The Pressure Mine

The next morning at dawn, the Shelter's entrance opened once more. This time, it wasn't me stepping through that door — it was Nam Jin-ju.

"Whoa… I can't believe I'm actually going out wearing this! I feel like I've become Iron Man or something!"

Her voice over the comms brimmed with tension and excitement. The way she looked in the suit was different from Yeong-ju or Yang Jin-ju. Fitted snugly to her small frame, it made her look like a girl warrior out of the future.

"Nam Jin-ju, don't forget what we agreed. You're only recovering the weapons Kang Po-gyeong told us about. Absolutely, absolutely no unnecessary fighting — and if it looks dangerous, you run. Got it?"

At Yeong-ju's stern warning, Nam Jin-ju answered with cheerful resolve.

"(Yes, Unni! Don't worry! Just leave it to me!)"

Guided remotely by Kang Po-gyeong, she set off running into the dark.

In the operations room, four of us — me, Yeong-ju, Yang Jin-ju, and Kang Po-gyeong, now fully one of the team — held our breath as we watched her first-person feed.

"My god… is that really how fast a person can move?"

Kang Po-gyeong asked in a voice thick with awe, staring at the ruined landscape streaking past on the screen.

"Yeah. That suit is a lot more impressive than it looks."

I answered.

"There! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Go into that alley — the basement of the third building! The entrance should be blocked by a signboard!"

Following Kang Po-gyeong's directions, Nam Jin-ju turned into a familiar alley and began recovering the weapons one by one. Grenades hidden inside a dust-choked ventilation shaft. C4 explosives stashed under an old sofa.

"(Whoa! They're really here! And you remembered every single one! That's amazing!)"

"Not at all! You're the amazing one, Nam Jin-ju-nim!"

The two of them traded compliments, filling the channel with a warm, almost cozy atmosphere.

"(Great! Now I just need the pistol ammo…)"

Nam Jin-ju was hopping from building to building in search of her final target when it happened.

A zombie suddenly lunged into frame.

"Ah!"

In the operations room, Yang Jin-ju cried out before she could stop herself.

But the Nam Jin-ju on the screen didn't flinch.

"(Not a chance!)"

With a short shout she put the suit's power into a kick and sent the zombie flying. There was a dull thud as it smashed into a distant building wall and crumpled into a shapeless heap.

"(…Okay, that was pretty cool just now, right? Right?)"

Her proud voice cracked the tension; relieved laughter spilled through the operations room.

"Truly magnificent, Nam Jin-ju-nim!"

Kang Po-gyeong's sincere admiration rang over the comms.

"I'm back!"

Having safely recovered every weapon, Nam Jin-ju announced her return in a voice bright with excitement. She came home toward the Shelter with a stride far more confident than when she had left.

The grenades, C4, and pistol ammunition she brought back were the most critical key to our next plan. We headed straight for the resource processing room and prepared to dismantle them and extract the gunpowder.

But the moment we reached for pliers and tools, Kang Po-gyeong stepped in front of us.

"Please wait!"

She planted herself before us with a resolute expression.

"From now on, I will handle this kind of minor labor. Please leave it to me."

Her sudden offer left us briefly at a loss.

"You sure? Your arm isn't fully healed yet."

When I asked with concern, she raised her newly grown right hand and answered stoutly.

"I am fine. If anything, this kind of precision work will be even more helpful for rehabilitation training."

Yeong-ju and I glanced at each other. Then we both nodded.

"…All right. Be careful, then."

With our permission, Kang Po-gyeong took her place at the worktable with the solemn face of a soldier receiving a critical mission. And she began carefully dismantling grenades and bullets one by one, collecting the gunpowder with hands far more skilled and meticulous than we had expected.

But the work was not as easy as she had hoped. Her right arm, its nerves still not fully connected, tingled and ached as if cramping with every delicate motion. She would stop with a strained ngh… ugh…, kneading her right arm again and again. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, yet her eyes burned with the will to prove her usefulness somehow.

