Chapter 1 – 1. I Killed the Man Upstairs

I am twenty-eight years old. I’ll soon be twenty-nine, and if this continues, I’ll soon be thirty. However, I still do not have a decent job.

The days when I was in a slump, confined to the house due to continuous failures and setbacks.

While I was leading a broken life, going to bed at 5 a.M. And waking up at 2 p.M., Someone knocked on my door.

-Bang! Bang! Bang!!

“..What is…”

-Bang! Bang! Bang!!

“..What time is it? I’m knocking on the door. Damn.. I just need to ring the doorbell… “

Grumbling, I got up and checked my watch. It was already 2:30 PM. Most people have already woken up and will have eaten their lunch by now. This is a bigger problem for me, who didn’t wake up until this hour and fell asleep rather than the guy who knocked on the door.

“Ha~am..”

In a half-asleep state, I yawned and thought about who might come to visit me at this hour.

‘The only person who would come to me at this time is…’

No one else but my parents. Because I don’t have any friends, let alone a girlfriend. Since I only spend money on games, I don’t have much need to order delivery… No, there’s no way a delivery person would knock on the door like that, so it’s automatically excluded.

“I didn’t hear my parents coming.. I’m screwed.”

As a parent, you must be heartbroken if your son, who has not been able to find a job, is sleeping in a pigsty-like closet five minutes before the opening, right?

It’s dizzying. When my parents say they’re coming, I still clean the house the day before… But I can’t do anything about these random checks. What can I do? It’s my fault for not being sincere, so I should get it right..

“Ha. “Just a moment.”

I thought my father would hit me like a dog today. Maybe all economic support will be cut off.

At least you have to live like a human being to receive support. It was clear that if I lived like a pig pen like this, he would kick me out. Or they told me to come down to my hometown..

‘I don’t want to inherit the field even when I die..’

If I were taken back to my hometown, I might have to take over my father’s field and live like a cow that works 24 hours a day. Farming is not an ordinary job, so the moment I change jobs to become a farmer, I will no longer be able to live a life where I feel free.

Moreover, I don’t like the tough bugs that are unique to the countryside, and I’m also annoyed by the smelly fertilizer and the country people’s unique behavior. Especially because it’s a rural area, there are a lot of foreigners.

These days, there are more foreigners in the countryside. Most of them are workers from Southeast Asia or its affiliates. People who come from poor countries to make money escape from construction sites, go down to the countryside, and settle down there.

I heard that there are quite a few Russians, Chinese, and ethnic Koreans…

“Ha..”

No matter how much I don’t want to be taken to the countryside, I can’t avoid my creators. In the end, I opened the front door, scratching my messy head like a cow being led to a slaughterhouse.

“Wow.”

“Huh?”

With my heart fully prepared, I opened the front door… But the parents I was expecting were not there. For some reason, there was only a drunk guy upstairs who was looking at me and making strange noises.

‘What.. Daytime drinking again?’

That question is just a moment away. For some reason, the man’s entire body was covered in blood.

Could it be that he got into a fight with a passerby while drinking? Or a murder case? I heard there are a lot of people these days who go crazy and kill their neighbors because of schizophrenia… Fuck, is that really it? Maybe I just fell after drinking.

Leaving aside the countless guesses that quickly passed through my head, I hurriedly tried to close the front door again. Because I don’t want to get involved with that crazy guy.

“Uuuuu..!!!”

“What the fuck!! Mister! Why are you like this!!!”

When I tried to close the door, the man who had been confronting me for a moment stretched out his blood-stained hand and tried to attack me.

I couldn’t really understand this situation right now. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Maybe I’m looking at something in my sleep…

First of all, I didn’t want other people’s blood on my body, so I kicked the guy upstairs who was trying to grab me. It was almost like an instinctive kick.

-Pow!

“Wow..!!”

“Oh, shit..!”

A kick that went straight into the target. The man who was trying to grab me was pushed out the front door and fell down, his blood splattered. He fell and broke his head, and blood flowed from it.

Surely they won’t sue me for personal injury? Isn’t this self-defense?

“Ah.. I’m screwed..”

At the moment I was confused as to whether I should call 119 or 112. The man who had fallen suddenly stood up. Then he frantically vomited black, dead blood out of his mouth. However… The amount was a bit excessive.

“Wow.. Fuck.. I’m so dirty.. This crazy guy..”

I don’t know why he crawled downstairs and started talking shit like this in broad daylight. If you are sick, you should call 119 and go to the emergency room. Why do you do this to someone who is almost a stranger, perhaps worse than others?

If you’re not feeling well, you might as well go next door. I already wanted to kill him for drinking in the middle of the morning and causing noise between floors, but now that he was vomiting blood on someone else’s front door, my first thought was that I wanted to beat him up and kill him rather than worrying about him.

The more I think about it, the angrier I get. The more I thought about it, the more my anger rose. Yes, this is called gradient anger. In the first place, the reason I remembered the face of the man above me was because of this hatred.

“No.. Ha.. Mister’s feet.. What are you doing at the entrance of someone else’s house.. Ha..”

