Lee Gaeun
Lee Gaeun handed the combat rations she'd received — along with the weapons she'd been carrying — over to her worried female colleagues and sent them on ahead.
Once the other women had gone, the tent fell quiet.
"....."
Left alone together, Kang Dohun and Lee Gaeun lapsed into a sudden silence.
What a moment like this needed was something to break the tension — and that something was dinner.
"Want some dinner?"
"Huh??"
She'd already been paid a full ten combat rations. Even so, Kang Dohun pulled out another one and asked again.
"Aren't you hungry?"
"......I am."
When he handed her the combat ration, Lee Gaeun's eyes lit up.
Ten minutes was all the heating pack needed to warm the meal. And once the hot food sat before her—
"Thank you."
She dug in with abandon.
Kang Dohun ate alongside her and struck up a conversation.
"How long have you been here?"
"Here? The Health College? Well, I'm a student here, so I've been staying the whole time."
Lee Gaeun answered in careful detail even while she ate. After all, this was a customer who'd handed her five combat rations at once.
Hearing that she'd been here ever since the apocalypse began, he pressed further.
"So you know the area well?"
"Yeah, I know it well. I got dropped, but I used to be on the patrol team."
The fact that she'd served on a patrol team as a woman only sharpened Kang Dohun's curiosity.
"Is that so? How far have you scouted?"
"I've been as far as the Lotte Outlet from here. South, up to Unnam Bridge..."
Lee Gaeun began freely sharing everything she knew. None of it was particularly secret, and she'd already sensed that Kang Dohun was a well-off traveler — so she wanted to make a good impression.
The two of them kept talking through dinner, and even after they'd finished eating—
"Hang on. Let's talk while we look at this."
Kang Dohun pulled out a map. And something else along with it.
"You like fruit?"
"Of course I do!"
He took out a small can of pineapple and handed it over, and her eyes sparkled once more.
"Alright — let's go over the map. You said you've been this far?"
"Yes, that's Unnam Bridge. Cross it and there are a lot of zombies."
"Okay. Then east — this spot with the supermarket?"
"I'm not sure who they are, but some men have taken over that supermarket. And..."
The two of them spent a long while going over the map together. About an hour — that was all it took to extract and organize everything Lee Gaeun knew.
"Perfect."
Kang Dohun folded the map and stowed it in his bag. She watched his face carefully, then asked—
"So... are we doing it now?"
She asked it with a slight tremor in her voice, and that only made her more appealing to Kang Dohun.
"By the way — when was the last time you washed up?"
"Huh? I..."
Lee Gaeun couldn't answer right away. The water at the college had been cut off, and there wasn't enough left for proper showers. It had been over a week since she'd last washed.
"We'll do that after you clean up tomorrow."
"Ah... okay."
Then he pulled a spare blanket from his bag and handed it to her.
"Until we turn in — how about you tell me what you've been through in Gwangju since the apocalypse started?"
"Ah, sure. So I was a student at the Health College here..."
Kang Dohun listened late into the night as Lee Gaeun recounted how she'd survived.
The next day.
When Lee Gaeun woke, the unfamiliar surroundings gave her a start.
This is... oh.
She'd fallen asleep in Kang Dohun's tent the night before. The two of them had talked deep into the night before drifting off.
"You're up?"
"Yes."
As Lee Gaeun got up, Kang Dohun pointed to the food he'd prepared.
"Want some breakfast?"
"Yes."
It was shameless, but in an age where survival came first, she put on a thick face and said yes.
Breakfast was hardtack biscuits with milk made from powdered milk. Lee Gaeun stuffed the food into her mouth with gusto, and watching her eat so eagerly, Kang Dohun found her adorable.
They ate for a while before Kang Dohun posed a question.
"I'm heading out today. Want to come with me?"
"Huh?"
The invitation to go outside together caught Lee Gaeun off guard.
"....."
She fell silent for a moment, still chewing her hardtack, then answered.
"I've got a conscience too. I owe you something in return, mister. I'll go with you."
Watching her keep chewing hardtack as she said it, Kang Dohun muttered lightly, I'm not a mister, but still pulled a fruit can from his bag and handed it over.
"Eat this, then we'll head out. I'll need you as a guide."
At his request for a guide, Lee Gaeun nodded.
Once they were ready, Kang Dohun and Lee Gaeun left the Health College grounds. They followed the Yeongsan River south through Gwangju, and Lee Gaeun filled in the details that had been hard to convey on a map alone.
"There are a lot of apartment complexes around here. This is where the apartment residents' associations operate."
"There's a gas station and an LPG filling station nearby — aggressive types have taken those over, so be careful."
"See that bridge over there? That's Deokheung Bridge. Cross it and you're in zombie territory."
