The black muzzle of the Glock 19 hovered an inch from the boy's forehead.
The air still reeked of gunpowder and the fresh copper of the scavenger leader's slit throat. The boy's eyes bulged, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot and bruises on his swollen cheeks. In Shi-hun's dead-black pupils he saw only his own reflection—nothing more than a number on a ledger.
Shi-hun's finger rested on the trigger, ready to trade one bullet for one clean +1 day.
But was it the best return?
His INT-15 mind ran the cold calculus in less than a heartbeat. In this broken world, law was ash, money was toilet paper. After lifespan and supplies, the next most valuable currency was information.
One bullet gave him one day.
If this boy knew the scavengers' main base, their stockpiles, their prisoner cages… his value jumped from one day to hundreds—maybe thousands.
Shi-hun lowered the pistol slowly. His gaze still pinned the boy like a butterfly to cork.
"They took you," he said, voice filtered and icy. "You know where their nest is."
The boy jerked as if electrocuted, nodding so hard his neck cracked. Teeth chattered. "Y-yes… I know. They keep people there… food… weapons… they have everything…"
A thin, crooked smile formed beneath Shi-hun's mask—the smile of a man who had just discovered his investment was about to multiply.
"Good." He holstered the Glock. "You just bought yourself one more day of breathing. Stand up. You're guiding me there."
The boy swallowed hard. He did not dare ask whether this masked man was going to rescue anyone or simply bring hell with him. Instinct screamed the second.
***
Shi-hun turned his back on the trembling boy and walked through the ash toward the burning wreck of the armored truck.
The scavengers' corpses were no longer people to him. They were loot boxes waiting to be opened.
He crouched beside the bald man's body. The blood-smeared AR-15 lay beside a stiff hand. Shi-hun touched the cold metal.
Disassemble.
The rifle shuddered, then burst into swirling blue-and-gold pixels that streamed through his palm and vanished into the system.
[Catalog updated: AR-15 Assault Rifle (5.56mm)] [Price: 15 days / unit]
He smiled. Next, the charred corpse wearing the motorcycle helmet. Finger on the pump-action shotgun.
Disassemble.
[Catalog updated: 12-Gauge Pump-Action Shotgun] [Price: 10 days / unit]
Machetes, spare magazines, dust masks, scrap-metal armor—everything dissolved into data the moment he touched it.
Finally he stopped in front of his true prize: the mangled DShK 12.7mm heavy machine gun that had been ripped from the truck bed.
The barrel was bent, the feed mechanism shattered. To any normal survivor it was scrap. To the owner of the God's Shop it was raw material.
Shi-hun placed his palm on the still-hot steel.
[Item detected: DShK 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun (heavily damaged)]
[Repair data structure before disassembly? Additional cost: 5 days]
"Confirm."
Golden light flared around the wreckage. Twisted metal straightened inside the digital realm, then the entire mounted gun dissolved into pixels and poured into him.
[Catalog updated: DShK 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun (with mount)] [Price: 80 days / unit]
[Catalog updated: 12.7mm Armor-Piercing Ammunition Belt] [Price: 5 days / belt]
Shi-hun exhaled slowly through the mask. The feeling of power flooding his chest was sweeter than any drug. He no longer carried a pistol. Inside his mind now sat an entire mobile armory—he could summon a .50-cal machine gun from thin air whenever he wished.
He gave the burning truck one last glance, then turned and walked back into the ruined clinic, leaving the boy huddled outside.
***
Inside the bullet-riddled clinic, Yu-jin stirred. A weak groan slipped from dry lips. Her eyelids fluttered open with effort.
The last thing she remembered was the chimera crushing her ribs and the roar of flames. Now she lay on a stainless-steel table in a strange room, orange evening light slanting through shattered windows.
"Don't move yet."
The low, cold voice came from the shadows. Yu-jin flinched and turned. Shi-hun sat on a plastic chair that had somehow survived the gunfire. He still wore the blood-stained hoodie and half-face gas mask. In his hands were a plastic syringe and a roll of clean bandages.
Yu-jin's eyes swept the room. Walls pocked with fist-sized bullet holes. Brick dust and glass everywhere. Through a crack in the wall she saw the burning truck, charred corpses… and the man whose throat had been opened so neatly that blood still pooled on the street.
"Did… you do that?" she whispered, voice shaking. "They were people."
"They were trash that walked to their own execution," Shi-hun answered flatly, as if discussing the weather. He approached the table. "If I hadn't, the corpses out there would have been ours."
Yu-jin swallowed. She knew killing to survive was normal now. What made her skin crawl was not the bodies—it was Shi-hun's complete lack of remorse. His eyes were empty, cold, and carried a quiet, disturbing satisfaction.
He ignored her wary stare. He opened the System Shop, purchased morphine (1 day) and biological wound sealant spray (2 days) straight from the air.
Yu-jin's eyes widened as the items materialized in his hand. "How… how do you do that? You don't even need to touch anything anymore?"
"System upgrade," he replied curtly. "Stay still. Your ribs are fractured. If we don't treat them they'll puncture your lung."
He injected morphine into her arm. The crushing pain in her chest eased within seconds. Then he lifted her shirt, sprayed the violet bruises, and the cold mist hissed as it knit damaged tissue from the inside. Finally he wrapped fresh bandages tightly around her torso to stabilize the bones.
His movements were fast, precise, and completely impersonal—like a field medic repairing equipment.
Yu-jin stared at the masked face. In that moment she understood: her life now belonged to him entirely. He had saved her, healed her, kept her alive. But none of it was kindness. She was an asset he was maintaining for future use.
She was traveling with something far more terrifying than any zombie.
***
Fifteen minutes later Shi-hun tossed a plastic water bottle (0.5 days) to the boy waiting outside.
The boy caught it with shaking hands and drank like a man dying of thirst. The clean water did nothing to wash away the terror in his eyes.
Yu-jin limped out of the clinic leaning on her metal pipe. The spray and morphine let her walk on her own. She glanced once at the headless corpse of the scavenger leader, then quickly looked away, sickened.
Shi-hun stood in the middle of the ash-covered street, back straight, blood- and soot-stained hoodie fluttering. He no longer looked back at the university tomb. His gaze was fixed on the ruined skyline of Seoul.
"Stand," he ordered the boy. The voice carried absolute command.
The boy sprang up like a conscript hearing an officer.
"We move," Shi-hun declared. He glanced at Yu-jin, who nodded obediently, then turned back to the boy. "Take us to their base. To where they keep their food, their weapons, and their people."
"Th-three kilometers west… an old department store…" the boy stammered, pointing with a trembling finger.
A thin smile curved beneath Shi-hun's mask. He adjusted the now-empty backpack strap—everything he owned was already stored inside his mind.
He was not marching to save the world. He was not going to free slaves or play hero. He was going to conquer. He would turn that scavenger nest into his kingdom and every life inside it into raw resources for the God's Shop.
"Lead the way," he said quietly. "And if you take me down a dead end… I will use your corpse to fill it."
The boy swallowed hard, turned, and began walking across the black ash road—toward the end of the scavengers and the birth of a new king.