Chapter 44

Necromancer (2)

I went down the stairs in front of me without any hesitation whatsoever. My eyes met with the guy who had come up from the basements.

“What the…!”

Before he could even finish speaking, his neck was blown away, and his blood shot up like a fountain.

Another Hunter, who was turning around the corner from behind him, was covered with the guy’s blood who was ahead of him. When he went to look at me with a bloody expression, I was already in the air.

Swish!

The flash then sliced across his eyes.

He was also unable to scream and promptly died instead. There was not a drop of blood on the recovered sword.

The hunters, who were surprised by the alarm, were forced to run into me in the process of heading to the ground level. Perhaps because they were concerned about the escape of the experiment, the structure forced them to pass through the corridor that I was passing by to get to the ground.

In case the kidnapped people suddenly popped out, I thrust the sword into each hunter’s body instead of using a wide range of sword movements.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

“Stop him! I said, stop him!”

A short but sharp flash continuously struck the air. The bodies collapsed along the path I went through, blood puddling everywhere.

I was scanning a wide underground area with Penetration even as I ended their breath one by one.

‘If the ground artifacts were focused on preventing external intrusion, the main purpose of the barrier here is to prevent the experiments’ escape. No matter how Awakened one may be, it would have been impossible to run away on his or her own.’

Then, I found something and hardened my face. I then moved faster.

I killed the hunters as soon as I saw them and shot myself forward, destroying the barrier’s functioning system. The place I reached was the room in the corner.

The sight beyond it upon using clairvoyance was clearly different from where other subjects were held.

Bang!

I destroyed the most sophisticated and powerful barrier I had ever seen. It was a type that could only be opened and closed with an artifact that functioned as a key. However, it was meaningless if the lock would get blown away entirely.

I opened the door roughly, my heart beating harder and harder.

The door was very thick, and another door followed. The structure was more like a sterile chamber. When the last door opened, a disgusting smell hit my nose. I then entered the room.

Although it was confirmed by clairvoyance in advance, it made me even angrier when I was to see it with my own eyes.

It felt like something hot was coming up my throat.

“Did you live like this? For that long time?”

Why didn’t he ever tell me? Was it painful just to recall the memory?

Crack!

I clenched my teeth.

The ward’s internal structure was no different from other rooms, but there were unusually many vents all over the ceiling. The facility, which would be sufficient to replace the room air in one to two minutes completely, had been shut down due to power failure.

Below there were dozens of beds arranged at a certain distance apart. Each bed was bedridden with one person or, to describe it more accurately, what was once a person.

I could hear a light breath and a faint heart beating. However, the rotting smell that filled the room was coming from their bodies.

“Uhhh… Oh…”

They had a cloudy white pupil and black spots all over the skin. Regardless of age, there were wrinkle-like things on their face, but that was due to the skin separating from the fat layer.

Normally, it should ooze with body fluid, swell, and rot like other bodies, but it was being carried out at a much slower pace than it should. Some ‘force’ that replaced the body’s immune function was suppressing it.

The magic sword whispered as if it found this interesting.

‘Oh! This is a zombification. The caster also has a very high standard of treatment… What a treat to see this myself.’

The sheer pleasure of its telepathy made me sick. At that moment…

Swoosh!

All of those who were lying down without a movement like dolls suddenly raised their upper body. Then they turned their heads and looked at me.

The sight of 30 eyes turning at me at the same time in sync was chilling.

I walked straight, all in search of a bed. Others didn’t have cores in their hearts, but only one was different.

Where I stopped and stood, a skinny boy stared at me through his slightly crushed eyelids. By height and size, he only looked about fourteen or fifteen years old.

The appearance was similar to that of other zombies, but Mana’s clear sign was in his heart.

The magic sword spoke, ‘He’s alive. But why is he performing such camouflage?

I went closer to him. I didn’t care anymore about the stinging smell on the nose.

Our eyes met, and I called out to him. I put in my mouth not his full name written on documents, Nathan Drake, but…

“Nate.”

His eyes shook slightly.

“Yes, doctor.”

The people he faced at the facility must be mostly doctors or researchers, if not experiments.

I didn’t know what to say. After some hesitation, I spoke from my heart, “I’m sorry. I came too late.”

Nate tilted his head. “Are you not a doctor?”

“No. I’m here to kill all of them and get you out of here.”

“I’m going out?”

