Chapter 101: The Fire and the Loot
Even so, he had no intention of putting out the fire.
Instead, he extended his search threads toward the flames.
Unlike the other two types of silk, search threads possessed extremely high sensitivity to movement and disturbances in the surrounding environment.
Aside from that, however, they were not much different from ordinary spider silk.
They were easy to sever.
Naturally, that also meant they could burn.
Because of this, Joo Joowon deliberately used them to intensify the flames.
The fire immediately surged upward by another large margin.
At this rate, if nothing was done, the nearby buildings would very likely catch fire as well.
Joo Joowon, however, did not care in the slightest.
There was no way he was going to let go of an experience pool worth the equivalent of two or three elite monsters.
At that moment, however, someone who had been secretly observing the battle from nearby and listening to the commotion finally panicked.
Unable to remain hidden any longer, the person shouted loudly.
"Brother! Big brother! Grandpa! Please stop burning them! Please stop! If this keeps going, we’re all finished!"
"Yeah, big brother, please have mercy! Someone as strong as you definitely has other ways to kill zombies. If the fire spreads any further, we’re all going to die!"
Because they lived right beside the street, they had never had any opportunity to level up.
From the very first day of the apocalypse, these players had not dared step outside their homes even once.
Naturally, their levels had remained almost completely unchanged.
After all, the moment they went outside, what greeted them was not a single zombie but an entire group.
That was not hunting monsters.
That was basically delivering takeout directly to the zombie horde.
At first, when they saw Joo Joowon clearing out zombies, they had thought they had finally seen hope of leaving their homes and searching for supplies.
Who could have expected that he would suddenly decide to set everything on fire without a second thought?
"How can you be so selfish? You’re only thinking about leveling yourself up and don’t care whether other people live or die! Hurry up and put the fire out, do you hear me?!"
"..."
Perhaps because all the nearby zombies had already gathered here, the surviving people no longer needed to worry about making too much noise.
For a moment, curses, complaints, and pleading voices rose endlessly into the air.
Only then did Joo Joowon realize that there were actually this many survivors hiding nearby.
He stood there motionless, completely ignoring both the curses and the desperate pleas surrounding him.
Only after the system notifications stopped appearing for quite some time did he finally move.
He used his spider silk to open the nearby fire hydrant.
Since he did not have a hose or a water cannon with him, he simply wove together a makeshift water pipe using spider silk, creating a completely sealed tube and directing the water toward the flames.
Once he saw that the fire had been brought under control and was unlikely to spread to the surrounding area unless something unexpected happened, he immediately chose to leave without hesitation.
As he walked, Joo Joowon began counting his gains.
The more than one hundred low level zombies had rewarded him with eighteen equipment cards.
The drop rate was actually not bad.
On average, one equipment card dropped for every five or six zombies killed.
Unfortunately, they were all beginner
equipment that Joo Joowon had very little use for.
The elite monsters, on the other hand, had each dropped three cards.
Out of the twelve cards obtained from the elite monsters, four were guaranteed drops in the form of Zombie Core (Rare).
The psychic zombie had been even more generous and had dropped five cards in total.
Joo Joowon did not rush to check what exactly had dropped.
Instead, he happily opened his attribute panel to take a look at his level.
Before leaving home, he had only been Level 5.
Now, however, his level had jumped twice in succession and become Level 7 (131/640).
If this was not what getting rich overnight felt like, he did not know what was.
His money, on the other hand, had not increased very much.
2 Silver Coins and 883 Copper Coins.
The drop rate was truly painful to look at.
Since his Mental Power had now fallen to only 4 points, his greatest method of self preservation could no longer be used.
Because of this, Joo Joowon had no intention of remaining outside any longer.
He decided to wait until his Mental Power recovered before coming out to continue hunting zombies.
Part of that decision was also because he was waiting for Byeol, who had already run off somewhere out of sight, to return.
While Joo Joowon had been using spider silk to lure monsters over, the restless little cat had eventually grown bored and wandered away on his own.
Joo Joowon had not stopped him.
The first reason was that Byeol was no longer an ordinary cat.
He was more than capable of protecting himself against zombies.
The second reason was that Byeol possessed what was almost certainly some kind of luck related buff.
Because of that, Joo Joowon was not particularly worried about anything happening to him.
So Joo Joowon planned to simply return home and wait.
After all, Byeol knew the way back.
In the past, he had even known how to sneak into elevators and ride them home by himself.
Perhaps because the flames could be seen from such a great distance, the residential complex was unexpectedly lively when Joo Joowon returned.
Many people stood at their windows observing the situation outside.
As a result, the moment he came back, he was immediately subjected to countless stares.
Joo Joowon was not particularly comfortable with the feeling of being the center of attention.
Without hesitation, he grabbed the takeout he had saved for Byeol and slipped into the building.
He did not immediately return to the twelfth floor.
Instead, he headed to the eleventh floor first.