Chapter Three: Outsider in the City of Ash (3)
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Inside the metallic box floating between the floors, the air was charged with an electric tension that was almost palpable. The smell of blood left by the previous zombie corpse was nothing compared to the scent of "danger" emanating from the man standing before Sora.
The stranger was chewing his gum with provocative slowness, a small, wet sound breaking the severity of the calm jazz music. His eyes, hidden behind the sunglasses, scanned Sora meticulously.
"You didn't answer me, kid," the man said, resting his chin on the handle of the blood-stained baseball bat. His smile was wide, but devoid of warmth. "Are you going down to smash skulls? Or are you just... a tourist who lost his way?"
Sora did not utter a word. He maintained an expressionless face, a cold mask he had learned from long hours of training and loneliness in this new world. But his mind was working at the speed of a race car engine.
This man is not normal.
Sora's instinct, sharpened by three days of terror, screamed at him. The relaxed stance amidst the hell, the strange clothes, and that bat... He wasn't just a survivor.
He was a hunter. Standing next to him in an enclosed space was like being in a cage with a tiger deciding whether or not it was full.
The light indicator reached the number 11. They were getting closer.
Sora decided that direct interaction was the only way to avoid a confrontation, but with extreme caution. He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving the man's hands.
"Tenth floor," Sora said in a hoarse, clipped voice. "I'll get off there."
The man raised his eyebrows above the black sunglasses. "The tenth? Boring choice. The real party is in the street, where there's open space and free running. But wait a minute..." He tilted his head slightly, "You're not carrying a weapon? Do you plan to kill them with those sharp looks of yours?"
Sora realized the trap. He had hidden his knives in the Inventory as soon as the man entered. Appearing unarmed before an armed person could make him easy prey, or make him look "suspicious" for being alive and clean without a weapon.
I have to show him I'm not easy prey, without revealing my secret...
As the screen announced their arrival at floor 10, Sora made a quick, calculated movement. He placed his hands behind his back, as if adjusting his scarf.
And in that blind spot away from the man's sight, he thought of [Inventory: Slot 1].
He felt the handles of the two knives materialize in his hands.
He brought his hands forward quickly, the two knives gleaming under the faint elevator light. The movement was so fluid it looked like sleight of hand.
The man's eyes widened slightly behind his glasses, then a long, cheerful whistle burst from him.
"Whooosh!" the man whistled, his eyes shining with a strange sparkle. "Little magician! Where did you pull those toys from? Your back pocket?"
Sora didn't answer. The elevator stopped.
Ding.
The door opened wide, revealing the dark and quiet corridor of the tenth floor.
Sora retreated a step, then exited the elevator, his eyes fixed on the man, never turning his back.
"You're interesting, scarf boy," the man chuckled, pressing the ground floor button. "Try not to die soon. We might meet again."
The door began to close, concealing that wide, unsettling smile, and with it, the man carrying death on his shoulder.
Sora watched the numbers decrease... 9... 8...
Sora exhaled sharply, as if he had been diving underwater for minutes. He leaned his shoulder against the cold wall of the corridor, wiping the cold sweat that had gathered on his forehead.
"What a predator..." he whispered to himself, the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. "Fortunately, he wasn't hungry enough."
Sora was certain he could escape him, but in that closed elevator, even if he had 10 lives, he would have been killed.
"Well, if I got close, it would be a different story, but with those hands, one swing of that bat..."
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Sora looked around. The tenth floor.
The silence here was different. It wasn't the absolute silence of death, but the silence of "absence." No scratching sounds on the doors, no distant moans, no movement.
"Eerily quiet," he thought, tightening his grip on the knives. "But quiet is better than noise for now."
Sora began his usual routine. Low crouch, measured steps that muffled sound, and eyes scanning the corners.
He avoided tight places and dead-end corridors. His goal was clear: gather whatever he could, and find a safe exit away from the elevator and the main staircase.
Most apartment doors were closed, but he found one open midway down the hall. Apartment 1004.
He pushed the door with the tip of his knife.
The inside was chaotic—open suitcases and clothes strewn about, as if the family had left in a hurry, leaving everything behind.
Sora entered cautiously and walked into the living room.
There was a flashing blue light coming from the living area.
A huge TV mounted on the wall was still working. The sound was very low, just a murmur.
Sora approached, his eyes wide. In his old world, the TV was entertainment. Here, and at a time like this, it was a lifeline for information.
He raised the volume slightly, with extreme caution.
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On the screen, a young news anchor who looked like she hadn't slept for days, her hair slightly messy and makeup faded, was reading from a paper with trembling hands. The red ticker at the bottom of the screen was moving at a frantic pace.
"...We repeat, scientists at the National Institute are still unable to determine the origin of the viral mutation. Theories about it being a biological weapon or an extraterrestrial virus remain unconfirmed. There is no vaccine. There is no cure."
The image changed to show aerial footage of burning cities.
