We didn’t know if they were chasing us or simply roaring out of frustration at losing their prey.

One thing was certain—we had to get out of here.

I slung both my backpack and Seol Yeo-won’s bag over my front and crouched down.

“Get on my back.”

Seol Yeo-won hesitated.

Frowning, I urged her, “Don’t be stubborn, just hurry up.”

Reluctantly, she climbed onto my back.

I didn’t think about whether she felt heavy or light. My mind was too preoccupied.

The sound of my pounding heart mixed with the echo of zombie footsteps filled my ears.

I shook my head sharply to dispel the growing fear and forced myself to focus.

We had made it to the basketball court—only a short distance remained to the student center.

Where is it? Where do I go from here?

But the darkness before me was impenetrable.

A world swallowed by mist and night offered no visibility at all.

In this lightless world, even objects a meter away were impossible to discern.

“Yeo-won, can you see the stairs ahead?”

She looked around nervously before swallowing hard.

“I can’t see anything either.”

“What about the foot volleyball court?”

“Oh, over there.”

She extended her right arm, pointing at a 45-degree angle ahead.

Following her direction, I moved quickly.

Gradually, the outlines of the foot volleyball court emerged, and beyond it, I could make out the small stone steps leading upwards.

We’re almost there.

Even without clear visibility, I knew the open area at the top of those steps.

It was the (old) student center parking lot.

Beyond that, a steep uphill path on the right led to the (new) student center—our final destination.

As I carried her, Seol Yeo-won scanned the area intently.

“To the left, near the parking lot. Zombies.”

“How many?”

“Nine.”

“How far?”

“About… 30 meters?”

“What about the hill on the right? Any zombies there?”

“There are two near the gazebo at the base of the hill.”

Lowering her from my back, I ran ahead toward the gazebo.

Krrr…

Though I couldn’t see anything, I could clearly hear the growls nearby.

It felt as though a tracker in my head was pinpointing their locations.

But I couldn’t gauge the exact distance. Without slowing, I sprinted toward the sounds.

Thud!

Using the bag strapped to my front, I body-slammed one of the zombies near the gazebo.

It fell backward, its neck striking the edge of a wooden bench, and began convulsing violently.

Leaning into the momentum, I rolled forward like a ball, heightening my senses.

Kahhak…!

A groan erupted from right beside me.

Without hesitation, I swung my steel pipe toward the sound. The impact crushed the zombie’s skull, the vibration traveling through my hands.

I struck the remaining zombie twice in quick succession before glancing back at where I had left Seol Yeo-won.

A figure was limping toward me—it looked just like a zombie.

We shouldn’t be moving at night.

In the dark, it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe.

Then came a familiar, strained voice between labored breaths.

“It… it’s me.”

I hurried to support Seol Yeo-won as we climbed the steep hill together.

The incline stretched 30 meters with a 40-degree gradient.

Her face twisted in pain, and she gritted her teeth as she forced herself upward.

But her strength was running out—she collapsed onto the ground, her arms trembling violently.

I moved to help her up, encouraging her.

“Just a little more. We’re almost there.”

She pushed away my hands, too drained to even accept support, and slumped to the ground.

Was she really about to give up here?

Contrary to my worries, though, Seol Yeo-won bit down hard on her lower lip and began crawling up the hill on all fours.

Even with my increased stamina stats, I was gasping for air—she must have been in far worse shape.

While scanning for any approaching zombies, I reached the top of the hill first, arriving at the (new) student center.

Seol Yeo-won, having crawled her way up, looked at me with half-lidded, dazed eyes.

“What floor is the clubroom on?”

“The fifth floor.”

“Damn it…”

A curse slipped from her lips.

The clubroom, located on the very top floor of the student center.

Lifting her up like a wet rag, I asked, “Want me to carry you again?”

“No… what if there are zombies inside?”

Kreeeeehhh!

Suddenly, the howls of zombies erupted from the direction of the (old) student center parking lot.

