Chapter 9

The passage led into a square stone chamber enclosed by stone walls, with corridors branching off in all directions.

“Hmm…”

The man recalled the basics of maze navigation. If there are multiple paths, you can find your way by keeping one hand on a wall and continuously moving, even in complex structures, without getting lost. This method is usually called the left-hand rule, as you keep your left hand on the wall. However, this method requires one crucial precondition: you must remember every route you’ve already taken.

Those who design mazes aren’t fools. They know people will try the left-hand rule, so why wouldn’t they prepare ways to counteract it? Just in case, the man used the soot from his torch to make simple marks on the floor and walls. Then, he opened his phone and began sketching a rough map of the path he had taken. If this were a typical game, a minimap would be generated automatically, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, so he decided to create a manual one.

The man first entered the left fork in the path. Again, a long corridor stretched before him. Putting his phone away, he slowly advanced, his senses on high alert. Just as the forest had beasts and obstacles, there was a possibility of traps here, so he needed to be as careful as possible.

And sure enough.

The moment he cautiously stepped forward, a stone slab on the floor clunked down like a switch. Startled, he quickly recoiled…

With a grinding sound, a section of the corridor wall slid open, and something stepped out.

“…”

Discolored black skin and tattered clothes. The moment he saw it shambling slowly out, the man immediately thought of the word zombie.

“Hmm…”

Though they were decaying corpses, they still had human forms, and while he hesitated, unsure what to do, the zombies emerged from their hiding place into the corridor. Soon, they spotted the man and let out grotesque roars as they approached. Even if they were agonizingly slow, the way the corpses lurched and flailed their arms had a strangely imposing presence.

“Hoo…”

The man exhaled lightly, then held his breath, envisioning a two-strike combo as he swung his wooden spear toward the nearest zombie. His spear, wielded like a club, struck the zombie’s head directly. He would have been grateful if it had even flinched, but what was this? At the moment the second attack landed, the zombie’s head shattered like a watermelon.

Thud.

The headless zombie fell like a rotten tree, scattering foul-smelling bodily fluids in all directions. The man froze at the sight. The horrible sensation that had traveled through the spear to his fingertips the moment the zombie’s head burst!

But even as he stood frozen, the zombies continued to lunge at him, flailing their arms.

-Gooaaah…

Only when he heard the shriek from a zombie with long, shaggy hair, presumably a female, did the man snap back to reality. The sensation through his fingertips and the stench filling his nose were utterly disgusting, but he couldn’t retreat. The man bit his lip and brought his wooden spear down on the long-haired zombie.

But what was this?

The zombie subtly tilted its head, dodging the attack, and the spear, missing its target, struck the zombie’s shoulder. There was a sudden crack as the zombie’s collarbone broke. But just as the man tried to retrieve his spear, the zombie gripped the spear that had broken its shoulder bone with its other hand.

“Huh!”

The man couldn’t help but be flustered, having never expected a zombie to grab his spear. He urgently tried to pull the spear back, but… the zombie didn’t resist the force; instead, it charged directly at the man.

-Grr!

As the zombie rushed forward, revealing yellowed teeth, the man, terrified, let go of the spear. Reflexively, he shoved the torch he held in his other hand into the zombie’s mouth. Immediately, the corridor was plunged into darkness. The torch had broken through the zombie’s teeth and accurately pierced its head, but in doing so, its flame had been extinguished.

“Damn it!”

The man panicked as his vision suddenly darkened. He quickly tried to return to the illuminated intersection where he had started, but as the surroundings grew dark, the zombies seemed to find their element, rushing toward the man with increased speed.

“Damn it!” the man urgently cried. “Open Crimson Wolf!”

A small pillar of light shot up before the man, and from within it emerged a red-furred wolf. The man shouted at the wolf, “Stop them!”

Hearing the man’s cry, the wolf shot through the air like lightning, pouncing on the zombies chasing the man. However, a single wolf was incapable of stopping all the pursuing zombies from the outset. Ultimately, the man was caught by the following zombies after only a few more steps. Though the wolf thrashed about, biting at the zombies’ necks, two zombies still managed to catch up to the man.

“Gah!”

Feeling a zombie’s hand grasp his shoulder, the man immediately turned around and envisioned a two-strike combo, punching the zombie’s head. But unlike when he struck with the spear, the zombie only staggered despite taking a direct hit between the eyes; it didn’t fall. The moment the first zombie staggered, the one following behind lowered its stance and lunged at the man as if to tackle him.

But the man had already anticipated the zombie’s movements.

“Die!”

With a single shout, he launched a full-force soccer kick, feeling something heavy connect with his foot.

Thwack!

The zombie, in its charging posture, flipped over in mid-air and tumbled past the man onto the floor. Whether its head had been crushed by the soccer kick or its neck had broken when it fell, it was impossible to tell, but that zombie no longer moved.

