Chapter 16
The hallway was completely silent.
Only a few hours had passed, yet it already looked like a ruin that had been abandoned for decades.
The walls and floor were dented, broken, or cracked by something. Red bloodstains were splattered everywhere nearby. A few corpses could even be seen between the exposed chunks of concrete.
It felt like I had walked onto a movie set.
That was how unreal everything seemed.
Despair had already begun to fill the eyes of the people staring down the hallway.
Maybe they had been holding onto the useless hope that things would be better out here.
“Looks like there’s nothing on this side.”
At the front, Han Siwoo and my brother looked to the left and right, checking their surroundings.
Once they seemed convinced that it was safe, they waved for us to follow.
Having them in front of us was incredibly reassuring, almost as if we had a pair of monster detectors walking around with us.
Still, there was no telling when or where another monster might appear.
Holding our breaths, we carefully moved forward, stepping only on the parts of the floor that were still relatively intact.
Maybe it was because we were being careful.
Or maybe there simply weren’t any monsters nearby.
Fortunately, we reached the stairs without encountering a single one.
“Was the rooftop of this building on the sixth floor?”
“Yes, hyung. This building only goes up to the sixth floor.”
“Then we’ve only got two floors left...”
Lee Dohyun, who was practically glued to my brother’s side, had sparkling eyes.
When did those two get so close?
Now that I thought about it, maybe I simply hadn’t noticed before.
The people who had seemed awkward around one another at first were definitely closer now.
Maybe surviving a dangerous situation together had given them some sense of camaraderie.
Just like what had happened between Lee Dohyun and me earlier.
Still, getting attached to other people in a situation like this wouldn’t do any good.
And no, I was absolutely not saying that because I didn’t have any friends.
“Maybe all the monsters ran away because they were scared of you, hyung?”
“Hey, everything else is fine, but can you do something about that annoying way you talk? There’s a senior here, and you’ve got a hyung too...”
My brother and Lee Dohyun were bickering as they stepped onto the final stair.
Then their voices suddenly stopped.
I felt an ominous chill and immediately stopped walking.
I raised a hand, signaling to the others behind me.
“W-What happened...?”
“Why did you stop?”
Han Siwoo, who had been watching the rear, shot up the stairs in an instant.
No matter how many times I saw movements that went far beyond what an ordinary human should be capable of, they still made my heart jump.
I rubbed my startled chest and stared upward instead of answering.
Han Siwoo followed my gaze.
“Wait here.”
Watching Han Siwoo hurry to the top of the stairs made my mouth go dry.
What the hell happened?
I didn’t have the courage to go up and check for myself.
My grip around the stair railing tightened from anxiety.
Everyone else could also tell that something was wrong. Their faces had gone pale as they silently watched one another.
A few seconds later, Han Siwoo’s voice came from above.
“It’s okay. Everyone can come up.”
His voice sounded completely normal.
My chest, which had been trembling with fear, gradually settled down.
The moment he said it was safe, I hurried up the stairs.
And then I sucked in a sharp breath.
W-What the hell is that...?!
Sitting right in the middle of one side of the hallway was a spider.
An absolutely enormous spider.
Han Siwoo had been standing there as if he were examining it.
When he noticed me, he gestured for me to come closer.
Has this bastard lost his mind?
I simply stood there with a stunned expression.
Han Siwoo quickly added,
“Ah, it’s fine. This thing is dead.”
“What?”
Still on full alert, I slowly approached it one step at a time.
The spider didn’t move at all.
“...It’s really dead?”
Rather than dead, it looked like it was sleeping.
I was still wondering what we would do if it was only pretending to be dead when Lee Dohyun confidently strode over and casually poked the spider several times.
“Looks pretty dead to me.”
...Holy crap.
I stared at him in disbelief at his reckless lack of hesitation.
Han Siwoo nodded with certainty.
“It’s definitely dead. I can’t sense any presence from it.”
“R-Really...?”
Still, the whole thing gave me a bad feeling, so I quietly moved away from the spider.
Right.
If it was dead, then that was a good thing.
I shouldn’t think about it any further.
I nodded to myself and looked toward the hallway leading to the rooftop.
The hallway lights were clearly shining brightly, but somehow that only made the place feel even more eerie.
Is this really going to be okay...?
So far, every sentence that had appeared in my mind had turned out to be true.
Don’t go to the rooftop.
I really didn’t like the sound of that.
If absolutely nothing was going to happen there, then a sentence like that would never have appeared in the first place.
Perhaps noticing my worry, Han Siwoo patted my shoulder encouragingly.
“Don’t worry too much. The rooftop is probably the safest place in this school right now.”
“...How can you be so sure?”
“There’s a monster corpse here. That means someone killed it and continued toward the rooftop. Someone strong enough to kill monsters must have gone up there.”
It was a reasonable theory.
There had to be plenty of people still inside this building.
And there was no way we were the only ones who had awakened.
“Right. We’ve already come this far. We can’t just turn back now.”
The other survivors would probably head for the rooftop too.
If that was the case, sticking together was our best chance of surviving.
“Good choice.”
Han Siwoo gave a small grin at my answer.
Maybe he had been worried I would suggest going back.
Honestly, if turning around were still an option, I would have done it immediately.
But...
It was already too late for that.
I slowly took a breath and tried to organize the situation in my head.
A completely silent hallway without a single monster.
A monster corpse lying on the path toward the rooftop.
