Rebate King: I fed them to rule the apocalypse

chapter 5: two percent survival

The scythe-like bone blades hissed as they sliced through the falling rain, stopping less than an inch from my left ear. The air coming off the creature’s arm smelled of wet zinc and scorched copper.

"Don't move," I muttered, my voice barely a whisper. My own heart felt like a hammer hitting an anvil inside my chest. "Sarah. Can you hear me? Don't move a damn muscle."

"It's... it's looking at me, Ethan," Sarah rasped. She was flat on her back, the armored tactical vest I had thrown onto her chest rising and falling with her ragged breaths. The violet veins along her neck were pulsing so hard they looked like they were trying to tear through her pale skin. "It’s not using its ears. It’s inside my head. It’s screaming at me to crawl to it."

"Don't," I said.

I didn't turn my head to look at the roof of the Daewoo Labo van. I didn't need to. The structural steel of the small vehicle was groaning under a massive, shifting weight, the metal buckling right above our heads. My *Lurker Camouflage* was active—the freezing numbness coating my skin told me the system was masking my biological signature—but if that four-bladed hand swung blindly, camouflage wouldn't keep my head attached to my shoulders.

The black text hovered dead center in my vision, blinking like a hazard light on a dark highway.

**[District Boss: The Alpha Lurker (Gwanak-Mapo Broodmother)]**

**[Current Combat Survival Rate: 2%]**

"Two percent," I whispered to myself. "That means there's a way. The system doesn't say zero."

"What are you muttering about?" Sarah choked out, a tear cutting a clean line through the mud on her cheek. "It's pulling me, Ethan. If I don't... if I don't give in, it’s going to slice us both."

"Shut up and let me think," I snapped.

My mind scrambled through my inventory. I had two shells left in the tube of the tactical shotgun. Both were the orange, gold-etched Dragon’s Breath rounds. In my right hand, I held the newly materialized high-frequency combat knife. The matte-gray blade was humming at a pitch so high it was practically silent, but the vibration was vibrating through my knuckles.

Two shells. One knife. A massive, armored broodmother sitting on top of a thin metal roof directly behind me.

*If I use the fire weapon, the camouflage breaks,* the cold, calculating part of my brain analyzed. *The moment I flash a magnesium burst, the light and heat will override the system’s masking. I’ll go from a ghost to a target in zero seconds.*

"Sarah," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the narrow exit of the alley. "The box. The military crate in the van. Is it still open?"

"Yes," she whispered, her eyes rolling toward the cargo bed. "Why? Are you going to eat a meal before we die?"

"I'm going to trigger another transaction," I said. "The system caps the rebate value if your trust is too low, but it didn't say I couldn't do it twice. Grab something from the box. Anything. A water bottle. An MRE. Throw it at me."

"Are you insane?" she hissed, her voice cracking with a mix of terror and pure fury. "There are a dozen of them circling us, a giant one on the roof, and you want to play with the food container again?"

"Do it!" I growled, my jaw aching from the tension. "You think I'm one of the people who started this? Fine. Believe that. But if you want to see tomorrow, you throw me a pack right now. Treat it like a bribe. Treat it like you're trying to buy your life from a freak."

Sarah’s teeth chattered violently. Her pale, dark-veined fingers scraped against the wet asphalt, reaching blindly backward into the cargo area of the overturned van. Her hand caught the edge of a plastic-wrapped MRE. With a guttural cry of frustration, she flung it straight at my boots.

"Take it, you psycho!" she screamed.

The package splashed into the puddle between my feet.

**[Transaction validated. Target has attempted an involuntary trade under extreme duress.]**

**[Current Trust Level: -12% (Absolute Malice)]**

**[System Note: Host is exploiting target state. Recalculating rebate parameters...]**

**[100x Platinum Rebate Triggered!]**

**[Reward granted: Active Skill Upgrade — 'Perception Acceleration' expanded to Level 2 (Spatial Analysis unlocked)]**

**[Reward granted: Military Flashbang Grenade (M84 Spec) x2]**

Two heavy, cylindrical metal canisters materialized directly into the side pockets of my cargo pants, their weight hitting my thigh with a solid, reassuring thud.

*Flashbangs.* A grin, sharp and devoid of any real humor, cut across my face. The blind Lurkers hunted by sound. The Alpha Lurker was currently tracking Sarah via whatever "Carrier" telepathy she was experiencing, but its physical body still relied on the same biological sensory organs as the smaller drones. An S-Rank flashbang wouldn't just blind a normal human; it would shatter the acoustic receptors of a sound-hunting beast.

"Sarah," I whispered, my fingers slipping into my pocket and hooking around the pin of the first canister. "Cover your ears. Close your eyes. If you look at the light, you’ll never see again."

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice rising in panic as she saw the metal cylinder in my hand. "Ethan, what is that?"

"Survival," I said.

The scythe-like blades beside my ear suddenly twitched. On the roof, the Alpha Lurker let out a low, vibrating growl that shook the loose bricks from the alley walls. It was losing patience. The long, skinless arm began to retract, lifting the blades slightly as it prepared to drive them straight through Sarah’s chest to harvest its prize.

I didn't wait for it to strike. I pulled the pin with my teeth and activated *Perception Acceleration (Lv. 2)*.

The world died.

The rain stopped mid-air, thousands of perfect, glassy spheres hanging in the dark space between the high-rises. But this time, it was different. Across my field of vision, thin, glowing blue vectors and wireframes mapped themselves onto the environment. I could see the structural stress points of the Daewoo Labo van. I could see the exact trajectory of the falling water droplets. Most importantly, I could see through the rusted sheet metal of the van's roof—a glowing red mass representing the Alpha Lurker’s vital organs, positioned right above the rear axle.

