## Chapter 45 – (13)
Soyoon approached after the meal.
“Oppa, I saw everything.”
Of course, I meant for her to see, but I feigned surprise.
“Even if you two are in love, how could you do that in front of your boyfriend?”
“…In love?”
“Still, it’s not like I can’t understand how you feel…”
Soyoon nodded, looking at me.
In love, huh?
Me and Sua?
Could it look that way from the side?
What happened at the table earlier was practically me bullying her one-sidedly.
But it seemed Soyoon didn’t think so.
That Sua and I were in love, and she just hadn’t sorted things out with Minhyuk yet.
That’s how Soyoon was interpreting it.
Of course, the reality was different.
In truth, Sua was unilaterally accepting my unreasonable demands to protect Soyoon.
What kind of expression would Soyoon make if she knew that?
And what would Sua think if she knew that Soyoon, whom she was trying so hard to protect, was trying to steal me away from her?
“You remember how you said you’d do anything last time, right?”
“Y-yeah, I remember…”
“Come back safe today. I’ve got something I want to do.”
Soyoon gave me a playful smile, different from her usual self.
I have no idea what she’s planning.
I’ve only ever been the one doing the seducing.
This is the first time I’ve been on the receiving end.
It seemed Soyoon was slowly starting to understand her own defenses.
I went back to my room and continued building the ladder.
It took Minhyuk a long time to make his ladder, but that was because he had limited tools and materials.
In this house, with a drill, hammer, and saw, I could greatly reduce the working time.
As a result, I was able to quickly complete the ladder I started making last night.
“How are you going to carry that?”
Minhyuk asked, having realized I was going to use the ladder to attack those guys.
I picked up the ladder and put it straight into my inventory.
“Huh?!”
Minhyuk was startled and waved his hand in the empty space where the ladder had disappeared.
“This is…”
“It’s a skill too.”
“…So that’s why I need to buy skills…”
Minhyuk nodded, seemingly convinced.
I hadn’t originally planned to show him the inventory skill.
But now that I’d built up trust with the three of them, including Minhyuk, I figured it was okay to show him this much.
“Then, I’ll be going.”
“…Hyung.”
“Yeah?”
“They’re bad guys. Don’t feel guilty.”
Minhyuk had watched me fight from the side, so he wasn’t worried about me losing or getting hurt.
Instead, he was worried about me hesitating when fighting them, or feeling guilty after killing them.
“Yeah.”
There was no need to worry.
Dealing with bad guys, villains, was a perfectly natural thing for an A-rank hero to do.
I got properly dressed for the first time in a while.
Bulletproof vest and helmet.
And the jungle machete that now felt like an extension of my hand.
When I opened the front door, Sua was standing next to it.
“Were you waiting?”
“…Come out here for a second.”
The front door closed, and Sua, who had followed me out, lightly punched my stomach with her fist.
“Y-you went too far during dinner.”
“…Sorry.”
I admit it.
I was being a bit cruel.
“Still, be careful…”
Sua slowly came behind me and timidly hugged me.
It was what they called a back hug.
Then she quickly opened the door and went back inside.
It wasn’t a big deal, but the important thing was that Sua did it without being ordered.
“…Damn it.”
The only downside was that I couldn’t feel the sensation of the back hug properly because I was wearing the bulletproof vest.
It definitely would have felt good.
“…I’ll have to ask her to do it again when I get back.”
It was nothing much, but I received an undeserved send-off.
I took a deep breath and headed towards the downtown area.
***
The outskirts of the downtown area.
I quickly dealt with the zombies inside the building and went up.
The way I handled zombies was now practically professional.
Approaching slowly, silently, and cutting their necks in one swift motion.
Catching their falling bodies with my hands and gently laying them on the floor.
Putting the severed heads in my inventory, taking them out again, and gently placing them on the floor.
It was a way to quietly assassinate only the zombies that were blocking my path, without making any noise.
“…It works.”
I couldn’t clear out all the zombies, so I came up with this method, but I didn’t expect it to actually work.
I looked at the academy building from afar.
Two men were on the roof, looking down.
It seemed they were watching the zombies they had gathered.
Since they weren’t looking up, it was easy to approach by moving up the building with the ladder.
I took the ladder out of my inventory and moved between the buildings, quickly closing the distance.
I stopped moving at the building right in front of the academy building.
If I was right, it was about time for them to start moving for points.
It would be difficult to survive without electricity and water, so hunting was essential.
