Chapter 46
We had passed Wangsimni Station and were approaching Seongdong District Office when I saw my underlings running toward me, making their throat-rending cries. My three hundred underlings had found Kim Hyeong-Jun and me, and dashed across the road to reach us. Kim Hyeong-Jun looked at my underlings and then looked at me.
‘Seems like you’ve gotten stronger since the last time I saw you, ahjussi.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Your underlings are really fast. Don’t tell me you’ve become stronger than me! Haha.’
‘It’s not the time for jokes.’
‘Geez ahjussi, how many ‘baits’ did you take care of in Haengdang-dong?’
He chuckled and flashed me a smirk. It seemed as though he held some deep-seated jealousy that I’d gotten stronger without doing much work. I half-ignored his joke and tried to recall the last place I’d seen Mr. Kwak. When we finally entered Majang-dong, I glanced over at Kim Hyeong-Jun.
‘Tell me if you see any red creatures.’
‘Ahjussi, let’s just get one thing clear.’
‘...?’
‘We’re in enemy territory. Don’t report back. Just fight them. That’s the best kind of report we need.’
Kim Hyeong-Jun’s red eyes glowed brighter. He was getting himself into the zone. I steeled myself and then nodded once.
He was right. This wasn’t the time for reconnaissance, and we couldn’t afford to wait around to try to understand the situation. It was possible that enemy scouts were in position and hiding, or even that our location had been revealed. Anything could happen.
It was unlikely that the enemy would attack us in formation. They also had a geographical advantage since they controlled Majang-dong. We knew nothing about Majang-dong. After a moment, Kim Hyeong-Jun spoke.
‘Where’s the elementary school?’
‘Five hundred meters ahead.’
‘Ahjussi, head straight for the school. I’ll split my army into two and go around the flanks.’
I nodded and headed straight toward the elementary school, and after a moment, it finally came into view. From a distance, I saw candles flickering in a classroom on the third floor. After a quick look around, I leaped into the classroom.
I couldn’t sense the presence of anyone in the school field or the surrounding buildings. The moment I landed on the third-floor window sill, though, a strange feeling came over me, sending chills down my spine.
There was no one in the classroom. Although there were lit candles in the room, I didn’t see Mr. Kwak, Ms. Koo, or the children. The melted candle wax at the bottom of the candle indicated how much time had passed.
Why were they wasting candles when there was no one around? That was impossible. At that moment, I noticed a water bottle on the floor. It still held water, and was rolling across the floor, its lid still open.
I clenched my fists. This was clear evidence that Mr. Kwak and his people had been dragged off somewhere else. I wondered where they could have been taken to. I squatted down close to the classroom floor to examine the tracks left on the floor. Thanks to the layer of dust covering the floor, it was easy to make out footprints.
Were there tens? Hundreds? I couldn’t tell the exact number, but I could tell that a lot of people had been here.
I followed the footsteps, noticing that there were several small footprints in between the normal-sized ones. I followed the trail of small footprints, which eventually led me to the pantry. After a moment, a soft cry tickled my ears. It was small and weak.
Scrape, scrape.
As I opened the pantry door, I heard a gasp, as if someone was trying to hold their breath. I moved toward the source of the sound and my eyes fell on three children huddled in a corner.
One of the children began to cry at the top of their lungs after seeing my face. The two children next to the crying child quickly covered their mouth. A little boy who seemed to be the same age as So-Yeon came up to me.
“Ahjussi… Are you on our side?”
I was taken aback by the question.
“Tell me you’re not a bad person, ahjussi.”
The child was clearly hoping that I would say ‘yes’. His statement seemed halfway between a question and a threat. The child looked me straight in the eyes and began to tear up.
I nodded slowly, and the child burst into tears.
‘Is he feeling relieved? Does it mean so much to him to hear that I’m not a bad person, and that I’m on their side?’
The child wiped his tears on his sleeves continually, breathing heavily. I saw some tissues on the pantry table. I grabbed some and squatted in front of the child.
I carefully handed the child some tissues. He closed his mouth firmly and took the tissues from me. I took out a notepad and pen and scribbled a few words.
- Where did the teachers go?
“Some people took them.”
- Where to?
He read what I’d written, then lifted a finger to point. As I titled my head in confusion, the child led me into the hallway. The child was pointing at the rear entrance of the school.
The back entrance glass was shattered and the door itself was torn halfway. I wondered what happened in the span of a couple of hours. I made a sad face and wrote down a couple more letters on my notepad.
- Stay hidden.
“Ahjussi, I want to go too.”
- I’ll bring the teachers back.
“I want to go too!”
- You. Die.
The child’s face turned pale after it saw the word ‘die’, and he froze. I patted him carefully, and I could feel him trembling through my fingertips.
‘Did the word ‘die’ trigger an unpleasant memory?’
He was probably remembering the last time he’d seen the rest of the survivors in the elementary school. I’d unintentionally brought up a traumatic memory. I smacked my lips and then grabbed onto the child’s hands. As I stepped out of the pantry, I wrote my final words to the children.
- Don’t ever come out.
My heart sank as I looked into the children’s eyes. Their eyes were similar to So-Yeon’s when she was keeping her distance from me. I let out a sigh and then gave orders to my underlings.
‘Third platoon, fourth squad, protect the pantry so that the children can’t come out. And let me know if a red creature shows up.’
GRR!!
I heard my underlings answer and headed toward the rear entrance.
‘They couldn’t have gotten far. It’s only been eight hours.’
I’d only been away from Mr. Kwak for eight hours, but it felt like what I’d last said to him—that we would see each other alive again—meant nothing. I didn’t know the situation would change this drastically in the span of a few hours.
