A Survival Guide for a Counselor in the Apocalypse Chapter 64

Chapter 64

 

I don’t even know what I’m cutting anymore. Whether I’m hacking apart the corpse of a fallen comrade or a Schneefresser.

No, am I even cutting them at all?

I couldn’t tell anything.

What I saw from atop the wall and what I was experiencing now were on completely different levels. Snow piled high, the only light being what I held, and a raging blizzard that made it impossible to grasp my surroundings.

Cries echoed from all directions. I could only thrust my dagger desperately toward wherever sounded closest.

A notification rang; my dagger skill had leveled up.

 

—

[Intermediate Dagger Technique (1)]

You have learned how to swing, tear, and cut something apart.

You begin to think that killing someone might actually be a very simple thing.

The path your dagger takes is extremely simple.

Destruction. Killing. Death.

You have cut through things countless times.

There is no need to hesitate now.

※ Activates only when using a dagger.

—

 

My desperate struggle to survive was rewarded with praise for perfectly killing something.

Notifications kept dropping like stones. Most of them praised me for killing Schneefressers well.

The occasional strange lines in between… I ignored them.

“KYAAAH!”

The frenzied creatures began rushing in. I wrenched my foot free and rolled across the snow to avoid them.

Hiss–

The recoil extinguished the fire.

Complete darkness. Absolute darkness.

All I could hear was the howling wind. Occasionally, I felt the massive tremors as Laupels slammed into the wall.

I had been abandoned.

That’s what it felt like, abandoned by the world.

A towering wall, extinguished light, a body rapidly growing cold. A situation where no one could come to save me. A situation where only I could save myself.

And the chances of success were unknown.

Everything produced a harsh noise, gnawing at my mind…like rats chewing away at it.

Whoosh!

I swung my dagger. As my mind was being eaten away, I kept swinging.

Guilt, shame, they churned as if about to boil up through my throat.

I couldn’t see anything, so I had no choice but to stab wildly in every direction.

Like a madman.

Don’t let anything touch me.

And then…something bit into my side.

Clang!

I didn’t even know what bit me. The force of its jaws crushed my armor.

Crk…!

Something scraped across the armor as if trying to apply more force.

I grabbed its head to shake it off. It was probably its head. Round, sticky, disgusting… and it had a mouth.

Without even knowing what I was stabbing, I drove the dagger into that head with brute force.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a stab or a slash.

My dagger wasn’t anything special; it was already long dulled.

So now, the only way was to force it in.

Crunch…

Something broke along the blade…

It wasn’t the dagger. When I felt it with my hand, the blade was intact.

The biting sensation at my side disappeared.

“Haah… huff…”

My breath kept catching, so I ended up throwing off my mask.

 

—

[Early Signs of Hypothermia (00:29:59)]

Your body temperature is dropping due to wet clothes and the blizzard.

You must quickly move indoors and warm yourself!

If not resolved within 30 minutes, it will evolve into a hypothermia penalty.

 

[Overload]

Your body is becoming overloaded.

Stop using skills!

This will persist until your physical stats return to normal.

If stacked, physical wear will increase sharply.

Current Physical Wear: 5%

—

 

Wear…

 

—

[If that’s too long to read, let me simplify! It means you’re about to die!]

—

 

I know. I didn’t need a message to tell me that.

At this rate, my body wouldn’t hold. No, it was already collapsing.

My fingertips tingled. Cutting and pushing forward grew harder. Avoiding their grasping hands became harder.

I glanced at my blinking health bar.

 

—

[Oh my. Humans die so easily.]

[This is why I dislike mortals.]

[The way you desperately cling to your worm-like lives…]

[It’s sometimes nauseating.]

[The shadow of death falls upon you…….]

—

 

Windows filled with contempt and disgust crowded my vision.

I stabbed the eye of something biting my arm and shoved it away with force.

I didn’t even know if I was going the right way.

The faint light from the system windows barely illuminated what was ahead… but even that vanished, as if mocking me.

Complete isolation.

Perfect isolation.

When the things biting me no longer felt like clear pain, just some vague sensation…

When I couldn’t tell if my face or fingertips were freezing…

When I felt unbearably hot, so hot I wanted to rip off all my clothes…

When I had to check three times with every step whether the dagger was still in my hand–

Something protruding brushed against me.

The wall.

A pillar.

“Haah…”

The snow had already piled up to half my lower body.

To dig through it, I needed no interference.

I took a deep breath. It felt like my lungs were filling with water.

 

—

[The sound of muscles tearing is heard.]

[Overload stacks.]

[Wear increases rapidly.]

—

 

Something ran from my nose down over my lips. It was both burning hot and freezing cold.

I swung the dagger.

Blink. Blink.

I couldn’t even feel pain anymore.

Mechanically, I stabbed, twisted, and cut until there were no signs of movement nearby.

Only then did I begin digging frantically through the snow.

Digging through the piling layers, feeling around for the bunker entrance buried beneath.

 

—

[If there’s a difference between you and a dog,]

[It’s that dogs are remarkably good at this,]

[and you are remarkably bad at it.]

—

 

My sense of touch sharpened. I couldn’t see, my hearing was drowned by the wind, leaving only touch to rely on.

Something, sweat or melted snow, dripped from my ear.

 

—

Remaining HP: 3.

— 

 

What moved me now was sheer obsession.

A broken, twisted obsession.

Like a madman, I kept digging.

This was the only way I could live.

I didn’t even care whether my breathing was long or short.

Whenever something approached, I swung the dagger to drive it back, then continued digging.

Relentlessly.

Until finally, my fingertips touched something solid.

 

—

[So it really existed. The bunker.]

—

 

Ignoring the mocking message, I pushed the snow aside with my body and opened the bunker.

The cold surface made my hands slip again and again.

Gritting my teeth, I forced it open.

Creeeak

The door opened.

The moment it did, I fell inside, collapsing forward.

Clang!

The door shut behind me.

Inside, the space was dimly lit. Neither wide nor narrow.

Just…

“Haah…”

I thought I should report in.

But my remaining 2 HP blinked wildly, shutting down my body first.

My mind, which had been racing, sank as if submerged in water.

My body felt buried under dozens of heavy blankets.

All senses slowly faded.

Everything sank.

 

***

 

“…Report.”

“Yes. Total casualties: 148 dead, 119 injured, 194 missing.”

A horrific scene.

Casualties, injured, missing… over 450 in total.

Missing were effectively dead.

Once someone fell from the wall, they were reported as missing, but when the wreckage was cleared, most were already dead.

Even among those lucky enough to survive the fall, fewer than 2 out of 100 made it.

Even if they survived the fall, below was pure chaos.

Monsters flooded in, weapons occasionally fell from above, and corpses rained down endlessly.

Johanna knew how difficult it was to survive all that.

Even so, she had to take responsibility.

Recover the remains. Honor the promises made to them.

As she moved…

Her eyes caught a soldier in one corner, battered beyond recognition.

“…Why are you still here? All personnel who fought today were ordered to report to medical.”

He was torn up, bleeding, and even limping slightly.

Yet his eyes were still searching for something.

His name was…

“Ah. One from another world.”

Lee Hoin.

That was his name.