I hoped they weren’t stupid enough to fight zombies at night, so they would try to hunt before nightfall, unless they had diligently hunted early in the morning.
Thanks to getting closer, I could faintly hear their voices.
“Ah, fuck, I want to take a shower.”
“Hang in there, they said they’ll sort it out after today.”
“No, why isn’t that bastard buying it when he has so many points?”
“He’s probably trying to buy his own skill… If I didn’t lack skills, I would’ve…”
The two guys on the roof were grumbling and talking behind someone’s back.
‘There’s someone with a skill?’
This was a bit unexpected.
For someone to have hunted enough to have a skill already.
Maybe they got lucky and caught a lot of mutated zombies.
It depended on the skill, but the effects of skills were definite, so I needed to be careful.
“You remember those girls?”
“The ones who fought fiercely?”
“Looking at their faces, they were hot as hell. We should’ve captured them, why did that crazy bastard throw a flower pot…”
“Idiot, didn’t you see them fighting? Capture them, my ass…”
“Honestly, sacrificing one or two guys and getting two decent-looking girls is a great deal. The guy at the back didn’t even seem to know how to fight.”
Hearing them talk, Minhyuk’s words when he saw me off came to mind again.
That they were bad guys, and not to feel guilty.
What can I say?
He was right.
I waited for the right moment.
Until they went out hunting and there were fewer people inside the building.
And that moment came.
“Looks like they’re going hunting?”
“The back door’s open? It is.”
The two men were looking at the back door, and their surveillance on the front became lax.
Taking this opportunity, I took the ladder out of my inventory and climbed onto the roof of the academy building.
Tap, tap.
One of the men turned around, reacting to the sound of me quickly crossing the ladder.
His shoulders flinched in surprise, unbefitting his large build, when he met my eyes.
“You son of a bi—”
He couldn’t finish his sentence.
Because I approached quickly and, with a practiced motion, cut his neck like I would a zombie’s.
It was a scary thing.
I hesitated for a moment before cutting his neck, but the movements I had become accustomed to while catching zombies came out naturally, and his neck was cleanly severed.
The other guy’s eyes widened, and he stumbled backward, falling on his butt with a thud.
“Wh… Who are you…”
“The guy you said was at the back.”
“…H-huh…”
The guy was covering his mouth with a desperate expression, as if regretting his words from a few minutes ago.
There was no need to threaten him to be quiet.
He saw his companion, who was about to shout something, get his neck cut and fall, and lowered his voice on his own.
“How many people are in the building?”
“W-we… no, there’s only me.”
He almost said “we,” but he glanced at his fallen comrade and corrected himself.
“Where did the hunters go?”
“S-six people…”
“Follow me.”
I took the guy with me and went down to the first floor.
Whether he was quick to read the situation or not, he followed my instructions without much resistance and led the way down to the first floor.
The back door was closed, but it wasn’t locked.
I opened the back door a little and looked outside. About six men were hunting as quietly as possible.
Perhaps because there were so many of them, they were hunting the small number of zombies in the back in pairs.
There’s strength in numbers, they say.
I guess it’s true.
The guy looked at me, gauging my reaction, in front of the back door.
“Wh-what should I do?”
“You’re a flower pot now.”
“Huh?”
I opened the back door and pushed the guy out.
Then I swung the jungle machete.
“Aaaaaargh!”
The jungle machete, swung with a refreshing whoosh, cut off the guy’s right arm.
After cutting off his arm, I quickly closed and locked the door.
The guy with the severed arm screamed louder than ever and clung to the door.
Of course, the locked door didn’t open.
I additionally blocked the door with a ladder, just in case.
“That, that crazy bastard!”
“What the hell is that guy! My arm… Aah, anyway, open the door, quick!”
The guys who were hunting heard the screams and gathered in front of the door, their faces pale.
They naturally didn’t care about the guy who lost his arm and was wailing in pain.
It was quite the opposite.
They threatened that if he screamed one more time, they would kill him, and hurled harsh words at the fallen guy.
But it didn’t matter if he stopped screaming now.
The numerous zombies with rotting skin in front of the main gate began to scatter like black mist.
The mist was slowly heading towards the back door.
They were unlucky.
If they had gotten points or a skill when they killed someone, at least I would have sent them off without pain.
Since they weren’t giving me anything, I had no choice but to turn them into zombies and earn some points.
I guarded the back door and slowly watched them engage in a bloody battle with the zombies.
Maybe it was thanks to Minhyuk’s advice.
I didn’t feel guilty.
