(Side Story) Zombie.
(Side Story) Zombie.
Kim Ji-seong stood in nothing but his underwear, surrounded by the containers where the Eagles had been.
"Please save me!!! I'll do anything, seriously!"
"What're you gonna do? Want me to hook you up with Yun-jae? Wanna try everything once?"
The man inside the iron bars wore a lecherous grin.
People stood around laughing as they watched.
And then a man with a horn tattooed on his face, presumably the judge, shouted.
"Alright, let's start light!"
Amid the cheers of the crowd, a sharpened stake dropped in front of Ji-seong.
And as the door directly ahead opened, a zombie crawled out, missing its legs.
"Kill it!!!"
While the crowd roared, Kim Ji-seong dodged the zombie slowly, conserving as much stamina as he could.
"What are you doing!!?"
The judge aimed a gun at Kim Ji-seong.
"If you don't kill it within one minute, I'll kill you first. You know?"
Kim Ji-seong looked at the muzzle and fought to stay calm, then approached the zombie slowly, putting on a show of tension.
"Bullshit?! Hey! You! Stop pretending this is your first time killing a zombie!!! Hey! Judge!!! Just shoot that bastard!"
To buy as much time as possible, Kim Ji-seong pretended to struggle and killed the zombie slowly.
No time to rest—another zombie came out immediately.
To survive just a little longer, Kim Ji-seong did his best to make it look slow and labored.
As time passed, a man came to check Yoo Min-seong's face.
Step... step.
The man entered the room and confirmed the knife on the desk.
Then he discovered Yoo Min-seong, bound.
When he pulled the black cloth off his head, Yoo Min-seong shook his head.
"Where's the vaccine?"
"You guys took it..."
The man swung his fist, and a sharp crack echoed through the room.
"Guess you don't want to talk?"
The man moved toward the desk to grab the knife.
Yoo Min-seong's pupils trembled as he watched.
"Heh... what? Scared?"
At the end of Yoo Min-seong's gaze, Ga-in was hiding beneath the desk.
Keeping out of the man's sight while he watched Yoo Min-seong, Ga-in crept out, drew a dagger, and drove it through the back of his hand into the desk.
"Huh?"
The man stared at his hand. As he opened his mouth to scream, Ga-in stepped onto a chair, sprang upward, and drove the blade at her waist into his mouth in one clean motion.
"Guk."
She stepped onto the desk, grabbed the back of his head, and drove her knee down on the knife handle protruding from his mouth.
Thud...
She was a girl who should have been attending elementary school if the zombie outbreak had never happened.
Yet killing people seemed utterly routine to her. With practiced movements, she dragged the dead man aside and pulled the dagger pinning his hand to the wooden desk.
Yoo Min-seong's pupils trembled violently as he watched.
Ga-in looked at Yoo Min-seong and brought a finger to her lips.
"Shh..."
Hearing footsteps, Ga-in checked the room, then climbed onto a high shelf with the silent, stealthy movements of a cat.
Sitting on the shelf, she removed one of her long socks, then dropped onto the back of the man entering the room.
She slit his throat and stuffed the sock into his mouth before he could scream.
"Guh... gurk."
Ga-in looked down at the fallen man, then untied Min-seong as she spoke.
"Stay hidden."
Having killed two grown men more naturally than breathing, Ga-in vanished into the darkness beyond the door.
"....."
Kim Ji-seong clung to the iron bars and looked down at the five zombies below as he spoke.
"Save me!!! This is insane!!! You crazy bastards, you couldn't take those on with just a stake either!!!"
"This fucker finally showing his true colors, huh? I lost all my fucking money because of you, you piece of shit."
Kim Ji-seong had already taken down more than eighteen zombies with the stake.
Men covered in various tattoos brought long poles and jabbed at Kim Ji-seong to knock him down.
"Get down, you bastard!"
"Wait, wait!!! Fine... I'll get down!!! Just reduce them by two. Then you can bet on how many rounds I'll last, right?"
"Bullshit! I'm telling you, just shoot the bastard! Judge!!!"
"Hey! Hey!!! I get it, I get it!!! I'm coming down, you bastards, so quit nagging! But one stake is seriously over the fucking line, right?!"
When someone brought a pole over and jabbed to knock him down, Kim Ji-seong clung to the iron bars and started performing acrobatics.
"Oh-ho? Look at this bastard dodge!"
"Hey! You asshole!!! I'm seriously gonna die!!! Hang on! I gotta come up with a plan, you fucking shithead!!"
Three men approached and jabbed poles at Kim Ji-seong to knock him down. He dodged desperately, turning the scene into a circus act.
"This bastard!!! Look at him dodge! Whoa, holy shit!? He's a scary fucker, isn't he?! Hey!!! Bring more poles!!!"
"No!! I'll come down, I said I'm coming down!! Just give me one weapon!!! How am I supposed to kill five of them with one stake?!"
That was when the judge, who'd been watching the whole thing, laughed.
"Kwak In-gu or the Kangaroo Rat could probably pull it off, though?"
"I've seen them, and those two aren't human... I hated those monster bastards too, you know?!"
When no answer came from the judge who had been speaking just seconds before, the people looked toward where he'd been standing.
They found the judge lying there, a handle sprouting from the back of his head—dead, or at least collapsed.
"You hated me?"
"Big sis!!!!!"
The people who confirmed with their own eyes that it was Ga-in, the one they called the Kangaroo Rat, soon began to feel a deep, primal terror of the little kid.
Spectators turned into corpses in an instant. When Kim Ji-seong saw the legend in the flesh, he stared at Ga-in as if he were looking at a true monster.
