Chapter 52 …
“…….”
I tore my eyes away from the surveillance lens and quietly turned back to the sofa.
Plop.
Damn it. What did I just see and hear?
A woman’s head, grotesquely transformed like a zombie, awkwardly stuck to her neck.
Several human heads cradled in one hand.
Clothes soaked in blood and flesh, and skin that looked like it had begun to rot.
And the fact that this horrifying image flickered in and out with the chandelier lights made it even worse.
To make matters worse, that figure locked eyes with me for a moment and seemed to say, “So you’re here…”
I barely swallowed the scream that nearly escaped my mouth.
My heart was still pounding like crazy, but…
Well done, Joo Jin-Young.
“Anyway… now that I’m trapped here, what should I do?”
The uninvited guest probably knew I was in this room.
So, it might be waiting nearby, assuming I’d eventually come out.
“The only good thing is, it seems it can’t just barge in here at will.”
If it could, it wouldn’t have knocked in a human voice.
It would have just smashed its way in.
At least this bought me some time to figure out a plan.
However, without the operator, Black Crow 1, in sight, I couldn’t be sure how long the room would stay safe.
“If there are other survivors outside, maybe it’ll be drawn there…”
Honestly, I doubted there were any survivors.
Even if there were, there would probably be very few.
Considering what I’d seen so far and the monster I just confirmed, I couldn’t help thinking that way.
Bang bang bang!
“Is anyone there?! I’m being chased by a monster!”
“…….”
It seemed the adjacent room was repeating the same thing it did to me earlier.
I listened closely until the voice faded completely.
…Did it leave?
No. Maybe it’s just hiding nearby, waiting for the room door to open.
Unless something special happens, I absolutely cannot open the door recklessly.
♪♩♪♬.
Ah, damn!
The sound that startled me came from the room’s internal phone.
It was just a normal phone ring, but in this situation, it felt deafening.
Wait a minute…
Who could be making a call from the 90th floor using this internal phone?
I shivered.
If I answered, I had a feeling I’d hear the voice of that monster I had locked eyes with earlier.
Startled by the monster once, then shocked again by the phone, I was completely awake now.
I ignored the phone and rifled through my inventory to find a way to handle the situation.
The first thing that caught my eye was the booklet I had received as a tutorial reward.
Maybe this book would tell me something.
It had been my number one tool for clearing quests, so I had high expectations.
But it didn’t take long for that expectation to turn into disappointment.
I put the booklet aside and examined the other items.
First aid kit, various medicines, food, a cutter, lockpicks, a golf club…
All valuable resources, but nothing immediately useful for this situation.
Then, something caught my attention.
Huh? This…
A surveillance camera.
I had taken it from the corpse of the man who was with Emma’s group on the 86th-floor dining area.
Perfect for gathering information when I didn’t know who was outside.
Yeah, that’s true.
But I’d have to go outside first to actually use it.
Unless it had some remote deployment function, it was useless for now.
What else…
Bang!
Gunshot?
Immediately after, the internal phone stopped ringing completely.
Beep beep. Click.
I cautiously opened the door and checked my surroundings.
Good. Clear for now.
Relieved that things were as expected, I quickly stepped outside and closed the door behind me.
“If it weren’t for that gunshot, I wouldn’t have dared.”
Even if that monster had been watching the door nearby, the gunshot would have drawn its attention.
That prediction turned out to be correct.
Now that I was outside, re-entering would cost 30 gold coins. But that wasn’t important.
I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to go outside. So seizing this opportunity was more important.
“I left a note too, just in case Ray gets startled when she wakes up.”
The first priority was finding out where that tricky monster had gone.
I couldn’t secure safety while leaving a dangerous element right in the courtyard.
So I needed to either eliminate it while Ray was still inactive or at least gather information about it.
Luckily, I had the Tracker’s Wave Core, a device that helps track targets.
Whirr!
I pressed the lid of the box and turned it to the right, sending waves in all directions.
Soon, footprints appeared on the corridor floor, like fluorescent traces.
Most were blurry, but one was crystal clear.
The clear footprint led toward the adjacent room and then looped back along the wall between my room and the next.
Damn it. So it was just pretending to leave, hiding nearby to watch.
That spot was a blind zone of the surveillance lens in my room.
If I had opened the door and gone out, I would have been attacked.
Clever bastard. I’ll have to be careful.
The footprints in the blind spot then headed down the left corridor.
Probably moving right after the gunshot.
