Chapter 24
My physical condition had improved considerably, so I dragged my stiff body outside. I couldn’t get a sense of how long I’d been here. Though I had spoken coldly to the man, I was a bit curious since it was a place where people gathered.
People were living together centered around three or four buildings in the middle, and the place where I had been lying down was a building on the outskirts, one of the more intact ones among collapsed and crushed structures. Most buildings had been repaired with leaves patched onto them, but none looked particularly usable. Some had holes in their ceilings, gaping sides, or were missing entire halves.
I looked at the center of the settlement. I could see two buildings that appeared to be ordinary houses, a church, and a pharmacy. Those four were the cleanest-looking buildings, but even they weren’t in perfect condition. They only looked better because they had been repaired with wood, unlike the others.
A pharmacy, huh. Now I understood how they thought to bring in injured people. It was something that would become as sensitive as food supplies, yet they seemed to use it too easily… So this was the background for such generosity.
Throughout the settlement, dented containers were placed here and there. Looking inside them, I saw charred black wood. It seems they use these to make fires here.
As I was slowly looking around and examining the place, I spotted people from this place for the first time. A tall young man and a familiar man. The tall young man was a face I hadn’t seen before, and the familiar one was Son Byung-chul, who had knocked me unconscious along with Han Jong-wook. The moment I saw him, my face scrunched up in a frown, then I bit my lip hard.
It was because every time I saw a tall man, I thought of Kim Doyun. His height and build were similar, and if it weren’t for the long bangs, I might have rushed over thinking it was him.
“Doyun-ssi…”
Unable to resist the sudden surge of emotion, I was biting my lip hard when my eyes met with the tall man. His sharp eyes widened as he looked at me, then he smiled brightly.
“Looks like you’re well enough to walk around now?”
While I hesitated at his smile, an unexpected voice struck me from behind.
A missing canine tooth and a shotgun on his back. It was Han Jong-wook, who had brought me here. After questioning my age, he had insisted I call him Hyung since he was older.
Of course, I had no intention whatsoever of complying.
“Shouldn’t you be lying down though? It would be troublesome if your wounds reopened.”
Han Jong-wook approached with a deliberately concerned expression.
“Then you shouldn’t have hit me and brought me here.”
“Your tone is quite cold.”
“…It would be strange if I were in a good mood.”
“Well, um…”
“Still, I’m grateful for the treatment. Thanks to that, my infected wounds have healed…”
Han Jong-wook forgot about his canine tooth that he’d been so conscious of and smiled broadly.
“Lying down too much isn’t good either. You need to stretch your body a little.”
“Yes, that’s right. That’s good.”
Han Jong-wook clapped his hands and smiled. What was he so happy about?
“Why did you bring me here?”
I wanted to blame Han Jong-wook, but I reminded myself that I had received treatment thanks to him. It felt wrong to get angry about that, so I couldn’t even raise my voice. The dejected man tilted his head and smiled.
“You really didn’t want to come, huh? Was the person you were with a woman? Your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“I thought… You were looking for them so desperately, I thought it might be that.”
Han Jong-wook wiggled his pinky finger, then leaned back when he saw me getting serious. He made a groaning sound for a moment, then casually swung his foot as he spoke.
“The world’s gone to shit, hasn’t it?”
“…”
I didn’t answer. But he didn’t seem to be asking for my response, as he just chuckled and continued.
“Everyone’s completely insane. Trees growing like they’re on drugs, and monsters running around crazy too. Those bastards, they seem stupid sometimes but there are clever ones among them.”
Since I had experienced it myself, I nodded. Han Jong-wook became excited and poured out his story enthusiastically.
“At first, I was traveling with three or four others.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he picked up what looked like kindling and drew five people on the ground. The ground was broken in many places and dirty with dust, making it easy to scribble.
“At the very beginning, there were five of us, but one disappeared under a pile of dirt when the earthquake hit. Whether they lived or died, we were too busy saving ourselves to check the body, but… If they were swept away in a pile of dirt and survived, that would be really lucky. But even if they survived, they wouldn’t have lived long.”
Then he frantically scribbled out one of the people at the end.
“Because of the monsters running wild. When I first saw those things, I was so scared. We ran screaming our lungs out, almost shitting ourselves. Still, it was hard to survive. While running, there was a scream, then a hot splash from beside me!”
Han Jong-wook gestured as if exploding something with his hands.
“It was the blood of the person running next to me. In an instant, two people were dragged away. One had their head burst and was dragged away, the other was taken alive… Our eyes met as they were being dragged away. Their hands flailed, begging for help. Even with those claws like hooks embedded in their neck, they were still desperate to live. Me? I closed my eyes to save myself.”
After mutilating the drawing again, he stared at me. His eyes gleamed strangely.
“At first, I felt really guilty. Every time I went to sleep, I could see the eyes of the person who was dragged away, and eventually I’d see them even when I just closed my eyes… Wow, it was really maddening.”
