[AN:
- SHOOT! When I went back to make corrections to some previous chapters, the comments got wiped, meaning some of my IMAGES had DISAPPEARED. Knowing that I'll probably spend more putting effort into correcting my chapters before posting them. 'Cause I already deleted those screenshots and such. Oh well.
- It was soo hard thinking of a realistic scenario that students would've done if Gyeong-Su hadn't thrown the computer, but after racking my head, it managed to work out.
- I made a mistake with the status box so it'll be slightly different. I didn't know using autodidact for distributing points took [Investment Points] as well.
- Enjoy!
-"{}" Means they're talking in English
]
***
Inside the girl's restroom on the first floor, the heads of two girls peeked out through the top window.
"Hey," said the girl with bob-cut hair, "lift me higher."
"I can't go any higher," said a voice down below.
Complaining, the girl, Park Mi-Jin, looked down at the boy beneath her. "Stand on your toes."
"I am," said Yoo Jun-Seong, the obese boy that held Mi-Jin up. "Do you see anything?"
"Oh, shit." cursed Mi-Jin, "There's a lot of zombies out there."
"Put me down." said the girl next to Mi-Jin wore a white jersey, the same as the one worn by the boy holding her up. The girl was Jang Ha-Ri, the older sister of Woo-Jin. The boy struggling to put her down was June Min-Jae, a fellow member of the archery club. "Okay."
Leaning against the restroom stall, Yoo Jun-Seong looked lost. "What do we do?"
"Well, first," spoke up Mi-Jin with her hands at her hips, turning to Ha-Ri. "You got a cigarette?"
"No," said Ha-Ri curtly, "I don't smoke."
"Shit, you look like you do." Turning to the other archery member who was leaning against the restroom wall, Mi-Jin gave the boy a slight nudge with her feet. "Hey, what about you?"
"I don't smoke," said Min-Jae, annoyed.
"Don't mess with me."
"I don't."
"Why are you being so rude to an upperclassman? Wanna die?"
Getting up from the ground, Min-Jae towered over the shorter upperclassman. "What the hell do you want?"
"Hey," said Ha-Ri, looking at Min-Jae, "who said you can talk like that to an upperclassman?"
Stunned, Min-Jae bowed slightly to Ha-Ri as he apologized.
"No," said Mi-Jin. "To me, not to her. God, why are athletes always such douchbags?"
"Watch your mouth," warned Ha-Ri.
Not giving a shit, Mi-Jin looked back at the girl. "Watch yourself."
As Jun-Seong was about to intervene when the sound of someone singing loudly came from outside. Soon the sound of loud screeches and growls came from outside the restroom door, followed by the thunderous feet as what was no doubt a horde of zombies swarmed by.
Putting a finger to her lips, Ha-Ri slowly approached the door, taking a peek through the crack of the door. The zombies surrounding the halls were long gone, attracted by whoever was crazy enough to sing that loud.
Seeing no zombies nearby, she opened the door to leave.
"Hey, what are you doing?" asked Mi-Jin, crossing her arms. "You can't go back out there!"
Taking a look back at the short girl with bob-cut hair, she said, "I do whatever I feel like." With Min-Jae closely following the girl, they've both left the restroom.
As Ha-Ri followed the sound of the singing voice, Min-Jae nervously trailed the older girl, not sure what they were doing outside the safety of the restroom. Walking for several minutes, the duo came upon a broken window that was stained by blood. Outside the window, the window, both archery members saw the strangest sight.
Sitting above the gathering crowds of zombies was a person. Dressed in the recognizable Hyosan High green blazer, the figure wore an orange construction hat with what appeared to be Practice test booklets wrapped around their forearms and calves, seemingly writing But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that this person was singing-
"{THE CLUB ISN'T THE BEST PLACE TO FIND A LOVER SO THE BAR IS WHERE I GO! ME AND MY FRIENDS AT THE TABLE DOING SHOTS DRINKING FAST, AND THEN WE TALK SLOW. AND-}"
That person was singing. Singing. Rubbing her eyes, Ha-Ri looked to Min-Jae to see if the boy was hearing the same thing she was.
"Isn't that the song by Ted Beeran?" asked Min-Jae.
Suddenly, the student stopped singing, standing up from his spot on the edge of the cafeteria. With two hands with the palms facing towards the boy's face, it appeared as if he was holding something in his hand. But nothing was.
After watching the student on the cafeteria roof just stand there, Ha-Ri decided she had enough. About to leave, she felt Min-Jae touch her shoulder. "Wait, something's happening - look."
And indeed something was happening. Lurching back and forth like a drunkard, the student wearing the construction hat tried to hold onto the edge, only to knock down a bag instead. Without a gri[, the student fortunate enough to safely get on the roof would fall to an unfortunate end.
