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As I entered the hospital, I saw Park Gi-Cheol talking with the doctor. The doctor’s eyes widened when he saw Kang Eun-Jeong on my back.

“Is she the patient you mentioned earlier?”

I nodded.

“This way please.”

He led me to a cot.

As I laid Kang Eun-Jeong down, he started to examine her condition. He placed his hand on her sides but then lifted her top a little bit while tilting his head.

Her wound didn’t seem too deep at first glance, but the area around it—about the size of an adult male’s hand—was swollen. She was also terribly pale.

The doctor looked serious as he took her pulse. He then looked me right in the eye.

“How could you not know how bad her condition was, when you can see that she’s this sick?”

“...”

“She probably wouldn’t have been able to walk on her own if she’s this sick. Wasn’t someone looking after her?”

I couldn’t say anything to him. It wasn’t because I couldn’t speak physically—rather, I had no excuses to bring up.

As I let my head sag silently, Kang Ji-Suk, who’d followed me in, spoke up.

“Ahjussi didn’t do anything wrong!”

The doctor gave him a sidelong look.

“And who is this…?”

Kang Ji-Suk’s reply was fierce, his eyes open wide.

“Her guard… guardian!”

“Is she your older sister?”

“Yes.”

“Your sister has to get into surgery right now.”

“Huh? Is her condition serious?”

“Well, she wouldn’t be needing surgery if it wasn’t serious.”

Once the doctor mentioned that Kang Eun-Jeong would need immediate surgery, Kang Ji-Suk lost the fire that he’d had earlier on. He looked shocked, instead, and hung onto every word that the doctor was saying.

Park Gi-Cheol approached us, his eyes clouded with worry.

“Do you think she can get better?”

“Well, we have to give it a try. Her pulse is weak and irregular. We also have to consider the possibility of sepsis. Above all, tetanus is a disease containing strong toxins that can paralyze the nerves. The results will vary depending on her immunity.”

“Is there anything we can do to help? Possibly more painkillers or anesthetic? Let me know if you need anything from us.”

“I believe we’re good on antibiotics. We have enough for treatment. If you insist on helping out, get us some painkillers or anesthetic. We’re particularly low on painkillers.”

“Painkillers? Got it.”

Park Gi-Cheol nodded. The doctor examined Kang Eun-Jeong, muttering to himself as he evaluated her condition.

“Since the wound was left untreated for a long time… Hmm let’s see... Gentamicin? No, ceftriaxone? No…”

The doctor frowned and contemplated for a minute, then called in some nurses that were passing by. Two nurses came and he started giving them precise orders.

“Please prepare tetanus immune globulin, penicillin, and cephalosporin. I think it’ll be better to disinfect the wound and remove the necrotic tissue first. Let’s get the patient to the operating room.”

After he briefly explained the surgical procedure, they headed toward the operating room. He asked the nurses to bring muscle relaxants as they made their way to the operating room. They were clearly experienced, given their ability to diagnose a patient’s condition so quickly and formulate the appropriate response.

Very quickly, the nurses wheeled Kang Eun-Jeong over to the operating room. As I watched her being wheeled away, my legs gave out and I collapsed to the floor. Kim Hyeong-Jun smacked his lips and looked me in the eye.

‘Don’t worry too much. She’ll be okay.’

‘What if things go south?’

‘They say that doctors who are stingy with their words are the best at their jobs. I’d say he’s pretty trustworthy, considering the fact that he could tell she needed surgery right away.’

I let out a deep breath while I slicked my hair back.

He was right. There was nothing I could do anymore.

I had to leave the rest to the doctor.

Kim Hyeong-Jun tapped my forearm lightly.

‘Cheer up, ahjussi. There are still things we have to deal with.’

‘You’re right. By the way, thanks for bringing Ji-Suk.’

‘You know that wasn’t a big deal right?’

Kim Hyeong-Jun grinned and stuck out his hand. I moved to shake his hand, then hesitated.

His eyes widened in surprise and he hurriedly put his hands away.

‘Goodness gracious, old habits are really scary.’

Kim Hyeong-Jun smiled to brush it off and told me to get up.

We both realized that, if we’d gone through with it, we would have both fainted.

Even though we had taken vos as allies, we would have triggered a serious headache if we had touched each other’s palms.

I laughed along with him and got up. Then I took out my notepad and wrote out a question for Park Gi-Cheol.

