Chapter 3
Ugh… my head.
I shook my head as I got up and looked around.
Just like in the original story, there was a single cabin—and one man lying unconscious nearby.
Kueeeeeek!
A piercing screech that felt like it would tear through my eardrums rang out. I spun around in shock.
Kieeeek!
Surrounding the cabin on all sides, beyond the wire fencing, waves of skeletons—no, to be precise, countless zombies—were pressing in. The sheer number was enough to make my hair stand on end.
‘This really is an apocalypse…?’
Before coming here, I’d trained endlessly to kill zombies. I’d gone through combat drills until my hands blistered and my skin tore. I’d believed I could survive.
But imagination and reality were nothing alike.
‘Damn it…’
Zombies here.
Zombies there.
Zombies. Zombies. Zombies.
It was a living hell.
As I stood there, blankly staring at the fence towering well above my height, I suddenly felt a sharp tug at my waist.
A skeletal arm had burst through the wire mesh and was yanking on my pouch belt.
‘Shit! My Doraemon pocket!’
Panicking, I grabbed the hammer hooked onto the metal clasp at my belt.
As I chanted the enlargement spell etched into the handle, the hammer grew massively in an instant. I swung it down, smashing the zombie’s hand bones.
Clack—! Rattle, snap!
The hand bones flew off—
then, horrifyingly, propped themselves up on their fingertips like a spider.
‘That’s disgusting!’
I smashed it repeatedly with the hammer until it was nothing but fragments, then panted heavily as I looked around.
Everything that had felt vague before now felt terrifyingly real.
This was a zombie apocalypse.
Kieeeek!
A skeleton climbed over its own fallen comrades and finally tumbled over the fence.
It hit the ground, then clattered as it reassembled itself and stood up, advancing toward me.
‘This guy must’ve been tall. He’s huge!’
I swung the hammer into its skull.
Thunk, thunk, thunk—
The skull flew off and bounced across the ground.
I rushed forward and crushed it completely, then turned around.
The body, now missing its skull, collapsed in a heap. I barely had time to feel relieved before the fence shook violently, pushed by the relentless horde.
‘This won’t work. I need to move that man somewhere safe first.’
I hung the hammer back at my waist and grabbed the arm of the man sprawled nearby.
At first, he didn’t move—but slowly, inch by inch, he began to drag along the ground.
‘He’s heavy…!’
It felt like pulling a massive boulder.
Thud—bang!
As I hauled him up the cabin steps, the back of his head struck the edge of a stair.
Startled, I checked his face, but thankfully he was still unconscious.
Bang—!
At last, I dragged him inside the cabin, dumped him in a corner, and slammed the door shut.
“Haa…”
Only then did I lean against the wall and slide down, exhaling in relief.
Kueeeeeek!
Just as I caught my breath, the grotesque cries of the zombie horde came through the door.
I grimaced at the sound—no matter how many times I heard it, I couldn’t get used to it—then noticed bone fragments stuck to the hammer at my belt.
I lifted it slightly, flicked the pieces off, and let out a hollow laugh.
‘I’ve really lost it. Coming here, of all places.’
A sigh escaped me.
“Maybe I should’ve just run away on my own.”
It had only been five minutes since I’d come to my senses in front of the cabin, and I was already regretting it.
But there was no turning back now.
I’d made my choice, and events were already in motion.
Brushing a few strands of hair off my cheek, I felt around my waist.
“Enough whining. Let’s take a look.”
I opened the belt pouch, plunged my hand into the subspace inside, and searched for a telescope.
Normally, if you kept the subspace neatly organized, the item you wanted would come right to hand…
‘I really should’ve organized this.’
But what could I do? I’d never been good at keeping things tidy.
Fortunately, after some digging, I found a telescope no longer than my finger.
I placed it on my palm and muttered the spell carved into it. It expanded instantly.
Slipping the strap around my neck, I tied my hair back again and moved toward the window.
Kueeeek—!
I pulled the curtain aside slightly.
