Chapter 23
The room Aiden and Rebecca reached was in the very center.
Aiden had a reason for coming to this room.
It was a temporary weapons storage where leftover weapons were kept.
“Now, can you hear a bit?”
Aiden asked Rebecca.
Though her ears were still ringing, Rebecca could barely hear his voice.
She nodded.
“Yes, I can hear.”
“Good. Any other problems?”
“…I’m fine.”
Rebecca’s expression tightened slightly as she spoke.
Aiden noticed but had no time for further questions.
“From here on, let’s act separately.”
“Separately?”
“As long as that monster is outside, we need a distraction.”
The Brutal was still rampaging in the corridor. He would likely notice them as soon as they opened the room’s door.
“So, I’ll draw Brutal’s attention. You go to the 25th floor, secure Sadie first, and then join up.”
Aiden explained the next plan while picking up ammunition in one corner of the room.
Rebecca listened to Aiden’s words without saying anything, then nodded.
“That’s too reckless.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Can you really escape from that monster? With just this level of weaponry?”
Rebecca looked at the weapons scattered in the room.
Various firearms were present, but the only usable things were bullets at best. This place was, after all, a storage for leftover weapons.
Explosives or weapons with more firepower had already been exhausted.
“…It’s not impossible.”
However, Aiden picked up something familiar from the corner.
It was a claymore.
The last bomb he couldn’t install due to lack of time was here.
But a claymore wasn’t a weapon you used to escape a monster chasing right behind you. Its killing radius was too wide to simply throw and run away.
Rebecca’s gaze turned cold at the sight.
“Are you going to commit suicide with that?”
“I’m a zombie. I won’t die as long as my head remains intact.”
“That can’t be a reason.”
“I’m just choosing the option with a higher chance of survival.”
Rebecca, who had engaged in a brief argument, looked at Aiden with a creaking movement.
Then, she placed her hand on the claymore Aiden was holding.
“I’ll… do it.”
“I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
However, Rebecca didn’t step back.
“I’m not saying I’ll just do it. This is a request.”
And there, Aiden realized.
Sometime, Rebecca’s voice had been trembling steeply, like a malfunctioning string instrument.
“I’ll use that to bring down the Brutal. That’s the reward I’ll give you. So… please grant my request too.”
“What’s going on in your mind?”
Sensing something suspicious, Aiden stared at Rebecca.
In response, Rebecca, instead of answering, slowly lifted her top.
Her right side was dyed in red.
“That…?”
“I got hit by a Stinger a while ago.”
Maybe just before entering the room.
Aiden frowned, recalling the moment. Certainly, it was a critical moment, and he couldn’t handle the incoming Stingers.
“Excuse me for a second.”
Aiden closely examined her injury.
The wound itself wasn’t too deep to be fatal.
However, the nails of the Stingers were coated with their bodily fluids like venom.
And that greenish fluid was distinctly visible near Rebecca’s wound.
Rebecca was infected.
“…”
Aiden stared at Rebecca without saying anything.
For an ordinary person, it would be a moment of despair.
However, Rebecca was different.
She was looking at Aiden with an even more fervent gaze.
“So, let me do it.”
Rebecca took the bomb from Aiden’s hand.
And she held it like a treasure.
“You must survive.”
Rebecca’s voice, saying that, sounded calm at first listen.
But Aiden could easily read the hidden resignation and sadness in her eyes and trembling fingertips.
Rebecca was just hiding all of that for the sake of her daughter.
“That’s the only way you’ll grant my request, right?”
Rebecca forced a smile as if nothing bothered her.
Eyes full of gloom with droopy corners. And even the trembling lips. Nothing matched a smile.
As if she couldn’t do otherwise.
“…”
In the face of such Rebecca, Aiden refrained from offering hasty consolation.
He knew better than anyone that seeking salvation through empty comfort was futile.
So, he simply responded to her request.
It wasn’t a plea from the mother of a child; it was Rebecca, a survivor, making a request to the junk dealer Aiden.
