Chapter 20: Pandemic All by Myself (1)

“Goddamn it.”

Along with the message that a plague is spreading, a green mist begins billowing up from the pile of thousands of corpses, literally a tower of bodies, next to the raincoat in my room.

RiceCookerMan hurriedly projects a thought.

[This needs to be countered by boosting stamina first. And please take care of the fairy’s dicotyledonous plant!]

“I put it out on the balcony.”

[Just in case!]

I set the fairy’s dicotyledonous plant pot outside the window.

The balcony railing is narrow, so it’s a tight fit, but as long as the wind doesn’t blow, it should be fine there.

“Hey, are you gonna have any issues?”

[I’m an electronic device, so I might be okay!]

“Electronics are all-powerful, huh.”

[Eat rice to endure it. If you have any leftover stat points, put them all into stamina.]

“Got it.”

Realizing this is no ordinary situation, I decided to max out my stamina.

I shoveled cold rice from RiceCookerMan, stored in the fridge, into my stomach without even kimchi to get a stamina buff.

Then I put on a KF94 mask, which I thought I wouldn’t need for a while, as a protective measure.

<The wearer’s chance of plague infection is drastically reduced.>

Next, to avoid skin contact, I pulled a coat hanger from the closet and wrapped myself in a long puffer jacket.

I would’ve used the raincoat, but it’s already serving as wall protection.

To combat the heat and stamina drain, and to dry out the soggy zombie remains, I turned on the air conditioner in drying mode.

For eye protection, I put on sunglasses, and from the first-aid kit, I grabbed povidone-iodine.

I heard red antiseptic can even block radiation.

I bought it in case of a nuclear fallout, like Fukushima or North Korean nukes.

They say it reduces radiation absorption if you take it.

I sprinkled the red antiseptic on the zombie pile.

<The plague’s transmission rate is reduced.>

“Oh? This actually works?”

It’s effective. It’s working.

Next, I sprayed bleach, known for its disinfectant properties.

<The plague’s lethality is reduced.>

Humanity, having survived a pandemic, might just be tough as nails.

Seeing messages that my resistance increased from wearing clothes, glasses, and a mask, plus the effectiveness of red antiseptic and bleach, I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud.

But despite that pride, the zombie pile kept emitting a green mist that anyone would recognize as toxic gas, spreading through my room.

The problem?

There’s just too much of it.

“Ugh, damn it.”

I scooped up the remains with a dustpan and stuffed them into 50-liter trash bags.

Even using 50-liter bags, there’s still some left.

And they’re heavy.

Lifting them is easy with my strength, but I’m worried the bags might rip from the weight.

After sweeping, I filled two 50-liter trash bags to the brim, with some remains still left over.

When I tied up the bags, a message popped up saying the plague’s transmission rate was further reduced.

I put them in the bags, but they need to be incinerated.

I know pet carcasses are supposed to be disposed of this way.

Some food waste can be thrown in regular trash bags too.

But if these bags burst and the plague spills out?

“I’d be ground zero for Wuhan.”

I might not be the origin, but I could be patient zero for a second COVID-19-level pandemic.

I don’t know how contagious this is, but what if it’s like M-pox?

“They say he put up K-pop idol posters and said ‘I love you’ every day.”

Imagining Room 202’s interview gives me a headache.

TV stations don’t do those kinds of interviews anymore, but cyber wreckers on video platforms might.

“Ugh, the Queen of Nightmares is pretty clever.”

Discounting the distorted perspective of specters, the Queen of Nightmares and her clan, leading this invasion, have a solid strategy.

According to the Swordmaster’s memories, high-level monsters in the hundreds avoid invasions.

Instead of sending stronger enemies with higher levels, they’re sending hordes of troops capable of biological warfare to disrupt this world.

They must know I’m a giant from the dungeon, so maybe they planned to take me out with a biological attack and seize my room.

“Incineration’s the only way, right?”

[I think so too!]

I knew the answer but asked RiceCookerMan for confirmation.

There’s no other way to deal with 120 liters of zombie corpses except burning them.

If I abandon them like this?

In Korea’s summer, the stench of rotting corpses would spread, and it’d literally smell like death.

If a sanitation worker opens the bag because of the smell?

At first glance, it might not seem like a problem since it’s hard to tell what the remains are.

But if they have a 100x zoom phone and take a closer look?

They’d see tiny human corpses mixed with bones, half-rotted.

“Without private land, there’s nowhere to burn them…”

Flushing them down the toilet would clog it, and that’s not exactly neighborly behavior, so disposal by water is out.

Incineration is the only answer.

But burning 50 liters of trash in a studio apartment?

Even burning a small dried plant wrapped in white paper indoors is a no-go, let alone this.

The fire alarm might be broken, going off randomly, and the residents here probably wouldn’t even call 119.

“Excuse me.”

“Where to?”

“To a campsite.”

“With trash bags?”

“We’re doing a variety show. I have to leave trash bags at someone else’s place…”

“Not going. Get out.”

I thought about a campfire at a campsite, but carrying three 50-liter trash bags oozing strange fluids and green gas?

I’d get kicked off a taxi or bus.

Carrying trash bags on public transport isn’t exactly sane thinking.

It feels like I’m planning corpse disposal.

