Chapter 2: All you Can eat
The yacht drifted dead in the water.
Jin-woo didn't bother starting the engine.
His eyes fixed on the city ahead.
Seoul never slept, but tonight it looked sick, half lights were out, siren wailed non-stop.
Black smoke rose from three different districts.
Black requiem plague, day four since, patient zero.
He jumped off the yacht when it was still a hundred meters from shore.
Water only reached his waist. He walked the rest like the sea owed him money.
The beach was empty except from bodies. Twenty, maybe thirty people lay scattered on the sand. Some in pajamas, some still clutching luggages. All had black veins crawling up their necks like poison ivy.
They had died running towards the water hoping the cold could save them from the fever.
It didn't.
Above every corpse floated a grief orb, most were small and dull, the size of plums, colour of old bruises.
Weak despair, weak meals.
Jin-woo walked past them without slowing, he was hunting for something richer.
Near the pier he found it.
A woman in a torn wedding dress knelt in the sand, cradling a dead boy no older than six.
White lace soaked red and black. Her veil stuck to her face with tears and blood.
The kid's tiny fingers were still locked around her wrist.
She was alive, barely.
Black veins had reached her eyes. Maybe some minutes left.
She looked up when his shadow covered her.
"Help… my son… hospital… please…"
Voice raw, already half scream.
Jin-woo crouched in front of her.
Not to comfort.
He studied her face. Terror, guilt, love, regret. Every flavour mixed perfectly.
"Too late for him," he said, almost soft.
"But you still have time to feel everything before you join him."
Her eyes widened.
She understood.
The scream that came out of her wasn't human anymore.
She flew at him, nails first, trying to rip his eyes, his throat, anything.
He didn't block.
He just let her scratch and punch claw until her strength ran out and she collapsed sobbing over the boy again.
Jin-woo placed one palm on top of her head.
Gentle, like a blessing.
Thirty-two seconds later her heart stopped.
The Grief that rose from her chest was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Bigger than both his fists together, perfect sphere, deep violet with thick crimson veins pulsing inside like living lightning.
It smelled like wedding flowers left to rot in blood.
He lifted it to his mouth and bit.
Flavour exploded. Iron, vanilla cake, church bells, a mother's last heartbeat.
He dropped to his knees in the sand, groaning, back arching.
Crimson letters blazed brighter than the moon.
Grief Consumed – Quality: SSS
Skill Acquired: Pain Nullification – Rank S
All Stats +41%
Curse Stack 6/100 → 29/100
Unique Fragment: Mother's Oath – Passive regeneration surges when protecting something you decide is "important"
Gunshot wounds from the yacht finished sealing.
Skin tightened, muscles hardened. Black veins flashed under his forearms for a second, then vanished.
The screaming choir inside his head sang louder.
He welcomed it.
Thirty smaller orbs still drifted above the other beach corpses.
He walked the sand like a farmer at harvest, crushing them one by one, swallowing some whole, biting others in half just to taste the difference.
By the time he reached the road his Curse Stacks sat at 51/100 and his body felt weightless.
A military barricade blocked the street.
Two trucks, twenty soldiers in yellow hazmat suits, rifles up.
"STOP! Quarantine zone! Hands in the air!"
Jin-woo kept walking.
First warning shot kicked sand at his feet.
He smiled the same smile he gave the traitors in the yacht.
Second burst of full-auto fire came.
Every bullet froze three centimetres from his skin, wrapped in black-purple mist, then fell to the ground like dead bugs.
Soldiers started screaming.
He reached the nearest truck in four steps, ripped the door off its hinges, dragged the driver out by the throat.
The man's boots kicked uselessly two feet above the ground.
"Tell your commander," Jin-woo whispered, eyes glowing bright crimson,
"the plague isn't the worst thing walking tonight."
He crushed the windpipe.
Fresh Grief orbs began blooming above the dying soldiers like dark fireworks.
Jin-woo opened his mouth and started eating again.
Ten minutes later the barricade was quiet.
Fifty-one new orbs floated in a lazy cloud around him.
He swallowed them all without chewing, like pills.
Curse Stacks: 102/300 – Stage 1 Evolution triggered
Skin split along his arms, black mist pouring out, then resealed even stronger.
His shadow on the ground grew teeth.
He looked past the burning trucks toward the city.
A giant floodlit stadium rose in the distance.
Makeshift quarantine camp.
Loudspeakers still begging people to come for "treatment".
Ten thousand infected inside.
Seven-day countdown ticking.
All-you-can-eat buffet.
Jin-woo cracked his neck, took one step, and the asphalt under his foot cracked in a perfect circle.
He whispered to the night.
"Save some screams for me."
Then he started walking toward the stadium lights.
Behind him, the beach was empty of orbs.
Only corpses and spent bullets remained.