Northdong Office (4)
"...Did they attack first?"
"...Yes."
Jeong Suhyun answered in a subdued voice. But something felt off to me.
For having killed two and captured one alive, there were no signs of battle when I'd checked the lower floor.
"I understand your reaction. Just know it couldn't be helped."
I frowned and pressed him. "...What do you mean? I'm just curious. There were no gunshot marks on the lower floor..."
"...Come this way."
He led me to the first floor.
Creak—
Thud—thud—
We arrived at the warehouse where I'd seen the stockpiled food earlier. He lit the place up and walked to a corner piled high with rations.
"Hold on."
Jeong Suhyun cleared away the food stacked to one side.
"..This is..."
What appeared on the wall told the whole story.
Bullet holes pocked the concrete, surrounded by dried bloodstains. That's how I pieced it together.
'Must've been hidden before.'
The warehouse had been dim, and the mess was buried under the food piles, so I hadn't noticed.
I looked at him staring bitterly at the bloodstains and demanded an explanation.
"What happened?"
Jeong Suhyun licked his lips and spoke.
"...You heard about the first group that came back?"
"Yes."
Three men approaching from the east side of the office with M16 rifles. At first, Jeong Suhyun thought they'd come back after surviving outside.
"But their goal wasn't to survive here."
The intruders wanted to loot and kill. When they saw him, they threatened him and demanded the food.
Jeong Suhyun chuckled darkly and continued.
"So I refused, and killed them."
Hold up. This guy kept phrasing things weirdly.
"No, wait. Reserve soldiers and guys in their twenties pulling that shit?"
I couldn't buy Jeong Suhyun's story. Letting three armed men in was suspicious enough, and them dying without landing a hit on him? Even more so. If they'd really threatened him, they'd have disarmed him first. I eyed him suspiciously.
"And there were no signs of resistance. You didn't just shoot them in the back?"
Someone had come in, sure. But the gunfire came only from inside the warehouse entrance, toward the door. The bloodstains inside showed no fightback—they'd just died.
"......Yeah. Of course you'd think that."
Jeong Suhyun's eyes darkened ominously. The air turned cold.
'What the hell? Sudden horror flick?'
But he hadn't brought a gun from the fourth floor, and now he was unarmed. If he lunged, I could kill him without hesitation. I had Ice Spear and Ashes Veil.
"Hoo..."
But he had no such intent. He perched on a table stacked with food and looked at me.
So I waited for his words. There had to be a reason he was showing me this so obviously.
And I was right.
Jeong Suhyun gazed at me with an exhausted, deathly tired expression.
"Well, no reaction, huh. Thought you'd call me a murderer or something."
"I get the gist of what happened."
"Do you."
He mulled over my response, then burst out laughing—hahaha.
He rubbed his dry face with both hands and said to me,
"Hoo. Yeah. I killed them first. Does 'murderer' bother you? But I had no choice."
As he spoke, Jeong Suhyun picked up an emergency ration labeled [KS Fried Rice].
"Which part of what I told you was a lie? I had plenty of chances to attack you. But I didn't. Why? Your only weapon was a wooden plank. Even if you charged, I could've taken you down with my gun."
Random tangent. Reasons he didn't attack me.
"And?"
"You have confidence. And you back it up—with that magic ability. But."
But?
I waited. Jeong Suhyun sighed.
"I'm not like that. If those three had come here to kill me, what should I have done?"
His eyes sank deep. I started to speak but shut my mouth.
"From the start, it was reserves who shot the soldiers and civilians on day four. Yeah, 'reserves'—just regular twenty-something guys living normal lives."
Figures.
In this country, twenty-something men dragged out every year without even minimum wage. Regular soldiers weren't much different.
"The people here demanded a lot from them. Night watches, food rations, hauling the injured and dead."
Grind—
Jeong Suhyun's teeth ground audibly.
"What's your point."
But this was rehashing old ground. Conflicts between soldiers/reserves and civilians—I'd heard that. Surprising he'd feel the same, but not shocking. His tone had irritation earlier too.
Jeong Suhyun grinned bitterly.
"So those who refused rescue and bailed—they'd harbor grudges against civilians, right?"
"...Probably."
"Then why come back here?"
I scowled. He kept dodging and rambling.
And none of it made sense.
"Just tell me why you killed them."
"Why? To survive. Should I just sit and die? Isn't preemptively removing threats a basic human right? They barge in armed—killing them's obvious, no?"
I clamped my mouth shut.
Seeing my grimace, Jeong Suhyun continued.
"Weird, right? Think I'm crazy now? Why not talk it out? I'd love to be crazy. But the dead keep haunting me. Scares me."
He slumped to the floor, closed his eyes, and said,
"I was a social worker at a nursing home. And now I've killed zombies, and even people."
"So what? You want me to forgive you for it?"
"No."
He was firm.
"Just wanted to tell someone. Killing them was necessary. They were criminals. Yeah. The one I captured and tortured confirmed they were scum..."
"What?"
I cut him off. Something I couldn't ignore slipped out.
"Oh, the one I captured? Twenty-one-year-old college kid named Eugene-ho. Shot him in the limbs—he loved it."
"Not that. The part about their actual crimes."
So it wasn't just self-defense?
I zeroed in on "scum."
"Didn't I mention? There's a group going between the church and mart, killing, kidnapping, raping. They call themselves the Northdong Liberation Army—Northlib for short."
"...Proof?"
"None. But our Eugene-ho spilled it quick. They wear uniforms, scour nearby apartments collecting survivors."
"...For real?"
"What else?"
True, hard to judge on his word alone.
"What about the bodies?"
"Stripped 'em naked and dumped at the front gate. Didn't see the bloody clothes on the first floor?"
"Those were civilian clothes."
"...You think rapist murderers wear uniforms for that?"
I left the warehouse, headed to the hallway I'd entered from. In the area scattered with blankets and clothes, I inspected the bloody garments.
"These..."
I found several riddled with bullet holes and soaked in blood.
"See?"
"Yeah."
"Now what?"
"...What?"
Jeong Suhyun asked me.
What now? What the hell?
"With power like that, aren't you supposed to go around killing bad guys?"
"What bullshit is that? You want me to kill you?"
"Yes. Painlessly, if possible."
I scowled. This was straight-up suicidal PTSD vibes.
I told Jeong Suhyun,
"What about family? The Geoje bit a lie?"
"...No."
Then why seek death?
"Shocked by the killing? Guilt?"
"...Yes."
He sighed and said,
"Were they really bad? Guys coming back armed, shooting zombies. Actual rapist murderers?"
"No, you interrogated the captive."
But he shook his head.
"Pain makes people lie."
I sighed. Jeong Suhyun wasn't right in the head. Guilt over killing, yet he wanted absolution that he was right.
"That bring the dead back?"
"...No."
"Then what? From me."
The ones to forgive him were long dead. He couldn't escape this.
And I wasn't positioned to help. Just another survivor in this shit world—no authority to forgive or punish murderers.
"Huh? What should I do? Then go die outside. Scared?"
"Yes."
So I gave him one piece.
"Then go check that mart and church yourself. Cut the pointless emotional bullshit with me."