The Preacher Who Healed His Enemies
Tricky.
Screeeech―
A damp, fishy stink came seeping in from all around, but it wasn't the rotting-corpse reek that ten thousand zombies would have been belching out. It was just the smell of an old river.
At the end of the narrow, cave-like passage, there was — surprisingly enough — a small dock. A tributary of the Nakdong River had wound its way through an underground waterway, straight into the heart of the bunker. And there, two small black boats sat moored, shrouded in dust.
"Well, someone came prepared."
Sang-goo slid his pass card through the last floodgate. Krrrung― As the massive steel door rumbled upward, brilliant sunset light came pouring in. The Nakdong River spread out before them. They had made it safely out beyond the airport's high blast walls.
"Let's go."
Hoisting his heavy pack, Sang-goo pushed through the reed fields. The spot where he'd hidden his motorcycle was a twenty-minute walk. Zombies popped out here and there along the way — three, four at a time — but to Sang-goo they barely counted as a warm-up.
Chaaak!
He split one's skull with his axe and kicked another, mid-lunge, straight into the river.
"Should really give this neighborhood a proper clean-up one of these days."
After a long walk, he finally found the Dark Knight where he'd hidden it in the undergrowth. He loaded the heavy pack and his shotgun into the sidecar and swung into the saddle. The sun had already slipped low without him noticing, and a red afterglow was spreading across the Nakdong's ripples like blood.
"Time to clock out."
He was reaching for the ignition when—
Crack!
A dull, percussive report echoed from somewhere. Gunfire. Sang-goo's head snapped toward the sound.
"There are still idiots shooting?"
His brow furrowed. Over there was the home turf of the Sinsegi Gang — the punks he'd turned into a weed-choked wasteland just days ago. Mirae Building. He'd shattered every one of their limbs; he'd figured they'd keep their heads down after that.
"…Doesn't sit right."
He'd been about to ride on when a strange unease made him cut the handlebar and turn.
Just a quick look.
Vrooom―
This time he rode with the noise kept to a minimum. When he reached the front of Mirae Building, he stopped the bike and looked up at it. Outside, the place was silent — but from the upper floors came the unmistakable stir of frantic activity.
Go in, or don't.
Sang-goo hesitated. Truth be told, he didn't want to. If he crossed paths with those bastards again, he didn't think he'd be able to end it with broken bones this time. Last time he'd spared them as an "education." But if they pushed their luck again… he might just butcher all hundred of them. Gangsters or not, killing a hundred men took an enormous mental toll. He'd already felt that a few days back, watching the Crow execute his own routed soldiers.
"Just go. Let them fight each other."
The moment Sang-goo turned the handlebar—
CRASH!
A twentieth-floor window shattered, and something plummeted down.
"What the—"
THUD―!SPLAT!
"?!!"
On the asphalt ten meters ahead, a body — human or zombie, impossible to tell — burst like a squashed tomato.
Someone was looking down from above, but the pedestrian overpass blocked their view of Sang-goo, and there was no further movement. Down below, though, Sang-goo had frozen solid with shock. The head had burst open and the face was unrecognizable, but that shabby old clothing was familiar. The old man who'd handed over a generous stock of medicine — saying the gangsters could use it on themselves or their own people, whatever suited them. The pastor his father had sometimes shared a bowl of makgeolli with on his house-call rounds.
"Ha…."
A groan tore out of Sang-goo. Was this how it ended — the old man coming here to treat those filth with the medicine he'd so carefully provided? Was this what it meant to repay kindness with evil?
"Insect bastards…."
Urgh.
Something hot surged up from his gut. This wasn't rage, exactly — it was a vicious, gnawing disgust. A primal revulsion toward things that weren't fit to be called human.
Sang-goo dismounted instantly.
"Guard the bike."
Chik―chik.
He drew the shotgun, seated a drum magazine, and racked the slide. Axe and katana at his hip, pistol on his thigh. Fully geared.
