Chapter 149: The Market Hunt
For Joo Joowon, dealing with them was incredibly easy.
After walking for a while, Joo Joowon more or less figured out where Byeol was leading him.
There were only two or three old residential complexes nearby that had not yet been demolished, and right in the center of those neighborhoods was a traditional market.
This had been part of the original design when the residential areas were built, making it convenient for nearby residents to buy ingredients and return home to cook.
Nowadays, however, aside from the elderly people who still lived nearby, business there was not particularly lively.
Most of the vendors had moved to larger markets elsewhere.
After all, how many young people these days actually enjoyed cooking?
Even those who did not order takeout usually preferred eating outside instead of buying groceries and cooking at home.
Work alone already drained all of their energy.
Even so, the market still saw a decent amount of traffic in the mornings and evenings.
Many elderly residents would rather spend half an hour walking there to buy groceries because the prices were cheaper.
The market also allowed farmers who had not paid for official stalls to simply bring their produce and find a spot to sell it.
After walking for quite some time, they finally arrived at the market.
It was impossible to know exactly what had happened there, but right near the entrance was an enormous pool of blood that had not yet dried.
Severed arms and legs were scattered throughout it.
Combined with the green nylon rope still lying across the ground, it was difficult for Joo Joowon not to draw certain conclusions.
After jumping onto the wall, Byeol even turned around and glanced back at Joo Joowon as though urging him to hurry up.
Joo Joowon looked over the obvious crime scene but decided not to dwell on exactly how the cats had managed to create such a situation.
Instead, he simply jumped over the wall and followed them inside.
Although the gate looked as though it might collapse at any moment, it was still more than enough to stop ordinary people.
For normal people, climbing over it would not be easy at all, and it would definitely create a lot of noise in the process.
Because of that, the chances of Joo Joowon being disturbed while hunting monsters inside were greatly reduced.
The moment he jumped over the wall, Joo Joowon could not help but feel a flash of surprise.
The scene outside the gate had already been a complete mess, but the inside looked no better.
It was as though a typhoon had swept through the place.
A highly conspicuous corpse lay sprawled on the ground with more than half of its body missing.
Judging from the tentacle-like appendages that still remained on its head and clearly did not belong to any human being, it appeared to be the corpse of an elite monster.
Joo Joowon could not help but step closer to take a look.
It was easy to see that the body had been gnawed on by more than one creature.
Most likely, after the elite monster died, various animals had come to scavenge what remained of the body.
For animals that were starving, eating carrion was not particularly difficult to accept.
Besides, some animals naturally fed on carrion to begin with.
Moreover, elite monsters were different from low level zombies.
Their flesh remained largely intact and had not entered a severe state of decay.
Although the corpse still emitted a foul smell, from an animal’s perspective it was probably still considered edible.
What kind of animals could they have been?
Ants?
Rats?
Cats?
Dogs?
All of them seemed possible.
Joo Joowon estimated that a few more zombies would probably appear in the world sooner or later.
After all, elite monsters were zombies too.
Their bodies should also carry the virus and anything that consumed them would likely have a fairly high chance of becoming infected.
Fortunately, whatever creatures had come to feed appeared to have left after satisfying their hunger.
Otherwise, dealing with large numbers of tiny zombie creatures would have been rather troublesome.
Looking at the ants carrying pieces of flesh away from the elite monster’s body, Joo Joowon could not determine whether they were zombie ants or simply normal ants.
He even found himself wondering how much experience mutated ants would provide if they turned into zombies.
After all, they were so incredibly small.
He did not attempt any experiments.
A corpse that large could not possibly be moved away by ants in a short period of time.
So Joo Joowon headed over to the seafood shop whose door had already been forced open.
Because there had been no fresh water circulation or oxygen supply for several days, everything inside had long since died, regardless of whether there had originally been mutated creatures among them or not.
Perhaps because they lived in water, the aquatic monster actually looked surprisingly peaceful.
Aside from the chunks of flesh floating in the water and the rotting flesh growing from their bodies, they looked almost no different from ordinary fish.
The only obvious difference was that the water itself had turned a murky shade of green.
These fish had not grown any bizarre new organs either.
For example, none of them had suddenly evolved legs or anything equally absurd.
Even so, Joo Joowon guessed that these zombie fish probably would not die even if they were removed from the water.
They would simply become extremely inconvenient due to their inability to move around effectively without legs.
Some of the glass tanks that had held aquatic creatures had already shattered, leaving only zombie fish lying motionless on the floor without the slightest sign of movement.
The moment Joo Joowon stepped closer, however, they immediately sprang back to life as if performing a trick.
They flipped themselves upright like carp leaping from water and began hopping and flopping toward Joo Joowon in an attack.
Calling it determination in the face of disability would not have been an exaggeration.