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Bang!

The heavy smell of gunpowder tickled the tip of my nose, and my ears still rang with the deafening sound of the gun going off.

The major looked at me with his eyes wide open. I was holding his arm and had bent it behind him.

“Stop,” I said.

“What’s the meaning of this? Let go of me.”

“That’s enough.”

“Do you think I’m joking?”

The major frowned and grabbed my arm. No matter how hard the major tried to escape my grip, he could not, since I had no intention of letting go of his arm.

I tightened my grip slightly, and the major frowned and dropped his pistol. The captain had a look of confusion on his face, unsure how to process everything that had happened in the blink of an eye.

After a moment, he pointed the muzzle of his K2 toward my head.

“Let… Let go of his hand!” he shouted.

“Do you think I’m trying to kill the major right now?”

“Oh… No…”

The captain hesitated and then lowered his muzzle. He really was a jittery coward, waving his gun around at the slightest thing.

I looked over at Lee Jeong-Uk.

“Jeong-Uk.”

"What?”

“I want to keep an eye on this person. Can I do so?”

Lee Jeong-Uk shrugged and chuckled.

"If you wish."

I looked back at the major.

“I won’t let you die.”

“...”

The major glared at me, his face flushed red.

I couldn’t tell if he hated me for not letting him take his own life, or if I had damaged his ego somehow.

I flicked my gaze over to the captain next to him, then addressed the major again.

“I don’t think that captain of yours will survive long if you die.”

“...”

The major slowly turned his head to look at the captain. The captain looked back and forth between myself and the major, confusion apparent on his face. He didn’t seem to know what to do next.

The major gently closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, he looked straight into my eyes.

“This decision of yours you’re making right now might hold you back. Will you be okay with that?

“Who’s going to hold me back? You?”

He laughed. “That’s rather arrogant.”

“And that’s how I made it this far.”

The major took a deep breath.

“I admit that you are different from the other zombies. But I… I still don’t believe that humans can genuinely coexist with zombies.”

“You’ll find out sooner or later if it can be done or not. I won’t ask you to fight alongside us. You’ll just protect the survivors.”

“If that’s the condition… I’d be more than willing to do so.”

The major stared directly into my eyes with his lips tightly closed.

I liked his mindset, his attitude, and willingness to sacrifice himself. He was willing to give up his life for everyone else’s. There was nothing better than having someone like him willing to fight for the survivors.

Moreover, we needed him to take care of the captain. We could’ve killed both of them, but that would have caused considerable friction between us and the survivors from Gangnam.

We didn\'t create the Survivor’s Rally Organization to oppress anyone.

We made it so that all survivors could coexist together, and to bring everyone together in order to live like human beings.

I knew that the major was going to play an important role in helping us to achieve this.

I figured we would slowly get to know the major. I was planning to have him under guard so that they could keep an eye on him and learn about how he survived in Gangnam.

I looked at the major and the captain in turn.

“Welcome to the Survivor Rally Organization. Follow me."

As the three of us disembarked from the cruise ship, Lee Jeong-Uk came up to us and spoke to the captain.

“Hey, Captain.”

“...”

“How old are you? Thirty?”

“...”

The captain didn\'t even look at Lee Jeong-Uk. Lee Jeong-Uk frowned and slapped the captain on the back of the head. He didn’t slap him too hard, just hard enough that it made a sound.

The captain gave Lee Jeong-Uk a startled look. Lee Jeong-Uk’s eyebrows twitched, and he launched into a tirade.

“Not responding to your elders when they ask you a question? Someone’s lacking some discipline!”

“It’s none of your business…”

“Anyway, since I’m older than you, I’m going to go ahead and speak to you informally.”

“...”

The captain hesitated for a moment, then walked in front to accompany the major.

Lee Jeong-Uk, thinking that the captain was acting like a little kid, ran over to him with a big smile on his face and slapped him in the back of the head again.

* * *

The survivors of Gangnam stayed at the Vista Hotel, located south of the Walkerhill Hotel.

Much later that night, all the leaders gathered in the restaurant on the second floor to wrap up the unfinished meeting.

Unlike earlier on, however, both the major and the captain joined us, representing the survivors from Gangnam.

The major\'s name was Bae Jeong-Man, while the captain’s name was Park Shin-Jeong. Hearing their names, Lee Jeong-Uk smiled and asked.

“Is Park Shin-Jeong’s older sibling named Park Gu-Jeong?”

No one laughed at Lee Jeong-Uk\'s joke.[1]

I could see that he was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t a very good joke.

