Chapter 48
“Ha, haha. Oh, no. I didn’t buy it new. How could I buy anything new in this situation? I just picked it up.”
Min Ahyeon let the mayor’s words, accompanied by a forced smile and a gesture to the air, pass through one ear and out the other.
One should at least lie convincingly. Who would believe such a statement?
“Ehei, how modest of you.”
Min Ahyeon’s hand glided across the armrest. The sensation her palm felt was undoubtedly that of untamed, brand new leather. Min Ahyeon’s gaze sharpened.
“But it looks far too new for something ‘picked up.'”
Where could such a thing have been picked up? Even if the people of Gangwon all became minimalists overnight, they wouldn’t just abandon a sofa like this on the streets.
In today’s world where most factories have ground to a halt.
Where fights break out over a single can of canned food and people point guns over packets of ramen noodles.
An era where people can only attack and pillage each other to survive.
Yet he claims to have ‘picked up’ such a luxury item. What utter nonsense.
This bastard is still a compulsive liar. After all, Yang Jun-tae is a materialistic glutton in power who would not hesitate to sacrifice civilians to feed his own gluttonous belly—the epitome of corrupt authority.
Just being in the same room made Min Ahyeon feel disgusted. She could not fathom how such a wretched man rose to this position.
“No, no. Look here! It’s all torn up!”
At Min Ahyeon’s suspicion, Yang Jun-tae hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief, wiping away the sweat streaming down as he insisted it was true. Watching him, Min Ahyeon couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Do I look like someone who’s touching leather for the first time?”
No matter how you look at it, the texture feels like freshly tanned animal hide.
At her casual addendum, Yang Jun-tae, who had been rambling about how worn the sofa was, immediately shut his mouth. No matter how distracted he was right now, he couldn’t possibly be unaware that among the “leather” she had touched, there was human skin, cold and lifeless.
Come to think of it, there were rumors about Min Ahyeon… saying she would skin people alive without batting an eye. That’s how cruel they said she was, without a drop of blood or tear.
In fact, most of the brutal rumors surrounding Ahyeon were spread by Yongcheol. Not rumors intended to portray our gentle Ahyeon as dangerous, but spread in hopes that fools would not carelessly approach her and meet their demise.
Regardless, they were baseless rumors, yet the foolish Yang Jun-tae took them at face value.
“Um, um…”
Becoming uncomfortable with the chilly atmosphere, Yang Jun-tae grew quiet and simply wiped away his cold sweat with his handkerchief. Sweat poured down like rain, and his face became damp, resembling someone who had just entered a sauna, looking somewhat pitiful as he stole glances at Ahyeon.
Thunk!
But not quite pitiful enough, as Min Ahyeon crisply opened the aloe juice Yang Jun-tae had offered.
“Oh.”
“Ack!”
Just a casual sound confirming the product was sealed properly, but Yang Jun-tae flinched violently. To his ears, it must have sounded like a gunshot or cannon blast. Min Ahyeon grinned as if mocking Yang Jun-tae before taking a refreshing sip of the aloe juice.
Her slightly closed eyes with long lashes fluttering, her bobbing throat – thanks to Min Ahyeon’s neat appearance, the sight resembled a refreshing commercial scene. However, as the sole viewer, Yang Jun-tae could only watch anxiously.
“Aah, refreshing.”
Min Ahyeon smiled contentedly as she nodded. Indicating she enjoyed the bottled juice Yang Jun-tae offered. Seemingly relieved that her mood had softened, Yang Jun-tae stammered hesitantly.
“Uh, um. Right. The journey must have been tiring.”
Without a word, Min Ahyeon simply nodded again. Her constant nodding displayed an extremely rude attitude from the start.
Yet Yang Jun-tae tolerated it—not daring to point it out—as he gulped dryly and leaned towards her. Unable to lean, he craned his neck like a turtle to look at her.
“So, um, what… brings you here?”
He tried to act casual, but his frozen tongue would not loosen properly. In response to his foolish, stumbling question, Min Ahyeon first answered with a cold laugh.
“Hmm, what could it be?”
Ahyeon’s lips twisted as if mocking him, but her eyes remained kindly fixed on Yang Jun-tae as she folded her eyelids and laughed, burying herself deeper into the sofa.
“Oh, Mayor. Why are you so tense?”
“Uh, uh? Oh, no… Ha, haha!”
“You know I’m not that bad a person. If you keep acting like this, it’ll hurt my feelings.”
Ahyeon whispered those words as she naturally crossed her long, toned legs. So natural that it seemed Min Ahyeon was truly the owner of this office, while Yang Jun-tae himself was an unwelcome guest disturbing her precious leisure time.
“People might think I’m about to devour you, Mayor. Isn’t that right?”
Her playful, friendly tone. Yet the words caused Yang Jun-tae to gape in disbelief.
‘No, of course I’m tense!’
Was her devouring him even the issue? If that were all, he could almost call it mercy. Yang Jun-tae recalled when she first came to Gangwon. From the Mayor’s perspective, Ahyeon was someone so far from being in her right mind that she could be as dangerous as grabbing the throat of Gangwon itself if one were to underestimate her deer-like appearance.
Back then, during the chaos of what felt like the end of the world, when war broke out and everything went mad, Yang Jun-tae still felt a shiver down his spine at the memory.
‘No, well. I can understand during the war.’
Yes, with an open mind, he could disregard that as an exception. They had both failed to ascertain each other’s identities then, constantly on edge fighting for survival…
But a year ago, when she returned here, what had happened then?
Yang Jun-tae shook his shoulders as if trying to shake off a dreadful nightmare, recalling the horrors of last year. Not even the depths of hell could compare to such a sight.
Back then, Ahyeon had stormed into Gangneung city without warning. Then, without giving anyone a chance to respond, she grabbed anyone she could find and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Open the door!”
“Open the shelter door!”
Yang Jun-tae wondered if Ahyeon intended to start a war with Gangwon by forcefully intruding into the shelter after tearing the door open recklessly. However, her purpose was merely to find one person. Even from a selfish perspective, and as a judgment from the Mayor who had to protect the region, there was no need to open the shelter for such a trivial reason.
However, during this “end times,” there was no one inside the shelter who could suppress Ahyeon, who had entered with such a trivial purpose. Those who weren’t hostages had already scattered, leaving her alone to dominate the shelter. In other words, she had single-handedly neutralized the shelter.
Furious at the sight, Yang Jun-tae resorted to opening the fortified gate as a last-ditch effort to expel Min Ahyeon. To die out there, essentially.
But even then…
‘She still survived.’
The events from that day vividly replayed in Yang Jun-tae’s mind, like watching a movie.
The infected’s heads burst open with just a flick of her trigger finger. The very infected that required them to expend so much ammunition and resources to fend off—Min Ahyeon put them down permanently without wasting a single shot.
The term “bull’s eye” failed to do her justice. Each bullet 민아현 fired seemed to have a will of its own, felling the infected one by one without a single miss. Someone even muttered that if myths advanced to create a god of firearms, it would take Min Ahyeon’s form.
Then, someone recognized who Min Ahyeon was.
“The national representative.”
“…A soldier?”
Ah! Only then did people understand why Ahyeon was such a skilled shooter and why she was so ruthless. She was a former national shooting team member and a soldier. Where else could one find such a formidable individual?
Ahyeon was powerful against the infected, and that meant safety when she was around… It signified that the most powerful authority in the world had perished.
However, Yang Jun-tae’s fear of Ahyeon wasn’t solely because of these reasons.
🕂
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