I had been the same. The man crushed by the street tree and the man who hanged himself also remained in my memory. But unlike him, I didn’t remember them every moment. It might be because I was so disoriented and my injuries didn’t give me proper time to recall, but what would it be like later?
“But you know what?”
Han Jong-wook smiled. With his gleaming eyes narrowed and his lips twitching. His movement to hide his missing tooth, along with the corners of his mouth pulled up, created a peculiar appearance.
“I soon became indifferent to the dead. When you’re trying everything to survive and you keep seeing people around you dying one by one… It just becomes normal.”
He subtly stroked his shotgun. My gaze followed his caressing hand and stopped at a scar. There was a knife mark on the back of Han Jong-wook’s hand. It could be a cut from a monster, but seeing the trace on his hand made suspicion sprout in my mind. What did that have to do with bringing me here?
“After the last person died, I wandered for a long time, starving. Then I came to this village. It’s hard to call it a village even now, but it was worse then. Instead, there were more people… Sixty? Over seventy? Living as a group, do you know what I learned?”
“…”
“Unity means survival.”
Han Jong-wook chuckled as he spoke about the obvious as if it weren’t. He spread one hand wide and bent the other like a claw. Then he pretended to eat his thumb with the bent hand.
“Not everyone survives, but the chances are higher. Like a school of sardines. When you’re together, it’s easier to fend off those things. Thankfully, those monster bastards can’t form groups because they’re too busy eating each other.”
“Is that why you brought me here and treated me?”
“The more people we have, the higher our chances, and it’s easier to find things too. We keep just enough people to protect the village, and the rest go out in groups of two or three to look for supplies or food. If you search through the ruins scattered around, you find lots of good stuff. If you’re lucky, you might even pick up a useful person.”
Han Jong-wook smiled and pointed at me. Then he played with his drawing using the stick again.
“I don’t think I qualify. I’m injured.”
Han Jong-wook grabbed both ends of the stick with his hands. As he applied slight pressure, the stick bent with him.
“We pick up people who look like they’ll recover. To us, you looked that way, so we brought you.”
“…What about people who seem impossible to save or the elderly?”
Han Jong-wook smiled, showing his teeth. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, and the stick bent more severely.
“I told you, right? We find supplies or pick up useful people. Burdens that hinder survival aren’t needed. If there’s a burden and something useful together, it’s only natural to take just what’s usable, isn’t it?”
The stick in his hand snapped with a crack.
Han Jong-wook, who had been smiling throughout, suddenly hardened his expression. I, who had been on edge towards Han Jong-wook, naturally looked at him too. Han Jong-wook clicked his tongue with a disgruntled and unpleasant tone.
“That son of a bitch is here.”
Son of a bitch? Puzzled, I turned my head and could see the two people from earlier. Han Jong-wook spat.
“Don’t get any sicker and stay put, okay?”
Han Jong-wook grinned at me, then waved his shotgun at the tall man passing by. It was quite a threatening gesture. However, the other man just tapped the cigarette he had in his mouth. And he did it toward Han Jong-wook. As ash flew onto his face, Han Jong-wook growled.
“…Let’s see how long you can act like that.”
“Whatever.”
The man who had been playfully shrugging his shoulders let out a laugh and put the cigarette in his mouth. Then he shooed Han Jong-wook away with an annoyed gesture.
Han Jong-wook’s demeanor was ominous, as if he would draw his shotgun at any moment, but he couldn’t readily attack. The man also had a shotgun on his back, plus a pistol and a knife at his waist. Even if Han Jong-wook couldn’t control his temper and pulled out his shotgun, he probably wouldn’t be faster than the man with the knife and pistol.
Han Jong-wook kicked a stone, threw a tantrum, then stomped his feet and went elsewhere. After watching their quarrel for a while, I realized there was no reason for me to stand there. As Han Jong-wook said, it was better to stay still until I fully recovered.
I had noticed from Han Jong-wook’s attitude that this was no ordinary village, but I couldn’t recklessly head outside. When I first left the hospital with Kim Doyun, I hadn’t grasped the depth of the disaster. I strongly believed I would soon meet people and couldn’t imagine the whole world would be in this state, so I could move easily. But now I knew better. I decided to be more cautious.
As soon as my body recovered, I would act shrewdly to get what I needed and leave the village.
‘I’ll stay by your side.’
I believed. I believed he was alive and that he would find me. Someone as strong as Kim Doyun wouldn’t die so easily. He must be walking somewhere in this disaster area right now. If I’m lucky, he might find this place soon.
But rather than sitting still waiting for luck, I decided to personally search for the place where we had separated. I raised my head to check the position of the clouds and also recalled the location I had seen from up in the tree. As I was making a firm resolution and about to move, a black shadow fell across my vision.
“A newcomer?”
It was that man from earlier. Startled, I stepped back, but the man’s footsteps quickly followed.
His large but sharp monolid eyes and upturned eyebrows made all his features seem sharp. Though he was smiling slightly, it seemed more like a habitual expression than a genuine smile.
“I thought the seed had dried up, but surprisingly, many are still alive…”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
