Surviving the Apocalypse as an All-Time Best Overpowered Necromancer - Chapter 22

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 22
22. Weathering Winter (3)
“Clean. The handle isn’t even hot.”
As Lee Gang-hyeok descended the stairs toward the Underground Parking Garage, he expressed his satisfaction with the torch that Seo Hwa-rin had made, marveling at its craftsmanship.
He’d already known about Seo A-rin’s usefulness before bringing her in, but Seo Hwa-rin was something else.
Like winning a lottery ticket you’d received on a whim at some event.
Her unexpected competence felt absurdly fortunate—his face bore a smile of genuine contentment.
A moment later.
Having descended to the fifth basement level, he started the car using Electric the same way he would turn on a compact vehicle’s ignition.
Click, tick-tick, vrooom—!
It started smoothly, as expected.
It was thanks to Electric’s resonance with the car’s battery, allowing him to regulate the electrical output.
“That one’s good. Let me check the other one on level 4.”
He’d obtained two car keys today. His plan was to check if each one would start, then use whichever had the least fuel first.
But that was short-lived.
Click, tick-tick.
Click! Click!
Beep beep beep beep.
The car on basement level 4 refused to start no matter how hard he tried.
With such a long period of discharge, the battery itself seemed to have failed.
“Ah, this is a bit troublesome.”
Lee Gang-hyeok, who’d originally planned to charge two Backup Batteries and bring them up, let out a sigh as his plan fell through.
Simultaneously, he revised his strategy—rather than searching as he descended, he’d check the residences listed on the Resident Stickers first.
“Tch, let’s go back down and charge the battery.”
“Grraaah.”
“Grrrrr.”
The moment he said they’d need to go back down, the growls from the zombies intensified.
“What grievances do you already-dead things have? Be quiet and move faster!”
“……Scratch.”
Whether it was a scratch or not.
Whether they’d stopped growling after his command to be quiet, or if it just sounded that way by chance.
“What?”
In the moment Lee Gang-hyeok snorted with exasperation and disbelief—
Bang!
Boom—!
Something that sounded like a metal door being struck echoed out.
‘This is…….’
A zombie.
No doubt about it.
There seemed to be one he hadn’t dealt with yet.
“Grraaaaaah!”
“Graaah!”
Slash!
The moment Lee Gang-hyeok recognized the situation, zombies heading toward the Emergency Stairwell closed in around him, raising their weapons.
“Mm.”
Seeing the zombies standing as if to guard him, Lee Gang-hyeok felt reassured and surveyed his surroundings.
Bang!
Crash!
“…….”
When the sound of the iron door being violently struck came again, the zombie holding a torch slowly approached.
Thanks to the Command Authority, it had read Lee Gang-hyeok’s intention even before he gave any order.
‘Is it that?’
Soon an iron door came into view.
He approached, checking to see if a zombie might be trapped inside.
“The Valve Room?”
Upon reading the sign attached to the iron door, Lee Gang-hyeok tilted his head in puzzlement.
‘Did someone working here undergo the Mutation?’
There was no way a zombie could have opened this door and entered on its own.
Which meant it had been inside from the start.
“Tch, poor thing.”
Not only did they work until the moment of death, they remained trapped inside even after becoming undead.
Lee Gang-hyeok shook his head bitterly, intending to pause the zombies and open the door as he had when searching the residences—when something caught his eye.
‘Mm? Blood?’
He saw blood smeared on the iron door. And directly beneath it, he discovered a completely rotted severed finger.
Whoosh.
“…….”
Blood smeared on the iron door.
A finger, severed and completely rotted away.
It looked as though someone had fled, been caught, and had their finger severed against the iron door.
And if that was the case…….
‘When the catastrophe first began, this person wasn’t alone.’
Through this discovery, Lee Gang-hyeok realized that when the first Mutation occurred, there hadn’t been just one person in this room. He fell silent and quietly withdrew.
At the same time, a vivid image of what had happened inside six months ago played out before his eyes.
Without question, someone had tried to save a colleague who’d suffered sudden cardiac arrest, only to watch that colleague suddenly transform into a zombie and devour them.
And that meant one thing: there was now a Mutated Zombie inside the Valve Room.
‘I can’t do this alone. I need to call those two.’
If his suspicion was correct and there was a zombie that had consumed a human and mutated, facing that creature alone would be tantamount to suicide.
Even if he had more tamed zombies than he did now, it would be the same.
He had no information about what form it had mutated into, and fighting without proper lighting would leave him unable to maintain visibility.
Even if he separated the water container and placed it on the floor, the moment that creature retreated into the darkness, the situation would become extremely disadvantageous.
There was no reason to fight at a disadvantage when he could fight much more favorably.
With that, Lee Gang-hyeok left five zombies and one torch near the iron door, then hurriedly withdrew to the Emergency Stairwell.
Just in case the creature broke through the door while he was calling those two, he needed to secure a clear view of the parking garage and pin the thing down.
‘Well, it probably won’t come out, but it’s better to pull back anyway.’
Positioning himself in the Emergency Stairwell, Lee Gang-hyeok kept his eyes fixed on the iron door and accessed the Community to send a note to Seo A-rin.

