Chapter 4
Yuna Choi, a citizen of Gyeongju, is now running along the mountain path of Namsan in Gyeongju.
She was carrying a large backpack on her shoulders, and in one hand, she held a hiking knife, making her appear like a regular hiker visiting Namsan.
However, she hadn’t come to Namsan just for a peaceful hike.
“Huff. Huff… Are they still chasing me…?!”
As she sprinted along a now deserted hiking trail, Yuna glanced back at the hideous pursuers following her and panted in desperation.
What was chasing her wasn’t a wild animal one might encounter on a hiking trail, nor was it a gang of loan sharks after her for unpaid debts.
Considering that Yuna and her family had never borrowed from loan sharks, and that she was a model citizen, it might be seen as odd in modern society that Yuna was being pursued by someone in the first place.
But in these times, it was not uncommon for powerless individuals to be chased by someone.
The creatures chasing her could only be described as monsters.
Short creatures with green skin, a scrap of cloth covering their loins, a vicious club in one hand, and a small wooden piece used as a shield in the other—these short, stumpy creatures resembled goblins, as commonly depicted in fantasy stories.
Yes, a goblin—a fantasy monster often used as a trope in novels—had appeared in reality, chasing after Yuna in modern society.
Wearing a lecherous expression, the goblins’ eyes lustfully fixated on Yuna’s back… precisely, her small behind, made Yuna fear for her chastity, driving her to run with all her might.
“If I’d known it would turn out like this, I wouldn’t have run to the mountain!”
She lamented and recalled the events of two months ago when the disaster began.
***
Yuna Choi was an ordinary student.
It wasn’t a sarcastic statement; she really was born into a typical family in Gyeongju, loved by her parents, who were regular office workers, and she attended a regular school in Gyeongju, just like any other student.
Yuna, with her pretty appearance, didn’t possess any special abilities or talents, and she enjoyed a typical school life. At home, she liked spending time with friends and indulging in subculture.
To put it bluntly, Yuna was such a typical character that even if someone declared her as “Extra A from a novel!” Yuna herself would agree. That’s how ordinary her life was.
But it was so easy for Yuna’s boring, ordinary life to be shattered.
“Eh. Eh. Eh?!”
What happened was a zombie apocalypse—a disaster that swept across the entire nation of South Korea.
To sum up the situation before she came to Namsan in one sentence, this one phrase would suffice.
After a regular day at school, she slept for one night, and when she woke up the next morning, the city of Gyeongju, where Yuna lived, was filled with zombies.
Yuna and her family, who were on their way to work and school early in the morning to spend another ordinary day, were caught completely off guard by the zombie apocalypse and thrown right into the chaos.
“What, what is that……!”
“Ah. Dad?!”
Riding in her father’s car on the way to school, Yuna fell into a panic when she saw the streets full of zombies, and her father, sensing that something was wrong with Gyeongju, quickly turned the steering wheel and headed back home.
It was the decision of a father trying to escape the zombies flooding the streets and save Yuna’s mother, who was defenseless at home.
But unfortunately, what Yuna and her father found upon their return home was…
“Grrrrr…”
“Oh… oh no… honey…?”
…despair, as their mother, who had been perfectly fine before they left, had transformed into a zombie.
In just a few minutes, the woman he loved had turned into a zombie, and the shock that struck Yuna’s father left him momentarily frozen—an opening that proved fatal in this disaster.
“S-stop it! It’s me! It’s me, I said! Aaaaah!”
“Grrrrrr…”
Yuna’s mother, unaware that the man in front of her was her husband, began to mercilessly bite into Yuna’s father, who stood defenseless.
Biting into his neck, blood and flesh smeared the entrance, and Yuna’s father screamed in agony, begging his wife for mercy.
But the wife paid no heed to her husband’s desperate pleas, savouring only the warm blood and flesh of her husband.
“………!!!”
The horrific scene left Yuna paralyzed with fear, unable to do anything, and she could only cry silently, watching her father be devoured by her mother.
“Grrrrr…”
“D-Dad…?”
And then Yuna witnessed her father, turned into a zombie by her mother, right before her eyes.
It was a scene filled with madness that could drive her to insanity, but realizing that the next target of her zombified parents was herself, she fled to her room, her face pale with terror.
Fleeing into the master bedroom and locking the door behind her, Yuna muttered that this was all a dream, desperately trying to escape reality.
“It hurts. It hurts. It hurts…! Why won’t I wake up?”
Pinching her cheeks and thighs, she hurt herself until bruises appeared, desperately wanting to wake up from the nightmare, but the pain coursing through her body and the terrifying noise of her door being pounded on brutally declared that all of this was reality.
“Uwaaaaaah!”
If there was one thing in Yuna’s favour, it was that her father had prepared a self-defense baseball bat in the master bedroom, just in case.
“If I don’t do this, I’ll die…!”
