Chapter 1
Today, the world ended.
No—yesterday, or maybe last week.
I don't know.
It's been a long time since I lost my sense of time.
But the memory of the day the world went completely to hell remains vivid.
It just happened to be the first day at my first job.
Twenty-seven.
The important age and stage when everyone else was talking about résumés and getting jobs.
And at that important age, I was scratching my crotch like mad while wasting time on an online forum in my room.
“Hmm... this one's pretty average...”
Hit dislike immediately.
I'd been living alone for quite a while, but it was a livable life.
I made enough money to scrape by selling game items for cash and scalping crypto.
I was even fairly diligent about managing my health (riding a used bicycle while browsing the forum).
The one thing I felt I was lacking was….
“Being a hopeless NEET loser, apparently?”
But as you can see, I was keeping my mental state cheerfully intact, so whatever, that passed.
Besides, this was the average for people in their twenties these days.
And what do you expect from an orphaned, unemployed, high-school-graduate NEET? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. It was just another ordinary day.
“Ah, fuck!!!! It’s Trump-bro again.”
The day a mere U.S. president cursed out the Fed and dumped a post on Tweety.
The very same day old man Powell of the Fed announced, “I’ll make you regret being born (roughly paraphrased).”
“Shi...t...”
One move from old man Powell, combined with one momentary lapse in judgment on my part.
That disastrous collaboration between the two sent my bank balance crawling along the floor.
“The world’s screwing me over...”
They say you have to put out the fire at your feet.
I quickly searched the forums for a cushy gig and found one.
“Night security guard at Yeouido Starplex?”
It was near my goshiwon, too, and from the looks of it, seemed like a reasonably cushy job.
It might even be a good way to build the social skills I lacked.
“Let’s do it, let’s do it. First day on the job!”
And so I ended up impulsively hitting Apply.
“Uh, I don’t have a suit.”
I didn’t know it then.
That it would be the best choice of my life.
****
The next day.
“Your age... You said twenty-seven, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
The security team leader, some older guy, was walking me through the job.
Even at a glance, his manner and expression made him look like a man with plenty of regrets and complaints about life.
“So, did you complete your military service?”
“Ah, yep. You could say that.”
Sorry, team leader, I did public service.
“Tsk... What do you mean, ‘you could say that’? Then say, ‘you could say that.’”
“Haha.”
“Anyway, security’s nothing special. Tell the customers to leave when closing time comes, lower the shutters, then make your rounds and check in at the scheduled times. The rest of the time, sleep here in the fire-control room or do whatever you can get away with. Got it?”
The team leader handed me an employee ID and spoke.
Oh, this really was a cushy job.
Yeouido Starplex is a landmark-level building stretching from basement level two to the fifteenth floor.
There was nothing this building didn't have.
Besides the staples of a department store—its supermarket, clothing, general goods, and luxury brands—there was a movie theater on the eighth floor.
Above that was even a super-luxury hotel.
Well. I guess you could think of it as a department store plus a Starfield.
Hearing that, it might sound like hell, but I only had to manage basement level one, and that was at night, so it was a total cakewalk.
On top of that, almost nobody came to this fire-control room except the workers.
I just had to make a halfhearted patrol, hole up here in the fire-control room, and sleep.
“Oh, and... rookie.”
But then the team leader put on his coat and tossed a master-key bundle, with cards dangling all over it, onto the desk.
“You’ll have to cover my shift tomorrow.”
“...What? Tomorrow’s my first day on the job.”
“I have an ancestral memorial rite at my family home tomorrow, so I have to go down there. Looking after your senior’s circumstances is part of working society.”
Fuck, covering for the team leader meant coming in at 1 p.m., right in the middle of the busy hours, not at night.
He’d started treating me like a pushover and dumped the entire substitute shift on me from my very first day.
Typical shitty small-company subcontractor.
“Yeah. Fine. I’ll do it!”
Of course, that was only in my head; with rent due this month and barely enough money to pay it, I readily agreed.
“See? Maybe it’s because you served, but you’re a reasonable guy.”
The [Starplex Mall B1 Manager] ID badge hanging from my neck and the master keys felt unusually heavy.
****
The long-awaited first day on the job.
What blocked my way when I showed up to suck down some overtime pay was a yellow police line layered several times around the store.
“What the hell is this?”
Had there been a murder or something?
“Why are you suddenly not letting us in?”
“Nothing even seems to have happened...”
All around me, people who had gathered in droves were grumbling.
“Just a moment!”
“Hey, ma’am! I told you, you can’t go in!!”
