Kang Po-gyeong 4
Our hunt had ended in hollow failure.
The next day, the atmosphere in the support room hung heavy and subdued. For several days we gathered there almost every waking hour outside of mealtimes, tracking the creature's trail on the big screen, poring over the maps and system data spread across the table, and drafting new operations. No answer came.
Hunting that evolved monster with only the four of us—without the absolute weapon that was the Shelter's Defense System—was close to impossible. The ammunition we had left simply could not punch through its thick muscle armor.
"A frontal fight is suicide," Yeong-ju said, tapping a spot on the map with her finger. "I draw aggro up front in a Walker Suit while the three of you pour fire from the K-2s into its weak points? Sounds fine on paper. But you saw how fast that thing moves. The insane speed it gets by using both arms like extra legs. Before we can even get a proper bead on it, it'll already be right in my face. Once it closes to melee, the suit's energy won't hold."
"What about a trap, then?" Yang Jin-ju offered a new possibility. "There are plenty of old buildings around that look ready to collapse at any moment. What if we lure it into one of them and bring the whole structure down?"
"Luring it is the problem," I said, shaking my head. "It doesn't even react to simple noise anymore. We'd need a live bait—and the second that bait steps inside the building, the thing follows. Then both of you get crushed under the rubble together. Nice."
Our discussion kept circling the same ground. Every plan we built slammed into the same wall: the creature's overwhelming physical power and its sharp, learning intelligence.
Time slipped away without mercy. Outside the support room windows there was still no sign of the second variant—only a quiet stillness that made us more uneasy than any noise would have.
Then, one afternoon, after days of those hopeless meetings, we took turns heading to the treatment room to check on Kang Po-gyeong and clear our heads. She was still deep in sleep, but the white membrane wrapping her right arm had begun to take on a real arm's shape. You could even make out the faint outline of five fingers.
Strangely, the chest and shoulders that had swollen unnaturally when treatment first began were slowly returning to normal as the arm grew.
"Maybe it temporarily stored the nutrients needed to build a missing arm there?" Yang Jin-ju guessed, looking fascinated.
The next day it was Nam Jin-ju and I who went in together to see her.
"…When do you think she'll wake up, Oppa?" Nam Jin-ju asked, gazing down with pity at Kang Po-gyeong's gaunt, sleeping face—worn thin from enduring the pain.
"Hard to say. It looks like it's almost finished, though…"
That was the moment.
"Nn…"
A small sound of pain. Nam Jin-ju and I both snapped our eyes to the source—Kang Po-gyeong's mouth. Her eyelids were trembling, ever so slightly.
"Ah! Ah—! Unni's waking up! Yeong-ju Unni! Jin-ju!"
Nam Jin-ju's urgent shout brought Yeong-ju and Yang Jin-ju racing from the cafeteria into the treatment room.
While the four of us held our breath and watched, Kang Po-gyeong very slowly lifted her heavy eyelids. Her pupils wandered, unfocused for a moment against the bright light she hadn't seen in days.
"Wh… where…"
She murmured in a hoarse voice and tried to push herself up.
Then her gaze finally found her right arm.
The white membrane was gone. In its place lay a perfectly formed right arm, its skin as pale and soft as a newborn's—like the skin on my own fingers.
With a trembling left hand she carefully touched her right, as if she could not believe it. Then, very slowly, she curled and uncurled each finger of the new hand one by one.
Hot tears began to pour from her eyes like a waterfall. She staggered down from the treatment table and dropped to her knees in front of us.
"Thank you. Truly, truly, thank you. Seo Yeong-chan-nim. Seo Yeong-ju-nim. Yang Jin-ju-nim. Nam Jin-ju-nim…"
She bowed her head to the floor, speaking each of our names in turn.
For a long time she simply wept, staring at her new arm without another word. When she had finally calmed enough, she washed herself clean and joined us again at the evening meal.
She ate with clumsy but earnest spoonfuls using the brand-new right arm, and kept moving it as if she still could not quite believe it was hers.
"Ugh… It feels like the whole arm keeps cramping. Numb and prickling…"
She frowned as she said it.
"Nerves that weren't there are reconnecting. Of course it does. You'll get used to it soon enough."
Yeong-ju spoke as if it were nothing, scooping extra side dishes onto Kang Po-gyeong's plate.
After the meal, Kang Po-gyeong sprang up and began clearing the dishes and trash we had left behind.
"I'll do it! Let me! Please rest!"
With both hands she cleaned the table carefully if awkwardly, then wiped the floor. Her excessive loyalty made us feel a little awkward for a moment, but none of us stopped her. Right now, the certainty that she was needed here mattered more to her than anything else.
