Another Sense of Unease
Forcing someone into submission is fine, but making them manufacture their own guilt works just as well.
Two blocks away, they said, but the distance was short. Hadn't I said as much? And with all the aggro I'd drawn, the odds of running into zombies nearby were low.
Which meant Seol-hwa's odds of running into them were low as well.
High chance of getting there safely. High chance of finding her parents.
Plant the guilt of stabbing me in the back, then exploit it for all it was worth?
If her parents had already turned and I managed to "save" them, that would be the cherry on top—but that wasn't likely to happen so easily.
Either way, the plan was already in motion: confront her for running, make her feel protected, and bind her to me in obedience.
Following the address, I headed straight for a multi-family house that looked to be four stories tall.
Zombie voices might have been audible inside other units, but nothing threatened the immediate surroundings.
I climbed to the third floor and carefully pressed my ear to the door.
The moment I confirmed the howling from inside, I pounded on it.
Even so, getting bitten was not an option.
"Open the door!"
Zombie roars and the sound of fists on wood. But a scream was coming from right on the other side, too. The living room?
"I'll save you! Right now!"
I was urgently pressing when it happened.
The sound of a door completely shattering, followed by the electronic chime of the front entrance unlocking.
I yanked the door open in one motion and spun Seol-hwa—who'd come tumbling out with it—behind me.
"Mom..."
One word, choked out through tears. Just as I'd expected.
But what was that hanging off her arms? I had no choice but to raise my crossbow at the former mother-in-law charging at me, cloth trailing from her wrists.
I fired the crossbow at the same instant the zombie lunged.
The bolt punched into the face of the thing charging me like a beast, and then it tangled with me.
"Ugh!"
The force of the charge knocked me backward. I shoved it off in a hurry.
Once I confirmed the zombie was fully down, I let out a long breath.
And from behind me came the sound of crying.
Seol-hwa had started to wail.
"Mom..."
But this crying was not good right now. Zombie sounds were swelling loudly from outside.
"Come here. It's dangerous."
I grabbed Seol-hwa's hand, dragged her inside by force, and locked the door.
The place was an ordinary home—two rooms, a bathroom, a living room.
But the situation was anything but ordinary.
The corpse of what appeared to be Seol-hwa's mother lay in front of the entrance, and Seol-hwa herself could do nothing but cry. The atmosphere was bleak.
Villain or not, I couldn't just leave things like this.
I needed something to shift the mood. Especially those trailing scraps of cloth on both of the zombie's hands—what the hell were those?
I turned my head this way and that, then headed toward the wrecked door.
Approaching it, I found a ruined bed and a powerful stench of rot.
At both ends of the bed frame, the cloth I'd seen earlier hung in severed strips.
Don't tell me...
"She tied herself up?"
Knowing she would turn into a zombie? So she wouldn't hurt anyone else?
It felt like a hammer had just cracked me across the skull.
Incredible.
You could call it a mother's will.
Before turning, she had bound her own arms to the bed and held on.
I confirmed it, then walked over to the sobbing Seol-hwa.
"Your mother was trying to protect you, I think."
Nothing is easier to handle than a child drowning in grief. I pointed with a finger at the cloth wrapped around the wrists, for those tear-filled eyes to see.
"Look. Your mom tied herself down. In case she hurt someone. But she was only inside the house—so who do you think that someone was?"
"...."
"Your mom did it to protect you. Because she didn't want the daughter who would come looking for her to become a zombie."
"Mom..."
Seol-hwa's crying surged even harder. Good. That made her even easier to handle.
"Your mother wanted you to live. Even in a world like this."
I could not let her die. For that reason alone, I would hammer home a mother's love and make her keep living.
I'm too selfish, too much of a bastard. Of course I am. If I'd been a good person, I'd still be helping out at the school.
From that day on, I had thoroughly discarded any desire to be a good man.
In a world like this, I was going to do whatever I wanted—what use was being nice?
Seol-hwa was the same. I'd deliberately brought up her parents because this situation was perfect to exploit.
