Chapter 8
Losing my little brother was a culmination of sheer lousy luck, compounded again and again.
To prevent the oncoming horde of infected from the north, I led my unit towards Paju, where we joined forces with other units stationed there.
“Is this all the support we’re getting?”
I asked incredulously after assessing the situation, to which the sergeant saluted and replied.
“Yes. The Captain said this should be enough to stop the infected.”
“Who’s spouting that nonsense?”
“The Captain…..”
Thinking that deranged old man was never helpful, I focused on deploying our forces defensively.
“If they breach here, they’ll reach Seoul. So first, gather every low-flying combat aircraft available. Contact the air force, and fully load the tanks with anti-personnel rounds. We have tanks, right?”
“Yes! We have five tanks!”
“Keep them on standby.”
“Well, about that…”
The sergeant glanced around nervously.
“The Captain took 4 of them.”
“…Why?”
“He mentioned setting up an ambush!”
“Fuc—What kind of ambush against infected? This isn’t rabbit hunting.”
Let me correct myself. It wasn’t just the senile old captain who was unhelpful—absolutely everyone was useless. I decided to place my faith in the combat aircraft for now.
However, I was the only one truly preparing. The other soldiers didn’t seem too concerned.
“They’re just zombies after all, right? Zombies are slow, stupid things that just mindlessly charge forward. We can handle them easily. Don’t underestimate our marksmanship. Maybe not as good as yours, Lieutenant, but still pretty decent.”
They snickered confidently.
———!
The vanguard of the infected horde started appearing in the distance. They approached us slowly, one by one at first. Yet my troops whistled casually, assured their expectations were accurate. “What’s so scary about these things?” One aimed through his scope and, bang! Blew an infected’s head open.
Bang! Bang! Hundreds of shots rang out as the infected dropped rapidly. But their numbers didn’t end there. The straggling ones soon formed into a crashing “wave.” A dark curtain seemed to descend upon us. In the night, we couldn’t tell if it just appeared that way, or if there really were that many. At least until the low-flying combat aircraft began bombing runs.
Rattatattat!
The barrage of bullets mowed down infected after infected. Still, we couldn’t cheer. The momentary flashes of the bombardment revealed their numbers were…beyond what we had imagined.
“L-Lieutenant.”
Sergeant Kim Yiwon swallowed hard.
“Didn’t you say around two thousand at most? But that’s…”
“Way, way too many.”
Kim Yiwon wiped his cold, sweaty palms on his military uniform and tightly gripped his gun. Bang! Bang! He fired relentlessly, and the others soon joined in the barrage. The approaching infected fell, tripping over the fallen ones ahead, until eventually, they piled into heaping mounds of bodies.
The rest of the soldiers, who had been on edge, finally breathed a sigh of relief and fired their guns with renewed vigor. The sharp sound of gunfire filled the wasteland. There was a sense of hope that we could win like this, that humans could triumph over the infected.
But at that moment, I felt a sense of unease, a subtle discomfort from the advanced sensory perception granted by the lab. It was a faint but disturbing sensation, like the faint sound, vibration, and nauseating stench that permeated the air.
It couldn’t be this easy.
If it were, so many nations wouldn’t have collapsed all at once.
It couldn’t be…
“Aargh! Wh-What is that?!”
I quickly turned my head at the soldier’s cry. There were infected beings walking towards us, even with their arms severed and their heads dangling. Some were crawling towards us, their lower bodies missing.
“Eugh!”
Several soldiers began to vomit, trembling. No matter how much warfare they’d seen, it was against fellow ‘humans.’ But these… things, no longer resembling ‘people,’ instilled terror in everyone.
“Aaarrghh! Die!”
“Die, dammit, die!”
Rattatattat!
The muzzle flash briefly illuminated the dark night. Among those flashes of light, moving infected beings were visible, dropping pieces of intestines and flesh, yet still moving. They were walking, crawling, running towards us. The only way to kill them was to shoot off their heads, but it was never an easy task.
