Chapter 22

Lee Gaon’s eyes widened.

“A cure?”

She had imagined that he would ask her to develop a vaccine, but it had never crossed her mind that he would also ask her to create a cure.

And she wasn’t the only one whose eyes widened.

O O

Je Hyuno as well.

When she saw the new emoticon appear on his goggles, Lee Gaon gave a small start and took a few steps back.

I felt a little embarrassed, but I pretended nothing had happened and continued speaking.

“The truth is, one of my teammates is also in the process of turning into a zombie.”

“Ah…”

Lee Gaon’s gaze immediately filled with sympathy.

“That explains it. I thought he was a little strange, but now I see it must be because of the infection.”

…As she said that, she turned to look at Je Hyuno.

“But that teammate doesn’t seem very aggressive. Is it because of the gear he’s wearing? Or maybe…?”

“I wasn’t talking about him. It’s another teammate.”

“A-Ah… I see.”

Lee Gaon began glancing at him out of the corner of her eye with obvious discomfort.

ㅠ ㅠ

When Je Hyuno displayed a crying emoticon on his goggles, Lee Gaon shuddered again.

Even so, she reacted much better than before.

At least it seemed they had found some common ground.

Putting a little more distance between herself and Je Hyuno, she approached me and spoke in a low voice.

“I want to develop a cure, but I’m not sure I can do it. A vaccine and a cure are completely different things. If my brother were here, it would be different, but on my own…”

Lee Gaon bit her lip.

No one wanted a cure more than she did.

If she spoke with such uncertainty, it was because she truly didn’t believe she could succeed.

And she was right.

It wasn’t something one person could accomplish in a short amount of time.

‘But who said she had to do it alone?’

We already had some very useful tools available.

I looked at Lee Gaon again, who had fallen into despair once more, and made her a proposal.

“What do you think about recycling some trash?”

“Trash?”

“Yes.”

I clarified my words so there would be no misunderstanding.

“I mean that human trash.”

***

All they had to do was go down the emergency staircase from the rooftop to the fifth floor.

And yet.

It wasn’t proving easy.

Mo Haein took a deep breath and exhaled again.

The fever had returned, and the air leaving her mouth was scorching hot.

She felt that if she lost her concentration for even a single moment, she would end up biting Kwak Hanmuk, who was walking in front of her.

Now she understood, down to the marrow of her bones, why the protocol in Dead Zone Delivery required the immediate execution of anyone infected.

The sensation of her teeth itching to bite grew stronger and stronger.

She breathed with difficulty as she frowned again and again.

“Captain Mo. Are you having a hard time?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to shoot you?”

“…Before they execute me, I’ll bite you first.”

When she promised to drag him down with her into becoming a zombie, Kwak Hanmuk burst out laughing.

It was so irritating that, for a moment, she even forgot the agony of turning into a zombie.

As she glared at him, wishing she could at least take one bite out of him, Mo Haein murmured,

“Even so… I’m glad you’re my partner on this mission.”

“Hyung Goyo is here too.”

“……”

Mo Haein didn’t answer.

But in reality, she was thinking about Han Goyo.

Director Jang Seokyun had made Han Goyo’s role perfectly clear.

At that moment, Han Goyo was not a soldier of the Trial Response Agency.

He wasn’t even a teammate.

He was merely a tool to close Trials.

Since he was considered a dangerous existence, they would observe his usefulness for one month.

If, in the end, he failed to prove he was truly useful.

He would be eliminated and used as research material.

Mo Haein had also intended to treat him that way.

But.

It turned out to be much more difficult than she had imagined.

It had already happened when she saw him confined inside the isolation facility.

Even though that room was one of the best in the Agency’s containment center.

It was still a prison.

He couldn’t even open the door from the inside.

She remembered how he had quietly waited for someone to come and open it.

And how, the moment Kwak Hanmuk opened the heavy steel door.

Han Goyo had simply bowed his head politely to greet them.

That scene had left her speechless.

He wore his uniform impeccably.

He looked a little nervous as he looked at her.

His eyes were extraordinarily clear.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of resentment in them toward the people who had locked him inside that place.

And when she returned his greeting.

He had even smiled faintly.

After seeing that expression.

It became impossible for her to treat him as nothing more than a tool or a monster.

‘Even though he’s completely insane inside the Trials.’

There wasn’t a trace left of the polite and respectful young man who didn’t seem like someone from her generation.

He threw himself headfirst into every danger like a rabid dog.

Even Mo Haein, who had spent years in the Agency and met all kinds of people, shuddered at that level of insanity.

She had never imagined she would meet someone comparable to Kwak Hanmuk.

Every time she thought about Han Goyo, conflicting feelings filled her mind.

But there was one thing she was absolutely certain of.

‘He isn’t a bad kid, even if he’s incredibly suspicious and strange.’

Even now, it was the same.

When she became infected, he had more than enough reason to insist that she be executed.

And yet.

He never did.

Would Han Goyo be able to achieve the True Ending once again?

She tried not to think about such an uncertain future.

But it was impossible not to cling to hope.

She still didn’t want to die.

No.

She still couldn’t afford to die.

“Hanmuk…”

Kwak Hanmuk, who had stopped in front of the fifth-floor access door, turned around.

With the steel pipe Han Goyo had picked up on the rooftop resting on his shoulder, he looked like a genuine delinquent.

Mo Haein, who had stopped one step before reaching the top, asked,

“Are you okay?”

Kwak Hanmuk looked at her with an expression that said, why are you asking something so obvious?, and replied,

“I’m fucking awesome.”

“No… Never mind.”

She wanted to ask him what he thought about Han Goyo, but it was pointless.

The most important thing was completing Dead Zone Delivery with the True Ending.