Yuna’s decision-making was surprisingly quick.
She rapidly accepted the reality that this wasn’t a dream and realized that in order to survive, she would have to defeat the zombified forms of her parents.
Perhaps she had given up on herself at that moment.
However, Yuna didn’t have time to dwell deeply on why the world had turned into a zombie apocalypse overnight.
For her survival, Yuna grabbed the weapon from the master bedroom.
“Dieeeeeee!”
Yuna smashed the creatures that had once been her parents as they broke through the bedroom door.
To make sure they couldn’t move anymore, Yuna swung the bat repeatedly, smashing the bodies of her father and mother over and over again.
Only when the master bedroom was thoroughly drenched in her parents’ blood and flesh did Yuna finally stop swinging the bat.
“Ah. Ahhhh…!”
And then came the delayed waves of despair and regret.
She felt guilty for surviving alone.
For young Yuna, the sudden death of her parents was already a massive psychological burden.
On top of that, she had to destroy the zombies that wore her parents’ faces… until they were bloody chunks, with her own hands.
“I-I killed them…! I killed Dad! And Mom!”
Realizing that she had killed her zombified parents to save herself, the psychological shock of that truth was too much for young Yuna to handle.
【 You have awakened. 】
And as if to acknowledge that she had killed her parents with her own hands, a blue holographic window appeared in front of Yuna’s eyes.
By killing her zombified parents, Yuna had awakened, like in those hunter stories where a status window appears.
Thinking that this unreal sight meant it was all a dream, Yuna fainted when the blue holographic window appeared, and she only fully understood the situation a day later.
“Zombie apocalypse…”
Yuna accessed an online community through her smartphone, and every online forum was filled with discussions about the zombie apocalypse that had hit South Korea.
This incident was not limited to South Korea; apparently, the whole world was facing different types of apocalyptic disasters.
Yuna calmly read through each post, trying to understand the situation, and also learned about the reason behind her awakening.
[Title: You Awaken a Status Window by Killing a Zombie]
Literally, you awaken a status window by killing a single zombie.
This isn’t a clickbait post; it’s true that killing just one zombie unlocks a status window, like something out of a story.
I killed a zombie that I encountered this morning, and along with awakening as a powered individual, a status window appeared.
You also gain a skill along with the status window. I got an elemental magic skill.
It seems that different people get different skills, but you can find out more from other info posts.
I’m just telling you now, so don’t complain later that I didn’t give you a heads-up.
I won’t be replying to comments, so judge for yourself. Go.
- Here’s proof in case anyone doesn’t believe me.
[A short clip of summoning a flame in his hand.]
The post revealed the existence of the status window commonly depicted in fantasy or hunter stories.
According to the information in the post, one needed to hunt a single zombie to awaken a status window.
In other words, Yuna realized that by killing her zombified parents, she met the conditions to unlock a status window.
Yuna was able to understand the situation through the post, but at the same time, she suffered from severe depression because of the fact that she had killed her parents with her own hands.
However, her desire to survive remained, so Yuna followed the information shared on the community and summoned her status window.
“Status Window!”
【 Name: Yuna Choi 】
【 Race: Human 】 【 Gender: Female 】 【 Age: 16 】 【 Alignment: Neutral Good 】
【 Level: 1 】
【 Traits: None 】
【 Job: None 】
【 Strength: 8 】 【 Stamina: 12 】 【 Agility: 14 】 【 Wisdom: 21 】 【 Magic Power: 19 】 【 Luck: 6 】
【 Skills: Divine Art (Low-level) 】
The power she awakened was a type of divine ability… specifically, healing magic.
Awakened with the powers of a cleric as described in fantasy worlds, she gained the ability to act as a healer in this apocalyptic world where medicine was scarce.
In a zombie apocalypse where supplies were limited, a healer who could treat wounds and illnesses without consuming materials was an invaluable presence.
“I can’t just stay here.”
Yuna realized she couldn’t stay in her house any longer, so she grabbed the baseball bat and went outside.
She rationalized that training her newfound powers would give her a better chance of survival, but the truth was, she couldn’t bear the guilt of staying in the home where she had killed her parents.
Using her awakened abilities, Yuna dealt with all the zombies around her house, and during her battles with the surrounding zombies, she was able to find trustworthy companions.
Together with her companions, she headed to a so-called “Survivor Camp,” where survivors gathered for a safer environment, and there, she put her abilities to great use and made a significant impact.
Yuna tried her best to use her abilities to heal every patient who came to her.
This effort may have been driven by her guilt and self-reproach for killing her parents.
“Thank you, miss.”
“No, this is my reason for living.”
Yes, she welcomed everyone who came to her.
Burdened by guilt for killing her own family, Yuna clung to a futile hope that if she worked hard enough, all the survivors in Gyeongju could return to their normal lives.