In that state, I stepped toward the front door. When someone takes a heavy shock, a third party chiming in usually just gets a neurotic snap for their trouble.
I'd met women like that before. Best to leave one line and give her a little time.
"I'll clear out the zombies around here. Rest."
Drawing the footsteps and sounds of the undead, I began my sweep.
The auditorium. A strategy meeting was in full swing.
"Yo, but you're offering up Seol-hwa? Doyoon, you've been eyeing her yourself."
They were discussing what came next.
They were hoping the unidentified man they'd spoken with wouldn't turn against them.
Their leader, Min Doyoon, was groping Mira—the only girl among them—at his side.
"Eh, the assholes upstairs at the school do whatever they want. So do we. And you think I'm crazy enough to just hand Seol-hwa over?"
"Then what?"
At the others' voices, Min Doyoon grinned wide.
"I said I'd give her over after we bring her back. Do we actually have to keep the promise?"
"Oh, this bastard's got some brains."
A friend clapped him on the shoulder, and a wicked smile followed.
"The school side's too busy playing gentleman to hit us properly anyway. Earlier they even wanted to negotiate."
"Gang Haseong's soft, I'll give him that."
"Soft, my ass. He's the same as the rest of them. Just struts around pretending to be a leader. Even before all this, he was popular with the girls..."
Min Doyoon was spitting jealousy, badmouthing Gang Haseong.
"But that outsider—doesn't he seem strong?"
"He was carrying a crossbow and shit."
But all they had were blunt weapons.
A slingshot was easy enough to stop with a helmet, too.
Facing him head-on was a very heavy proposition.
"Who said anything about fighting him straight up? We bring Seol-hwa back, then we stab him in the back."
"Oh."
"He's just another obvious bastard who wants Seol-hwa for himself. So we can definitely make an opening. And even if not—looking at how hard Gang Haseong's been searching for her, he seems pretty attached. We could use her to reel him in, too."
Min Doyoon was no fool. He knew how to negotiate by using what each side wanted.
"Ah, I can't wait. I want to see that bitch who rejected my offer and ran off, whimpering under a bed. Looking at her, she's gotta be a virgin."
"Yo yo. You're being real blatant."
"Honestly, she's arrogant as hell. Turned down our demands for a night, too. If the school hadn't been there, she'd have been mine to do whatever with."
Min Doyoon stuck out his tongue and licked the cheek of the girl he'd been fondling.
"What? Jealous?"
"Hey, everyone keeps going Seol-hwa this, Seol-hwa that—I'm right here, you know? That bitch might have a pretty face, but she's nothing special."
"Don't get mad. I'll let you do whatever you want to her."
"For real? That bitch is so annoying—I'm looking forward to it."
They were waiting, impatient, for Jin Dohyuk to find Seol-hwa and bring her back.
If you measured this in work hours, how much overtime would it even be?
My body was sending signals. Any more than this was too much.
In this neighborhood alone, the zombies I'd taken down numbered three.
Just three? Hardly.
Unlike the zombies in movies, even armed, a one-on-one was rough.
Rougher, more violent, more beastlike.
And how hard had I been running my body just getting here today?
My trembling hands were screaming fatigue, so I decided to stop here.
I turned my head and looked at Seol-hwa's house, a little ways off. Leaving her alone for now was fine.
What I needed to do? No need to force a trip back toward the school.
I could leave Seol-hwa here for a bit and come back later. I decided to head to the real world, rest, and return—then I started the electric bike.
Something about the sound was ominous, but... no big deal, right?
Fortunately, the electric bike still rolled. Expensive for a reason.
As I rode, I glanced toward where Seol-hwa was. Warning her before leaving would be fine, but vanishing without a word and then reappearing would bind her psychologically even more effectively.
So I ignored it and went.
I passed back through the places I'd come from, past Lee Soyeon's house.
Lust stirred again, but I had to hold it down. Right now, the focus was on Seol-hwa.
And Lee Soyeon had worked hard these past few days—she deserved a rest too.