Min-Jae turned away, not having the stomach to watch as someone was about to fall to their death. Ha-Ri kept watching. She knew that sooner or later, they would have to face the unending cruelty afflicted by this apocalypse. In a different universe, this would've pushed Ha-Ri into hardening her heart and doing unspeakable things to survive and eventually meet her brother. To survive at all costs.
But that was a different universe, and this is now.
It was the bright yellow light that Ha-Ri saw first, soon followed by the sound reminiscent of many birds chirping. The 3rd year student at Hyosan watched amazed as the light moved forward from the boy on its own, shredding and burning through zombies like paper.
Boom!
A huge bloom of fire burst like a flower, at its epicenter the boy. The force of the explosion slammed the boy's body across the courtyard before eventually sliding harshly into the wall right below their window.
Soon, attracted by the loud noise of the explosion, more and more zombies ran towards the growing fire, jumping into it. Their rotting bodies, filled with combustible gases, fueled the growing flames that now were steadily swallowing up the former cafeteria building.
"He's still alive?" whispered Min-Jae, pointing down at the student. Sure enough, the boy was alive. The construction hat was long gone, the goggle's laid half-melted at his sides and the metal tray on his chest glowing red at the center. But besides the burned clothes and bloody head, the boy seemed fine.
Ha-Rin soon began going down the stairs.
"Where are you going?" asked Min-Jae.
"Getting answers."
***
Back inside the storeroom of the Life Science classroom, there was a mouse that laid dormant inside its plastic cage.
Suddenly, it jumped to life as it sensed something approaching.
From the darkest corners of the room, tendrils of darkness were pulled from the shadows of the objects inside the room, condensing. And from it formed a figure resembling the body of s starved man, the shadowy substance stretched tightly across the ribs. It's with were arms drastically larger than their legs, walking on all fours. On its mouthless, faceless head was a paper - seal, that had a symbol drawn it.
Approaching the mouse, the beast of shadows laid its gargantuan hands on top of the plastic box. The mouse, which had been ecstatic at the sight of the creature, began to slowly morph, eventually becoming a miniature replica of the shadowy beast.
The mouse-now-shadow beast dissolved into wisps of darkness, following through the holes of the plastic box and into the body to the larger, lumbering creature.
Heading back towards the corner of the room it came from, the shadow with a seal dissipated as well, leaving the storeroom as quietly as it came.
***
"Don't move or we'll shoot you."
Laying against the tiled walls of the girl's restroom, Cheong-San slowly raised both hands. Looking around the restroom, he noticed two other students behind the two with bows. Recognizing the white jerseys of the students, he realized they were a part of the archery club. And by the nametag color of the students behind them, they were upperclassmen.
"Who are you?" confronted the upperclassman with bob-cut hair.
But Cheong-San didn't answer. His mind was still reeling from the memories that entered his mind after picking up the [Lighnting Blade] mantra. What had just happened? Who were those people in the armors? What did [Lightning Blade] have anything to do with Emperors and armies? As Cheong-San tried to come up with an answer, he heard the students call out to him again.
"Hey!" said the girl again, looking at the boy. "Are you deaf or something?"
"Wait...how did I get here?" Cheong-San asked.
"Those two dragged you back here. Answer my question, who are you?"
"I'm Lee Cheong-San from class 2-5." he answered. dusting off the rumble still on his pants
"2-5?" said the girl in white, lowering her bow. Seeing the girl lowering her bow, the other boy in white did so as well? "Do you know Jang Woo-Jin?"
"Yeah?" Cheong-San said. "Why do you ask?"
Walking straight up to Cheong-San, the bow girl gripped both of his shoulders. Looking directly into his eyes, the girl asked him a question. "It's his sister that's asking. Now is my brother okay?"
Going through his memories, he recalled a time when he and Woo-Jin were making fun of Dae-Su for having a crush on Woo-Jin's older sister. "You're Jang Ha-Ri, right. Woo-Jin's fine; he's with my classmates on the second floor. They've barricaded the classroom so they should be safe."
As he was about to get back up, Ha-Ri used her hands to push him back down. "What the hell did you do back out there?"
"You mean by the cafeteria?" asked the boy. "I was just thinning out the numbers of zombies so that my class could escape the school easier. I reckon that explosion got a lot of them. Do you know how many I got?"
"Not that," cried out Min-Jae, "the thing you did before that!"
"The thing...?" asked Cheong-San, confused. Mi-Jin and Jun-Seong stood by looking as confused as well.
