The Broadcast Building and the Fox Professor
I ended up inside that damn novel. And things progressed with shocking smoothness.
It seemed like Kang Siwoo had been refining this plan for a long time. In the original story, the plan was never explained in detail—just vague lines like, “I wanted to do this, but these conditions made it impossible,” before skipping straight ahead. Because of that, I’d always assumed it was some half-baked, improvised scheme. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“First, we’ll head to the building visible right at the top of the stairs. We can broadcast from there.”
“Huh? You can’t broadcast from any other building?”
“Unfortunately, most of the broadcasting equipment in the others is damaged. Only that building works.”
“Where exactly is the broadcast room…?”
The building Kang Siwoo pointed at looked to be at least ten stories tall. He’d mentioned a broadcast room, so electricity must still be running. But in this apocalypse, would they really be operating the elevators? I doubted it. Which meant we’d have to walk up. In the novel they’d just glossed over it, saying something like “there’s a broadcast room in that building” and moving on.
“Fifth floor.”
“Oh, that’s a relief.”
“Why?”
“It means we only have to walk up to the fifth floor.”
“Haha, we’ll just have to treat it as exercise.”
Yeah, sure. I guess we could call it exercise. But from the novel’s descriptions, Kang Siwoo and his combat team had gone in and out of that building so often the floors practically shone. They held meetings there whenever something came up, and since the broadcast room was inside, it made sense. Which meant I’d be running in and out of there constantly too.
I wanted to sigh, but I held it in. Let’s think positively. I’ll just tell myself I’m honing my body with more exercise. Thinking of it as a diet wouldn’t help at all. At least I could still control my facial expressions—that was something.
So Kang Siwoo and I walked side by side into the building. It even had a name. It was always skipped over in the novel, so I never knew, but this was Hyeonlim-gwan. The entire front wall was glass, so before the outbreak it must have looked pretty impressive. Anyway, we entered and walked up to the fifth floor.
“The building is… relatively dirty, isn’t it?”
“Is it different from what you expected, Yeji?”
“Yes. I thought it would be properly cleaned. Like the other buildings.”
“This building—Hyeonlim-gwan—only uses one floor out of ten. And even then, just a single room.”
“Ah.”
“There’s a dedicated staff that stays only in the broadcast room. They’re the only ones who use it, so cleaning isn’t exactly a priority.”
“So that’s why it’s relatively dirty.”
“If we get more people, we might assign some here too. In my heart, I’d like to…”
Kang Siwoo swallowed the rest of his words. I could guess what he wanted to say. He probably wanted to haul water all the way from the Nakdong River and scrub everything clean. Hygiene was important, after all. But to do that, far too many prerequisites had to be met first. They’d need to clear out all the zombies near the Hadan 2-dong Administrative Welfare Center, then find more people to secure the perimeter. It was still a distant dream right now, something not even worth mentioning aloud. Yet somehow, Kang Siwoo seemed to be thinking that far ahead already.
Well, he’d finally gained the freedom to spread his wings however he wanted. Of course his eyes would be burning with ambition. In reality, he had both the ability and the wisdom to do whatever he set his mind to. It was obvious he’d grow even stronger than in the original story in the blink of an eye and sweep away every zombie in sight.
Still, I wished he wouldn’t stare at me so intently. That face of his—the one that could charm men and women alike—made my heart flutter whether I wanted it to or not. He was so sweet during his heroine-capturing arc that people used to joke about his “honorary womb” or “nonexistent womb.” At this rate, something terrible was going to happen.
So I avoided his gaze and desperately changed the subject. Thankfully, Kang Siwoo followed my lead and went along with it.
“Once we rescue more people, I plan to teach them how to fight.”
“That does sound like a good idea. I think you’d make an excellent instructor, Siwoo.”
“Haha, you think so?”
“Yes. By the way, is that the room? It looks like the only one with lights on.”
Kang Siwoo nodded when he saw the room I pointed at. Since I’d be visiting this place constantly from now on, I’d made a mental note of the route. Actually, I didn’t even need to memorize it—it was impossible to miss. In the pitch-black Hyeonlim-gwan where every other light was off, this was the only place emitting even a faint glow.