I didn't throw the flashbang at the monsters. In a confined alleyway, a flashbang exploded out in the open would bounce its concussive wave back onto us, shattering my own eardrums despite the system's protection.

Instead, I shoved the activated canister straight into the open fuel tank intake of the overturned van, right below the chassis.

With my left hand, I grabbed Sarah by the collar of her denim jacket, hauling her dead weight across the wet asphalt as I threw myself toward the opposite brick wall, using the heavy metal crate of MREs as a makeshift shield between us and the vehicle.

My perception snapped back to normal.

*BANG.*

The flashbang didn't ignite the gasoline—there wasn't enough heat for a fuel explosion—but the pressure wave inside the enclosed metal frame of the van was catastrophic. A blinding, white-hot strobe of one million candlepower erupted from every crack in the vehicle’s chassis, accompanied by a deafening, 170-decibel acoustic blast that ripped through the alleyway like a localized thunderclap.

The smaller Lurkers surrounding us didn't even have time to shriek. The sheer volume of the sound pressure tore through their sensitive ear cavities instantly. Black blood erupted from their hairless heads as they collapsed into the mud, clawing at their own skulls in a blind, agonizing frenzy.

Above us, the Alpha Lurker let out a horrific, wet roar. The creature tumbled off the roof of the van, its massive, three-meter-tall bulk crashing heavily into the ruined street, shattering the asphalt beneath its weight. It was a nightmare of grey, braided muscle and exposed bone plates, its face a smooth, featureless oval save for a massive, vertical slit that was currently pouring thick, dark fluid.

It was disoriented, thrashing its four-bladed arms wildly, slicing through concrete and brick like they were wet cardboard.

"Now!" I yelled, the sound of my own voice muffled by the ringing in my ears.

I popped up from behind the wooden crate. I didn't use the shotgun—not yet. I drew the high-frequency combat knife. With *Spatial Analysis* still lingering in the corner of my eye, a bright red dot illuminated a soft, unarmored gap right below the Alpha Lurker’s distended jawline, where the skin was thin and pulsing.

I lunged forward, stepping over the writhing bodies of the smaller drones. The Alpha Lurker sensed the displacement of air and swung its massive left arm toward me in a blind, sweeping arc.

I didn't dodge. I thrust the vibrating knife straight into the path of the scythe-like bone blades.

The high-frequency vibration met the hardened biological armor. There was a horrific, screaming sound—like metal being fed into a woodsplitter—as the matte-gray blade sliced clean through two of the monster's scythe fingers, sending them flying into the dark fog.

The creature shrieked, its head jerking backward in agony.

That was the opening. I grabbed the tactical shotgun with my left hand, jammed the muzzle directly into the vertical slit on its featureless face, and squeezed the trigger.

*Boom!*

The Dragon's Breath round detonated inside its skull. The explosion didn't just blow the creature’s head apart; it unleashed a column of white-hot, magnesium fire that cooked the monster from the inside out. The Alpha Lurker’s massive body stiffened, the pulsing crimson veins across its chest turning black and brittle before it crashed into the mud, a smoking, hollowed-out husk.

**[District Boss Neutralized: Gwanak-Mapo Broodmother.]**

**[Experience value calculated. System parameters updated.]**

**[Current Combat Survival Rate: 98%]**

I stood over the burning carcass, my breath coming in ragged gasps, the smoke from the shotgun barrel mixing with the steam rising from the dead beast. My left arm was trembling from the sheer force of the recoil, but the icy calm in my head remained completely unbroken.

"Ethan..."

I turned around. Sarah was leaning against the brick wall, her face completely empty of color. She wasn't looking at the dead monster. She was looking at me, her gaze lingering on the smoking gun, the vibrating knife, and the complete lack of emotion on my face.

"You killed it," she whispered, her voice filled with a profound, unadulterated dread. "You killed a god."

"It wasn't a god," I said, wiping a splat of black blood from my cheek with the back of my hand. "It was just bigger than the others. Can you stand?"

"No," she said, her head dropping back against the brick. The blue light in her eyes was completely gone, but the dark, violet lines under her skin remained, tracking up toward her temples like a map of infected rivers. "The noise... the noise stopped when you burned it. But I can still hear the static. It’s like a radio station that’s out of range, Ethan. It’s waiting for me to go closer."

I walked over to her, sheathing the combat knife and slung the shotgun over my shoulder. I picked up the canvas backpack she had dropped, then looked down at her.

"We're going to the underground market," I said. "Whether you like it or not. You're too dangerous to leave out here, Sarah. If the system says you're a Carrier, it means you're a target. And right now, targets are my only way to get stronger."

She looked up at me, a bitter, lifeless smile forming on her lips. "So I'm just a resource to you now? A tool?"

"In this world?" I said, reaching down and hoisting her up onto my good shoulder, ignoring her sharp gasp of pain as her sprained ankle shifted. "A tool is the only thing that doesn't get eaten. Be glad you have a use."

As I carried her out of the alley, leaving the burning remains of the Mapo brood behind us, the blue interface flashed one final text block before minimizing into the corner of my eye.

**[Ding! Target's current state stabilized. Relationship status: Captive Utility.]**

**[Next District Objective Unlocked: Sector 3 — The Yeouido Shelter Ruins.]**

I didn't know what was waiting for us in Yeouido, but as we stepped out onto the main boulevard, surrounded by the skeletal remains of abandoned transit buses and shattered storefronts, I knew one thing for certain.

The broke, desperate kid who couldn't pay his rent in Gwanak-gu died in that basement three days ago. The man walking through the rain today was someone else entirely. And he was hungry for more power.