Although he had never spoken it aloud, Aiden had his own principles when it came to accepting requests.
It was a promise and a shackle left by his former companion.
Rebecca’s request didn’t contradict Aiden’s principles.
“…Alright.”
Aiden nodded.
“I will accept your request.”
* * *
Arian’s life had always been closely tied to death.
It wasn’t just about Arian herself overcoming life-threatening situations.
At the same time, she had witnessed numerous deaths around her.
Former comrades, who once traversed battlefields together, gradually disappeared over time. People she called friends, and those she considered family, had left, leaving behind only cold graves.
So when Arian found herself in this unknown world, she couldn’t despair.
On the contrary, she felt relieved.
In her original world, there were only humans who hated her.
And she had placed great expectations on this new world.
This place was a world without vampires or anything else.
Nobody welcomed her, but at least, they didn’t hate her either.
Such a trivial fact brought her immense joy.
Therefore, with a casual belief that the same events wouldn’t repeat, she sought new comrades.
Was that a mistake?
“Diana…”
Arian held Diana’s blood-soaked hand.
Diana was dying.
Arian wanted to deny that reality.
However, her keen senses coldly conveyed the grim reality.
Diana was struck by the Brutal just once, and most of her upper body’s bones were shattered. And those broken bones had pierced her internal organs, causing severe internal bleeding.
The sounds of blood spattering, the organs scratching against the broken bone fragments with each shallow breath, were vividly audible to Arian.
She bit her lip.
Suddenly, memories of boasting about being a vampire in front of Diana, flashed in her mind.
It hadn’t been long since that happened. Just a few hours ago.
But Arian felt too ashamed to lift her head.
How incompetent she was.
Even hiding like this, unable to defeat a rotten corpse called a Brutal.
Watching the last moments of the first friend she made in this world in such a pathetic way.
What was so great about being a vampire, carrying the blood of the primordial one?
Thud!
Outside, the Brutal was breaking through the doors of the room one by one.
Although there was still some distance, the room’s number was limited.
Soon, it would approach.
“…”
At that moment, Diana’s closed eyes opened slightly.
Her gaze wandered blankly for a moment before finding Arian.
Her lips trembled for a moment.
However, she couldn’t produce a sound, and her mouth contorted in pain.
“Don’t speak.”
Arian said to Diana, who found her in such a state.
Breathing itself was probably painful for her. Let alone speaking, it seemed like tearing apart her lungs.
However, despite that, Diana opened her mouth again. And finally, her voice came out.
“…Blood.”
The single word Diana uttered was nonsensical.
Arian couldn’t understand it and asked again.
“What?”
“Drink… my blood.”
Arian’s face twisted at the absurd demand.
“Don’t say nonsense.”
“Then… you can win, right?”
“What are you talking about…!”
A huge explosion from upstairs interrupted Arian’s words.
It was the explosion sound of the claymore.
For some reason, the resonance felt ominously grim, but Arian didn’t care.
Diana continued her words.
“…Please win.”
Arian bit her lip, unable to comprehend.
“Because you’re… strong.”
Arian chewed on her own lips.
“My blood… that guy…”
“I understand! I get it…”
With a response that barely came out, Diana smiled very faintly.
Those were her last words.
“Diana?”
There was no returning voice.
Subsequently, Arian finally noticed.
In her ears, the sound of the body, no longer making the painful sounds necessary to survive, was no longer audible.
“…”
Arian released the hand she was holding.
The surroundings shook.
However, she never shed a tear.
Arian stood up.
She looked at Diana’s face one last time. Now that she had just breathed her last, Diana finally looked peaceful.
A crimson thread emerged from Diana’s lifeless body.
Blood, still warm, quietly flowed through the air.
The numerous red lines converged towards Arian, forming a blood-red pool.
“…”
Arian couldn’t bear to watch until the end and turned her eyes away.
Vanishing from this world without leaving a trace, not even a corpse.