Inside the room labeled “Broadcast Room” were three people: a female student, a male student, and an elderly professor. I didn’t know the students, but I knew the professor. He was mentioned constantly in the original novel. In the early days of the outbreak, he had clashed with the protagonist, realized the gap between them, and willingly stepped into the role of second-in-command. His name was unique enough that I remembered it—Jeong Changhun.
The man often compared to a sly fox. The person who would contribute enormously to the protagonist’s community until his death was currently staring at me with clear displeasure.
I didn’t bother wondering why. If it was Jeong Changhun, he had probably already guessed what Kang Siwoo was thinking. He must have realized that Kang Siwoo was using me as an excuse to manipulate the community however he pleased. Of course, the male and female students seemed completely lost.
“…Students. I need to speak with Siwoo and our guest, so please step out for a moment.”
Professor Jeong Changhun skillfully sent the two students away. They both left without complaint, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. After closing the door himself, the professor turned straight to me.
“Where did you come from?”
“Uh, Jangyu?”
“That’s quite far.”
Professor Jeong Changhun frowned. After clearing his throat, he asked what on earth I had done to make Kang Siwoo run around like this. So I gave him a brief explanation—how I had gone through countless near-death experiences on the way from Jangyu to here. I saw a flicker of surprise on his face.
That pissed me off. He had probably assumed I was just some convenient survivor Kang Siwoo was using as an excuse to lie. But I wasn’t some random survivor—I was a veteran who had survived hell itself. So I had no choice but to explain in more detail: what kinds of variants I had killed, what situations I had faced. And at the very end, I told him that was exactly why we needed to move now.
It was disorganized and lacked any real persuasive power, but Professor Jeong Changhun seemed satisfied.
“Thank goodness you’re not just some brainless survivor.”
To be honest, I had braced myself for a lot. I expected an intense debate. But everything was resolved in the blink of an eye. The moment he realized Kang Siwoo wasn’t doing anything reckless, there was no one who could stop the two of them.
They unfolded a map—I had no idea when they’d prepared it—and began talking. Naturally, they built a plan and selected personnel. It all flowed so smoothly that I thought they must have planned it all in advance. I assumed they had everything figured out and were just saying it in front of me.
But having read the original novel, I knew better. These two were creating something out of nothing on the spot, using only the information currently available. It was the pinnacle of authorial favoritism, the kind of scene that made readers cheer—yet at the same time, it was terrifying.
Wait, why the hell had I become the most important person in this operation?
No matter how much experience I had as a veteran survivor, my role was clearly defined. The best I could do was act as a meat shield. All I was good for was the kind of spear-and-shield brawl where you take a hit and give one back. I didn’t have monstrous strength and technique like Noh Changhun, nor overwhelming experience like Kang Siwoo. The only things I could trust were my fast-regenerating body and my endorphin radar.
So I kept asking from the side whether we should revise the plan. I wasn’t that capable. My endorphin radar wasn’t all that efficient. But both of them casually brushed off my words and soon presented a completed plan.
And that’s when I understood. Oh. This is actually really well made.
Walking from Seunghak Campus to Bumin Campus normally took two hours. From Bumin Campus to Gudeok Campus took about fifty minutes. But that was under normal circumstances. In the current situation, it would take a full day to reach Bumin Campus from Seunghak, and half a day from Bumin to Gudeok. Adding another day and a half to account for contacting any survivors still living on the campuses brought the total to three days.
They planned to complete this entire reconnaissance mission in three days.
And that wasn’t all. They had meticulously listed every single supply the five of us would need over those three days. The document was so precise that it seemed impossible unless they had recorded everything somewhere. I was even more shocked to see they had already set an ideal schedule.
When I heard we would depart between 5 and 6 a.m. and do this and that, a cold sweat ran down my back. When I had read this in the novel, I hadn’t thought it was all that impressive. I assumed it was just the author hyping up the protagonist. But seeing it in reality was completely different. It was frightening how they could create an ideal plan despite having extremely limited information.
Moreover, the “precautions” document even contained fragmented information about the variants I had described. No—calling it fragmented was an understatement. It was incredibly detailed. It was as if they had hunted those specific zombies over and over again.
Suddenly, my body trembled. This… this is a bus, isn’t it? I pictured myself leaning back comfortably in a cozy express bus, just riding along. The thought made it impossible to stop the corners of my mouth from rising.
I never imagined I would get to freeload like this here.