I’m the Only One with Powers in the Apocalypse – Chapter 38

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Xrecker
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…2 levels?!

I killed 27, didn’t I?!

…1 level per 10 kills?

…Wow…

This was ridiculous, shit.

From 1 level per kill to 1 level per 10 kills, this was too much.

I felt deflated.

“Status.”

…Shit.

1 point per level.

…Argh…

I rubbed my forehead and sighed.

I thought it was strange that the faster I leveled up, the faster I leveled up.

When I first got the Time Controller Specialization, I only leveled up twice on the first day, or was it four times?

I barely leveled up at all in the beginning.

From the second day onwards, it got faster and faster, to the point where I gained over 20 levels at once towards the end, so I definitely thought it was strange.

Starting from level 1 with the new Specialization.

If I kept raising Health to shorten the recovery time, the number of kills per day would increase.

Then the leveling speed would increase again.

Right…

Well, it was fine to have some restrictions on leveling, but suddenly changing it to 1 level per 10 kills was too much, shit.

I needed to become stronger quickly, how was I supposed to do that at this rate?

“…Ha…”

This was making me anxious.

Could I even go back to my hometown?

My parents, that bitch, my friends.

…Shit.

Sighing and rubbing my forehead was only making me more tired.

I’d recover some Accelerate and then go back at night.

I went up to the rooftop room and lay down.

50 Spirit to recover.

With 30 Health…

It would take about 13 hours to fully recover.

…I couldn’t rest for 13 hours.

I’d rest until nightfall and then go out again.

Recovering quickly was important.

I put 2 points into Health, went to the bathroom to wash off the blood, and then lay down.

I took off the Maintenance Gloves, and the tattoos were starkly visible.

These damn things.

I wondered what my friends from back home would say if they saw them.

If they were still alive.

Back in high school, there was this guy who got into trouble and went to juvenile detention or something, and he had a tattoo on his arm.

Some bullshit saying “Heaven and Earth,” or something, tattooed in Chinese characters. He would sniff glue, extort money, and hang out with other punks, acting all tough until I beat him to a pulp.

Well, the message window told me what to do, so it wasn’t really me who won.

After that, he was relentlessly bullied by me and my friends, calling him “Tattoo Idiot,” until he dropped out of school and disappeared.

I couldn’t even remember his name.

Just Tattoo Idiot.

If I showed up with something like this on my hands, my friends, shit.

“Ah, this is so fucking annoying.”

…The design wasn’t bad.

A flower-like thing burning inside, surrounded by multiple overlapping rings.

I didn’t know what was burning inside.

It looked strange.

But I still didn’t like it.

There was a gangster with a tattoo among those old farts on the street too.

Shit.

I felt like I was lumped in with Tattoo Idiot and those old gangster trash, and it pissed me off.

Whatever, shit.

I’d watch some YouTube and then sleep.

I just woke up, but maybe I could fall asleep again.

…YouTube was quite chaotic.

Not just in Korea, but all over the world, people were posting videos asking what the president and the military were doing, full of pleas and cries for help.

The whole world was in this state, what could the president do…?

From what I’d seen while going around, about one in every 30 or 40 houses had a growler inside.

Places where people gathered must have been disastrous, and the military, with soldiers sharing barracks, wouldn’t have been spared.

No, sharing barracks would have made it even more devastating.

Some units with quick responses might have survived, but others could have been decimated in just a few hours.

Asking the president to solve this, he wasn’t Superman.

…Hmm?

…There was a strange video…

What was this?

It looked like a crowd cheering at the World Cup finals.

A massive crowd filled the entire city.

Where was this?

It looked like a slum with a steep incline.

…Rio de Janeiro?

Brazil?

Why were there so many people?

Was this an old video?

…Uploaded yesterday.

…Yesterday?

No way…

The channel owner was chattering rapidly in what I assumed was Portuguese.

I couldn’t understand a word.

…Drone?

I kept hearing the word “drone.”

It seemed like it was filmed with a drone.

…Looking at the massive crowd filling the city, or rather, the enormous slum, made me feel a bit nauseous.

Let’s check other channels.

…Oh, this was America.

…New York?

