Zombie Apocalypse Whiteout - 25
EP25 Negotiation (3)
Swish!
As the cap and netting were yanked off, the springy hair hidden beneath came tumbling down over the female officer’s face and shoulders, swaying with a silken shimmer.
“What the? How dare you…!”
The officer snapped her head around, eyes wide in shock. And she wasn’t the only one stunned.
“Did he say she’s Chairman Hwang’s daughter…?”
Yu-bin’s wide eyes weren’t on her face, but on her hair. That sleek, dark-brown shine… far too refined for a soldier. It looked more like something out of a luxury salon than a military barracks.
If she really was the daughter of the chairman of Taeyang Group, then the strange tension among the aides when the sheriff slammed the table earlier suddenly made a lot more sense.
But then… why would the daughter of Taeyang Group’s chairman be here?
And more importantly, where the hell was Lieutenant General Park?
Wait a second… wasn’t there a rumor about Chairman Hwang’s daughter? What was it again?
As Yu-bin’s thoughts tangled in a flurry, the two aides flanking the woman suddenly shot up and shoved Min-gu back.
“You bastard! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
But Min-gu didn’t flinch. Dodging their hands with ease, he grabbed the officer by the chin and turned her face toward him.
“Knew it.”
He stared directly into her eyes and gave a firm nod. The woman trembled with fury and raised her voice.
“Don’t touch me! Let go!”
“Hey, asshole! Move your hand, now!”
The aides lunged at Min-gu.
Slide!
At the same time, the man seated to Lieutenant General Park’s right rose slightly from his chair, reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket.
“You trying to get cute, huh?!”
But the sheriff, who had already moved in close, grabbed the man’s elbow and shoulder and slammed him down onto the table.
Thud!
The man’s face bounced off the tabletop under the sheriff’s overwhelming strength, unable to resist. As the sheriff twisted the man's arm behind his back, a pistol he’d been about to draw clattered to the floor.
Clack!
With a flick of his heel, the sheriff kicked the pistol across the floor toward Yu-bin and drove the man’s shoulder down hard once more.
Crack!
There was a gruesome pop from the man’s joint, and then the sheriff delivered a brutal kick to the back of his knee.
“Aagh!”
The man, his face smeared with blood from a nosebleed, collapsed with a scream. Having neutralized his right shoulder and left knee, the sheriff let out a growl like a lion ready to kill.
“I told you not to reach for your damn gun! You want to die, you son of a bitch?!”
“Ghh…!”
Lieutenant General Park, seeing his aide go down in seconds, clenched his jaw and reached toward his leg.
But the sheriff was faster, leaping onto the table and launching a powerful kick.
Crack!
The sheriff’s boot flew across the table and smashed into Park’s face with bone-crunching force.
“Guh-huhk!”
Park’s head snapped back, blood exploding from his mouth. The sheriff followed up with a crushing blow to the temple and barked out…
“Hands on the table, you piece of shit!”
Thump!
Park collapsed like a felled tree, eyes rolling back. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to draw the gun stashed in his rations pouch.
“Kyahhh!”
The female officer screamed, covering her mouth as the chaos erupted right beside her.
And yet, even with panic in her voice, her eyes stayed locked on the close-range fight between Min-gu and her two aides.
Crack! Thwack!
Min-gu’s jabs, thrown with seemingly effortless precision, struck the aides in the philtrum and temples, making their large frames stagger with twisted grimaces.
Meanwhile, their punches and kicks grazed past Min-gu’s body like he was made of smoke, his movements fluid and untouchable.
“You bastard, do you even know who we are…?!”
The aide with a General’s insignia, knocked back against the railing by one of Min-gu’s kicks, reached behind his military parka.
Shhk!
A short, chilling sound rang out, just a whisper of a slice, and the General’s face instantly went pale with pain. Blood began to gush from beneath his arm where the kukri had cut deep.
“Ghhhaaaagh!”
The General, who had been reaching for a pistol tucked into the back of his uniform, collapsed to the ground screaming.
Min-gu didn’t even blink.
Slash! Slice!