Since he’d told them he’d send a note if anything happened to him, she’d likely check it right away.

Seo A-rin’s reply came much faster than Lee Gang-hyeok had anticipated.
‘I thought it would take at least a few minutes, but she replied immediately. Did she have the Community app open the whole time I went down?’
It seemed likely.
Perhaps she was worried.
Or perhaps she just happened to be checking the Community’s posts and the timing worked out.
Either way, satisfied that the wait was shorter, Lee Gang-hyeok figured it would still take time for them to descend. While he had the Community open, he decided to read a post someone had written summarizing information about Mutated Zombies.
‘Since it couldn’t break through the iron door, it’s probably not Strength-type like a tank or bulldozer. If not that, then it’s likely Special Ability-type…….’
There were nine types of Mutated Zombies identified so far, divided into two broad categories.
Strength-type and Special Ability-type.
Simply put: if it’s powerful in raw strength, it’s Strength-type; if it uses skills like an Awakener, it’s Special Ability-type.
Of course, there were ambiguous cases like the Grolla Bear.
In any case, since the iron door was intact, it was definitely one of the Special Ability-type varieties.
‘For starters, since there are no strange sounds or blood mist, it’s not a Cricket or Squid. And since it keeps striking the door, it’s not a Grolla Bear either. Could it be an Agwi?’
Suddenly, Lee Gang-hyeok’s brow furrowed.
An Agwi.
This creature was named after the way it hides its body in darkness and uses light to lure people—much like the demon of legend.
But while that alone wouldn’t be a problem, the reason Lee Gang-hyeok was irritated was that a parking garage without lighting was the perfect hunting ground for an Agwi.
‘Though if Hwa-rin is here, we can illuminate the space, so it shouldn’t be an issue?’
The strategy guides did list light as the Agwi’s weakness.
Lee Gang-hyeok thought an Agwi might actually be the easiest type to deal with. His expression relaxed as he scratched his cheek.
Tap! Tap-tap—!
At that moment, he heard someone rushing down from above.
“Hurry!”
As he heard the call to hurry, confirming that the two of them were descending, he glanced at the iron door.
He’d wanted to identify the creature before opening the door, but without a clear method to do so, he shook his head just as the two of them arrived.
“Have you identified what it is?”
Seo Hwa-rin asked immediately.
Given that they hadn’t known each other long, but considering the actions Lee Gang-hyeok had demonstrated so far, she suspected he’d already identified the Mutated Zombie.
So Lee Gang-hyeok told her his suspicion.
“It’s likely an Agwi, or possibly a Spider or Grolla Bear. One of those three. In any case, it’s not Strength-type, so let’s brighten the parking garage, open the door, see what it is, and adapt accordingly.”
“Yes! I’ll brighten the area right away. I’ll bring the torch just in case.”
“I’ll spread water inside the Valve Room. If we paralyze it before opening the door, we’ll have plenty of time to identify it!”
“Good. Let’s prepare immediately.”
“Yes!”
With that, the two of them prepared to handle whatever zombie might be inside the Valve Room, and once all preparations were complete, Lee Gang-hyeok stationed the zombies before the iron door, nodded, and began folding down his fingers one by one.

