Chapter 135
Even after 10 or 15 minutes passed, the man showed no movement. Seeing this, cracks began to appear one by one on people’s faces.
“…Isn’t he not a zombie?”
With one person’s comment, the murmuring grew louder.
Those who had been certain the man was lying now began to think he might have been innocent. Public opinion started shifting, transforming the situation from a monster hunt to a murder in an instant.
“Did a real person just die?”
“Then, did we c-commit murder?”
“What do you mean ‘we’! We were just standing nearby.”
When a woman spoke, a middle-aged man snapped back, drawing a line. Although he was the only one who spoke, everyone seemed to think the same way, keeping their distance from Seokjae as if they didn’t want to be involved.
Even the main instigator of this situation, Lim Sangjin, was the first to flee the farthest.
If Seokjae had been his usual self, he wouldn’t have let the man who used him get away so easily. But no matter how different his upbringing was from ordinary people, the experience of killing created cracks in his psyche that left him unable to do anything. Even if it was an accident and self-defense.
“…Aren’t there CCTV cameras here?”
Just then, a man wearing glasses asked nervously while biting his nails.
The group, excluding Seokjae, simultaneously looked around. They discovered a camera in a corner with its power light on. A light that seemed inhuman flashed momentarily in everyone’s eyes.
It was practically a state of anarchy already, but they still hadn’t given up hope of being rescued, so they worried about potential consequences after leaving this city.
It was a situation of force majeure where one person had to bear everything instead of themselves. However, no one present had the character to feel sorry about this.
They didn’t know where the computer connected to the CCTV was, nor did they have the key to access that space. In other words, since they couldn’t delete the CCTV data, there was only one way to eliminate future problems.
“You murderer!”
“What are you going to do! You’re going to make us all look like killers because of you!”
“That’s right! It’s all your fault!”
After briefly exchanging glances, they immediately took action.
“…What?”
Seokjae, who had been staring silently at the man as if he’d stopped breathing, blinked at their outcry. Although his mental state was shaken, he wasn’t so weak that he couldn’t respond to those trying to pin everything on him.
“Damn, was I supposed to hug the guy running at me with his mouth open? Huh?”
“But how could you kill a person-!”
“How is someone bitten by a zombie still a person!”
The men in the group, who had been intimidated by Seokjae’s superior physical abilities and appearance, felt secretly pleased seeing him cornered for the first time and shot back.
“We only had suspicions. We didn’t intend to kill him.”
“Th-that’s right!”
Everyone knew that the choice to send someone outside was essentially a death sentence. Yet they all turned away from their conscience, rationalizing and presenting packaged lies as truth.
“What bullshit,” Seokjae cursed.
Of course, Tae Seokjae wasn’t someone who would fall for such wordplay. He exhaled a sigh at the malice visible in their eyes.
“Do you think I’m an idiot? Until just now, you were all saying this guy was a zombie and wanted to kill him. Now you’re trying to pin it all on me?”
Roughly pushing his hair back, Seokjae asked with a threatening expression that made it clear he wouldn’t let them off if they didn’t answer.
“If you think he’s human, why isn’t anyone going to check? If you’re so worried, go see if he’s really dead. What if he’s just unconscious and you’re calling me a murderer? How would you take responsibility?”
“W-why should we do that! You should do it!”
“I can’t go because I see him as a zombie. Who knows if he’ll transform later? If you see him as human, you go check.”
The shock of the killing was temporarily hidden beneath anger. Thanks to this, Seokjae was able to pretend to be calm and gesture toward the man he had killed.
“W-well…”
Only then did the group’s fervor diminish. After hearing his words, they thought he had a point. Not surprisingly, no one approached the fallen man.
Having reversed the flow of conversation with just a few words, Seokjae raised one eyebrow with a completely recovered composure.
“Why isn’t anyone approaching? I thought you said he was human.”
I knew it would be like this. The bespectacled man, provoked by Seokjae’s mocking tone, struggled to find an excuse to refute.