I grabbed my golf club and turned on the flashlight on my smartwatch.
Then I cautiously followed the footprints.
Honestly, I didn’t want to chase it after what happened earlier.
But since it had chased the gunshot, I had no choice if I wanted to meet other survivors.
Step step step.
Phew.
I paused and wiped the sweat from my arms.
Ah… the hoodie I changed into was already soaked.
It had barely been used, bought fresh from the House of Wisdom, yet it already felt worn.
How far had I gone? 100 meters? 200 meters?
Checking the GPS on my smartwatch, I realized I had moved only about 50 meters.
It felt like much more.
It meant I had heightened my senses and stayed on edge the entire time.
“It’s too quiet.”
There had been a gunshot, yet no sign of the monster I had seen, nor any other.
Unless all the monsters were dead, this was abnormal.
I had no choice but to keep moving.
After a brief pause, I resumed my steps.
After a while, I reached a wide, open space.
This… is it an information desk?
An info desk, like in hotels, appeared. Usually found on the first floor, but here on the 90th floor.
Of course, there was no staff to greet me.
Instead, corpses of monsters and humans, overturned chairs, and broken monitors filled the space.
Squish.
“……?”
Reflexively, I looked down at the sound under my feet.
Blood?
Unlike before, it wasn’t coagulated.
Tracing its source, it came from a humanoid monster lying on its back, looking up at the ceiling—a zombie-like entity I had seen before.
…It’s not alive, right?
I prodded it several times with the golf club—no movement.
Next, I checked the cause of death.
One shot to the head had blown it clean off.
No other injuries or abnormalities, just a bullet hole in the forehead.
Blood was gushing from it, nothing more to see.
“There should also be footprints from whoever shot it nearby…”
Looking around, I found another set of footprints, distinct from the monster’s.
Judging by clarity, they were slightly less pronounced than the monster’s.
Evidence that they had been here first and left first.
The choice of which trail to follow was obvious.
Before leaving the info desk, I installed the surveillance camera.
Being near the center of the 90th floor, anything moving would likely be caught on camera.
There was no better location, so I set it up without hesitation.
Then I switched to tracking the new target.
…but it wasn’t easy.
The most puzzling thing: despite the shortest route being available, the footprints avoided it.
I discovered why only after trying the shortest path several times.
Chandeliers blocking the way.
Piles of beds and mattresses obstructing the path.
Survivors had clearly blocked paths to fend off monsters.
Everywhere, signs of fights between survivors and monsters were evident.
So I just followed the footprints diligently.
Pause.
I stopped at another lounge. My extrasensory perception gave a warning.
“What is it?”
I saw and heard nothing. No presence. Yet my senses insisted something was here.
Gah!
I swung my golf club reflexively at the sudden sound behind me.
Wham! Crash!
A monster? How?
I had no time to think. Behind me, besides the one I had already killed, were at least five more.
Wham!
Each swing of the club sent one monster’s head flying, dropping them instantly.
They weren’t special; just slow zombies to be careful about.
Gah! Gah!
All around, monsters were rising from the floor, wailing death cries.
Those awakened by the earlier commotion, no doubt.
“No special ones, just five.”
An open space. Alone, I could handle them without being surrounded.
Clack clack clack! Whoosh!
I charged at the nearest one, swinging my golf club.
Even though this wasn’t the first time, breaking flesh and bone still felt gruesome.
“Haah!”
I side-kicked another approaching monster, then smashed the one that fell multiple times with the club.
No breaks—the blood wouldn’t let me rest.
Crack!
The last monster hit vertically on the crown of its head fell.
Good. Time to resume tracking…
Gah! Raaah! Ugh!
Wait—what?
Now about ten monsters approached me, staggering.
There had only been five before. Where did these ten come from?
I shook my head violently to check for hallucinations.
Damn it. It was real.
I couldn’t comprehend it. How did so many appear without warning?
Not falling from the sky.
I backed up cautiously. Alone, I had handled over ten before, but facing this many now, I’d be surrounded and die if I fought as before.
Ah… I need C4 from the 85th floor.
Gah! Ugh!
This insane.
Just like before, monsters appeared behind me too.
I thought about using a weight converter to lighten my body and speed past them, but it was impossible.
Too many monsters—no gaps to slip through.
“No place to retreat.”
Do I fight to the death here?
I gripped my golf club, ready to move toward the side with fewer monsters.
Bang!
“This way!”