“We’re going out. You’ve been here too long.”

Yes, he had indeed been here too long.

I could not allow him to be rescued until he endured for four more years. Did Angelica, who saw the future in an unknown manner, knew about this terrible situation?

Did she let it be until the government rescued him?

“It’s okay. I was playing with my friends.”

“Friends?”

He reached out his hand. On the outside, a similarly decomposed zombie came out of bed.

“He’s my friend. His name is Chris. Say hello.”

The zombie’s mouth opened. As if his tongue melted and he couldn’t move it well, a dull pronunciation came out of his mouth.

“He… rro…”

“Chris?”

It was a familiar name. I had seen that child in the future. Although at that time, all the organic tissue had decayed, and only the bones were left.

“He came here around the same time as I did. He’s my best friend. Besides Chris, everyone here is my favorite person. This is Ally.”

The zombie lying in the next bed was a child with a smaller head than Nate.

The child raised her hand and slowly waved at me. Ally was not an unfamiliar name as well.

“I’m sorry. She can’t talk anymore. Ally is also a good friend. We used to fight a lot before. She cried every day and said her mom would come to visit her someday. Whenever I heard that, I felt bad. I have a mom, too, but I didn’t think she’d come looking for me. Now, it doesn’t matter.”

I knew why Nate explained for so long. He was nervous right now.

He had noticed that I was different from other researchers. Was it an instinct of an Awakened?

“This is Mr. Clark. When I was sick at night, he took care of me and shouted at the doctors. I don’t like old men… but I like Mr. Clark.”

Clark was the name of a skeleton with a crack in the shoulder.

The adult zombie, which still had flesh attached to the body, creaked to get out of bed. I couldn’t watch it anymore, so I reached out to Nate and stopped him.

“Stop!”

He was looking at me with an uneasy look.

How many years had he been here like this? I didn’t know exactly how old he was when he Awakened. Was it about the age that I could see on the outside?

After that, he was, to this day, with the people who turned them into zombies here. Slowly rotting with the smell of corpses, trapped with his loved ones… Even changing his body to this state.

I had no idea what he must have thought to hold on every day.

“Well, first of all, can you come back to your original state? Nate, you don’t have to stay like this.”

“I got caught, didn’t I?”

Nate’s melted skin returned to a somewhat pale hue as soon as Nate said so, but still that of a living person’s. The crushed eyelids also regained their shape, and the breathing and heartbeat returned to normal.

Unlike other zombies here, Nate was imitating them by just changing his body like them. It was one of the many abilities of his unique skill.

“Come on, let’s get out. Nate.”

Reverting himself, he was still the size of an unbecoming boy. Nate’s eyes showed a lot of emotion and disappeared.

“But…”

As if the attitude of obedience grew on him throughout his years here, he must have interpreted my words as a command. He kept looking around as if something bothered him while he was lifting his body.

I knew why.

‘The skeletons!‘

Those corpses were still close to zombies, even though they had become skeletons in the future.

I stiffened my face. This was a few years before Angelica and Nate met in the future.

‘Is it still possible?’

Nate’s special and unique skill was among the last five.

[Traces Across Boundaries]

It was hard to understand what skill it was just by looking at the name.

What we observed and Nate proved several times was that it was a kind of mastery skill.

Boundary referred to the line between life and death, and the effect of the skill was not fixed, but a new sub-skill had been created according to Nate’s proficiency. He had the best unique skill of all five of us in terms of growth potential.

In addition to this, Nate was constantly creating new sub-skills during our climb to the tower until he drew his last breath.

‘Since when did [Shadow Grave] become available as a sub-skill?’

It was clear that it was even before he met Choi Seung-hyun from my previous life. I then spoke to Nate.

“Would you please come over here?”

Nate nodded and obeyed me.

On the floor, there was a shadow cast by a magical light-emitting object under his feet. I floated another light source to make it clearer.

“The shadow, can you see it?”

Oh, how could I explain this?

I remembered how Nate moved the red Mana in his past life, but it was hard to explain in words. However, that didn’t mean he could see my Mana. I just had to say this.

“Can you put all your friends in here and move them? Have you ever tried it?”

Nate shook his head. “No, I’ve never done it. But…”

It felt like he was thinking about something, but suddenly his eyes shined. “…Is this how you do it?”

At that moment…

Swiiish!