With two more lightning-quick swings, Min-gu slashed the man’s forearm and the back of his hand, disabling the limb entirely. Then, spinning on his heel, he brought the blade up under the chin of the remaining aide, the one with a captain's insignia on his chest.
“You want to try next?”
Gulp.
The captain swallowed dryly and gave a shaky shake of his head. Slowly, he raised both hands over his head, abandoning whatever he'd been reaching for behind his back. His surrender was clear.
This speed, this precision, this mercilessness, it wasn’t something you could beat with brute force or courage. You could stake your life on it and still lose.
“Smart move. Hands on the back of your head. Kneel.”
Min-gu gave the command in a cold, level voice, his blade still pressed against the man’s throat.
Bzzzzt!
- Yu-bin, what the hell’s going on over there? Sounds like chaos.
Jin-woo’s voice crackled through Yu-bin’s earpiece. He pressed the transmitter and responded.
“A soldier… turned out to be a fake. Min-gu says that female officer… she’s Chairman Hwang’s daughter. Judging by how the others reacted, I think he’s right.”
- Damn…! Bzzzzt That’s wild…
Jin-woo sounded just as stunned. He might not have understood exactly what was happening, but it was clear from his tone that he wasn’t overly worried about Yu-bin’s immediate safety.
- Bzzzzt If things get dicey, signal me. I’ll keep bzzzzt monitoring from here.
“Got it,” Yu-bin replied briefly and ended the transmission.
“Ughhh…”
The General, bleeding profusely from his right arm, writhed on the floor in agony. The aide who’d been dislocated by the sheriff was still crumpled and groaning, his face twisted in pain.
But on the third floor of this floating café, no one spared them a second glance. No sympathy. Not even interest.
“Well, looks like things are under control now…”
The sheriff, having confiscated the remaining pistols from the downed men, jerked his chin toward the female officer.
“So who the hell is she? And what’s this all about?”
“Hahhh… haah…”
The woman was breathing hard, scanning the room with tense, darting eyes.
Yet even now, with all four of her companions neutralized, there wasn’t a single tear in her eyes.
“What’d you hear?” Min-gu asked. “Told you, Chairman Hwang’s daughter. Her name is…”
He paused, a cigarette between his lips as he dug through his memory.
“Right. Hwang… Na-yeon.”
“No! It’s not true! That’s not who I am!”
The woman suddenly shot up from her seat and slammed a hand on the table. “Look at my name tag! I’m Yoo So-jin! Major Yoo So-jin, Republic of Korea Army! Don’t you see this?!”
She flailed her uniform name patch, her voice shrill. Min-gu, without even glancing her way, lit his cigarette and nodded to himself.
“Yep. That tone, definitely her. I remember it.”
“What tone?! Don’t be ridiculous! Are you crazy? I told you, I’m Yoo So-jin, and the man you just knocked out is really Lieutenant General Park! You got the wrong people! You just assaulted a real army general, damn it!”
“You don’t recognize me?”
Blowing out a puff of smoke, Min-gu reached out and plucked the thick-rimmed glasses from her face.
Now that her eyes were visible, even Yu-bin felt a flicker of recognition. The thick makeup made it hard to be sure, but… he had seen her before. On the news. Something about a huge corporate collapse…
“You motherfucker! How the hell would I recognize your face? We’ve never met!”
“Two years ago, remember? That meeting with Chairman Yuk Man-bae. In Yongsan. Conference room.”
Min-gu tossed the glasses onto the table. At the mention of Yongsan, the woman flinched and bit her lower lip.
“Shit…”
Cursing under her breath, she crossed her arms stubbornly and glared at him.
“So what? What’s the point of this? We only came here to negotiate! We didn’t come to cause trouble! Dammit, what is wrong with you?!”
“That her, then?” the sheriff asked, turning to Yu-bin. “The one that guard called… something-witch?”
Then it clicked.
“…The Witch of Ruin.”
“Yeah, that was it, ‘Witch of Ruin.’ Doesn’t look the part, but damn, that’s a hell of a nickname.”