Listening to Lee Gaeun's commentary as they moved along the bike path, they spotted a single zombie. Faced with it, Lee Gaeun remained remarkably calm.
"Mister, that's a zombie. What should we do?"
Right — she said she did a fair bit of fighting early on.
Kang Dohun wanted to see how she fought. So he pulled a hand axe from his bag.
"Want to take it?"
"Huh? There's only one. Wait — are you giving it to me?"
Lee Gaeun asked, already grateful.
"Yeah. It's all yours."
She took the axe with a bright expression.
"Thank you so much for giving it to me."
With that, she advanced on the zombie, axe in hand. Lee Gaeun and the zombie clashed.
Thwack!
"Guek!"
She opened with an axe blow to the zombie's shoulder. The creature flailed wildly, swinging its arms—
Whoosh, whoosh.
—but she backstepped clear of every swipe, landing axe strikes of her own.
Whoosh, thwack! Whoosh, thwack!
Her damage was low, but her speed was high enough that she could safely kite and chip away. As the hits stacked up—
"Gueeeek..."
—the zombie finally went down.
Lee Gaeun finished it off with effort, then wore a look of satisfaction.
"Hah... been a while. That was tougher than I expected."
"Good work."
At Kang Dohun's praise, she answered with pride.
"My fighting's pretty amateurish, right?"
"No, you did well."
Aside from his older brother, this was the first time Kang Dohun had watched someone else fight a zombie. Her skill might have been lacking, but watching her fight with such earnest effort, he found her both charming and admirable.
"Thank you so much for giving me that zombie."
Hunting zombies under safe conditions had become a privilege reserved for high-level fighters. Killing them yielded experience and coins — experience to grow stronger, coins to buy food from the shop — and it had become an era where combatants no longer gave zombies away.
Lee Gaeun herself had started out on a scouting team, fighting zombies alongside other combatants. But her Trait and Skills weren't suited for combat. Her skill gave her a bit of extra speed, yet her attack power was far too low — and she'd been naturally weeded out of the scouting team. To someone like her, Kang Dohun giving up zombie kills was an enormous kindness.
Sensing her genuine gratitude, Kang Dohun said—
"Want to take every zombie we run into today, Gaeun?"
"Absolutely! Thank you!"
She was truly grateful for the chance to hunt.
Kang Dohun and Lee Gaeun moved along the riverside, hunting zombies as they went. When multiple zombies appeared, Kang Dohun quickly cleared the extras and left just one for Lee Gaeun. Thanks to that, she took them one at a time — and over the course of a full day of roaming, she managed to kill a full twenty-seven.
I leveled up.
After being stuck at level 5 for a long stretch, she'd finally reached level 6 — and picked up a new skill as well.
He's such a good person.
To Lee Gaeun, Kang Dohun was someone she was deeply grateful for.
As the sun began to set, Lee Gaeun grew visibly uneasy. Night belonged to the undead — zombies grew more ferocious, and their attacks more vicious.
Kang Dohun spotted a nearby office building and said—
"Shall we sleep there tonight?"
"Yes."
Just the prospect of getting indoors before nightfall was enough for her to agree at once.
It was a building that had once housed offices — and a few zombies still lingered inside.
"Wait here a moment."
Kang Dohun told Lee Gaeun to wait and went in first. After a short wait—
"Guek! Guek! Gueeeek!"
Nothing but the sounds of zombies falling, one after another — and in just ten minutes—
"Come on in."
Kang Dohun had cleared all twelve zombies inside the building.
He set up the tent in a second-floor office. After clearing out the corpses from the office and the bathroom and tidying up—
"Let's eat."
He pulled out some jerky and they made a meal of it with water. Kang Dohun finished dinner quickly and headed for the bathroom. Left alone, Lee Gaeun chewed her jerky and thought—
That man is really strong.
She'd expected Kang Dohun to be strong, but watching him massacre zombies in an instant still left her stunned. Hunting zombies inside a cramped building — not some open field — was genuinely difficult. And yet Kang Dohun had casually wiped out twelve of them alone in moments.
He's way stronger than anyone on the scouting team.
She was starting to get a sense of just how strong Kang Dohun really was.
As Lee Gaeun slowly chewed her jerky, lost in thought—
"Ahh! That felt great."
Kang Dohun emerged from a shower, and Lee Gaeun asked with a look of surprise—
"There's running water?"
The tap water in the Gwangju area had been cut off for a long time.
"The taps don't work, but I've got water."
Kang Dohun pointed to the water cooler jugs in the bathroom. Four of them, all full — water he'd stored in his inventory.
"Want to wash up too, Gaeun?"
"Huh?... Yes."
She had no choice but to agree now, and headed into the bathroom.