The colossal concrete skeleton of Mega Mall Seoul towered through the gray smoke. Once a shopper's paradise, every window was now boarded with steel plates and timber. The main entrance was barricaded with welded car wrecks, turning the building into a fortress no ordinary zombie horde could breach.
Shi-hun assessed the layout from the shadows of a ruined building across the street. Two scavengers with rifles patrolled the roof. Summoning the DShK and hosing the front gate would feel good, but it would destroy the very structure he intended to claim as his future stronghold.
He needed the mall intact. And he would take it the way they would never expect.
"Listen carefully," Shi-hun told the trembling boy. "You walk in first. Act like you escaped the explosion and dragged back a 'woman' and an 'injured man' as tribute. If you show even a flicker of hesitation… I will slit your throat from behind before they hear you scream."
The boy swallowed hard and nodded. Shi-hun disassembled every weapon he carried into the system for temporary storage. He tore his sleeves, smeared ash across his face to look half-dead, and loosely bound Yu-jin's wrists with plastic cable ties she could slip free at any moment.
The Trojan Horse began to move.
The boy led them to the loading dock side entrance. When the rooftop spotlights swept down, he shouted the dead tattooed leader's name and pointed at Yu-jin hobbling in fake terror and Shi-hun limping like a dying man.
The guards laughed. "The little dog has balls! Even brought toys for us. Roll up the shutter!"
Chains rattled. The heavy roller door rose. Three armed scavengers waited inside. They yanked the boy by the collar, shoved Yu-jin and Shi-hun to the floor, then slammed the shutter down with a final bang.
The trap was closed.
They had no idea they had just locked themselves in a cage with the Reaper.
***
Inside the mall the air was thick with the stench of sweat, cheap liquor, cigarette smoke, and raw despair. Red emergency lights and oil-drum fires cast hellish shadows.
The scavengers kicked Shi-hun to his feet and herded them deeper into the central atrium. What Shi-hun saw made his mind begin pricing everything.
The old promotion stage had been turned into two massive human pens fenced with steel mesh and crowd barriers.
Left cage: thirty emaciated men huddled together, covered in whip scars, eyes hollow like livestock waiting to be used until they dropped or were thrown as zombie bait.
Right cage: twenty women in far worse condition—clothes torn, bodies trembling, soft sobs echoing through the hall.
Shi-hun was shoved into the men's pen. Yu-jin was dragged by the hair into the women's. He met her eyes for a split second. She gave the tiniest nod—barely visible, but enough. She understood the plan. She would play her part.
"Tonight we party big!" the tall, skinny second-in-command shouted. "Boss still ain't back. Pick your toys and have fun!"
A dozen men howled in approval and swaggered toward the women's cage, eyes hungry.
Amid the weeping women, Shi-hun's gaze locked on three who stood out like diamonds in filth.
First: a late-twenties woman with an alluring figure and full breasts. Hair in a low bun, torn blouse, yet her eyes were steady. She shielded younger girls and tried calmly negotiating with the guards—clear leadership and management material.
Second: a tall, athletic woman with corded abs and arms. One wrist chained to the bars, blood on her boots proving she had fought hard. Her stare was pure wolf waiting for revenge.
Third: a small, agile girl hiding at the back in an oversized jacket. Her eyes constantly scanned for escape routes and guard weaknesses—thief's instincts and speed.
Administrator. Bodyguard. Scout.
Shi-hun calculated. These were high-value human assets his future kingdom needed. Too valuable to let these animals ruin.
"Bring those three out!" the second-in-command pointed. "Little one to the storage room. The fighter to the security office. The boss bitch… take her to the manager's suite. I'll teach her personally."
The three women were dragged away in different directions into the mall's darkness. The scavengers laughed, preparing for a night of rape and torture.
Shi-hun waited until they scattered, leaving only two guards at the pens. He lowered his head. The corner of his mouth curled into a twisted smile.
[Shop opened: Purchase 'Karambit Steel Claw Knife'] [Lifespan deducted: 0.2 days]
The curved tiger-claw blade appeared under the rag in his hand. Shi-hun sliced his own wrist tie in one motion and melted into the shadows.
The slaughter festival had begun.
***
Target one: Storage Room
Min-ah (the small agile girl) fought desperately. She was thrown onto a pile of cardboard boxes. A fat scavenger unbuckled his belt, laughing. "Struggle, little bitch. The more you fight, the more I like it!"
He lunged.
He never reached her.
From the darkness above the shelves, Shi-hun dropped with SPD-14 silence. He landed behind the fat man, clamped a hand over his mouth to trap the scream, and slashed the karambit across the Achilles tendon—severing it clean.
