Chapter 142: Leading the Horde Home
Byeol fell silent for a moment and signaled for Hwi to stay where it was. Then it quietly slipped back through the zombie crowd.
As the mutated crab was lifted once again, Byeol leaped into the air and slammed its body into the mutated crab in order to adjust its angle.
Compared with Hwi, Byeol’s strength was much lower.
However, that merely meant its improvement had not been as dramatic as Hwi’s.
It did not mean it had gained no strength at all.
With enough leverage, even this giant mutated crab could still be moved.
After adjusting the angle again and again, the mutated crab finally became wedged into the gate opening.
Only then did Byeol jump back outside in satisfaction.
The zombies closest to the gate had been dragged away by the movement of the other zombies following Hwi and could no longer continue smashing into the gate.
Now, seeing the mutated crab stuck in the opening, their eyes practically bulged out of their heads.
Their hands flailed wildly through the air as they desperately tried to throw themselves onto the mutated crab.
Unfortunately, the ropes tied tightly around their legs prevented them from moving.
Only the saliva pouring endlessly from their mouths betrayed their overwhelming hunger.
Their dull gray eyes seemed almost to glow green.
"Meow!"
Byeol called out to Hwi and began walking forward.
Hwi immediately followed.
Seeing the meat that had practically reached their mouths about to escape, the zombies suddenly erupted with a fresh burst of strength.
Amid a series of painful grinding noises, the mutated crab was finally dragged free from the gate.
The fishing net wrapped around it was worn almost completely to shreds in the process.
Thanks to the zombies’ miraculous ability to achieve results through brute force, the mutated crab was finally pulled free, but the zombies themselves lost their balance the moment the resistance suddenly disappeared.
One after another, they tumbled to the ground like dumplings being poured into boiling water.
Those who fell dragged down the ones behind them, and even the zombies that had managed to stay standing ended up collapsing as well.
Hearing the commotion, Byeol glanced back and immediately felt the urge to curse.
What was wrong with these laborers?
How could so many two legged creatures struggle so much to carry a single piece of prey?
And why were they all pretending to be dead now?
Sooner or later, Byeol was going to kill every last one of them!
Hearing the Meowing, the zombies being trampled beneath their companions suddenly became excited as well and began crawling forward while wildly waving their arms.
Byeol froze for a moment.
???
These two legged creatures could actually understand cat language?
Once it realized what had happened, Byeol could not help shooting Hwi a look of disgust.
Even the two legged creatures understood what Byeol was saying, so why couldn’t Hwi understand it?!
"Meow?"
Hwi looked at Byeol innocently.
Byeol ignored him completely.
Every time the zombies started slowing down and dragging their feet, Byeol would loudly scold them as though recharging their batteries, instantly filling them with motivation once again.
Before long, Hwi could no longer maintain its transformation and returned to its original form.
Although the zombie core contained a considerable amount of energy, using all of it purely for maintaining its larger form was simply too wasteful.
After all, that energy existed primarily to support evolution rather than to function as ordinary food.
Now that the danger had already passed, there was no reason for Hwi to continue maintaining such an energy intensive state.
As a result, its attractiveness to the zombies dropped considerably.
No matter how large a cat became, it was still only a cat.
If the blood on Hwi’s body had already dried, the zombies would probably have dispersed long ago.
The only reason they were still following was because of the scent of blood lingering on Hwi’s fur and because Byeol occasionally let out a few Meows, dangling temptation in front of them like a carrot on a stick.
After all, this was already the fifth day of the apocalypse, nearly the sixth.
For humans, easy to kill zombies had practically disappeared.
The same was true for zombies.
Easy to catch humans had become increasingly rare.
Although zombies would not die from starvation no matter how long they went without food, their hunger only grew stronger as time passed.
As low level zombies without brains, their hunting ability had always been inferior to that of the more mobile elite monsters.
Now that they had finally encountered living prey, even a mosquito sized meal was still meat.
Combined with the fact that this "walking meat" kept making sounds and tempting them forward, there was no chance they would willingly give up.
And so, Byeol led them all the way back to the residential complex.
Some of the zombies that had been trampled during the journey eventually fell behind and could no longer be dragged along by the others.
Even so, a large number of zombies still remained.
Fortunately, the vitality of zombies was astonishing.
As long as their heads remained attached, even lying flat on the ground did not render them completely immobile.
They continued crawling stubbornly forward, waving their arms wildly and refusing to give up on the chance for even a single bite of food.
Of course, there were also zombies whose brains had been completely crushed underfoot, but the zombies clearly had no intention of stopping what they were doing because of that.
Byeol’s sense of direction had become even better than before.
Although the scents in the surrounding area had become far more complicated, it still did not take a wrong turn.
With its tail held high, it walked into the stairwell.
Its Meows echoed through the building corridor, sounding even clearer than they had out on the streets, causing the zombies to roar excitedly.
The noise made the surviving residents inside the apartment complex increasingly uneasy.
Why were there suddenly so many zombie noises?
What had happened?