"When you falling off the roof, you did something that caused a lot of noise. What was that?" asked Ha-Ri, staring at her brother's classmate.
"Oh, that..." now knowing what they were referring to, Cheong-San had several options here. If it was before the apocalypse, he might have humored putting the truth as one of those options on the table. But now that he realized there existed people like Mr. Lee capable of pulling a literal zombie virus straight out of their asses, there was no way he would tell them anything about his magic scroll and game-like abilities, especially so because he just met them.
So he decided to lie.
"I'm a wizard," he said with his most convincing voice. He even added a little smile as he put a hand to his chest.
In the back, the tall archer gestured at Cheong-San, as if his words proved his point to the other two students.
But Mi-Jin and Jun-Seong didn't look so convinced.
"What a bunch of bullshit." said Mi-Jun, breaking more mops to make spears. "how old do you think I am, three?"
While Jun-Seong wasn't at vulgar, he still looked doubtful. "Are you sure there wasn't some other reason? You said everything caught on fire, right? I heard that fires can distort the air enough to make-"
"Mistral."
Ha-Ri flinched as she stepped back away from the boy. At Cheong-San's words, a familiar rapier appeared out of thin air. While Cheong-San wasn't confident that the blade would appear, he was pleasantly surprised to be proven otherwise.
Jun-Seong, who was leaning against a toilet stall, let out a small 'eep,' before hiding behind the delinquent girl. While Mi-Jun was surprised, the girl quickly schooled her face. Ha-Ri and Min-Jae, having seen the flashier [Lightning Blade], wasn't too shocked by a sword suddenly appearing.
Standing up, Cheong-San walked up to Park Mi-Jun who was holding on to the strap of his backpack. "You want to hand something over?"
Begrudgingly, the girl handed the backpack back. She had called dibs on it if the boy turned.
Taking the backpack, Cheong-San found that the scroll remained inside. Pulling it out, he checked his [Status] box.
Dang. It looked like the explosion instantly raised his fortitude by only one. Seeing that he needed one more point to 'Power' up to 5, Cheong-San dissipated the rapier to the shock of the other students. Putting his hand in his backpack, he found Gyeong-Su's gift.
Still hiding behind Mi-Jun, Jun-Seong watched as the newcomer crouched on the tiled floor, occasionally lighting up the glass ball in his hands yellow with electricity. "Mi-Jun, what do you think he's doing?"
Disgusted by how pathetic Jun-Seong was, she still answered him. "Yes, I know all about the harry potter magic voodoo our underclassman is doing - Of course, I don't know, you retard. If you're curious go ask him yourself."
Shaking his head, Jun-Seong decided to stay quiet.
Ha-Ri and Min-Jae just watched silently, engrossed by the familiar light that took out the scores of zombies with two swings.
"Hey," spoke up Mi-Jun, waving her mop-spear at Cheong-San. "You got any spare weapons inside that magic purse of yours. Some of us don't have a bow like those athletes."
"Sorry," said Cheong-San training his 'Thundercall,' ability. "This is the only one I got."
"Damn." cursed Mi-Jun.
After ten minutes, Cheong-San heard the familiar bell chime ring, and five new cards fell into his hand.
Damn, a rare card. Looking down at his deck, the card that appeared were: [Ready or Not], [Polite Awakening], [Bloodiron Spirit], [Moving Fortress], and [Fold]. Cheong-San had learned the importance of health, the previously bloody wound a good reminder. But with the level up, all his fatigue and injuries were automatically healed. Besides, [Bloodiron Spirit] was a rare card, giving +10 Health and the ability to regain some armor upon killing enemies. While Cheong-San didn't know what the card meant by armor, he assumed it meant that it would repair cloths or protective gear.
Putting the [Bloodiron Spirit] against the magic scroll, Cheong-San braced himself to have another vision. After a few seconds, he was surprised that nothing happened. Maybe it only worked when he learned new Mantras? Taking a quick glance at his [Status] box and dumping his free point into his 'Light Weapon,' the [Investment Points] went down from 5 to 4.
"Alright," said Cheong-San standing up, summoning back Mistral. He turned to look at Ha-Ri, offering the girl a handshake. "Leave most of the fighting to me, I want this test this baby. After we collect some food, we'll go look for your brother and my classmates, deal?"
Thinking a moment, Ha-Ri shook his hand. "Let's go."
Watching them leave, Mi-Jun sighed in admiration. "She's so cool. Damn it. So annoying" Quickly following the group.
Groaning at having to leave the restroom almost so close to nightfall, Jun-Seong got up from his seat on the floor, picking up his spear. "Wait for me."
***
"Fire and Disasters Headquarters said not to touch the infected," said So-Ju, who had just gotten off from his phone.
