Chapter 68
“I told you not to go over there.”
“……”
“And you went right over, completely went right over.”
I looked up at the sky. The weather was good, with no sign of rain. Unusually, the dark clouds that always hung in the sky seemed particularly dense today, their patterns gleaming. It wasn’t very visible during the day, but they would probably stand out tremendously once night fell.
“When someone talks to you, you should listen.”
“……”
“Our Seongho is quite good at chewing up my words.”
Throughout our walk, nagging mixed with grumbling clung to my back. I turned my head to look at Jang Jae-gyeong and let out a deep sigh.
“What’s the problem?”
“Problem? There are tons.”
Jang Jae-gyeong strode over on his long legs and stood beside me. Unlike his scolding tone from before, his face was unusually serious. I found his gaze strange as it wandered over my face. His eyes weren’t looking directly into mine, but seemed to be fixed on some other part of my face. Was my hair sticking up? I patted my hair tentatively.
“Do I have something on me?”
“…No?”
Jang Jae-gyeong placed his hand on my head, then frowned and messed it up completely.
“Ah!”
The hair that Kim Doyun had neatly arranged was now a mess again. Annoyed, I jabbed Jang Jae-gyeong’s side with my elbow repeatedly, but he didn’t budge. He just rubbed his side with a bored expression and fueled my irritation by saying I needed to build some strength.
“Geez, should I really start exercising?”
“You want to exercise? How?”
Yeah, how should I build enough strength to be able to hit Jang Jae-gyeong? Should I do push-ups while hanging from tree branches? Jang Jae-gyeong asked as if he was genuinely curious, but I didn’t miss the hint of amusement in his voice. Thanks to that, I really wanted to build some strength somehow. Just enough to make smug Jang Jae-gyeong clutch his side in pain. Just that much would be nice.
“Anyway, are you sure you saw those guys in the building?”
After giving Jang Jae-gyeong’s side one more jab for good measure, I asked for confirmation.
“Seongho, don’t you trust me?”
“I do. I do, but I forgot.”
I vaguely remembered hearing about it. However, because of Kim Doyun, I couldn’t recall things properly. When I tried to think about this, I remembered the feel of Kim Doyun’s lips, and when I tried to think about that, Kim Doyun’s breathing and laughter scrambled my thoughts. Kim Doyun…. I thought of Kim Doyun with the children up in the tree and wiped my burning cheeks with the back of my hand.
We’d gathered enough supplies from the convenience store and could have left right away, but there were several reasons we couldn’t. First, fever spots had started appearing on Junwoo’s face, which had seemed fine before. It wasn’t high enough to call it a severe fever yet, but his face was swollen and his temperature was rising enough that we couldn’t be at ease. The children’s bodies were much weaker than ours, and we had no medicine. If we moved carelessly, we’d be in trouble. Since I had no intention of dragging a sick child along, we decided to find a place where he could rest comfortably.
At first, everyone agreed that a cave would be good. Underground, it wouldn’t be exposed to the night wind, and most importantly, it was beyond the reach of the monsters. I’m sorry to Kim Doyun and Jang Jae-gyeong, but since the two of them were too big for the cave, we decided that Junwoo, Seungwoo, and I would stay there for a few days. But just as I was about to hide inside the cave, I felt a faint rumbling vibration from the ground. Even Kim Doyun and Jang Jae-gyeong, who rarely got surprised, widened their eyes.
Could it be another earthquake? Seungwoo and Junwoo trembled and clung to me, and I quickly ran to an area without trees to prepare for an earthquake. I could faintly hear screams coming from the direction of the building. But the vibration was very brief, and there was no further shaking. Even so, we couldn’t let our guard down.
It was underground, of all places. Although the children’s parents had diligently dug and packed the earth, it couldn’t possibly be safe enough to withstand an earthquake. What if an earthquake hit while the three of us were inside?
In the end, we gave up on staying in the cave and turned our attention to the building. Considering the earthquake risk, Jang Jae-gyeong suggested that the second floor would be too risky, but maybe we could stay on the first floor to avoid the night wind, and then move once Junwoo got better. His argument was that those guys didn’t seem to have weapons, and a few knife strikes would finish them off quickly.
I scolded Jang Jae-gyeong for saying such things in front of the children, but… looking at Junwoo’s face covered in fever spots, I became interested.
And besides that…
“Our mom and dad’s things are there! I want to go get them!”
Seungwoo’s tearful words ignited my already piqued interest. Seungwoo pointed eagerly at the second floor of the building.
“We used to live there before we ran away from those guys, so there’s a lot of stuff! There’s also medicine hidden behind the kitchen drawer!”
“Hidden medicine?”
“Mom and Dad hid it because they said we had to be especially careful with medicine since others might steal it. It’s wrapped in garbage bags and onion nets, so those guys probably couldn’t find it.”