Had the zombies from the main building followed us all the way here?

The distant groans sent a chill through me.

I shoved open the (new) student center’s glass doors and pushed Seol Yeo-won inside.

Locking the door behind us, I turned to find her crawling up the stairs on all fours.

Rushing to her side, I pulled her upright, gritting my teeth as we climbed.

Along the way, I noticed bodies strewn across the stairwell.

Every single corpse had a punctured skull.

The sight filled me with certainty.

There were people here.

Someone capable of taking down zombies—likely my fellow Last Ark players.

We reached the fifth floor, where a barricade blocked our way.

Desks, chairs, and boxes were stacked high, creating a formidable barrier.

It wasn’t haphazardly built—its center of gravity was calculated to make it stable.

I shook the barricade hard, and a young, trembling voice called out from the other side.

“Stop! If you don’t want to die, stop shaking it!”

The voice was firm but youthful, quivering with nervousness.

And familiar.

I licked my dry lips and asked, “Hyeri? Is that you, Hyeri?”

“Huh?”

The girl sounded startled.

Yoon Hyeri.

A junior from my club.

Yoon Hyeri didn’t play Last Ark.

Her presence here could only mean one thing—my fellow club members had protected her.

Feeling a surge of hope, I said, “It’s me, Park Jae-hyung!”

“Jae-hyung oppa? Is it really you?”

I heard the sound of boxes being dragged away from the barricade.

A small gap opened beneath the desks, just large enough for someone to crawl through.

Yoon Hyeri poked her head through and peered at my face.

Her familiar features were unmistakable.

She really was Yoon Hyeri, the freshman from the club I served as vice president of.

---

“Jae-hyung oppa!”

“Save the greetings for later. Help this person first.”

Grunting, I pushed the exhausted Seol Yeo-won through the gap in the barricade, then crawled in after her.

As soon as we stepped inside the barricade, Yoon Hyeri quickly blocked the entrance and scanned Seol Yeo-won and me from head to toe.

“Did that woman get bitten?”

“No, she’s just exhausted.”

“I… I need to check for sure.”

“We’ll check once we’re inside.”

Dragging my weary body toward the clubroom, I suddenly heard the sound of a blade behind me.

The metallic noise tickled my ears, and when I turned around, Yoon Hyeri was glaring at me, holding a long spear.

Where did she even get that?

I swallowed nervously, caught off guard by her unexpected behavior. She furrowed her brows and spoke.

“I need to confirm it before letting you in.”

Was she suspicious of me?

After all the care I’d shown her back when I was a student?

The injustice stung, but I could also see this as a sort of necessary rite of passage. I decided to cooperate.

“How should I do it? Take off my clothes right here?”

“N-no, just… hold on a second.”

Flustered, Yoon Hyeri scurried into the clubroom and returned with a bottle of water.

If she was going to do this, why even bother grabbing a weapon?

Her precautions were laughably lax.

“For now, drink this… and wait over there in the Chum Sarang room.”

The fifth floor housed five clubrooms in total.

Among them was Sorigyeol, the acoustic guitar club I served as vice president of.

It was twice the size of the other rooms, roughly 25 pyeong (about 82 square meters), due to the instruments stored inside.

That’s where the survivors had set up their base.

Chum Sarang was another clubroom directly across from ours.

Apparently, they were using it as a quarantine area to confirm infection status before allowing entry to Sorigyeol.

Seol Yeo-won gulped down the water Hyeri handed her and wiped her mouth before asking,

“How many survivors are here?”

“Huh? Oh… why do you ask?”

“Am I not allowed to ask questions?”

When Seol Yeo-won frowned, Hyeri faltered, turning to me for help with a flustered expression.

What was I supposed to do?

Shrugging my shoulders, I let her handle it. Hyeri clicked her tongue and made a bitter face.

For now, I was just an unwelcome guest myself, so I had no intention of getting involved in their bickering.

With a wave of my hand, I introduced them briefly.