It was the fate of one who dedicated all their blood to a vampire who couldn’t create offspring.
Simultaneously, her friend’s blood rushed toward Arian.
A tremendous power surged within her body.
Her injuries instantly healed.
However, Arian, with a more agonized expression than before, opened the door of the room herself.
As she stepped into the corridor, the Brutal’s figure came into view.
The one who spotted Arian immediately slammed the ground as if threatening her with its intimidating body.
“Kraaa!”
The massive body filled the narrow corridor.
However, Arian’s eyes only saw faint bloodstains on the fingertips of that giant.
The almost nonexistent bloodstains grew larger.
Soon, Arian’s entire field of vision turned red.
In that crimson view, the Brutal’s fist flew towards her. The strength and speed contained in it were no different from before.
But to Arian, now it felt incredibly slow.
In response, Arian also raised her hand. An empty hand, not even holding the broken jungle sword.
From the empty fingertips, ominous blood-like fluid dripped.
“…”
Crimson eyes, pallid skin, and even blood dripping from the fingertips like tears.
Now Arian’s appearance took the form of an unearthly monster, devoid of any traces of humanity.
How eerie and grotesque that appearance was.
If there were people here, they would have been more afraid of her than the rampaging giant corpse.
But the Brutal had no awareness to perceive this.
The pure insanity engulfed the rotten corpse, and it simply charged towards the monster in front of it.
The corpse’s fist and the monster’s claws collided in mid-air.
Crunch!
The crimson blood cut through the decaying flesh.
When Brutal realized that something was wrong, its outstretched fist was already torn apart and flying into the sky.
There was no pain felt in the parts of the corpse that functioned like limbs; those sensations had long been lost. But as much as the madness contained in it, at that moment, it dissipated like a bursting bubble.
However, the madness that had been festering in the mutant dissipated as much as at that moment, scattered like loose sand.
The Brutal, who had only been thinking of chewing and swallowing his prey, belatedly stared at Arian.
Only then did it realize.
That what was in front was by no means just prey.
The Brutal never knew that it was a bizarre being that shook the otherworld, but it could certainly feel the power that monster possessed as much as a fortress.
Instinctive anxiety filled the void left by the departing madness.
However, ultimately, it was a realization that came too late.
The monstrous creature from the otherworld, filled with despair, moved.
Before the Brutal could even notice the movement, its vision was bathed in crimson.
And the view tilted askew.
His vision began to blink.
His vision seemed to extinguish in the landscape that seemed to almost disappear.
In that scene, the last thing the Brutal saw was his upper body, like a rock-hard muscle and a skeletal structure supporting it, and the rotted organs inside, all torn apart like a piece of paper.
* * *
“…”
On the 25th floor of the hotel.
Standing alone in one corner, Aiden raised his rifle in the direction of the stairs when he sensed movement.
Fortunately, the one who appeared was a girl he was familiar with.
“…Are you back?”
Whatever had happened, Arian’s face was exhausted.
Her entire body was covered in the rotten bodily fluids of zombies.
Aiden asked her.
“What happened to a Brutal?”
“It’s dead.”
At her nonchalant statement, Aiden raised his eyebrows in surprise.
He never thought that Arian and Diana alone would bring down the seemingly unharmed Brutal.
But before Aiden could ask for more details, Arian spoke first.
“Is Sadie okay?”
The place where Aiden stood was the entrance to the room where Sadie was supposed to stay.
In response, he nodded.
“She’s safe. I checked on her a while ago.”
“That’s… a relief.”
A shallow smile finally appeared on Arian’s lips.
“Then, what about Rebecca? Is she inside?”
At Arian’s question, Aiden shook his head.
Then, he took her away from the front of the room where the child was staying and moved to another room.
“Rebecca is dead.”
There, he briefly conveyed the story.
Rebecca had eventually been infected with the zombie virus and sacrificed herself along with the Brutal to take him down.
Arian’s barely remaining smile vanished without a trace.