The Kukri and the Pistol
“Then I’ll be heading back now!”
“Take care.”
After Team Leader Lee Jun-seok left, I locked the gate up tight again.
Now that I understood why Jin-beom had called me out to the paddy, there was no need to rush.
First, I would find out exactly what was inside that bag.
It’s not gold bars or something, is it?
The bag was impressively heavy.
Worried that someone might spy on me, I slipped into the storage shed like a man sneaking off to devour a treat all by himself.
Then I opened the bag.
So that’s what it was.
A knife.
A blade curved like a boomerang sat inside a custom sheath.
I knew what it was thanks to a knife-obsessed coworker from my old job—a kukri.
The blade Gorkha mercenaries used to take off an enemy’s head in a single stroke.
Some say it was originally forged for the sole purpose of severing a sacrificial cow’s neck at ritual ceremonies in one clean cut.
I drew it from its sheath and examined it.
The edge was frighteningly sharp.
Whoosh—
I gave it a test swing.
The center of gravity sat forward, so the blade carried its weight beautifully into every stroke.
And with that curve, even a short swing would bite deep.
It was lighter than my logging axe, too, which meant far less stamina drained when facing a whole crowd of zombies.
Not bad at all… huh?
The bag had a double layer of sponge padding inside it.
When I lifted out the sponge the kukri had been resting on, something else was nestled underneath.
A gun!
A pistol.
Live rounds for two full magazines came with it.
Unless you were in an extremely cramped space, a pistol was a pretty poor weapon against zombies.
Even at a modest distance, nailing a headshot was difficult.
Which meant this pistol was a gift of an entirely different nature from the kukri.
The kukri was a weapon for killing zombies. The pistol, on the other hand…
Is this for killing people?
What made a pistol so dangerous was that you could keep it hidden against your body and draw it in an instant.
A weapon that let you smile through a negotiation, then kill the other party the moment things went sour.
Deoksu-ri wasn’t there yet, but in times like these, the living could be every bit as dangerous as the dead.
I pulled the pistol free of the sponge.
The cold touch of the metal sent a chill through my fingers.
A note lay beneath it.
Don’t hesitate to use this when you need it.
— Ko Geon-hyuk
Owning a firearm could become a serious problem.
I might one day find myself forced to explain where the gun and ammunition had come from.
Had he weighed even that risk before handing it over?
Either way, I hoped I wouldn’t have to use this gun until spring came.
By the time I reached the paddy, the helicopter was already gone.
The villagers were prying open a huge wooden crate with deer-hoof picks and hammers, fighting through the packing nails.
I pitched in to help.
Inside were winter clothing, emergency medicine, and canned food.
The Youth Association President clicked his tongue.
“Well, look at all this he sent!”
It was true that the quantity was generous, but it wasn’t exactly jaw-dropping.
Honorary Chairman Ko Geon-hyuk was a big spender by nature.
But with the world in this state, even a chaebol chairman would struggle to flaunt his deep pockets.
Still, these were things money simply couldn’t buy anywhere these days.
“Hyungwoo, what should we do with all this?”
At the Youth Association President’s question, I took a step back from the crate and answered.
“Why are you asking me?”
“It came from your company. Who else would I ask?”
“It wasn’t given to me. The Honorary Chairman sent it because he said he owes the village folks a debt, didn’t he?”
At that, everyone turned to look at Jin-beom.
With the Village Chief absent, all eyes naturally fell on him.
He scratched his head.
“You all know how my father is.”
The Youth Association President grinned.
“Fair point. If we asked the Chief, he’d probably say something like, ‘Take that garbage right back where it came from!’”
When he did his impression of the Village Chief, everyone burst out laughing.
We all knew the man’s character too well—an angel to those who had nothing, but a constant grumbler to anyone who had something.
Ko Geon-hyuk was lying in bed watching an internet video.
“Hello, subscribers! Mad Scientist is BACK! So many of you asked questions about zombies in the comments, so I prepared something special! Fun zombie experiments, round two! Can zombies actually SWIM?”
Ko Geon-hyuk watched the video with grave intensity.
On screen, the man pressed the button in his hand.
The container dangling from the crane swung open, and a dozen zombies dropped into a swimming pool.
Most of them sank and never resurfaced.
But they could still move underwater, walking or thrashing their way along the bottom.
Before long, the experiment concluded, and the Mad Scientist summed up the results.
“Zombies CAN move underwater! And since every zombie has different physical capabilities, their speed varies too. Being able to run doesn’t mean you can swim. The same goes for all you subscribers watching right now—I bet plenty of you can run just fine but can’t swim a stroke.”
Swimming was a far more sophisticated exercise in coordination than running.
Without training, you simply couldn’t do it properly.
Besides, zombies couldn’t breathe, so they couldn’t fill their lungs with air for buoyancy.
“Of course, there are exceptions. Decomposition gas can build up in the organs and create buoyancy. But a zombie that far gone has suffered so much brain damage that its coordination is shot—it swims even WORSE! So today’s conclusion is this: ‘Zombies can move underwater, but they are terrible swimmers!’”
When the video ended, Ko Geon-hyuk scratched his jaw.
An old habit of his whenever he was turning something over in his mind.
Clatter—
A crowd of people in white coats filed into the room.
Doctors led by the director of Hyunsung Hospital, the largest general hospital in Korea.
Using the state-of-the-art medical equipment in the bunker, they had just completed his examination.
“Thankfully, contrary to your concerns, there’s nothing wrong with your head. Aside from some light abrasions and frostbite on your toes, you’re in excellent condition, Chairman!”
