Chapter 26
#026
1.
In Necropolis, your ancestors don't take care of your life.
You have to guard your own life yourself.
Less than a minute after the sirens and street broadcast began to play.
The crowds that were usually as packed as a rush-hour subway had scattered like cockroaches.
Shops locked up behind heavy iron grates, and curtains fell behind the fogged, faded glass windows.
Other than that, all I could see were fixers in coats hurrying somewhere, or the occasional ordinary citizen trying to rip a shop's door off with a crowbar.
Fine by me.
Because the road to E-9 District, which should have been a mess, was wide open.
-Wooooooom!
The limousine surged forward, cutting through green smog and steam seeping up from the sewers.
Unlike the pleasant driving conditions, my head was a mess.
“Can’t this go a little easier?”
My head hurts.
Arbel was a Ferrari-level maintenance expense, guzzling 200,000 bios a week in medical fees like clockwork.
I was Arbel-poor.
To cure her I'd need universal conversion, but the moment I touched it, it would turn into 'samurai bitch appears and kills everyone.'
And meanwhile, back at my room in E-Sector?
Project Z.
Estimated deaths: 250,000. Dissemination of biochemical weapons throughout Necropolis.
What the fuck, are you kidding me?
“They're seriously doing this? These fucking Nazi bastards….”
There were a lot of things I couldn't understand.
Even after Ceres leaked the information, they're still going with 'Proceed!'?
If Ceres, a member of the Eleven-Man Council, passed information to Overnus Pharmaceuticals, it wouldn't be trivial info.
And Overnus Pharmaceuticals still sat on its hands?
Were they in on it from the start?
That alone was complicated enough, but there was even more development coming to split my skull open.
The notification that popped up when I got into the limousine a little while ago.
:::Challenge(New!):::
- Consume intangible poison. +1pt
What the hell is this now?
At first I thought that intangible poison was part of 'Project Z,' but it wasn't.
After all, the only poison a sturdy stomach can digest is poison you've actually swallowed.
Besides, the 'riot' announced on the broadcast had erupted in E-Sector Districts 1, 9, 11, and 13.
Ceres's residence, on the other hand, is in D-Sector.
And until just a little while ago, I had been with Ceres the whole time.
“Then….”
Ceres poisoned me?
And Sturdy Stomach purified it with a delay?
I don't get it.
I'm bad at this kind of thing.
“Focus!!!”
I should drop the stray thoughts.
I'm still alive even after swallowing the intangible poison, aren't I?
Saving Arbel comes first.
As we got closer to E-Sector, people started appearing one by one.
Not ordinary citizens—fixers, each armed to the teeth.
There also seemed to be high-grade personnel dispatched from a fairly large fixer office.
A sharp siren wailed again, and the street broadcast changed.
‘This is the City Hall Public Order Bureau. The riot forces within E-Sector have spread beyond control.’
‘Accordingly, as of this moment, all of E-Sector is designated a free-fire zone.’
‘All personnel outside buildings in E-Sector will be regarded as riot participants and shot on sight without warning.’
‘I repeat. All individuals identified outdoors will be killed regardless of reason. All law-abiding citizens of E-Sector, remain inside your homes.’
‘In addition, movement throughout all of E-Sector is now strictly restricted. Anyone crossing the perimeter without authorization will likewise be treated as a riot participant and shot on sight.’
“Fuck!!!”
I can't even get in?
Sure enough, when I reached the border between E-Sector and D-Sector, I saw fixers camped behind a makeshift barricade.
“Don't know, just punch through.”
In Necropolis, the car comes before the person.
Just as I was getting ready to floor the accelerator and force my way through.
The fixers who spotted the limousine quickly cleared the way and took down the barricade in perfect unison.
‘...I'll lend you the car. Go on and take it easy.’
Ceres, mommy! That's what you meant?
Come to think of it, there wasn't a fixer who wouldn't know that the bizarrely high-roofed black limousine belonged to Ceres.
“Then why did you poison me?”
Did you want to say, 'Now we're together forever…'?
For someone like that, she let me go so readily when I said I had family at home.
Could it be that the intangible poison wasn't the poison Ceres fed me after all?
-Thunk!
“Fuck, you scared the hell out of me!”
With a loud bang, something slapped against the passenger-side window.
A slum resident was staring at me with bloodshot eyes, cheek pressed against the passenger-side window.
Looks like he was trying to hitchhike.
You want a ride too?
But how the hell did you do that while the car's moving?
Do you have to be this hardcore to live in the E-Sector slums?
-Kyaaaak! Kyaaaak! Kyaaaak!
I flinched.