The wind seemed to blow in the room, and the zombies on the bed disappeared in a blink of an eye. Then the shadow of Nate on the floor shook violently and slowly faded away.

The shadow bore all the dead like a grave.

“Oh, it’s working! It’s amazing.”

Nate laughed for the first time. The magic sword mumbled as if it was dumbfounded.

‘Unique skills I’ve never seen or heard of… In this world, how many monsters are there like you and this boy?’

*

While I was moving with Nate, I didn’t forget to find the rest of the hunters and the researchers and finish them.

Most of the survivors were researchers, and they were busy moving data stored on local servers instead of fleeing to the only exit. They didn’t know all about the situation, but they had noticed that Decker & Jefferson was done for. Therefore, it was a shallow intention to transfer experimental data to other companies at a high price or the price of their own life value.

They must have thought that intruders would not indiscriminately harm those who were helpless non-Awakens that dealt with ‘important data.’

It was a bold and arrogant illusion.

‘They are trash that isn’t worth being considered humans.’

The experiments’ condition, outside the room where Nate was in, was also much worse than I imagined.

They would all be rescued today through government operations that had been pulled forward due to the situation right now.

‘Where are you?’

I moved quickly and looked for one of the people I had not yet found.

He was close to being the head of the project, but he passed the responsibility onto others in my previous life’s trial and was given a light sentence.

He was the one who chose to commit suicide in fear of his former colleagues’ mysterious deaths after being discharged from prison.

Isaac Harrington. I clearly remembered his face.

Bang!

The lab door then opened. A middle-aged man, who was downloading the data, looked at the door with a pale face.

“Who, who are you?!”

His gaze shifted to my side. He was shocked to find Nate, who had changed to his normal state. He shouted as if he recognized him, something like his identification number.

“…2-945? But how?!”

I thought, ‘He doesn’t have the right to kill himself.’

The moment I lifted the sword…

“Wait a minute!”

Nate shouted urgently, but in a clear voice. I turned my head with a sword in my hand. For the first time, there was a clear light in his eyes, which had been moving unconditionally to obey me.

“Why?”

Nate hesitated and asked. “…Are you going to kill him?”

“Yeah, like I killed the others.”

His expression was clouded. No way, was it Stockholm Syndrome? Was he going to defend the man who tormented him?

“These things are not worth keeping alive.”

Harrington spoke as his saliva flew all over, thinking as if he had found a way to live.

“Oh, wait a minute! Wait! You… you, I mean, Nathan! Your name was Nathan, wasn’t it? Hahaha… hahaha… I remember your name because you’re a special subj… a special kid! And you’ve been here a long time!”

He begged for his life with glistening eyes.

“Please, please, save me. I gave you special treatment, didn’t I? The reason why you were able to live much longer than other children was because I cared for you and took care of…”

Bullshit.

“Nate, don’t mind that.”

The moment I tried to lift the sword again…

Whistle!

The wind blew in the lab.

I felt the density of the air changed. A stinky smell wafted through the air. Harrington’s face was distorted at the sight before him.

“H… ow?”

In the small room, thirty zombies that had just been put in the shadow reappeared. I could hear the voice of Nate, which sounded like a tight string.

“You remember everyone, don’t you?”

Nate called out their names one by one.

“Chris… Ally… Mr. Clark…”

The names were listed continuously.

“Josh… Anthony… Julio…”

Just like that, a few dozens of names were narrated by Nate’s cold voices, echoing the lab.

Whatever Nate’s intentions might be, in my ears, it sounded like a memorial service for the victims of the name, a tribute, a kind of a eulogy.

“They are my favorite people.”

Nate’s eyes turned red. It wasn’t tears. The eyes were bloodshot with wrath.

“They were my favorite people.”

Nate would have been aware that they’re not alive anymore.

As he held the traces of those who had already crossed into the realm of death, he forced them to be held onto the boundary of life.

“To everyone, you’ve been giving them a hard time. And eventually… eventually…”

Harrington quivered while trembling.

“S-Stop. Don’t. Don’t do that!

“And my friends always said that, too. To you guys.”

The next moment, Nate said nothing. There was not even a gesture. There was nothing that could even be seen as a signal.

But zombies rushed at once, as if they were one body and as if their minds were connected, towards Harrington.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Flesh, blood, and organ fragments splattered on the ceiling and walls of the lab. It took less than a few seconds for what Harrington was to be torn into dozens of pieces.