The Great Escape
Time had passed.
Roughly two weeks, I’d say. We’d spent that time holed up in the university dorms.
In our spare hours we hit department stores and supermarkets, commandeering whatever we needed.
Sometimes we fought zombies. Sometimes we intimidated survivors.
There were quite a few survivors near the stores and markets. Most of them immediately shrank back the moment they saw our assault rifles, though.
That didn’t mean there was zero danger. But the rewards were worth the risk.
All sorts of food, medicine, and every essential item you could think of.
We’d gathered so much that we had to leave the overflow in the dorms because the truck couldn’t carry it all.
Today was no different. We scavenged even more supplies, loaded only the best into the truck, and returned to the dorm to rest.
We hadn’t picked just any dorm, either.
Using my overflowing strength, I dragged every bed in the building together and built one massive bed to sleep on.
Claiming a single dorm room felt too small, so we took over the spacious lounge on each floor instead.
Stretching out my arms and legs across that bed that filled half the room… there was nothing better.
I didn’t know how my sister felt about it, but I was firmly in the “the wider the bed, the better” camp.
Even if Kang Ahyeon whined that she couldn’t sleep unless I pinned her down, throwing tantrums and trying to burrow under me.
All she could do was make those pitiful noises when I wouldn’t let her crawl on top of me.
But the moment I finally held her down, she’d flash a bright smile as if she’d never complained, wrap her legs around my waist, and bury her face in my chest.
She really was a high-maintenance little sister.
I sometimes wondered how nice it would be if she were a bit colder, calmer, and less clingy.
But that version of her would probably feel strange too. After all, I’d spent my entire life with this human barnacle stuck to me.
She was like a tumor of attachment.
Once that tumor of attachment had fallen asleep, I met eyes with Lee Ye-eun and stepped out onto the terrace.
It was raining. The pouring spring rain fell coldly over the ruins of Sion Mountain Fortress all the way to Gucheon Village.
Gucheon Village wasn’t a bad place to stay… but there was no reason for me or Kang Ahyeon to remain here any longer.
As we stood together watching the rain fall over the village, old memories slowly surfaced.
The walk home from school when it was just the two of us. I had always seen Ye-eun as nothing more than a friend.
Of course living here didn’t exactly promise a bright future, but I had believed she would always, always be my friend.
When that same Ye-eun confessed to me and I turned her down, saying I was sorry, the moment we stopped being friends… how much that had hurt her.
It’s okay. I have oppa. I always will.
I recalled what my sister had said and took a moment to steady my heart.
Anyway, even if her feelings for me hadn’t changed, I could tell at a glance that the nature of those feelings was different now.
I wasn’t the kind of guy who automatically returned someone’s affection just because they liked me.
Ye-eun asked about my plans. I glanced at my sleeping sister before answering.
For some reason Ye-eun was watching me with anticipation. The reflection of my face in her dark eyes wore the same expression it always did.
Ye-eun looked thoroughly unimpressed. More than unimpressed—she looked like she couldn’t understand me at all.
Leaning against the terrace railing, she let out a short, flat “Right…”
Ye-eun had always been mature. From the very beginning. The only time she’d ever acted her age was when she confessed to me.
In other words, survival was priority zero. Priority one was enjoyment.
And maybe, just maybe, I’d go looking for strong opponents to get even stronger.
She wasn’t wrong. Thinking back on everything I’d experienced in the past month, I couldn’t deny it.
I had come within inches of death more times than I could count. The Preacher, the Holy Warrior, that damn snake of a father.
And here, even the Centurion.
If my luck had been even slightly worse, if my coordination with my sister had been even a little off, if my abilities hadn’t been exactly what I needed at the moment…
I would have died long ago.
Turned into a zombie, torn apart, or eaten alive.
None of those were exactly peaceful ways to go.
I fell silent at Ye-eun’s question.
I shut my mouth. This was turning into an argument.
It felt familiar. Ye-eun scolding me, me snapping back at her.
I still didn’t understand what she saw in a guy like me that made her pretend to be my friend all those years.
And she wasn’t wrong.
Against something like the serpent, there was no way to win in a head-on fight. If I couldn’t find a way to beat it, I’d avoid it.
But if I could take it down, I would fight.
The moment I got my hands on explosives, my first thought was to kill that snake bastard.
And I actually did it. My sister followed my plan perfectly and we took the serpent down for good.
That was how I’d survived until now. If I hesitated because I was scared or thought I might die, I might survive today, but I’d have no future.
That was why I fought. Because survival itself was a struggle.
The results spoke for themselves.
The Holy Lance, the Holy Warrior’s sword, even his Suspicion trait.
Not to mention all the good gear.
Heavy swordsmanship, hand-to-hand combat, shooting, two martial arts, the Strong Bone trait, and a bunch of random skills on top of that.
And the stats that came with them.
I was the owner of Greed, the ability that made me stronger the more I fought. There was no way I’d just walk past a variant.
But… was that really so wrong?
When I stared at her blankly, Ye-eun looked back at me for a long moment.
Was that how it looked? I stared blankly at the horizon. The gloomy, familiar, yet utterly shitty sky over Gucheon Village in the rain.
She was right. I couldn’t argue. There was nothing wrong with what she said.
Before I could even think about whether she could understand me, I realized something else.
Ye-eun was afraid.
Ah. So even Ye-eun was just an ordinary person after all.
She was right. When I stayed silent, Ye-eun turned to face me directly.
Ye-eun took my hand.
For the past two weeks, Ye-eun and I had traveled together. In those two weeks we had seen many zombies and many people.
None of them had been enough to trigger my Greed.
Still, we killed anything we could kill.
Ye-eun was trying to change the way I lived.
I could picture it. Waking up every morning, tending to a community—or a home for the three of us.
