Walking Daddy

A rollaway bed was set up in the corner of the spacious lobby. It was originally set up to treat emergency patients who couldn’t be moved to the hospital rooms in time.

Mood-Swinger was sitting next to him. As I approached Kim Hyeong-Jun, Mood-Swinger stood up and made a sad face.

“Ar… no… ld…”

"Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong with your master.”

I chuckled and patted Mood-Swinger on the back. The moment I glanced at Kim Hyeong-Jin, his fingers twitched.

“Ugh…”

He frowned and began to come back to his senses.

“You okay now?” I asked.

“Where…”

“What do you mean, where? You’re at the shelter, of course.”

Kim Hyeong-Jun propped his upper body up and looked around. After a moment, he gently massaged his temples with his right hand as if he was having a headache.

“Don’t push yourself. Everything’s been taken care of.”

“What about the black creature and the guys from the Family?”

“We took care of all of them.”

“Did you kill them, ahjussi?”

“Mood-Swinger and Ji-Eun had a hard time.”

Kim Hyeong-Jun looked at Mood-Swinger next to him, then slapped him on the arm while chuckling.

“Arnold!”

Mood-Swinger hugged Kim Hyeong-Jun, shedding tears.

After Mood-Swinger had become a stage-three mutant, his emotions had changed even more drastically. And it seemed like he had gotten smarter. He was a lot better at understanding situations than before. It seemed like his nervousness had gone away as soon as he realized that Kim Hyeong-Jun was safe.

Kim Hyeong-Jun coughed and spoke to Mood-Swinger.

“Let go, let go, Mood-Swinger. It hurts."

“Arno… ld.”

Kim Hyeong-Jun stroked Mood-Swinger’s hair and smiled heartily. After that, he hopped off the bed and started stretching.

“Ahjussi, what did you do with the black creature’s brain?”

I told him in detail what had happened along Gangbyeonbuk-ro. Kim Hyeong-Jun listened to everything I had to say while he gently rubbed his chin. After I was done, he tilted his head.

“Why do you think Ji-Eun ate the officer’s brain?” he asked.

“I think she did it to protect us.”

“So you’re saying she killed the officer and ate his brain?”

“Probably.”

“Then why didn’t she eat the black creature’s brain?”

I hadn’t even considered this part. After giving it some thought, I realized that Kim Hyeong-Jun was right. I wondered why she’d eaten the officer’s brain but not the black creature’s brain. As I pondered over it, Kim Hyeong-Jun sucked on his lower lip, then spoke up.

“Perhaps she knew?”

“Knew what?”

“That she’d die if she ate a black creature’s brain.”

“How would Ji-Eun know that?”

“Well, it’s not really the case where the proof of the pudding is in the eating, you know? I think they just know.”

I listened to Kim Hyeong-Jun and nodded slowly. Even Mood-Swinger hadn’t eaten the black creature’s brain, despite his appetite. I wondered if stage-three mutants knew that they shouldn’t eat brains from beings with black eyes. Perhaps it was instinctive.

I made a little theory of my own. Perhaps they knew that they could get stronger after eating the brain of a being with blue eyes or any weaker being than that, but considered beings with black eyes as almighty creatures and just left them alone. I wondered if he’d given up on the black creature’s brain, knowing that he couldn\'t handle its power.

Stage-three mutants were superior to stage-one mutants in every aspect—physically, intellectually, and in terms of their senses. It was more than possible that they would know such things.

‘Then I also shouldn’t eat the brains of a being with black eyes…’

After I organized my thoughts on this matter, I asked Kim Hyeong-Jun a question.

“What’s the situation at Gimpo Airport? Did you manage to check out everything?”

“There were two zombies with red eyes guarding Gimpo Airport.”

“And you took care of them?”

“I killed them both. I got caught while rescuing the survivors there. That’s why I was being chased by the members of the Family.”

“What about the conditions of the plane and the runway?”

“I only managed a cursory look, but there seemed to be a lot of airplanes that we could use, and the runway didn’t seem to be in a poor condition.”

I placed my head in my hands and began to think.

We killed four dong leaders in Gangbyeonbuk-ro, two dong leaders at Gimpo Airport, and a blue-eyed officer also lost his life… Which meant all that was left of the Family’s forces was the boss and a bunch of weaklings.

I told Kim Hyeong-Jun about the topics that had come up during the meeting. After he listened to my briefing, Kim Hyeong-Jun stashed his hands in his pockets and chuckled.

“The tables have turned, no?” he said.

“We have to put an end to it.”

“When are we going to attack?”

“How many underlings do you have left?”

"Uh…”

Kim Hyeong-Jun looked away and counted the number of underlings he had left. It was a simple task, since we could tell where and how many underlings we had left in our heads.

