Big Man. (4)
One medical foundation. One hospital.
It was one of the hospitals operating under the Yeongdo Camp's administration.
Regrettably, it had fewer than ten trained medical professionals, military doctors included.
Still, aside from the initial retaking of Yeongdo, patients had never been all that numerous, so they'd somehow managed to keep the place running.
That changed early this morning, when a sudden wave of patients turned the hospital upside down.
Boo Sang-goo, out for a stroll, had stopped by — and seeing that all of this was more or less his doing, he felt a touch guilty about it.
I should bring some drinks next time.
If the peaceful days were still around, he'd have gone straight to a coffee shop. Next visit, he'd ask Team Leader Baek for a favor and show up with something in each hand.
By the time lunch rolled around, the emergency room was still full, and Sang-goo decided he'd overstayed his welcome. He had no business making things harder for people who were already swamped — the visit with the rescued survivors could wait until later.
Just as he made up his mind and turned to leave—
"Sang-goo-ssi? Boo Sang-goo-ssi?"
At the middle-aged man's voice, Sang-goo turned around.
Whether out of genuine gladness or not, the man had already closed the distance to within arm's reach.
"You've been working hard."
Pushing aside the awkwardness, Sang-goo dipped his head in a polite half-bow.
The man had apparently been tending patients all morning. Sweat glistened on his forehead and upper lip, but the middle-aged doctor beamed and extended both hands.
"I've heard a great deal about you. Ah — I'm Jang Sun-woo. I only started working here recently."
"Boo Sang-goo."
He'd never seen the man before in his life.
But hadn't he become rather famous around Yeongdo Camp? Having someone call his name and light up at the sight of him no longer felt strange.
"I've been hoping to meet you for the longest time. My goodness… you're built like a tank. There's something about your bearing — a hero looks like a hero, doesn't he?"
He seemed to be about Hwang Sang-chul's age. The hearty voice, the deep crinkle of his smiling eyes — on appearances alone, he was the textbook image of a good man, a good elder.
Perhaps because Sang-goo's own personality made him dislike the type who came barging in noisily(?) first, he found himself feeling oddly little warmth for the man.
"Thank you for the kind words. You seem busy, so I'll be going."
He slid his hand out of the doctor's grip. Jang Sun-woo grinned sheepishly and folded his hands respectfully in front of his belly.
"Was there some business that brought you here, by any chance…?"
"Nothing important. Just a walk."
"Oh, you weren't here to check on the people you rescued over those three days, were you~?"
"……"
"Then how about a quick cup of tea? There's someone I'd like to introduce you to. Ah, of course, if you're busy, I understand completely."
Introduce me to someone. Weren't you busy just now?
Sang-goo swept his eyes over the emergency room one more time.
"The urgent cases are all done. You handled the emergency treatment so skillfully, Sang-goo-ssi — the rest of the staff can sort through what's left in no time."
He was put off by it, sure — but he was also Sang-goo, a man with a guilty conscience weighing on him.
"All right."
When a nurse happened to pass by, Jang Sun-woo darted over to her. Something or other was said, and then she was off — presumably to fetch the person he wanted to introduce.
Sang-goo stood waiting dumbly, and soon Jang Sun-woo returned, the corners of his mouth climbing to their full height.
"This way, please."
The place they arrived at was a private office on the hospital's top floor.
Sang-goo couldn't say for certain, but he gathered it had been the hospital director's personal office back in the peaceful era.
In any case, what puzzled him was that Jang Sun-woo was now using it as his own.
Did the people in charge change?
He seemed to recall hearing that early on, a medical school professor who'd served as the Prime Minister's personal physician ran this place.
Well, they'd surely sorted out the internal politics on their own. It wasn't his affair — he pushed the question aside.
"I recently got my hands on some loose-leaf green tea. Would that be all right? Or I do have coffee as well."
"I had coffee this morning, so just the tea, please."
"Right away."