Skyscrapers… Madison Square… or somewhere like that, I think I saw it in a movie.

The crowd…

…was massive.

Just like in Rio, a huge crowd filled the city center.

They were speaking English, but I couldn’t understand.

Uploaded…

8 hours ago?

…What…

…This was ominous.

The people who disappeared from the streets, the missing people, there should have been more of them.

I thought about that before.

Let’s search for Korean channels.

…Found one.

“…Holy shit…”

…Where was this?

Incheon?!

This one was also filmed with a drone.

The streets of Incheon…

…were filled with a massive crowd.

Tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands, at a glance.

They filled the spaces between buildings and roads, a sea of people.

The channel owner whispered, “L-look at this, everyone. I-I always check the streets with my drone before going out to get food. T-today, I saw that the street in front of my house is… c-completely filled with… z-zombies, I… I can’t… go outside.”

The channel owner was trembling in terror, their jaw shaking. I could hear their teeth chattering between words.

Growls and roars, overwhelming even the audio settings, mixed in with the whispers.

Loud enough to echo inside the house.

This person’s house was completely surrounded.

The channel owner whispered, “Th-these z-zombies are… moving. I-I don’t know… where they’re going. They’re coming from somewhere endlessly, and they’re moving somewhere. I-I think they’re headed towards Suwon, but I’m not sure. I-I hope the people there are okay. I-if you’re watching this, please be careful. L-let’s all survive and meet again.”

The channel owner waved.

The video ended.

Uploaded 4 hours ago.

…The human beasts, they disappeared from the streets and were gathering.

…Dangerous.

Those things weren’t on these streets.

Not yet.

But if that horde appeared here…

That would be a serious problem.

A week, or a month.

Or even longer.

I might not be able to step outside.

Even though I could kill them quickly, I couldn’t kill an infinite number of them.

I couldn’t take on tens or hundreds of thousands of them alone.

I jumped up.

I grabbed my gloves and swords and left the house.

…I could still hear growls from the residential complex, but it was much quieter.

It seemed like I was about to head back there.

…Was Soo-hyun okay?

She was probably at the hardware store, I should check on her first.

I crouched down and walked towards the convenience store, reaching the hardware store.

I heard the clattering of metal and voices.

“Ah, that’s a welding rod. You need to bring that too.”

“Yes, Soo-hyun. Just tell me what you need.”

…I felt relieved.

I was so tense after seeing that video.

“Soo-hyun.”

“Oh? Oppa.”

Soo-hyun smiled brightly when she saw me.

Hoon, who was next to her, also greeted me as usual, calling me “sir.”

“How’s it going? Did you get everything?”

“Yeah. I’m going back and then coming back out again.”

I nodded and asked, “Soo-hyun, how’s the boarding house reinforcement coming along?”

“It’s going well. Why?”

I held out my phone to Soo-hyun.

“…Did you see this?”

Soo-hyun smiled. “Wow, YouTube. I’ve been too busy hammering these past few days. Did something interesting come… up…?”

Her expression changed.

Hoon’s face also changed instantly.

“S-sir… th-this…”

I nodded. “Incheon isn’t that far from here. We need to properly reinforce the house.”

“…It’s not just Incheon,” Soo-hyun said. “Oppa, there are probably massive hordes everywhere in Seoul. And all over the country.”

…Soo-hyun was right.

What I saw in the Rio video wasn’t all the human beasts in Brazil, and what I saw in Madison Square wasn’t all of them in America.

…Would that horde really be only in Incheon?

No way.

There were probably hordes of tens, hundreds of thousands, gathered all over the country, moving somewhere.

“S-sir, wh-what should we do?”

What to do?

Level up like crazy, shit!

But 1 level per 10 kills, goddamn it!

I closed my eyes tightly, then opened them again.

“First, we need to help Soo-hyun. And stock up on food. Just in case.”

“Yes, sir. You’re right.”

I nodded and said to Soo-hyun, “I’ll help, so grab everything you need.”

“Okay.”

Soo-hyun nodded with a determined expression.

At first, she hammered away half-heartedly, half-seriously.

Then she worked like it was a full-time job.

Now she was determined to turn this house into a fortress.

That was the look on her face.

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