Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can - Chapter 2.1
It had been at 5 percent before I had even met him, so why was a penalty only occurring now, when it was in the 10 percent range?
“We were assigned to different middle schools. What am I supposed to do….”
Kim Jihwan and I had been assigned to different middle schools.
We were in an environment where it was difficult to be together, so how was I supposed to stay with him?
“It really just does whatever it wants.”
The system was so unhelpful that I even found it infuriating.
I was curious about the penalty, and eight hours seemed like plenty of time to visit him after school, so I casually swiped the status window shut.
If it was going to give me penalties, it should have given me rewards too. Why was it suddenly acting up after staying quiet all this time?
And so, I completely forgot about the timer. Distracted by my new surroundings and friends, I helplessly let the time slip away.
00:09:48
I was at a karaoke room with some new friends after school, acting silly with tambourines hooked over both arms, when a warning window flew into view.
The warning window ruined the mood, so a needless sense of defiance rose within me. I ignored it and turned around to walk back toward my friends, but-.
The world setting has collapsed. You will be transferred to another world setting.
The warning window, which had always been blue until now, turned bright red and abruptly appeared in front of me.
Selection of the world setting for transfer shall now commence.
A colorful roulette wheel covered in incomprehensible words spun rapidly before gradually settling into place, and it finally landed on a single keyword.
“Huh? That’s….”
“Aaaaaagh!”
At that moment, an ear-splitting scream came from outside the karaoke room.
The kids all stopped singing at once and stared at the translucent door, and I swallowed hard enough for my adam’s apple to bob.
“What was that? Was there an accident outside?”
“Should we go look?”
“Let’s hurry!”
The kids were startled only briefly before their eyes began gleaming with curiosity, and they approached the door.
Standing behind them, I checked the remaining time on the timer.
Splatter!
At that moment, blood sprayed across the karaoke room’s translucent glass door.
The inside of the room froze solid. The air turned so cold that everyone even forgot to scream.
Clatter! Thud! Screeeeech!
One of the kids lost strength in his hand and dropped the microphone. A deafening noise tore through the speakers. It soon drew their attention.
The grotesquely twisted silhouette of a person appeared outside the door.
And then,
Bang! Bang!
It began slamming against the door as if it were trying to break it down.
“Ah, AAAGH!”
“What the hell is that!”
“Hey! Open the door, fucker! Let’s fight, you son of a bitch!”
One of the excited kids shouted at the top of his lungs.
My lips twitched at the sound.
“…No, don’t open it.”
I finally managed to speak.
Because that thing…
…wasn’t human.
I experienced death over and over again inside that cramped karaoke room.
The first time, we failed to stop the zombies from barging in, and I was helplessly bitten to death.
Would you like to restart?
Yes / No
The second time, I was badly injured by shards of broken glass and died from excessive blood loss.
Would you like to restart?
Yes / No
The third time, I lost my footing and fell to my death while trying to escape through a window.
Would you like to restart?
Yes / No
The fourth time, a zombie caught me while I was helping an injured friend.
Would you like to restart?
Yes / No
.
.
.
Would you like to restart?
Yes / No
After experiencing death twenty or perhaps thirty times, I stared blankly at the status window.
Because each attempt had been so short and I had frantically pressed ‘Yes’ without thinking in my agitated state, I had no idea when I had lost count.
I wanted to press ‘No’ more desperately than ever before.
“…First, the karaoke room was always overrun by zombies within two minutes of the scream.”
I muttered to myself without expression.
If I didn’t say something, anything, I wouldn’t be able to tear my eyes away from the ‘me’ from the previous round, whose corpse lay frozen at my feet in the middle of being devoured by zombies.
“Why did the zombies storm in when there was still time left? Wasn’t the penalty supposed to be the world-setting transfer?”
In my translucent ghostly state, I floated through the surroundings, which had stopped as if someone had pressed pause on a video.
Distorted expressions and blood everywhere. Personal belongings scattered chaotically across the floor. They seemed to convey the violent turmoil that had unfolded in such a short span of time.
It was the same outside the building. The sight of survivors and zombies tangled together was horrific. As I looked around, I eventually reached a bus stop. I tried to expand my range of movement a little farther….
“?”
The area within a radius of about two hundred meters around the karaoke room was clearly in chaos because of the zombie outbreak, yet once I moved slightly beyond it, there were no zombies at all, and everyone was going about their ordinary lives.
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