Even Zombies Have Fandoms

Chapter 21

“Where did all these come from?”

Fortunately, the man didn’t seem in immediate danger of being caught. Muyoung first looked around to assess the situation.

He noticed a hair salon with shattered glass walls a little far away, and a cafe door with a smaller broken area in comparison. And a flower pot rolling in front of the cafe.

Piecing together the clues, it seemed that the man had broken the door to invade the cafe, and the zombies Muyoung had confined in the hair salon had rushed out upon hearing the noise. The glass exterior wall probably shattered under the weight of numerous zombies.

The man, who had been hurriedly fleeing from the pouring zombies, seemed to have climbed onto the car in desperation when he was about to be caught.

Did he think it was okay to make loud noises because there were no zombies visible on the street? Even so, breaking glass without any precautions was a foolish act.

“Hyung would never do such a thing.”

Anyway, this person wasn’t in danger because of him. Realizing this fact, Muyoung regained his composure and habitually thought of Seokjae.

‘He’s probably doing well, but I’m worried, so I should help quickly and go back.’

To lure the zombies elsewhere, Muyoung turned his back on the man to look for something to throw.

“H-hey! You! Wait! Are you, are you human?”

At that moment, the man who spotted Muyoung called out in a desperate voice. When Muyoung flinched and froze without turning around, the man pleaded, thinking he might leave immediately.

“Please help me!”

This was the first time he had been so blatantly discovered by a person. Flustered, Muyoung didn’t know what to do and wavered.

“Please!”

One thing was clear amidst this – if he left the man shouting loudly, zombies from other places would flock here too. If that happened, it would be difficult for him to help the man. If he hadn’t been discovered, he could have pretended to be a zombie and mixed in to trip them up. But now even that was impossible.

Muyoung first turned his body to calm the man down, putting his index finger to his lips in a gesture to be quiet. Then he nodded.

Although making noise wouldn’t endanger him, it would be troublesome if it was discovered that the zombies had no interest in him, so he pretended to be as careful as possible like a human.

Only then did the man quiet down. He seemed to obey docilely, afraid that his last lifeline might leave if he didn’t follow instructions.

“Graaah!”

However, the rampaging zombies showed no signs of calming down. Once excited to this degree, they probably wouldn’t divert their attention even if sounds came from elsewhere.

Muyoung looked around for another solution and realized that the car was parked quite close to the building. He raised his head to gauge the distance between the building window and the man.

“…Will it work?”

Having never rescued a person this way before, nothing was certain. But he saw no other way to save the man surrounded by zombies.

Muyoung immediately ran into the building.

“Hey! D-don’t go!”

“Kyaaah!”

“Eek!”

Despite the warning to be quiet, the man made a loud noise as soon as Muyoung left. But he quickly quieted down, scared by the frenzied zombies.

Crack. Crunch.

Muyoung went up to the second floor and unhesitatingly kicked down the door lock of the room facing the man’s direction. After a few kicks, the door lock broke and the door opened.

Inside, there were several classrooms, suggesting it might have been used as an academy. Muyoung found the classroom where the zombies’ howls were most audible and opened the window. Looking down, he saw the man struggling to shake off the zombies’ hands by swinging his bag around.

After a moment of hesitation, wondering if it was okay to call out to him, Muyoung quickly shouted, thinking he could save him and part ways immediately.

“Hey, you!”

“Huh!”

Startled by the sudden call, the man looked up. As soon as their eyes met, Muyoung explained while forcefully tearing down the curtain hanging by the window.

“I’ll lower the curtain, so grab it. I’ll pull you up.”

“What? You?”

The man’s expression, which had been bright until just now, turned dubious. It was because Muyoung’s build was somewhat smaller compared to the man’s.

Muyoung, with an armful of curtain, couldn’t see the man’s expression.

“Hurry and grab it to come up.”

The man hesitated, looking alternately at the curtain descending above his head and Muyoung. But perhaps due to the aggravated zombies now hitting the car hood more violently and making phlegmy noises, he finally grabbed the curtain.

“D-don’t drop it!”

Perhaps because of Muyoung’s youthful face, the man naturally ordered his helper. Then he hurriedly climbed up the curtain, trying to distance himself from the zombies even a little.

After confirming that the man was properly hanging on, Muyoung pulled up the curtain with all his might. The man got closer to the window bit by bit, and finally, when he could reach the window frame if he stretched out his hand…

Rip- An unsettling sound came from the curtain. Both Muyoung and the man’s faces froze simultaneously.

What if the curtain tears while trying to pull him up? While Muyoung paused briefly, worrying, the man shouted from outside the window.

“D-don’t let go! Don’t let go!”

“I won’t let go, so calm down!”

What should he do about this? There wasn’t much time to ponder. Muyoung checked how far up the man had come and then said to him.

“Grab the window frame.”

“What?”

“The curtain might tear before I can pull you all the way up, so hold onto the window frame and hang on.”

“W-what if I fall while doing that!”

“I’ll reach out my hand instead, so grab my hand and come up.”

Rip, rip-

Even as they talked, the sound of tearing fabric continued. Instinctively looking down with the sense of crisis that he might fall, the man’s eyes met the horde of zombies reaching out towards him like hellfire.

“Hurry!”

“Uugh…!”

Now that the torn part of the curtain was visible, Muyoung urged, and the man grabbed the window frame with a panicked face, making whimpering noises. Immediately, Muyoung leaned his upper body out the window, removed one hand from the curtain, and reached out.

The man, thoroughly frightened, hastily grabbed Muyoung.

“Huh?”

However, what he grabbed was not Muyoung’s hand, but his collar. It was a choice made out of suspicion that Muyoung might let go due to lack of strength.

“Ack.”

As his neck was choked, Muyoung reflexively wrapped his hands around his neck and lost his balance, tilting out the window due to the man’s pulling force. Conversely, the man used the force of pulling Muyoung down to quickly climb into the window.

“Aah!”

Bang! A loud noise erupted as the falling Muyoung collided with the car’s sunroof. Zombies instantly pounced on the dented car. Muyoung was buried under them in an instant.

“I-I had no choice. I had no choice.”

The man, who had been watching the scene with a terrified face, hurriedly fled the academy through the building’s back door.

In the alley now devoid of human presence, a few of the zombies clambering over the car and tearing at each other in response to the loud noise stirred.

“Grooah…”

Soon, a zombie in gym clothes was kicked off forcefully and fell to the ground. In the space where one zombie disappeared, a single leg was stretched out.

“Grrr… Graah…”

Shortly after, several zombies collapsed down like autumn leaves, and from among them, Muyoung, covered in blood, popped out.

“Ugh.”

Muyoung, who dry heaved at the rotten blood that had flowed into his mouth, looked up while breathing roughly. He was looking at the window through which the man who had dropped him had entered.

However, the man had long since fled without looking back, so no one remained there.

“That was really mean.”

To be betrayed by the first person he tried to help while even exchanging dialogue. If he had known he would end up in such a miserable state, he should have just followed Seokjae without looking back.

Feeling depressed and heaving a deep sigh, he staggered to his feet, not wanting to keep rolling around with the smelly zombies. At that moment, Muyoung’s foot stepped on something soft.

“…A bag?”

It was a brown backpack.

Come to think of it, he remembered the man swinging something at the zombies earlier. It seems he left it behind in his haste to climb the curtain.

“I guess it’s okay to take this as compensation.”

While he would have hesitated to open someone else’s bag arbitrarily under normal circumstances, this time was different. Muyoung knew how to get angry too.