Beyond the fence, pale skeleton zombies packed together aggressively, looking like a mass of whitish pebbles. Thankfully, none besides the one earlier seemed to have made it over.
“One, two, three, four… whew.”
I stopped counting halfway through.
What was the point? There were easily hundreds. Counting them would just be a waste of time.
After surveying the terrain and situation through the telescope for a while, my eyes widened.
The fence was swaying violently, as if it might collapse toward the cabin under their relentless assault.
“Damn it—the fence…!”
Thunk—!
It happened in that instant.
A dagger flew in sharply, slicing off a few strands of my silver hair before embedding itself in the wall.
Unable even to scream, I slowly turned my head.
The dagger bore the imperial crest.
‘Don’t tell me…’
Like a creaking wooden doll, I turned toward where it had been thrown from.
A man stood there, dressed in a pure white uniform.
Wine-colored hair. Golden eyes. A strikingly handsome face.
Lihard Deon Haigen—
the Empire’s Crown Prince, and one of the original male leads.
For a moment, I was stunned by his elegant presence.
The novel never stopped praising his looks whenever he appeared, so I’d wondered just how handsome he really was…
“…He really is good-looking.”
The words slipped out before I could stop myself.
His face twisted.
“What?”
“……”
I clamped my mouth shut like a shell and pretended it was just a mutter to myself.
Right—this wasn’t the time to be admiring faces.
Under normal circumstances, I’d greet him with something like the Empire’s little sun nonsense, but this clearly wasn’t the moment.
I bowed first.
“It’s an honor to meet you. I am Redria Arios of the Arios Count’s family—”
“Hey.”
The Crown Prince cut me off, frowning as he stepped closer.
“I attended the prayer ceremony. Why am I here?”
I bristled instinctively, but his gaze was so sharp it felt like he could take my head off at any moment.
Reluctantly, I answered.
“You don’t remember? During the prayer ceremony, the ground split open and the altar collapsed.”
“…What?”
Confusion rippled through his pupils as he quickly checked his own body.
He was probably looking for a communication artifact.
But it must’ve been lost when the ground collapsed and people were swept away.
“Damn it. It’s gone.”
He sighed, rubbing his forehead, then swept his sharp golden eyes around.
Me.
Him.
The ear-splitting shrieks outside.
The grotesque creatures crowding the fence.
Suddenly, realization dawned on him. He scrubbed his face with both hands, groaning. He’d remembered everything from just before he lost consciousness.
‘Can I really get his cooperation and escape from here?’
I’d be lucky if he didn’t use my head as a marble with that temper of his.
The more I thought about it, the more it felt like coming to this zombie zone—no, entering this novel in the first place—had been a mistake.
‘No.’
My teeth ground together as a name surfaced in my mind.
‘Kim. Deok. Su…’
This was all his fault.
If that bastard hadn’t insisted I read this novel, I never would’ve ended up in this nightmare of a transmigration.
Isn’t transmigration supposed to happen only into novels you’ve read?
I swallowed my anger with a sigh and tossed the telescope to the Crown Prince.
“Check the outside situation with this first.”
He caught it easily and moved to the window.
From behind him, I calmly laid out our current situation—
with a bit of embellishment.
“Hah.”
He turned back after looking outside and let out a dry laugh.
“So, to summarize what the young lady is saying… an earthquake occurred, these unidentified things awakened, the altar and the portal collapsed, cutting us off from the Empire, and now we’re trapped here, about to die?”
“Let’s call them zombies, not ‘those things.’”
“Fine. Zombies. And if you’re bitten by one, you turn into the same mindless beast?”
“Yes. I figured it out after seeing a rabbit from the Sacred Forest get bitten and transform.”
I couldn’t exactly say I knew because I’d read the original story.
The Crown Prince continued, looking incredulous.
“And on top of that, you possess a five-person warp scroll that leads to the capital, and since there may be other survivors besides us, you plan to find them, fill the number, and escape. Is that correct?”
“You understood it cleanly and precisely. That’s right.”
Strictly speaking, not survivors—
but the male leads.
According to the original story, only they and I were trapped in the zombie zone