- Where is the group leader?

“The group leader? She should be in the storage room.”

As I nodded and got ready to leave the hospital, I heard Park Gi-Cheol\'s voice behind me.

“What do you want me to do?”

Kim Hyeong-Jun answered him in sign language. The older man smacked his lips and sighed, then nodded.

“Ugh, guess I’ll go repair the defense line.”

After we got things sorted out, we headed to our respective places.

Kim Hyeong-Jun and I headed to the storage room to meet the group leader, while Park Gi-Cheol headed back to the second defense line.

As we got to the storage room, I saw Hwang Ji-Hye going through some documents while doing an inventory of the storage room. She bowed her head slightly when she noticed me and came over to us. I bowed back at her and met her halfway.

Hwang Ji-Hye looked around, then took us along a secluded path through the forest.

“Are you done taking care of the zombies?”

I looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun.

He shrugged.

‘I told her that I went on patrol. And of course, the gang members made no moves.’

‘You even went on patrol?’

‘Well, I’m not the type of person to just sit around idly, you know?.’

I smiled lightly and took out my notepad. Writing down some words, I showed them to Hwang Ji-Hye.

- Seoul Forest is safe.

“Thank god. Then we should take care of the enemy…”

- Come with us tonight.

I scribbled down more words before Hwang Ji-Hye finished speaking. She looked at what I wrote and nodded, a thin smile playing across her lips.

I gave her a small bow and turned to go, but her voice stopped me.

“Oh, I heard that someone in your shelter is sick.”

Rumors did travel fast.

It seemed like, in the short time since, the guards at the hospital had overheard the initial conversation between Park Gi-Cheol and the doctor and reported it to Hwang Ji-Hye.

She smacked her lips.

“Silence has a doctor you can trust. How about you bring her here for treatment?”

I wrote down more words after listening to Hwang Ji-Hye.

- We’ve already transferred her to the hospital.

“Already?”

- The doctor said she urgently needed surgery.

“Oh…”

Hwang Ji-Hye nodded slowly then trailed off, subtly avoiding my gaze. She seemed to be hiding something. I titled my head and asked her a question to clear the air.

- Did you want to say something?

“Well, the thing is… We’re not doing well on painkillers ever since this battle. We’re extremely low on them. I’m sorry to ask you this, but I was wondering if you could get us some painkillers. Our current stocks will only last us for at most a month.”

I nodded without hesitation.

Kang Eun-Jeong probably needed painkillers as well.

There was no need to even think about this.

Then Hwang Ji-Hye’s face brightened.

“So you’ll get them for us?”

- Of course. But under one condition.

“Condition?”

Hwang Ji-Hye’s eyes started to tremble. She might have gotten nervous because she was afraid I was going to ask her for something absurd. I pointed to the storage room in the distance and held out my notepad.

- I’d like some weapons from the storage room. I want the people at Shelter Hae-Young to have weapons as well, so that they can protect themselves.

“For that reason, I’d be happy to.”

Hwang Ji-Hye answered without the slightest hesitation.

Did she need painkillers that badly?

But even then, I couldn’t understand why she would hand over firearms so easily, especially since they were so essential for survival. Unless she was getting supplies from somewhere…

I thought about asking her about that, but I decided to be satisfied with our deal for the moment.

I nodded, and Hwang Ji-Hye led me back to the storage room. She clearly wanted to hand them over since we were already nearby.

I received twelve K2 rifles and fifty magazines from her.[1]

I also got a box of grenades as a bonus.

Hwang Ji-Hye flipped through her documents and spoke up.

“Let me know if you need more. We\'ll open the storage room for you anytime.”

- This is enough for now.

I showed her my notepad with a satisfied smile, and Hwang Ji-Hye smiled gently.

“Oh, we also have crossbows. Would you like any?”

My eyes widened at the word crossbow.

I was hesitant to use firearms unless our lives were really at stake, because it could attract another zombie wave. Just thinking about what could happen if a gunshot went off at Shelter Hae-Young while I wasn’t there gave me chills down my back.

Seeing that I showed more interest in the crossbows than the K2 rifles, Hwang Ji-Hye grinned and asked the guard next to her, “How many crossbows do we have?”

“There are twelve crossbows that we made ourselves.”

“And?”

“Well, eight other crossbows were delivered.”