Judging by the condition the children were in, it seemed like they’d been attacked less than an hour ago. The fact that they still had the strength to cry meant that fear was still fresh in their minds, which meant the attack had to have been recent, less than an hour ago.
Eight-year-old kids couldn’t cry for more than an hour. They would grow tired from all the crying and fall asleep. At least, that was my assumption, based on my own experience.
It was now a battle against time. The chance that Mr. Kwak and Ms. Koo were still alive was still pretty high. If the gang members had wanted to take care of the two of them, they could have done so in the classroom. There was no reason to drag the two of them out. However, instead of doing so, they’d kidnapped the two. There had to be a reason behind that. A reason that I couldn’t think of right now.
I had to find the gang members. I had to attack right away if I found any red creatures.
That would cause their leader to step in. I made my way to the rear entrance and gave orders to my underlings, pointing toward the pitch darkness.
‘First platoon, go straight. Second platoon, go through the alley on the left. Third platoon, minus the fourth squad, form up behind me.’
GRR!!!
I sprinted into the alley to the right with my fists clenched.
* * *
I made my way through musty-smelling buildings with broken windows and debris strewn all across the floor. The presence or absence on the floor was an indication of whether a group had moved through the area or not. If the streets were free of debris, it meant that the street belonged to the gang members. I had to find a clean street if I wanted to find the red creatures.
Grrr. Ka!
At that moment, I heard a voice that I’d been wanting to hear coming from the rooftop of an eight-story building on the right. It was a red creature. It was signaling to the others that it had found us. I smirked and raced up to the rooftop.
‘I’ve found you now. I’ve got a hold of you.’
The scout that had seen me at the high school had thrown itself off the edge once its duty had been fulfilled, but the zombie I was now facing ran toward me without hesitation. Without remorse, I grabbed it by the neck and threw it off the building.
‘Yeah, you’re right. There’s no need to commit suicide. I can do it for you.’
The zombie leader I’d met at Haengdang-dong had probably been on an information-gathering mission, not even knowing that it had been nothing but bait all along. However, it seemed like the creature in this area had been given totally different orders. It seemed like it had been commanded to defend Majang-dong, and attack first instead of merely gathering information or running away.
It made sense, since I was in the gang’s territory this time, unlike the last time when they were in mine. Very quickly, zombie cries started echoing through the pitch darkness at a constant rate.
Following the signal given by the zombie on the rooftop of the eight-story building, all the other scouts that were hiding in Majang-dong were letting their leader know that danger was close. As the red zombies’ cries echoed around the area, I gave orders to all my underlings.
‘All my underlings in Majang-dong, listen up. Everyone one of you, come here, except for those in the fourth squad of the third platoon.’
GRR!! GAA!!!
The sound of my underlings’ cries came from the many alleyways of Majang-dong.
Thud, thud, thud.
The ground rumbled.
Tens? No—it was the sound of thousands of beings heading toward the same place. The massive vibrations sharpened my senses. It felt like I was walking on the tips of swords. All my senses were on edge.
In the pitch blackness, I opened my murderous glowing red eyes. At that moment, a realization hit me. This sound wasn’t because of my underlings.
At the end of the wide road, a horde of glowing red zombies was hurtling toward me. There seemed to be no end to them. My anxious mind would not calm down.
Seven hundred? Eight hundred? No, it seemed like there were at least a thousand of them.
I looked at my underlings, gathered below me on the first floor. Without the fourth squad of the third platoon, I had a total of two hundred and seventy-five underlings.
Right now, I had to fight alongside my underlings. If I didn’t fight, I would be sentencing all of them to death.
Finding the leader was paramount, but I had no choice but to trust Kim Hyeong-Jun with that task. He was probably feeling the murderous sensation that I was feeling as well. Even if he wasn’t feeling it, he would probably have heard the rumbling sound that was, at that moment, tickling my eardrums. Kim Hyeong-Jun would either come to back me up, or I would have to hold on until he found the leader.
I looked at my underlings and gave them an order.
‘Let’s fight.’
GRRR!!!
With a thunderous roar, my underlings ran toward the red creatures as one. I leaped across the rooftops to get to the onrushing enemies. I had to get right in the middle of them in order to reduce the casualties to my own underlings. If not, my underlings would find themselves surrounded and isolated. When I saw the sea of red creatures beneath me, I leaped down.
Whoosh—
The wind rushed past my ears, and I felt gravity pulling down on my shoulders. I let myself go and landed right in the middle of the horde of red creatures.
Thud!
I used two of the creatures’ heads to cushion my landing. Their heads cracked the moment I landed, and they became one with the asphalt ground.
The red creatures around me looked dumbfounded after seeing me fall from the sky. I didn’t take a moment to rest. I clenched my fists as hard as I could and started punching whatever was in front of me.
Crack!
With the sound of a cracking skull, the zombie right in front of my face was blown away. That shook the red creatures out of their stupor, and they came at me with a chorus of throat-rending howls.
With eyes wide open, I fought back. I grabbed on the heads of the two closest creatures next to me and used their bodies as nunchucks. Kicking away the one that was blocking my way, I made my way forward.
Crack.
I heard a creature behind me trying to bite through my shoulder. I couldn’t feel any pain, so even if it had managed to tear away some of my flesh, it didn’t count as an attack.
‘Should’ve gone for the neck.’
I threw the nunchuck I had in my left hand to the ground and grabbed the zombie that had sunk its teeth into my shoulders. I pulled on its head as hard as I could and its scalp was torn off, leaving me gripping a mass of tangled hair. It had bitten me so deep that I couldn’t even dislodge its teeth from my shoulders.
I threw away the nunchuck I had in my right hand and quickly folded my legs under me, getting ready to jump again.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l