“These are corpses, aren’t they?”

It’s corpse disposal, alright.

They’re zombies and skeleton soldiers blown apart by the wind, but they’re still corpses.

“Huh?”

Korea’s rainy summer weather is a pain.

It’s raining again.

Worried the fairy’s dicotyledonous plant might fall in the storm, I rushed to move it to a sunny spot on the balcony.

When I brought it in, the dicotyledon started dancing again.

“Nice.”

In real life, starting a fire arbitrarily can get you punished.

On a rainy day, at least the flames won’t spread.

If I take these bags, open them, and burn them in a drum incinerator, it’d look like illegal trash burning.

But what’s the big deal?

I’ve already got property damage, trespassing, and assault on my record.

I just haven’t been convicted yet.

There are several bridges tangled around the local ecological stream.

Not just bridges—there are underpasses and tunnels where homeless people or delinquent kids might’ve used drum incinerators.

If that spot’s empty, I’ll pour it in and burn it.

You gotta be bold and confident in times like this.

As I prepared to head out with the toxic-gas-oozing trash bags,

“What the—?”

A 50-liter trash bag flew.

I didn’t throw it from above—it just jumped up with a thunk!

“What? Is there some spirit’s soul stuck to the trash bag or something?”

[Uh, I’m not sure!]

I asked RiceCookerMan about the jumping trash bag, but it didn’t know.

What do you know?

Even with my understanding of that world from the Swordmaster’s memories, I can’t make sense of this.

While I was staring at this absurd scene,

Bang!

Not a gunshot or explosion, but the literal sound of the bag bursting.

“What the—!?”

The zombie and skeleton remains inside the trash bag dissolved into gas, releasing a clearly toxic green smoke.

Since the bag jumped right in front of me, I got hit with the full blast of the gas.

“Ugh!?”

A gut-wrenching pain surged through me.

“Corpse… explosion?”

They’re using something like this?

It was literally a corpse explosion.

Even the Swordmaster’s memories had no info on this.

My stamina stat, boosted by buffs, turned red and plummeted by half.

A message about my long puffer jacket’s defense increasing popped up, but—

<When stamina plummets, life is in critical danger.>

<regeneration trait is attempting recovery>

<super regeneration trait is attempting recovery>

I had some skill slots left, so I quickly swapped out useless stuff like mutation factors for survival-related skills.

It says it’s recovering.

But still—

“Ugh, this hurts like hell!”

Pain radiated from multiple places, but the burning sensation in my stomach was the worst.

I had to clutch my upper abdomen.

Meanwhile, the 20-liter trash bag jumped.

Being lighter, it leaped even higher.

The trash bags with corpse piles tied inside are like bombs now?

Careful not to destroy it with physical force, I punched the 20-liter bag.

Bang!

The 20-liter bag, blown away by the wind of my punch, burst near the bathroom, spewing green gas.

All that remained were bag scraps and tiny, shiny items.

Thankfully, its smaller size and distance meant I wasn’t affected.

“So you can blow them up like that,” I realized, about to destroy the last 50-liter bag.

But while I was distracted by the 20-liter bag, the remaining one bounced like a Skykongkong, using the spring of my bed to leap past RiceCookerMan toward the balcony and kitchen.

It even crashed into the transparent sliding glass door to the balcony.

“What?”

There’s no reason to target the balcony.

All that’s there is the window and the fairy’s dicotyledonous plant pot.

So, it’s aiming for the fairy’s plant?

The trash bag kept slamming into the balcony window.

No way.

“The window glass can’t break!”

If the balcony sash glass breaks, I can’t handle that.

It’s not far, so I stood in the path of the trash bag heading for the balcony.

Bang!

It dodged me, exploding as close to the pot as possible despite the glass window.

Being right next to it, I got hit with another blast of green gas.

“Argh!?”

<critical damage taken stamina plummeting>

“Ha, haha, this is insane.”

[Are you okay?]

“Not okay.”

Blood’s coming out of my mouth for the first time since I got stabbed in the cheek by a shrimp antenna while eating shrimp head-on.

<stamina has reached near-death levels replenish stamina.>

<requires stamina beyond doped levels.>

<add stamina to last until super regeneration recovers>

My stamina stat, including doping, was 53+35, but now it’s 3+35.

The stamina graph turned from green to red, even flashing.

My level went up by 3, so I had stat points to invest.

I dumped them all into stamina.

It’s still red, but it climbed to 6, and the flashing stopped.

Still red, though.

Thankfully, the rice I ate for a stamina buff before this corpse plague fight kept me alive.

“Rice really is medicine. Ugh. Why am I bleeding so much? I’m dizzy.”

I saw the fairy’s dicotyledonous plant outside the balcony.

<Extreme care and love +1000>

A message appeared above it as light gathered.

Its name changed from Fairy’s Dicotyledonous Plant to Fairy’s Flower Bud.

“Huh? I was protecting the balcony glass, so why are you happy?”

The fairy’s pot does give me the small joy of plant care, but between a shattered balcony window and a dead plant, I’d choose to save the window.

For some reason, dew drops kept forming and dripping from the Fairy’s Flower Bud.

<plague resistance lv5>

Reduces infection chance by 15%.

It’s diligently boosting my immunity amidst all this.