Kim Hyeong-Jun smacked his lips as if he had come up with the answer.

“I have six hundred and fifty in total.”

“How about your mutants?”

“Mood-Swinger and four stage-one mutants.”

“How many underlings can you have in total?”

“I ate the two dong leaders at Gimpo Airport; did you give me two brains at Gangbyeonbuk-ro?”

"Yeah."

“Then okay. I can control two thousand two hundred and fifty underlings in total.”

Kim Hyeong-Jun scratched his head as he answered, and his expression grew troubled.

“Geez, how am I going to get back to my maximum?” he said with a grimace. “I think it’s going to take a couple of days.”

“That’ll be too late. The boss has probably figured out what’s going on by now.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

“We have to kill the boss before he gets away.”

"Huh?"

Kim Hyeong-Jun tilted his head and looked at me in puzzlement. He didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, so I continued to explain my thoughts.

“It’ll be difficult to board with a lot of underlings. It’s probably better—and probably the right thing—to take care of the gang members first before going to Gimpo Airport.”

“Well, we don’t have an idea of how large their forces are.”

“I think my mutants will be enough to take on the ordinary forces. And Gangnam will probably have two stage-three mutants; we’ll just leave Ji-Eun and Mood-Swinger to take care of them.”

“And we take care of the boss?”

"Yeah. Even if the surviving dong leaders try to sneak up on us, we’ll be more than prepared if Han-Sol takes care of the defense.”

Kim Hyeong-Jun looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. I peered into the darkness that shrouded Gwangjang-dong and continued to speak.

“We need to take care of the boss before he gets away.”

“Then… When should we attack?”

“Let’s head straight to Sogang Bridge after the sun rises. We’ll let the leaders know.”

“Okay…"

There was nothing good about dragging this out. We had to make hay while the sun shone.

The boss was a capable strategist, so the more time we gave him, the more dangerous it would be for us, since we couldn’t predict what sort of plan he might throw at us. We had to take care of him before he came up with a detailed, concrete plan.

The sun would rise in two hours’ time. And in just two hours, the long fight with my archenemy that I’d been putting off for six months was about to reach its conclusion.

I couldn\'t help but feel a surge of excitement.

* * *

“So what, they’re all dead?”

“Yes… yes, sir.”

The dong leader who had come back from his patrol was on his knees, trembling. The boss furrowed his brow and placed his head in his hands. He seemed extremely angry. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

“How many of us are left now?”

“Besides me and the dong leader of Seongsan-dong… No one, sir.”

“And the mutants?”

“There are fifteen stage-one mutants and two stage-three mutants.”

The boss grimaced and sighed a couple of times in a row. He threw the wine glass he was holding against the wall with all his might, smearing dark red blood all over the wall.

The dong leader’s face paled, and he began to tremble. The boss slicked his bangs back.

“Five stage-one mutants, two stage-three mutants… Those belong to me.”

“Yes, yes sir…”

“So then, are you and the dong leader of Seongsan-dong each controlling half of the remaining stage-one mutants?”

"Yes, sir."

The boss gritted his teeth and gazed out at the world beyond the observatory.

“Fucking bastards…” he muttered in a low voice. “I should’ve taken care of them on my own.”

The boss clenched his fists, and his blue eyes flashed. The tables had turned completely. Giving up Gangbuk and moving to Gangnam had been their mistake. The boss realized that, instead of trusting the black creatures, they should’ve attacked Gangnam after restoring stability in Gangbuk.

A saying swam unbidden into his mind—that the strength of a nation came from the integrity of the homeland. The boss’ dream of conquering the world with Seoul as the stepping-stone was thwarted by a small fire that had spread within his own home.

The boss cursed in anger, then spoke to the dong leader.

“You, and the dong leader of Seongsan-dong. How many underlings have you recovered?”

“Well, well the thing is…”

“Stutter one more time, and I’ll kill you.”

“...!”

The dong leader’s eyes flew wide open, and he swallowed. He wet his parched lips before continuing.

“I need to acquire four hundred more, and the leader of Seongsan-dong needs three hundred more.”

“Why are you missing so many? Have you been goofing around?"

"No sir. The second officer and the other dong leaders had priority… We were waiting for our turn.”

“Other dong leaders? The dong leaders in charge of the red areas?”

“Yes. We were assigned priority in accordance with our strength… We had no authority.”

The boss frowned and gently massaged his temples. The dong leader looked down quietly, still trembling in fear. The boss took a deep breath before speaking again.

“Replenish your underlings by tomorrow. When you’re done, we’re heading to Daejeon.”

"Pardon, sir? I’m not sure if I can get that many in a single day…”

"Well then, you can die instead.”