Ko Geon-hyuk gave a dry chuckle at the director’s report.
“I’m eighty-two this year. How good can I possibly be?”
At his wave, the doctors withdrew.
Then his secretary entered.
“Where’s our cruise right now?”
Hyunsung Shipping owned a mega cruise liner capable of carrying five thousand passengers.
At his question, the secretary made a brief call on her phone, then reported.
“It’s at Kitakyushu Port in Japan. It hasn’t docked—it’s holding position just offshore at anchor.”
Ko Geon-hyuk nodded and continued.
“Better to be out on warm equatorial waters than sitting in this bunker.”
Now that he knew zombies were vulnerable to both heat and water, he intended to move somewhere that offered protection from both.
Fresh zombies couldn’t float, and zombies floating on the water had already lost most of their mobility to decay—no zombie alive could ever claw its way up the deck of a mega liner anchored in the middle of the sea.
“I’ll have everything prepared immediately, sir.”
“And those two men.”
He meant the bodyguards who had sacrificed themselves for him in the fall from Mount Seorak.
“Are their families safe?”
“One’s family home is in Changwon, the other’s in Jinju. Both families are unharmed.”
“Good. Reserve berths for their families on the ship.”
“Understood, Chairman.”
“And how is he doing these days?”
He was asking about Kim Hyungwoo—the man who had restored his memories to him.
“I’ve been checking in by phone from time to time. He’s doing well, no incidents so far. Shall I ask whether Assistant Manager Kim would like to board the cruise?”
“No need. He’d only refuse anyway.”
Another week had passed.
Survive for 11 days.
Success will grant a special reward.
In the pitch-black hours before dawn, I lay curled up in my sleeping bag, shivering through a broken sleep.
The hand warmers hadn’t even gone fully cold yet, and it was still brutally cold.
The cold of the Gangwon mountain valleys cut deeper than anywhere else.
“Maybe I should’ve just followed Mr. Orall back then.”
I shook my head hard.
“No! It was absolutely the right call!”
I didn’t know exactly what kind of place the chairman’s family had fled to, but nothing could be more horrific than a zombie virus spreading inside an enclosed space.
I picked up my phone and opened the app.
Nearly all of South Korea had turned red.
If zombies had appeared even in the remote mountain valleys of Inje, Gangwon, what corner of the country could possibly be safe?
Apart from a few tiny islands, not a single green dot remained on the map.
Even so, the zombie numbers here were conspicuously lower than in the cities.
Which was why not a single villager had fallen to the dead yet.
The Zombie Trap was working exactly as designed.
Every day, three or four zombies came shambling in, drawn to the glow of the oil drums.
And the villagers on fence duty dispatched them with bows and blades.
I’d personally taken down three so far.
Time to clock in.
After lunch, I grabbed my gear and headed out the gate.
It was my turn for the day shift.
Today, I was assigned to patrol the village perimeter.
Paired with Jin-beom, no less.
Between the two of us yakking away, two hours would fly by—but we could never let our guard slip.
Out on patrol, there was no iron fence to shield us from the zombies.
Still, I’d fought the things plenty of times by now, and with company at my side, I wasn’t particularly scared.
When I reached the starting point of the patrol route, Jin-beom was already there waiting.
“Ah, the future son-in-law of Hyunsung Group has graced us with his presence.”
“I told you to cut that out.”
Ever since he’d caught me having that brief conversation with Ko Se-rin, he hadn’t been able to see my face without making the joke.
I’d laughed it off a few times, but at this point it was getting on my nerves.
He clapped me on the shoulder in apology.
“Fine, fine, I’ll stop. Man, you sulk so easily, though. But seriously, Ko Se-rin is gorgeous. These chaebol kids these days—there’s not a single weak spot on any of them. Top-tier education, looks, money… they’ve got it all.”
For a moment, the image of her surfaced—weeping with her arms wrapped around her grandfather—then scattered like snowflakes in a sudden gust of the blowing storm around us.
This was the spot where National Route 44 met the village road.
“Want me to hand you some arrows?”
I nodded at Jin-beom’s question.
Behind the village bus stop stood a large steel cabinet.
Inside were arrows of every kind.
“Got any 300-spine? Thirty-inch.”
“Hold on… yep, got ’em. Tons.”
“Then give me thirty for now.”
I took the arrows and slotted them into my quiver.
Jin-beom logged the type and quantity on the clipboard hanging from the cabinet.
“Shall we?”
“Let’s go.”
We walked a stretch along the national highway, then turned off onto an unpaved road.
This road held a special meaning for the two of us.
As kids, we had walked it together every single day, schoolbags on our backs.
Forsythia and azaleas had bloomed wild along its edges in spring; cosmos blanketed it in fall.
And now here I was, walking that same beloved route to school side by side with him, a bow on my back and a quiver at my hip.
That was when it happened.
Vroom—
The sound of a car echoed in the distance.
We moved swiftly to the side of the road and scanned the slope below.
A cargo truck was rumbling along the unpaved road at the bottom of the slope, heading toward the village.
“They won’t get any further than that.”
Not long after Jin-beom spoke, the truck ground to a halt.
The villagers had piled up mounds of stone across the road to keep outside vehicles from approaching.
Two people climbed down from the truck’s cab.
I studied them through my binoculars.
They were talking while staring at the stone barricade.
They were too far away for me to read their expressions.
But something about their body language felt desperately urgent.
It looked like they were in danger.
They hurried back into the truck.
I turned my head and scanned the road behind the vehicle.
So that’s it.
Zombies were sprinting toward the cargo truck.