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The zombie, having committed an atrocity too heinous to put into words, bit into the psycho's abdomen—now something neither male nor female—as if still unsatisfied.
I waited a couple of steps away, until the zombie was engrossed in tearing apart the psycho's flesh, then raised my golf club.
The zombie, enjoying its meal, had the back of its head caved in at once, burying its face in the psycho's stomach.
"Cough. Ah, I only got to bang her once..."
"Wow, this guy really is screwed up."
The psycho was spouting such nonsense even as he lay dying.
I considered letting him suffer a bit longer before death, but unsure when more zombies might come, I decided to end it quickly.
Thwack—
The psycho's skull shattered cleanly, ending his life without even a death rattle.
'Why does everyone I meet seem so strange?'
I came out to hunt zombies, but what is all this?
I stared at the psycho's ravaged corpse for no reason.
"Huh?"
But the psycho's corpse still had a status window attached. It was much longer than before.
「Antisociality (lv.4)」[Personality]
☐ Trait effect +3.9% when unattached.
☐ Damage dealt +39% when unattached.
☒ Skill 「Social Breaker」 created upon reaching lv.10
(「Social Breaker」: Blocks all effects that positively influence nearby others for 10 minutes. Cooldown of 1 hour.)
▶Level Change: 4p
▶Transfer to Storage: 7p
「Sadistic Tendency (lv.3)」[Personality]
☐ Sensation +0~45% proportional to the pain felt by the opponent.
☒ Skill 「Beat Time」 created upon reaching lv.10
(「Beat Time」: Amplifies all pain inflicted by 50% for 10 minutes. Cooldown of 30 minutes.)
▶Level Change: 3p
▶Transfer to Storage: 4p
'Why is trait information popping up in the status window of a dead guy?'
My presumed condition for viewing trait information was that the other party had to yield the initiative to me. That had been the most plausible hypothesis so far.
But that was based on the premise that it had to be a living person. I'd seen quite a few corpses so far, but a status window had never popped up even once.
So the moment I saw trait information on the psycho's corpse, I couldn't help but be confused.
'What? There's a transfer to storage?'
Furthermore, there was one more new fact I learned. Even though it was a personality trait, there was a 'transfer to storage' option.
'Looks like you can extract personality traits even when they're dead?'
I was determined to erase my own personality traits, so I had no intention of acquiring someone else's, but it wasn't very useful information.
While I was thinking about 「Hacking」, the psycho's status window disappeared with a swish. It hadn't even been five minutes since the psycho died.
Only then did I realize why I hadn't seen trait information on corpses until now. It seemed that the status window of a corpse could only be seen immediately after death.
In terms of time, it was impossible to just snatch traits from any corpse, and if there was a trait you wanted to extract, you had to either subdue or kill them right after.
Realizing the mechanism of 「Hacking」, I became convinced that I could transfer traits from storage to myself. Otherwise, there would be no need for such a function.
'A skill that allows you to kill or subdue people to steal traits. Should I call this hacking?'
I felt anew just how unfriendly this status window system was. It didn't tell me anything about conditions or targets in the skill description, so I had no choice but to figure it out myself.
It was ironic to expect kindness from the guy who might have brought on the fog and zombies in the first place.
'Come to think of it, I didn't check the second floor. Should I see what he was trying to hide?'
I walked past the psycho's corpse and went up the stairs.
Furniture that appeared to have originally been on the second floor was piled up on one side.
And on the opposite side, as expected, a woman was lying naked with a leash connected to the wall. She was bruised all over, as if she had been severely abused by the psycho, and her vagina was especially red and swollen.
It was easy to guess what she had been through. Despite being naked, she wasn't alluring at all.
Frankly, the woman's appearance also played a part in why she wasn't alluring. I thought he had kidnapped and kept a stunning beauty, but surprisingly, her face was ordinary, her figure was plump and hard to describe as good, and most of all, she looked to be in her early 40s.
After yesterday, when I was allowed to freely bang the young, shapely woman on the second floor, she couldn't possibly satisfy me.
I took my eyes off the woman and looked around the second floor.