3.
2.
1.
“Aqua Field!”
Fzzzzzzzt—!
As his final finger folded, Seo A-rin and Electric activated their skills, attacking the creature beyond the door.
“Flame Stream!”
Whoooosh—!
Simultaneously, Seo Hwa-rin unleashed her skill, flames surging from her hands.
Lee Gang-hyeok pushed open the iron door that had been locked tight, intending to burn the creature that had been paralyzed by the combined assault of Seo A-rin and Electric, and to identify what it was.
Whoooosh—!
The moment the door opened, the surging flames found their target at last and pivoted toward the Valve Room.
“Spiderwebs!”
In that instant, Seo A-rin, catching sight of what was inside the Valve Room, cried out and identified the creature.
At the same moment, the flames began scorching the webs inside the room.
Whoooosh—!
“Squeeeeeee!!”
The Spider, paralyzed and caught in the flames, let out an agonized screech. But there was no room for relief.
“Fall back! Don’t let it gain distance.”
Lee Gang-hyeok, having identified the creature from Seo A-rin’s alert, barked a warning and retreated himself.
With a Grolla Bear or Agwi, they could have continued attacking without falling back, but with the Spider’s tendency to ensnare opponents with webbing and attack with venomous fangs, maintaining distance was strategically superior.
The two seemed to understand this to some degree, either from Lee Gang-hyeok’s command or from their own instincts.

Both women hurriedly fell back and deployed the skills they’d prepared.
“Fire Wall!”
“Aqua Barrier!”
Seo Hwa-rin’s skill continued burning the Spider inside the Valve Room, while Seo A-rin’s skill wrapped protectively around Electric’s body at the door.
It seemed intended to protect the partner whose attack power fell short.
Thanks to that protection, Electric didn’t retreat but instead manifested its ability to attack the Spider.
“Squeeee!”
Unable to gather its wits under the barrage of attacks, the Spider continued to shriek.
Yet despite their relentless assault, the creature showed no sign of dying—it merely screamed.
So was that it?
What was the creature’s condition?
Had it even taken damage?
Lee Gang-hyeok wanted to check, but stopping the assault risked inviting a counterattack. So he signaled them to keep attacking without pause, and the moment he scanned the interior of the Valve Room—
‘That damned bastard!’
Through the rising flames, he could see the creature hidden behind a thick valve, shrieking in apparent agony despite the attacks not even reaching it.
A pair of arms sprouting from its back, glowing red eyes on its forehead, a gaunt frame with limbs that seemed too thin—yet a grotesquely swollen belly.
And…….
A smiling face.
Was it possible that it had been feigning suffering, hoping they would come closer?
‘Insane. A Mutated Zombie’s intelligence couldn’t possibly be that…….’
High.
The moment he thought that, the Spider, which had been shrieking, suddenly stopped its outcry with a guttural sound, closing its mouth.
This made it all the more certain.
“It was hiding behind the valve, so our attacks weren’t reaching it. It seems to be trying to lure us in for an ambush.”
“What—!”
Startled by Lee Gang-hyeok’s words, Seo Hwa-rin furrowed her brow and activated her skill.
“Burst Burn!”
“Hm?”
Since this was one of the skills that had exhausted her recently, Lee Gang-hyeok looked at Seo Hwa-rin with some confusion, but he soon realized that only Ignite had been the cause of her exhaustion, and he nodded, positioning the zombies before the Valve Room door.
This was in case the creature suddenly burst out when hit by Burst Burn.
Swish.
Sizzle-sizzle-sizzle.
Whether from the skill’s effect or not, the flames that Seo Hwa-rin released transformed in an instant into dozens of tiny spheres, floating throughout the Valve Room.
“……Gack!”
The creature that had been playing dead, its belly exposed as it cowered behind the valve, suddenly realized something was wrong and bolted upright, charging forward.
Snap.
At that moment, Seo Hwa-rin snapped her fingers, and the spheres filling the Valve Room erupted in a brilliant explosion.

“Guhhhhh…….”
Screeeee—!
Bang!
The zombies at the door, sensing Lee Gang-hyeok’s will, immediately slammed it shut.
Preventing the creature from escaping the explosion.
It was at that very moment.
Splurt—!
Thud.
Just as the door closed, a venomous fang that the creature had spat out—whether aimed at Seo Hwa-rin or not—struck the iron door, bounced, and embedded itself in one of the zombies.
“Burst Burn!”
The area where the fang had embedded itself immediately turned black and began to dissolve, upon which Seo Hwa-rin, irritated, furrowed her brow and activated Burst Burn once more.
And so…….
The moment a massive detonation erupted beyond the iron door, agonized shrieks and the sound of something pounding against the door filled the entire parking garage.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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