Twenty grown men had been torn apart by the little girl. Ga-in looked up at Kim Ji-seong hanging from the bars.
"Get yourself out."
"Big sis?"
"You said you needed a weapon, right?"
Ga-in tossed one of the two spears beside her into the barred arena.
Ga-in took the other spear and held it up in front of Kim Ji-seong.
"Big sis?"
"Don't call me big sis. Hang there and try to dodge the spear I stab at you—if you can..."
"I was wrong!!! I was a fool because I wanted to live!!!"
"....."
Ga-in realized she couldn't waste any more time and moved on, leaving Kim Ji-seong, who looked perfectly fine.
"Get yourself out. I'm busy."
"...Big sis?"
Ga-in was already long gone somewhere.
Min-ji was wedged into a corner, hands and feet bound.
"Wow... I've become downright civilized. How am I managing to hold back after seeing that?"
Min-ji stared at the man with the horn tattoo on his forehead, her eyes full of contempt.
"Licking's okay, right?"
"Kahaha, I'd say that's probably allowed?"
"Those Tree bastards dragged off all the women, so fuck..."
"Boss, are you seriously going to take your turn first after watching the games? What about the rest of us sitting here with the food right in front of us..."
"I'm the judge here, aren't I. If I say jump, you jump. Ah, fuck... I can't hold back. Let's at least cop a feel."
That was when one man burst in and shouted.
"Little boss! The Ka... Kan... Kangaroo Rat!!!"
"What?!"
"Big boss is already dead!!!"
"Oh, you fuck!"
The horn-tattooed man grabbed a fistful of the bound Min-ji's hair and yanked her down.
"Boss, what the hell are you doing in this situation?!"
"The Field Mice put loyalty first. And do you think you can get away from the Kangaroo Rat's hands?!"
The horn-tattooed man, who'd been shouting around him, continued.
"Kill or be killed..."
Ga-in was hiding behind the back of the building, watching three men.
"Hey, rat! Come out unless you want to watch your friend die!"
Ga-in watched the situation, then saw the knife getting closer and closer to Min-ji.
Ga-in opened her hands, signaling surrender.
"Whoa... Boss, is this really okay? She's way too young..."
"...Shut up. That tiny brat killed thirty of our people."
With her arms and legs bound, Min-ji was held up by a man pulling her hair, and she spoke through tears of pain.
"Ga... Ga-in..."
"Don't cry. I was going to run if things went wrong, but you're making me too soft to leave."
"Just run..."
Min-ji could not finish because the horn-tattooed man's blade pressed deeper into her throat.
"Pretty confident, aren't you? Saying your plan out loud?"
Ga-in stepped on the broken glass on the ground as she approached.
Crunch, crunch.
Their playful movement, like a child crunching through fresh snow, made the men flinch.
"Don't come any closer!"
"Idiots. Why are you so scared... If I were your age... ugh, never mind."
"You little runt!"
The man threw a knife. Ga-in snapped her head back, and the blade grazed her cheek.
Ga-in smiled coldly.
The sight rattled them even more.
"Ahaha. Forget running. Let's die together—your friend and me..."
Ga-in threw a dagger from the pouch on her thigh and lunged forward. The man raised his arm to shield his face.
As she ran forward and knocked both feet together, blades sprang from the toes of her shoes.
Ga-in stepped onto the thigh of the man shielding his face and drove the blade in her shoe into the temple of the man beside him.
The blade detached from her shoe and lodged in the man's temple. At the same moment, her thrown dagger buried itself between the other man's eyebrows.
The man pulled the dagger from his arm and grabbed the approaching Ga-in by the collar.
"You fucking biiitch!!"
The man grabbed Ga-in's throat and lifted her. Even as her face turned red, Ga-in smirked.
"The throat... is something you grab only when your opponent can't move..."
Ga-in drew the dagger at her waist and severed the tendons in the horn-tattooed man's arm.
As his grip failed, she drove the dagger into his chest and rode his collapsing body down to the floor.
Riiiiip...
"....."
"Ah..."
Ga-in wordlessly cut Min-ji's ropes free, then immediately moved toward where Kim Ji-seong was.
Min-ji followed Ga-in through the Grasslands men she had left sprawled behind, staring in disbelief.
In the end, Kim Ji-seong had killed every zombie with the stake and was now sulking at Ga-in.
They followed Ga-in to where Yoo Min-seong was supposed to be.
She'd clearly told him to stay hidden and wait, but Yoo Min-seong wasn't there.
When they slowly stepped outside, the lights of nearby forklifts flared on, illuminating Yoo Min-seong's group.
Ga-in spotted the red laser point on her chest.
"Haah..."
Ga-in dropped the dagger she'd been holding and slowly raised both hands.
Directly ahead, Yoo Min-seong was on his knees, and two gun barrels were aimed at him.
Kim Ji-seong muttered behind her.
"We barely made it out alive... sigh... and now the Trees?"
Yoo Min-seong's group all signaled surrender, but the five soldiers who came forward to bind them were reluctant to approach Ga-in.
Among them, Master Sergeant Kim, a familiar face, stepped forward and bound Ga-in.
Only after everyone was tied did the laser points aimed at them decrease, and the soldiers approached.
The men carried Ga-in by the ropes, leaving her dangling in midair.
Yoo Min-seong looked at the bound Ga-in and made a face like he was about to cry.
"...I'm sorry."
Ga-in looked at Yoo Min-seong and smirked.
Once they were certain Ga-in couldn't do anything, they began disarming her as she hung in midair.
As they removed her weapons one by one, a tiny suppressed pistol and dozens of blades clattered to the ground.
"".....""
They escorted them to the vehicles and headed for the department store, the Trees' stronghold.