Devoured

Though it was ambiguous whether knowledge from creative works like novels or games could be applied to reality, in some zombie-related works, people bitten by zombies gained various abilities like immunity to zombie viruses, overall physical enhancement, supernatural powers, and so on.

After hearing Yuseong’s explanation, Choi Gangsik asked back in a puzzled voice.

-Then isn’t that good? What’s wrong with people getting stronger?

“The problem is that it’s not just people getting stronger.”

The possibility that zombies had become stronger in proportion to humans getting stronger was more likely.

Yuseong sighed at concerns about mutant or enhanced zombies and retrieved his drone while gathering his belongings.

-Wait, you’re not just leaving, are you?

“What else can I do? Is there any other choice besides leaving?”

-Obviously we have to help them!

“How?”

-You can create things like guns and grenades, right? Can’t we just sweep away all the zombies with those?

“That’s not creating, it’s taking out stored items. I don’t have enough ammunition and bombs to take down this many zombies.”

-…There must be some way?

Yuseong tilted his head at Choi Gangsik’s strangely persistent request.

While one might think to help people in crisis, it depends on the situation.

Yuseong, who had been wondering why Choi Gangsik suddenly changed his attitude when he had prioritized his father until just moments ago, realized something and nodded.

‘…Ah.’

Though the memory was faint since he had left quickly, judging by the layout of the playground and surrounding buildings, that was definitely Choi Gangsik’s school.

Among the survivors, while there were civilians, quite a few were wearing school uniforms.

It made sense that he couldn’t just abandon them if he thought friends or acquaintances might be in there.

But that was just Choi Gangsik’s circumstances.

“No way.”

Yuseong spoke in a firm voice that left no room for doubt.

If saving the survivors was the quest’s goal or seemed like it would help with quest progression, he would have helped them.

But these survivors fit neither category.

“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not Superman, and I’m definitely not a righteous person. My abilities have limits and I’m helping you because there’s compensation. I’ll rescue your father and identify the cause of this zombie outbreak to escape this city. Anything beyond that is not my concern. Understood?”

-…

Though he said nothing, Yuseong could feel that Choi Gangsik had accepted it.

Yuseong got up while tasting bitterness in his mouth.

If he had leeway maybe it would be different, but right now the situation was overwhelming just taking care of himself.

After staring briefly in the direction of the school, Yuseong started walking along the route confirmed by the drone.

‘The numbers keep increasing.’

While most zombies were gathered around the school, there were quite a few on the streets too.

Initially he avoided engagement by moving stealthily through blind spots, but that had limits too.

‘Nine zombies on the road, eleven in nearby alleys.’

Yuseong narrowed his eyes.

Taking down twenty zombies wasn’t particularly difficult.

He had easily defeated zombies even with just a baseball bat, let alone now that he was fully armed.

The problem was nearby zombies.

Unless he took out all twenty simultaneously, the howls of the zombies would draw others nearby, and he didn’t want to think about what would happen after that.

‘Need to lure the zombies elsewhere…’

The first thing that came to mind was using the drone.

He could easily lure zombies by attaching a smartphone playing music to the drone and flying it elsewhere.

However, Yuseong couldn’t easily decide.

The number of drones and smartphones was limited.

They still had far to go to reach their destination, and it felt too wasteful to use limited items so early.

He had enough bombs but they lacked persistence and would only draw attention briefly.

Screech?

When a zombie in school uniform turned its head, Yuseong quickly lowered his body.

‘A way to lure the zombies.’

Yuseong reviewed his skills with half-opened eyes.

He had many powerful skills but most couldn’t exert their full power due to stat limitations and weren’t suitable for this situation anyway.

Skills that could demonstrate their power even with low stats and had high utility.

Among his current skills, only one satisfied both conditions.

‘Thorny Vine. If I use this well, maybe…’

“…Wait.”

Yuseong inadvertently made a sound, forgetting there were zombies nearby.

He immediately realized his mistake and covered his mouth, but couldn’t hide his slightly raised lips.

After confirming the zombie hadn’t noticed, Yuseong backtracked the way he had come.

When they reached a zombie-free area, Choi Gangsik spoke.

-Taking a detour?

“No, we’re going that way.”

-Then why did we come back?

“I have something to experiment with.”

Looking around, Yuseong found what he wanted and moved.

Watching Yuseong hook the axe he was holding to his waist, take thick clothes from his subspace, and move quietly like a stray cat stalking prey, Choi Gangsik suddenly realized something and hurriedly tried to stop him.

But Yuseong’s leap was faster than Choi Gangsik’s attempt to stop him.

Thud!

Keee…

Startled by its suddenly darkened vision, the zombie tried to howl but couldn’t make a sound due to clothes stuffed in its mouth.

Then using Shadow Moon Style 16’s Dead Tree Twist to dislocate both arms and legs to completely subdue the zombie, Yuseong entered a nearby commercial building.

