Chapter 1: Reborn as a Nuclear Power Plant
"Damn it! Don't bite me!"
Outside the office building's glass curtain wall, the gray-white sky looked as if it had died.
Down below, the traffic had crashed into a tangled mess; horns, screams, and the screech of tearing metal mingled together, like a scene of the apocalypse.
In fact, it really did seem to be the apocalypse.
shoved the children in front of him toward the fire door and pulled it shut just before he completely lost consciousness.
Outside the door, what remained was only him—a with its mouth latched onto his throat.
On the verge of death, he seemed to hear the children calling out behind him.
"Uncle—!"
"Call me big brother—I'm only twenty-seven. Don't use the disaster to promote me up the family tree!"
After that thought, his vision went completely black.
And so, on the very first day of the disaster, an ordinary, deeply embittered middle-aged corporate wage slave was utterly swallowed by the corpse tide.
—
[Warning: Abnormal pressure in No. 1 reactor's cooling loop.]
[Warning: Core temperature continues to rise.]
[Estimated meltdown countdown: 00:47:13.]
In the darkness, the alarms echoed again and again, dragging 's consciousness out of the void.
But the moment he "woke up," he was completely dumbfounded.
Because at this moment, he felt extremely strange.
He couldn't describe what his perception had become; he only knew that he seemed to have become very different.
He didn't need to open his eyes, didn't need to breathe, didn't need a heartbeat, and couldn't even feel his hands or feet.
In fact, he truly had no eyelids, no lungs, and no longer had that neck that had just been chewed on with great artistic flair.
He still had vision, but it was a completely different thing from the frail, fleshy eyes of his past life.
The world seemed to have been split into countless surveillance feeds and stuffed into his mind: corridors, control room, duty hall, turbine room, cooling pump stations, zombies slamming against the iron gate outside.
Even though the images were complex and numerous, he could easily integrate the information.
Then was dumbfounded. He seemed to have been reborn as the nuclear power plant on the city's outskirts.
A nuclear power plant that was quickly roasting itself.
The moment he understood this fact, his entire brain (assuming he still had one) crashed for a while.
The alarms continued to ring.
[Estimated meltdown countdown: 00:45:02.]
swept his attention over the list of controllable equipment.
Access control system: partially usable.
Fire sprinklers: low pressure.
Fixed robotic arms: three units, malfunctioning.
Cleaning robots: six units, average battery at 31%.
Broadcast system: 60% damaged.
was silent for a moment, feeling as helpless as a kid ordered by his boss to invent room-temperature superconductors and cut costs at the same time.
But the key problem was—he didn't even have hands right now!
"No matter what, being alive is still a good thing," encouraged himself in his mind.
"Since I've become a nuclear power plant, I should at least get revenge. I can't just go nuclear right away and set off fireworks for the zombies."
It wasn't until rows of red data scrolled out from the depths of his perception that a physical examination report for an entire nuclear power plant was plastered right onto his face.
Cooling water circulation: interrupted.
Backup pumps: malfunctioning.
Automatic control system: destroyed.
Diesel generator fuel lines: leaking.
Life signs in the plant area: zero.
Abnormally individuals: 327.
"Forget it, let it be destroyed." was in despair.
But just then, the last indicator caught his attention.
External surviving intelligent beings: one.
The surveillance feed switched to the maintenance passage outside the plant.
A young girl was running with a stumbling stagger, holding a . Her short hair was plastered to the sides of her face with sweat, her jacket was torn in several places, and her shoes stepped through sewage, splashing up gray-black water.
Behind her, a dozen or so zombies waded through the rain-washed slope, their roars echoing in the passage, making it utterly terrifying.
The girl rushed into a half-open safety door. She tried to push it shut, but a rotting arm got stuck in the gap.
"Get off!"
She gritted her teeth and slammed the down. The sound of bones cracking rang out, and the door finally closed.
But the end of that passage was a dead end.
watched her slide down the wall into a seat, her chest heaving violently.
Then, she pulled out a phone from her pocket. The screen lit up for a moment, then went dark.
The girl muttered a soft curse: "I shouldn't have trusted this good-for-nothing navigation. So this is the f*cking nearest route, huh?"
couldn't help but silently mourn for her a little. As someone who had also been screwed over by navigation, he could understand her feelings right now.
But unfortunately, he was powerless to help her situation. After all, who told him he was now just a useless power plant?
Wait! Perhaps he wasn't completely powerless.
His attention shifted to the only mobile units he could control—the cleaning robots.
When the first smashed through the passage door, the girl was already standing.
She raised the wrench, her wrist trembling, but she never broke down, staring fixedly at the breaking through the door.
"Come on."
The lunged.
But just then, a faint rolling sound came from the floor.
A round shuffled out from around the corner, with a label still stuck on its body that read "Watch Your Step."
It crashed into the at extremely high speed, precisely tripping the that was already unsteady on its feet.
The tripped, landing face-first with a crisp sound.
The girl froze for a second, then reacted quickly, directly smashing the 's head in with the .
Then a second and third rolled out in succession, like a team of automatic discuses, charging into the horde one after another.
A lit up on the maintenance platform, rotating slowly, its gripper picking up a detached steel pipe.
Then, the steel pipe fell.
A big row of zombies was swept over. Those behind crashed into those in front, triggering a chain reaction of falls.
Seeing that the timing was perfect, activated the access control system, and the heavy fire gate began to descend.
The old motor let out a strained groan, and the arms that had reached through the door gap were pressed one after another.
Finger bones snapped. Filthy blood seeped out, dripped onto the ground, and gathered into dark pools.
The girl saw her chance. Clutching the , she charged without hesitation toward the safety door that had just opened on the other side.
"Anyone there?" she shouted as she ran. "Which way do I go?"
wanted very much to answer.
But the broadcast system in this area was already broken.
So, he could only make the still-working display screen at the end of the corridor light up.
The screen flickered a few times, and black text on a white background quickly appeared:
[Go left.]
The girl's steps paused. She turned to look at the screen.
"Who?"
The screen continued to change characters:
[Keep running.]
The girl gritted her teeth and didn't ask again. Clutching the , she charged into the maintenance room on the left.
The gate behind her finally came down, isolating the zombies' roars outside, which thudded dully against the steel plate.
In the maintenance room, only the emergency light was still glowing, flashing red light across her face, adding a layer of tension to the atmosphere.
The girl leaned against the wall, slowly sliding down to sit on the ground, her fingers locked tightly around the . After composing herself for a moment, she spoke again.
"Hello! My name is . Thank you for your help just now. Could you tell me where you are?"
"Do you want to leave this place together and head for a shelter?"