Chapter 9 : Encounter (1) Q&A

“Ugh… What time is it?”

Rubbing my eyes, I reached for my smartphone to check the time.

But no matter how much I tapped, the screen stayed dark.

Oh, right.

I turned it off to save battery.

‘My body’s still the same, huh.’
I poked my soft arm, grounding myself in reality.

The world ending still feels like a dream.

Scratching my silky hair, I shuffled to the window and flung the curtains open.

Bright, warm sunlight flooded the room.

“…Hm.”

Nice weather.
Not a cloud in the sky.
I glanced down at the street.
Zombies were out for a stroll.
A peaceful apocalypse.

‘Guess I’ll eat.’
I’d plan my next steps over breakfast.
I grabbed some bread and salad from yesterday’s haul and set them on the table.
Then I powered on my phone to check the time.

10:20 AM.

Battery was down to 23%.

‘Running low on power. Should’ve bought a portable charger.’
I rarely used my phone enough to need one, but now I regretted it.

‘Is there a way to get a charger… Oh!’

An idea hit me.

‘Daiso!’
The haven where you can snag essentials for 5,000 won.
I’d seen online that Daiso sold small-capacity portable chargers.

Even a low-capacity one could fully charge my phone.

‘They usually come partially charged.’
Not fully, probably, but that’s fine.
As if Daiso would only stock one charger.
If I grabbed every charger they had, I wouldn’t need to worry about my phone for a while.

And Daiso’s a budget shopper’s paradise.
I knew of three stores nearby.

‘The closest is the Gimpo Gangmu branch, ten minutes on foot.’
Next destination set.

I prepped my bag, leaving space for chargers and stuffing the rest with food.
The leftover food I hid in an inconspicuous corner, just in case.

I might not stay here long.
Or ever come back.

‘I’ll look for a new place to live while hitting Daiso.’
Even a hotel would be better than here.

Or maybe…

I’d need to team up with others.

Eh, I’ll figure that out later.

With that decided, I leaned out the window and grabbed the drainpipe on the side.

Gripping it, I climbed to the roof.

‘Walking on the ground means too many zombie encounters.’
In the city center, I’d face thousands, maybe tens of thousands of zombies.

Even I wasn’t confident I could handle a zombie horde that size.

I planned to move quietly, hopping between buildings.

On the roof, a refreshing breeze greeted me.
Mixed with the faint stench of rotting corpses, but still.

I mentally mapped the route to Daiso.
Some gaps between buildings were wide, but my jumping ability could handle them.

With that, I leaped to the next building’s roof.

‘Bye, my place.’
It was just a rental, but I’d grown fond of it.

Hop, hop.

Jumping between rooftops, I noticed things I’d missed on the ground.

SOS signs hanging in building windows.
Distant explosions and acrid smoke.
And zombies converging toward the source.

A zombie wave.

This wasn’t like the group I’d fought.
The scale and density were insane, all heading to one spot.

I couldn’t see where, exactly.
But it felt like every zombie in Gimpo was gathering there.

Curiosity sparked.

What’s going on over there?
Why are so many zombies drawn to one place?

It didn’t feel natural.

If this was normal zombie behavior, thousands would’ve swarmed me during my earlier fight.

I hesitated.

‘Should I check it out?’
I shook my head.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Who knows what’s over there?
What if there’s a zombie commander or something that marks me?
I’m not brave enough to risk my life for curiosity.

Plus, this was an opportunity.

I’d been wondering how to sneak into Daiso with all the zombies in the city center.
With them drawn away, moving around was easier.

Decision made, I headed straight for Daiso, away from the noise.

Soon, I reached the store in the city center.

Daiso occupied an entire four-story building.
Taking full advantage of Gimpo’s cheap land prices.

As expected, the streets were quiet.
Most zombies had followed the wave.

‘Not all of them. There’s probably some inside the building.’
Still, this was good enough.

I could clear the zombies in Daiso before others from nearby areas showed up.

I took a sip of water from my bag and climbed to the store’s roof.

Here we go.

I lightly punched the rooftop floor.

BOOM!

With a massive crash, the floor gave way.

Perfect entry.
This should draw any zombies in the area.
At most, a few dozen more would come.

“Kyeeeek!!!”

“Graaah!!”

Hearing the roof collapse, zombies on the fourth floor rushed toward me.

I quickly grabbed chunks of debris and fired them at the horde.

Rat-a-tat-tat.

My throwing skills had leveled up.
Now I could toss stones like a machine gun.

Boom! Boom! Thud-thud-thud!

Zombies dropped like flies.
About two per second.
The fight was over in 30 seconds.
Sixty zombies down.

‘Not done yet. More are coming from below.’

“Grrraaah!”

“Kyaaa!”

Fearless zombies roared, charging up the escalator.
Their sharp teeth and claws aimed for me, but they never got close.
My barrage of throws took them out first.

The onslaught stopped after about three minutes.

The fourth floor was littered with hundreds of zombie corpses.

As expected, regular zombies were no threat to me.

A thought hit me.

‘Is humanity going to win this?’
Unless some mutant zombie cliché from web novels shows up, zombies would fall to modern weapons.
Even if mutants appeared, would they fare any better?

A few machine guns would outdo my stone-throwing.

What about hundreds or thousands of soldiers banding together?

Could zombies, who can’t even touch me, survive a hail of bullets?

‘They can’t even scratch a tank.’
Early on, the chaos of widespread infection made things tough.
But if surviving soldiers regrouped with modern weapons and reorganized, what then?

I was 100% certain the military would crush the zombies.

And that meant one thing.

‘Time to live the ultimate cute girl life!’
I could see it.
Korea, a military powerhouse, wiping out zombies.
And me, thriving in a restored society as a streamer, starting a new life.

‘Go, army uncles!’
In my heart, I cheered for the soldiers fighting for our country.
Make a safe world for delicate girls like me.

‘Anyway, time to get to work.’
Even if the military cleared zombies, it’d take at least a year.
And Gimpo, less critical than Seoul or Incheon, would take longer.

Until then, I had to survive on my own.

Stepping over zombie corpses, I headed to the storage area in the corner of the fourth floor.

True to the scale of a four-story Daiso, the storage was massive, with tons of boxes.

I checked each one, hunting for portable chargers.

They were in a box with other electronics.

‘More than I expected.’
Guess chargers are popular.
There were dozens of them.

I eagerly opened one and connected it to my phone with my charging cable.

As hoped, it started charging.
The charger had about 70% capacity left.

“Hell yeah!”
No more battery worries for a while.

Smiling, I stuffed chargers into my bag.
Each one I packed eased my mind.
Modern life makes you anxious without a powered phone.

Then—

“Eek!!!”

A woman’s startled scream came from outside the storage.

Who’s that?