He looked down at the old man's body for a moment, then pulled out a body bag and laid it gently over him. Then he raised his head and glared up at the building.
"Wasn't supposed to be a rescue."
Sang-goo charged straight for the lobby.
"Wh-what the—! Who the hell—!"
A few gangsters squatting in the lobby recoiled and stumbled backward at the sight of him. Most were wearing casts on their arms or legs, or wrapped head to toe in bandages — his handiwork from last time.
"H-hiiik! Th-that's him! It's that guy!"
The moment they saw Sang-goo's face, they went white and collapsed to the floor, the terror of that day coming back to life in their eyes. But there were unharmed ones among them too — men who hadn't been there that day, or had lucked out of the beating.
Sang-goo made straight for the twentieth floor. A boiling desire to kill every last one of them surged through him — but he decided he'd at least hear out the ones who'd been there. Because, really, if he could help it, he'd rather not kill all hundred.
"What's with that bastard? Hey! Grab him!"
One of the unharmed ones yanked out a sashimi blade and rushed at Sang-goo's back.
"Hey! Don't!"
His buddies tried to stop him, but it was too late. Just as the oblivious fool raised his blade to stab down, Sang-goo spun and smashed the shotgun's buttstock into his solar plexus.
WHAM―!
"Guh—hwak!"
The man's breath caught dead in his throat and he staggered — and Sang-goo jammed the muzzle against his face.
"Still haven't learned, huh."
BOOM―!
The man's head exploded like a watermelon. Blood and brains sprayed in every direction, painting the lobby walls red.
"AAAGH!"
"HYEEEK?!"
At that spectacle, the gangsters shrieked and flattened themselves against the floor. One of them wet himself.
Sang-goo swept a frigid gaze over them all. "Where's your boss."
"U-upstairs! Twentieth floor! Please, just spare us!"
Instead of answering, Sang-goo headed for the stairwell.
The climb to the twentieth floor was eerily quiet. The ones he ran into along the way took one look at the vicious shotgun in his hands and scattered — dropping their weapons to flee, or diving for cover. To men whose souls had already been shaken loose once, Sang-goo was nothing less than a death god.
The twentieth floor, at last. He kicked the door off its hinges and stepped inside.
BANG―!
A broad office. The windows were shattered, and the wind blew papers scattering through the air. There sat a man in a wheelchair — the boss of the Sinsegi Gang. A cast on his leg, a neck brace on his throat. Quite the picture. Beside him stood two doctors in white coats and three hulking men in black tactical vests.
"You… you're…."
The moment Doksa saw Sang-goo, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull. "How… how are you here…."
Sang-goo approached him, shotgun in hand. "Why'd you throw the pastor out the window. You stole his medicine — you should've been satisfied with that."
Doksa's face drained white. He gaped like a fish, glancing furtively at the black-vested men at his side.
"Who's this clown?"
The one who looked like the leader of Black Guard's stragglers drew his pistol. The other two pulled theirs at the same instant and leveled them at Sang-goo.
"Look at this guy with the gun! Hey! You think you can pull something off alone?"
Doksa floundered, utterly at a loss — while Sang-goo showed not a flicker of intimidation.
"Cocky piece of shit. Die, you dog!"
Bang! Bang! Ba-bang!
Three pistols roared. 9mm rounds slammed into Sang-goo's ballistic vest, thudding into his shoulder and thigh.
Whump! Whump! Whump!
The impacts rocked Sang-goo's body sideways. But he wouldn't go down.
"What the hell is this…."
Just as everyone in the room stared in stunned disbelief—
Twitch.
Sang-goo, still swaying, found his balance and stood up straight. There was no waver in his eyes. If anything, they'd gone even colder.
"Uh… hey, hold on a sec—"
BOOM―! BOOM―! BA-BOOM―!
Three thunderclaps. It all happened in a single second. The heads of all three Black Guard men exploded simultaneously. Fountains of blood geysered up to the ceiling, and the headless corpses flailed briefly before toppling to the floor.