But it seemed her efforts were being rewarded; survivors from other camps, or even those acting alone, sought her out for healing, so much so that Yuna continued her efforts tirelessly.
She worked so hard that her hair gradually turned white from the strain, but she ignored it.
“Eh? Don’t heal them?”
“Yes. Ordinary people who haven’t awakened come second. Prioritize healing those who have awakened. And charge a fee for treating those from outside.”
“If we force people to pay for treatment in this situation, they’ll die!”
And her altruistic actions began to cause dissatisfaction among the awakened members of the survivor camp she belonged to.
In a zombie apocalypse, the most obvious dangers were the zombies and the lack of supplies… but what was even more dangerous was none other than humans.
Logically, it would make sense for survivors to band together for the best chance of survival, but numerous social experiments have proven that when groups of people come together, the outcomes can vary widely.
Yuna, whose social experience was limited to school life, was flustered by the leader’s sudden harsh order, and she wanted to protest.
“Then what about us who are fighting? If your healing is delayed, we’ll all die!”
“T-that’s…”
But in the survivor camp, this was seen as a perfectly reasonable stance.
Fighters who could battle, like the awakened, had to be prioritized over ordinary people who couldn’t fight. And as the apocalyptic disaster dragged on, the status of the awakened could only continue to rise.
“We, the awakened, must use the ordinary people more effectively! Ordinary people who can’t fight properly should reflect on themselves!”
“T-that’s not right…”
And soon, those who fell into the idea of “Awakened Supremacy” began to emerge.
These people advocated a cruel power-based logic that the awakened should rule over the powerless, and Yuna, opposing this idea, continued to use her abilities for the weak without hesitation, even against the leader’s warnings.
“Yes, it’s fine. The government will save us.”
She held on to the belief that if they could endure a little longer, the government would surely come to save them.
Yuna, like many others, believed in the idea frequently mentioned among ordinary people—that the government would eventually rescue them. She believed that the proud South Korean military would come to Gyeongju and save the city.
Moreover, communication with the outside world hadn’t been completely cut off yet, and modern amenities like the internet were still functioning. There were even posts on online forums from organizations claiming to be the government, declaring the state of emergency and urging resolution of the crisis.
There was a semblance of evidence to believe that the government could come to their rescue.
“If we just hold on, the end will come into sight.”
So, even if there were small divisions, if they endured, everything would eventually return to normal.
Moreover, as time went on, regular zombies were no longer a match for the awakened, and considering that Yuna herself could handle multiple regular zombies alone… it was hard to believe that the well-armed military would lose to zombies.
Despite her faith, Yuna found that reality betrayed her trust.
“W-what is that!?”
As time passed, the cracks signalling the divisions within the survivor camp grew wider, and what sealed the fate of those divisions… was the emergence of a powerful mutant zombie.
“So many awakened have died in just one day.”
The camp Yuna belonged to suffered great losses due to the attack of the powerful mutant zombie.
Not only the awakened but also many of the ordinary people who supported them perished.
“Everyone, just look out for yourselves.”
“T-that’s too dangerous.”
“Then are you going to take responsibility for those useless people? You won’t, right?”
“Well…”
With half of the camp’s members gone in a single night, the division between the awakened and the ordinary people became uncontrollable, and they began to scatter, each seeking their own way to survive.
Yuna expressed her concern that if they split up like this, it would be dangerous for everyone, but being inherently ordinary, she lacked the charisma or leadership to guide others.
Naturally, her opinion was dismissed by the other awakened members, and the group decided to go their separate ways, disbanding the camp.
“W-where should I go?”
Suddenly finding herself without the survivor camp she had been relying on, Yuna felt a deep sense of hopelessness and realized she had nowhere to go.
“I can’t go back home…”
She briefly considered returning to the house where her parents’ bodies lay, but she knew that the electricity and water supply would have already been cut off.
Moreover, the path back home would surely be filled with zombies, and she feared that if a mutant zombie appeared, she wouldn’t even have a chance to resist before being turned into one.
“T-then… let’s head to the mountains! There shouldn’t be any zombies in the mountains…!”
So, she decided that her best option was to head for the remote mountain areas.
While it might be inconvenient without modern conveniences, she believed there would be wild plants and edible herbs in the mountains, which would at least keep her from starving.
Most importantly, she believed there wouldn’t be any terrifying zombies in the mountains.
It was likely that hikers had turned into zombies, but she thought they would be easier to deal with compared to the hordes in the city. With that thought, she gathered all her belongings and headed for Namsan, near the city of Gyeongju.
“I’m such an idiot!”
And indeed, as she had hoped, there were no zombies in Namsan.
Yes, there were no zombies to threaten Yuna.
Except, of course, that the Namsan she arrived at was filled with monsters straight out of a fantasy world.
As Yuna continued to run, fleeing from the goblins pursuing her, she deeply regretted the false hope she had clung to in the past.
—
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