Chapter 56 – 56. The Penalty Is Too Heavy

“Ha. “You cried and fell asleep..”

Kang In-ho looked down at Lee Hee-jung, who was sleeping in his arms, and sighed. Lee Hee-jung fell asleep without realizing that she was also tired last night.

“Why did I save you…”

Kang In-ho asked Lee Hee-jung, who was sleeping.

He is colder than you think. He wasn’t the type of person to extend a hand to save people who were about to die.

Rather, he probably tried to take away Lee Hee-jung’s skills her her her her. As a man with skill-stealing abilities, Kang In-ho was greedy.

“For some reason, I feel like I have to keep rescuing the 30 women from before… I’m worried… It’s a bit strange… “

Kang In-ho muttered to himself and closely observed his mental state. As she sat down and relaxed, her senses seemed to return a little more.

“Yes.. Recovery of reason.. It’s because of this..”

Fear resistance and recovery of reason. Currently, those two skills were sticking to Kang In-ho and making him ‘optimistic’ and ‘positive’.

If it were the original Kang In-ho, he would not have even thought about rescuing all 30 people and taking them with them. Because up to this point, he had aimed to operate as a small elite group. Because he didn’t even want to pay attention to anything outside his fence.

But at some point, he was obsessed with the idea that he could take care of all 30 people and manage them himself.

Yes, I lost my fear. He accepted 30 people he didn’t know very well into his team and thought there wouldn’t be any problems.

Kang In-ho now realizes that the ‘fear’ of the future and the ‘fear’ of being in danger from others have disappeared. Due to the penalty of trace observation, Inho Kang was able to quickly get out of a positive and optimistic state.

“This is a curse.”

He thought that having his fear his castrated was actually more like a terrible curse than a beneficial skill.

Moreover, in the place where the fear disappeared, optimism filled with the restoration of reason took over, disturbing Kang In-ho’s thoughts his his his.

Kang In-ho felt nauseous due to the double sensation that his heart was telling him not to do it even though his head clearly knew it was wrong.

His cries that it might be okay to save him and his cold criticism telling him not to bother walking down the thorny path shake his head.

“Ha…Fuck…”

Kang In-ho looked down at Lee Hee-jung, who was still sleeping. He thought. It has to be passed on. If you keep holding it, it will erode.

Kang In-ho’s reason was shouted. It would be very dangerous and difficult to walk through a destroyed world without fear.

“You said you were scared of being left alone..? Now… I won’t be afraid.”

Kang In-ho surrendered his fear resistance. It didn’t really matter to him whether the other person would receive it or not. I just passed it on.

Lee Hee-jung’s hair fell out. Hair grows on Kang In-ho’s head. Although only 30 strands of hair were not noticeable, the loss of one skill was immediately noticeable.

“Haa.. Shiba.. I’m feeling better now..”

As the fear resistance disappeared, his sanity level gradually dropped, and thanks to this, he was relatively free from the penalty of sanity recovery.

Only then was Kang In-ho able to lay Lee Hee-jung down next to him and stretch out his legs and rest. Still optimistic, but still better than before.

******

“Cough.. There’s no one.. There’s only one man I can vaguely sense..”

“I guess it’s Inho..?”

“Huh. It must be my brother. It has to be that way.”

Baek Ah-yoon, wearing a mask and a brimmed hat to block out as much sunlight as possible, approached the entrance of Dongyeong High School while using her sense of reason. Fortunately, no men were detected. Hearing this, everyone felt relieved and followed her.

They stayed up all night waiting for Kang In-ho, but in the end, Kang In-ho did not return. Accordingly, all of her companions left the apartment around sunrise.

After working together for a while, a bond developed between us, so we all walked down the street without saying a word.

Above all, the sight of Kang In-ho cutting down a group of nearly 40 people, including about 8 awakened people, to death without leaving any remaining, made even Han Jun-ho and Park Young-sik think that they should follow Kang In -ho until the end.

Kang In-ho’s strength was essential to survive the coming disaster.

“There’s a body here.”

“I think my brother went in there to kill me.”

“Yes..”

The distance was so far that the corpses at the entrance did not fall within the scope of the spiritual and physical transactions. As a result, three bodies were still left at the school entrance.

“I think everyone can walk comfortably now. “There are no men inside the school.”

“Aww.. My waist.”

The group members who had come this far with their backs bent halfway to avoid being noticed by others were finally able to raise their backs thanks to Baek Ayun’s confident words.

In particular, Han Jun-ho warmed up and smiled as if he was fortunate.

“Wow.. Blood..”

“Crazy.. How many people have died here..”

“Wow..”

They were shocked to see blood starting from the third floor of the main building stairs. The amount of blood splattered on the walls and floor was enormous.

“But.. There are no bodies..?”

“So.. There is no body. It’s full of blood..”

Yoo Sae-yeon and Kim Hyun-ah found the dead body in embarrassed voices. However, all that was visible was caked-on blood and unidentifiable gray dust.

“Could it be that everyone turned into zombies?”

Accordingly, Baek Ayun came up with a terrible hypothesis. At that time, Park Young-sik, who was following from the rear, shook his head.

“Probably, you used the skills of that guy named Won Min-sik.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well, I heard that the skill he has is dealing with spirit and flesh, and that you get something by handing over the body of the person you killed. I think that’s probably it. “I heard there were about 70, but I don’t think there’s any other reason why there aren’t any bodies.”

As Park Yeong-sik thought, the bodies in the main building had already been destroyed through spirit and body transactions.

