(Side Story) Zombie.
(Side Story) Zombie.
Yoo Min-seong lifted the bound Kim Ji-seong out first.
He climbed up after him, then stared at the Field Mice with resentful eyes, unable to even voice his anger.
Kwak In-gu, watching the scene, pressed another button, and the basement began to fill with real zombies.
When Kwak In-gu approached Kim Ji-seong holding a short sword, Min-seong stepped in front of him, thinking he meant to harm Kim Ji-seong.
"Move."
As if done playing games, he shoved Yoo Min-seong aside with one hand, but the result was anything but light.
Yoo Min-seong was hurled backward, feeling as if a vehicle had slammed into him, and he stared in shock at the distance he had been thrown.
Kwak In-gu cut the ropes with his short sword, then placed a hand on Kim Ji-seong's shoulder and spoke.
"I assume you know... what happens to traitors."
"Yes!!!"
After being thrown back, Yoo Min-seong fixed his gaze on one spot.
At the end of his stare were Jang Jae-hyeok's belongings...
"...Huh...? Jae-hyeok..."
Yoo Min-seong approached as if possessed.
Kwak In-gu noticed and spoke.
"He'd already turned into a zombie..."
"...That's impossible."
"...?"
Yoo Min-seong spoke in a trembling voice.
"If he died, he died... There's no way the vaccine could have let him turn into a zombie..."
"".....""
When Ga-in moved to tell the truth, Kwak In-gu stopped her.
"A vaccine... so the rumors were true after all..."
Yoo Min-seong looked at Jang Jae-hyeok's gear, confusion written on his face.
"That's impossible..."
"We don't know what happened. Your friend had already turned into a zombie, and I merely put him down."
Yoo Min-seong stared wordlessly at the gear, then abruptly turned his gaze on Kwak In-gu.
"...The case! Where was the case?!"
"That case has been a headache for us too. We're also trying to find where it is. What's certain is it wasn't on your friend's body."
"He must've hidden it nearby."
"To get there..."
Kwak In-gu looked outside, and Yoo Min-seong's gaze followed.
Outside, thousands of zombies were visible.
"....."
"First we'll remove the smell from that wound. Then we move."
"Yeah..."
The zombies in the basement were already agitated from the faint scent of blood from Kim Ji-seong and Yoo Min-seong.
Ga-in handed the bag she had been carrying to Mister Ji and looked outside.
From behind them, Yoo Min-seong shouted.
"What do you mean by that!"
Hearing the noise, Kwak In-gu, holding a drink in one hand, came back inside.
"What's going on?"
The old men sitting nearby picked their ears and ignored him, so he shouted at Kwak In-gu.
"The kid! How can you send her out there?!"
"...?"
Yoo Min-seong looked around and shouted as if he couldn't comprehend these people.
"She's a kid!! She's still a child!!!"
Kwak In-gu, mid-drink, looked at Yoo Min-seong and sneered.
"Who? Ga-in?"
When even Kwak In-gu, whom he'd trusted, reacted the same way, Yoo Min-seong's expression turned hollow.
"...You call yourselves adults, and you're going to sacrifice a child...?"
"Kahahaha! You drifters didn't explain it to him?"
"".....""
"This bastard. I let it slide because he's an outsider, but he's got no sense for the situation."
While Kwak In-gu laughed derisively, the old man who'd been ignoring Yoo Min-seong—
Mister Ji pulled parts from Ga-in's bag and assembled them as he spoke.
"Our Ga-in is a baby, all right~"
Kwak In-gu turned and laughed at Mister Ji's sarcasm.
"Eh?"
Ga-in glared at Mister Ji, who was servicing her equipment, and at Kwak In-gu.
The two raised their hands as if signaling surrender, and Kwak In-gu walked over to Yoo Min-seong.
"You. You ever hear of the Kangaroo Rat?"
"...To me, Ga-in is just a young girl."
At Yoo Min-seong's answer, the people around them burst out laughing.
""Kahahaha!!!""
Ga-in silently began donning her now-serviced equipment.
She fastened it around her ankles with practiced ease and tested her movement.
Ga-in now wore boots fitted with springs that bent like a bow.
She bounced lightly on her feet to make sure everything was secured.
"Dumbass... Open your eyes and watch closely. This is why people call Ga-in the Kangaroo Rat."
The short-haired girl, who had just opened a third-story window, looked back at the people inside with contempt.
"Cleaning operation's starting."
The old folks gathered by the window to watch; Ji-seong and Min-ji were there with them too.
"Whoa! Never thought I'd see this with my own two eyes..."
Ga-in smeared blood onto the ends of her hair, then suddenly leaped out the window.
Yoo Min-seong rushed to the window in horror and stared outside.
Ga-in rapidly descended the wall.
She hit the ground, and the springs, compressed to their limit by gravity, launched her outward at incredible speed.
"".....""
Her small body moved at tremendous speed, luring out the monsters among the zombies known as Runners.
Ga-in demonstrated what it meant to be overwhelmingly faster than a Runner, which possesses an adult human's sprinting speed.
Wearing the spring-loaded boots, Ga-in darted into every corner and crevice of the buildings.
She stopped in front of one building in a stance that looked like a tackle, generating maximum spring recoil, then used it to kick off the wall and launch herself onto the rooftop.
"....."
The people watched in continuous admiration as Ga-in stirred up a zombie tide and herded them into one spot.
"Damn~ That's incredible."
Whenever a zombie appeared before Ga-in, who now held a short sword in one hand, its head dropped to the ground.
"....."
Kwak In-gu placed a hand on Yoo Min-seong's shoulder.
"Does that look like a kid to you?"
"....."
"Without her, everyone here would already be dead. Most of the adults here aren't specialized for combat."