“This is Seol Yeo-won. We escaped together. Hyeri, she’s my club junior.”

Forced into the introduction, Hyeri gave Seol Yeo-won a reluctant nod.

Seol Yeo-won, still struggling to catch her breath, slumped her shoulders and inhaled heavily.

I turned to Hyeri and asked,

“Who helped you build that barricade?”

“Oh, I built it with Hyun oppa.”

“Hyun? Choi Hyun?”

As expected, my fellow club members were alive.

Hyeri nodded and started recounting what had happened over the past two weeks.

---

Two weeks ago, the group in the clubroom had spent the night telling ghost stories.

In total, there were 14 people, including Hyeri, Choi Hyun, Jeon Wan-soo, Lee Jung-woo, Jung Jin-young, and some other freshmen and upperclassmen.

Choi Hyun and Jeon Wan-soo were my classmates, both locals who had been childhood friends and stayed close through college.

Lee Jung-woo and Jung Jin-young were club seniors who had stayed behind to work on assignments.

It was common for club members to hang out, eat, sleep, and waste time in the clubroom, so the night was unfolding like any other.

Around 2 or 3 a.m., feeling peckish, they decided to order chicken.

“While waiting for the delivery, I looked out the window and saw… the mist was already there.”

Hyeri trailed off with a grim expression.

Patiently, I waited for her to continue.

The delivery driver, already infected by the virus in the mist, had attacked them without reason. Hyeri said the seniors and other members had tried to restrain him.

The rest of what happened was easy to imagine.

They must have faced something similar to what I’d experienced.

“What did you do about the delivery guy?”

“He fell during the struggle and broke his spine. But even then, he…”

“I asked what you did about him.”

Hyeri rambled incoherently, but then took a deep breath to steady herself.

“At first, we locked him in the bathroom and kept watch. But then we saw what was happening outside…”

Recalling the events, Hyeri frowned deeply and clutched her hands tightly, unable to finish her sentence.

It must have been a harrowing memory.

Looking her directly in the eye, I asked,

“Did you make sure to kill him? Anyone bitten?”

“Wan-soo oppa went into the bathroom to handle it and came out covered in blood. He wasn’t bitten, but his clothes were soaked through…”

Wan-soo, always the tough one, must have taken it upon himself to deal with the infected.

Relieved that no one had been bitten, I let out a small sigh.

As long as no one was bitten, they were safe.

Even players like me weren’t immune to infection if bitten by a zombie.

Hyeri, seemingly overwhelmed with everything she had been bottling up, began venting.

“Everyone was in a panic. The police didn’t come, 119 didn’t come… we didn’t know what to do.”

“Didn’t you try going down to the first floor?”

“About two days after the mist spread, we all tried to escape.”

Anyone without immunity to the mist would have turned into a zombie on the spot.

Cautiously, I asked, “You said there were 14 of you, right?”

“Yes.”

“How many of you turned?”

“Everyone except Wan-soo oppa, Hyun oppa, Jin-young oppa, and Jung-woo oppa.”

Wan-soo and Hyun likely survived because they were players. But Jung Jin-young and Lee Jung-woo?

Were they immune to the mist like Hyeri?

Hyeri’s face twisted in bitterness as she continued.

“A week after that, we started talking about escaping again.”

“Did you have enough weapons?”

“There’s a gym on the third floor and the Yesongak clubroom.”

Yesongak.

A club dedicated to traditional Korean martial arts.

Every year during club promotions, they’d perform martial arts demonstrations, dazzling the audience.

Their training weapons, while not sharp, would be incredibly useful in this kind of apocalypse.

Long spears and heavy practice swords would be excellent for keeping zombies at bay.

Was the spear in Hyeri’s hand from Yesongak?

She recalled the day they escaped.

“When we tried to leave, the people from Chum Sarang on the fifth floor and Yesongak on the third floor joined us.”

“So our club wasn’t the only one that survived.”

“Yes, but…”

Hyeri bit her lip and let her words trail off.

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