Chapter 4
“Hah, hah.”
Seo Won climbed the stairs upward without a moment’s rest. Just when he thought he had barely climbed half a floor, the building shook violently with a thud.
“Ugh.”
He lost his balance and staggered, barely managing to grab the railing and hold on. Looking down, he could see the monsters that had rushed into the building had collapsed the entrance.
He stared at this in dismay before gritting his teeth and heading upward.
Fortunately, the large creatures had all crowded together and were pushing against each other, so they weren’t moving fast. Still, their persistence in stubbornly climbing up was frightening.
Since it wasn’t a tall building, the stairs quickly came to an end. He squeezed through the gap in the broken entrance and rushed inside.
“Hah!”
What was waiting for him wasn’t a complex building interior, but an open view and a cliff. It had only looked intact from the front – the back was completely destroyed and had collapsed.
Seo Won couldn’t stop and floated up into the air as is.
The unexpected feeling of floating was only momentary, as he immediately plummeted toward the ground. Seo Won urgently raised his head and quickly reached toward the rebar protruding from the building.
“Ugh!”
Fortunately, he managed to grab the rebar before his body completely bounced off. His body swayed back and forth from the recoil, but he was able to barely stop it by putting strength into his body.
“Hah, hah.”
He was so shocked that his heart felt like it would jump out of his mouth. The pounding sound of his heart rang like tinnitus. Seo Won, who had been breathing roughly, tried to calm his mind while keeping his voice as quiet as possible. Now wasn’t the time to be absent-minded like this.
What should he do? There was no space to hide in the broken building, so he had to escape somewhere.
While examining the entire building, he discovered that a collapsed wall extended diagonally down to the lower floor. If he moved carefully, it seemed he could get down to the first floor without difficulty.
Seo Won looked up and down as he continued moving toward the wall using the rebar. The monsters were still inside the building, so the bottom was empty.
‘Is this fortunate at least?’
Just when he was feeling somewhat relieved.
He heard the sound of the half-collapsed entrance breaking apart.
Crash!
Debris fell down below the building. As soon as Seo Won reached the wall, he held his breath and hid his body as much as possible. He couldn’t make even the slightest sound.
But unfortunately, his heart was beating loudly. It was beating so loudly that he felt like the creatures would hear it. Moreover, his ribcage was heaving frantically following his pounding heart. His lungs desperately wanted oxygen.
He wanted to exhale roughly and breathe in to his heart’s content. If he did that just a few times, he would feel a bit better, but he couldn’t guarantee his survival.
In the end, he had no choice but to endure it and assess the situation. At least it was fortunate that the lower floor was more deeply recessed than the upper floor.
Seo Won carefully looked up. The monsters were rolling their eyes around, desperately trying to find him.
‘…Go away quickly.’
He desperately cried out inwardly while watching their shadows.
The monsters that had been looking around for a while began to retreat when they could no longer find him. Good. If the creatures went down to the lower floor and disappeared like this, he would have to hold his breath and observe the situation from here for a while. If he could avoid them without going down to the first floor, that would be best.
Seo Won glanced at the space where he was hiding. He couldn’t completely hide his body, but at least he seemed to be able to catch his breath.
While he was feeling relieved with such thoughts.
Suddenly something long came down from the upper floor and was seen dangling and drooping.
“…!”
Seeing this, Seo Won swallowed his breath.
The first monster he had seen, with multiple red eyes, was looking around while rolling its eyeballs in circles. Seo Won urgently tried to hide his body. However, escaping from the sight of a creature whose entire head was filled with eyes was impossible.
Eventually, the moment one of the countless eyeballs found Seo Won, all the other eyeballs that had been spinning frantically turned toward him.
Kiiiiaaaaaak!
When it screamed, the monsters above stretched out their bodies and stared at Seo Won.
Seeing countless eyeballs turning toward him, Seo Won shuddered. The irises split in multiple directions and the blood-red gleaming eyes contained ecstasy. As if saying ‘Found you.’
Unable to handle the disgustingly creepy gazes and falling into panic, the creatures began screaming in unison.
“Ugh!”
