Zero
The moment we stepped out of the alley into the commercial strip, we went looking for food.
From 7-Eleven to Burger King, we checked every place that might have had anything edible. Every last one of them had been cleaned out.
Tsk. Most of it would have spoiled by now anyway. Still, a shame was a shame.
"Weird. Even so, they shouldn't have been able to strip the place this clean."
"...Is that strange?"
When Chaeyeon asked in a small voice beside me, I glanced at her and jerked my chin toward the surroundings.
"There, and over there. You can see a few bodies. They're not reacting because we're being quiet, but the second we make any real noise, every one of them will come running. And someone still managed to loot this entire strip under those conditions?"
Two possibilities.
Either the bastard who swept up all the food was some Hong Gildong-level freak, or it was a group of a certain size or larger.
I looked at the zombies sprawled across the asphalt nearby with their skulls caved in, then settled on an answer.
"Looks like a crew's already formed. Big enough that they can roam around this openly."
"Could there be someone else like Oppa?"
"...Someone like me?"
When I met her eyes as if to ask what she meant by that, Chaeyeon fidgeted with her fencing foil before she spoke.
"A combat specialist with strength that doesn't even belong in the same conversation as ordinary people."
"...Think whatever you want, but I'm not some kind of specialist."
"I don't believe you even when you say that. You said you're twenty-four, right? Only six years older than me. How are you that strong?"
Who taught you, starting when, and what?
Looking down at her eyes sparkling with curiosity and passion right beside me, the cleavage between her underwear came into view on its own.
In the end I had no choice but to quietly look away.
A beat late, Chaeyeon went ah, hurriedly pulled closed the school uniform jacket Hyunmin had lent her, and put on an awkward face.
"Well. I got lucky."
That was the literal truth. I gave her the perfect answer and scanned the area.
Even with everything nearby stripped bare, it wasn't like we were out of options. Wherever you go, there's always at least one shop in a commercial strip with its door locked.
Sure enough, across the street sat a cafe with its entrance shut tight.
I led the kids across, roughly put down an old man zombie that came body-checking us in place of a car, then checked the door this way and that.
Guess they weren't the type to go so far as breaking into locked shops.
Meaning, at the very least, they were less extreme than me.
Crash—
I picked a few of the particularly sharp, oversized chunks from the asphalt shattered in every direction nearby and threw them a couple of times. The glass door exploded into pieces.
After that, the answer to why the ones who'd looted the area before I got here hadn't done the same started rolling in.
"Kueeeeeeeek!"
"Man, that bastard's wailing gets weirder by the day."
I dug at my ear roughly and waved the hesitant kids forward.
"What are you standing around for? Get inside and look for something to eat."
"Uh, th-that... i-is this really okay?"
When a male high schooler who looked every bit the model student, silver frames perched on his nose, asked the question, I furrowed my brow.
"Can't you tell just by looking? There's no owner in there. The lock's set from the outside—how would anyone be inside? Just get in already!"
"...Y-yes, sir!"
Tsk. Not like this is my first or second time looting a shop. What do they take me for.
Thinking that, I was hacking a zombie's neck with the axe like chopping wood when I tilted my head.
Hmm. Something about that conclusion felt a little off. Must be my imagination.
Soeun carefully picked her way past the glass shards into the cafe, then cautiously looked around.
"...Unnie. Look at this. It's cheesecake."
"Sujin! No! Don't eat that! That's fake—I said fake!"
Sujin swallowed hard as she lifted a cake model sitting on the counter, then barely managed to set it back down at her sister's urgent voice.
Soeun watched the bittersweet little scene with a wry smile, then turned toward the entrance at the brutal sounds coming from outside.
Thud— Thwack—!
Crunch—
After momentarily looking away from that merciless violence that truly made one feel sorry for the zombies, she spotted Chaeyeon a beat later and called out to her.
"...Hey. Hey! Im Chaeyeon! What are you doing over there?"
"Hmm? What?"
"Why are you standing there like a totem pole. The old man said to look for food."
Chaeyeon slowly turned her head to look at Soeun.
"Guys don't like being called old man."
"...What?"
"You're the same. If someone called a high schooler like you an ajumma at that age, you'd rip their hair out."