Whistling carefree, Kwak Hanmuk opened the emergency door.

Mo Haein frowned without realizing it.

The zombification was progressing.

Her hearing was far more sensitive than normal.

On the other hand, her field of vision was steadily shrinking.

She felt as though she had barely half of her eyesight left.

It wasn’t pleasant to feel her body changing in real time.

That discomfort even seemed to increase her aggression.

Thinking that she would soon have to stuff a piece of cloth into her mouth to keep herself from biting someone, she followed Kwak Hanmuk onto the fifth floor.

Cracking his neck, he commented,

“I think the researchers are here.”

Before she could even ask how he knew.

“If there are any survivors, come out already!!!”

His voice echoed throughout the hallway.

Mo Haein covered her ears a second too late while suppressing a curse.

As expected, no survivors appeared.

Instead, the sleeping zombies awoke with growls and charged at them.

Mo Haein suppressed the urge to join them in attacking Kwak Hanmuk as well and drew the Black Moon Blade.

“……”

Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her palm.

The Black Moon Blade was beginning to reject its owner.

She could still use it.

But at the rate the infection was progressing, she probably wouldn’t even be able to hold it by the next day.

Feeling the weapon reject the person she was becoming, Mo Haein smiled bitterly.

Fortunately, there weren’t many Dead Zombies on the fifth floor.

They eliminated them quickly.

Just as they finished off the last one.

The silence of the hallway was broken by the sound of a security door opening.

Two men appeared.

With a notification sound, a system window appeared.

◆ Main Quest: Explore the laboratory.

Find the survivors and locate the vaccine developer. (3/4)

They were surviving researchers.

Including the female researcher they had already found, that made three.

One was still missing.

The two men appeared to be in their early fifties and mid-forties, respectively.

‘They don’t match the vaccine researcher’s age.’

Thinking they would have to check the third floor, Mo Haein sheathed the Black Moon Blade.

The researchers looked around the hallway filled with zombie corpses as they trembled.

The moment they saw Kwak Hanmuk, their faces lit up.

“F-Finally!”

Believing the soldiers had come to rescue them, they rushed forward like rats.

Kwak Hanmuk raised a hand to stop them.

“Hey, hey, gentlemen. Hold on a second.”

Then he nodded toward them.

“First, I want to see your IDs. Take them out.”

The two men hurriedly searched their pockets and showed their identification cards.

Tak Jucheol

Paeng Sangdo

The older one was Tak, and the other was Paeng.

While both of them smiled, convinced they were finally safe, Kwak Hanmuk narrowed his eyes.

He carefully examined their IDs before looking at Mo Haein.

“The vaccine researcher isn’t here.”

“Do you really need to see the name to figure that out? They said he was in his twenties.”

“Huh, maybe he just looks older.”

Faced with Kwak Hanmuk’s impeccable logic, Mo Haein took a deep breath.

She had the feeling that simply getting angry made the zombification progress faster.

“Th-The vaccine!? Are you talking about the vaccine?”

After reading the situation, Paeng Sangdo immediately spoke up.

He seemed to have realized that these soldiers hadn’t simply come to rescue survivors.

“The team leader and I are developing the vaccine together! We can finish it, but we’re missing materials…”

He hurriedly tried to prove his usefulness.

Kwak Hanmuk nodded absentmindedly.

“And the other researchers?”

“Only the two of us survived…”

“There were two others, weren’t there, gentlemen?”

Kwak Hanmuk slammed the steel pipe hard against the wall.

“So don’t waste my time.”

The pipe was so drenched in blood that its original color was no longer recognizable.

Paeng Sangdo and Tak Jucheol exchanged glances.

Tak Jucheol cleared his throat before speaking.

“As you said, there were two others. But those kids…”

“Didn’t anyone teach you to speak respectfully?”

“…There were two other researchers.”

His face reddening, Tak Jucheol quickly corrected himself.

Seeing Kwak Hanmuk’s terrible personality directed at someone else, Mo Haein felt a small sense of satisfaction and waited for him to continue.

“But since they didn’t share our opinion, they left the laboratory.”

“The two of us are enough to develop the vaccine! We can even show you our progress!”

Paeng Sangdo desperately tried to convince Kwak Hanmuk.

It was then that Tak Jucheol finally noticed Mo Haein standing behind him.

“Aaaaaah!!! A zombie, a zombie!!”

Hearing the scream, Paeng Sangdo completely lost his composure as well.

Both men collapsed to the floor in panic.

Mo Haein spoke calmly.

“I’m a soldier too.”

But it was no use.

Tak Jucheol pointed at her while spitting out words filled with fear.

“The zombification has already begun! In a couple of days you’ll be a zombie! We’re researching a vaccine, not a cure!”

After shouting that, the two men practically rolled their way back to the laboratory.

The door was a security bulkhead that could only be opened with an ID card.

Since it was designed to contain viruses, they couldn’t force it open.

Clicking his tongue, Kwak Hanmuk reached a simple conclusion.

“Let’s go to the third floor.”

However, things didn’t go as smoothly as they had hoped.

They entered the third floor, eliminated the zombies, and searched the entire area.

But they couldn’t find the last researcher.

“Could it be that he died…?”

Mo Haein couldn’t hide her anxiety.

As he opened the last door, Kwak Hanmuk clicked his tongue as well.

“Let’s go back to the fifth. Maybe he’s with Goyo and Lieutenant Colonel Je.”

Quite a bit of time had already passed.

It would be best to regroup first.

But when they returned to the fifth floor,

Mo Haein witnessed a completely absurd scene.

“Aaaaaah!!”

“Uuaaaagh!!”

Tak Jucheol and Paeng Sangdo writhed on the floor, drooling uncontrollably.

Each of them was being held in one of Je Hyuno’s hands.