There was nothing particularly special. When I opened the door with the STAFF sign, it was a normal storage room with cleaning tools, spare chairs, a dolly, and so on. The room next to it was the staff lounge and changing room.
However, the men's restroom, which I opened last, was anything but ordinary.
As soon as I opened the door, a rotten stench rose up. Frowning, I looked inside and saw the corpses of a man and a child rotting away, abandoned.
'He really was a son of a bitch. Good riddance.'
It wasn't a scene I wanted to watch for long, so I closed the bathroom door again and approached the tied-up woman.
『Kim Mi-jeong』
Trait: 「Benevolence (lv.2)」
'Tsk tsk. How did you become the psycho's target?'
Judging by the traits she possessed, she seemed like the kindest person in the world, but it was a pity that she had to suffer such a tragedy after being targeted by a psycho.
Of course, it was like blaming a raped woman for wearing a short skirt, but what could I do, the other party was crazy. Unless I could eradicate all the crazy people, I had no choice but to blame the woman.
At that moment, the woman seemed to sense my presence and slowly opened her eyes. And realizing that the person in front of her was not the psycho, she quickly sat up and covered her breasts and vagina.
"Wh-who are you?"
"Well, why are you here like this?"
"...I'm the owner of this cafe."
"The owner? Not that guy?"
"That guy? Ah! Yo-you shouldn't be here! That murderer will come!"
"Murderer?"
"I let him in because he was a regular who was usually kind, but he killed my husband and my son, ah, Seon-ho! My son is trapped in the storage room! I'm okay, so please, at least take my child and run away!"
Listening to the owner's disorganized words, it seemed that the corpses in the bathroom were her husband and son. The owner didn't seem to know that her son was dead yet.
'He was pretending to be the owner when he wasn't.'
I thought the psycho was the owner of this place and had kidnapped the woman, but he had come into the cafe, imprisoned the owner, and settled down. Judging by the fact that he had often come and showed a hypocritical appearance, it seemed that he had targeted this owner from the beginning.
I didn't understand why he had targeted this middle-aged woman, but I figured the psycho must have had his own personal tastes.
"That murderer is dead."
"Yes?"
"I killed that guy."
"Re-really? Then, then please find my son! He must have been trapped since yesterday."
"I'll untie you, so do that yourself."
"Thank you!"
I didn't want to tell her that he was dead in the bathroom with her husband, so I was just going to untie her, let her go, and go downstairs to do my own thing.
Looking at the owner's neck, it was a metal choke that had to be unlocked with a key, I don't know where she got such a thing. Even the other side was nailed to the wall. It was hard to untie by hand.
Since the psycho was dead, I could find the key, but rather than finding the key, I decided to just break the mount.
The mount was sturdy, but the plywood wall was not, so after hitting it a few times with a hammer, the wall broke.
"Thank you. Seon-ho!"
The owner bowed to me in thanks and ran to the storage room without even putting on clothes.
I didn't watch anymore and went downstairs.
Nooooooo—
As I was trying to put the overturned tables and chairs back near the entrance, a desperate scream came from upstairs.
'Isn't that sound going to attract zombies?'
Thwack—
'Whew. I hope no more are coming?'
As feared, the scream of the owner attracted zombies, but fortunately, three zombies came in at intervals, so I could easily handle them one-on-one.
'But how do I move this to the alley?'
I could drag them from inside to the entrance. But it was too dangerous to do that outside. The rattling sound was a problem, and if I was ambushed from behind by a zombie attracted to the sound, it wouldn't be easy to react immediately. If I was late in noticing the zombie, I could lose my life in an instant.
Then I suddenly remembered that a dolly was parked against the wall of the warehouse.
"Ah..."
When I went up to the second floor, the dazed owner was sitting blankly, hugging the corpses of her husband and son. Looking at her eyes, she seemed to have already lost her will to live.
'She won't live long.'
In an apocalyptic era where it is difficult to survive if you can't get up on your own, having lost the family to support each other and losing the will to live, I could know the future of the owner without having to see it.
I passed by the owner, went into the warehouse, and dragged the dolly out.
Even though I was dragging the dolly behind me, making a rattling sound, the owner didn't react at all. I didn't care either.
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