Chapter 44 (1/2)

Necromancer (2)

I went down the stairs in front of me without any hesitation whatsoever. My eyes met with the guy who had come up from the basements.

“What the…!”

Before he could even finish speaking, his neck was blown away, and his blood shot up like a fountain.

Another Hunter, who was turning around the corner from behind him, was covered with the guy’s blood who was ahead of him. When he went to look at me with a bloody expression, I was already in the air.

Swish!

The flash then sliced across his eyes.

He was also unable to scream and promptly died instead. There was not a drop of blood on the recovered sword.

The hunters, who were surprised by the alarm, were forced to run into me in the process of heading to the ground level. Perhaps because they were concerned about the escape of the experiment, the structure forced them to pass through the corridor that I was passing by to get to the ground.

In case the kidnapped people suddenly popped out, I thrust the sword into each hunter’s body instead of using a wide range of sword movements.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

“Stop him! I said, stop him!”

A short but sharp flash continuously struck the air. The bodies collapsed along the path I went through, blood puddling everywhere.

I was scanning a wide underground area with Penetration even as I ended their breath one by one.

‘If the ground artifacts were focused on preventing external intrusion, the main purpose of the barrier here is to prevent the experiments’ escape. No matter how Awakened one may be, it would have been impossible to run away on his or her own.’

Then, I found something and hardened my face. I then moved faster.

I killed the hunters as soon as I saw them and shot myself forward, destroying the barrier’s functioning system. The place I reached was the room in the corner.

The sight beyond it upon using clairvoyance was clearly different from where other subjects were held.

Bang!

I destroyed the most sophisticated and powerful barrier I had ever seen. It was a type that could only be opened and closed with an artifact that functioned as a key. However, it was meaningless if the lock would get blown away entirely.

I opened the door roughly, my heart beating harder and harder.

The door was very thick, and another door followed. The structure was more like a sterile chamber. When the last door opened, a disgusting smell hit my nose. I then entered the room.

Although it was confirmed by clairvoyance in advance, it made me even angrier when I was to see it with my own eyes.

It felt like something hot was coming up my throat.

“Did you live like this? For that long time?”

Why didn’t he ever tell me? Was it painful just to recall the memory?

Crack!

I clenched my teeth.

The ward’s internal structure was no different from other rooms, but there were unusually many vents all over the ceiling. The facility, which would be sufficient to replace the room air in one to two minutes completely, had been shut down due to power failure.

Below there were dozens of beds arranged at a certain distance apart. Each bed was bedridden with one person or, to describe it more accurately, what was once a person.

I could hear a light breath and a faint heart beating. However, the rotting smell that filled the room was coming from their bodies.

“Uhhh… Oh…”

They had a cloudy white pupil and black spots all over the skin. Regardless of age, there were wrinkle-like things on their face, but that was due to the skin separating from the fat layer.

Normally, it should ooze with body fluid, swell, and rot like other bodies, but it was being carried out at a much slower pace than it should. Some ‘force’ that replaced the body’s immune function was suppressing it.

The magic sword whispered as if it found this interesting.

‘Oh! This is a zombification. The caster also has a very high standard of treatment… What a treat to see this myself.’

The sheer pleasure of its telepathy made me sick. At that moment…

Swoosh!

All of those who were lying down without a movement like dolls suddenly raised their upper body. Then they turned their heads and looked at me.

The sight of 30 eyes turning at me at the same time in sync was chilling.

I walked straight, all in search of a bed. Others didn’t have cores in their hearts, but only one was different.

Where I stopped and stood, a skinny boy stared at me through his slightly crushed eyelids. By height and size, he only looked about fourteen or fifteen years old.

The appearance was similar to that of other zombies, but Mana’s clear sign was in his heart.

The magic sword spoke, ‘He’s alive. But why is he performing such camouflage?

I went closer to him. I didn’t care anymore about the stinging smell on the nose.

Our eyes met, and I called out to him. I put in my mouth not his full name written on documents, Nathan Drake, but…

“Nate.”

His eyes shook slightly.

“Yes, doctor.”

The people he faced at the facility must be mostly doctors or researchers, if not experiments.

I didn’t know what to say. After some hesitation, I spoke from my heart, “I’m sorry. I came too late.”

Nate tilted his head. “Are you not a doctor?”

“No. I’m here to kill all of them and get you out of here.”

“I’m going out?”

“We’re going out. You’ve been here too long.”

Yes, he had indeed been here too long.

I could not allow him to be rescued until he endured for four more years. Did Angelica, who saw the future in an unknown manner, knew about this terrible situation?

Did she let it be until the government rescued him?

“It’s okay. I was playing with my friends.”

“Friends?”

He reached out his hand. On the outside, a similarly decomposed zombie came out of bed.

“He’s my friend. His name is Chris. Say hello.”

The zombie’s mouth opened. As if his tongue melted and he couldn’t move it well, a dull pronunciation came out of his mouth.

“He… rro…”

“Chris?”

It was a familiar name. I had seen that child in the future. Although at that time, all the organic tissue had decayed, and only the bones were left.

“He came here around the same time as I did. He’s my best friend. Besides Chris, everyone here is my favorite person. This is Ally.”

The zombie lying in the next bed was a child with a smaller head than Nate.

The child raised her hand and slowly waved at me. Ally was not an unfamiliar name as well.

“I’m sorry. She can’t talk anymore. Ally is also a good friend. We used to fight a lot before. She cried every day and said her mom would come to visit her someday. Whenever I heard that, I felt bad. I have a mom, too, but I didn’t think she’d come looking for me. Now, it doesn’t matter.”

I knew why Nate explained for so long. He was nervous right now.

He had noticed that I was different from other researchers. Was it an instinct of an Awakened?

“This is Mr. Clark. When I was sick at night, he took care of me and shouted at the doctors. I don’t like old men… but I like Mr. Clark.”

Clark was the name of a skeleton with a crack in the shoulder.

The adult zombie, which still had flesh attached to the body, creaked to get out of bed. I couldn’t watch it anymore, so I reached out to Nate and stopped him.

“Stop!”

He was looking at me with an uneasy look.

How many years had he been here like this? I didn’t know exactly how old he was when he Awakened. Was it about the age that I could see on the outside?

After that, he was, to this day, with the people who turned them into zombies here. Slowly rotting with the smell of corpses, trapped with his loved ones… Even changing his body to this state.

I had no idea what he must have thought to hold on every day.

“Well, first of all, can you come back to your original state? Nate, you don’t have to stay like this.”

“I got caught, didn’t I?”

Nate’s melted skin returned to a somewhat pale hue as soon as Nate said so, but still that of a living person’s. The crushed eyelids also regained their shape, and the breathing and heartbeat returned to normal.

Unlike other zombies here, Nate was imitating them by just changing his body like them. It was one of the many abilities of his unique skill.

“Come on, let’s get out. Nate.”

Reverting himself, he was still the size of an unbecoming boy. Nate’s eyes showed a lot of emotion and disappeared.

“But…”

As if the attitude of obedience grew on him throughout his years here, he must have interpreted my words as a command. He kept looking around as if something bothered him while he was lifting his body.