"...I don't know. Once you've done the military, you're an old man."
Chaeyeon gave a small laugh at that, then turned her head back toward him.
Only a few minutes had passed, and already he'd chopped through the neck of the last remaining zombie with his axe. When the blade stuck and wouldn't come free, he spat once, grabbed the head, and tore it clean off.
At the sight of blood spraying up like a fountain, Soeun lost her words and just stared, while Chaeyeon muttered beside her.
"Really—how is he that strong? And he's around the same age as us."
"Well, maybe he went through special forces or something. UDT, whatever."
Chaeyeon shook her head.
"That's not enough. Not enough to explain that level of force."
"...You think so?"
"Even among everyone I've seen so far, there's never been that type."
Not even when she'd gone to Taereung with her mother.
Chaeyeon recalled facing national team athletes from every discipline—taekwondo, judo, wrestling, kendo, and the rest. Holding her mother's hand while they looked at little her as if she were cute and said hello—even thinking about it now, they still seemed genuinely strong.
But really. A human of that caliber was something of a dimension she had never seen in her life.
"I admit he's strong, sure, but still—no need to go that overboard, right?"
"How does he compare to your dad?"
"What?"
"Your dad. In his prime, even. You remember?"
Soeun blinked for a moment, digging through her memories.
"...Even so, comparing him to my dad is a bit..."
"From what I can see, they're about the same level?"
Soeun shot her an incredulous look, but Chaeyeon paid it no mind and kept going with sparkling eyes.
"Of course I don't know about technique or physique, but think about it."
"If your dad had been standing there instead of that guy when you were little—could he really have gone that far?"
"....."
Only then did Soeun grasp what Chaeyeon was trying to say.
Chaeyeon looked at him with slightly trembling eyes, swallowed once, then spoke.
"There's not a single trace of fear. That doesn't make any sense."
The fear of death any human should naturally carry, and the hesitation that comes with it—none of it could be felt at all.
At that sense of wrongness the other kids would never notice no matter how long they watched, Chaeyeon and Soeun couldn't help but get goosebumps.
And Haejun, spotting the two of them standing there blankly, said with an incredulous face,
"Hey. What are you two doing just standing there? Aren't you looking for food?!"
Damn. Felt like I'd gone out of my way to make trouble for nothing.
I scratched my blood-caked head as I looked around inside the cafe, then said,
"...Nothing edible? Not a single thing?"
"Yes, hyungnim. Nothing but spoiled stuff."
Roughly ignoring Haejun bowing and scraping apologetically beside me, I walked over to Sujin, who was sitting looking truly dejected.
More precisely, I approached to check the shelf under her—then paused at the way she jumped up in fright.
"I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I wasn't trying to rest—my legs just hurt for a moment..."
Man, is overreacting like that a sister specialty or what.
Looking at her bowing her head deeply and apologizing over and over, I shook the blood off my hands.
Thump—
Then I set my palm on her head and muttered,
"I'm not gonna eat you, so calm down a bit."
"...I-I'm sorry."
And stop with that damn apologizing too. You probably don't know I nearly developed a neurosis because of your unnie.
I opened the shelf as I was and reached in, rummaging around, then pulled out a bag hidden in the far corner.
When I grabbed the large bag stuffed full of cookies and lifted it up, Sujin's already round eyes went wide as saucers.
I shrugged once at Haejun's equally wide-eyed stare.
"It's an iron rule that cafe shelves have at least one snack the part-timers hide for themselves."
The packaging was sealed nice and tight—looked fine to eat as is.
I tossed packets of instant coffee from every brand into my hoodie pocket, then said a word to the kids staring blankly at the cookies in Sujin's hands.
"What are you doing? Not eating. Stop watching for my reaction and just eat."
"...Th-thank you!"
"Thanks for the food, hyungnim!!!"
After that, the kids clustered around Sujin and started demolishing the cookies with combat intensity.
And among them, Chaeyeon—who received a cookie last—looked at me and bowed her head. I was about to accept the greeting, then averted my gaze the same way as before.
Ah, seriously. What kind of high schooler has development that good.
Did she only drink milk instead of water or something.