By Zephyria 
The Lieutenant Colonel stroked his freshly sprouted beard, putting on airs.
“Actually, right after I detained you, I was planning to ask about the remaining Rioters’ hideout. I was going to find out no matter what, even if it meant torture.”
“…….”
“But after holding you and taking a closer look, the stuff in your bags was all bizarre.”
Ha-jin snatched the bag roughly from the Lieutenant Colonel’s subordinate. Opening the backpack’s zipper, he saw the Card Decks mixed up in a mess. His eyes sank heavier than ever.
Lieutenant Colonel So walked past them and leaned his heavy body against a bench.
“Whew, it’s getting hotter every day, this is a problem…! Hooo. Anyway, where were we? Ah, right. Logically, Rioters wouldn’t attack this place carrying luggage… and it didn’t make sense that only cards, clumps of fur, and cubes were popping out of the bag. In many ways, the situation was a bit ambiguous.”
Lieutenant Colonel So, who had barely maintained honorifics, eventually reverted to his habitual informal speech.
“In the meantime, some of my subordinates were saying strange things. They said there seemed to be a magician among the people who were caught… You there, you’re quite a famous magician, aren’t you?”
At the natural informality, Ha-jin didn’t answer and stubbornly kept his mouth shut.
“That’s when I knew. Ah, there must have been a serious misunderstanding. And… I picked up these weapons on the Ranch.”
The Lieutenant Colonel gestured somewhere. A chubby man standing at the end of the line hurried over. In his hands were the stone axe and mace-like club Eden had made.
“No matter how I look at it, these aren’t weapons that ordinary people can make. Unless they have quite a bit of survival knowledge. I couldn’t find anyone with that kind of ability among the ignorant Rioters, no matter how hard I looked. I remember it clearly.”
Ha-jin, who had patiently endured his oration, finally burst out in anger.
“What are you trying to say?”
Lieutenant Colonel So, unconcerned, rolled his eyes and raised his index finger.
“I have a proposal. How about staying here for a while? If you want, I can help you find the real culprit who killed your companion.”
❖ ❖ ❖
After Lieutenant Colonel So’s long speech, the two found the warehouse where Chun-beom was laid. Chun-beom’s body was neatly laid out in a corner of the supply warehouse, as the Lieutenant Colonel had said.
Ha-jin barely managed to move his limp legs and hands, and together with Eden, moved Chun-beom outside.
Following Chief Kim’s guidance, they settled in a place beyond the fence where the soil wasn’t too bad. They turned away all the soldiers who offered to help with the digging, and Eden and Ha-jin dug the pit themselves.
They couldn’t entrust the grave of their companion to the hands of murderers. At least Ha-jin believed that the soldiers here were the ones who killed Chun-beom.
The soldiers were watching them from afar, as if monitoring them, according to the Lieutenant Colonel’s orders.
Ha-jin, who was digging silently without crying, asked Eden, smelling the damp earth.
“Do you believe what Lieutenant Colonel So is saying?”
He raised his head and met Ha-jin’s reddened eyes.
“I don’t believe it.”
He had only listened quietly because he didn’t know when he might get shot if he was uncooperative, but he had already noticed that Lieutenant Colonel So was spouting nonsense.
“Do Ha-jin, do you believe it?”
“Not at all.”
“What’s your reason for thinking that?”
“It’s just a gut feeling.”
“It’s a gut feeling for me too. Basically, he’s not even trying to make his lies convincing.”
Ha-jin glanced subtly beyond the fence and leaned his head towards Eden.
“Convincing?”
“The person who’s making a fuss about clearing up misunderstandings didn’t even ask about the appearance or features of the person who killed Park Chun-beom. He’s just claiming that they’re not one of his people.”
“That’s right. And he’s talking way too much unnecessarily.”
Ha-jin slammed the shovel into the ground fiercely, as if frustrated. His wrists, which had been tied up all night, throbbed, and a slight fever rose on his cheeks. His physical condition was not good, but he had no choice but to grit his teeth and endure it.
Meanwhile, Eden examined Ha-jin’s swollen wrists and ankles, and the fever blisters on his cheekbones.
“Stop there and come sit down.”