"AAAAAGH!"
Doksa shrieked and fell right out of his wheelchair, and the doctors clutched their heads and flattened themselves against the ground.
Sang-goo took a small, deep breath. Blood was running from his shoulder and thigh, and a burn-like ache flared up — but it was bearable. A moment later, the bullets lodged in his shoulder and thigh pushed themselves up out of the flesh.
Pock. Pock. Pu-ttong―
White steam rose from the wounds, and the torn muscle and skin began slowly knitting back together.
And everyone who watched it went speechless, as if they'd seen a ghost.
Sang-goo looked down at Doksa. "Talk. And make it make sense."
"Please, spare me! It wasn't me! I'm innocent!"
Doksa wept and begged, snot and tears streaming down his face. Then one of the doctors on the floor raised his head, trembling.
"W-we… we can tell you."
"Go on."
"The… the pastor came by a few days ago with a load of medicine. He said it was from you. Thanks to it, we were able to treat the wounded here."
The doctor's voice shook. "But then… these Black Guard men holed up here. They threatened us and tried to turn the place into their base."
"Keep going."
"The pastor said… he was going to the Yeongdo camp. He was our benefactor, so we were just going to see him off — but they said no. They said he'd expose their location."
The doctor squeezed his eyes shut, as if revisiting a horrific memory. "An argument broke out… and one of them, in a flash of temper, shot the pastor. Then, saying they'd make an example of us, they threw him out the window. We tried to stop them, but they shoved guns in our faces…."
"Yes, yes! That's right! It really wasn't me this time! I was even planning to quit this whole life, I swear!"
Doksa protested until the veins stood out on his neck, insisting he'd genuinely meant to turn over a new leaf and live quietly.
Sang-goo let out a long, heavy sigh. A thought crept in — hadn't the old man died because of him? He'd handed over the medicine and said, handle it as you see fit. He never imagined the man would walk right in and end up treating his own enemies.
His father's only acquaintance, savagely murdered. In this suffocating world, a rare decent priest — an elder — and he'd lost him.
"Do you know the pastor's name?"
"Huh? N-no… we just called him Pastor Jung…."
"Pastor Jung."
Sang-goo murmured the name. Then he raised the shotgun toward Doksa. "There's a body bag outside. Clean him up and prepare him properly — until I come back."
"Yes! Yes! Understood! We'll get it done, no question!"
Doksa answered with his forehead hammering the floor. Sang-goo turned away — staying any longer would only churn his stomach. Then the doctors grabbed at his trouser legs.
"E-excuse me! Could you take us with you? We want out of this place! We'd be useful at the Yeongdo camp!"
They were desperate to escape this hellhole. Sang-goo paused. Doctors were necessary. As the camp grew, more medical staff was always better. But…
His gaze drifted down to Doksa, sprawled on the floor. If he took the boss, wouldn't the hundred under him come as part of the package? Most of them were patients. Take them along and all they'd be for months was dead weight — eating his supplies and shitting. At least two months of that. Would they actually be any help to the camp?
"M-me too! Take me too, and I'll work like a dog! Please don't just throw us away!"
Doksa clung to him, wailing. Useless crippled body, after all — for at least two months there'd be nothing he could do. The Crow was gone, there were no survivors in the area — what was there for him to do here anyway?
Sang-goo deliberated for a moment, then said coldly, "I'll think about it."
"Th-thank you!"
"Both of you doctors, pack up and stand by. I'll send a vehicle by tomorrow morning at the latest — come to Yeongdo with Pastor Jung."
"Yes! Yes! Thank you!"
"We'll work hard!"
Sang-goo left the room without a backward glance. Pastor Jung's death weighed on him. It felt like a debt owed to his father.
I'm sorry. I couldn't protect him.
Swallowing the bitterness, Sang-goo rode away from Mirae Building.