“…Gruhh.”
The zombified Model Student staggered into the warehouse.
Just as Ghost gripped the hilt of her sword, Jae-hee clumsily crouched into a runner’s stance, and the Patissier opened his mouth to scream—
“W-wait!” Zombie Model Student yelled, his voice a ragged plea. “Don’t attack! I know how this looks, but I’m still sane!”
“…?”
A zombie was speaking.
Jae-hee and the Patissier could only stare.
Beneath her fall of white hair, Ghost’s eyes narrowed as she finished drawing her sword.
Model Student waved his one remaining hand at her frantically. “Listen, Ghost. You know what my ability is, right? ‘Hot Heart, Cold Head’!”
“And? It’s a run-of-the-mill ability. Minor physical boost, minor mental one.”
“I thought it was pathetic too. But since I’ve managed to stay sane even like this, I guess it’s more useful than I gave it credit for.”
Listening in, Jae-hee covered his mouth and let out a little “ooh.”
“Bro… so that ability is why you’re still lucid, even as a zombie?”
“Right. It’s an ability that lets me maintain my reason in any extreme situation. I just never imagined ‘extreme situation’ would include this.”
Model Student spoke with remarkable fluency for a zombie, though his words were punctuated by groans and his pronunciation was slurred.
“Fine. I’ll admit it. My body is already infected. I’m moving despite injuries that would have killed any human long ago.”
“…”
“But my mind is clear. Have you ever heard a zombie speak this well?”
Ghost, however, snorted and kept her sword aimed. “Cut the crap. What guarantee do I have that you won’t just get close and try to bite me? How do I know you’re not some new strain of variant?”
“Goddammit, a cure is why I crawled all this way!” Model Student seethed. “To find the Patissier and get the cure! I’m still rational—there has to be a chance I can turn back!”
Ghost delivered the cold truth. “This man is the Patissier, but there’s no such thing as a zombie cure.”
“What?”
“He is exactly what his name implies: a patissier. A baker. Heard he came to Daejeon for a baking recipe. He has nothing to do with a cure.”
“What does that…” Model Student turned to Jae-hee, his face a mask of devastation. “Kid, is that true?”
Jae-hee couldn’t meet his gaze and stared at the floor. “Yes, bro… This man’s a real baker. He has nothing to do with a cure.”
“No, it can’t be. Then I… am I really… just going to stay like this…?”
Just as a despairing groan escaped his lips—
“E-excuse me!”
The Patissier, who had been hiding behind Jae-hee and watching the scene unfold, timidly raised a plump hand.
“It’s not me, but… there are people researching a zombie cure, you know?”
“What did you say?”
“The people at the Public Health Center. That’s why they were in Daejeon in the first place…”
He meant the survivors underground at Daejeon Station—the people he’d been in contact with. They were from the Public Health Center, the ones actually researching a cure.
The color flooded back into Model Student’s face.
Woah. So a zombie’s face can actually light up, Jae-hee thought. He kept the observation to himself; it felt rude.
“We have to go rescue them right now!” Model Student declared after hearing about the situation at the station.
Ghost clicked her tongue, apathetic. “I refuse. If you’re going, go alone.”
“Goddammit, help me out here, Ghost!” Model Student pleaded. “The Gate has only just started opening, and we even have a Speedster. We can definitely close it!”
Jae-hee’s eyes widened. Was there a connection between his super-speed and closing Gates?
Ghost snorted. “So? It’s not our mission. You want me to waltz into that zombie hell and risk my life doing a little sword dance? Why the hell should I?”
“It’s about saving people!” Model Student clenched his blood-soaked fist. “I’ve heard about your past, Ghost. Weren’t you an incredible Hunter once? You saved countless lives.”
“…”
“I might be a mess now, but I was a Hunter once too…” Model Student looked down at his own wretched state and let out a hollow laugh. “Dammit. We were all heroes once, heroes who protected the world.”
“For a convict, you run your mouth,” Ghost scoffed, her voice bleak. “You really think a zombie can go back to being human just because we find a cure?”
The tip of Ghost’s sword tapped the explosive collar around Model Student’s neck.
“You think we can go from convicts back to heroes just because we close a Gate and save some people?”
Ghost glared over at the Patissier.
“You think baking some damn Fried Soboro Bread and taking a trip down memory lane will bring back the world from thirty years ago?”
Zombies can’t go back to being human.
Convicts can’t go back to being heroes.
The world can’t go back to the way it was.
“This is reality. Everything we’re doing here is a waste of time.”
“…”
“Hunter? Yeah, I was one of those precious heroes once. I swung a sword my whole life, supposedly to protect the world. And for what? What the hell ever changed?” Ghost shook her head. “Look around. In the end, this whole world is just slowly withering away.”
From all around them, the cries of the living dead echoed. Standing at the edge of a city turned to hell, Ghost snarled, her voice a dry, murderous rasp.
“So why should I throw my life away and dance with my blade again for some futile hope that’s bound to turn to dust?”
As she finished, a dusty silence settled over them.
And then…
“…Even if the world is just going to wither away.” Jae-hee, who had been fidgeting and stealing glances, finally spoke up. “Still… we can’t just sit around and wait to die, can we?”