Those watching Ga-in stared in silence.
Before they knew it, Ga-in had corralled the zombies onto a rooftop. She gazed down at the horde massed below, then used her short sword to cut off the hair she'd smeared with blood and scattered it onto the zombies beneath her.
In a dark room, a man sat with a cigarette between his fingers, drinking champagne.
He was holding Yoo Min-seong's communication device.
The man sent a call signal through it.
-"Yoo Min-seong! You were alive?"
"Good to meet you. My name is Major Im Jeong-hyeok."
-"...Is Yoo Min-seong alive?"
The man drank the champagne in his glass and smirked.
"That young man...? Hmm... he may still be alive."
-"The case..."
"Am I right that it's a vaccine?"
-"....."
"Don't be so guarded. Despite appearances, I once drew a government salary paid by taxpayers."
The sound of conversation with another person could be heard from the other end of the communicator.
-"That's correct."
"The quantity?"
-"None left now."
"...Hm... And no way to make more? I'd like to help..."
-"...If you find Yoo Min-seong... I'll explain..."
Hearing the woman's reply, Major Im Jeong-hyeok spoke in a low voice.
"Ah... what a relief. So none are left. Then they must have gone to make more... If they're coming up through Uijeongbu from the south..."
-"....."
"A factory capable of producing the vaccine... would that be Jeongsan Pharmaceutical in Yangju? Or MS Pharmaceutical in Dongducheon? If they're on foot, it's got to be one of the two..."
-"....."
"A vaccine... a vaccine... Hahaha, I'm curious... what would happen if I got my hands on that technology... I'll contact you again if I find Yoo Min-seong."
Major Im Jeong-hyeok removed the communication device from his ear and placed it on the desk.
"If I could get my hands on a vaccine... I might just achieve my dream..."
Time passed, and Yoo Min-seong's group recovered their strength.
Min-seong, Ga-in, Min-ji, and Ji-seong set out together to secure the case Jang Jae-hyeok had carried.
Just like when they'd first arrived, not a single zombie was visible along the roadside. Yoo Min-seong glanced back at Ga-in, who was walking behind him.
Ga-in was sucking on a lollipop and listening to music, showing not the slightest sign of tension.
A glass-fronted building came into view. Ga-in pushed the door open and stepped inside naturally, and the others followed her in.
"I haven't touched the third and fourth floors yet, so there are zombies."
The group had armed themselves with familiar weapons they'd taken from the Field Mice's den.
Yoo Min-seong searched for a place Jang Jae-hyeok was likely to have hidden the case.
The others began helping him search the surroundings, and time passed quickly until evening fell.
While Yoo Min-seong searched, the others cleared the third and fourth floors.
Min-ji and Ji-seong, thinking too many zombies were clustered together, tried to pull back to pick them off one by one, but Ga-in charged straight in.
As time passed, their eyes and mouths gradually widened, and they stared in shock at Ga-in's movements.
"Is that... even possible...?"
"That's why... they call her the Kangaroo Rat..."
Yoo Min-seong found a gap in a wall and slowly pried it open.
A black case was wedged in the crack...
"Oh! Found it!!!"
Was it because he'd felt a sense of stability for the first time since the outbreak, staying with the Field Mice and moving outside?
Was it the feeling of finally finding it after searching for so long...?
Yoo Min-seong shouted without any awareness of his surroundings.
Drawn by the noise Yoo Min-seong made, a 'Goliath' that had been passing by outside the building turned its gaze on him.
The rarely-appearing mutated zombie, Goliath, had a body grotesquely enlarged with muscle mass, standing more than twice the size of a typical zombie that was little more than bones.
Thud... Thud... Yoo Min-seong turned toward the chilling sound and locked eyes with the charging Goliath.
"....."
Crash!!!
The Goliath burst through the glass wall and tumbled inside.
A horrified Yoo Min-seong grabbed the case and sprinted up the stairs.
Nearby zombies also swarmed into the building.
Realizing the problem was caused by his own mistake, Yoo Min-seong shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Goliath!!!"
Hearing Min-seong's voice, the group burst out from the fourth floor and headed quickly upward.
"Why's a Goliath here all of a sudden?!"
Ga-in threw a dagger into a Runner chasing them from behind, then ushered everyone through the steel barricades on the sixth floor.
They climbed all the way to the rooftop, shut the door behind them, and held their breath.
"".....""
"We can get out of here, right?"
"No, we haven't made an escape route here yet."
"....."
Though it was a space slightly outside the Field Mice's territory, the noise from the Goliath steadily drew the surrounding zombies into the building.
Ga-in looked at the case Yoo Min-seong was holding.
Yoo Min-seong, letting down his guard under Ga-in's gaze, wordlessly showed her the inside of the case.
"This is the vaccine. Our side's survivors include a lot of researchers... but without the materials, this is all we have..."
The case held nine vials of the vaccine.
There was space for ten, but one slot was missing its vial.
"...?! I knew it... he took the vaccine... There was no way Jae-hyeok could have turned into a zombie!"
When Yoo Min-seong spoke accusingly to Ga-in, she merely shrugged as if she knew nothing and looked at the vaccine vials in the case.
Ga-in took out one vial and held it up to the moonlight, but Yoo Min-seong kept talking as he watched her.
"I need to ask Kwak In-gu..."
When Ga-in opened the cap of the vaccine, a needle was revealed. Without a moment's hesitation, she jammed it into her own arm and injected it.
"....."
A stunned Yoo Min-seong stared down at Ga-in.
"What are you doing?! You can't just inject that!"
"So what."
Ga-in injected herself as though ensuring her own survival came first. She tried to stand, then collapsed unconscious.
"".....""