Their voices overlapped with the police shouting, turning the whole place into chaos.
“Um... did something happen?”
A woman who had noticed the security uniform I was wearing asked, but there was no way I could answer her.
“My child’s father and my baby are inside the store... I have to get in...”
“Ah, well, I don’t really know either...”
The atmosphere was plainly not normal.
Not only the police, but soldiers were standing guard and controlling the area.
“What is this?”
Was there any reason for soldiers to be in the middle of Seoul?
“Did someone troll the forum by claiming they planted explosives or something?”
Or maybe I just didn’t know because I’d done public service.
Just as I turned around to head toward Yeouido Park, unsettled by the strange feeling—
Bweeeeeep!!!!
An alarm rang from my phone.
[Emergency Alert]
[Ministry of the Interior and Safety]
-Unexplained abnormal phenomena are currently being observed simultaneously across the entire country, including the Seoul metropolitan area. If you witness ground subsidence or other abnormal phenomena, do not panic and return home, where further instructions will...
“Wait, they said ground subsidence.”
“Didn’t they say it was a gas leak?”
“Yoonjae’s dad! What are you doing, not coming out!! Huh? They’re blocking us from leaving?”
The crowd began murmuring and filtering out toward the wide road, one by one.
Swept along by that current, I naturally emerged into the open lot.
But then.
“W-what the hell?”
In the direction of Yeouido Park, there was a gigantic hole in the asphalt—whether it was a sinkhole or something else—melted into a grotesque shape, with soldiers carrying actual guns stationed around it.
There hadn’t been anything like that when I came for the handover yesterday.
When I turned my gaze toward Yeouinaru Station in the distance, the road was being completely blocked off.
“Military operation in progress! Turn your vehicle around!!!”
“I’m late for a meeting, move!”
“You told us to go home! We have to leave for now, don’t we!”
That was when I sensed it.
Something had gone wrong.
The big data gathered from my twenty-seven years as a hopeless NEET told me so.
Bweeeeeep!!!!
The alarm rang again.
[Ministry of National Defense]
[Unidentified monstrous creatures have emerged from subterranean subsidence in the Seoul metropolitan area, and a massive outbreak of infection has begun. Citizens are strictly prohibited from outdoor activity and must immediately evacuate to the nearest underground facility or another safe location.]
At that moment.
At the same time, the enormous sinkhole gaping in the middle of the park began to throb.
“Uh...?”
Ruuumble-!!
One of those things crawled up from the mouth of the earth.
It had the shape of a person, but there was no way to call it alive.
To say it was dead would be inaccurate; the hunger in its eyes as they roamed over everything around it was brutally clear.
Then what was it?
Would it be more accurate to say it had come back to life?
Yet, strangely enough, most of the crowd who saw the scene remained cynical.
“Huh? Were they filming a movie?”
“Isn’t it a hidden-camera prank?”
Some even took out their smartphones and started recording. If anything, more people were gathering.
Of course, I was no different from them.
If I’d only seen it on a monitor from my room, I might have left a nasty comment saying, 'The CG is fucking amateurish.'
But.
“Hey, hey! Open fire! Open fire!”
“There are too many civilians around—”
“To hell with the rules of engagement!!!! Didn’t you hear me?!! I said fire!!!!”
At the same time, the soldiers near the pit suddenly began spraying bullets.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-!!!!
As the rifle fire erupted with an ear-splitting crack, the creatures’ heads began bursting apart.
“Uh...?”
“C-can that really happen...?”
Only then did the crowd begin to stir.
“Hey, hey! To the side, to the side!!”
“You bastard! Wake up!!”
One of the creatures that had crawled out of the pit sprang like a coiled spring and seized a soldier by the nape.
Crackkk-!
“Uaaaagh! S-save me...!”
Blood spurted from the man’s neck like a fountain, soaking the feet of the people around him.
How many seconds passed?
“Kieeeeee!!!”
“Aagh! What’s wrong with you! Aaaagh!!!”
The soldier whose nape had been bitten got back up and bit into his comrade’s neck.
“Whoa...! It’s a zombie!”
A little kid nearby saw the scene and clearly muttered those exact words.
Yeah. If you had to name it, that was exactly the right name.
Kid’s pretty sharp.
That one word was the catalyst.
“Aaaaah!!! It’s real!!!!”
“Run! Run!!!”
“Kieeeeee!!!”
It didn’t take long for the surroundings to turn into hell.
Overturned strollers. People beginning to trample one another as they fled.
