I'll Draw Some Blood
I doubted my ears for a moment. Lee Ga-on's tearful voice kept coming through.
"Hic... Gunbam... I'll wait for you in the lab..."
The broadcast cut off.
For someone who had just killed a person, she sounded relatively composed — but startling was startling. What on earth had happened up there? I wouldn't know until I saw for myself, but I was intensely curious.
Tak Ju-cheol? Or Paeng Sang-do?
Paeng Sang-do never could keep his mouth shut. Lee Ga-on might have snapped in a flash of rage and killed him on impulse. Then again, every word out of Tak Ju-cheol's mouth was plenty punchable in its own right. Either of them had a solid chance of getting shot.
Wondering which it had been, I quietly rolled my eyes toward Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in.
Mo Hae-in hadn't so much as blinked at the broadcast. Gwak Han-muk was still pinning the Cook Zombie under his boot, looking impressed.
"Didn't take the researcher for the type. Not bad."
The Cook Zombie crushed beneath his combat boot was still twitching, even though the boss fight was over. It was straining to pick up the scattered gonggi stones from the floor. Blood-slick fingers scraped and clawed at the steel plating.
Its mutated body had reverted to normal once the boss fight ended, but if it kept abusing its hands like that, they really would be ruined.
I quickly unclipped the carabiners and ran to the Cook Zombie. With Gwak Han-muk's help, I trussed it tightly in climbing rope and lashed it to a steel shelf in the generator room.
"It won't just chew through the rope?"
"I'm going to set up a simple additional measure."
I climbed onto the steel shelf and wound a thread around a ceiling pipe. At the dangling end, I tied a gonggi stone. The stone trembled in fine, rapid vibrations carried from the generator engine, and the Cook Zombie couldn't take its eyes off the swaying lure.
"Even if it manages to chew through the rope and crawl up onto the shelf, its legs are injured. It won't be able to reach the stone."
Spellbound by a gonggi stone just out of reach, it wouldn't be able to do anything else.
Gwak Han-muk looked less than thrilled with my arrangement, but he didn't argue further — probably because I'd mentioned it tied into the True Ending. He peeled off his work gloves, soaked through with generator oil and blood, and stretched with a groan.
"Fuck, I'm dying. First thing I do when we hit the lab is smash a chocolate bar."
Then he started shadowboxing the air, cackling, "Gonna fucking wreck a chocolate bar!"
Mo Hae-in made no effort to hide her scowl.
I glanced between the two of them, then asked,
"Um... are you not going to arrest me? Or is that after we clear?"
I asked ahead of time to brace myself, then offered what excuses I could.
"I don't know why my eyes turned out like that either. And the zombie virus infection recovered somehow, but I don't really know why that—"
"Did you forget?"
Mo Hae-in cut me off.
"That's why you're a Trainee."
"...Ah."
Right. I'd already been arrested.
Every worry I'd been carrying evaporated on the spot. I was already confirmed as something abnormal, and right now the Era Bureau was testing whether I could close three Trials within the month I'd promised. Whether my eyes started glowing or not was beside the point. What mattered to the Era Bureau was whether the Trials actually got closed.
Feeling considerably lighter, I offered a small smile and a bow.
"Thank you."
"There's nothing to thank me for."
Mo Hae-in drew a firm line, then jerked her chin at the emergency generator still humming away.
"Why did the generator suddenly end up like that?"
"I don't know."
Mo Hae-in looked at me steadily. The look said something like, So there are things even you don't know.
I don't know a lot of things, actually...
If it was a part of the game I'd played, I knew it inside and out. Everything else, I didn't. No — I couldn't. The emergency generator's sudden breakdown was the part that baffled me most of all.
The gold flash in my eyes I could more or less understand if I tied it to becoming the System. The system window had muttered something along those lines, too.
It'd be weirder if nothing happened after I became something as big as the System.
But no matter how I turned it over, I couldn't even find a thread to pull on for the emergency generator. Before it went berserk, the Cook Zombie hadn't hit that hard. Without outside interference, there was no way the emergency generator could suddenly break like that. I'd even wondered, at first, whether Je Hyeon-o had skipped the item delivery he was supposed to make and come to the Research Institute to ram the generator himself.
The only guess I had right now was that changing the True Ending might have had some kind of ripple effect.
Even that wasn't certain.
Right now, my usefulness to the Era Bureau was decided entirely by my knowledge of the Trials. If things kept going off-script like this, it would be a problem. If I could, I wanted to find the cause.
"I'm soooo fucking hungry... Can we please just go already..."
Gwak Han-muk's gloomy mutter snapped me out of my thoughts, and I started moving.
The way back to the lab was the reverse of how we'd come. Once you beat the Cook Zombie, part of the underground sector seals off — but in exchange, you can use the stairs. The emergency stairwell that had been blocked when we first entered the underground was now open, and nobody was surprised.
However precisely it imitated reality, a Trial was still a virtual space. It followed the laws of a game. Even Dead Zone Delivery, for all its emphasis on realism, was bound to have its unreal parts.
Along the way I picked up a couple of food items and handed them to Gwak Han-muk. Grimy with oil, he didn't bother using his hands — he tore the Choco Pie wrapper open with his teeth and tossed the whole thing into his mouth. Still chewing, he smashed a zombie that came lunging at him.
