The Mutant
In the heart of Daegu’s ruined downtown, a deathly silence had settled over the streets.
Where life and bustle had once thrived, only zombies now wandered without purpose. Yet amid that listless procession of the dead, one presence moved that was utterly alien.
Krrr?
Its head and lower body resembled an ordinary zombie, but the upper half was something else entirely. Abnormally developed muscle covered its entire torso like living armor.
The muscles of its shoulders, back, and arms had swollen to the point of bursting, warped into a bulk so massive it barely retained any human shape. Its arms, in particular—long and thick enough to drag along the ground—made it plain that this creature no longer belonged to anything ordinary.
The mutant gripped what looked like another zombie in those enormous arms. With wet cracks and rips, it tore the limbs free one by one as if shredding well-cooked meat, then stuffed them into its mouth.
Every time it ripped a zombie apart, the snap of breaking bone and the wet tear of flesh echoed sickeningly through the surroundings. The other zombies merely shambled past the scene of cannibalism without reaction. Fear did not exist for them.
Chewing its meal with slow, savoring steps, the mutant zombie suddenly lifted its head. Far off, a dense cluster of zombies had gathered in one place, generating a faint noise that broke the surrounding stillness.
That place was the sports ground where Seo Yeong-chan’s Shelter stood.
The mutant began lumbering toward the source of the sound. When a wrecked car blocked its path, it casually lifted the ruined sedan—easily over a ton—with one hand and flung it aside as if tossing a sheet of paper. The vehicle smashed into a building wall with a thunderous crash, crumpling and bringing down part of the façade, but the creature paid no attention and simply continued along the path it had cleared.
As it drew nearer the sports ground, however, the mutant abruptly stopped. A faint blue glow appeared beyond the zombies in eyes that could no longer be called human.
It was the residual shimmer of energy produced by the Shelter’s Defense System.
The moment it saw that blue light, something twisted across the mutant’s deformed face—an expression that was not quite an expression. Curiosity? Or a predator’s instinct upon spotting stronger prey?
The mutant stopped tearing other zombies apart. It flung the remains of its meal to the ground and began walking toward the distant blue light with strides far faster and far more purposeful than before.
A vast and terrible threat was drawing near.
About five days had passed since that heated night with Yeong-ju. Gathering in the cafeteria every morning for breakfast had already become our new routine, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Even within that peaceful daily life, subtle changes kept unfolding. Yang Jin-ju and Nam Jin-ju’s attitudes, in particular, had shifted unmistakably.
“Oppa, would you like some coffee? I’ll make it for you.”
“If you put these stir-fried beans in this sandwich it’s really good… try it.”
They had begun looking after me as if competing for the privilege. Bringing coffee, recommending new food combinations—their kindness was clearly an effort to raise their “favorability” with me.
I had no reason to dislike pretty girls fussing over me, so I just grinned and accepted their goodwill. Every time I did, though, Yeong-ju’s sharp gaze from across the table stabbed into me.
She never said a word, but her eyes clearly announced, I can see you sitting there with that stupid happy look on your face. I flinched under that stare, straightened my expression, and managed only an awkward “Uh… thanks?”
Yang Jin-ju, especially, now always joined me during the monitoring sessions in the support room that had become part of my daily routine.
She sat in the chair beside mine, brought me coffee, noted new anomalies on the map—quietly working to increase the time we spent together.
For the first few days Yeong-ju seemed uneasy about the two of us being alone; she would appear with coffee or a drink from the cafeteria and sit in a corner of the support room, watching us like a guard. Once she saw that Yang Jin-ju truly focused only on monitoring and did nothing more than occasionally ask, “Want some coffee or a drink?”, she seemed to relax. After that she stopped following us.
Instead she wandered the Shelter, claimed a corner of a wide empty room labeled “Multipurpose Room,” set up her own workout space, and began training her body with bare-handed exercises every day. This morning Nam Jin-ju approached her.
“Unni, can I work out with you too? Will you teach me a little?”
Yeong-ju nodded as if it were only natural, and the two of them headed off to train together. Some strange solidarity—or rivalry—seemed to be forming among the women.
And today marked roughly the twentieth day since we had entered the Shelter.
As usual, Yang Jin-ju and I were watching the large screen in the support room. In the middle of that peaceful stretch of days she asked me something that was not idle chatter for the first time.
“Hey… Seo Yeong-chan.”
She kept her eyes on the screen and spoke carefully.
“Could you… check whether I’m registered as a Companion? Or Jin-ju?”
A faint worry and anxiety colored her voice—unease over whether the past few days of effort had actually worked.
I opened the system window and checked the [Resident List] and [Companion] tabs in turn. The result was unchanged.
“…No. Neither of your names is there yet.”
Yang Jin-ju let out a low “Hmm…” and her face turned thoughtful. A flicker of disappointment crossed her features.
I watched her and simply hoped things would work out. The moment I turned my gaze back to the screen, it happened.
