Chapter 95: Silent Hunting
Joo Joowon had no intention of staying inside the residential complex to hunt zombies.
After all, the number of zombies remaining in the surrounding apartment buildings was a complete unknown.
More importantly, he simply did not want to compete with other people for monsters.
Everyone deserved an opportunity to level up.
On the other hand, before leaving home, Joo Joowon had already observed the surrounding area from several different windows facing different directions.
On street after street stretching across the city, groups of zombies wandered in clusters.
The closer one got to the southern district, the larger the zombie hordes became.
That area contained the nearby bars and food streets.
Even at midnight, or three o’clock in the morning, or even five o’clock in the morning, that district never truly became quiet.
Joo Joowon honestly suspected that the people there had already been completely wiped out.
However, these zombies gathered together were not wandering aimlessly through the streets.
Instead, they had formed small groups of their own.
Each group appeared to be led by a stronger zombie wandering at the front.
Joo Joowon could not tell whether they were being led by elite monsters or whether Zombie Kings had already begun to appear.
Regardless of the answer, from Joo Joowon’s perspective, these tightly packed groups looked like incredibly obvious experience packs.
Of course, Joo Joowon was not foolish enough to walk directly into their line of sight.
There were simply too many zombies.
If one of them noticed movement, the others would almost certainly follow immediately.
At that point, even someone capable of running along walls and climbing buildings might end up dying from carelessness.
Fortunately, Joo Joowon was extremely familiar with the surrounding roads.
After all, in the past, when he had been desperate and had nowhere else to go, he had occasionally wandered into bars and food streets looking for free food and drinks.
Before long, he turned into a narrow alleyway hidden between the buildings.
The more prosperous a city became, the more divided some of its districts could be.
Star Hill Residential Complex was a perfect example.
Very few of the people living there actually owned the apartments they occupied.
The true owners either lived in villas or had long since moved away to luxury neighborhoods.
There had been rumors about demolition and redevelopment for years.
Joo Joowon had heard every version imaginable over the past three to five years.
Yet despite all the talk, nothing had ever happened.
As a result, the maze of interconnected alleyways still existed exactly as they always had.
Whenever city management officers came to inspect the food street nearby, the street vendors would immediately scatter into these complicated side paths.
The officers almost never managed to catch them.
There had even been an incident where the officers themselves got lost inside the alleyways and could not find their way back out.
Back when Joo Joowon still worked regular jobs, he often used these shortcuts instead of the main roads to save time.
He knew the area like the back of his hand.
Before long, he found the perfect location.
It was a dead end alley.
Around the corner from the alley entrance was a main road.
The wall beside it was not particularly high either.
Back in the past, Joo Joowon often climbed over this wall to save time.
Compared to taking the proper route, it cut at least ten minutes off his journey.
He climbed onto the wall effortlessly and positioned himself within a blind spot where he could clearly observe the street while remaining completely hidden from anything on the road below.
Then he released his spider silk.
The wandering zombies remained completely unaware of the danger lurking nearby.
One zombie walking along the outer edge of the group staggered forward absentmindedly alongside the others.
Spider silk that was thinner than sewing thread quietly crawled across the ground and wrapped itself around the zombie’s foot.
From there, it slowly climbed upward until it reached the creature’s neck.
The silk continued spreading.
Before long, it slipped through the zombie’s lips and crawled into its mouth, lodging itself deep within its throat.
Of course, for a creature that neither felt pain nor needed to breathe, none of this mattered in the slightest.
That remained true right up until the moment the zombie suddenly discovered that its limbs were no longer obeying its commands.
Slowly but surely, it began drifting farther and farther away from the zombie group.
?
The zombie’s tiny brain immediately filled with enormous confusion.
Instinctively, it opened its mouth in an attempt to call out to its companions.
Unfortunately, the mass of spider silk stuffed into its throat prevented any sound from escaping.
All it could do was helplessly watch as its own body carried it away from the group and toward an abandoned alleyway nearby.
If zombies could speak, this one would probably have cried out in terror.
"Help, somebody help! I think I’ve run into a ghost!"
"Whoosh!"
The crossbow bolt tore through the air and instantly pierced through the zombie’s skull.
The zombie collapsed to the ground and died on the spot.
A system notification immediately appeared.
[ Ding! ]
[ Level 2 Zombie has been killed! ]
[ EXP +2 ]
A smile instantly spread across Joo Joowon’s face as he watched his experience increase.
Another bolt shot forward.
Another zombie fell.
[ Ding! ]
[ Level 3 Zombie has been killed! ]
[ EXP +4 ]
[ Ding! ]
[ Level 2 Zombie has been killed! ]
[ EXP +2 ]
One zombie after another fell beneath the crossbow bolts.
As Joo Joowon manipulated the spider silk with one hand, he still had enough spare attention to think about other things.
More than ten zombies had already died at his hands.
Yet surprisingly, he had not encountered a single Level 1 zombie.
The weakest ones were all Level 2.
The implication was obvious.
After the rainstorm, every zombie had gained at least one level.
As for those naturally gifted zombies, perhaps some had already evolved directly into Elite Monsters or even Bosses because of it.