Chapter 68

EP 12 - Those Who Bear the Burden (6)

We only realize the value of what we cherish after we lose it, and we only recognize our mistakes after they happen.

Biansozheng was lying on the floor, her limbs bound with blue tape. Yedoyeon gently stroked her mother's face.

Carrying the trauma of a poor childhood, Biansozheng, the lawyer who had been obsessed with pretending to have more than she did, bit her daughter's fingers greedily.

She bit so hard that her jaw muscles trembled. However, her fingers were as hard as steel. Crack. The sound of her teeth grinding was heard.

Yedoyeon, sobbing, pleaded with her mother.

"......Don't bite, please."

"Grunt! Grunt...!"

"Don't...! Don't bite! You'll hurt your teeth...!"

Yedoyeon felt nothing but resentment.

Her mother, who was drooling and biting her hand,

Her darkened eyes,

Her father, who was growling on the floor beside her,

And her own fingers, which remained unscathed despite being chewed on.

"Ah, ah...!"

Feeling utterly miserable, Yedoyeon let out a wretched scream.

"Ah! Ahh!"

Just as she was tearing her hair out,

"......Sister."

Seojinwoon, who had shared life and death in Namyangju, called out to Yedoyeon cautiously. Yedoyeon looked at the boy with a half-dazed expression.

"......If there's one last chance, what would you do?"

* * *

When Hanseungmun and his group had just defeated the Black Mountain Goat.

"......What did you say?"

The Namyangju camp was divided into three major factions.

"There was someone I met when I was organizing the Dongdaemun camp. They stayed in Seoul to continue research after everyone else had left......"

"Get to the point."

"I saw a person who had been transformed into a monster being restored."

"......What?"

"Maybe the infected can be cured too?"

A group of Seoul escapees led by high school student Seojinwoon, a swordsman.

"Then what do you plan to do?"

"I'm going."

"It's barely under control! Going back to Seoul now is absolutely out of the question!"

A group of North Korean defectors led by teleporter Leecheoljin.

"......I'm sorry, but I'm going."

Leecheoljin shouted at Seojinwoon and Yedoyeon.

"Seoul is a hellhole! I'm not the only one who can use the teleportation technique. How do you plan to get to Seoul!"

Seojinwoon replied.

"On foot."

*

Seojinwoon was an ordinary high school student before the Gate opened.

He was one of the first Awakened and became the leader of hundreds of people after the principal died, taking over the school.

Although the number of people under his command had dwindled from hundreds to dozens over half a year, the important thing was that Seojinwoon had survived in the heart of Seoul for half a year and saved dozens of people, including unruly students and rebellious teachers.

Thus, despite being just 20 years old, Seojinwoon had dealt with a lot of people, both physically and emotionally.

However, the person he met about a month after the Gate opened was the most peculiar person he knew, both physically and emotionally.

"Damn freaks!"

A person in a white gown grinned, opening the mouth on his right cheek.

A snake-like tongue slithered down to his collarbone and back.

"Ahaha...! Hey! Seojinwoon! Did you think that, just because I turned an experimental subject back into a human, I could cure a completely new zombie?"

"Yes."

"You know well, kid. Are your neurons still fresh?"

He was a person who had fled to Seoul after hearing about Cha Jaegeun's suicide, someone who felt threatened by Cha Jaegeun's death.

To put it more bluntly, he was a researcher who had participated in biological experiments.

His name was Doseojun, but because he was a Ph.D. and not a master's or bachelor's, everyone called him the Gambler.

"Right. The vaccine."

Therefore, he also knew the cure for the epidemic. Yedoyeon stared blankly at the spray-type vaccine on her hand.

"......"

"Miss, are you unhappy?"

"......"

She had walked here with the last hope, knowing it might not work, but the problem was solved in less than 45 seconds, leaving her speechless. However, Yedoyeon did not bother to explain.

"......Can't you take a joke? Why are you glaring at me like that?"

"......Thank you."

"Wow, you're polite. You're welcome, man."

"......"

"I tend to talk a lot because my face muscles don't move, and it causes constant headaches. I'm sadly destined to live with my mouth open even when I'm alone. So, please don't look at me with that annoying expression."

"......Yes."

"Hey, why are you staring at me like that? Hey! Jinwoon! Take this lady back home quickly! And your friends too!"

Seojinwoon suddenly asked.

"......Sir, aren't you going to escape from Seoul?"

"Why would I leave Seoul? I'm already half a monster. And I have a lot of sins, so it's hard for me to mix with people. I used to be a civil servant, you know? The problem is that the person who was looking out for me is dead. Is he still alive? Do you know a section chief named Jang? Yeah. You probably don't know the National Intelligence Service. Anyway, I'm not leaving Seoul."

