Raiding the Hospital
They immediately opened the door to the emergency stairs leading down to the basement of the emergency room. Whether the emergency generator wasn't running or the power just didn't reach this far, it was pitch black, impossible to see even a step ahead.
Squirm, squirm... squirm, squirm... squirm...
Jeong Da-jeong spotted shadowy figures moving in the darkness and hurriedly pulled out the headlamp she'd grabbed from the survival shop, strapping it to her head.
Flick—.
"Eek? Grraaah!"
"Eek, eek, eek. Gah!"
And there they were: a dozen or so zombies, reacting instantly to the light and lurching toward them. Thud, thud... thump, drag, crash.
"...! Run—"
Swish—.
"Stay behind me."
Jeong Da-jeong cut off Dok Sa-yeon's words and stepped forward to face the zombies. Dok Sa-yeon had no slave brand, so she could retreat at any time. But Jeong Da-jeong had received her master's orders. Fetching the medicine was her responsibility. If she backed off from this manageable number of zombies, the crushing pain in her heart would soon return. And even before that...
I don't want to be abandoned.
Jeong Da-jeong had to prove her worth. From her brief observations, her master, Cheongun, was a man devoid of human sentiment or romantic affection. If he had any, it was so negligible it might as well not exist. The only emotion he held for her was pure possessiveness. The moment she lost value as a woman or a pack mule, she'd be discarded. Cast back alone into this world.
Now that Dok Sa-yeon's arrival had begun to shake her value as a woman, Jeong Da-jeong felt she needed to create new worth. Not quite a comrade, but at least as a subordinate reliable enough to delegate tasks to. With a click, she lowered her helmet visor and swung the sledgehammer.
Splat—.
She stepped into the gap created as the zombie's head caved in and crumpled to the floor.
...
Dok Sa-yeon's heart raced just as urgently.
Clunk, clunk— clunk—.
Why... why won't it open...!
No matter how hard she yanked, the fire door to the basement corridor wouldn't budge. She even tried pulling a card key from a zombie's neck and scanning it, but of course, the dead reader didn't light up or unlock anything.
Thud... thud... thud...
As the sounds of Jeong Da-jeong finishing off the zombies grew closer, Dok Sa-yeon's anxiety spiked. Clunkclunkclunkclunk...
Swish—.
"Something wrong? Sis?"
Flinch. Dok Sa-yeon shuddered at Jeong Da-jeong's cloudy gaze staring straight at her.
"Uh..."
Swish... It wasn't the paralyzing terror Cheongun evoked, but something ominous that made her want to look away. She averted her eyes and mumbled in a tiny voice.
"...Looks like the power outage locked the fire door."
"Yeah? Wanna step out?"
Despite her words, before Dok Sa-yeon could fully move aside, the sledgehammer whistled through the air.
Bang—!
Tingling. "Ow."
Jeong Da-jeong grimaced at the heavy feedback in her hands but endured, swinging several more times.
Bang—! "Hng."
Bang—! "Hup!"
Bang—! Bang—! Bang...
The door was dented and buckled in places but refused to give. The sledgehammer's weight was enough for zombies, but smashing through thick steel seemed beyond Jeong Da-jeong's strength.
"Hup!"
Still, she raised the hammer again. Dok Sa-yeon finally intervened.
"Wait, Da-jeong. That won't work."
Through the small glass window in the fire door, she could see the locking mechanism. Even if they pried a gap, they'd need to release the locks on both sides. Luckily, Dok Sa-yeon knew how.
"You can unlock it with a key in that slot, but..."
The keyholes at the top of the fire door on both sides. She'd seen the facilities team manually unlock them with keys during fire alarm malfunctions.
"You need a key, right?"
"...Yes."
Finding a facilities zombie was one issue; even if they did, would it have the right key for this door? As far as she knew, teams carried different keys for different zones. The hospital had dozens of departments—slim odds it'd match the emergency room or pharmacy. Smashing it like Jeong Da-jeong might not even work, and there were more doors to the pharmacy anyway.
We're short on time.
Cheongun's deadline was 30 minutes. No idea how he was holding off zombies, but begging for more time wasn't an option. Giving up and going back...
I'll kill him. That bastard—if I get the chance, I'll really kill him.
Recalling the blade at her throat and Cheongun's eyes, she shook her head, erasing surrender from her mind. Grit, grit—.
There was a way to open all the doors from the emergency room to the pharmacy... Rumor had it the facilities manager had a master key for every zone... But in this massive hospital swarming with zombies, how to find the manager...
"Uh..."
"Got a way?"
"There is, but..."
Unsure if it even qualified as a plan, Dok Sa-yeon trailed off.
"...We need the integrated duty room."
Card keys had made them obsolete, but emergency keys for each zone should still exist there—maybe even the facilities master key.
"Oh, perfect. How far is it?"
"Not far. We can cross the skybridge on the third floor."
"Skybridge...?"
"...Yeah. The integrated duty room is on the third floor of the main building."
The problem: it was in the main building. At least it was in the staff-only area, not open to patients, so fewer zombies. Relatively speaking...