Only then did Seo Won come to his senses and rush outside without time to think. He had to escape from those gazes. He had to get away from the noise that seemed like it would tear his eardrums.
His instincts were screaming that he had to run away somehow.
“…Ah.”
However, he momentarily felt something was wrong. He belatedly realized that his body had floated up into the air.
To think he had forgotten that he was hanging from a collapsed building while avoiding the monsters.
Seo Won gaped as he watched the creatures jumping toward him. That brief moment strangely looked like slow motion.
Each appearance of the monsters rushing to catch him as he fell was clearly etched in his eyes.
Their entirely black and chaotic appearance, along with blood-red eyeballs and sharp teeth full of debris. It was a bizarre and hideous sight that matched very well with the blood-red sky.
Something long that he couldn’t tell whether it was an arm or tentacle stretched toward him. If he was dragged away like this, he would be devoured by the monsters. They would swallow him from head to toe, leaving not a single bone behind.
‘I wish this was just a dream.’
It was too vivid, too realistic to feel like a dream. When he was crushed by the huge object, no thoughts came to mind, but now it felt like his life would end just like this. He had a premonition that he could no longer hope for what comes next.
Before long, the long tentacle began wrapping around his body. Death was right in front of him. Unable to witness that scene with his own eyes, he squeezed his eyes shut.
Just as he was about to accept the end.
“How reckless.”
An indifferent voice that didn’t match the current situation reached his ears.
‘…Huh?’
Seo Won unconsciously opened his eyes wide. And he realized that what he heard wasn’t a hallucination.
The tentacle that had been trying to wrap around his entire body had disappeared at some point, and instead he was being held by someone and flying through the air. The building looked strangely small, and he was floating higher than before. The cold wind stung his facial skin.
Before he could understand the situation, he landed on the highest part of the building. Only then did he realize that something unbelievable had happened to him.
As soon as his feet touched the ground, he staggered. His body wasn’t responding well and he was about to collapse, when a firm arm came under his waist to support his body.
“Ah…”
He blinked at the dizzying situation of almost falling, then belatedly caught his breath. Seo Won slowly turned his head.
There, a man was looking down at the building below.
His face wasn’t clearly visible due to his fallen bangs, but his sharp jawline and transparently pale skin particularly caught the eye. His hair was jet black in contrast, and his mouth was closed in an indifferent straight line.
He felt no agitation or confusion from him at all.
“Stay here.”
Seo Won sat down as the man led him and leaned his body against the wall. It was dizzying with the empty space under his feet, but more than that, he felt relief first at finally meeting another person.
But something unexpected happened.
“Huh? Wait!”
The man who had saved him was jumping down below. He was so surprised that he urgently reached out his hand. But the man had already disappeared.
He had barely escaped with his body, so why go back down… No, more than that, jumping from here? Isn’t that crazy?
Seo Won, who hadn’t recognized how he had been saved or how he had gotten up here, looked at the man with shaking eyes.
But then, something happened that was hard to believe even while seeing it with his eyes.
The man who had fallen from a high place was wielding a sword among the monsters without a single wound. Even that was barely visible, and his eyes couldn’t even follow the man’s movements.
Seo Won, who belatedly came to his senses, blankly watched the massacre taking place below his feet.
‘…This is impossible.’
The creatures that had been chasing him fiercely couldn’t even resist a single man and had their necks and bodies all cut and burst open. Yet the ones still alive didn’t stop attacking.
Even he, who didn’t know anything, could tell there was a difference in skill, but the monsters rushed in as if they didn’t know how to flee. However, none of the creatures’ attacks reached the man. Every time the man swung his sword, black blood and flesh splattered.
How much time had passed like that – the area below the building was filled with writhing flesh and black blood. The only living thing was the man standing alone.
“……”
In that fishy space, the man showed the leisure of swinging his sword in the air to shake off the blood. After that, he put both the long sword in his right hand and the medium sword in his left hand into their sheaths, then adjusted his leather gloves.
His leisurely appearance seemed accustomed to this kind of work.
The man looked around in a circle, then slowly raised his head.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
