Chapter 8

　　Losing my brother, Woojoo, was the result of one piece of bad luck piling on top of another. To stop the horde of Infected pouring down from the North, I led my unit to Paju and combined our forces with the other units stationed there.

　　“Is this really all the support we’re getting?” I asked, dumbfounded after assessing our strength.

　　A Master Sergeant saluted and replied, “Yes, ma’am. They said this should be sufficient since we’re only stopping the Infected.”

　　“Who fed you that bullshit?”

　　“The Commander…”

　　That crazy old bastard is never helpful, I thought, focusing on preparing our defenses.

　　“If this line breaks, Seoul is toast. So tell them to gather every fighter jet capable of low-altitude flight. Contact the Air Force. Load the tanks with buckshot. Do we have tanks?”

　　“Yes, ma’am! We have a total of five!”

　　“Have them on standby.”

　　“Ah, about that…” the Master Sergeant said, looking hesitant. “The Captain took four of them.”

　　“…Why?”

　　“I heard he was setting up an ambush!”

　　“Fuck, what kind of ambush are you setting for the Infected? Does he think this is a rabbit hunt?”

　　Correction. It wasn’t just the old Commander who was useless; everyone was useless. For the time being, I decided to put my faith in the fighter jets. But I was the only one making these preparations. The rest of the soldiers weren’t particularly worried.

　　“They’re just zombies, aren’t they? If they’re zombies, well, they’re slow, stupid, and just run straight ahead. I think we can handle them ourselves. Please don’t underestimate my marksmanship. I’m not as good as you, Second Lieutenant, but I’m still pretty decent,” they’d said, too busy chuckling amongst themselves.

　　The vanguard of the Infected began to appear in the not-so-far distance. They walked toward us slowly, one by one, two by two. The unit members, convinced their predictions were correct, even started humming. “What’s so scary about these things?” they said, putting their eyes to their scopes.

　　Bang! An Infected’s head exploded. Bang! Bang! Hundreds of bullets flew, and the Infected dropped one after another. But that wasn’t the end of them.

　　The ones that had been trickling in sporadically now began to surge forward like a wave. It felt like a black curtain was descending upon us. We couldn’t tell if it just looked that way because it was night, or if there were truly that many of them. Not until the low-flying jets began their bombing runs. With a deafening roar, a hail of bullets rained down, and the Infected fell, and fell again. But we couldn’t cheer. In the flashing bursts of the explosions, the number of Infected we saw… was beyond anything we had imagined.

　　“S-Second Lieutenant.”

　　Sergeant Kim Iwon swallowed hard and asked, “They said there were about two thousand, didn’t they? But that…”

　　“There are way too many.”

　　Kim Iwon wiped his sweaty palms on his uniform and gripped his rifle tightly. Bang! Bang! He fired relentlessly, and following his lead, the others began to fire all at once.

　　The approaching Infected fell, and the ones behind them tripped over the fallen bodies, and this cycle repeated endlessly until a mountain of corpses had formed. The rest of the unit, who had been on edge, finally relaxed a little and fired their guns with even more fervor. The sharp crack of gunfire filled the wasteland. It seemed they were starting to believe that at this rate, we could win—that humans could conquer the Infected. But at that moment, I was on edge, plagued by a vague sense of unease. A faint sound and vibration, perceptible only through the enhanced senses the research institute had given me, and a faint but nauseating stench that made the hair on my body stand on end.

　　It can’t be this easy. If it were this easy, so many countries wouldn’t have fallen all at once. It can’t be…

　　“Aaargh! W-what is that?!” a soldier screamed.

　　I whipped my head around. There, an Infected with a missing arm and a dangling neck was getting up and walking toward us, and another with its lower half blown away was clawing its way toward us.

　　“Ugh!”

　　A few soldiers retched and trembled. No matter how many wars these soldiers had fought, those had been wars against fellow humans. These things, which could no longer be called human, struck fear into everyone.

　　“Aaaargh! Dieee!”

　　“Die! Just die!”