What could be so wonderful about it? Even back in the office, the smile never left Jang Sun-woo's face.
Don't tell me—
What suddenly came to mind was women.
The single most tedious part of life in early Yeongdo had been the matchmaking. Everyone from the Prime Minister's physician's daughter to the niece of a Marine Corps colonel had been trotted out, each intermediary industriously trying to link Sang-goo to somebody.
He might be apart from her for now, but he had Lee Min-ji, plain and simple. Even if nothing had ever been formally promised — no dating, no vow of marriage.
This was a wasted trip.
It had been so long since the last time that he'd let it slip his mind.
Out of courtesy he'd accept the tea, sip it politely, and then excuse himself.
Or no — should he just drive the nail in now and tell them outright there's a woman he loves?
That might be overdoing it. Min-ji and I still haven't…
When it came down to it, he and Min-ji had never made any promises to each other. Would she hate him for it?
They'd spent a single night together, just the two of them — what if he came off like he was claiming her as his, telling her not to look at other men?
No matter how absent she might be, was it really all right for him to decide everything on his own?
"Hmm…."
Nothing else in the world gave him trouble. Women, though, were a very different beast.
Sang-goo found himself absently scratching the back of his head.
And whether the sight pleased him or not, the corners of Jang Sun-woo's mouth — busy steeping the green tea — simply refused to come down.
"Th-thank you."
Only belatedly registering the moment, Sang-goo accepted the cup with an awkward smile. His face had gone red, and the doctor's curiosity could apparently bear it no longer.
"You seem to be thinking about something pleasant?"
"Yes. Well. Nothing really."
"From everything I'd heard, you sounded like a hero robot. But seeing you smile like this, you've got a human side after all — and honestly, that makes me even more thrilled."
"……"
"Hahaha, forgive me. I got so worked up just from being happy to meet you. Now, where was I — he keeps telling me to hurry up and bring you…."
Jang Sun-woo picked up a walkie-talkie.
"Excuse me, Doctor."
"Yes, Sang-goo-ssi?"
"About that introduction… what I mean is, I—"
"I'm sorry?"
Just then—
A knock at the door. Jang Sun-woo shot up from his seat.
"One moment. Come in!"
The door swung open. The man who entered wearing a white doctor's coat said,
"A pleasure to meet you for the first time. I'm Jang Seok-woo."
"……I'm Bu Sang-goo."
A dry chuckle escaped Sang-goo.
Not a woman — a man. And not just any man, but one taller and more powerfully built than himself.
Even a rough glance put him at around two meters and a good 120 kilograms.
For the first time in ages, here was a man heavy enough that Sang-goo actually had to look up at him.
The striking thing was his eyes. That pale, faintly blue color was so beautiful that meeting it up close conjured the image of a crystal-clear sea.
Mixed heritage?
"He's my son. Both he and I have been dying to meet you in person, Sang-goo-ssi. Hahaha!"
"The honor is truly mine, Sang-goo-ssi."
"Please, don't mention it."
Sang-goo shook Jang Seok-woo's hand.
It was a brief handshake, nothing more — yet the things it told him were not few.
He's no ordinary doctor.
Boo Sang-goo had trained in elite judo from childhood, then gone on to boxing and mixed martial arts in turn. As an adult he'd piled up enormous real-combat experience against gangsters and professional fixers alike, and over the past five months he'd faced more enemies than he could count — zombies, raiders, mercenaries.
In his judo days, gripping a opponent's lapel alone had been enough to take their measure. Now he could gauge a man from a handshake without squeezing at all.
And so—
Both of them are doctors?
Jang Sun-woo, the self-proclaimed father, was believable enough. The easy smile, the whole air of a good, kindly physician.
But the son, on the other hand—
"You must be fond of working out."
At the casually thrown remark, the son's expression shifted. Only for an instant — but it hardened into something dead serious.
"He used to do some bodybuilding. No — would it be powerlifting? Something like that, anyway."