The fat man's eyes bulged. He dropped to his knees. Before he could thrash, Shi-hun hooked the blade across the carotid artery in one smooth left-to-right draw.
Slice.
Hot blood sprayed across Min-ah's face. The fat body collapsed, twitching, dead without a sound.
[Kill confirmed. +1 day]
Min-ah opened her mouth to scream. Shi-hun raised a finger to his masked lips. Black eyes locked on hers. "Make a sound… and I change my mind." He vanished back into shadow, leaving her staring at the corpse in utter shock.
Target two: Security Room
Su-jin (the athletic fighter) refused to submit. One wrist cuffed to a pipe, she still drove a powerful kick into the first scavenger's groin, dropping him blue-faced.
"You feral cunt!" The second raised a baseball bat to smash her skull.
The bat froze mid-swing.
Shi-hun appeared behind the door—not walking, but lunging at blinding speed. He no longer held the knife. For 0.5 days he had bought Garrote Wire from the shop.
The steel wire looped around the second man's throat. Shi-hun crossed his wrists and yanked. The razor wire sliced through skin and windpipe. Blood jetted. The man's eyes rolled and he thrashed silently to the floor.
The first scavenger, still gasping, spun and reached for his pistol. Shi-hun closed the distance, swept the man's legs, drove a knee into his spine with STR-13 force—crack. Before the man could scream, Shi-hun locked his neck and twisted 180 degrees.
Snap.
Neck broken, dead.
[Kill confirmed. +2 days]
Su-jin panted hard, staring at the hooded man who had killed two giants in under ten seconds like a deadly dance. Shi-hun said nothing. He tossed the keys he had taken from the corpses into her lap.
"Free yourself. If you want to live, make yourself useful." He left, leaving Su-jin watching his back with a mix of awe and terror.
***
Target three: Manager's Office
Ji-ah (the seductive leader) was shoved onto the black leather sofa. The second-in-command grinned lewdly, unbuttoning his shirt. "No need to worry, pretty. After I'm done with you, I'll squeeze every secret out of that throat anyway!" He lunged.
Click.
The door lock engaged behind him. The second-in-command spun.
Shi-hun leaned against the door, sleeves soaked fresh red. Black eyes regarded them like the Reaper come to collect.
"How did you—"
Shi-hun moved. In a fraction of a second he summoned the suppressed Glock 19 from the shop.
Pfft. Pfft.
Two 9mm rounds punched through both kneecaps. The man screamed and collapsed in front of Ji-ah, blood spraying across the carpet.
"Remember his face," Shi-hun told her, voice ice. "And remember exactly what I'm about to do to him."
He pressed the hot suppressor to the man's forehead and pulled the trigger.
Pfft.
The third round blew the second-in-command's brains across the glass behind the sofa. The body slumped lifeless at Ji-ah's feet.
[Kill confirmed. +1 day. Current lifespan: 337 days]
Shi-hun lowered the pistol, walked to the manager's desk, and flipped the PA system switch. The mall's backup batteries still worked.
He brought the microphone to his masked lips.
"To every scavenger still breathing inside this building," his voice boomed through every floor, cold and final. "Your leader and second-in-command… are dead."
Silence swallowed the mall. Only his echo remained.
"This mall now belongs to me. Every rule is rewritten by me." He paused. "Anyone who kneels and submits will be allowed to live as servants. Anyone who raises a weapon and resists…"
He turned to the main breaker panel on the wall behind the desk, raised the Glock, and fired three suppressed rounds into the circuit box.
Sparks exploded. The emergency lights throughout the entire atrium died in a single heartbeat. Absolute darkness swallowed the mall—blacker than any night.
Screams and panicked curses erupted below.
Shi-hun opened the shop, summoned a fresh Molotov (the same ethanol-and-gauze recipe he had used before), lit the wick with the Zippo, and dropped the flaming bottle through a shattered skylight into the crowded atrium below.
Smash—WHOOSH!
The fireball bloomed in the darkness, turning the central hall into an inferno. Thick black smoke rolled upward. Men ran blind, crashing into each other, burning alive.
"I will give you a hell you cannot even imagine," Shi-hun declared over the speakers.
He turned back to Ji-ah, who sat trembling on the sofa. He summoned a fresh coat from the shop and tossed it to her.
"Stand," he ordered. "Gather the other two women I saved. Then free everyone from the cages. From now on… you work for me."
Ji-ah swallowed hard. She looked at the headless corpse, then at the masked man, and understood with crystal clarity.
They had not been rescued by a hero.
They had simply traded one devil for another—far more powerful and far more terrifying.