I was zipping past a building empty of zombies when something fluttered past.
"Gum wrapper."
Obviously nothing. I ignored it and finally made a beeline for my original semi-basement monthly rental.
I parked the bike outside and at last settled into my intact, comfortable home.
"Ah, shit. I'm fucking exhausted."
The moment I arrived, I stripped off all the stab-proof gear and went straight into the shower.
Reward for running myself ragged—and preparation for the future.
"Tomorrow the remodeling contractor comes for the estimate..."
Cool water washed the fatigue from my body. If only showers were free over there, too.
Even when I'd done it with Lee Soyeon in the bathroom, the water had come out unsteadily the second time.
The water would cut out eventually, and then proper use of it would become impossible.
"If I'm going to spend days and days over there, I'm going to miss showers."
For the sake of my sex life alone, hygiene had to be solid.
Even if I hauled unlimited water from this side, once the plumbing failed...
Serious problems with waste disposal were a given.
For me to enjoy myself, those things had to be handled.
Which naturally meant effort was required.
Showers...
If only I could use water freely...
The internet was perfect for moments like this. Putting crossbow and weapon maintenance aside for now, I searched for showers that didn't need running water.
Camping Gear
Oddly enough, most of this stuff was tied to camping.
Portable Shower Booth
"So there are ones that just work once you fill them with water."
Plenty of variety. Some were just for showering or changing; others had a reservoir underneath that sucked water up and sprayed it.
"And if you add a water-purifier setup, the price jumps, huh?"
As I was now, I could buy without fretting over price.
Right. Seol-hwa was filthy—I'd invest in this and get her cleaned up properly.
Around three hundred thousand won would be enough.
"Good. Order."
Even one item like this was a useful approach in an apocalypse.
Best case was electricity and water still working, but that was impossible.
So the focus had to be on gear convenient for a small group.
I'd buy two for now and leave one at Lee Soyeon's place and one at Seol-hwa's.
And then there was the toilet problem.
Once the water stopped functioning properly, toilets were the same. No one left to handle the waste.
That left portable toilets.
"Back when I went on trips with Mom and Dad, there was a toilet that used foam..."
Looking it up online, it was called a foam-flush system. It used foam to flush.
Used little water, and handled the smell problem well too.
"Downside is, to clean it you still need a sewage truck to pump it out, and washing still takes water?"
In a situation where water couldn't come out at all, it was still iffy.
But foam-flush seemed relatively hygienic enough...
I was debating whether to buy one when a new listing caught my eye.
Zero-Discharge Circulating Flush System
"Oh ho?"
Articles said they'd been installed on Jeju Island and in mountainous terrain.
The method: self-contained sewage treatment that reused the existing water.
Periodically top up the microbes and chemicals, and the purified water got used again for flushing.
"Holy shit. This exists?"
I felt like Aristotle shouting eureka inside my own skull—that was a bonus.
"Usually sold as portable units for men and women, huh."
Unfortunately, the size would never fit through a door.
Foam-flush at least came in the familiar single-person portable toilet size, so you could somehow get it inside.
No—this time the problem was length.
Considering the size of this tiny monthly rental... I couldn't even move a toilet through. Unless it was modular, maybe.
"And it costs a fortune, too."
More than double the price of a regular toilet was the baseline.
We were talking in the thousands of dollars.
"Haa... For now, let's just order more food."
I bulk-ordered food that would work for Seol-hwa's side, then got into maintenance.
Cleaning and wiping down the weapons I'd used. Especially the towels used on the stab-proof gear and the bow—those had to be burned, no exceptions.
Smoke rose from the yard as I watched it, and of course the electric bike chose that moment to wobble and tip over.
"Ah, what rotten luck. Huh? What's this gum?"
Annoyingly, a completely discolored wad of gum was dangling along with a gum wrapper.
"What a pain."
I pulled out the crumpled paper to peel the gum off and headed for the trash.
"Huh?"
That was when I felt it again—a small sense of unease, rising once more.