“Is there a big difference in terms of performance between the ones we made ourselves and the ones that were delivered?”

“No. The technicians put their blood, sweat, and tears into making them.”

Hwang Ji-Hye looked at me after hearing the guard’s answer. The guard was extremely confident about their performance. The guard probably did so to forestall any comments I might have about their performance later on.

As I listened to their conversation, however, I couldn’t help but feel suspicious at their choice of words.

‘Delivered?’

I was pretty sure that the word ‘delivered’ meant that someone else had passed the items to them.

I wondered if Shelter Silence was communicating with other shelters. I heard that most of the shelters in Gangbuk had fallen but were there still some shelters left that I wasn’t aware of?

I opened my notepad to ask her about this, but then I put my notepad down after hearing Hwang Ji-Hye’s voice.

“We don’t have a lot of crossbows for ourselves, so I can’t give you that many. How many do you need?”

- Honestly, I want all of them.

Hwang Ji-Hye burst into laughter at my blunt answer. She regarded me for a moment, then continued with a smile still on her face.

“It’s nice of you to be honest. I very much prefer straightforward people like you, rather than beating around the bush.”

- Then four crossbows with ten arrows each. How does that sound?

“I don’t want to be petty or cheap, but let’s agree on three.”

- Okay then. Three crossbows with twelve arrows for each of them.

I figured that arrows wouldn’t break easily unless we fired them into a hard wall or sheet metal. If we used them to take care of street zombies, we could easily reuse the arrows after confirming their condition.

Hwang Ji-Hye nodded as if it wasn’t a big deal.

“Alright, it’s a deal then.”

She then instructed the guard behind her to bring the crossbows and arrows.

After I checked them out, I held out my right hand to Hwang Ji-Hye. She grinned and accepted my handshake. She then whispered so that the guards could not hear us.

“Come to the hospital when the sun sets. We’ll exit by a different way.”

It seemed like she wanted to take care of the matter related to the enemy leader from Seongsu-dong that day as well.

I nodded silently. There was no more time to waste.

However, it seemed that even though Hwang Ji-Hye was the group leader, it wasn\'t easy for her to leave the shelter. I could sense that she didn’t want to be noticed by the guards when she left either. I figured it was best to follow Hwang Ji-Hye’s lead for now.

When she tried to head back to the storage room, I caught hold of her shirt. She tilted her head and looked back at me.

I carefully wrote down what I wanted to ask in my notepad.

- I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with the guard earlier on. You said that the crossbows had been delivered. Where did you get them from?

“Oh…”

Hwang Ji-Hye trailed off and avoided my gaze. It seemed like she’d had no intention of telling me about it, but had accidentally let it slip while in conversation with the guard. She forced a smile and said, “Well, since you already heard it from us, I can’t do anything about that… But I can\'t tell you about it right now.”

- Is this something more important than the items you have in the storage room?

Hwang Ji-Hye had openly given me access to the storage room. I assumed that this meant that we had some sort of trust in each other. I couldn’t understand what she meant by not being able to tell me about this. I couldn’t help but wonder how important this matter was.

I looked at her sadly, and she smacked her lips.

“If you put it that way, then there’s nothing I can say. But this is something I can’t tell you without consulting with others first.”

Hwang Ji-Hye’s answer convinced me of my hypothesis. The fact that it was difficult to make the call alone meant that she had to respect the opinions of others. Which in turn meant that Shelter Seoul Forest, Silence, had established some sort of network with other shelters.

Having sorted out my thoughts, I did not probe any further.

- All right.

“My apologies. Then…”

Hwang Ji-Hye gave me a small bow and walked into the storage room. I watched her as she walked away.

‘She’s not the best when it comes to forming relationships.’

She was afraid to upset people even though she was a cold-blooded person with no mercy toward zombies.

I hadn’t heard of reinforcements coming from other shelters to help out Shelter Seoul Forest. Even though I was helping them directly, I still couldn’t gain absolute trust from Hwang Ji-Hye and the people here.

Maybe, just maybe, an invisible wall existed between the living and the dead.

‘Maybe she’ll tell me when she fully opens up.’

I sighed and swallowed the sadness of feeling left out.

1. The Daewoo Precision Industries K2 assault rifle, often referred to as K2, is the standard service rifle used by the South Korean military. It is the Korean equivalent of the M4 rifle. ☜