　　The muzzle flashes illuminated the dark night in brief bursts. Through the light, we could see the Infected still moving even as their organs and flesh fell away. They walked, they crawled, they ran. The only way to kill them was to blow their heads off, but that was by no means an easy task. Soldiers aren’t trained to aim for the head in marksmanship practice. Training focused on hitting any part of the opponent’s body… it didn’t teach you to aim exclusively for a small area like the head. Because a human becomes combat-ineffective if hit anywhere on their limbs or torso. But the Infected?

　　“Second Lieutenant! These bastards won’t die! Aaargh! They won’t die!”

　　“C-crazy, why is it running like that?! Die! Dieee!”

　　They don’t die unless their brain is destroyed. Muzzles began to fire wildly into the air, and the continuous bombardment seemed to have quieted down for some reason. The captain who was supposedly preparing an ambush was nowhere to be seen. I later heard they were overrun by a horde of Infected that came from the side. Everyone except the captain was supposedly torn to shreds. In any case, at that moment, everyone was in a state of panic. Pushed to the brink by a horror they had never imagined, humans are incredibly weak. They were slowly losing their will to fight. So I had no choice but to step up. I took my K2, fitted with a telescopic scope, and aimed at the Infected.

　　Bang! The Infected at the very front took a bullet to the head and fell backward. The one running behind it tripped and tumbled, and I used that opening to blow off another’s head.

　　“Wow…”

　　“You’re amazing, Second Lieutenant,” Kim Iwon said beside me, giving me a thumbs-up, but I didn’t even glance at him.

　　“Cut the crap and get a grip. If you just blow their heads off, these bastards are nothing. Got it?”

　　“Yes, ma’am!”

　　“Yes!”

　　My words reignited their fighting spirit, and the unit members continued the battle, pulling their triggers relentlessly. This went on until morning. Fortunately, thanks to information passed on from the US, we knew that the Infected became less active when the sun rose. Only then were we finally able to rest.

　　“I don’t think this is the end of it, ma’am.”

　　“Probably not. I’ve reported a request for additional support, so we just have to wait. Everyone, rest up.”

　　I was about to take a breather myself, but unfortunately, I couldn’t.

　　“Second Lieutenant! Urgent message!” Kim Iwon shouted, running over with a pale face. “Cheorwon… Cheorwon has been breached! They say they’re heading for Seoul now!”

* * *

　　I don’t remember what I thought or said after that. All I had was the single-minded goal of returning to Seoul immediately to save my brother, Woojoo. But the one who stopped me was the captain. The captain, who had taken the tanks out only to come back beaten, clung to me and begged.

　　“Second Lieutenant Min. I promise you. I will protect your brother, no matter what.”

　　“I’ve already spoken to the unit in Seoul. So you don’t have to worry. You know what will happen if you leave now!”

　　The captain used the fact that there had been no casualties under my command as an example to persuade me… and, in the end, instead of going to my brother, I chose to protect my unit and defend the demarcation line. The result?

　　That’s when I learned what a true wave of Infected was.

　　Hundreds of thousands of Infected swarmed at once, easily breaching the defense wall. Everyone had to fight the Infected head-on, no longer from the top of a barrier but on level ground. In the process, only twelve people, including myself, survived and made it back to Seoul. Oh, and that captain bastard ran away with his tail between his legs before that. …I’ll kill him someday. Anyway, upon returning to Seoul, I immediately searched every corner of the shelters to find my brother, but…

　　“Min Woojoo? We don’t have a child by that name here.”

　　“There are no children here.”

　　“An order from the military? No, we didn’t receive any such order.”

　　Woojoo was nowhere to be found. My only brother. The brother who had endured and survived so much pain with me. The poor child who had just barely begun to feel happiness. That child was gone.

　　“Second Lieutenant. It’s… It’s probably already over. Your brother has either become one of the Infected, or he’s dead…”

　　People tried to stop me. And frankly, it was understandable. How could a mere ten-year-old child have hidden and escaped on his own? It was more likely that he was bitten and became one of them, or that he was dead. But I didn’t think so. I didn’t agree with them. Why? Because my brother is immune, just like me.

* * *