[Talent Skill: Gestation/Nurturing]
[Fusion Condition: Help Ahn Seon-yeong resolve the knot in her heart.]
[After fusion, the player gains the ability to gestate new life once. But it requires the player to sacrifice themselves. The new life cannot inherit the player's memories or abilities. The player's obsessions will influence the newborn, and the stronger the player's physique, the higher the new life's growth potential.]
To Ivan Greevs, this talent felt like a twisted version of a phoenix's rebirth. The part about not inheriting memories was a massive fucking flaw.
On top of that, whatever got spat out wouldn't get his powers either.
"Putain de merde," Ivan muttered. "What a waste."
Unless he could fix those two defects, he wasn't touching this skill.
Luckily, the fantasy world wouldn't disappear just because he left. He could pay another fantasy point and jump back in anytime. The time flow was reversed compared to the real world anyway.
After leaving the room, Ivan headed down to the apartment building's first-floor lobby. He tried parsing Cha Hyun-soo's ability out of curiosity, but it didn't work. The guy's mutation still wasn't finished—his powers were still cooking.
Right then, a sharp whistle cut through the air from the isolation room. Emergency signal.
"What the hell's going on?" Ivan asked, jogging after the others toward the isolation ward.
The one blowing the whistle was Kim Seok-hyeon's wife. She stood there with both hands covered in blood, staring down at a monster corpse. The thing was covered head to toe in long, greasy green fur.
Another monster corpse lay a few meters away.
Looked like neither Kim Seok-hyeon nor Cha Jin-ok had lasted the full fifteen days.
"We're gonna need Molotovs," Lee Eun-hyeok said, frowning at the hairy freak's body.
The destruction around them made it obvious—the two monsters had torn into each other like rabid animals before dying. The green-fur version that used to be Kim Seok-hyeon had won that fight.
His wife had watched the whole thing. When the monster came at her, she jammed a fruit knife straight into its heart.
Both creatures had been in their golden phase. Once you hit the vital spots, they couldn't regenerate.
Everyone stared at the woman who had just stabbed her own husband to death. She dropped into a squat, completely broken. With shaking hands she pulled a cigarette from her pocket, stuck it between her lips, and lit it. She only managed two drags before she buried her face in her bloody hands and started sobbing.
"Burn the bodies," Lee Eun-hyeok ordered, pointing at two guys. "Drag them down to the underground parking lot and torch them."
At that moment, Seo Yi-kyung stepped out carrying a fire axe. Her husband used to be a virus researcher at a hospital. Not long ago, she learned that the hospital had burned down under very suspicious circumstances.
The fire didn't look like an accident. It felt like it had started from the inside.
Normally, firefighters would've taken over, but by the time she got there, the whole place was already locked down tight.
After that, she quit her job and moved into Green Home Apartments.
Now, with this new outbreak, she couldn't stop thinking there might be a connection between her husband's death and whatever the hell was happening here.
She walked into the electrical room and hit the switch to open the iron gate.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Lee Eun-hyeok stepped in front of her, blocking her path. "You know this is unauthorized, right?"
Seo Yi-kyung ignored him completely. She marched up to the iron gate, raised the axe high, and started smashing the chain lock.
"If you don't stop right now, I'll have to kick you out," he warned.
"Fine by me. I was planning to leave anyway."
The moment the chain snapped, everyone watched as she hopped on her motorcycle parked right outside the building and tore off into the night.
...
Seo Yi-kyung rode hard until she reached her husband's old workplace. She broke into his lab and found his tablet. The password was the date they first met.
Once she unlocked it, she dug through the folders and opened one named "Kkeurug Kkeurug."
She didn't notice the security camera in the corner of the room, its red light blinking silently.
The first half of the file was exactly what Cha Hyun-soo had seen. But there was more.
"I've been hunted by those things too. It's been ten days since the nosebleeds and blackouts started. They keep talking to me, asking questions, but I'm still fighting it. Even if I become a test subject, I have to end this."
"Fifteen days. Once I make it through fifteen days, I'll stabilize. Just five more days. Hold on five more days and I can become a special infected."
"This is the only way. The last hope to end this goddamn nightmare."
The second she finished reading, Seo Yi-kyung lifted her head and froze.
Several armed soldiers were standing right in front of her, rifles raised, barrels pointed straight at her skull.
After that, they strung her up in the air like a fucking piñata until she spilled everything she knew about the people in the apartment.
Only then did the soldiers cut her down.
...
On the other side.
The moment Seo Yi-kyung sped off, Lee Eun-hyeok started barking orders and laying down his precious survival rules.
"Rule one: No one leaves alone. Teams of two or more at all times. See anything weird, report straight to me. Rule two: One meal per person per day to stretch the food. Rule three: Every night, everyone gathers on the first floor for temperature checks. No exceptions. Rule four: Anyone showing signs of infection sleeps in the isolation room."
A lot of people weren't happy with his little dictatorship, but they only bitched under their breath. Nobody had the balls to openly challenge him.
"If the infected can still think straight, there's no need to lock them up, right?" Ahn Gil-seob, the old man with the thick glasses, spoke up for Cha Hyun-soo.
"Wrong," Lee Eun-hyeok said coldly. "There's still a chance they mutate. Once Cha Hyun-soo finishes his task, he goes straight back into isolation."
"You heartless piece of shit," Yoon Ji-soo muttered.
Cha Hyun-soo just gave a tired smile. "It's okay. If it keeps everyone safe, I'll do it."
Ivan, who had been quietly listening, finally spoke.
"In that case," he said smoothly, "I'll team up with Cha Hyun-soo."
Lee Eun-hyeok shook his head. "That's a bullshit suggestion! You're a doctor. Support role. Going outside for supplies is too dangerous."
Ivan adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses with one finger, then crushed the empty soda can in his hand into a metal ball. He tossed it at Lee Eun-hyeok's feet with a metallic clink.
"This ain't a suggestion, mate. I'm telling you."
The next day,
Ivan and Cha Hyun-soo headed down to the underground parking garage. With Ivan subtly steering them, it didn't take long before they found the long-legged monster stalking between the abandoned cars.
___
[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69