The sheriff looked her up and down with curiosity. Yu-bin, meanwhile, had a different question.
“Then where is the real Lieutenant General Park? And why are these people here instead?”
He glanced at the groaning guards on the floor. “They all look like her bodyguards.”
Min-gu gave his kukri a casual twirl in the air, then gripped it firmly again.
“Well… guess we’ll find out if we get them talking.”
From the way he said it, and the cold glint in his eyes, he was more than ready to start the questioning with a blade.
“Ughhh…”
The right-hand aide locked eyes with Min-gu, letting out a fearful groan. But with his shoulder and knee twisted and sprawled on the floor, there was no way he could run.
“See? That kind of talk isn’t necessary.”
The witch exhaled deeply, trying to calm her own fear, but her voice trembled as she pressed for negotiation again.
“This is a simple deal. Our needs are clear. You guys want bullets. Me? Blood. You just sell me the blood of the Final Level Evolution immunes you got from Terra, and I give you the bullets, done. Who supplies the ammo, what does that even matter?”
“No, it actually matters a lot.”
Yu-bin put the blood bag back into the cooler and shook his head slowly.
“We don’t deal with just anyone. Especially not with you…”
“Why? You don’t even know me! There’s no reason to hate me!”
Suppressing his anger, Yu-bin answered her calmly.
“I know what you did in Yongsan.”
Scenes from last summer flooded back vividly, when he went to save Terra and saw the Taeyang Group headquarters in Yongsan.
Where they fed living people to the zombified little chairman, tortured and abused innocent people, then turned them into zombies for experiments. Kyung-sun was captured and killed, Hye-ju’s other friends lost their lives too. They almost killed Terra as well, those crazy bastards… And the leader of those demons stood right before him now.
“You caught people, killed them like that, and shamelessly crawled back out? Are you brainless, or just balls that big?”
The sheriff’s tone grew harsher, but the witch held her ground brazenly.
“I didn’t do it! Don’t misunderstand.”
“Don’t ‘didn’t do it’ me, you little bitch! You gave the orders, and those bastards spilled everything!”
Angered, the sheriff grabbed her arm, raising his voice. She grimaced and screamed.
“Ouch! Stop it! It hurts! Let go! Let go!”
“Let go? Are you crazy? You let people get torn apart by zombies! Don’t you owe those you killed any apology? Don’t even talk like that!”
“I have nothing to do with those illegal experiments at the Yongsan headquarters! I was the one trying to stop it! Ah! Ah! Stop! Let me go!”
“Then who gave the orders? The zombified little chairman? He doesn’t look like the kind to be spouting excuses.”
The sheriff tightened his grip on her wrist. She slapped his hand away and glared.
“You idiot! I’m not a bad person! That’s all lies spread by people trying to kill me! It’s my father! The one holding the top! He’s the problem! I don’t have that kind of power to begin with!”
“Bullshit. A powerless girl doesn’t come flying in on a helicopter with four bodyguards. Stop spewing nonsense.”
“Agh! I’m just doing what the boss says! I had no choice but to come because of orders! Why else would I come to a terrible place crawling with zombies? Team leader! Help! Say something!”
She turned to the kneeling aide, pleading desperately. But Min-gu cut him off immediately.
“Shut your mouth.”
With the kukri’s blade flickering right before his eyes, the aide snapped shut. The witch gave up on getting help from him and came up with another excuse.
“Sigh… You don’t have the right to decide. Don’t make mistakes. Contact your boss, General Kim. I can promise to support him.”
“You just said you have no authority, but you’re making promises now?”
Yu-bin jumped in, hitting her where it hurt, and the witch suddenly switched to playing the helpless woman.
“Please! You big guys all ganging up on a powerless woman to torture and kill? That’s not fair! Aah! Hey, little man! You!”
She pointed at Yu-bin and gave the sheriff a tearful look, acting the part.
“Stop this big guy! You’re not such a savage! Don’t you feel sorry for me? We don’t even have any personal feelings between us!”
“No personal feelings?”
Yu-bin raised his gloved prosthetic hand and asked her coldly,
“Do you know why my hand’s like this?”