The screams of people who had fallen. The awful tearing sounds of flesh being ripped away.
Rat-a-tat-tat-!
Gunshots layered over it all.
“S-save me!!!”
“It hurts!!! Stooop!!!!”
I, too, gradually matched my steps to the crowd scattering in every direction.
“Shit...”
The fishy stench of blood and the reek of rotting sewage had long since spread throughout Yeouido Park.
“What the fuck... Fuck...!”
I told you the world was screwing me over! That asshole team leader. Fucking bastard!
I ran toward my goshiwon, fleeing the zombies crawling out of the hole like cockroaches.
It was an instinctive movement.
But before I got far, my footsteps came to a halt.
Thud-!
The ground beneath my feet was rumbling as if there had been an earthquake.
Thud-!
Something in the distance was prowling between the buildings.
“Fuck... What the hell is that now...?”
A pitch-black shape easily six stories tall.
Every time it moved, the outer walls of buildings came crumbling down.
The cars it stepped on were crushed like tin cans.
In that moment, I realized.
“Ah... There’s no way I’m making it home.”
The goshiwon was eighteen minutes away on foot. Even running, it would take ten minutes.
Besides, my instincts told me there had to be something even worse than that giant.
[Citizens must... immediately evacuate to the nearest underground facility or safe place.]
The Ministry of National Defense’s message flashed through my mind once again.
“The nearest underground facility or a safe place...”
I remembered the basement-level-one fire-control room where I’d gone for the handover.
There were simple snacks and a water purifier, too.
If things went well, I could last a week there. Let’s go.
I tightly gripped the [Starplex Mall B1 Manager] ID badge hanging around my neck and the bundle of master keys.
“Thank you, Team Leader!!”
I went against the tide of people surging in like spawning salmon.
Zombies lunging from the side. People fleeing breathlessly, drenched in blood.
In front of the Starplex store, I crossed the police line that had already been taken down and jumped through the glass doors.
“Ah.”
Inside the store was no different from outside.
“Yoonjae’s dad! What’s wrong with Yoonjae’s dad!! Eeeeek!!!”
“Fuck, move!!!!”
“Everyone get outside!!!”
The first floor was a scene of utter chaos. All the luxury-store display windows had been smashed, and couples were biting into each other’s napes.
“Coming through...! Oh, fuck! I said I’m coming through!!”
Miraculously avoiding the creatures, I threw myself onto the escalator descending to basement level one.
“Kieeeeee!!”
“Kiek!!”
A pack of zombies drew aggro on me.
They followed me down, then tangled with one another and toppled in a heap.
The people in the supermarket on basement level one still seemed to be trying to figure out what was going on.
“Uh... Oh my!!!”
“W-what is that? An event...?”
There’s no time for narration, people.
“Everyone, run!!!!!! It’s real! Fuck, I said run!!!”
Despite my shout, the zombies that had followed me down turned the supermarket into a bloodbath in an instant.
I did my best. I’m new here.
“Kieeeeee!!!!”
“Aaaaah!!!”
Leaving the screams of people and zombies bursting out from every direction behind me, I ran like a madman.
I leaped over fallen shopping carts and cut across the food aisles.
I ran past the pallets of bottled water stacked like mountains.
I could see it. The thick steel door to the fire-control room at the far end.
“Kieeeeee!!!”
A chilling tearing sound came from behind me.
At the split second when a zombie stepped on top of a display and leaped to pounce on my back—
“Fuuuck!!! Fuck you!!!!”
I launched myself into the fire-control room in a slide.
Bang-!!!
At the same time I slammed the steel door shut, the thing trying to pounce on me crashed squarely into the brutally thick steel.
Clack-!
With trembling hands, I locked every one of the double locks.
Bang! Bang!
The zombie pounded on the other side as if it would rip the steel door apart. I could even faintly hear people screaming.
“Huff-! Huff-!”
On the CCTV monitors, the basement supermarket was being broadcast live as it transformed into hell.
My legs gave out beneath me.
I barely managed to clock in and muttered,
“I’m definitely getting that overtime pay...”
I needed a little humor to accept this situation.
****
....
A week passed.
I was still trapped inside the fire-control room.
“Ah...”
The only thing I could do in the meantime was browse the internet.
Some said it was the gods’ prank.
Others went on about the return of the apocalypse.
But no one could give a definitive answer.
The only thing that seemed certain was the emergency alert that had cut out along with the internet five days ago.
