If there are too many of them, it could be dangerous like you said. Let’s just head to the bridge.”

We started walking toward the bridge.

An empty road scattered with abandoned cars.

With the indifferently flowing river visible behind the road, it felt even more eerie than when the undead were present.

As we approached the bridge, the number of abandoned cars increased.

The abandoned vehicles were lined up in front of the ramp connecting to the bridge, facing towards the river.

The ramp these cars had tried to enter was packed full of vehicles.

Among the cars, zombies that weren’t visible from the riverside road began to appear.

Upon reaching the ramp entrance, Hoffman looked at the bridge with a pale expression.

“Damn, why is this bridge so long?”

Seeing it up close, he seemed to realize just how long the bridge was.

Zahina was also looking at the bridge with a curious face.

At any other time, I might have found their surprised faces amusing, but now wasn’t the time for that.

I spoke to the party members.

“Get ready. We’ll pass through as quickly as possible.”

Hearing my words, the party members checked their equipment.

Hoffman checked the sword at his waist and gripped his crossbow.

Zahina inspected her sniper rifle once more.

After pulling the bolt and checking the chamber, she held the gun with a satisfied look.

While Zahina had changed into comfortable clothes at the apartment, she was now wearing a military uniform newly acquired there.

Seeing a beautiful elf in military uniform holding a sniper rifle was both unbalanced and quite a sight to behold.

If this world had been normal, there probably would have been quite a few people who liked Zahina in military uniform.

However, the people here were a knight and soldier with rotten minds who had rolled around on battlefields.

Regardless of her appearance, they were focused solely on checking their equipment.

I also checked my armor and sword.

The armor and sword I had diligently polished in the evening. The dented gauntlet caught my eye among them, but I forcibly ignored it.

“If everyone’s ready… Let’s go!”

After confirming that preparations were complete, we started running up the ramp.

I took the lead, followed by Hoffman, with Zahina at the rear.

Lined up in a single file, we ran through the path between the packed cars and the railing.

Kyaaak!

Instead of cutting down the zombies blocking our way with my sword, I grabbed their outstretched arms and threw them over the railing.

Thud!

The zombies fell onto the park below the railing.

I continued running without checking on the fallen zombies.

There was no time to stop.

Because beyond the ramp railing, new undead, ‘corpse mermaids’, came into view.

Dozens of fish-headed creatures covered in scales all over their bodies were climbing up the bridge pillars.