Chapter 578
* * *
At that moment, at Nice Production.
“Ah, fuck....”
Nothing had gone right since January 1. The moment 〈Seoul Metropolitan City〉 was released, they immediately checked the final episode and spread spoilers without even marking them in the title.
“What kind of firepower is this...?”
But only a handful of people actually saw the post. Because after they went to watch episode one, Seomun Ihwa grabbed them by the collar and dragged them straight into episode two.
In other words, nobody had time to browse internet posts while watching 〈Seoul Metropolitan City〉.
[DramaMovieActor TALK / Wow, Seoul Metropolitan City is seriously insane. I went to sleep and woke up, and the speed of new posts is crazy.]
You guys are still watching?
-Anonymous 1: I've been following the discussion thread while watching, screaming, smacking my head, then repeating LMAOOO
↳ Original Poster: Aren't you sleepy? T_T LMAO Have you gone crazy?
↳ Anonymous 1: You'll understand once you watch. You literally can't sleep.
-Anonymous 4: Feels like the biggest thing since .
[DramaMovieActor TALK / I succeeded with my miracle morning... but I feel left out...]
Everyone but me looks like they're having fun...
-Anonymous 1: Watch Seoul Metropolitan City.
↳ Original Poster: I can't watch scary stuff...
↳ Anonymous 1: Then don't complain about feeling left out.
↳ Original Poster: But I still wanna join in...
↳ Anonymous 1: Then watch Seoul Metropolitan City.
↳ Original Poster: I hate gruesome stuff...
No matter how many ending spoiler posts they wrote, everyone on the drama boards was already spoiling things, so the posts disappeared instantly.
According to current law, repeatedly posting spoilers could get them punished later.
“I just need a couple posts to gain traction!”
But those couple of posts generated far, far less impact than expected.
Even people who had already seen the ending, after learning it was a loop story, reacted by deciding to start from episode one just to understand how things could possibly end that way.
Now, how 〈Seoul Metropolitan City〉 ended no longer mattered.
What mattered was that people could say, “I watched it too.”
“We’re screwed.”
The situation was truly screwed.
Spoilers had no power.
The strength of a genuinely entertaining work had surpassed such threats.
It was the beginning of a trend.
And Nice Production, one of the top PR companies that had survived in the industry for years, understood immediately.
〈Seoul Metropolitan City〉 would become a phenomenon.
* * *
“W-We survived...!”
Another nurse joined them from the VIP ward on the fourteenth floor. She was someone Yoo Yeonji had found and rescued.
“Oh no. What happened downstairs?”
“Shh. Talk later.”
Right now, the most important people were the firefighter pilot they absolutely needed for escape.
And Hyeonmok, who was both sick and young.
People surrounded the two from front and back to protect them from infected attacks. The half-out-of-her-mind VIP ward nurse quietly slipped herself into the center.
“Lady, read the room before squeezing in.”
“A-Ah... I-I'm sorry....”
The security team man whose face was still swollen from being slapped by Myeong Jeha earlier glared murderously at her.
After sacrificing another phone for each floor they climbed, they took a breath and began another discussion.
“There are seven floors left until the twenty-first floor... how many phones are left?”
Yoo Yeonji shook her head.
“I used all mine when I went to get medicine. Zero.”
“My phone got thrown into the auditorium by that guy, so I have zero too.”
“I used mine on the floor below.”
“Me too...”
Unease spread.
“What about you?”
“I used mine when I escaped earlier... so I don't have one...”
The VIP ward nurse was empty-handed too.
The security chief, the pilot, one soldier, and the two-star general.
Only four phones remained.
“Didn't security have something?”
“Ah, these are walkie-talkies... if we want to lure them away, there has to be loud noise somewhere else. We can't just leave one behind and run.”
“Hah. That's awkward.”
Myeong Jeha sighed.
They needed to make noise and escape, but that wasn't possible. The walkie-talkies were practically useless.
“So mathematically, we have to break through three floors directly?”
“There should be fewer infected upstairs.”
Resident Kang Hyeonwoo, carrying Hyeonmok on his back, spoke.
“Why?”
“There weren't many people to bite up there in the first place.... The hospital director occupies an entire floor alone, and the floor below only has a handful of people, including the Planning and Coordination Director's office. The problem is the seventeenth floor. It'll probably be the most dangerous.”
The two nurses sighed.
“True...”
“That's where the most people will be.”
“Why? What's there?”
The staff cafeteria.
The ruined cafeteria came into view.
Everyone had already been infected.
Pots bubbled atop the gas stoves.
The flames were still on.
The sound of leaking gas could be heard.
-Ahhhhhh
-Another explosion's gonna happen TT__TT
-Are half of them dying here?
-Somebody's definitely gonna go again.
-This is seriously terrifying.
The sounds from the phones on the lower floors, controlled remotely by the watches, had all stopped. They had moved too far away.
The infected gathered around them began slowly dispersing.
The direction framed their movements like spreading cancer cells.
The camera moved underground.
Starting from the pharmacy department on basement level one, which connected all the buildings—
First floor lobby.
Second floor.
Third floor.
Fourth floor...
And then—
Suddenly, the eighth floor.
-???
-Holy shit
-What is it?
-TT__TT
Back when Myeong Jeha had gathered all the infected with his phone—
“Hurry and go up....”
Some people had escaped.
A sense of dread began to spread among viewers.
Thanks to the many episodes Tak Jeongyun had shown them, everyone could vividly imagine what kind of misfortune was coming.
-The helicopter seats are definitely gonna turn into a fight.
-The two-star soldiers on the eighth floor are gonna be pissed they escaped by themselves.