That was a situation I'd created by turning back into a human. Feeling guilty, I promised myself I'd find him even better snacks.
When we reached the sixth floor, newly spawned zombies came out to greet us. While Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in cleared them, I ran to the lab door and knocked.
"Lee Ga-on! Lee Ga—"
I didn't even get her name out twice before the door flew open.
"Gunbam!"
Lee Ga-on yanked me inside. Drained from fighting the Cook Zombie, I let myself be pulled in — and was immediately crushed in a hug.
"Gunbam, Gunbam...! I knew you were alive!"
The sudden embrace startled me, but I awkwardly patted her back. The chest she'd buried her face in was quickly soaked through.
She sobbed for a long time before she finally calmed down enough to lift her head. I carefully stepped back and asked,
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"No. Just a few bruises."
Lee Ga-on showed me an arm mottled dark with bruises. In an ordinary world, bruises that size would have been alarming. In the world of Dead Zone Delivery, walking away with that and your life was an absurdly cheap price.
I let out a breath of relief and scanned the inside of the lab. I looked for Tak Ju-cheol and Paeng Sang-do, but neither of them was in sight.
"I'm glad. Can you tell me what happened?"
"Well, so..."
Lee Ga-on told me everything that had happened while I was in the underground.
Not long after we left, a broadcast announced that the Research Institute was being sealed. Tak Ju-cheol and Paeng Sang-do, who had been quietly cooperating on the vaccine, flipped the moment they heard it. They started shouting that they had to escape right now, raising a useless ruckus. The noisy broadcast had woken every zombie that had been asleep, and the whole place was being torn apart.
Even the sixth floor we'd already cleared was packed with zombies again. It was no environment for researchers with ordinary physiques to escape through. Tak Ju-cheol and Paeng Sang-do figured that out soon enough.
"They're all dead! Everyone's dead!!"
While Tak Ju-cheol wailed in despair, Paeng Sang-do spoke with unsettling calm.
"Not yet... we aren't."
Tak Ju-cheol, who had survived more than once on Paeng Sang-do's schemes, looked at him with eyes full of hope. Paeng Sang-do pointed a finger at Lee Ga-on.
Tak Ju-cheol and Lee Ga-on both understood the gesture instantly. Use Lee Ga-on as bait and escape. The same thing they'd done to Lee Se-on.
"...Ah. Right. Ga-on. We still have our Ga-on."
Tak Ju-cheol grinned.
"Ga-on. I'm asking you. You're the only one we've got right now. We'll make the vaccine just fine, so..."
"Turning my brother into a zombie wasn't enough, so now you want me too?"
"Hey now, that's not what I meant."
"The hell it isn't! You're telling me to go out there and die!"
"Don't you talk back to me, you little—"
Tak Ju-cheol bellowed and jabbed a finger at her — and at the same time, Paeng Sang-do swung a fist.
"I got the bruise on my arm trying to block that."
"That's..."
I couldn't fathom what part of Lee Ga-on had looked punchable enough to swing at.
"So I got so angry I shot him."
"...What?"
"Oh, the zombie Captain left me a gun before she went. The first woman Captain who turned."
That... wasn't the part I'd been surprised about.
Misreading my reaction, Lee Ga-on blinked at me. The look said, What else do you need me to explain?
I decided I should be nicer to Lee Ga-on going forward, and sat up straight to listen to the rest.
The short version: Paeng Sang-do, hit by the gunshot, had fled the lab sobbing, and Tak Ju-cheol had gone after him.
"I didn't know a person could bleed that much. He's definitely dead..."
She'd pulled the trigger, but the reality of what unfolded in front of her had clearly shaken her. Left alone, Lee Ga-on had trembled until the zombies chased after Paeng Sang-do and Tak Ju-cheol — then she'd seized the opening, found the broadcast room on the floor below, and put out a call looking for me.
"Will you be all right without an assistant researcher?"
If needed, I figured I could track down at least one of them and drag him back. But Lee Ga-on immediately and loudly refused.
"I don't need them!"
She clutched my collar and spoke in a rush.
"Just stay here where it's safe. I can do it all myself."
Her unsteady eyes were desperate. I lied for her sake.
"All right. There won't be any more danger."
There was still one last thing remaining, but knowing in advance would only make her anxious. A kind lie. Visibly relieved, Lee Ga-on finally managed a small smile again.
"But..."
She looked me over, then murmured as if something had just clicked.
"Gunbam... you were bitten by a zombie, weren't you?"
Lee Ga-on examined me again and again. After confirming several times that none of the outward signs of zombification had appeared, I answered her honestly.
"I don't know if you'll believe this, but the infection recovered."
The moment she heard that, she froze. Eyes and mouth wide, she stared at me in a daze.
Hard to believe, I suppose.
I figured she'd think I'd lost my mind and started talking nonsense. Whatever reaction she had, I was prepared to understand it.
Then, suddenly, Lee Ga-on seized my arm. And as if she'd been struck by lightning, she cried my name.
"Gunbam!"
The grip on my forearm was considerable. I was still processing the sudden move when her next words threw me even more.
"I'm going to draw some blood."
Lee Ga-on's eyes flashed as she gave the order.
"Right now."