[Ministry of National Defense]
[...The provisional government has classified Yeouido, Jongno, and Gangnam, believed to be the sources of the incident, as highest-risk zones. It has severed the bridges and imposed a complete blockade across most of Seoul, including those areas. Survivors, please await rescue in a safe place...]
The single word “provisional government” was enough to let me guess what was happening outside.
They isolated Yeouido and told us to wait for rescue. What kind of bullshit was that?
A few days ago, the ground shook and there were sounds like bombs going off—or maybe that had been bombardment.
“There are people here, too...!”
Even when I got trapped on the ninth floor of Samseong Electronics, it hadn't felt this hopeless.
I’d been eating sparingly to make it last, but the Kkancho I ate today was the last one.
Even worse, when I checked the CCTV, there were still several zombies lurking outside the door, throughout the entire basement level one.
“Why... aren’t they leaving...”
Should I starve to death like this, or open the door, go out to scavenge, and get torn apart?
“That is the question...”
Just as I was agonizing over that fucked-up either-or choice with no answer in sight—
Ding-!
A cheerful electronic chime rang inside my head, and a translucent blue holographic window appeared before my eyes.
[You have fulfilled the conditions for Awakening]
[Condition: Survive for a total of 7 days inside the Black Zone]
[Difficulty: Extreme (極惡)]
[A transcendent-grade trait will be granted in proportion to the difficulty!]
[You awaken as the unique Architect class!]
“Huh...?”
It wasn’t a hallucination. When I reached out, the window in midair rippled.
I stared blankly as I read down the text, then let out a hollow chuckle.
“Achievement unlocked? Awakening? Is this one of those things from web novels?”
I wasn’t surprised.
A house-sized giant was smashing buildings, and sprinting zombies were real.
The time to be surprised by a blue window appearing in front of me had already passed.
“Status window!”
[Name: Shin Sok]
[Architect: You are the absolute ruler of buildings and domains.]
[Blueprint Control (Lv.1)]
[Active] - Interfere with a building’s blueprints to exercise ownership over the corresponding area.
...
The status window appeared. The first skill drew my attention.
“Blueprint Control...”
Without a moment’s hesitation, I activated the skill.
At that moment, a geometric UI unfolded across my field of vision.
A blueprint of Starplex’s basement level one, centered on the fire-control room, spread out through the air.
Hundreds of square grids were densely drawn across the blueprint.
[Number of tiles controllable at current level: 4]
[You do not have control of the entire building. Secure ownership starting with your desired area.]
“Oh... So I can’t take over the whole floor at once. I have to start with one area, like a game of territory...?”
I lightly tapped the blueprint in midair, designating four tiles in total: the fire-control room, the corridor outside the door, and the bottled-water and processed-food sections adjoining the corridor.
At that moment.
[The ‘ownership’ of the 4 designated tiles is hereby proclaimed!]
At the same time as the skill activated, a dull bursting sound erupted outside the steel door.
Thoom-!
“Uh...?”
I hurriedly checked the CCTV monitors.
Three zombies loitering in front of the door were flung outside the boundary of the tiles I had designated, as though struck by an invisible cannon.
That wasn’t all.
As a faint light swept over the four tiles I had designated, the bloodstains and rotting chunks of flesh scattered across the floor evaporated as if they had never existed.
“Uh...?”
[Blueprint Control (Lv.1)]
[Active] - Interfere with a building’s blueprints to exercise absolute ownership over the corresponding area.
[Passive – Ownership]
- Immediately purifies contaminants within the area and ejects unauthorized hostile entities.
- Identifies the original purpose of the controlled area and manifests it as a unique trait.
- Maintains the power and function of all facilities within the area and automatically regenerates consumed items.
Only now did the skill description properly register.
“T-this is what it does...?”
But it maintained the facilities’ functions and automatically replenished the inventory?
“C-could it be...?”
There was only one way to find out.
Gulp.
I steadied my breathing and opened the fire-control room door for the first time in a week.
I couldn’t hide my amazement at the sight I found after turning the corner.
“Shit...?”
All the stock had really been replenished.
On the central displays, boxes of cup noodles piled up like mountains, along with Hetbahn instant rice and cans of Spam and tuna neatly arranged in rows, while pallets of two-liter bottled water were stacked as high as a person beside them.
Whrrrrrr-.
The large refrigerated showcase along the wall hummed energetically, leaving a refreshing sheen of frost on the canned drinks, while ramen advertisements flashed on the display monitors.
Even the ceiling air conditioner was blowing out crisp, dry air.
“...Is this for real...?”
In the apocalypse, I now owned an entire food section just as fully stocked as it had been on opening day.