When everything was put away, Kang Po-gyeong turned to us and spoke in a voice clearer and stronger than anything we had heard from her before.
"I will report. The place where the seeds are."
Her voice rang with the confidence of someone who could prove, without doubt, that seeds waited there.
"The location I know is the Baekdudaegan National Arboretum's National Permanent Seed Storage Facility in Bonghwa County, Gyeongsangbuk-do—commonly called the Seed Vault."
The name that left Kang Po-gyeong's mouth was completely unfamiliar.
"What's that?"
When I asked, she began to explain.
"It is classified as a semi-classified facility. A kind of botanical Noah's Ark—built to permanently store every wild plant seed of our country against climate change, war, catastrophe, or any other end-of-the-world scenario."
At her words we all held our breath. A seed storage facility prepared for the end of the world. A place that fit our present situation with almost uncanny precision.
"I can't believe a place like that actually existed…"
Nam Jin-ju cried out, her voice full of hope. I could not hide my own excitement either.
"Then that's it! If we just get there—!"
Kang Po-gyeong poured cold water over our rising mood.
"No. The seeds there will not, in truth, be of much help to us."
"What? What the hell does that mean?"
Yeong-ju's expression froze over in an instant. Reading her face, Kang Po-gyeong went pale and hurried on.
"That place stores only wild plant seeds, nothing more! Not the improved agricultural varieties we could plant and eat right away! Of course, if we spent a very long time researching and breeding them, it might become possible, but…"
Her words seemed to turn our hope back into despair. Yeong-ju crossed her arms in that familiar way of hers and began to glare.
"However!"
Seeing our faces, Kang Po-gyeong called out urgently.
"Nearby, almost like an annex, there is a very small seed-improvement research lab! That place will almost certainly have the agricultural seeds we need! And that lab is equipped with its own storage system nearly on the same level as the Seed Vault, so the odds that the seeds are still viable are extremely high!"
At that final line, Yeong-ju's mood visibly eased. Sharp-eyed Kang Po-gyeong let out a quiet breath of relief.
"…It's too far."
But Yeong-ju still kept her arms folded, frowning as she spoke.
"What is, Unni?"
When Nam Jin-ju asked, Yeong-ju pointed at the map and began to explain.
"Distance is the biggest problem. If my memory's right, Bonghwa County is farther from here than Busan. Easily a hundred and fifty kilometers. We don't have a vehicle, and we can't prepare for all the dangers we'd run into over that kind of distance. One suit alone isn't nearly enough."
Her cold analysis dragged the mood down again.
But this time we were different. We no longer collapsed helplessly in front of despair. We put our heads together and began searching for a way to make that impossible journey possible.
"Raising the Shelter to Level 3 has to come first," I said. "If we have one more Foundation Suit, two people can move together and cover each other. Survival odds jump way up."
"Agreed. Which means we somehow have to hunt that runaway variant first," Yang Jin-ju said.
"And how exactly do we lure it? It won't even come near the Shelter anymore," Yeong-ju pointed out sharply.
Then Kang Po-gyeong, who had been listening quietly, spoke up with care.
"I… I may be able to help."
Every eye turned to her. She flinched under the weight of those stares, but continued.
"The real reason I left Park Seok-su's group is separate. I intended to get out, then go retrieve weapons I had hidden earlier."
"Weapons?"
"Yes. Three grenades, three blocks of C4 explosive, and a small amount of pistol ammunition. I siphoned them off little by little over time—my last resort, in case I needed them after escaping Park Seok-su's group, or to buy my way into another group."
We all held our breath. Grenades and C4. That was exactly the overwhelming firepower we needed most right now.
"Wait—!"
In that instant Yang Jin-ju shot to her feet as if something had just clicked.
"The resource processing system! It was definitely on the weapons fabrication list! Pressure-sensitive explosive mines!"
She frantically dug through the system data she had organized.
"Yes—here it is! But the amount of explosive required is so large that the powder from the bullets we have wouldn't even come close, so I never even considered making them…"
She looked at Kang Po-gyeong with trembling hands.
"If those grenades and that C4 you mentioned are still there, we can use their explosives to build these mines."
At her words, Yeong-ju's eyes lit up.
"How strong are those mines?"
"According to the data, roughly equal to a single shot from the Shelter's Defense System. Which means…"
Before Yang Jin-ju could finish, I shouted first.
"We can blow its lower body apart!"
I could not keep the excitement out of my voice as I went on.
"Think about it! The first one that got hit by the Defense System—its upper muscle armor tanked a few shots, but its lower half exploded in a single hit! With these mines we can hit its clearest weak point, exactly where and when we want!"
At last we had found a way to deal real damage to the thing.