Chapter 77

43. Dilemma (4)

We rode in a truck.

In the cargo area, besides me and Baek Seunghyun, there were three more hunters.

Fang Jae-hyuk from the 15th batch, who had injured his knee, Ha Tae-hoon from the 11th batch, who refused to be called a senior, and Cheon Yeong-jae from the 18th batch, who joined us along the way.

They were silent and showed no intention of speaking.

I, too, had nothing particular to say, so I watched the slowly passing cityscape.

On the streets, where the pre-war splendor and post-war decay were intertwined, people who looked like corpses gathered in groups and watched the passing truck with soulless eyes.

Their nutritional condition was poor.

It was not uncommon to see people so emaciated that their bones were visible through their skin.

"There are a lot of people."

I finally managed to speak.

Baek Seunghyun, who was checking his firearm beside me, glanced at the passing people and then turned his gaze back to his weapon.

"They're just barely clinging to life."

When Baek Seunghyun spoke, a friend named Fang Jae-hyuk, who had been silent, snorted and spoke.

"Ever since the upper echelons fled to Jeju Island, the Seoul area has just become a feeding ground."

He was checking a large-caliber rifle like Baek Seunghyun's.

On the stock, there were kill marks indicating the number of mutations he had killed, which, at a glance, seemed to exceed a hundred.

It's quite impressive.

To achieve such results despite having a prosthetic leg made of steel on one knee.

He must be a highly skilled marksman.

But his heart seemed as twisted as his injured leg.

"In some fish farms, when a fish dies, they grind it up and feed it to the other fish. Maybe that's what's happening here?"

The way he spouted this horrific hypothesis without even thinking about it was disturbing.

"Even in a time when morality has hit rock bottom, would the government really do something like that?"

Ha Tae-hoon, who had been listening silently, finally spoke.

He was holding a unique weapon.

A blader, a close-range weapon that fires multiple blades.

It was designed to be safe from the detonation abilities of monsters by using a separation charge and could spray sharp blades the size of daggers like a shotgun, making it effective against medium-sized monsters. However, in actual combat, it showed weak penetration and became a problematic leftover.

According to those who had used it, it was quite good against zombies.

"Even in the era of moral decay, would the government really do something like that?"

Click.

He checked the blades of the blader, which protruded like a beast's claws, and added.

"There's a factory, they say."

Fang Jae-hyuk muttered without looking at him.

"Did you see that on PaleNet? Ninety percent of the information there is just rumors and lies. No need to listen to it."

Ha Tae-hoon put down the blader and took out a dagger, spinning it skillfully.

"How many lies were there about the guy we're trying to catch?"

Hearing their conversation, I asked Baek Seunghyun.

"What kind of guy is it? Any special precautions?"

A deep shadow fell over Baek Seunghyun's face.

"A monster that has devoured three hunter teams."

The monster's name, like the mutations I knew, was derived from its color.

Red.

That is the name of the monster I have to kill.

It's hard to believe, but this monster is said to possess the detection ability that some Awakened have, and through this ability, it can know the position and movements of its opponents without even seeing them.

"At least there are no reports of it causing disturbances. So, it's below level 5."

"Is that so? Is this the right direction?"

There's something Baek Seunghyun hasn't told me about Red.

Red's territory.

The area where Red lives is a zombie zone.

As we entered the street, the chorus of zombies greeted us.

"Has this area also become a zombie zone?"

As far as I knew, it was an area where people lived.

It seems that was a thing of the past.

"During the civil war and winter, so many people died. They turned into zombies."

A moment later, the truck driver hit the brakes.

"I'll wait here, so go ahead and come back."

The three of us—me, Baek Seunghyun, and Cheon Yeong-jae, who hadn't spoken—were going into battle.

Fang Jae-hyuk and Ha Tae-hoon were not coming with us.

Their job was to guard the truck and support our retreat.

As if they knew we had arrived, the pitch of the zombies' cries changed.

They were probably waking up their sleeping comrades.

"This is more complicated than I imagined."

I glared at Baek Seunghyun, half in earnest.

Baek Seunghyun looked at me but quickly averted his gaze.

"I'm sorry. I should have told you earlier."

If he had given a lame excuse, I would have said something, but since he was honest, I decided not to criticize him further.

We had come this far, and returning empty-handed wouldn't look good.

"Is that the building?"

I pointed to Red's base, which I had seen on my phone.

It was a dome-shaped baseball stadium, half-collapsed.

I don't like baseball, but it's definitely the home stadium of a professional baseball team.

Otherwise, there wouldn't be a mascot statue with peeling paint and a severed head at the entrance.

At the site of the collapsed dome, steel structures protruded like a human skull, dyed a disturbing blood red.

Though rusted and reddened, at first glance, it looked as if the building's bones were jutting out, a chilling visual.

"We have to accomplish two things. Kill the monster, secure the body, and escape safely."

Baek Seunghyun looked behind us.

Around the truck, the freshmen were setting up barricades.

"But no one has even broken through the first stage."

The dome-shaped stadium caught our attention, but the battlefield was not in our favor.

There were many ruins to hide and take cover behind, and tall buildings that apes like to climb surrounded the dome stadium.

If the monster decided to run, there would be almost no way to chase it.

As I surveyed the surroundings, I suddenly asked Baek Seunghyun.

"Isn't it three things?"

Baek Seunghyun had simplified it to two, but in fact, this mission was a combination of three tasks.