One of the small split screens in the lower-left corner suddenly slid to the center, expanded with a sharp wee-ing warning tone, and filled the display with a grotesque, ominous scene that shattered our peace.
What appeared on the screen was a monster whose form surpassed any zombie we had previously encountered. It was on an entirely different level from the merely fast mutant we had met before.
Its upper body was completely sheathed in hard, bizarre muscle that looked like living armor, and its arms hung long and thick enough to drag on the ground.
That muscle-armored zombie was carefully crossing back and forth over the two-hundred-meter boundary of the Shelter’s Defense System range, as if testing it.
The instant it tried to step inside, an invisible attack from above the Shelter—our Defense System—sliced past its shoulder with a sharp ping.
An ordinary zombie’s head would have exploded. This one merely staggered a few steps backward. Its dense muscle armor seemed almost unharmed. Letting out a grotesque, pained groan, it quickly retreated outside the range.
Then it tried again from a different direction. Once more a ping sounded; once more it was driven back.
After several failed attempts it finally seemed to snap. It began slamming its massive arms into the ground in a frenzy.
KWAANG! KWAANG!
The asphalt shattered under the impacts; dust billowed in every direction. This was no simple tantrum. It carried clear intelligence and purpose.
The dull, irregular thuds reached us even through the Shelter’s perfect soundproofing as faint vibrations. It was not mere noise. It was a sound that stirred a primal fear, as if something enormous were hammering the earth itself.
“What was that? An earthquake?”
Nam Jin-ju and Yeong-ju, still sweat-soaked from their workout in the multipurpose room, burst into the support room. Confusion filled their faces. Fear already shone in Nam Jin-ju’s eyes.
I pointed silently at the central screen. On it the muscle-armored mutant was still pounding the asphalt with its huge arms, unable to contain its rage. That was the source of the sound they had heard.
“…What is that monster? How long has it been there?”
Nam Jin-ju asked, her face gone pale. Overwhelmed by the creature’s presence on the screen, she half-hid behind Yang Jin-ju without realizing it.
Yang Jin-ju calmly explained the situation. Her voice held forced composure, yet her eyes fixed on the screen trembled faintly.
“It’s been doing that the whole time. It can’t withstand the Defense System’s attacks, so it can’t get inside. But it hasn’t given up—it keeps trying to enter from different directions. For now we can still treat it as not a direct threat.”
Nam Jin-ju let out a small breath of relief at those words. Yeong-ju, however, was different.
Something had snagged on her animal-like instinct for danger. Arms folded, she stared hard at the monster on the screen, her brow faintly furrowed, as if trying to read some ominous pattern in a predator’s movements before the hunt.
We watched the mutant’s bizarre performance for a long while. It would edge into range, get shoved back by the invisible attacks, then in fury pick up other zombies loitering nearby and hurl them like toys, rip wrecked cars apart, and smash the ground—repeating the cycle. What had first looked like mindless rage gradually took on a different meaning.
Then Yeong-ju spoke quietly.
“…That thing isn’t moving on instinct alone. It has intelligence.”
At her grave expression every gaze returned to the screen. The way it cunningly withdrew just outside the attack range, the way it kept testing something—we had all sensed it vaguely and simply wanted to ignore it.
Right then, one of the zombies it flung happened to arc toward our Shelter.
Pong—
The moment the flying zombie entered the Defense System’s range it was instantly shot down and dropped limply to the ground.
“Whew, thank goodness. Even thrown zombies get auto-targeted.”
Nam Jin-ju sighed in relief. But the mutant that had watched the scene suddenly froze. Then, as if it had realized something, it began picking up other zombies one by one and hurling them toward us.
Ping-ping-ping—
Every flying zombie was shot down in midair without exception, yet the creature did not stop. If anything it grew more excited, snatching up every zombie within reach and throwing them. It looked unnervingly like a child who had just figured out how a new toy worked and was having fun.
We watched in admiration of the Shelter’s flawless Defense System. Only Yeong-ju’s expression grew steadily harder as she muttered,
“This… isn’t good. That thing is… learning.”
The instant her worried words ended, the mutant’s behavior changed. Having apparently run out of nearby zombies to throw, it scanned the ground, then seized a massive chunk of concrete the size of a car engine that had been lying shattered there.
A curse like a groan burst from Yeong-ju’s lips.
“Fuck…!”
The huge stone the creature hurled arced toward us. This time no ping sounded. The Defense System did not react to non-living objects.
Thud.
The rock struck the invisible Force Shield with a dull impact and fell to the ground. The entire Shelter seemed to tremble faintly from the blow.
In that moment all four of our faces hardened.
And beyond the screen, the mutant’s grotesquely twisted face contorted even more unpleasantly, as if wearing a smile of victory.
It had learned. It had figured out that this invisible wall reacted only to living things. Through its own intelligence it had pierced the fatal weakness of our strongest shield.
It now knew exactly how to attack us.