Just then…
“Thank you so much, Hunter…!”
Words of gratitude reached Model Student’s fading hearing.
“You protected us… and our research. You protected the last hope for Daejeon.”
“You saved us!”
“How can we ever repay this debt…?”
“…”
Model Student squeezed his eyes shut one more time.
Hunter.
Hunter, they called him. How long had it been since he’d last heard that name?
Across his dulled mind, scenes from a life he could never return to flashed by in a black-and-white panorama.
The days he saved people, saved cities… the days he was hailed as a hero.
“…”
Gruuhhh—!
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump…
He could hear the sound of more zombies approaching from the distance. The loud gunshots must have attracted another nearby horde.
As the survivors flinched in terror, Model Student opened his eyes. He staggered to his feet and moved toward the fork in the passage.
“I’ll hold them off here. The rest of you, get to safety.”
“What? But…!”
“Don’t worry about me.”
He didn’t know why the words were coming out of his mouth. Why he was acting like this.
“Believe it or not, I was a pretty famous Hunter back in the day,” he said, forcing down the dark hunger churning within him as he slapped a new magazine into his pistol.
“Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
“Then you should come with—”
“Get going! Right now!”
“…”
This was no time for hesitation.
The survivors scrambled out of the shopping arcade and down the passage leading toward the subway station.
The Public Health Center director, who was at the rear of the group supporting an injured person, yelled one last time. “Thank you, Sir Hunter!”
“…”
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you…! Please… survive. We’ll see you again!”
Model Student stared blankly at the backs of the survivors as they disappeared down the corridor, then slowly turned his gaze forward.
Gruuh…!
GRUAAAHH—!
A new wave of zombies was flooding in, a tide of rot and death.
“Hah.” His lips curled into a rueful smirk. “After everything, what kind of fucking stunt is this…?”
Model Student pulled grenades from his vest, holding nothing back.
“Come on then, motherfuckers.”
He hurled them without a moment’s hesitation.
“Let’s see how death tastes the second time around!”
***
BOOM—!
A deafening roar echoed through Daejeon Station.
The grenades Model Student had thrown detonated, rupturing nearby pipes and setting off a chain reaction of explosions. Massive flames shot into the air, accompanied by a tremendous blast.
Naturally, the zombies on the surface level of the station whipped their heads in that direction.
“Woaah?!”
“Is that…?”
Hope flickered across the faces of Jae-hee and Ghost as they ran.
They had been struggling to find an opening, the horde surrounding Miss Hellth too dense to penetrate. But the massive explosion had diverted the zombies’ attention.
Grrr!
Grruuuhh…!
Like wild dogs chasing a thrown bone, the horde broke off and stampeded toward the source of the explosions.
The wall of zombies around Miss Hellth thinned in an instant.
“The zombies are heading over there, Grandma!”
“Good! There’s an opening!”
It was now or never.
Ghost caught Jae-hee’s eye and gave a sharp nod. “Now, kid!”
“Oh, right. This is my cue…”
“Get flying, flyboy!”
The time had come for the toreador to rush the bull.
Jae-hee dropped into a crouching start, then shot forward with all his might.
“Aaaah, the hell with it—!” He activated his ability with a shriek.
The world slowed to a crawl as wind whipped around him.
Don’t sprint!
Jae-hee fought to control his tempo, recalling Ghost’s advice from moments before.
Just enough speed to keep from getting caught by Miss Hellth…!
He treated it not as a sprint but a long-distance jog. Relaxing the body and pushing off the ground lightly.
Thwump—!
Yet despite consciously holding back, Jae-hee’s speed was far beyond common sense.
He wasn’t as fast as a bullet, like in a full sprint, but he was still moving at a clip that a normal person would struggle to follow with their eyes.
In the next instant, the boy who had moved like the wind was standing directly in front of Miss Hellth.
For a brief moment, their eyes met—Jae-hee’s and Miss Hellth’s, whose head was dangling from a half-severed neck.
He gave an awkward little wave. “Well, hi… there?”
“…?”
Miss Hellth seemed momentarily baffled.
But she reacted instantly. The Blood Spears bristling from her muscular body shot toward Jae-hee like tentacles.
Th-th-th-thunk!
By the time the blood-forged tips tore through the ground, Jae-hee was already gone, having kicked off the ground and leapt gracefully to the side.
“KRAAAAAAAH!”
Twice as many Blood Spears erupted from Miss Hellth’s body.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Dozens of spears rained down, pounding the earth like a torrential downpour.
“Hyup, hyup, hyup, hyup, hyup!”
But Jae-hee moved like a stunt performer, weaving and sidestepping through the onslaught, each spear missing him by the thinnest hair.
I’m less out of breath than I thought!
He was inwardly shocked at how much longer his ability was lasting now.
It ain’t easy, but it’s nowhere near as agonizing as a full sprint!
Ghost had been right. There was no need to burn all his energy in one burst. It was far more efficient to downshift, conserve his strength, and use only as much speed as necessary.
Feels like I can dodge her attacks forever!
And the moment Jae-hee had that thought.
Thump!
His toes caught on something.
“Wuhh?”
He glanced down with a dopey grunt and saw a crimson net spread across the floor.
The Blood Spears Miss Hellth had fired had shattered on the ground, then coalesced and knitted themselves together into a net.
By the time Jae-hee realized it, his ankle was already ensnared.
“EHHH—?!”
