Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 51
Only Krnovel
35. Alma mater (2)
Because I couldn’t trust Woo Min-hee, I tried to communicate from a wasteland as far away from my territory as possible.
“Wait there. I’ll send someone.”
After the National Assembly member left for Jeju Island, the fate of those left behind looked bleak.
In reality, the successful Kim Da-ram has gone missing.
I searched her name on PaleNet, but I couldn’t find any information about Kim Da-ram in that vast sea of information.
Woo Min-hee was different.
There was still strength.
A helicopter showed up at the meeting place just to pick me up.
“Are you Mr. Park Gyu?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Please get in. Director Woo Min-hee is waiting.”
Is this the hat you’re wearing?
I wondered which agency he was in charge of, but seeing the soldiers’ tightly shut lips and evasive eyes, I thought it would be better to ask them directly.
The helicopter took me to Incheon.
Incheon is currently the undisputed capital of South Korea.
Instead of the destroyed and abandoned Seoul, almost all of the infrastructure moved here.
Above all, it is the sea that attracts people to Incheon.
There were numerous ships in the harbor, and on each deck people were welding, loading, and preparing to set sail.
The destination is none other than Jeju.
The National Intelligence Service, which controls Jeju Island, has not revealed any position on this matter, but the government is said to be planning to send a very large fleet of dozens of ships, not just one.
Countless people were standing on the dock, watching the work or wandering around with no particular purpose in mind.
At the end of the pier was a research facility with no sign.
“Here it is.”
This colorless concrete building appears to be the institution headed by Woo Min-hee.
As I entered, a neat interior with bright white lighting and immaculate white tiles greeted me.
“Are you Mr. Park Gyu?”
A woman wearing glasses whom I had never seen before greeted me.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“I am Kim Su-jin, and I am here to guide Mr. Park on behalf of Director Woo Min-hee.”
“Where is Director Woo Min-hee?”
“He is currently out of town. I am taking his place as he will probably not return home today.”
I followed Kim Soo-jin into the research facility.
Inside the lab, people in white coats were moving around busily, each carrying documents and laptops.
As an outsider, I couldn’t tell what was so busy, but judging from the number of phone calls and the excessive typing on the keyboard that filled the screen, it seemed like he had a lot of work to do.
But if you turn your head just a little, you can see people gathered in small groups of three or four holding coffee cups and joking around in corners, or sitting on chairs and taking a nap.
Is it a place where there is a lot of work, or is it a place where you have to pretend to have a lot of work?
As we went further inside, there was a room filled with children who looked to be middle school students. As we passed by, curious eyes turned to us.
I waited for the children’s gaze to leave and asked Kim Soo-jin.
“Why are there so many kids?”
“These are the kids who were chosen as guard recruits.”
“Guard?”
“yes.”
“I heard it’s going to be demolished tomorrow.”
“That’s the old school in Seoul. We’ve opened a new one in Jeju Island, and we’re training children with Awakening aptitude to become new hunters. Our facility is an institution that searches for, recruits, and protects talented children for that purpose.”
“So are all those kids going to Jeju Island?”
“Some may be able to go. They have to undergo several tests.”
“You mean like a psycho-sensation test?”
“Yes. You know very well.”
Kim Soo-jin, who had never looked at me before, glanced at me.
There was a blatant displeasure in that gaze, indicating that he did not want to talk any more.
I didn’t really want to make any noise, so I left it alone.
After that we had to walk quite a distance without saying a word.
As we went deeper into the facility, the smell of disinfectant became stronger, and through it came the faint smell of a corpse.
“It’s here.”
She led me into a dark room.
There were a few researchers staring at the monitor with blank eyes.
They didn’t even turn their heads when we came in.
In one corner of the room, medical beds were packed tightly together, and on each bed lay a corpse with its face covered.
“They’re zombies.”
Kim Soo-jin said without looking at me.
That might be the case.
But why do those cold, hard hands look so small?
The face of the boy who had given me the laptop flashed before my eyes.
Beyond the room full of corpses was an eerily quiet hallway with numerous doors, each with a small bench at the end.
The only person sitting in the hallway was a tall girl who looked to be in her mid-high school or college years.