“That’s what it was… “

Yoo Sae-yeon, who was not next to Do Su-han when he was interrogated, nodded her head to Park Young-sik’s explanation and went up. At that time, Baek Ah-yoon, using his sense of reason once again, stopped his companions.

“Hmm. “It wasn’t this building?”

“Huh? Then?”

“Probably… It looks like the building next door. I’m sorry, everyone, let’s go back down..”

They hurried down to the second floor and then went up to the roof of the annex.

And finally, I was able to find Kang In-ho, who was lying down in half exhaustion, and Lee Hee-jung, who was still asleep. Of course, Kang In-ho, who was already activating presence detection, had already noticed that the group was approaching.

“Uh. I’m here..”

“Oppa!!”

“Inho…!”

The group hurriedly ran towards Kang In-ho. Kang In-ho greeted them with a shy smile. Originally, I planned to go back before the sun rose, but after rescuing Lee Hee-jung, the sun came up while I was asleep.

“I had a hard time coming..”

“No.. My brother suffered the most..”

Baek Ah-yoon sat down, holding Dang In-ho’s hand, which was covered in wounds. Meanwhile, Yoo Sae-yeon realized that Kang In-ho was not in good condition, so she quickly took out her bottled water from her inventory, peeled some chocolate to replenish her sugar, and fed it to Kang In-ho.

“Ha.. I guess I can live now..”

“Inho oppa..”

Kim Hyun-ah received a towel from Yoo Sae-yeon and wiped Kang In-ho’s bloody face.

Meanwhile, Han Seung-hee shook Lee Hee-jung, who was lying next to Kang In-ho, to wake him up.

“Hey, wake up. Hey.”

Then Lee Hee-jung barely opened her eyes.

“Ugh..”

“Wake up. “You have to move.”

“Ugh…”

Looking at the two people of the same age, Han Jun-ho massaged the corners of his eyes. I felt like crying when I thought about the hardships these young people have to live in this unstable world.

However, Lee Hee-jung, who had just woken up, seemed to have something to say to Kang In-ho.

“Over there..”

“Huh?”

“Thank you…”

“What?”

“It’s just.. Somehow when I woke up.. I felt like the vague fear had disappeared.. It’s thanks to you.. Thank you for saving me..”

“Uh.. Really?”

“Yes.. I.. I’ll try to live a little longer, mister.”

“Okay.. Let’s live hard while we’re alive.”

“Yes.. Thank you..”

Looking at Lee Hee-jung, who bowed her head, Kang In-ho scratched the back of her head awkwardly. Lee Hee-jung calmed down a little. Perhaps it is because the fear that had vaguely shaken her has disappeared.

“Hey, what happened?”

“Huh? Ah, I’ll tell you everything later when I get home. Something really big happened..”

In response to Kim Hyun-ah’s question, Kang In-ho replied that she would answer later. If she starts telling the story one by one now, there will be no end to it, so she decided to tell me later.

“But… Brother… The people who were held here…”

“Maybe everyone is in the auditorium?”

“Aha.. Uh.. Are you going to go as you originally planned..?”

The initial plan was to free the people trapped in the auditorium and then abandon them and leave.

Park Young-sik asked Kang In-ho what his thoughts were still the same. He was planning on following Kang In-ho anyway, but he still thought he needed to know something for sure.

“Well.. I’m also worried. They say there are 30 people.. Should I leave them behind.. Or should I help them..”

“You’re helping me..? “Is there any way I can help you?”

“Uh.. That’s what I mean.”

Kang In-ho told his group about the skill he had acquired, ‘Gender Change’. With this, she said, she could nullify women’s pregnancies.

“Ah…”

“That.. Hmm..”

Kim Hyun-ah and Yoo Sae-yeon couldn’t say anything. If I wanted to throw them away, I felt very sorry for the future of those women, but if I wanted to take care of them all, I felt like it would be too difficult to handle all 30 women.

“We shouldn’t let our existence be discovered, right..?”

“Yes, sister. That’s best. It is advantageous for survival to remain undetected by other military units or other survivor groups as much as possible. So, if you want to take it, you have to take everything with you… If you want to throw it away, I think it would be better to just open the door and go straight on our way.”

“Hmm…”

“Hey… Bro…”

“Huh?”

“I… I think it would be better to recruit those who are willing, rather than having all of us come forward… With only a few people covering their faces.”

“Hopeful?”

“Yes.. We attach some conditions and only take a few people who say they will comply with the conditions.”

“Hmm..”

“I will agree with Inho’s decision. It may be irresponsible to say, but I think it is good to leave the decision to the leader of this team. Even if something goes wrong later, I won’t blame you or anything.”

Han Jun-ho took a step back. In response, Kim Hyun-ah and Yoo Sae-yeon apologized, saying they could not make a decision and handing over the choice to Kang In-ho.

“Hmm.. Ayun, what do you think?”

“To be honest, I think it’s better to just leave it alone. We can’t blindly accept those women when we don’t know if they will be helpful to us in the future or not. But..”

Is it because the mania has disappeared due to mental and physical stability? Baek Ayun was able to think once more.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea to take women with you if you’re in your right mind.”

“Okay.. Then let’s go to the auditorium first.. Actually there are about 30 people, but there could be fewer. “Let’s take a look at the situation.”

So they headed to the auditorium. The annex was to the left of the main building of the school, and the auditorium was to the right.

“Hmm…?”

And when they arrived in front of the auditorium, they were faced with seven women who had escaped on their own.

Their hands were covered in blood. Also, beyond the wide open door of the auditorium, the corpses of dead female zombies were full.

It seemed like they had been fighting their own battle all night.