I sighed, then began to speak.

“I’m assuming everyone is aware of the situation in Gangnam, since we’ve just heard about it. I would like Mr. Bae Jeong-Man to explain exactly what happened, and how the Family invaded.”

“Can I start off with the Family and how they invaded?”

“Yes.”

Bae Jeong-Man gently closed his eyes, taking a moment to sort through his thoughts. He went through the memories that he didn’t want to recall, and after a moment, he began to tell his story.

“The Family’s forces came over… Probably about a month ago. We saw zombies gathering at the northern end of Sogang Bridge, so we took up defensive positions early on.”

I already knew about this, because the sixth officer of the Family had told me about it before he died.

Bae Jeong-Man smacked his lower lip.

“At first it seemed like only zombies were gathering on Bamseom Island… But then, creatures we’d never seen before started appearing as well. They were creatures with extremely long limbs and dozens of eyes.”

“How many were there?”

“I couldn’t count all of them. I think there were about seventy to eighty of them. There were other creatures mixed in as well.”

It seemed like there were multiple stage-one mutants, with a couple of stage-two mutants here and there. It would have been difficult to hold off the mutants without having any information about them.

I interlaced my hands as I listened to Bae Jeong-Man describe his experience. He let out a deep sigh and continued to recount his memories.

“I had turned Yeouido into a minefield, but… They came at us with overwhelming numbers. There was no end to them, no matter how many we killed. Their attacks started to get stronger, while we were just wasting our bullets.”

“How long did it take for your forces to be pushed out of Yeouido?”

“It took less than three days for us to get pushed back to Gwanak-gu and Dongjak-gu. It was only then that we learned the zombies with glowing red eyes could come up with tactics.”

“When did you see the zombie with blue eyes?”

“Around the time they broke through the defenses at Seocho-gu and entered Gangnam-gu. I saw two zombies with blue eyes.”

I twitched my eyebrows after hearing what he said.

‘Two zombies with blue eyes? Is he saying that there are two zombies with blue eyes within the gang, not just the boss?’

If one of the two was the boss… Then the other would have to be one of the officers.

To become a blue-eyed zombie, you’d need to eat the brains of more than one black creature. Or you’d have to eat the brain of a zombie with glowing red eyes that had themselves eaten a black creature’s brain.

To me, this meant that one of the officers in the Family had eaten the brain of another in order to break through Seocho-gu. It sounded like Bae Jeong-Man wasn’t lying when he described how the Family was making their way through Gangnam.

Bae Jeong-Man grimaced, then continued with his story.

“Eventually, even Gangnam-gu fell into their hands, and we mounted our final resistance in Songpa-gu. The Tancheon stream flowed along one of our flanks, and fought them off as hard as we could. But then, something we’d never seen before, something we couldn’t quite understand, happened.”

“Something you didn’t understand?”

“A black creature that we’d never seen before appeared… And it started killing the zombies.”

“A black creature?”

I couldn\'t help but be surprised. All the leaders around the table flinched as well. Some of them swallowed audibly.

Bae Jeong-Man looked around at the leaders.

“Did I say something I wasn’t supposed to…?

"No. Please continue. Did you see how many black ones there were?”

“One creature showed up… It attacked the gang members. Even the blue-eyed zombies had a hard time dealing with the black creature.”

“What color were the black creature’s eyes?”

“They were blue.”

“Are you saying that the gang members took care of the blue-eyed black creature?”

"Yes. They were fighting alongside a bizarre-looking creature. The fight took a huge toll on the Family’s forces, but they eventually dispatched the black creature.”

It seemed like even the Family had had a hard time taking care of this mysterious black creature.

The bizarre-looking creature he was mentioning was probably their mutants which meant that they were barely able to take care of the black creature with the mutants.

I suddenly wondered if Kim Hyeong-Jun and I could take on the Family and wipe them out in our current state.

Bae Jeong-Man noticed my silence and interlaced his fingers.

“Is something bothering you?” he asked. “If you think I’ve been lying…”

“No, it’s nothing like that. I actually have a follow-up question. Did anyone from the Family eat the brain of the black creature?”

Bae Jeong-Man tilted his head and looked off into the distance. It seemed like he hadn’t been able to verify this.

His expression grew troubled.

“I’m sorry, but as far as eating… I wasn’t able to confirm this.”

“Not a problem. What happened afterward?”

“After that, another black creature appeared.”

“And it had blue eyes as well?”

“No, the one that came later had red eyes. It looked weaker than the blue-eyed one.”