I never thought I would feel nothing but anger and frustration when I see someone coughing up blood. If someone sees me, they might say I’m a psychopath… But this is the explosion of the anger that has been building up for so long.

I should have done that quite a bit. Not once or twice. In fact, the reason I sleep late in the first place is because of this guy. I should be able to sleep because I drink and talk shit every night.

I can’t take this anymore. It looks like your wife ran away last year. At this point, I just need to say something blunt. I think I’m drunk, but I probably won’t remember it properly anyway.

“No, damn man. Why are you visiting someone else’s house in broad daylight? Fuck. Thinking about it makes me mad. If you are injured, you should go to the hospital. This is too rare even if there is no case… Ugh..?”

But something is strange. When I saw the man rubbing his eyes and staggering around again, I thought his condition was really strange.

‘Why are my eyes so cloudy…’

First of all, both eyes were cloudy as if they had cataracts, and their eyes seemed to have lost their sense of humor. No, it wasn’t focused. In addition, there were only a few of her fingers, as if she had left them somewhere or had been bitten off, and her entire body was full of small wounds. In particular… The neck she was dented as if it had been bitten.

‘What..? Is this person alive?’

No matter how I look at it, it looks like a dead person already..

The dead person is making strange noises and trying to grab me. And when I looked closely, it looked like it was gritting its teeth and wanting to bite something. It was as if he was trying to bite the back of my neck and turn me into his compatriot. I suddenly understood the situation.

At this point, even if you don’t like it, you can’t help but notice it.

“Uuuuu..!!!”

Soon, the guy upstairs started attacking me again. If it is true that that person is dead, then…

‘It’s a zombie… !’

I kicked the charging zombie with all my might. It doesn’t matter if all of this is just my delusion and I end up facing criminal charges for assault and bodily harm. Because I couldn’t just leave a person gritting his teeth trying to bite me.

-Whoops!!!

“Wooooo..!”

The man upstairs was pushed back. I quickly closed the front door and locked it before the man got up again. I didn’t have the courage to fight any more. If you are holding something or are fighting with your bare hands and get bitten, it can be a serious problem.

“Haa…Haa…”

I was out of breath. It was my first time hitting someone this hard. When I thought that I might be bitten and infected, my heart pounded and cold sweat broke out.

‘The blood that fucking bastard vomited.. What if I get infected with that..?’

I felt like I needed to quickly wash the blood off my hands, legs, and feet. If it were to be a disease that could only be transmitted through blood, it would be the end.

I quickly ran to the bathroom and thoroughly scrubbed my bloody arms and legs with soap.

-Bang! Bang! Bang!!

-Wooooo!!!

Meanwhile, the man upstairs was pounding on the front door and crying like crazy.

After washing off the blood, I was so scared that I tried to call the police. Of course, if the whole of Seoul were in this state, there would be no police to come to help…

“As expected.. He didn’t answer the phone..”

As expected, neither the police nor the fire department answered the phone. It seems like the connection sound itself doesn’t go through at all. Only then did I realize, with a sad feeling, that there was really a lot wrong with the world.

This probably means that so many people have already used the phone that the phone is out of service. Maybe the police or firefighters who went to solve the incident were bitten by the zombies at the scene and died.

Even text messages cannot be sent. For some reason, I didn’t receive a safety disaster message…

This is so fucked up. There’s no one to help me, and I can’t go outside because there’s a zombie knocking on my front door. I thought for a moment about whether I should hold on to the balcony railing and move to the house next door or below, but this was the 7th floor, so if I fell by mistake, I would have died.

There is no answer right now. More information is needed. I decided to look at online articles to understand the current situation more closely. Fortunately, there is still internet. It’s very slow, but…

“That was a real zombie…”

I checked a few internet articles. There were all sorts of speculations about it being a curse or a strange virus, but most people were saying that zombies had appeared. There was even an article that said zombies had been spotted not only in Korea but all over the world.

“Haa…”

It was only after reading the news that the military was trying to suppress violent groups that I clearly realized that the current situation was not one in which I could receive help from others, and that I was in a crisis situation where I had to survive on my own.

‘If you hear the sound of the bastard upstairs knocking on the door and other people come rushing in, there is no answer…’

Through Internet articles, I learned that zombies are sensitive to sound and light, and that they can only be defeated by smashing their heads. What that means is that if you leave that hateful bastard in the house like this, other bastards will hear the noises he makes and come here.

The decision was quick. We need to break the head of that son of a bitch who is causing noise pollution. That’s how I live.

‘What can I do to kill you..? Should I beat it with a frying pan..?’

I’m not sure if you can crush a person’s head with a frying pan, but if you want to swing it in a narrow entrance, a short weapon would be better. Or, I guess you could make a temporary window by attaching a kitchen knife to a curtain rod to stab someone to death…

‘They said zombies have the ability to hold onto things…’

Internet news said not to get caught by zombies. I heard that zombies have the ability to grab and pull things, so sometimes there are babies that come in through the entrance door. If the lich accidentally stabbed the long spear and was caught by a zombie, he might be incapacitated.

