Chapter 79: Mercy
The sight had genuinely startled him.
It took him a while to calm down before he moved on to dismantle another cocoon.
Fortunately, this cocoon did not contain such a horrifying scene.
Inside there was only a pool of liquid left behind.
It seemed that whatever had been inside had already been almost completely absorbed, leaving behind only a thin layer of fluid at the bottom.
Joo Joowon continued opening the others.
Through several cocoons that had not yet fully dissolved their contents, he finally discovered the fate of the missing zombies.
The Spider Chimera had brought them back as nutrient sources for the baby spiders as well.
The discovery made him let out a sigh of relief.
At the very least, it meant that the Life Essence was not necessarily extracted from humans.
There was also the possibility that it had come from zombies instead.
Since the beginning of the apocalypse, the horrifying and disgusting scenes Joo Joowon had witnessed had already surpassed everything he had seen throughout the entire first half of his life combined.
Yet no matter how much his nerves had been tempered by repeated exposure, he still felt nauseated at this moment.
At the same time, he finally understood what the Spider Chimera must have been thinking when it saw him climbing upstairs and chose to chase after him.
Perhaps in the Spider Chimera’s eyes, everything from the twelfth floor upward had already become part of its territory and its nest.
The only reason it had not yet fully completed the process was because it simply lacked enough silk to finish "decorating" the area.
To the Spider Chimera, Joo Joowon’s arrival had probably looked no different from prey voluntarily walking into a trap.
Even if Joo Joowon had never come upstairs, once all the nutrients stored within these cocoons had been completely consumed, the Spider Chimera would eventually have gone downstairs to hunt other survivors anyway.
Although the mystery had finally been solved, Joo Joowon’s mood did not improve much.
From the thirteenth floor to the eighteenth floor, even if each apartment had housed only a single resident, that still represented more than forty lives.
However, Joo Joowon himself had no idea how long he would survive in this apocalypse either, so he did not dare think too deeply about the meaning hidden behind those numbers.
He originally intended to leave immediately.
After hesitating for a moment, however, he still decided to open the remaining cocoons.
If there were still human remains inside that had not yet been completely dissolved, then if the opportunity arose, he was willing to help give them a proper burial.
At the same time, he would not mind dragging out the corpses of the unhatched baby spiders and venting his frustration on them a little.
Keeping all those emotions bottled up inside made Joo Joowon feel suffocated.
However, when he opened the final cocoon, Joo Joowon was completely stunned.
The person inside was still alive!
Or perhaps they could no longer truly be called a person.
What remained was merely a human shaped object, horrifyingly similar to the infamous human pig from old stories.
Both arms and legs had already disappeared.
The empty and hollow eyes instinctively began shedding tears the moment the sudden light shone into them.
Seeing this, Joo Joowon instinctively shifted the flashlight away slightly to reduce the glare.
After a while, the person inside finally seemed to regain some awareness.
The moment they saw Joo Joowon, an indescribable light suddenly bloomed within their gaunt and emaciated face.
They opened their mouth excitedly and let out a hoarse sound.
"Ah..."
This was not the look of someone who had seen hope for survival.
It was the desperate expression of someone impatiently begging for death.
It felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck Joo Joowon, leaving an unbearable heaviness in his chest.
But he knew this was already the best possible outcome.
How could a person who had lost all four limbs survive in the apocalypse?
Even if the apocalypse game possessed methods capable of regenerating severed limbs, that was not something a mere Level 4 nobody like him could possibly achieve.
Taking a deep breath, Joo Joowon raised the Compound Repeating Crossbow and aimed it directly at the person’s forehead.
He closed his eyes.
Then he fired without the slightest hesitation.
Pfft.
Joo Joowon opened his eyes.
Blood had splattered onto his helmet, making his vision somewhat blurry.
He numbly wiped the blood away.
The other person’s death had not been painful.
The bolt had killed instantly.
There was even a faint smile lingering at the corner of their lips.
It was difficult to describe that smile.
There was the relief of finally being allowed to enter death.
There was also the helplessness of having no choice but to accept it.
A pink beam of light rose from the corpse.
Joo Joowon stood there silently, completely lacking the mood to pay any attention to the light.
Compared to killing the people who had attacked him before, this incident affected Joo Joowon far more deeply.
Perhaps there had always been a certain coldness buried somewhere inside him.
Or perhaps it was because those people had attacked first.
In any case, aside from feeling terrible for a short time afterward, Joo Joowon had never carried any real psychological burden from those deaths.
He had acted in self defense.
What was there to feel guilty about?
Showing mercy to enemies was simply cruelty toward oneself.
In the apocalypse, being a saint only made life harder for yourself.
But Joo Joowon had never imagined that he would one day face a situation like this.
The bloody and brutal reality of the apocalypse tore away its disguise right in front of him, leaving him deeply shaken and terrified.
Ever since the game descended, things had gone surprisingly smoothly for him.
Even if he never admitted it out loud, somewhere in his heart Joo Joowon had looked down on the apocalypse a little.
Sometimes he had even entertained the thought that perhaps the apocalypse was not entirely a bad thing.
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