"Self-Defense Forces and international forces are having difficulty containing the infested areas. Martial law has been declared in all regions. The following cities have been classified as 'Fallen Zones' and entry or exit is prohibited except through military checkpoints: Dragon City, North Bear City, and... Sakura City."
Sora felt a chill run through his body. "Fallen City... does that mean we're trapped?"
The anchor continued in a sharp warning tone: "Urgent warning to all survivors: Do not drink tap water. The government repeats its warning: Water sources may be contaminated with the causative agent of the mutation. Rely only on bottled and stored water."
Sora looked at the water bottles in his Inventory with a sense of triumph. His gut feeling had been right.
Then, a digital map appeared on the screen.
"Reinforced emergency shelters have been established at the following locations. Citizens are advised to head to the nearest safe gathering point..."
Sora focused his eyes on the map. Green dots glowed amidst the red covering the city.
The nearest point was...
"Silver Dome Stadium - Sector Seven."
"Sector Seven..." Sora repeated the name to engrave it in his memory. "It's about four kilometers from here. A long distance, but not impossible."
Suddenly, the broadcast cut out and switched to a gray static screen, then the power in the apartment went out for a moment before returning with a weak flicker.
The grid is collapsing.
"Alright, I have a destination now," Sora said, walking away from the TV. "But first, the loot."
He left the apartment and began sweeping the floor with a little more boldness. For some reason, the tenth floor was completely empty—no walking corpses, not even dead bodies. Just silence.
He entered a communal kitchen at the end of the hall.
"What a treasure trove."
He opened [Inventory] and got to work.
* Kitchen Knives: Three large meat cleavers. (Stored).
* Manual Can Opener: An invaluable tool. (Stored).
* Canned Beans and Corn: (Stored).
* Small First-Aid Kit: Found in the staff bathroom. (Stored).
Sora watched the slots fill up. A feeling of satisfaction washed over him. It was like the feeling of arranging a bag in a video game before a boss battle, but here, the reward was his life.
"This is weird," he muttered as he walked out into the main corridor again, mentally sorting his inventory and arranging priorities. "Why is this floor completely empty? Did everyone leave? Or do the zombies not like the tenth floor?"
He was standing in the middle of the long corridor, smiling contentedly as he looked at his virtual screen.
The silence was beautiful.
Comforting.
Deceitful.
Plop...
The sound of a drop of viscous liquid falling.
The heavy drop fell onto the shoulder of his leather jacket.
Sora stopped smiling. He froze in place.
A foul, sharp, pungent smell resembling ammonia and rotten meat suddenly hit his nose.
Very slowly, he moved his eyes toward the glass of the fire extinguisher cabinet in front of him in the corridor. The glass reflected what was behind him.
In the reflection, he saw the nightmare.
Directly behind him, clinging to the ceiling like a giant human spider, something was dangling.
A human body... or what used to be human. It was over two and a half meters tall, pathologically thin, its skin so pale it was almost transparent, and its spine protruded from its back like dinosaur spikes, ending in a long tail.
It raised an unnaturally long arm, ending in curved black claws, ready to strike Sora's head.
"Damn it!"
Sora's tense muscles reacted faster than his mind.
He threw himself forward in a desperate, low somersault.
BOOM!
The moment he vacated the spot, the giant hand slammed into the concrete wall where Sora had been standing.
The sound was deafening, like a hand grenade exploding. The solid wall didn't hold up. The cement shattered, and shards flew out as if the wall were made of fragile biscuit. Thick white dust spread through the corridor, obscuring vision for moments.
Sora rolled and quickly stood up, his knives in his hands in the blink of an eye, his heart pounding in his throat.
When the dust cleared slightly, Sora saw his opponent clearly for the first time. And he wished he hadn't.
The creature dropped from the ceiling and stood on all fours, then slowly rose up onto its two long, arched hind legs.
It was enormous.
Its body was completely hairless, and its veins pulsed black beneath its waxy skin.
But the face... the face was the worst thing about it. It had no nose, only two small openings. And its mouth was split from ear to ear, filled with needle-like teeth dripping that viscous saliva that had fallen onto Sora's shoulder.
As for the eyes... they were completely white, wide, lidless, staring at Sora with a hunger that surpassed that of a regular zombie.
"This... this is definitely not a regular zombie," Sora backed up a step, his mind connecting the dots.
The silence on the tenth floor.
The absence of other zombies.
This monster wasn't hiding here. This monster was hunting here. It had eaten or killed everything else in its territory.
It was the apex predator in this building.
[System: Warning! High-Level Hostile Entity Detected]
[Enemy Type: Mutation - The Crawler (Licker variant)]
Sora had never seen a warning like this before.
The monster emitted a sound like a snake's hiss mixed with a child's scream, and lowered its body, preparing to attack. The muscles in its lean thighs tensed like springs.
"Looks like I entered its lair, and it doesn't like guests."
The monster launched itself.
It covered half the length of the corridor in a single leap, the black claws tearing through the air toward Sora's neck.
There was no time to think. Sora screamed, pushing his body to its maximum limit, raising his knives steadily.
The battle for the tenth floor had begun.
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