Can we survive that? Die to zombies if we go, die to Cheongun if we don't—maybe beg the one who at least listens. ...Or maybe just...
"Hey, Da-jeong. What if we just run away together right now?"
"Pardon?"
"He won't notice yet. Head back to the entrance we came in, shake off any tails, grab the motorcycle and..."
"Ahaha..."
"You too, Da-jeong..."
Dok Sa-yeon pressed on, seeing Da-jeong's troubled face confirming her suspicions, but then—smile—.
"Sis? Pretend you didn't say that."
Jeong Da-jeong smiled as she cut her off.
"So no more of that. Guide me to the duty room."
"But..."
"Guide me."
Dok Sa-yeon's gaze chilled Dok Sa-yeon. Grinning—.
"I'll. Ask. Nicely. Sis."
Her eyes cloudier than before, she toyed with the sledgehammer while looking down at her.
"Fine, I'll let it slide this time. But call him Master properly from now on?"
Glance...
...Nod.
Dok Sa-yeon glanced at the zombie corpses reduced to formless heaps and forced her feet to move.
...
On the skybridge connecting the third floor of the emergency medical center to the main building's third floor.
Splat—. Bzzz... crunch... bzzz...
Watching Jeong Da-jeong smash one zombie's head and seamlessly swing at the next, Dok Sa-yeon thought:
She's not right in the head either...
There was a limit to liking bad boys... With that cheat inventory and combat ability, why? Dok Sa-yeon had never even seen Cheongun fight properly, so she couldn't fathom why Jeong Da-jeong endured his treatment with such loyalty—slave brand aside.
But whether Dok Sa-yeon understood or not, Jeong Da-jeong cleared the zombies and beckoned her.
"I'll go first, draw their attention, and block as many as I can. You head to the duty room and find the keys."
She'd peeked around the skybridge corner: dozens of zombies.
"By myself?"
"You've got the nail gun Master gave you. If you're still scared..."
Jeong Da-jeong pulled a hand hammer from her belt and handed it over.
"Better now? I'm off."
She dashed away before Dok Sa-yeon could grab her.
—Graaah, graaah...
"Come this way, everyone."
Hearing the voice past the corner, Dok Sa-yeon squeezed her eyes shut and bolted. Tatatata—.
"Graah?"
Nearby zombies turned at the sound, but splat—
"Hey, focus on me! Focus!"
Jeong Da-jeong shattered a skull, pulling eyes back to her.
"Hah, hah..."
Left here. Straight, then push the door on the right...
Clutching her pounding chest, Dok Sa-yeon flung open the door to the staff area.
"Graah?"
"Graaah!"
"Grrrk, grrrglk!"
Five or six zombies in the hallway greeted her—some familiar faces, some not. Thud, thud, thud...
Shiver shiver...
"Hoo. Hoo. Hooo..."
Facing the approaching horde, she gripped her trembling hands and chanted to herself.
Stay calm. If you don't, you'll die...!
She refused that fate. She would live. She wouldn't die like this. Not after surviving so much...
Repeating it, her tremors visibly eased. She raised the nail gun, aimed at a zombie's head, and pulled the trigger.
Tang—.
Whirr—.
"Graaah?"
The nail veered harmlessly off course, nowhere near the head—fear had made her fire from too far.
Grit.
Like scanning a barcode...
This time, she waited until it was close. Thud, thud, thud...
"Graaaaaah!"
Thud—.
At point-blank range where she could see flesh caught in its teeth, she pressed the nail gun to its head and fired.
Tang—.
Thunk—.
Thud—.
A sharp sensation, and it collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. She quickly repeated on the next.
Tang— tang— tang...
Thud, thud, thud...
"Hah... hah... hah..."
Five zombies down in seconds. They'd terrified her, seemed ready to kill her any moment...
But she'd killed them.
"Hee hee..."
The sharp tingle in her hands and blooming thrill made her giggle unwittingly. Hee hee hee. About to aim at a corpse for more, when—
Thump—.
Thump—.
Flinch.
"...No time for this..."
A zombie noise from the closed door beside her snapped her back. She ran on.
Finally, the integrated duty room door. Knock knock knock—.
"........."
One second, two, three... No sound even pressing her ear to it. She entered.
Click—.
She locked it behind her and rummaged frantically.
"Keys, keys."
Tick-tock from the wall clock. Clunk, rustle. Clunk. Rustle...
Pens, paper. Utility knife... Why the hell is there a baby pacifier...?
"Fuck— clean up after yourselves, you doctor bastards!"
Her 30 minutes ticking away made her already jittery heart race faster. Too frantic, she missed the cabinet door creak.
Creeeak.
Stealthily, the man emerging approached her back. Electric kettle raised to strike—
Bzzz...
"Gotta be around here somewhere...!"
...Freeze.
The man's body halted at Dok Sa-yeon's sudden voice.
"Doctor Dok...?"
A raspy, parched whisper asked cautiously.
"Anesthesiology's Doctor Dok, right?"