Because the citizen clinging tight to the car body like a suckerfish looked wrong somehow.
“Human…? Are you?”
Eyes whose blood vessels had all burst, leaving the whites crimson.
Bloody tears streaming down the glass.
Teeth clacking like a nutcracker doll, and saliva dripping in strings.
And... a gaze that looked at me, a human, like prey.
-Crunch
“Call an Uber, you piece of shit!”
I got so startled that I ground the hitchhiker to bits between the building wall and the car body with the sheer width of the car.
The sound of bones shattering rang through the car frame.
When I checked the rearview mirror.
I saw the half-crushed citizen jerk upright, then flop over.
I felt a strong sense of déjà vu.
“Ha, no way… is this that thing?”
The answer to my question came in less than a minute.
“Kraaaagh!!!”
“Kyaaagh!!!”
“Grrk, grrrrr….”
The slums had turned into a hellscape of chaos.
The slums were a place where the weak devoured those weaker than themselves.
The moment you showed an opening, a knife went into your side and a steel pipe slammed into the back of your head.
That chain of survival of the fittest was now unfolding in its most primitive form.
“Kraaagh! My arm! Don't eat my arm!”
“Get off me! Get off! Get off!!!”
“Help me! Somebody! Somebody save me!”
Humans were tearing into humans.
“Grrrrr!!!”
“Hiiik! Stay back!”
It looked similar to the bastard who'd tried hitchhiking a moment ago.
The infected citizen with bloodshot eyes pounced on the screaming citizen.
His speed was closer to a wild beast's than a human's.
And then, in just a few seconds.
“Grrk… grrrr!”
The bitten citizen's eyes also flipped the same bright red, and he charged at another citizen.
“Is the Z in Project Z for World War Z? Fucking hell, stop mixing genres!!!!”
What a goddamn mess.
Of all things, a zombie apocalypse?
The slums were already a cramped, dense, heavily populated area.
Even if you hid inside, the doors themselves were flimsy as hell.
If they released a zombie virus in a place like that and controlled the spread outside, around 250,000 people would die overnight.
“The door! Block the door! Hurry! Don't let those things in!”
“I-I got bitten too!”
“Krrr! Krrr!”
The roads in the slum were in utter shit condition.
Not only were the roads narrow, there were tons of alleys and they were packed with frozen mud.
With zombies of every kind going berserk in the middle of all that, breaking through the normal way would be hard.
-Brrrrrrrmmm!!!
With deft hands I shifted gears and stomped the accelerator all the way down.
Brakes? I don't know what those are.
A car's punching power is mass × speed × horsepower.
Don't underestimate a 2.5-ton limousine.
If I hit them head-on, the car could stall and get caught, so I had to brush past them at an angle!
“Do not stand before the king!”
-Bang! Bang! Thunk! Bang!
The zombies I ran over rolled over the bumper and splattered blood and guts across the windows.
The car jolted as it rolled over things I couldn't even tell were corpses or not.
======
:::Challenge(NEW!):::
- Kill an infected citizen. +2pt
======
-Screeeeeech!
Riding the momentum, I tore through to E-9 District at top speed.
From here on, there were no roads wide enough for the limousine, so I ditched the car and sprinted into the alleys.
“Grrrk?”
“Kyaa! Kyaaa!!”
“Kyaaaaargh!!!!”
The moment I got out of the car, my lovely neighbors' welcome came pouring in.
“This place is fucked too.”
I threw myself in without hesitation, into the swarm of bastards rushing at me like seagulls spotting shrimp crackers.
“Kyaaaah!”
I slipped past the hand swinging to grab me, raised my gun, and aimed for the chin.
“Too slow.”
-Bang!
The impact of a Magnum round fired at point-blank range is over 3,000 joules.
It's like being hit by a bowling ball fired at 100 kilometers per hour.
A human skull was no different from a firework that scatters brain matter.
I spun the bastard's collapsing body off me and stretched my arm out to the side.
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
Still in that stance, I fired side shots.
The three gunshots overlapped into a single burst.
The firing pin struck the primer, and a spray of blood erupted beyond the muzzle flash.
With a dull thud, like slamming down a leather sack, three headless corpses collapsed to the floor almost at once.
“Hoo.”
This is the power of augmentation?
From target acquisition to aim, firing, and hitting, it took less than 0.1 seconds.
Even firing from a posture close to trick shooting, I could control it with precision.
This was the combination of the relic 'Eye of Laplace' and level-one augmentation, a budget Sandevistan.
Through my focused eyes, the bastards' beast-like movements looked sluggish.
I had the reflexes to respond and even the strength to absorb the recoil of the S&W500 with one hand.