I quietly rubbed my chin as I pondered this development.

Two black creatures appearing in Gangnam.

I couldn’t think of a reason why a black creature would appear in Gangnam when there weren\'t any mutants in Gangnam.

No matter how much I thought about it, the only conclusion I could come to was that the creatures from Gangbuk had crossed over to Gangnam using the Sogang Bridge, the same way the Family’s forces had entered Gangnam. The creatures had most likely followed the members of the Family.

The black creatures feasted on zombies with red eyes, and their actions were consistent, since the dong leaders of the Family were zombies with glowing red eyes.

Since Sogang Bridge was to the west, the black creatures in the west would have been the ones from Mapo-gu and Eunpyeong-gu. This also meant that there was only one black creature left in Gangbuk.

\'Itaewon.\'

The black creature in Itaewon. But there was no guarantee that it was still in Itaewon.

A memory suddenly surfaced in my mind, one that was from the time when I was still a human being. It was the time when I was face-to-face with death, with zombies barging in through the front door of my apartment. Back then, the zombies at my front door had fled after hearing the black creature’s cry. The black creature who had taken my life was a weakling, one that hadn’t yet discovered its true power, but still, all the zombies had gotten scared and ran away.

The fact that the street zombies had gathered in Gwangjang-dong in broad daylight… Perhaps they had been fleeing the black creature in Itaewon, and had made it all the way to Gwangjang-dong. I grew more and more confident of my theory when I realized that I hadn\'t seen a zombie wave with over ten thousand zombies before.

From all this, I came to the conclusion that the black creature in Itaewon was now close to the border of Gwangjang-dong.

Of course, there was no way of knowing if it had managed to access its true power, or if it had red eyes, or even blue eyes.

As I sat there quietly, lost in thought, Lee Jeong-Uk, who had been looking at me, spoke up.

“So-Yeon’s dad, do you have any plans?”

"Yeah. Everyone, listen up.”

I told the leaders about the theory I’d come up with. I was greeted by a sea of worried faces once I was done.

All of them seemed to have difficulty coming up with anything to say.

Even though all of it was still hypothetical, my theory seemed to come closest to explaining the current situation.

After a moment, Hwang Ji-Hye, who had been massaging her temples, spoke up.

"Then… Doesn’t that mean we have to fight the black creature in Itaewon in order to fight the Family?”

Hwang Deok-Rok gave her a disapproving look.

“How are those two things related?” he asked.

Hwang Ji-Hye leaned back in her chair and began to explain herself.

“Well, look at it this way. The gang members took care of two black creatures. Unless they’re idiots, they probably ate their brains. I can’t fathom how strong the officers are by now…”

“I don’t think so,” I said, cutting Hwang Ji-Hye off.

Everyone turned to look at me. I rested my chin on my hands.

“While it’s true that you gain enormous strength at once when you eat a black creature’s brain, the risk is too big. The desires you have to control increase.”

"So you\'re saying the gang members threw away the black creatures’ brains?" Hwang Ji-Hye asked with a frown.

I figured it would be better for Kim Hyeong-Jun to explain this. I looked over at Kim Hyeong-Jun for help, and he smacked his lips and spoke up.

“They probably fed them to the mutants.”

Kim Hyeong-Jun’s statement caused a ripple of murmuring to spread amongst the leaders. I calmed them down and looked over at Kim Hyeong-Jun again.

He gave a small nod, and continued to speak.

“A stage-two mutant needs a black creature’s brain in order to become a stage-three mutant.”

"Then… Are you saying that it’s possible that the gang members also have a stage-three mutant?”

“Yes. They must have at least two stage-three mutants.”

Hwang Ji-Hye’s mouth puffed like that of a goldfish after hearing about the existence of more stage-three mutants. Most of the leaders seemed to be mirroring her expression.

Having witnessed Mood-Swinger with their own eyes, they were all well aware of the destructive power that a stage-three mutant possessed.

I was also more than aware that our chances of winning were slim.

However, I also knew that we had gotten all the way to where we were by risking it all and taking whatever slim chances we had. We’d made it this far through sheer grit, with the confidence that we would make it through to the other side of the tunnel.

I knew that we would survive and make it through despite our slim chances, just like we always had.

I took a deep breath and let it out.

“In the worst-case scenario, we’ll take care of the black creature in Gangbuk, then attack Gangnam first.”

1. The word Shin in Korean is often used to refer to something that is new. The word Gu in Korean is often referred to as something that is old. Lee Jeong-Uk is making a joke about ‘new’ and ‘old’ Jeong. ☜