New word from the company

Su Jin fought through his headache and grabbed his phone.

He had set an alarm before going to sleep, but checking the time now, he found that not even two hours had passed.

He sat on the bed for a while to recover, gradually accepting reality.

Then he got up and headed toward the living room window. Faint cursing still drifted down from upstairs and up from downstairs.

Standing by the window, Su Jin glanced down and felt a little more at ease.

Things were more or less as he had expected. No one had come yet.

With everyone in an entire building entrance locked inside, it was practically inevitable that the residents would seek outside help.

But their calls for help definitely wouldn't be too urgent. He still had plenty of time to work with.

A large proportion of the building's residents were elderly, and most were retired. They wouldn't have chosen to go out on a rainy day like this anyway.

As for those who needed to go out to work, they would probably think of taking the day off. Most people considering calling a locksmith would give up the idea at the sight of the downpour, let alone calling the fire department.

The fake flyers about severe rainwater contamination would also have some effect, though a single phone call to verify the information would expose the problems with their contents.

But with something like this... most people would rather be safe than sorry. It was like someone inexplicably receiving a note.

If the note said, "I put a snake in your cup," no normal person would dare drink from it. They'd be jumping at shadows.

Besides, the radio was already broadcasting news about the strange rain. Once people received the text message, they should be even more likely to calm down.

Even in the worst-case scenario, if firefighters really did come to rescue them... it wouldn't be much of a problem.

He had a gun and had long since prepared himself to violently resist the authorities. Buying time wouldn't be a problem at all.

With nothing amiss in the residential complex, Su Jin picked up his binoculars and began surveying the distant streets.

One look made his brows knit.

Aside from the occasional vehicle, there were only two or three pedestrians on the street.

Two wore raincoats, while another carried an umbrella... then suddenly threw it onto the ground.

All three were walking far too slowly. That wasn't how people normally walked in the rain.

Zombification... judging by what he was seeing, he could already confirm that they had turned.

Su Jin swallowed and pointed the binoculars at the building opposite him.

Most households hadn't drawn their curtains, so he could see people moving around inside.

The first two households looked normal, until he checked the third!

In a fifth-floor living room across from him... a shirtless, potbellied man stood rigidly at the window. His whole body had turned bluish, and he swayed slightly, his face devoid of expression or vitality.

At that sight, Su Jin lowered the binoculars and silently drew the curtains.

Zombification... it had already begun. They had been infected in only a few short hours.

The tap water had already been contaminated.

Uneasy, Su Jin turned and went to the kitchen, where he caught a little gray rain in a dipper through another window.

Then he returned to the bathroom and picked up a cage woven from thick iron wire, its interior divided into two sections.

One half was an ordinary cage, while the other had been specially fitted with a hamster wheel.

He had prepared the cage specifically for experiments.

Now that the first signs of zombification had appeared, his most urgent task was to learn about these creatures ahead of time and prepare.

Using tongs, he picked up two mice and placed one on either side of the reinforced cage.

Su Jin took a deep breath, put on thick gloves, and used a rubber-bulb dropper to draw up the gray water. He dripped an equal amount onto each mouse.

While waiting for the mice to mutate, he took a toy four-wheel-drive car out of his bag and dismantled it.

The two worlds had followed largely similar paths of development. Even their toys had plenty in common; the four-wheel-drive car simply looked different from those on Earth.

The underlying technology was essentially the same.

He had liked these toy cars as a child, so he knew a fair amount about them.

He removed the shell and made a simple connection to the linkage on the wheel inside the cage. Once powered on, it became an electric hamster treadmill.

It was perfect for testing a mutated mouse's stamina.

Half an hour passed, but the mice still showed no reaction.

Seeing this, Su Jin picked up the dropper and dripped another full measure of gray water onto one of them.

Ten minutes later, the mouse that had received twice as much gray water mutated first!

Its instinctive habit of occasionally pawing at its whiskers had vanished, replaced by abnormal behavior.

The mutated mouse's appearance hadn't changed, but it seemed to display an intense desire to attack humans.

Unfortunately for it, it was still only a mouse. Even pliers couldn't quickly cut through the thick wire of its cage.

Watching the mutated mouse repeatedly charge at him, Su Jin nervously stood and backed away, then slowly moved to one side.

Sure enough, as he began moving... the mutated mouse adjusted the direction of its charges.

Su Jin gripped the Silver Spear tightly as he observed it, keeping his guard up against any accidents.

The mutated mouse clearly had a strong interest in living creatures, but there was another mouse right beside it. Why did it keep focusing on him?

At that thought, Su Jin took out his phone, switched on video recording, and set it in front of the cage before returning to the bedroom.

Two minutes later, he came back to the living room to review the recording.

In the video, the mutated mouse changed the direction of its charges the moment he disappeared.

It began charging at the mouse in the running wheel.

After watching the footage once, Su Jin had already reached a rough conclusion.

It was intensely aggressive toward living creatures and prioritized attacking larger targets.

The mutated mouse still seemed to rely on sight to act, but he couldn't be completely sure.

I don't know how sound and smell affect it...

He began preparing an experiment as soon as the thought occurred to him, but just as he was about to start, something unexpected happened!

Two lines of large text abruptly appeared across his field of vision!

[New specimen detected. Available for collection.]

[Upon collection, the company will provide compensation in items of equivalent value.]

At the sight, Su Jin's pupils dilated, and much of his tension instantly eased!

The company's here... it's still here! It can still help me!

The large text before his eyes disappeared, and everything returned to normal.

"Company!! Collect it? How do I do that? Can't you give me more details?! I don't understand! Can't someone come and talk to me?!" Su Jin shouted.

No one answered.

Su Jin clutched his head and kept taking deep breaths.

He should have known by now what this fucking company was like. It wasn't going to give him many hints.

But if it was talking about collection at a time like this, there ought to be a way to do it... surely he wasn't supposed to wait until the mission was complete before delivering the specimen to the company?

But how the fuck do I get it collected? Where do I send it... the briefcase!?

Something clicked in Su Jin's mind. He rushed over and grabbed the briefcase from the sofa, his eyes burning with excitement.

That's it! This thing has a separate space inside. If I put something in there, maybe the company can receive it. It's worth a try!

Licking his lips and rubbing his hands together, Su Jin eagerly rummaged through the bag.

He took out an extra-long screwdriver with its tip already sharpened and stabbed it down at the mutated mouse.

After several stabs, he finally killed it.

He had no time to marvel at the mouse's tenacious vitality. He prodded it with the screwdriver for a while longer to make sure it was completely dead.

Su Jin carefully lifted it out and dropped it into a plastic bag.

After wrapping it in several more layers, he stuffed the plastic bag containing the mutated mouse's corpse into the briefcase...