It was already night and chaos consumed the city of Hyosan down below. Inside a conference room of the Hyosan City Hall, aides and paramedics a liked started to barricade the doors with chairs and tables.
Sitting down, Assemblywoman Park used her handkerchief to wipe the sweat and tears coming down her face.
"As you can see, it's highly contagious-" explained So-Ju. But he was interrupted by the Assemblywoman in pink.
"We were notified too, no need to explain." Taking a deep breath, she talked in a calmer tone. "How long do we have to stay here?"
"They're sending over a helicopter," said So-Ju, "but it's gonna take time. So it looks like you'll have to wait a bit longer."
Standing up from the chair, Assemblywoman Park looked at the paramedic. "Did you notify them that I was here as well?"
"What?" asked So-Ju confused.
Getting closer to the single father, the Assemblywoman asked again. "I'm asking if it's taking time to get a chopper even though they know I'm here?"
"No," answered the captain of Rescue Team One, "I did not tell them who was here."
"You've should've told them," said the senior aide, Dal-Ho. "That way, they'll send one right away to pick us up."
So-Ju shook his head. "Per the rules of rescue, the weak and ill take priority over the VIPs. We'll hear back soon, so please be patient like everyone else."
Walking away from the group of restless politicians, So-Ju stopped by the window as he checked his phone. As he was about to swipe away his notification to call On-Jo's homeroom teacher, Ms. Park, he noticed the number of emails he got from an unknown person.
Curious, the man opened one up. Seeing, the email, So-Ju read it out loud.
"To anyone that receives this message..."
***
"...this is Ms.Park, the English teacher at Hyosan High School. The virus outbreak has broken out within the school, infecting almost all the staff and students. A handful of survivors including myself and some students remain unaffected, trapped inside the school at the Broadcasting room located on the right-wing, second floor. Please immediately send help to the school. I repeat, there are children here, please send help."
Finishing copy and pasting the message as another Facebook post, Joon-Young swiveled his chair to face Ms. Park. "Done. We've posted hundreds of the same messages through Facebook, emails, Instagrams, Snapchat, and so on. Any more ideas?"
After Su-Hyeok suggested the idea to use the restroom, and due to Dae-Su's crazy idea to use the window to take a dump and piss, On-Jo with Ms. Park's assistance directed everyone to use the sound room as a restroom. They had to leave the windows open to ventilate the smell. Na-Yeon's nagging didn't make use of the sit-down toilet any easier.
Using Ms. Park's school email, they had sent a mass email to all the parents of the school asking for help. On a roll, they continued to do the same thing, trying to ask for help on whatever platform they could as well as keep informed of any announcements posted by the National Security Council.
As everyone else had decided to rest after relieving themselves in the toilet, only Joon-Young and Dae-Su remained by the computer, monitoring the outside world through the internet. Currently, they were watching the live stream of a man that willingly entered Hyosan. He was a MeTuber named "Orangibberish."
Currently, the MeTuber was running for his life. As the only streamer courageous to enter the city, he now had over half-million people watching his stream.
["I'm fucked."] gasped the streamer, running for his life. ["Damn these motherfuckers!"]
The man hid behind a car, letting his camera poke out over the trunk to catch the zombies as they ran by. ["You guys saw that, right? Fuck. These bastards are so fast."]
Poking his camera out a little more, it caught the sight of a zombie, standing in front of a car across the street. ["You saw that, right? Fuck. Tell me you saw it, assholes."]
Watching the live video, Dae-Su nudged Joon-Young's shoulder. "Hey, tell send him a donation that tells him our location. Maybe someone will send help to our school."
"We need a credit to send donations through MeTube," explained Joon-Young. "Ms. Park, can we use your credit card?"
Patting her pants, the teacher shook her head. "My wallet? Ah, sorry. I left my wallet inside the teacher's lounge."
"Does anyone have a credit card on them?" asked Dae-Su.
"I don't," said Na-Yeon reluctantly, "but I memorized my dad's credit card. Why do you need it anyway?"
"We're hoping that if we send a donation with Ms. Park's email and our location, the rescuers would find a way to communicate with us easier," explained Joon-Young.
"Ugh, fine. Look away."
As Na-Yeon put the credit card information into the account, the students and teacher heard knocking from the door.
Picking up the spear, Su-Hyeok made his way to the door, motioning Gyeong-Su to slide it open. Gyeong-Su nodded, slowly moving the door open. As Su-Hyeok gripped the spear tightly in his hands, he readied himself for the worse. The door opened, revealing a group of students standing at the doors
"Cheong-San?!" said Gyeong-Su by the door.
"You guys missed me?" said Cheong-San.