Her grueling labor stretched late into the night.

"…Drink."

A steaming cup of coffee was set down with a soft thunk in front of her as she remained absorbed in the work. She looked up to find Yeong-ju gazing down at her with an indifferent expression.

"If you're planning to pull an all-nighter, drink this first."

She turned to leave with only those words.

"…Thank you, Seo Yeong-ju-nim!"

At Kang Po-gyeong's heartfelt thanks, Yeong-ju paused for a moment. Without looking back, she answered shortly.

"…Forget it."

She hesitated a beat longer, then glanced at me — currently on watch duty, still half-treating Kang Po-gyeong as a prisoner and privately worried about an arm that had only just grown back — and added,

"And I talked it over with Seo Yeong-chan. Bedroom Five, the empty one. It's yours from now on."

With that, she vanished back into the dark.

Left alone, Kang Po-gyeong stared blankly for a while in the direction Yeong-ju had gone. Then she turned toward me, her voice slightly tight in her throat.

"Everyone here is truly kind."

The next morning, gathered in the resource processing room, we faced the fruit of Kang Po-gyeong's all-night labor. On the table, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠high-purity gunpowder she had carefully separated sat portioned into small pouches.

"Seriously impressive. Is this all you did in the military?"

Yeong-ju tossed the line off as if it were nothing. Coming from her, it was the highest praise.

"Ah, not at all, Yeong-ju-nim. I simply have a bit of a knack with my hands!"

Flustered by the compliment, Kang Po-gyeong flushed, glanced once at her new hand, and bowed her head.

She set the pouches of gunpowder onto the intake belt of the resource processing machine. A blue scanner light swept across them, and the machine automatically began analyzing and sorting the powder by type and purity.

"Incredible… I've never seen a machine like this. Not even in classified military facilities."

Kang Po-gyeong watched the marvel with eyes sparkling like a child's.

"All required resources are gathered."

Once every last bit of powder had been fed in and the screen displayed its message, Yang Jin-ju spoke.

With trembling fingers I pressed the button on the screen.

Wheeeeeeng!

The instant I pressed it, the massive machine roared to life. We could only hold our breath and watch the process unfold.

About fifteen minutes later—

The roar died. One face of the machine hissed open like a great door, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and a shelf slowly slid out, trailing white steam.

On the shelf rested a round, flat, heavy metal object roughly the size of a human head.

A pressure-sensitive explosive mine.

For a long moment, all of us simply stared at the birth of that hope, eyes mixed with wonder and expectation, saying nothing.

After the new weapon — the pressure-sensitive explosive mine — was born, we gathered again in the operations room. Kang Po-gyeong, who had stayed up the entire night, had already been half-forcibly sent to her room by Yeong-ju: "If you so much as nod off, I'm dumping you in a medical bay chair! Sleep, even if I have to make you."

A detailed map of the area around the Shelter lay spread across the large table. We sat around it and began drawing up the final operational plan for the last hunt.

"First we need to decide where to lure it."

Yeong-ju pointed to a section of the map — an old commercial complex of tangled buildings about five hundred meters northeast of the Shelter.

"This looks good. Plenty of buildings for us to hide in, and solid for drawing it in and boxing it. More than anything, it's close to where the thing was last sighted, so finding it should be relatively easy."

We all nodded at her analysis.

"Then where do we plant the mines?"

When I asked, Yang Jin-ju studied the map more closely and answered.

"There are only three approaches leading into the center of this complex. These two narrow alleys, and this wide central road. If we can plant one mine at each of those three choke points and lure it inside…"

"…we can completely shatter its legs."

Yeong-ju finished for her.

"The problem is we only have three mines. Not a single mistake is allowed."

Heavy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠silence settled over the table again.

"And we've only got one Walker Suit."

I added.

"In the end, someone has to wear the suit and lure it in person. The most dangerous role."

"I'll wear the suit and do the luring."

After a moment's thought, I said it. The instant Yeong-ju started to object, I cut her off and refused to bend.