-How many people can a medical helicopter even carry? TT_TT Kangil, Jihwa, and Yeonji are gonna get left behind.
-There are too many survivors. Damn.
-The gangsters + survivors + original group... there are three groups now. Something huge is definitely gonna happen.
-Please save our baby Jihwa.
* * *
“Going straight through the seventeenth floor is dangerous. There'll probably be more people than when we came up.”
Resident Kang Hyeonwoo voiced his opinion.
“I don't know how far it's connected, but how about moving upward through the ventilation ducts?”
The soldier objected immediately.
“What if people who tried escaping early are up there? What if they got infected and everything above is already ruined?”
“Exactly! Then only the person in front and the one at the back get screwed. We've been suffering this whole time already.”
Moving an entire group while risking their lives was never easy.
Especially when it meant dying for people you'd only met today.
They had already lost one soldier and two security guards during the climb.
“But the child's condition is too...”
Resident Kang Hyeonwoo checked Hyeonmok.
The tension, stress, and fear had made the boy's condition terrible.
The security team snapped at Kang Hyeonwoo.
“Are you gonna take the lead then? Huh?”
Just as the group was about to split apart again—
“...I-I'll do it....”
A resolute voice.
But one that couldn't hide its fear.
Unable to conceal the trembling at the end of her words, Yoo Yeonji spoke.
-TT__TT Yeonji...
-Holy shit.
-I'll fucking kill that bastard.
-TT__TT
“Really? Then the one at the back...”
The sneering soldier pointed at someone.
“You do it, old man.”
It was Hyeonmok's father.
“D-dad...”
...
His face went pale.
The boy burst into tears.
“Is crying all that brat knows how to do?”
“You wanna get hit again?”
...
Myeong Jeha stopped the man with a single sentence.
But he couldn't volunteer for the rear.
Because he had a younger sibling around that age too.
Hyeonmok shook his head while sobbing.
“We'll just go up.... I'm sorry.... I-I don't hurt at all....”
-TT__TT
-Fuck, I'm going insane.
-Damn...
-Can't they just shove those bastards down the stairs...
But unexpectedly, someone else spoke.
“I suggested it, so I'll do it.”
A strangely calm attitude.
“The rear.”
Resident Kang Hyeonwoo had the same eyes Tak Jeongyun had earlier.
The eyes of someone who devoted their life every day to saving others.
The eyes of a man who worked in a hospital.
-Ah, fuck, that's so cool.
-TT____TT
-Holy shit.
-Wow.
-This character is so well written...
-I'm shaking TT_TT
They sacrificed another phone.
They successfully entered a bathroom.
Everyone crawled forward through the narrow darkness.
* * *
The scene returned to the tenth floor.
The people who escaped from the eighth floor were climbing upward.
Carefully ascending a ladder, someone whose hands were drenched in sweat slipped.
“Kyah!”
The person below them, and the one beneath that person, slipped too.
The vent cover crashed downward.
Bang.
Along with the noise—
“Kyaaaaah!”
One person got bitten.
Another hurried to climb upward.
Another managed to get up, but—
“Let go! Let go!”
The problem was that one person's upper body had barely made it through, while something was tearing apart their ankle.
“Ah! Get out! Get out!”
The one who had managed to climb up tried to kick away the person sacrificing their legs.
But the other side was equally desperate.
The pain in their legs only made them want to live more.
Their arms clung fiercely, refusing to let go.
“Bring the ladder down! F-First, let's go back—”
Someone shouted.
But—
“Grrr...”
It was already too late.
Despair-filled music began to play.
The survivors lined up vertically were bitten one after another.
The person behind bit the one in front.
Like a human centipede linked tail to tail.
-O Seonyul's direction is insane.
-Goosebumps. Holy shit.
-Ahhhh I can't watch things like this TT_TT
-Please.
-Have they gone crazy?
The passage containing the vents became completely filled with infected.
And the others were already inside the ventilation ducts.
* * *
“Ah, don't step on me...”
“I can't see, what do you want me to do?”
Yoo Yeonji, at the very front, held a phone in her mouth and illuminated the way ahead with its flashlight.
Everyone followed behind.
Hyeonmok, covered in cold sweat, kept falling behind, making the VIP ward nurse behind him frown.
The cramped space was suffocating just to look at.
Watching everyone crawl in a single line, people in the discussion thread prayed desperately.
-Crawl faster, seriously! It's dangerous right now TT_TT
-I can't breathe watching this.
-It was terrifying in open spaces, but now that they're in a narrow area it's even scarier.
-Yeonji's not gonna die, right? Please don't kill her TT_TT
The camera zoomed in on Kang Hyeonwoo.
Unlike his calm hand-raising earlier, he seemed to regret it slightly now.
Because he was scared.
Terrified.
Tense.
Biting his lips tightly, he faithfully followed the person in front.
His white coat had become filthy with dust.
There were too many people, and everyone had to be careful.
Their speed was painfully slow.
Everyone was sweating and gasping.
Yoo Yeonji's eyes changed.
At last, she saw hope.
Far away.
A ladder leading upward.
If it wasn't just a ladder connecting individual floors—
If it continued upward—
They might escape.
Her heartbeat echoed.
Joy filled her eyes.
As the person in front, she emerged from the tunnel and finally stood up.
She spat out the phone she had held in her mouth and illuminated the entrance for the others.
“There's a ladder here, so once everyone gathers, we can climb—”
And then.
Yoo Yeonji's eyes trembled.
The joy she'd shown moments ago vanished, replaced by heavy despair.
-??
-Ah.
-I knew it.
-Fuuuck TT__TT
-No.
-Please, Hyeonwoo...
From far away—
...
The infected were crawling toward them.
At terrifying speed.