People would call me the vigilante leader or the boss, and they’d give my sister similar titles.
They would respect our strength, listen carefully to our words.
They would look up to us as we drove away threats and protected them with that same power.
Not the fake loyalty the cult leader had manufactured, but real loyalty. Friendship worth risking your life for.
Belonging to such a group, growing crops, hunting, patrolling.
Staying in one place, simply dreaming of tomorrow every single day.
It was peaceful. Pastoral. Not bad when I imagined it. Not bad at all.
But I felt a strong sense of discomfort. A thick, heavy dissonance from Ye-eun’s suggestion.
It didn’t feel like she was saying it just because she liked me and wanted to live with me.
That was part of it, sure.
But there was a deeper fear behind it.
I knew exactly what it was.
Ye-eun was afraid right now. Afraid that if she stayed with me, she might die.
That if she willingly followed me into madness, she would eventually, inevitably die.
Humans weren’t meant to live alone. We weren’t built for solitude.
Whether we died fighting or died from lack of something, we would die.
She had realized that. And she couldn’t follow me down a road that led to death.
Ye-eun was a smart girl.
That was why she made me this offer.
When I heard it, I felt like I had been given two paths.
One was safe, pastoral, and certain. A path where I survived without question and simply lived day by day.
The path of living together with Ye-eun.
It was the normal direction. The one any ordinary person would choose.
It was a life I had never experienced. A normal romance, normal love.
Caring for the people around me in a normal way, dreaming of tomorrow every single day.
An utterly ordinary but precious daily life.
Ye-eun was trying to give me that gift.
And the price?
My eyes drifted. For a moment, Kang Ahyeon’s brown hair appeared at the edge of my vision.
No. It was my own hair.
We were siblings born from the same womb, after all.
We had the same hair, the same eyes.
The price was Kang Ahyeon. If I chose normalcy, she would grow distant from me. She might leave one day. Or… she might become normal too.
After all, she had spent her entire life pretending to be normal.
So if I chose Lee Ye-eun… what would Kang Ahyeon do?
Would she be rejected for not being normal, driven away, or continue acting?
Or.
When I tried to shake off the ominous thought that flashed through my mind, another path came to me.
The other path.
The exact same path my sister had walked after stabbing our parents to death in Sion Mountain Fortress. The path of enjoying dopamine, fighting strong enemies.
The path of going out to enjoy all the things we could never have dreamed of before the world ended.
There was no one who could walk that second path with me.
Except Kang Ahyeon.
I knew what I would have to give up if I chose that path. A normal life, a sane life, a decent girlfriend, a decent family, a decent community.
A worthwhile life. Not just feeding my own dopamine, but building a truly massive community worth cultivating.
And perhaps, respect.
I placed both paths on a scale. The scale creaked but refused to tip.
Only I could decide their value.
Normal and abnormal.
Safety and danger.
Ordinary and extraordinary.
Future and present.
Lee Ye-eun and Kang Ahyeon.
My childhood friend standing before me, her black eyes filled with me, quietly watching. The childhood friend who truly liked me and was willing to follow even my madness.
And my psychopathic little sister who had stabbed our parents to death, killed the woman who flirted with me, and could put a bullet through someone’s head without batting an eye.
Before I knew it, I had turned my head to look at Kang Ahyeon sleeping peacefully in the room.
I already knew what my answer would be. And Ye-eun knew it too.
Kang Ahyeon slept soundly in the room.
It had been that way from the beginning.
No matter how clumsy, effective, or dangerous my plans were, Kang Ahyeon followed them without a single complaint.
In front of room 808 she pretended to cry to buy time.
Against the choir she deliberately drew their attention to help me kill them.
She shot the cultists from beside me, helped at exactly the right moment against the Preacher, and tried her best to be useful against the Holy Warrior.
When I thought of all of it, I realized.
Yes. The only one who can walk this path with me is my sister.
In the end, it really is only family.
A hollow laugh escaped me. That damn tumor of a girl.
Ye-eun’s hand slipped from mine.
Rejected again. Ye-eun let out a long sigh at my words.
With an incredibly sorrowful expression.
Our conversation ended there.
The conclusion had been reached.
Our paths had diverged as well.
Another week passed.
When we felt there was nothing left to scavenge and that we had nearly wiped out all the zombies in the area.
When not a single variant could be seen, not even a strand of hair.
In the university parking lot, Ye-eun stood beside the truck where my sister and I sat.
That was what Ye-eun said to me.
It wasn’t just empty politeness. If we ever returned, Ye-eun would welcome us with open arms.
Well, Ye-eun had always been mature.
She had been sharp since she was little, and even during our argument the other day I could tell she had a clear vision for survival.
She would probably be good at leading a group. She had the talent to fill the empty spot left by Tae-woo.
Ye-eun smiled faintly at my words.
It was a familiar offer.
Right beside me, Kang Ahyeon wore a slightly sour expression, but it was still a good offer.
Dentists, doctors, technicians.
Whatever it was, things we couldn’t do ourselves. It wouldn’t be bad to have a place that could handle those.
Ye-eun smiled brightly. I jerked my chin at Kang Ahyeon, and she forced a smile before starting the engine.
Kang Ahyeon’s eyes widened, as if she hadn’t expected Ye-eun to answer so readily.
At Kang Ahyeon’s hesitant reply, Ye-eun let out a small laugh.
My childhood friend waved as our car began to move.
As our vehicle pulled away, I watched Ye-eun standing in the parking lot through the rearview mirror.
Until her figure finally disappeared around the corner.
I spoke the words that had come to mind as I looked at the road stretching out ahead.
A road that ran all the way to the horizon—dangerous, but full of fun.
My heart was pounding for some reason.