“I found it..”

I found a tool box in the veranda storage room. My father gave it to me as a birthday present after saying something somewhat difficult to understand: that a man will need to use tools someday… I couldn’t understand what he said at the time, but now I understand.

“Hammer..”

I took out a brand-new long knife that had been dying in the tool box. I think this would be easier to beat than a frying pan. However, this alone is not enough to deal with zombies. So I searched the closet.

I could get my arm or hand bitten, so I took out the winter clothes that were in the closet and put them on. I was planning to take it out as the weather was getting cooler, but it worked out well.

I protect my body with padding and my hands with gloves. This alone gives me some reassurance. Now all you have to do is open the front door and smash the pot of that hateful old man upstairs. Since this cub usually had homicidal impulses, I even hummed at the thought of being able to completely kill him.

-Kkiik.

I opened the front door with force. It’s time to kill the enemy.

“Wooooo!!!”

The man, who became even more ferocious than before, rushed towards me.

“Hmm…!!!”

I held my breath, clenched my molars, and swung the long sword at the old man’s head with all my might.

-Bwaaak!!!

A zombie man stumbles when I hit him on the top of his head. There is no time to watch. We have to keep losing. Keep going until you die!

“Wow…!”

“Die…!!”

-Pow! Bah! Ppajik!!!

I continued to push away the damn old man who was trying to hug me and swung the hammer frantically. Later, without even thinking about aiming for her head, he just swung the knife mercilessly, half-losing his senses. Soon, there was a sound of her head splitting, and the old man fell to the hallway, writhing feebly.

Black, dead blood poured out from the man’s broken head. The entrance floor became even more dirty. The bloody smell is making me dizzy. I guess I’ll have to wipe it all down with bleach later, right? Fuck, that guy is a nuisance to the end even in death.

“Haa…Haa…Fuck…”

Anyway, I successfully killed the man upstairs. I was proud and proud of myself when I finally killed the man above me who I always wanted to kill with my own hands.

Please fall into hell… I hope that you will never be reborn as the man who lives next door to me again and that you will spend eternity rolling around in the fire pit of hell.

“Whoa..”

I threw the dead man’s body over the railing. Illegal dumping of trash is illegal, but looking at this situation, it seems like the police officers who were going to arrest me have already searched everything and have given up on being police.

“Phew.. When will I get rid of this again..”

Now all that’s left is the blood, flesh, and bone fragments that the uncle poured out. The thought of wiping all this off and putting it away already made me feel weak. However, despite this commotion, the other houses are as quiet as ever. Is everyone alive?

‘Is the lady next door going to be safe…?’

I don’t know. My room was at the end of a hallway-style apartment, so I could see the front doors of other houses at a glance, but not a single house had its doors open. Perhaps all of the residents on this floor were still alive. Or maybe they went out to work and died.

I’ll have to check later to see if there are any survivors. If it’s an empty house, I’ll have to clean it out and stock up on some food.

First of all, the priority is to hang and lock the fire doors on the stairs. Zombies might come up from above or below. I’ll have to lock the fire door on the 7th floor connected to the stairs so people can just ignore the 7th floor.

-Cheolkeong.

“Ha.. That’s it.”

I locked the door to the stairs. I spent an hour with this. Whether you come down from above or from below, if you want to enter the 7th floor via the stairs, you will first have to climb over this fire door. Then you’ll hear me slam on the door and you’ll be ready for something. This apartment is so old-fashioned that it’s not soundproofed at all.

“Then now… “

Just as I was standing there contemplating whether I should take a shower or at least get some water in case of a water outage.

Something appeared before my eyes.

[System loading complete.]

[Survivor preference system applies.]

“What is this again..”

Internet news did not mention any information about this strange window.

This was just like the status window of awakened people in novels and webtoons.

Could it be that a miracle has come down to me?

[One random skill is distributed.]

‘Please… Open the store window… ‘

[Tiring!]

[You have acquired ‘Skill Stealing’!]

“Skill robbery..? When you kill an awakened person, the opponent’s skills are taken away… Instead, a handful of hair falls out for each skill… If you go bald, you can’t use Robbery… What kind of bullshit is this …?”

I gained some unusual abilities. If there’s one thing that’s unfortunate… It’s not. There are two unfortunate things. First of all, this ability is useless until you find an awakened person, and secondly, your hair falls out every time you use it.

‘Even if you kill an awakened person with useless abilities, it is a loss because only the hair falls out..’

My hair was a kind of skill slot. If all the hair is pulled out, it means that the skill slots are full, and from then on, no matter how good a person is, they cannot steal the skill.

Therefore, it was said that it was an ability that would bring a moment when one had to be more cautious when killing an awakened person.

‘Haa…’

I acquired an ability that was troublesome in many ways. Right now, he has no power and is incompetent, and the difficulty is that he has to kill the awakened person who may have any abilities in this state.

‘Seeing that there is no mention of awakened people in the news… It doesn’t seem like there are that many awakened people like me… Ugh…’

First, I have to take off my bloody clothes and think about it.

Because it’s so hot I’m going crazy.