I'm the Only One With a Different Genre - Chapter 208

Chapter 208

A College Student in a Ruined World

Iris followed closely behind Lian as they walked along the broken road. Lian moved effortlessly, as if the world hadn’t fallen into ruin, stepping lightly over half-rotten corpses and navigating the shattered path with ease.

‘What… is this place?’

Unable to take her eyes off Lian’s back, Iris eventually started to glance around at her surroundings.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud!

The sound of regular, heavy footsteps caught her attention. When she turned her head, she saw a corpse with only its lower half remaining, running down the street as if it were participating in a marathon.

When the road was too destroyed to run on, the corpse naturally clung to the walls of nearby buildings and ran along them. Its defiance of gravity drew her gaze.

After traveling for a while longer, they came across a streetlamp that had been planted upside down. Around the flickering light, a group of people with vacant expressions had gathered.

The eerie silence and the sight of those people staring blankly at the streetlamp was not just unsettling—it was grotesque.

Suppressing the strange sense of discomfort, Iris looked at Lian with concern.

“Maybe I should grab some jelly on the way… Hmm, no. Let’s finish the assignment quickly.”

Lian, seemingly oblivious to the bizarre scene around him, continued speaking calmly.

In the ruins of this devastated world, his tranquility felt out of place and only added to the strangeness. Iris, feeling inexplicably anxious, quickened her pace to keep up with him.

After walking for quite some time, they arrived at a university campus, surrounded by broken iron fences and streaks of blood flowing from various places. Lian headed toward the school gate as if it were a familiar path.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

A woman, her face melted to the point where black holes had formed, repeatedly slammed her head against the wall, her body bent forward. The nameplate of the university, now split in half, was smeared with an unknown black substance.

Iris instinctively tensed up. Her hand, gripping her sword, trembled.

“Hello!”

A cheerful greeting, completely out of place in the eerie atmosphere, rang out. Startled, Iris looked at Lian.

He wore the same calm expression, as if nothing was wrong.

Whoosh!

At the sound of the greeting, the woman’s head twisted in an impossible direction. Lian waved at her with a smile and continued into the university.

“Oops!” he exclaimed, lightly stepping over the debris of a collapsed building.

The woman—or rather, the monster—shuddered and twitched a few times before turning her head back and resuming her relentless head-banging against the wall.

Iris, feeling an inexplicable sense of foreboding, kept glancing back at the woman before hastily following Lian.

Not even a minute had passed before the woman’s neck twisted again, this time facing a different direction. She began to stare at a group of survivors, who had ventured out in search of food. They stood cautiously, clutching crude weapons, their faces filled with wary hope.

Their hope stemmed from the fact that they had just seen Lian walk into the school unharmed. Perhaps the monster in front of them was a docile creature?

Gurgle.

“A… A…”

“Hello! Hello!”

The survivors were aware that the monsters seemed to follow certain rules. Naturally, they assumed that Lian’s greeting of “Hello!” was one such rule, a way to survive.

Crunch!

The monster, seeing its prey practically offering itself up, stretched its body and devoured the person in front of it. Blood sprayed into the air as the person was torn in half, and the remaining survivors either collapsed in terror, wetting themselves, or stared blankly at the creature.

“Hello! Hi! Helloo!”

One of the survivors, his face soaked in tears, desperately repeated the word “Hello” over and over, as if begging for his life, only to be crushed underfoot.

The monster devoured everyone who tried to flee, and soon after, its body began to wriggle. It transformed into one of the people it had eaten, and clothes started to form on its body.

“Hello! Helloo!”

A vertical slit appeared in the center of the monster’s empty face, forming a mouth. Just like the first woman who had slammed her head against the wall, the monster now repeated the last words of the people it had consumed, wandering the city aimlessly.

***

“Is it because the weather’s getting warmer? The flowers are in full bloom! They’re beautiful!”

Lian gazed at the largest building on campus with a cheerful smile. Iris pressed her lips together tightly.

‘Is he under some kind of mental attack? Or is he seeing hallucinations?’

The building was covered in vines and massive flowers, yet Lian seemed to find this sight pleasant, smiling as if nothing were wrong. No matter how she looked at him, he didn’t seem normal.

Just as Iris was sinking deeper into her thoughts, Lian approached the largest building. The shattered glass at the entrance left no proper door, and instead, thick vines filled the space.

Lian approached the vines and knocked on them as if he were knocking on a door.

“Hello! You’re working hard as always!”

He spoke to the vines as if a security guard were standing there. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out three chocolates, offering them to the vines as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“It’s not much, but have these and keep up the good work! Thank you, as always!”

The monster that consumed humans extended a vine and took the chocolates from Lian.

Creeeak.

The vines parted, as if inviting them inside. Lian, acting as though this were a perfectly ordinary occurrence, stepped through the opening.

Iris followed behind him, glancing back over her shoulder. Through the slowly closing vines, she saw a human approaching the building, only to be impaled by one of the vines.

‘…Does it only react gently to him?’

With so little information to go on, it was difficult to make any solid guesses. Iris suppressed her unease and continued following Lian.

“I wonder what we’ll learn today.”

Lian’s muttered words only deepened her confusion. The vines had completely covered the entrance, plunging the building into near-total darkness, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead.

Yet Lian walked forward as if he could see everything clearly. Unlike the outside, the interior of the building was surprisingly intact, allowing Iris to barely keep up with Lian’s brisk pace.

Click.

Suddenly, a sound like a match being struck echoed, and light appeared.

“Would you like to buy some matches?”

A small girl, no taller than Lian’s knees, held out a box of matches with a blank expression. Lian smiled brightly at her, as if greeting an old friend.

“Good morning! You’re out early today.”

“Would you like to buy some matches?”

At that moment, Iris was certain.

‘This world looks completely different to him.’

With that certainty, a new question arose.

‘Then why don’t the monsters attack him?’

It wasn’t uncommon in dark fantasy worlds for people to fall into hallucinations, unable to accept the harsh reality. That part she could understand. But the fact that the monsters didn’t attack the completely defenseless Lian was beyond comprehension.

While Iris was lost in thought, the match-selling girl smiled, her mouth stretching unnaturally wide.

After asking three times if you wanted to buy matches, if you agreed, she would take something precious from you—whether it be a part of your body or something dear to you—and give you the matches. If you refused, she would come in the dead of night and burn you to ashes.

The match-seller asked one last time.

“Would you like to buy some matches?”

Her neck tilted to the side, then twisted unnaturally. If you didn’t give a proper answer after the third question, you would become a match yourself.

Given that fact, Lian’s situation was nothing short of dire. Yet, he showed no sign of awareness, smiling as he playfully tapped the match-seller on the shoulder.

“We’ll be late for class. Come on, let’s go together.”

“…”

The match-seller stared at Lian with an eerie gaze. Then, with a cracking sound, she twisted her head back into place. When she held out her hand, Lian, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, picked her up.

…Iris couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous.

Lian continued walking forward, carrying the girl in his arms.

What happened next was utterly shocking.

“Good morning! You’re busy today, huh?”

He greeted a monster that was gnawing on a decayed corpse.

“Oh? When did Cheese get here? If I knew I’d run into you, I would’ve brought some snacks.”

He clicked his tongue regretfully at a dog-like monster with a cute face, which only ever ate half of a human’s body, as it rolled over and begged for attention.

“Good morning, Professor!”

He even greeted a monster whose gaze alone could drive a person mad, addressing it as “Professor.”

End of Chapter