23. You Can't Fall in Love Unless You're a Fool
And then—
The living dead all started running toward us at once.
No—"lunging" would be a better word.
Of course, Oto and I ran.
Instinctively. With everything we had.Then, Headless Girl started yelling inside my head, annoyed.
"You don't need to run too! We'll be fine as long as we get away from Oto's bloodline!"
"You idiot."
"Huh?!"
I made what I hoped was a cool face and said:
"A humanoid robot who's fallen in love doesn't have the option to run away from love. Even if that means running away from everything else."
"How foolish…"
"You can't fall in love unless you're a fool."As I said that, I searched for Oto's hand and grabbed it tightly.
Even while running, I never let go.
There was something I wanted to tell her, even without words.
Tears welled in Oto's eyes for a moment.
Not from sadness—something else. A mix of understanding, resignation, and a faint joy.And we ran from the crowd of villagers.
Leaving the festival of blood behind, we just ran.
Ran, and ran, and kept running.
There were no cars, no planes.
No drones we could use.
Only our humanoid legs to rely on.The villagers chasing us had the same physical specs, so there was almost no difference in speed.
The problem was their numbers.
—The whole village had become our enemy.
Even if this was just some backwater settlement on Venus, the people here weren't simple country folk.
The humanoids of this village were once prototype replacements for humans—
A tightly linked collective, designed as the groundwork for the coming avatar society.
In other words—"Capture Oto." "Return Oto to the sacrifice."
That command spread like a radio wave.
Like a virus.
Instantly transmitted across the entire village.
My communication sensors picked it up clearly.
In just 0.0000000001 seconds, every network in the village was flooded with the same command.
—Oto's existence had been compressed into a single point of focus, a single target.No matter where we ran, humanoid villagers leapt out at us.
From behind walls, from rooftops, from underground—as if they'd been waiting all along.
They blocked our path, reaching out their arms to grab us whenever they could.
It was straight out of a zombie apocalypse.Their forms were losing any resemblance to humans.
Necks twisted at impossible angles, arms bent backward, sparks and fluids bursting out.
Some even fired their own broken limbs like spears.
They were weapons fueled by rage itself.Their legs tangled, limbs spiraling around each other into grotesque twisted-donut shapes.
From those contorted bodies, dark red fluid oozed, fueling flames that ignited along their surfaces.
The fire burned their synthetic skin, rising with a burnt stench—an offering that stoked the village's collective fury.
Their flesh wasn't merely decaying;
even their decay was calculated—optimized to amplify hatred.Eyes melted, noses swelled, mouths frothed with blood and electrolyte fluid.
Their scent sensors must have been destroyed, because they didn't even flinch at their own stench.
Instead, they rubbed their rotting bodies together, sharing the heat of their rage.
It was as if fear itself had taken physical form and multiplied.But even facing that terror, I didn't let go of Oto's hand.
If anything, I gripped it tighter.
Looking at her profile, I saw no trace of romance anymore.
Her face was devoted entirely to escaping—
Every bit of her CPU focused on survival calculations.
And somehow, that made me grateful.—I didn't need her to look at me.
Just knowing she was desperately "alive" like this was enough.
There's something beautiful about someone absorbed in something.
Even if that "something" is escaping from fear.
Maybe that pure intensity—that's what love really is.Eventually, my CPU hit runner's high.
The act of fleeing itself turned into pleasure.
Electric signals raced through my brain, heat pooling in my fingertips.
And then—I looked back one more time.The zombies had transformed even further.
No longer machines—living organisms.
Mycelium-like threads sprouted across their surfaces, releasing white and gray spores.
They looked like mushrooms—or mold.
No, it was as if "rot" itself had taken on life.Their skin began to bubble and burst, spraying brownish fluid—like rotten blood.
When it hit the ground, it thickened into oatmeal-like clumps, pulsing as they formed humanoid shapes.
From those lumps, gray, tear-streaked dolls emerged.
They wept liquid from every pore, shrieking—half scream, half wail.
Like mandrakes, they screamed again, then joined the other zombies in the chase.But these new ones were unstable.
Each step made them crumble, vomiting bloody chunks onto the ground.
Their vomit foamed—and from it, new life was born again.
—Three legs. Four arms. A hundred heads.
Every head was an eyeball, and instead of hair, bundles of blood vessels.
The vessels tied together like a ponytail, spurting blood in all directions.
Like a fire truck's hose, blood sprayed through the air.The liquid spread, coating the ground in slick red.
They slipped.
They fell.
They struggled.
One after another, the zombies tumbled down.At last—the endless swarm of pursuing zombies became trapped in the slippery hell of their own blood, unable to move.
Silence."As expected."
Behind me, Headless Girl let out a sigh of admiration.
She mimed eating popcorn, as if watching a movie.
Finally, she took a sip from an invisible glass bottle of cola and calmly gave her verdict.
"A zombie's gotta self-destruct. That's what makes them zombies. Nice B-movie chase scene."