However, the man’s crisis was not yet over. The zombie that had been punched in the head now flailed its arms and charged again. The impact was one thing, but what about the fear inducement? It had a 75% chance, so why wasn’t it triggering?! The man yelled internally, but unfortunately, undead creatures like zombies had immunity to fear inducement effects. You needed to have reason to feel fear, didn’t you?

“Alright. It’s all or nothing!” The man clenched his fist and activated his two-strike combo again. Perhaps it was due to regaining his composure, or perhaps the accumulated impact from the previous two-strike combo. The exact reason was unknown, but the man’s outstretched fist crushed the zombie’s philtrum.

And then, the follow-up attack! An uppercut, rising from below, struck the zombie’s jaw directly. The fist continued upward unimpeded, shattering the zombie’s jaw and completely obliterating its head.

“…”

The man was dumbfounded again, even by his own actions. And why wouldn’t he be? Even if it was rotten, a zombie was still a human corpse. This meant the man had crushed a human head with bare-fisted punches alone, so how could he not be shocked?

However, this was actually quite natural. The man didn’t realize it, but this dungeon was fundamentally designed for characters around levels 3-4. But the man had reached level 8, twice that, by continuously clearing various hidden quests. Furthermore, it wasn’t just about his level. The man possessed two combo cards that would normally be impossible to obtain in the tutorial without incredible luck. Moreover, the combo card the man was currently using was Berserker, which granted a whopping 100% additional attack power. If a zombie’s head, placed to challenge levels 3-4, could withstand a full-power punch, wouldn’t that be stranger?

As the two grotesque zombies weakly collapsed from his kicks and punches, the man briefly shuddered at the terrible sensation that traveled through his hands and feet. But that was only for a moment. After taking a deep breath to calm himself, the man looked at his fists, now covered in zombie fluids, and steeled his weakening resolve.

“Hyaaah!”

Recalling the Taekwondo he had briefly learned as a child, the man tightened his abdomen, let out a shout of encouragement, and then rushed toward the remaining zombies that the wolf was holding back.

“Urryaaahh!”

Maintaining his rushing speed, he launched himself into the air and delivered a roundhouse kick to a zombie’s head. The zombie reached out its hand toward the man’s incoming foot, but with a sickening crunch, its arm bone broke, and it took the kick directly to the head. The zombie couldn’t withstand the impact of the kick and collapsed into a corner, but the man mercilessly approached the fallen zombie and delivered a soccer kick to its head.

Thwack!

The zombie’s head separated from its body and flew into the air, and the headless body slumped powerlessly. The man regained his stance and was about to turn around. But just then, another zombie approached from behind the man, wrapped its arms around him, and bit into his shoulder.

“Aargh! You damn bastard!”

The man immediately threw himself backward, pushing the zombie clinging to his back against the wall, then violently yanked down the arm wrapped around him.

Crunch!

Unable to withstand the force, the zombie’s arm tore away from its body. Once freed, the man grabbed the zombie by the scruff of its neck, the one still biting his shoulder, and furiously rained punches down on its head.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

A series of sounds like a hammer striking something echoed, and then the zombie’s head, no longer able to withstand the impact, was crushed with a sickening squelch.

“Hah… hah…”

The man clutched his bitten shoulder. Could it be… was he going to turn into a zombie like in the movies? But the moment he turned his head to look at the wound, he realized something strange. White smoke seemed to be emanating from the wound. At first, he thought he had seen something wrong in the dark, but the next moment, he understood the meaning of the phenomenon.

It was the effect of the Blood-Soaked (R) card’s increased regeneration rate. He had thought a mere 10% would be insignificant… but it seemed it wasn’t so insignificant after all.

“…”

The man wiped the rotten zombie fluid from his face with his hand and grinned. Then, he approached the remaining three zombies that the wolf was fighting. One of the zombies noticed the man approaching and charged, flailing its single arm, but the man moved to its armless side and landed another two-strike combo on its face. Then, grabbing the neck of the staggering zombie, he slammed its face against the wall.

Crack!

A sound of a face collapsing was heard, but the man didn’t stop his hands and slammed the zombie’s head against the wall again. This time, unable to withstand the impact, the zombie’s neck broke with a snapping sound.

As the man dispatched one zombie, the wolf, now somewhat freer, launched its massive body and bit the neck of one of the remaining zombies. Successfully biting its neck, the wolf lifted its body into the air and furiously spun, just like the wolf that had bitten the saber-toothed tiger’s backside before. Under the full weight of the wolf’s attack, the zombie’s neck was effortlessly severed.

And the last zombie, crawling on one leg, having lost the other to the wolf’s teeth, had its head crushed by the man’s powerful stomp.

Do you want to know more about the “two-strike combo” or the “Blood-Soaked (R) card”?