Even Zombies Have Fandoms

Chapter 10

Muyoung quickly discarded unnecessary thoughts and began to ponder various things earnestly again. Finally, one plausible reason came to mind.

“It seems what I’m looking for is on the first floor!”

He was trying to find the item after making the place perfectly safe so that there wouldn’t be any danger while searching. Muyoung felt satisfied with this reasoning, which made much more sense than having a zombie looking for something.

Seokjae, unaware of Muyoung’s deep thinking, wandered around the first floor looking for the remaining zombies.

“Nothing here…”

After circling around, his face hardened in displeasure when he found no zombies left.

At that moment, something caught his eye. Seokjae relaxed his previously scrunched expression and stopped to stare intently at one spot. It was the elevator that Muyoung had ridden down yesterday.

As Seokjae, who had been busily moving around, came to a halt, Muyoung also stopped his contemplation. He turned his head to follow where Seokjae was looking.

“Surely he’s not thinking of getting on it?”

Realizing that he was gazing at the elevator, a sense of unease crept onto Muyoung’s face.

He didn’t know which floor was the target, but if it was the fourth floor, it would be problematic. They hadn’t cleaned up after the chaos from yesterday. If he got on and the elevator arrived, it was obvious that zombies would swarm in.

Muyoung had seen enough to know that Seokjae was better at fighting than ordinary people. However, all the zombies on the first floor were in poor condition and slow-moving. In contrast, most of the ones on the fourth floor were quick. The risk level would be different in a one-against-many fight.

“What should I do? This really can’t happen…”

Muyoung was restless, fearing that Seokjae might take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Unaware of this, Seokjae stared blankly at the top of the elevator door before turning his body elsewhere.

“Phew…”

Muyoung let out a deep sigh of relief. Even amidst the tension, he couldn’t completely relax, watching Seokjae with eyes like a parent watching a child near water.

Seokjae, holding a blood-soaked weapon, looked like a serial killer from a horror movie. However, for Muyoung, who held a deep affection for him, such aspects didn’t hinder his feelings at all.

Seokjae bent down and picked something up from the floor.

“What is he doing?”

Half-turned away, Muyoung leaned in a bit more to try to figure out what the object in Seokjae’s hand was. However, the object was completely obscured by Seokjae’s forearm, and Muyoung couldn’t see anything.

After a moment, Seokjae turned his body toward Muyoung, and only then could he identify the small, angular object in his hand.

“Ah.”

It was the phone that Muyoung had used to attract the zombies.

Only after seeing it did Muyoung realize that he hadn’t retrieved his phone and had returned to the security room yesterday. To be precise, he had been so flustered that he had completely forgotten about the phone’s existence.

Seokjae naturally manipulated the phone as if it were his own. After tapping the screen a few times, he seemed to lose interest and without hesitation, put the phone into his pocket.

“Wait, you’re taking it?”

For a moment, Muyoung felt a twinge of regret. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find zombies with intact faces or fingerprints who could unlock a phone as time went on.

Moreover, recently, the number of zombies with phones had been decreasing. At first, they all had at least one phone in their pockets. Whether they dropped them while moving roughly or for some other reason, it was becoming harder to find a single one, making even one phone feel precious.

“Well, if it’s him taking it, then…”

But the moment of regret was brief. If Seokjae was the one taking the phone, he felt it was okay. It was a valuable item that had been unlocked after a tough struggle with a zombie, but since it was going to Seokjae, it didn’t feel like a loss.

And he must have seen how he used it yesterday. Wouldn’t he also use it to distract zombies in an emergency? If it was for his safety, it was even less of a loss.

At first, he had only thought he was cool. But the affection that had arisen from that was slowly transforming into a blind, agape love without Muyoung even realizing it.

“Yeah, if you want something, you should take it.”

Muyoung muttered fanatically, without any awareness of what he was saying.

Meanwhile, after obtaining the phone, Seokjae stood still for a moment.

“Could it be that what he’s looking for is that? Then it’s a good thing I didn’t take it yesterday…”

At that moment, Muyoung thought that perhaps Seokjae had come here for that phone. Suddenly, Seokjae turned his head sharply toward the emergency exit where Muyoung was.

“Eep.”

Muyoung, who had been leaning forward to see better, stumbled back as if he had been pushed.

‘He couldn’t have seen me, right?’

He still thought the place was dark and that the chances of being spotted were low since he wasn’t directly in front of him. However, the fact that dawn had broken while he was fighting made it impossible for him to feel completely at ease.

Muyoung quickly covered his mouth, which felt like it was about to scream, and stealthily hid toward the emergency stairs. He quietly backed away from the door, inching further away.

Thud. Thud. Thud—

Seokjae’s footsteps could be heard. The sound was getting closer as he walked toward Muyoung’s direction.

At the same time, a BGM that felt like it belonged in a horror movie began to play in his head. Unable to keep his hand still, which was covering his mouth, Muyoung waved it in the air, silently screaming.

‘What should I do? What should I do?’

As he searched for an escape route, Muyoung had to make a quick decision. The footsteps were right in front of him.

Muyoung quickly dashed up to the upper floor. Just before reaching the second floor, he stopped.

‘This should be okay, right?’

He worried that if he went too far, he might not notice and miss him. But if he stayed too close, there was a risk of being spotted, so he compromised just enough to hide his presence.

Creak.

Not long after Muyoung settled in the middle of the stairs, the door opened. It sounded like the broken door had been flung open and hit the wall with a thud. Terrified, Muyoung crouched down, curling his body into a ball.

‘Please… there’s nothing here but zombies, so just go away!’

While he desperately wanted to see Seokjae up close, he wasn’t so irrational as to step out in front of someone who had just slaughtered zombies.

‘And I still haven’t given the food I wanted to share with those two.’

Moreover, ensuring Seokjae’s safety was something that could only be done if he was alive. So, Muyoung prayed with his hands clasped together that Seokjae would close the door and go back just like this.

But it seemed that a zombie’s prayers didn’t reach the heavens. Contrary to his earnest wish, he heard footsteps coming up the stairs from below. Muyoung’s vision went white.

‘Shoes. Shoes!’

In a hurry, Muyoung quickly took off his shoes and tucked them into his arms. It was a choice to minimize the sound of his footsteps. However, this meant he had to give up walking on two legs.

Without a moment to stand up, Muyoung scrambled up the stairs on all fours as Seokjae approached with heavy steps. The blood that had pooled on the stairs from the zombies stained his freshly cleaned body again, but he didn’t have time to feel disgusted.

Muyoung was grateful for his noise-canceling bag and his strengthened body. If he had been an ordinary college student from the past, he would have been exhausted and gasping for breath in no time.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

With the steady sound of footsteps behind him, Muyoung continued to ascend the stairs without stopping.

‘So, so scary!’

Before the zombies appeared, Muyoung had gone out to the beach and opened his eyes to find himself turned into a zombie. Therefore, he had never experienced the feeling of being chased while his life was threatened.

Of course, the situation was now reversed, with people chasing zombies, but Muyoung was intensely feeling the desperation of those fleeing from zombies.

‘I need to treat the survivors better from now on…!’

How hard had he been crawling up on all fours? Just as he began to worry that he might end up on the roof due to the unending footsteps, he realized that the sound following him had stopped when he reached the sixth floor.

‘Huh?’

He sat down on the floor, unable to stand, and held his breath while scanning his surroundings. After a while of being cautious, nothing caught his sensitive hearing.