"Is it because the research isn't finished yet?"

"No, the research is already done."

Yedoyeon asked casually.

"What kind of research?"

That was the root of the problem.

"How to close the Gate."

*

"Awakened can enter the Gate? There's a huge thing inside. I call it the Queen. It looks different in each Gate, but it produces monsters. To be precise, it produces a lump of flesh that becomes a monster. If you kill and destroy that thing, you can close the Gate."

They experimented with a nearby small Gate.

"......Isn't that a building?"

"Even if it looks like a building made of flesh, it's a huge living organism. When we threw a Molotov cocktail, it got up on all fours and ran away."

"Did you try it yourself?"

"Of course, I did."

"How did you bring the Molotov cocktail?"

"I put it in my esophagus."

"......"

"Ugh. Look at this. After I removed my face, I can put my elbow in my mouth."

Seojinwoon cut the Queen monster into pieces, Yedoyeon crushed it, and Seojinwoon's gang attacked it with all kinds of weapons.

It took a few hours because it kept regenerating, but Seojinwoon absorbed the mana stone of the Queen monster with his sword, and the Gambler threw his invention into the air like a grenade.

"Look. When you do this, the mana stone reaction inside the Gate disappears. The space inside is maintained by magic, so it needs a core. Therefore, the mana stone is created in the air to form a new core, and a new Queen monster appears. However, if you throw a fake bait into the core, it is treated as an impurity. This disrupts the mana stone creation, causing a breakdown in the coordinate axis. This distorts one side, and the space coordinates become distorted. When the space is naturally destroyed, the internal structure is torn apart, and the input and output coordinates of the passage connecting both sides become skewed, so naturally......"

The Gate disappeared.

"Ta-da!"

*

"So, in the end, what's beyond the Gate is the home of individual Queen monsters. When the Queen gives birth and the house gets full, the monsters are pushed out through the door. When the house is so crowded that it's about to burst, the monsters come out in a rush, which is the Gate surge."

The Gambler stuffed his face with rice and spam.

"It tastes great when it's mixed in my stomach. Anyway, if the Queen monster doesn't die, the Gate will keep producing monsters. Over time, the Gate surges periodically."

"......"

"Hmm. I don't know much about the inside of the Gate. They may look like stupid beasts, but they have dimensional travel technology. There must be something more, or maybe not!"

It seemed that the Gambler's claim about his headaches from not moving his face muscles was true, as he kept talking even as Seojinwoon and Yedoyeon left.

"Anyway, I'll keep researching the Gate. I feel like my body is gradually being taken over by monster cells, but it doesn't seem to be a serious health issue! The super-large Gate in Seoul seems to be showing signs of surging soon! Anyway, there's a lot of research to do!"

Seojinwoon, who had been leading the camp for half a year after the Gate incident, froze as he left the Gambler's lab.

He slowly turned his head.

"......What did you just say?"

Leading the camp with only superhumans would have been easy, but he had stayed to protect the civilians, his friends.

However, he had led a group of superhumans to escape in the direction of Namyangju because of the overwhelming number of monsters surging from the center of Seoul.

When the siege of Seoul collapsed, they had no one left to protect and fled without hesitation.

They were here because of the Seoul Gate surge during the Yeongju incident, which had caused them to lose all the civilians they had protected for half a year, including their teachers and friends.

"Umm?"

"......What did you just say?"

Seojinwoon couldn't ignore the Gambler's words.

Partly because of his tendency to be overly concerned.

"Uh? That there's a lot of research left to do? Or that the Seoul Gate is about to surge? Or that I'm gradually turning into a monster?"

"The second one."

"Ah. Well, I've been observing the periodic emergence of monsters from the Seoul Gate. After the Black Mountain Goat appeared in Yeongju, the number of monsters appearing per hour has gradually increased. After the last surge, the graph spiked. I think the Queen monster has evolved to the next level."

"......What?"

"Umm. According to my theory, the space inside the Gate doesn't expand. I've experimented with small Gates, so I don't think I'm wrong. However, the size of the monsters is getting bigger, and the frequency is increasing. But the expected cumulative amount is approaching the saturation point of the space calculated by my formula-"

"What does that mean?"

"The Seoul Gate will surge again soon. In about two weeks? No, no! What we've seen so far isn't even a real surge!"

"......"

"Umm. If my theory is correct, assuming one monster takes up 5 square meters, the amount that will burst out is enough to fill two Korean peninsulas and half of another."

"......W-What? No, is that certain?"

"There's no right answer in a scientist's theory."

"......"

"But none of my theories so far have been wrong."