“So this is what I got for spending real money!”
Big Sis Isis really knows her stuff, huh?
-Click
“Reloading!!!”
It felt like both my brain and my body were overclocked at the same time.
Emptying the cylinder and reloading five rounds one by one took only 1.5 seconds.
My current self was basically... Alucard incarnate.
The zombie horde charging mindlessly before the No-Life King was no different from slow-moving targets.
-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Every time my eardrums trembled with gunfire, pleasure and thrills tickled my heart.
With one hand I kept shooting, shoving the bastards aside as I headed for my room.
I killed every one that followed.
“Arbel!”
The moment I kicked the door open and went inside, I saw Arbel.
Arbel, curled up on the bed with her knees hugged to her chest.
“You're awake!”
Perfect timing!
Thanks to that, I wouldn't have to haul her around like baggage and fight my way through the zombie apocalypse!
The instant Arbel slowly raised her head.
I saw her eyes, stained red.
“Shit….”
Arbel's small curled-up body lunged at me like a beast.
This wasn't the kind of speed a younger brother shows when he runs up happily to hug you.
It was a threatening speed that couldn't even be compared to the roaming dead outside.
The timeline stretched out.
-Clack
The moment I recognized the threat, my hand was already moving mechanically.
I aimed the barrel at Arbel and put my finger on the trigger.
Performing all those motions, I knew instinctively.
I was too slow.
Her lips had already covered the back of my neck.
-Bang!
As Arbel pounced on me and my body toppled backward, I aimed for her abdomen and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
A delayed shot.
A flash bursting like lightning in the cramped room.
The thick smell of gunpowder spread through my embrace.
The sound of something pattering down.
The thick smell of blood seeped into my already numb nose.
Arbel's body piled onto mine as I fell onto my back.
...Cedric.
Arbel, tearing her lips away from my neck, whispered in a strangled voice.
“I hate you…. Someone like you….”
Arbel's body crumbled.
Hot fluid gushed over me.
======
:::Challenge(New!):::
- Kill a family member. +15pt
======
I pushed Arbel's body off me and stood up.
With trembling hands, I touched the back of my neck.
Was I bitten? What happens if you're bitten?
Infection? If I get infected, does that clear a challenge too?
After fumbling around the back of my neck for a while, I realized something.
“Oh, fuck….”
In that fleeting instant.
I was definitely the one who was late.
But there was neither a wound nor pain at the back of my neck.
Not even a faint bite mark was left behind.
Arbel hadn't torn into the back of my neck.
Even though she'd had enough time to do it, she died spewing blood and entrails.
“Why would you do something you weren't even told to….”
I stared down at Arbel for a while, then pointed the pistol at my temple.
Why do car-poor guys dump most of their paycheck into their cars?
Because for a car-poor guy, that's life.
If Arbel died in front of me, an Arbel-poor like me?
This run is a failure.
The barrel burned hot against my temple.
“Huff… huff….”
One pull of the trigger would shatter the primer.
I'd be gone without any pain.
“...No.”
I lowered the gun.
Instead, I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it.
Purple, stinging smoke pricked my eyes.
This run isn't over yet.
“I've still got things to do.”
My life is precious.
If I'm going to throw it away anyway, I should go back to Ceres, squeeze out as much information as I can, and die there.
I need to gather more information.
In the end, Ceres is the one who'll be holding the key to this whole situation.
The moment I finished deciding and opened the boarding room door to step out.
“Grrk...?”
Dozens of pairs of red eyes turned toward me all at once like warning lights.
Their number was at least five times the number I'd killed on the way here.
“You bastards. Did you make friends on Tinder that fast?”
That wasn't all.
The cries of the starving dead from all around were several times louder than before.
It was a sight that made me desperately want a chainsaw and some heavy metal BGM.
“Ha, fuck. What a wonderful place to live, Necropolis.”
A heap of bullshit dumped on a run that finally looked like it might go well.
Misfortune with no discernible cause, bursting one after another.
And in the end, even forced melodrama where I had to crush my own dream with my own hands.
It felt like all this damned fate was telling me.
To give up.
“Give up? Me?”
I flicked the cigarette butt away with my fingertips.
As the sparks traced a slow arc, the beasts rushed in, and I raised my gun.
“If I'd given up at this point….”
Facing the zombies charging like a pack of dogs, I probably...
was laughing.
“I couldn't even settle twelve of them!!! You one-bite bastards!!!”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Thick gun smoke.
The beasts' howls.
The ridiculous dance of one human and the half-dead corpses.
Wait for me, Arbel.
I'll make sure to dress you in a bunny girl outfit.