-Wh-why did you bring this one?

“I told you. I have something to experiment with.”

Yuseong approached the zombie, relocated one of its dislocated arms, and placed his hand on it.

And shortly after, Thorny Vine grew from Yuseong’s fingertips.

Rustle! Rustle!

The Thorny Vine writhing like a living snake slowly began wrapping around the zombie’s arm.

The zombie thrashed more violently but only its shoulders moved – the arm bound by Thorny Vine didn’t budge at all.

Yuseong let out a long breath and focused.

Restraining targets was the most basic use of Thorny Vine.

What he was about to try now could be called an advanced application.

Pop!

The zombie’s frozen fingers moved.

At first it was just the thumb, but soon the index, middle, ring and little fingers moved in sequence, and the simple movements of clenching and unclenching became increasingly detailed like intertwining fingers or bending them halfway.

Yuseong nodded with a satisfied expression.

Wrapping vines around the body to artificially control movement.

He had wondered how it would work on zombies to try the method he had used to move lizardman corpses when fighting Lizardman High Priest Nord, and his prediction was right.

However, Yuseong’s smile didn’t last long.

“The efficiency is terrible…”

While there was almost no resistance when moving his own body or dead corpses so not much magic power was needed, zombies were different.

The zombie kept trying to move its arm to break free of restraints.

Naturally, he had to exert force every moment to suppress the zombie’s strength and maintain consistent movements, consuming extreme amounts of magic power.

‘Used up nearly half my magic power without much movement. This method won’t work.’

If this much magic power was needed just to move one hand, moving the entire body was out of the question.

He needed another method.

And Yuseong already knew that method.

Stab!

Thorny Vine began burrowing into the zombie’s flesh.

Yuseong stared at the zombie’s arm with hazy eyes.

And the moment he felt the Thorny Vine that had burrowed under the skin contact bones and joints, he sent some kind of signal to the Thorny Vine.

Then the zombie’s arm began moving naturally.

“So it does work.”

Inserting Thorny Vine inside the body to force movement.

He had never tried this before since there were no suitable test subjects in reality or quests…

‘But with zombies, should be no problem, right?’

Not the kind of idea a normal person would have.

Fortunately, this crazy idea wasn’t something Yuseong came up with alone but was based on inspiration gained while contemplating the Forbidden Knowledge skill.

…Though at the point of actually attempting such an idea, he had already strayed quite far from being a normal person.

Swish! Swish!

Though he could now move the zombie with much less magic power, Yuseong couldn’t be satisfied with just this.

What the Forbidden Knowledge skill had shown wasn’t the end.

The Forbidden Knowledge skill showed all sorts of methods to humiliate and degrade intelligent life.

‘Senses, thoughts, emotions are all just electrical signals created by the brain. With such crude techniques it would be hard to send such complex signals but…’

Yuseong’s eyes turned golden.

The Thorny Vine extending from the arm burrowed through the shoulder and neck into the brain.

Just manipulating the electrical signals the brain sends to the body, but at the end something unexpected happened.

-Urp!

Choi Gangsik dry heaved at the grotesque sight of skin bulging and writhing in various places.

That sound snapped Yuseong’s half-gone mind back.

Looking back and forth between the zombie trembling with eyes rolled back strangely and his own hand, Yuseong muttered in a shaking voice.

“What is this…”

Capturing and trying to control the zombie was clearly his intention.

But at some point he had moved according to what some other being commanded rather than himself.

He only noticed something was wrong when he heard Choi Gangsik dry heaving and came to his senses – if not for that, he might have kept moving according to what the other being whispered.

Yuseong swallowed dryly.

The sensation of becoming not-himself.

It was a strange sensation he had never felt in his life.

But that sensation wasn’t the real problem.

‘…Why doesn’t it bother me?’

Even after returning to his senses, he felt no disgust or revulsion at becoming a puppet of some unknown being.

Rather, it felt natural.

An emotion he couldn’t understand himself.

If he stayed like this, he might become that unknown being’s puppet again.

Slap! Slap! Slap!

-Wh-what are you doing suddenly? Are you crazy?

Yuseong ignored Choi Gangsik’s words and kept slapping his cheeks.

Yuseong’s self-harm only barely stopped when both cheeks had turned bright red.

“Choi Gangsik.”

-Wh-what?

“If I start doing anything strange from now on, stop me right away. Got it?”

-Everything you’ve done so far seems strange though.

“Just answer.”

-Haah, fine.

After getting Choi Gangsik’s confirmation, Yuseong extended his hand toward the zombie again.

Though he didn’t like using knowledge revealed by the unknown being, it would be foolish to stubbornly stick to inefficient methods.

-Shouldn’t I stop this behavior?

“No.”

-…What exactly do you want me to do.

Yuseong let Choi Gangsik’s lament go in one ear and out the other while focusing on controlling Thorny Vine.