A sharp twist—and he managed to yank his foot free of the Blood Net.
But his balance was already gone.
CRASH-CLATTER-BANG!
Jae-hee went down in a spectacular tumble, rolling across the ground.
“Owowowow, my ankle… my lifeline…”
Even as he fell, he activated his ability, accelerating and decelerating in bursts to break his fall, avoiding serious injury.
But his ankle was sprained.
In an instant, he had lost his overwhelming speed, and the zombie-Hellth was not the kind of monster to miss such an opening.
“KRAAHH—!”
With a roar, dozens of Blood Spears descended upon him like a carpet bombing.
Realizing he couldn’t escape, Jae-hee threw his arms over his head and screamed.
“OHGODTHEFLYBOYISDEADISHOULDNEVERHAVEGOTTENINVOLVEDDAMNYOUCRUELWORLDGOODBYEIAMOUTTAHERE—!”
His final words were oddly long. Or rather, they just… kept going.
That’s when Jae-hee realized something was off.
SLICE—!
The sound of a clean cut reached his ears a beat too late.
Splat, splat…
The Blood Spears meant for him lost their shape and disintegrated into puddles.
“…?”
Dumbfounded, Jae-hee slowly lifted his head and finally understood what had happened.
“Well done, kid.”
While he had been drawing her attention, Ghost had closed the distance.
She was standing on Miss Hellth’s shoulder. Perched atop the massive hill of swollen muscle, she looked as majestic as a climber who had just conquered a great peak.
She had swung her sword and severed the Blood Spears at their base, causing them to dissipate before they could reach Jae-hee.
Ghost repositioned her grip on the sword, baring her teeth. “Now it’s my turn.”
Her black blade fell like a meteor.
Even in that short instant, Miss Hellth tried to flex the muscles in her neck like armor to block the strike, but it was no use.
SLICE—!
Ghost’s blade sliced cleanly through Miss Hellth’s thick neck, and the Boss Monster’s head, dreadlocks and all, went flying.
“She did it—!”
At the same time Jae-hee began clapping his hands like a seal in a fit of ecstatic relief, Ghost’s brow furrowed.
The decapitation had been flawless.
And yet, something about the strike felt off.
“This is…”
Ghost had been reaping the lives of monsters for over thirty years.
The moment she sensed something was wrong, she kicked off Miss Hellth’s shoulder and leapt away. It was the right call.
SWOOOOSH—!
A massive Blood Spear swept through the spot she had just occupied.
The new spear was held in Miss Hellth’s own thick arms. The zombie monster was moving as if losing its head was no problem at all.
“This muscle-for-brains… I chopped off her actual brain and she’s still moving?!”
Landing lightly, scowling in disbelief as she launched back into the attack.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
Clang-clang-clang-clang—!
Miss Hellth’s spear and Ghost’s sword clashed dozens of times in midair.
Miss Hellth fought as if the spear were her true body and her flesh was merely a vessel to wield it, moving with a grotesque fluidity, twisting her joints and tearing her own muscles to thrust the spear.
Ghost’s black sword was far more powerful, but since Miss Hellth’s spear was made of blood, it regenerated instantly even when cut or shattered.
Despite this, Ghost overwhelmed her, parrying and breaking every spear thrust her way—
“Ugh…?!”
—until, at a certain moment, she had to stop.
The shattered pieces of the Blood Spears had scattered around them, coalescing again into a net that bound her blade.
The Blood Net held her sword for only a fraction of a second. But that was all the opening Miss Hellth needed.
SWOOOOSH—!
She lunged at the immobilized Ghost with a ferocious stab.
Damned meatheat… It feels like she got smarter after losing her head.
Ghost clicked her tongue in annoyance, her brow furrowed.
I hate to use this, but I guess there isn’t a choice.
But she didn’t get to unveil her secret weapon.
“Ughh…” A boy’s voice cried out from behind her. “I’ll help you, Grandma—!”
A gale shot past.
Thwump—!
It was too fast for a normal human to see, but Ghost’s transcendent vision caught it clearly.
Jae-hee was running.
His face was a mask of pain, tears welling in his eyes from the strain on his sprained ankle. He was squeezing out every last drop of his strength for one final sprint.
He shot forward with terrifying speed, blitzing past Ghost. With a limbo-dancer’s grace, he ducked under the spear meant for her and slid straight toward Miss Hellth’s lower body—tap.
He gently, almost delicately, nudged the inside of her leg with his shoulder.
WHUMP—!
She flipped.
Miss Hellth’s leg buckled in the opposite direction, and her massive body was flung a full one hundred and eighty degrees into the air.
A moment later, a belated gust of wind whipped through Ghost’s white hair.
“…!”
Ghost snapped back to her senses, and at the same time, she saw it.
Miss Hellth, hanging upside down in midair, and embedded deep in the center of her back—the Gate Core.
“Grandmaaa!” Jae-hee, collapsing to the ground, tossed something behind him. “Caaatch!”
It was the only weapon Jae-hee had brought on this mission. A military dagger.
As the dagger spun through the air, Ghost released her ensnared black sword.
She surged forward with everything she had, leapt into the air, caught the dagger Jae-hee had thrown—and with Miss Hellth’s back left wide open, brought it down in a perfect arc.
The dagger was ordinary.
But the hand that wielded it was a master’s.
SHIIIINK—!
The Gate Core sailed through the air, cleanly carved.