“W-who wants to get close to a corpse!”
“R-right, right! What if we accidentally leave fingerprints…”
“You! Did you deliberately say that to avoid dying alone?!”
The excuses they hastily found were plausible enough to revive the group’s momentum that had died down.
“Oh, so that’s how you’re going to escape responsibility?”
“That’s what we should be saying to you!”
The tension remained high as no one backed down. The conversation temporarily stalled as they glared at each other.
It irritated Seokjae that these people, who normally couldn’t even make proper eye contact, were acting emboldened because of their numbers. But it was true that he would be at a disadvantage if they all rushed at him with weapons, so he took a step back.
“So what do you want me to do? Huh? Should I run at someone and get killed like that guy? It would be fun to see everyone become murderers one by one.”
To others, it seemed like he was threatening them as if he was about to explode.
“W-what do we do?”
“We need to make him do something-“
Afraid that he might actually attack someone else and start a murder roulette, they hurriedly began whispering among themselves.
Seokjae waited for their discussion to end, standing with one leg crossed while fiddling with his weapon. It was an extremely arrogant posture for someone awaiting their fate.
“Can you hurry up? I’m dying of boredom.”
“A-ahem. O-okay.”
While waiting, his dark eyes occasionally glanced toward the fallen man. However, no one was observing him closely enough to notice this, so they hastily concluded their meeting, completely intimidated by Seokjae.
And their conclusion was:
“Th-then you should take him outside and dispose of him. How can we stay here with a corpse?”
“Yes. We’ll let this slide for now-“
“Let this slide, my ass. You tried to pin everything on me and failed, yet you’re still running your mouth?”
“…”
The group’s pride was hurt by Seokjae’s blunt words, but they kept their mouths shut.
In a situation where they needed to negotiate to continue living together, there was no benefit in continuing to provoke him. Seokjae, who had learned negotiation before multiplication tables, knew this better than anyone.
However, he was currently anxious that if his shaken mental state was discovered, he might become prey just like earlier when he was driven out. This defensive mechanism was emerging uncontrollably.
“So I just need to move this guy, right? If I hear another word about this incident, I’ll take it as you wanting the next murder to happen, so watch yourselves.”
However, unaware of how well he was hiding his true feelings, Seokjae’s every word continued to wound the group’s pride. Oblivious to this fact, Seokjae hoisted the man over his shoulder without hesitation, despite having claimed to be afraid the man might turn into a zombie.
‘…He’s really dead.’
In truth, when Seokjae grabbed the man, he had deliberately held his wrist with a slight hope. However, the limp arm and the absence of a pulse that should have been felt from a living person left him devastated. Still, he maintained a deliberately expressionless face.
‘If I leave now, I’m screwed.’
The sun would set soon. When it gets dark, visibility naturally decreases, making it more dangerous. This meant he couldn’t afford to be expelled from the group at this timing.
Tuk, tuk… Blood dripping from the man’s head stained Seokjae’s back and fell onto the floor.
Though it was just fabric and the floor getting dirty, he felt as if his entire body was being tainted. He wanted to throw the man off his shoulder immediately, but his survival instinct and the skills he had learned from his family helped him perfectly maintain his composure.
However, while focusing too much on his act, he missed something—men following him quietly on bare feet, having removed their shoes to reduce noise. And they…
“Ugh!”
THWACK!
As soon as Seokjae opened the iron door leading to the back of the store, a strong impact hit his waist, causing him to be pushed outside.
‘Damn it.’
His body reacted before his mind, quickly turning around. But the iron door was already almost closed, with barely a hand’s width remaining.
SLAM!
Thus, Seokjae was driven out with nothing but the corpse he dropped in the impact and the weapon in his hand.
“Ha. Hahaha…”
A hollow laugh briefly echoed in the corridor where only Seokjae and the corpse remained. Seokjae tilted his head slowly to the side with a dry expression and murmured emotionlessly.
“Ah—these fucking bastards.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