"Last time we failed because we didn't know enough about it. This time is different. I've seen its behavior patterns with my own eyes. I know how it moves. Me going gives us the highest chance of success. And…"

I looked at Yeong-ju and gave a crooked little smile.

"This is just the continuation of what I started last time. It's still my turn."

At that, Yeong-ju said nothing more.

That night I donned the Walker Suit once more, slung the single explosive mine Yang Jin-ju had carefully packed onto my back, and stepped out into the dark.

One chance. We had to end everything with this one trap.

The optimal placement we had chosen was the mouth of the narrowest alley in the commercial complex — the point where three paths converged into one.

"…I seriously feel like some kind of combat engineer."

Arriving at the target, I cracked a joke over the comms, maybe because it reminded me of the military. But the scene in front of me was anything but easy. The alley mouth was a chaotic mess of collapsed building debris and abandoned furniture.

"(Oppa, you're not a combat engineer — you're basically special forces! You look so cool!)"

Nam Jin-ju's pure admiration from the operations room pulled an involuntary laugh out of me.

"(Shut up and focus. You're actually watching the perimeter, right?)"

Yeong-ju's blunt voice cooled the excited mood.

"(Yes, Unni! I've got the manual attack system zoomed three hundred meters toward Oppa and I'm sweeping as hard as I can! Nothing unusual so far!)"

Yang Jin-ju's steady answer let me relax enough to start carefully clearing the junk blocking the path, using the suit's strength one piece at a time.

Every nerve was stretched taut to keep the noise to a minimum.

The thought that that cunning muscle-armored variant might be watching all of this from somewhere sent a chill down my spine. The moment it realized we were planting something here, the entire plan would collapse.

At last, with the alley mouth cleared, I buried our only hope — the explosive mine — deep in the earth. I had just finished the installation and was carefully withdrawing from the site when it happened.

KRAAAAAAAAH—

From far off, yet cutting cleanly through the still dawn air, came a roar like a beast's — only more alien, more foul. It was that thing.

"(Did you hear that? Your three o'clock! It's getting closer!)"

Yeong-ju's urgent voice snapped over the comms.

Without hesitation I threw myself toward the sound. There was no more need to hide. From this moment on, my role was to become the most conspicuous, most irritating bait in the city.

Before long I found it in front of a ruined building. It was gripping the upper half of another zombie in both hands like a chicken leg, savagely tearing at the tough flesh.

To draw it, I cranked the suit's speakers and shouted as loud as I could.

"Hey, you son of a bitch! How's the meal? Looks like you just started — want me to come back later?"

At my taunt it flung its meal to the ground and swung its head toward me. Then, with a roar of pure rage, it planted both massive arms on the ground and charged like a four-legged beast at explosive speed.

I ran without looking back, racing madly toward the trap we had set.

But maybe I pushed too hard. In the unfamiliar terrain I took a wrong turn. A dead end.

"Damn it — not this way!"

The instant I tried to reverse course, the thing was already on my back. My vision blacked out in a single flash. The world spun; a crushing impact hurled my body like a scrap of paper. I smashed straight through the crumbling wall of the neighboring building and slammed into the room beyond.

"(Seo Yeong-chan! Are you okay? Answer me!)"

Four women's voices, raw with screams, poured from the operations room.

I clawed my way out of the broken brick pile and forced myself upright. There was no pain — the suit had absorbed every bit of the shock. But the red numbers that flared across my HUD turned my blood cold.

A single hit had burned twelve percent of my energy.

"…I'm fine! I'm okay!"

I shouted to reassure them, but cold sweat was running down my back.

Dangerous. This is really dangerous.

A few more hits like that and the power would bottom out — and I would die trapped inside this steel coffin, unable to move.

Beyond the shattered wall, the thing's massive silhouette was charging at me again.

I kicked off the ground once more and rose. Then I deliberately shouted even louder at the monster closing in.

"I'm fine, you bastard! That much isn't even close!"

Mocking it again, I started the game of tag once more.