The girl nodded when she saw Kim Soo-jin.
“Do you have a car?”
To Kim Soo-jin’s question, the girl shook her head with an awkward smile.
Kim Soo-jin opened the door next to her.
“It’s here.”
A man was sitting upright at a desk.
It didn’t take long to get to know him.
“Instructor.”
This is instructor Jang Gi-yeong.
The truck was intact and undamaged.
But something is strange.
Even when the door opens and I call, he doesn’t respond.
“Instructor?”
Called again.
The sharp eyes that earned him the nickname Tiger Instructor were still there, but the pupils beyond them were cloudy and blurry.
“······.”
My mentor took out a notebook and was writing something with a seemingly soulless face.
His thoughts were never put down on paper.
Square square
The pages of the notebook were already full, and the pen he was holding was already out of ink.
“ha.”
Kim Soo-jin, who was next to him, sighed.
“There’s still no response. Let’s go back.”
“······I would like to hear an explanation.”
My gaze as I glared at her seemed a bit murderous.
When you look at the shadow of fear on Kim Soo-jin’s face, which had been stiff all along,
*
Jang Ki-young, captured on CCTV, looked completely normal.
He would sit at his desk and flip through books, occasionally get up and walk around the small room with his hands behind his back, and sometimes lie down on his bed and stare blankly at the ceiling for a while.
“I see.”
Jang Ki-young put into practice the crazy thing he once told me about.
Death – mutation – resurrection.
Unfortunately, his experimental attempts yielded no results.
“This is the result.”
Kim Soo-jin handed me a sheet of paper.
black.
It’s the same color as me and Suwa.
I watched the silver in the closed circuit quietly.
“At first, he was fine. He was talking and eating. But then suddenly his condition worsened and he became like this.”
“······Is this dementia?”
“It’s more serious. He is neither alive nor dead.”
I only discovered it when I heard Kim Soo-jin’s explanation.
That Jang Ki-young’s fingers are missing in the low-resolution screen.
It looks like they got frostbite during the last cold spell and had to cut off a few of them.
“So, it’s like being human and a zombie at the same time.”
What is the difference between the two?
Although they slaughtered countless zombies, they didn’t seem to make a strict distinction between humans and zombies.
If a dead person stands up, moves, and attacks people, that’s a zombie.
The zombie trait I know is that it is something that looks like a corpse that moves and tries to harm people.
Kim Soo-jin’s distinction was clearer than mine.
“A human corpse that continues to carry out abnormal life activities due to mutation factors causing mutations in the brain and organs while the heart and brain activity has stopped. That is the known definition of a zombie so far.”
She showed me some video footage.
“As you can see, mutations caused by mutation factors are observed in Jang Gi-yeong’s brain and organs. Do you see the protrusions on this side?”
“yes.”
“But he’s alive. His heart is beating and his brain waves are normal. Whether you take the brain-dead theory or the cardiopulmonary arrest theory, Jang Gi-yeong is a living human being. But as you can see, he looks like that.”
I saw Jang Gi-yeong in the closed circuit.
He was sitting with his trademark straight back, chewing his lips and staring intently into space with his sunken eyes.
Are you angry or something?
If you are angry, what are you angry about?
If I were him, I would be confused.
The one he should be truly angry at is none other than Jang Ki-young himself, who walked down the path to destruction without gaining even a single piece of the power he desired.
Kim Soo-jin looked back at me.
“The reason I called Mr. Park Gyu is because he is an acquaintance of Mr. Jang Gi-yeong. Director Woo Min-hee pointed him out.”
She turned her gaze back to the files, sighed shallowly, and added weakly.
“But there was no response. It seems that Mr. Park Gyu was not enough to bring back Mr. Jang Gi-yeong’s lost mind.”
“Is that so?”
“Don’t be discouraged. Did you see the girl sitting in front of you? She’s tall.”
“yes.”
“She’s Jang Gi-yeong’s daughter. He loved her so much that he assaulted his ex-wife while trying to get custody, but he doesn’t even recognize his own daughter.”
I asked for some time.
There was something I wanted to ask my daughter.
She was still sitting on the bench, looking at her phone.
I was wondering what it was and then I saw the PaleNet logo.