Soldiers aren’t trained to aim for the ‘head’ during shooting practice. Training focuses on hitting any part of the opponent’s ‘body’ and doesn’t specifically teach targeting localized areas like the head. After all, hitting any part of an opponent’s arms, legs, or torso renders combat ineffective.
But what about the infected?
“Li, Lieutenant! They’re not dying! They won’t die!”
“C-Crazy, why are they coming like that! Die! Diee!”
They would not die unless their brains were destroyed. The muzzles began firing uselessly into the air, and the consecutive bombardments also seemed to have quieted down somehow. The Captain who was supposedly preparing for the ambush was nowhere to be seen. Later, I heard they were taken down by the infected that swarmed in from the side. Everyone except the Captain was torn apart and killed.
At that moment, everyone was in a state of panic.
Humans forced into a terror they had never imagined before are infinitely weak. Humanity was slowly losing its composure.
So, inevitably, I had to step forward. Holding the K2 rifle with a scope attached, I aimed at the infected.
Bang!
The leading infected fell backward with a hole in its head. As the next one stumbled and fell, I seized the opportunity to blow off its head again.
“Wow…”
“Lieutenant., that was amazing.”
Kim Yiwon, who was beside me, complimented me with a thumbs-up, but I didn’t even look at him.
“Don’t talk nonsense and snap out of it. As long as we blow off those bastards’ heads, it’s nothing. Understand?”
“Yes, Lieutenant!”
“Yes!”
The soldiers regained their composure at my words and continued fighting the infected without pause, and this lasted until morning. Fortunately, thanks to the information provided by the United States, we learned that the infected would subside when the sun rose, and only then were we able to rest.
It doesn’t seem like this is the end.
“Indeed. We’ve requested additional support, so we just have to wait. Everyone take a break.”
That’s what I intended to do, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen.
“Lieutenant! Emergency message!”
Kim Yiwon, pale-faced, ran over and shouted loudly.
“Cheorwon, Cheorwon has been breached! They’re heading towards Seoul right now!”
🕂
I don’t really remember what I was thinking or saying after that. The only thing on my mind was that I had to go back to Seoul right away to save my little brother. But it was the Captain who stopped me.
The Captain, who had recklessly taken out the tanks only to get beaten up and return, grabbed me and explained the situation in detail.
“Lieutenant Min. I promise you. No matter what happens, I will protect your brother.”
“I’ve already spoken to the Seoul unit. So you don’t need to worry. Don’t you know what will happen if you leave here now!”
The captain used the fact that there were no casualties thanks to my command as an example to convince me… In the end, instead of going to my brother, I chose to protect the troops and defend the border.
The result?
‘I learned what a real wave of infected looks like then.’
Tens of thousands of infected rushed in all at once, easily breaching the defenses, and everyone had to fight the infected head-on on the flat ground, not on the barricades. In that process, only twelve of us managed to survive and return to Seoul, including myself. Oh, that damn captain ran away before that. …I’ll have to kill him someday.
Anyway, when I returned to Seoul, I immediately searched every shelter to find my brother.
“Min Woo-joo? There’s no child with that name.”
“No, there’s no child like that.”
“An order from the military? No, we didn’t get any such notice.”
Woo-joo was nowhere to be found.
My one and only brother.
The one who endured pain with me, struggling to survive.
The poor child who had just begun to feel happiness…
That child was gone.
“Lieutenant, it’s already… It’s already over. Your brother must have turned into one of the infected or… or died.”
People tried to dissuade me. In fact, it’s only natural. How could a mere 10-year-old child possibly hide and escape alone? It would make sense if they were bitten by an infected and turned into one or if they were dead.
However, I didn’t think that way. I disagreed with their thoughts.
Why?
My brother is immune, just like me.
🕂
Thank you for reading! ♡
