Equal Under the Blade
The next day's hunt was far less chaotic than the previous one, and precisely because of that, it was more dangerous. The twenty people inside the gym—now nineteen—had roughly divided into a small core group and the students who followed them. Ha-neul, Eun-ah, Chae-won, Eun-jae, and Ju-ha were the ones everyone ultimately had to rely on, regardless of how they felt about them.
The goal that day was to clear the outer edges of their secured zone: the hallways lined with classrooms they hadn't fully emptied yet, and the connecting stairwells. After yesterday's incident, the students were already tense before they even left. Chae-won explained the plan in more detail than usual. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was firm, and instead of offering comfort, she pointed out exactly what needed to be done.
"You all saw and heard what happened yesterday. From now on, we need to stay even more focused. We're going out there not to prove how brave we are, but to survive together. So don't run off on your own. If you're scared, say so, but don't stop moving. When we need to fall back, retreat the moment you hear the signal. You stay in the rear and watch the doors, blind spots, and the floor. The second you let your guard down, you already know how expensive that mistake can be."
The students nodded silently. As Eun-ah passed them, she added in her usual blunt tone, "Being scared is fine. Freezing up isn't. Cry if you have to, just keep moving. If you stop, you're dead."
Ha-neul said nothing. After cutting someone's throat yesterday with the same hand that now gripped her sword again, she knew any words of comfort would be meaningless. Instead, she simply stood there with her usual expression, and that very indifference pressed down on the students like a weight.
The hunt began without major issues. Ha-neul silently dispatched two motionless zombies. Eun-ah pinned another that had been crouching in a stairwell corner against the wall with her long staff, and Ha-neul finished it by severing its neck. The students moved a little faster than the day before.
But when death repeats itself, the senses dull, and the moment they dull, gaps appear.
The accident struck without warning. In the middle of a short hallway leading toward the annex, a zombie suddenly twisted its body and lunged out from a half-open classroom door. It had looked slow, but it was fast—fast enough to run. The student standing closest instinctively stepped back, but their shoe slipped on the blood-slick floor. They lost their balance and fell.
In that instant, another zombie that had been hiding inside a different room reacted to the noise and lunged, sinking its teeth into the student's calf. The sound of tearing flesh was just as short and horrifying as yesterday's, but this time everyone watching already knew what would come next.
Once Ha-neul and Eun-ah quickly killed the zombies, the hallway fell silent again. All that remained was the student sitting on the floor clutching their leg and the other students standing frozen around them. The cuff of the uniform pants was torn, and deep teeth marks were visible. The bitten student pressed trembling hands against the wound and rasped, "No… this can't be happening again… not two days in a row… right…?"
No one could offer comfort. The same fear from the previous day spread across every face. They shook their heads, opened their mouths, then closed them again. This time, everyone already knew the ending.
Ha-neul didn't ask questions. She looked once at the student's eyes and the wound, then brought her sword down without hesitation.
When they returned to the gym, the atmosphere was sharper than the day before. Even the students who had tried to accept what happened yesterday felt fresh anger rise when the same thing repeated itself. One student sitting on a mat finally snapped.
"At this rate, we're not going to get eaten by zombies. We're all going to die by Ha-neul sunbae's hand until no one's left! If you cut someone's head off the second they get bitten, you're just killing people who might still be fine. Isn't that too cruel?!"
The intensity of the backlash varied, but most agreed the words weren't entirely wrong. Killing someone who hadn't turned yet, even if it was the rule, wasn't easy to accept.
Ha-neul didn't waver. She simply looked tired as she answered clearly, "You've all watched a zombie movie or drama at least once, right? We can't sit around waiting to see if the bitten person turns out to be immune like some protagonist. We don't have a lab, an isolation room, a cure, or even the manpower to watch them. Outside, those things are still wandering around, and inside we've got nineteen—no, now eighteen—people breathing. Betting on 'maybe' or 'what if' in this situation isn't a decision. It's gambling."
One of the protesting students shot back immediately. "That's fiction! Movies and dramas always exaggerate. Why are you treating it like an actual rule in real life?"
The desperate words sounded like someone clinging to a final shred of hope—the belief that because zombies themselves were unrealistic, maybe the rules weren't set in stone either.
At that moment, Eun-jae stepped in. She had been quietly observing from the back until now. Her voice was cold as she addressed the students. "Purely from a theoretical and biological standpoint, zombies are pure fiction. So are the things outside right now that are eating people just an illusion? Reality has already surpassed fiction, and you're still cherry-picking the parts you want to believe by saying 'it's fiction, so maybe it's different.' That's just escapism."
The students' resistance faltered slightly. Then the same student who had been leading the protest shouted again, voice filled with rage. "Then what if Teacher Chae-won, who you're dating, gets bitten? Could you really cut her down with one swing?!"