It was Jang Sun-woo who answered.
"It looks good on you."
"Thank you."
The air in the room grew heavy all at once.
"Haha, let's sit down first, shall we? Seok-woo, go bring yourself something to drink too."
"Yes, Father."
"Thank you for the kind words. Then I'll look forward to next time."
"The pleasure was entirely ours."
They'd talked for roughly ten minutes. Most of it was praise for Sang-goo's emergency treatment, and he picked up a few useful pointers along the way. When Jang Sun-woo offered to gift him a laser scalpel, Sang-goo said he'd gratefully accept if it was offered — and only then did the conversation finally wind down.
Regrettably, the laser scalpel was currently borrowed by Team Leader Baek's medical team; he'd hand it over once they returned. Only after being seen all the way to the door with the full courtesies did Sang-goo finally leave the hospital.
Walking back toward his quarters at the Grand Hotel, he slowly turned the visit over in his mind.
Rescued from the sea? Ah… right, that.
He remembered hearing it from Team Leader Baek shortly after the Yeongdo Camp was first established — that they'd pulled a father and son named Jang out of the water, and that they were apparently doctors.
It had been a passing remark, so he'd thought nothing of it at the time.
But how had they come to be rescued from the sea in the first place? And more than anything — how had the son kept a body like that in shape all this time?
Once again, it was the son, Jang Seok-woo, who snagged in his mind.
Muscle that no amount of heavy clothing could hide. However he looked at it, the man read less like a powerlifter and more like a builder juiced on steroids. Above all, what bothered him was that the man maintained such a physique even in times like these — and that even granting mixed heritage, he looked strikingly little like his supposed father, Jang Sun-woo.
Worth keeping an eye on.
When Team Leader Baek got back, he'd ask again about exactly how that rescue had gone down. With that, Sang-goo filed the faint unease away.
Over the vast blue sea, four helicopters and five fishing boats moved busily among the warships lying in a long, patient line.
The resupply operation that had begun before dawn — with all its early tension — had gone off without a hitch. By morning alone, four warships had been retaken in their entirety.
The zombies aboard had been lured out by drones blaring sirens and finished off with sniper fire, then search teams in thick protective suits had gone in and wrapped everything up cleanly without a single casualty.
But these had been warships to begin with, so there wasn't much in the way of small arms or general land-use supplies to be had. They'd netted a fair amount of military rations, true — though honestly, it fell short of the effort they'd put in.
"What we really need to retake is the aircraft carrier."
At Team Leader Baek's words — spoken grimly, eyes fixed on his tablet — the men around him nodded in agreement.
CVX-01.
Gwangmyeong — Bright Light — the Republic of Korea Navy's medium-sized carrier. It had been prepared to evacuate the President when the Zombie Break struck, and was known to hold enormous stores of personnel, materiel, and food.
Regrettably, a random seizure outbreak had broken out inside it, and it was now a living hell.
"What's Colonel Oh's thinking on this? There's been no trouble so far, but it's starting to look like…."
"Morale among our troops is high. If we're going to do it at all, now is the time, isn't it? We need to cut down on shuttling back and forth to land just for refueling. I'm going in on this one myself."
Colonel Oh welcomed the suggestion as if he'd been waiting for it. Until now he'd stood quietly in the background while the other warships were secured, which left Team Leader Baek puzzled.
"You, Colonel Oh?"
"Er… well, it's a carrier, isn't it? I'm just about the only one who knows anything about the interior layout — I ought to lend a hand, no? I'm good enough to watch our boys' backs, at least."
Somehow, it felt as though the man had an agenda.
The thought flickered through Team Leader Baek's mind, but he pushed it away. In ordinary times there would have been no operation like this at all, no conversation like this either. Officer, soldier, reservist — everyone had to pull together now.
Team Leader Baek's deliberation didn't last long.
"I'll go too. Then Captain Im, you take command here."