Seungwoo said with teary eyes that he really wanted to retrieve the medicine for Junwoo and his parents’ keepsakes. Hearing the child say that, I simply couldn’t resist.
But these were people who had beaten others to death. It didn’t seem like they could be dealt with as easily as we thought. And above all, Jang Jae-gyeong would be the one fighting on the front line. I couldn’t make a light decision when it wasn’t my own life at stake.
After thinking long and hard, I suggested to Jang Jae-gyeong that we should investigate first. Jang Jae-gyeong shook his head, saying what was there to be afraid of when they didn’t even have proper weapons. That’s when Seungwoo opened his round eyes and said:
“Weapons? We have lots of kitchen knives at home. Mom loved cooking, so she bought tons.”
I was startled and grabbed Jang Jae-gyeong’s clothes as he looked ready to charge in immediately. Kim Doyun, who was holding Junwoo, just smiled silently.
So under my pressure and urging, Jang Jae-gyeong and I came out to investigate… Initially, Kim Doyun wanted to come along. But I thought it would be better to have someone with a weapon, and since I deliberately avoided staying with Kim Doyun, I ended up going out with just Jang Jae-gyeong.
To be honest, sending Jang Jae-gyeong and Kim Doyun together while I stayed with the children seemed like the best choice, but I couldn’t feel at ease just sending the two of them alone. Despite Kim Doyun’s intense gaze bothering me, there was nothing I could do. Being alone with him in this situation, especially after what Kim Doyun had said yesterday, was a bit… I cleared my throat with a “khm khm” as my face reddened.
Jang Jae-gyeong, who had no way of knowing what I was thinking, explained again about the situation and men he had seen while hiding in the building.
“There are two stores on the first floor. Not much inside, and all the furniture is smashed up. Seems like they used it for firewood, but I think those guys just destroyed everything they could, rather than the children’s parents. There’s a staircase in the middle of the first-floor stores leading to the second floor… Not much on the second floor either. The third floor is where the little ones lived, but one guy was standing guard at the entrance, so I couldn’t see the inside properly. From what I could tell, there weren’t many items stacked up.”
I nodded and drew the house’s interior structure on the ground with a twig based on Jang Jae-gyeong’s description. The third floor was a connected shop and home with one straight corridor and one store. It had two rooms and a living room combined with a kitchen. He said there was a storage room next to the bathroom.
“It would be convenient to hide in the storage room, but it’s tricky to get up there. That wall is slippery with nothing to grab onto.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I tried climbing it.”
Jang Jae-gyeong said with a shrug. I see, so he had already tried everything. That’s why he knew the structure so well. I was surprised but had nothing to say. I drew lines next to the storage room with the twig.
“It would be tough for me to climb up then.”
“Going through the main entrance might be better. Besides, it’s almost time for those guys to move.”
“They’re moving?”
I lifted my head as I followed Jang Jae-gyeong, who was standing up, and grabbed the back of my neck. It hurt my neck to look up at the towering Jang Jae-gyeong, and it was hard to even look up. I had no choice but to put down the twig, dust off my hands, and stand up.
“Well, they’re probably going out searching. Judging by how they were talking about grave robbers and such.”
The term “grave robber” upset me. I remembered how those guys had disparaged the children’s parents and the children themselves by calling them grave robbers. They killed people and then call others grave robbers? That’s ridiculous. And on top of that, they want to steal things that others collected by digging hard in the ground. The words that Seungwoo had spilled out along with his tears kept echoing in my ears.
“…Then how many would be left in the building? You said there were four men.”
“One or two, I guess. From what I saw, hmm… one?”
“That’s perfect. Let’s quickly go spy and get the medicine.”
The ultimate goal was to take over the building. I clenched my fist. And if given the opportunity, I wanted to throw a punch at the one guy who remained. Of course, that would be unreasonable if the opponent was wielding a kitchen knife as a weapon. But thinking of Seungwoo, my body itched with the desire to exact revenge somehow.
But I didn’t want Jang Jae-gyeong to be endangered because of my wrong actions. After exchanging a few more words with Jang Jae-gyeong, I quietly lowered my body and started moving.
The entrance of the building gradually came into view. I let out a big breath after seeing the appearance of the building, which I hadn’t been able to see from a distance.
The building looked extremely dirty. This was because wood and metal plates had been attached all over the doors and windows. It seemed they had used this method to block the monsters from approaching. It looked secure enough to hold up against people as well. If it could block monsters, there was no reason it couldn’t block humans. It seemed that the children’s parents had readily opened the door upon seeing people, only to have their building seized and meet a tragic end.
A shutter had been lowered, partially covering the entrance above the heavy door. Perhaps because of this, despite it being daytime, lights were visibly turned on inside. Following the flickering lights, Jang Jae-gyeong and I hunched over and pushed our bodies into the building.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