Ghost’s brow furrowed as she turned to him. “Excuse me?”
At her piercing blue gaze, Jae-hee shrank back, his eyes darting away.
But his mouth kept moving.
“I-I don’t know what the world was like thirty years ago, and I don’t have any good old days to go back to… but I think I get why people would miss Fried Soboro Bread.”
Jae-hee looked at the zombies in their scattered chef’s uniforms—people who had died trying to reclaim a memory of the world before it broke.
“Everyone knows the world is fucked. Who doesn’t see that everything gets a little bit worse every single day?”
“…”
“Prices are insane, the weather keeps getting more extreme, and all you hear about is death and war. This city was finished a long time ago, and the rest of the world will be soon enough. I know that. I do! But…”
Jae-hee finally met Ghost’s eyes and managed a clumsy smile. “But we still have to live.”
Holding her lonely, piercing gaze, Jae-hee forced his trembling lips into a smile.
“It’s a shitty world, but what can you do? You still gotta live. Just gotta clench your ass and…”
The zombie. The convicts. The broken world itself.
None of it was quite gone yet.
“We don’t got a choice. We have to live.”
“…”
“If it gives us a reason to keep going, don’t we need it? Whether it’s a trip down memory lane or just futile hope…?”
Having said his piece, Jae-hee broke into a cold sweat and meekly lowered his gaze.
“…Or not.”
Ghost stared at Jae-hee—at this boy, decades younger than her, who had lived his entire life in the postwar era. She studied the kid who had been born in hell but had not yet been worn down by it.
And in the short, awkward silence that followed…
KRA-KOOOOM—!
A terrifying roar echoed from outside.
Startled, they all scrambled to the window. The warehouse was on the top floor of the department store, offering a clear view of the city.
“The hell?!”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s coming from Daejeon Station! Over there!”
The Patissier, who knew the local geography, pointed a chubby finger.
In the distance stood Daejeon Station. A sinister, violet Gate was tearing open in the center of the ruined building. It had just finished deploying, its explosive arrival leveling the immediate area.
“GRAAAAAAAH—!”
Standing sentinel before the Gate was a monster, letting out a horrific roar.
Its body was abnormally swollen and muscular, with long red spears protruding from its flesh. A giant zombie with red dreadlocks dangling from its half-severed neck.
“That thing… no way,” Ghost gasped. “Miss Hellth? She’s a zombie too?!”
“GRAAAAAAAARGH—!”
The zombified Miss Hellth let out another fearsome roar, and the resulting shock wave shook the area. Even at this distance, the windows of the department store cracked from the force.
Jae-hee, cowering with his hands over his head, let out a little “wow~”
“I heard it was bad when an Awakened becomes a zombie… guess it’s true, huh? She’s really… bulked up,” he remarked.
“A simple zombie bite wouldn’t do that,” Ghost clicked her tongue. “After she turned, the Gate chose her.”
“Sorry what?”
“She’s become the Gate’s guardian—the ‘Boss Monster.’”
Jae-hee blinked in confusion. So she’s the boss of the local zombies now? Something like that?
Ghost pressed a hand to her forehead, a headache already forming. “Dammit. I don’t care if a Black Parade agent dies a dog’s death, but I can’t let one run around after turning into a Boss Monster.”
Ghost was the insurance policy the Commander had placed on this mission. The cleaner. Now that Miss Hellth wasn’t just a zombie but a Boss Monster, Ghost had to eliminate her and destroy the evidence.
“So this falls on me again, huh…”
She looked back at the others and let out a long, reluctant sigh.
“…Fine. We’ll take care of it while we’re at it. Let’s close the Gate.”
Model Student, the Patissier, and Jae-hee cheered and threw their arms around each other, then immediately recoiled. They weren’t that close.
A dry laugh escaped Ghost as she watched the little farce. Her piercing blue eyes shot toward Jae-hee.
“Model Student wants his zombie cure, the Bread-freak wants to rescue his friends, and I have to destroy the evidence of that moron Miss Hellth. Our objectives happen to line up. But you, kiddy boy, you’re just caught up in all this.”
The Patissier—now dubbed “Bread-freak”—gaped, but Ghost ignored him and pointed a finger at Jae-hee.
“Still, you ran your mouth, so you’re paying the price. You’re coming with us.”
Jae-hee felt a pang of indignation. Had he really run his mouth?
“We will now commence an operation to close the new Gate in Daejeon City—an operation that won’t earn us a single Paradise Credit,” Ghost said, clicking her tongue as she surveyed the countless zombies swarming around Daejeon Station.
“First, we need to figure out how to get through that zombie farm without getting killed.”
Model Student nodded. “We’ll need to draw the horde’s attention. They’re drawn to sight and sound, so we need a loud distraction…”
Loud. Distraction.
Jae-hee let out a small “Ah!” and raised his hand. “Uh, excuse me.”
As everyone turned to him, Jae-hee fumbled in his back pocket and pulled something out.
“This… it’s a memento from my gramps.”
With a wistful expression, Jae-hee presented none other than the cassette player that had belonged to the old safecracker, Key-maker.
“Do you think we could use this?”
And inside it, his trot music tape.