I’m sorry.
His light seems to reach here.
She was looking at the [Celebrity News Board].
“hi.”
I said hello to the girl.
She stared blankly at me for a moment, then tilted her head and made a surprised expression.
“oh?!”
“What is it?”
“Are you by any chance my father’s disciple?”
“I know right.”
She tapped hard on her phone and showed me a picture.
“Are you the person standing next to Dad?”
The photo showed Instructor Jang Gi-yeong, who still had the youthful energy of a man in his 30s, and his students standing next to him.
“He said that they were proud disciples.”
For some reason, I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw that picture.
It may be that my posture standing next to Jang Ki-young was a bit too stiff, but it was also because I thought it was really fun to see all of my memorable colleagues each displaying their own unique personalities and taking up space in one place, such as Kim Da-ram who looked bored, Lee Sang-hoon who was always clinging to his prettiest female colleague, Woo Min-hee striking a model pose alone, and Gong Kyung-min striking a unique fighting pose with his hands crossed in an X shape.
At the edge of the photo, the point furthest from me and Jang Gi-yeong, Kang Han-min was standing awkwardly, his head slightly bowed, his shoulders hunched, a worried look on his face, and his distance from his colleagues.
This guy.
That day, you came to take a commemorative photo.
I thought you weren’t coming.
“Then you know my name too.”
He spoke while looking at the photos for a while.
“No. I don’t know. My father showed me pictures of his disciples, but he never told me their names. That savior, Kang Han-min, must be one of them!”
Her eyes suddenly sparkled.
“Ho, ho, are you Kang Han-min by any chance?!”
“No. He’s not that great.”
“Well, there’s no way such an amazing person would come to a place like this.”
From the beginning, I had doubts about dealing with the girl.
That is the fact that not a single trace of sadness could be found in her.
“are you okay?”
I asked the girl.
“What is it?”
“Aren’t you worried about the instructor’s condition?”
“Not really. I haven’t seen that sign since elementary school. You’re my dad’s disciple, so you should know that, right? That temper.”
“······That was a bit much.”
“See. We got screwed over even more. Seriously. Man. You don’t know until you’ve been through it.”
The girl lightly tapped her chest, showing various expressions of joy and sorrow.
“Why are you here?”
I asked even though I knew.
“The communication here is good and they give me food, but I’m still thinking of going to Jeju Island.”
She handed me a sheet of paper.
It’s a psychoactive sheet.
Unlike her father, who had become like that but still remained black, his daughter’s skin had turned a faint pink.
“Oh. It changes to this color too.”
“Don’t you know black – blue – red – gray – white?”
“The more you go to 100, the better it gets, right?”
“That’s right!”
“Where are you?”
“Isn’t it somewhere between red and gray? They say that gray is definitely safe, but in my case, I also have a dad.”
She looked back at the tightly closed door with a bitter smile.
“My father said that he will admit me as a special student as soon as I wake up. My older sister is Woo Min-hee.”
“Aren’t you more like an aunt than a sister?”
“You look so healthy, but you act so well without any problems?”
“······.”
I said goodbye to the nameless girl and returned to Kim Soo-jin.
“What will happen to you now, Instructor?”
At my question, Kim Soo-jin rolled her eyes and thought of an excuse.
“Be honest with me. I am ready to accept any outcome.”
Kim Soo-jin said:
“I plan to dispose of it.”
“······Disposition.”
“Even if you don’t dispose of it, it’ll turn into a zombie soon. It’s been like that for four days without eating or drinking.”
Kim Soo-jin sighed and asked back.
“Besides, wouldn’t it be better to close your eyes forever rather than wander like a ghost?”
In the end, I was unable to meet Woo Min-hee.
I was able to self-reflect while staying one night in the wonderful accommodations she provided and eating a decent meal.
That my existence was not that important to her.
I just called.
Just a slight impulse.
To her, I was nothing more than that.
“Professor······.”
Lying on my bed in the sunlight streaming in, I muttered my call sign, which everyone in the past had reverently said.
The person who gave me that name will soon be disposed of.
Coincidentally, it is said that the time it takes for Jang Gi-yeong to be disposed of is the same time that my alma mater is demolished with dynamite.
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