One was to kill the mutation.

Another was to kill the mutation and escape.

And the last was to secure the body of the killed mutation.

The difficulty of the mission increases exponentially with each additional condition.

This mission is no different.

Securing the body of the mutation.

This is likely the condition that makes this mission impossible.

Baek Seunghyun nodded with a dark expression.

"......Yes."

He hesitated for a moment.

He probably felt the urge to lie, but his rationality, which knew that lying to me wouldn't work, suppressed that urge.

"I see."

The monster's greatest weapon was its value.

Its value, combined with the variable of the zombie zone, which it probably couldn't have imagined, created an impregnable fortress that even experienced hunters struggled with.

In other words, even if we could kill Red, failing to secure the body would mean mission failure.

To kill the monster and recover its body, the hunters would be forced into mid-range close combat.

Against a monster with detection abilities, as intelligent and agile as a human.

"The pattern it enjoys is grabbing a person's leg, leaping up, and throwing them to the ground."

"Is that so?"

"I knew a guy who was caught like that. Dragged by the ankle and fell from the tenth floor upside down."

"Wow."

At that moment, Cheon Yeong-jae, who had been silent, spoke for the first time.

"That chimp. There's a rumor that it rapes women it catches."

18th batch.

Along with the 17th batch, a cursed batch.

Probably similar to the Defenders' batch.

A generation whose lives were ruined and twisted before they even became hunters.

A scar from a knife was etched on his cheek.

"Do we really need to recover the body of such a monster?"

His eyes were as ominous as his life story.

Even Baek Seunghyun, a senior like the sky to him, seemed unable to control him.

"Calm down, Yeong-jae. You know the captain's personality, right?"

Baek Seunghyun's attempt to appease him showed his weakness.

Cheon Yeong-jae's razor-sharp gaze landed on me.

"I heard you're Kim Darum's direct subordinate."

I just nodded.

"......What I heard from Kim Darum is different. He said his senior is a heartless person who abandons dying comrades."

"Shouldn't you have picked a fight earlier?"

I said, not wanting to waste time in the zombie area.

Cheon Yeong-jae smiled.

"No, I'm not picking a fight. I just like his style."

Cheon Yeong-jae glared at the freshmen setting up barricades with contempt.

"It's because of these half-baked people that we're being pushed back by the Awakened monsters."

"You're surprisingly talkative."

"Consider it a mental warm-up to relax."

Cheon Yeong-jae laughed slyly.

His unpredictable values and erratic behavior reminded me of the Defenders in some way.

Cheon Yeong-jae looked at Baek Seunghyun.

"Does the monster have detection abilities?"

Baek Seunghyun nodded.

"Then I'll be the bait."

Cheon Yeong-jae discarded his weapons.

A rifle and a pistol.

In his hand was only a machete called a jungle knife.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?"

I asked, worried.

Even in a zombie zone, shouldn't he at least have a pistol?

Cheon Yeong-jae showed three fingers.

"Have you never heard of the three-shot rule?"

"The three-shot rule?"

"The rule that zombies gather when they hear three gunshots."

"No way."

"It's true. When the first shot is heard, the zombies wake up. When the second shot is heard, they become alert. When the third shot is heard, they realize someone is there and gather at the source of the sound."

"Since when has this rule existed?"

I asked, incredulous.

"Recently."

Cheon Yeong-jae met Baek Seunghyun's eyes.

Seeing Baek Seunghyun's serious expression, it seemed the three-shot rule was common knowledge here.

Not wanting to argue, I remained silent as Cheon Yeong-jae stepped forward.

"I'll give the signal. Please attack then, Senior Baek."

As he passed me, Cheon Yeong-jae looked at me.

His gaze, filled with a strange smile, was challenging or confident, I couldn't tell.

The important thing was that the cursed 18th batch had taken on the most dangerous role.

Click.

Our weapon was the 21st-style large-caliber hunter rifle that Baek Seunghyun possessed.

It sounds impressive, but it's a bolt-action rifle that uses 12.7mm 50-caliber machine gun rounds.

In other words, it's a crude variation of an existing weapon modified for its purpose.

Developed to fight monsters, it eventually became a specialized weapon for hunting mutations, outperformed by more efficient weapons.

However, it's an excellent weapon for hunting mutations because it can deliver a fatal blow with each shot against mutations that 5.56mm rounds struggle to penetrate.

The fact that an excellent marksman with such a powerful weapon couldn't handle a single chimp must be due to the condition of recovering the body.

The situation was that complicated.

Thanks to the new friend, Cheon Yeong-jae, I, Park Gyu, had suddenly become redundant.

Originally, the role of the bait was mine.

My plan was to be the bait while Baek Seunghyun shot and killed the monster.

It's good that I'm not taking on the dangerous task, but why do I feel uneasy?

"......Can I not go?"

It might be inevitable.

Since the team leader days, I've always taken on dangerous tasks.

So, when other team members took on dangerous roles, I felt an unconscious sense of unease.

I've seen a few team members die in my place.

Even though I've been retired for quite a while, the same unease resurfaces, indicating a kind of occupational disease.

The disease that I'm the only one who can do it.

"He's fine. That kid. He can die. He's really disrespectful."

Baek Seunghyun revealed his true thoughts after Cheon Yeong-jae had walked quite far ahead.

"His skills are honestly top-notch, but his temper....... Given his level of skill, the fact that Kim Darum didn't take him means he has serious character