Chapter 577
-The fuck, why are there so many?
-No wonder rush hour was so damn awful...
-Holy shit;
-Man, there really are a ton of people in Seoul T_T
-Please, for the love of God, leave the people riding red buses alone. Have some conscience.
The impossible size of the floating population made the discussion board scroll even faster.
Everyone had finally grasped the seriousness of the situation.
The timing of the outbreak had been disastrous.
The virus spread through the subway and scattered in every direction.
The speed of the spread was far too fast.
“The military?”
“At present, the Capital Defense Command special operations unit has entered, however...”
“And after they entered?!”
“Seven dead. Three injured. Suppression impossible.”
The President enlarged the screen.
Amid the chaos, members of the Capital Defense Command special operations unit could be seen wandering among the infected.
Their faces were gray.
Chunks of flesh hung from their mouths.
Their eyes were rolled back.
And they made incomprehensible sounds.
“...”
The President lost his voice.
Within one hour of the outbreak, the special unit dispatched for the initial response had already retreated without even managing to suppress the situation.
“The riot police?”
“KNP811 was deployed, but likewise...”
The National Security Director shot to his feet.
“Your Excellency! With our current forces, we cannot stop the spread in the northern part of Seoul. Action must be taken.”
The Minister of the Interior and Safety nodded.
“This does not appear to be simple infection. There is a risk that the damage will expand excessively. Before it's too late, I believe we need to begin quarantining the infected.”
The Minister of Health groaned.
“W-where exactly are we supposed to quarantine them? And how? Even the riot police and special operations units cannot suppress them.”
“At the very least, even if there is a risk of injury, we can knock them down using high-pressure water cannons—”
“Hold on! They're ordinary civilians, not protesters. You intend to deploy water cannons? Can you handle the consequences afterward?”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs shouted.
“But this is Jongno District! If infected Americans in Jongno create an international diplomatic issue, can you handle that? Problems have already occurred at the U.S. Embassy!”
Terrified even by the thought, he slammed his fist on the table.
“And that's not all! The Japanese Embassy! The Taipei Mission in Korea! The Vietnamese Embassy! The Embassy of Uzbekistan! They're all in Jongno District! Every one of them has been paralyzed!”
At that moment, the Chief of Staff brought up another video.
This time it wasn't Korea.
“Your Excellency.”
His voice trembled.
“Breaking news reports identical symptoms appearing in New York, Tokyo, Canberra, London, Berlin...”
They didn't take hostages, so negotiation was impossible.
They didn't collapse or die, so suppression was impossible.
They weren't terrorists or criminals, so execution was impossible.
And because it wasn't a known disease, treatment was impossible.
An unprecedented disaster had begun.
* * *
The two-star general, who had been making calls everywhere, finally succeeded in getting through.
After groaning several times and furrowing his brow repeatedly, Yoo Yeonji silently stroked the forehead of Hyeonmok, who lay across her lap.
Rumble....
The sky roared in wrath.
Flash.
The dark hospital was illuminated blue for a moment.
BOOM!
Thunder exploded violently.
Startled, Yoo Yeonji covered Hyeonmok's mouth and shivered.
Fatigue and fear weighed heavily on everyone's faces.
Clank-clank-clank.
The hands of the infected shaking the shutters still had not stopped.
Craaack—
At last, the joints gave out.
The infected began flooding upward.
“Ah.”
Myeong Jeha, who had set his helmet aside, groaned quietly.
“My phone died. Looks like the ones we trapped on the eighth floor are getting loose now.”
No one wanted to hear that.
Yoo Yeonji looked around with frightened eyes.
One of the soldiers spoke immediately, as though he had been thinking about it for some time.
“Let's create noise somewhere else.”
He pointed toward the building opposite them.
The annex.
“With the archer here, if we break a couple of windows over there and blow up some oxygen tanks...”
“No.”
Before he even finished speaking, Yoo Yeonji objected.
Her face was pale.
“There are... still people over there. P-patients and...”
“She's right. There are still many survivors.”
Resident Kang Hyeonwoo quickly agreed.
“We can't sacrifice our hospital family just to escape.”
“Hah. Easy for you to say. Some people have already watched their entire team die. Is that because you're one of those fancy professionals?”
The soldier's sarcasm wasn't entirely unreasonable.
After all, Teams A and B, which had gone out scouting, had been wiped out.
“How many arrows? How many arrows do you have?”
One security guard immediately approached On Jihwa.
On Jihwa didn't bother answering.
“You got soldiers killed trying to save some brat, and you're still acting righteous, fuck.”
The soldier glared at Yoo Yeonji as though he wanted to kill her.
“And I'm asking how many arrows you've got!”
The security guard grabbed On Jihwa by the collar.
“Both of you, shut the fuck up.”
Myeong Jeha, sitting in his chair, raised his head.
Rumble...
Thunder announced itself once more.
“Let go.”
“...”
“I said let go.”
“What if I don't?”
“What then?”
“What else?”
Myeong Jeha closed the distance in just a few steps.