The gym froze. The silence was so heavy that even the sound of someone exhaling felt loud. The question wasn't a simple provocation. It struck directly at the weakest point of the rule this group had just established: whether the rule applied equally to everyone, or whether exceptions existed for those with power and connections.
Ha-neul had claimed she killed students yesterday and today to save everyone. If that was true, then the blade had to fall on anyone equally. Every student turned to look at her—some with fear, some with open defiance, some simply wanting confirmation. Chae-won looked at her too. Eun-ah raised her gaze. Eun-jae watched silently, waiting to see where things would go.
Ha-neul thought for a moment, but the silence didn't last long. She spoke calmly. "I would cut her down."
The gym went quiet again. Eyes widened in disbelief. Ha-neul didn't stop there. She continued without avoiding their stares. "That's the rule. It's why I cut down two people today, and it's why I'll do the same no matter who gets bitten from now on. The moment you make exceptions, the rule stops being a rule. If you spare one person and kill another, then the next time someone gets bitten, they'll ask why that person was saved and they weren't. One question like that, and the whole group collapses."
She took another step forward. She knew that for her words to truly become the rule, simply deciding it herself wasn't enough. "And… Teacher Chae-won would tell me to do it too."
All eyes shifted to Chae-won. The ball was in her court now. She stared at Ha-neul for a moment in silence. The emotions were complicated, as they had to be. The person she loved had just declared, in front of everyone, that they would cut her down without hesitation if she were bitten. And now she had to publicly confirm it. But she didn't drag the moment out. Slowly, clearly, she nodded.
"Yes. If I get bitten, don't hesitate."
The students had suspected that the leaders would make exceptions for each other. The moment Chae-won denied that possibility herself, the resistance lost its power. They couldn't argue against it anymore. The atmosphere had already shifted.
Eun-ah picked up the thread. After watching the exchange, she shrugged. "Same goes for me. If I get bitten, I'll offer my own neck first. Better than dragging things out and causing trouble for everyone."
Whether they were close to Ha-neul or not, no one was exempt from the rule. Eun-ah, who was intimate with her, had confirmed it publicly. Eun-jae spoke slowly to the students as well. "The rule collapses the moment exceptions appear. If we start making allowances even once, everyone will begin claiming their own circumstances are more special. Groups like that don't last long. The reason we're still alive isn't because anyone here is kind or strong. It's because we have rules. Even if those rules are unpleasant and cruel, we need to believe they're applied equally to everyone if we're going to survive this."
Unease and resentment still lingered on the students' faces, but they had no more arguments left. Chae-won had agreed, Eun-ah had agreed, and Eun-jae had summarized it. The group's actual leadership had shown complete unity right in front of them. All that remained was the blade that enforced the rule. Ha-neul drove the final point home.
She slowly looked around at the students. Fearful faces, faces forcing composure, faces that still refused to accept it—all of them came into focus. She spoke after seeing every single one. "So remember this. It doesn't matter who gets bitten. Me included. The rule is the same for everyone."
Fear alone couldn't suppress people, and willpower alone couldn't sustain them. But once the certainty took root that the rule applied equally to all, even to those who had created it, the group finally gained order. The students weren't fully convinced, but for now, it was enough. Proof would come gradually from here on out.
Night fell. The students lying on their mats were quieter than before, even glancing around when they whispered to each other. Yesterday's scenes still lingered in everyone's minds, and now the brutal promise made in the middle of the gym had been added on top. It was only natural.
In a spot slightly away from the lights, Ha-neul was cleaning her sword. Her hands moved steadily across the blade with the cloth, and the calm light sliding along the edge was almost eerie. After a while, Chae-won came and sat beside her. They stared in the same direction for some time without speaking. Eventually, Chae-won broke the silence. "Earlier… you meant that, right?"
Ha-neul didn't stop her hands. "Yeah."
Chae-won drew in a breath and slowly let it out. Then she spoke in a low, dry voice. "Then when the time comes, don't hesitate. You made the rule, and I agreed to it. If the rule starts to waver because of me, then everything you said today becomes a lie."
Ha-neul finally looked up from the sword and met Chae-won's eyes. Her gaze was calm, but buried beneath it was an emotion she hadn't shown anyone during the day. "You too, Teacher."
That short reply was a promise to each other. If you get bitten, I'll cut you down. So if I get bitten, don't hesitate either. In this ruined world, where love alone could never be enough, this was the most desperate form of trust they could offer. They didn't speak again.
That night, inside the gym where eighteen survivors breathed, the rule became everyone's promise, and Ha-neul's authority hardened completely on a foundation of fear and equal cruelty.