"No sir. I’ll make sure to replenish all of them!”

"If you don’t, you’ll die by my hand. I’ll give you one day.”

“Yes sir!”

The boss stared into the pitch-black darkness beyond the observatory, lost in thought.

\'I just have to stop being greedy. I don\'t have to take on all the risks and struggle so hard. I just need to go back to the drawing board.’

If Seoul didn’t work out, they could just move to Daejeon and start there.

The boss decided to acknowledge the existence of the Survivor Rally Organization. He also acknowledged that the Survivor Rally Organization had the upper hand, and he made the decision to go back to the drawing board and focus on recruiting more forces.

* * *

Grrr… GAAA!!!

At a research center seventy kilometers north of Vladivostok, Russia, zombies were beginning to gather. The commander who had been defending the institute hurriedly kicked open the door of the institute.

“We must move now! Everyone out!” he yelled.

The researchers quickly gathered up their research and followed the commander\'s order. But one researcher, a bald man in his thirties, couldn\'t take his eyes off his microscope.

Tommy, who had his eyes on him, shouted, “Alyosha, come out now! We don’t have time!”

“Hooray! Hooray! I’ve finally found the antibody!”

“Get out now!”

“Tommy, do you see these beautiful colors? This damn virus is finished, finished!!”

Alyosha smiled happily as he peered at the antibody. Tommy frowned and ran to Alyosha, then grabbed his collar.

“Wake up you idiot! This place is finished as well!”

“Antibodies! We have to get the antibodies!”

“We don’t have time for that. Fucking come!”

“I’m not leaving without the antibodies!”

Alyosha grinned as he hurriedly collected the antibodies. To him, the antibodies in front of him were more important than his life.

Bang!

GRRR!!

The door to the research center was sent flying, and zombies poured in.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The Russian troops started firing at the zombies, Tommy and Alyosha crouched down and headed for the back door. As soon as they went outside, the piercing wind blew across their necks and wrapped around their bodies.

Vladivostok, home to one of the ice-free ports in Russia, was covered in white snow, thanks to the snowy conditions that had come once in twenty years. For quite a while, it had been enveloped in a whiteout.

GRRR!!!

Despite the conditions, Tommy and Alyosha tried with all their might to open their eyes and advanced into the blizzard, the zombies’ howling sending chills down their spines. The zombies were climbing over the fence and surging toward the laboratory like an enormous tidal wave.

There were too many zombies to even count; the horde of zombies looked like a horizontal black line that crossed through the world of white.

"Run!!"

In the distance, they saw an An-26, a Russian military transport aircraft. The commander was inside, shouting at them. The two of them ran toward the aircraft with all their might.

KYAAA!!!

"Ahh!!"

Red blood splattered onto the pure white snow as another researcher running toward the aircraft was bitten by zombies. The soldiers were firing their guns, but it made no difference. There were just too many, and even a machine gun wouldn’t have been helpful.

Tommy and Alyosha continued to run, leaving their dying colleagues behind.

They closed their eyes and sprinted through the never-ending hell of white snow and red blood toward the aircraft. They managed to board the aircraft by the skin of their teeth, and the commander, veins popping out of his neck, shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Take off! Take off!!”

The only surviving researchers were Tommy and Alyosha. All the other researchers that had left the building before them had been overwhelmed by the zombies. The two of them owed their survival to the fact that they had escaped through the back door instead.

After pulling themselves together, the commander looked at the two and spoke up.

“Both of you, take off your clothes.”

“Yes… yes?”

“Take off your clothes so that I can check if you’ve been bitten!!”

Without the slightest hesitation, Tommy and Alyosha took off everything except for their underwear. After checking their bodies, the commander let out a sigh of relief and sat down.

There were only about ten people on board the aircraft, including Tommy and Alyosha. Out of the four hundred people at the research lab, only ten had made it out alive.

Alyosha adjusted his glasses, then asked the commander a question.

“Where are we going now?”

“To a place of possibility.”

“Where’s that?”

“Korea.”

When the commander mentioned Korea, Alyosha’s eyes widened, and he looked over at Tommy.

“Tommy, isn’t Korea your motherland?”

"Yeah."

“Oh, thank you, Lord! We won’t have to worry about communication!”

Alyosha laughed cheerfully, and even clapped with joy. Tommy, on the other hand, was panting heavily. He looked at the commander.

“The research institute in Korea is in Daegu, located in the southeast. Can we get there?”

“...”

“I’m asking if there’s enough fuel.”

“We’re short on fuel.”

The cabin fell silent. Alyosha tilted his head and posed a question to the survivors.

“Am I short on vocabulary or what? When did ‘possibility’ start to mean ‘death’?”

He was openly mocking the commander.