“You get slapped.”
Flash.
Blue light sharply illuminated the side of his face.
Myeong Jeha didn't wait.
He struck the man, who was a head shorter than him, across the face.
Not with his fist.
With an open hand.
As if deliberately trying to humiliate him.
“My mood is fucking awful, so learn to shut your mouth and listen.”
The man let go of On Jihwa's collar after just one slap and flailed helplessly.
“Ah, fuck! You fucking bastard!”
“Fucking bastard?”
Now Myeong Jeha grabbed the man's collar instead.
Several members of the security team seized his arm to stop him, but he didn't budge.
“You think we're equals?”
Holding eye contact with the man whose feet dangled off the ground, Myeong Jeha sneered.
At this point, the characters were being shown from Yoo Yeonji's perspective.
With Myeong Jeha filmed from the floor where she sat, his violence felt overwhelmingly oppressive.
“S-stop...”
Frozen in place, Yoo Yeonji finally managed to speak.
Her attention remained focused on taking care of Hyeonmok, who was still too young to endure all this.
She hugged the child tightly, trembling, afraid that the delivery driver—if offended—might let go of the security guard and come after her instead.
But Myeong Jeha continued staring at the man.
“...I don't think this is the time for us to fight each other. Please... let him go.”
Lee Donggyun, the head of security, also patted Myeong Jeha's arm nervously.
After shaking the man by the collar a couple of times, Myeong Jeha threw him to the floor.
“My mood's shit, so mind your fucking manners. Every time you whined today, I've wanted to beat the hell out of you.”
Less than one minute.
That was all it took for Myeong Jeha to make the other man look pathetic.
Coughing violently, the man shouted:
“You son of a bitch! If you hate whining so much, then you should've gone for the medicine instead of those soldiers! Hngh... You didn't want to die either!”
“Fuckhead. I have a family.”
“Like nobody else does?”
“You had one? Wow. Didn't know. That's fucking new.”
-LMAOOOO
-Wow, that was scary
-Holy shit, what is he, a former delinquent...? Dude's terrifying
-TT_TT That family insult was insane
-Why are we only getting this thug character now? Husband-nim~
-I seriously want to date him... stop doing this if you're not gonna date me, you're driving forty million women insane
-There are forty million women in Korea?
-Counting overseas too, for now
“Little shit. Did I sacrifice my GLX that wasn't even fully paid off, or not? Did I lose two million won into thin air, or not? Do you know how many deliveries I'd have to take to buy another one? It just came out the other day.”
The way Myeong Jeha stared down at the man lying on the floor was domineering.
The violence ingrained into someone born at the top of the food chain was vividly apparent.
“Enough.”
The two-star general, having finished his call, intervened.
“I will not tolerate this kind of internal conflict any longer.”
Myeong Jeha raised both hands and gestured as though he understood.
The security team helped the fallen man to his feet.
“We will head to the 17th Division. It is the closest location, and the troops are armed—”
“Where is that?”
“Incheon, Bupyeong.”
“Ah... that's fucking far from my house...”
Unlike the man who had just mercilessly beaten someone moments earlier, he now looked anxious.
Dragging out the ends of his words, he sounded troubled.
“Can't you just drop one person off in the middle?”
“Don't speak so disrespectfully to the General.”
“Obviously not. Helicopter takeoffs and landings are not that simple, and more importantly, the weather is worsening.”
Thunder crashed outside again.
The intervals were growing shorter.
“How long will it take to reach Incheon, Bupyeong?”
“Ah, yes. Normally about ten minutes, but with the weather... fifteen to twenty.”
The fire captain pilot answered from his corner.
The two-star general nodded.
“We have no time to waste. Let's move again.”
As they approached the door—
Krrk... Krrk... Krrrk...
The sound of infected approaching was unmistakable.
“Feels like there are more than before...”
Lee Donggyun muttered ominously.
The two-star general pressed his ear against the door.
Clang.
Metal breaking.
“The shutters must have collapsed.”
“...Which ones?”
“Probably...”
Remembering both the number of infected and the weight ordinary fire shutters could endure, the two-star general's expression stiffened.
“All of them.”
-Are they even getting out alive? T_T
-Tak °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Jeongyun's escape theory was just a guess anyway. What if they start over again while taking Hyeonmok somewhere? Just my theory
-Fuck, there's no hope TT_TT
-Myeong Jeha made my heart race, holy shit
-TT_TT Do Gyeoul is so pitiful, my heart hurts...
Another argument broke out among the survivors.
“If we'd blown that place up with arrows earlier, they'd have dispersed! Fuck!”
“M-maybe now...”
“But do we even have anything to blow up?”
“I repeat, explosions should be considered the last resort.”
“I-I agree...”
“The two hospital people should just shut up already. Why are you being so frustrating?”
The security team and soldiers, who had already suffered losses, were becoming divided from the resident and nurse who still worried about the hospital family.
The two-star general pressed his ear against the door and thought deeply.
They had only just reached the eleventh floor.
There were still ten more floors between them and the helicopter.