Ha-jin pretended not to hear the words to rest and raised a question.
“Even if we put aside the person who killed Chun-beom, isn’t this shelter itself strange?”
“…….”
“If I were a citizen who had stayed here, I would have chosen to be safely protected by the military in a disaster situation, rather than starting a riot because of food shortages. Especially against people who have guns as weapons.”
Even Eden, who was a trained special forces soldier, had quietly stayed cooped up in the warehouse all night just because the enemy had firearms, so no matter how he thought about it, it didn’t make sense for ordinary people to stand up against the military.
Eden nodded as if Ha-jin’s rational reasoning was quite plausible. He wiped the sweat from his chin and spread his right ring and pinky fingers in the air.
“Then there are two hypotheses. First.”
The ring finger folded.
“Lieutenant Colonel So did something unreasonable and coercive enough for powerless citizens to start a reckless riot.”
This time, the pinky finger folded.
“Second. The riot itself never happened in the first place.”
“…Whatever it is, the fact that Lieutenant Colonel So is trash doesn’t change.”
Ha-jin shuddered and pulled out the shovel that was deeply embedded in the dirt. His exhausted body staggered, and scolding immediately followed.
“I told you to sit down.”
In the end, Ha-jin, as if unable to overcome his anger at having the shovel taken away, took a seat. He made an effort to turn his eyes away from Chun-beom’s body, which was lying under the shade of a tree.
Eden, who was silently shoveling, pulled up the hem of his top and roughly wiped the sweat that had formed on his face. Ha-jin cast a silent gaze at his abs. He had lost a lot of weight compared to before due to the prolonged hardship, but his muscles, as solid as a racehorse, were still there.
“Do you remember the zombies that kept coming in half-day intervals right after we left the rest stop?”
Ha-jin, who was stroking his skinny arm, answered Eden’s question a beat late.
“How could I forget? We really suffered a lot back then. I was injured a lot before we went to the cave, too. If it hadn’t rained, I would have died as is…”
Suddenly stopping his words, he widened his eyes as if he had realized something.
“…Could it be that those zombie hordes all came from here?”
Eden nodded and said in a confident voice.
“Considering the timing and distance, it’s a plausible story. It seems certain that there was a zombie extermination operation at the Ranch… but whether those zombies were the damned Rioters or innocent citizens remains to be seen.”
“That makes sense.”
The face of Lieutenant Colonel So, who was shamelessly flapping his tongue, and the faces of his subordinates who were standing close behind him flashed through Ha-jin’s head.
If Eden’s hypothesis was true, then the terrifying moments when they almost lost their lives several times due to the zombie hordes were all their doing.
If it hadn’t been for the zombie hordes that attacked periodically, they could have passed Nokwang City sooner, and they wouldn’t have had to climb the mountain to get to the Ranch.
Ha-jin was overwhelmed with the urge to stab Lieutenant Colonel So in the neck right away.
In the meantime, Eden finished his work and came out of the pit. Ha-jin also got up from his seat, following him. The two carefully moved Chun-beom’s body into the pit.
“Do you want revenge?”
While burying Chun-beom, Eden asked a tempting question. Ha-jin suppressed the urge to say yes like crazy, gritted his teeth, and shook his head.
“I think finding the others is my priority. I want to set fire to this place, but Byeol, Mi-so, and Jeffrey are definitely waiting in the cave. I have to tell them that Park Chun-beom died, too.”
He nodded coolly, as if he had expected it.
“Understood for now.”
Ha-jin picked up the shovel he had put down on the ground and sprinkled dirt into the pit. When he sprinkled dirt over Chun-beom’s face, his heart ached so much that he ended up shedding a single tear.
Soon, Chun-beom was submerged in deep darkness. Ha-jin, blinking his bloodshot eyes, recalled his conversation with him.
‘Most people working in the defense industry in Korea have Director Jeong Tae-geon as their role model. …So when I became his temporary executive secretary when he came to Korea, everyone was so jealous.’
His excited voice, saying that it was an honor to serve Eden, was still vivid. A frustration similar to indigestion once again disturbed Ha-jin’s heart.
“Chun-beom respected Jeong Tae-geon a lot. I know it well because I heard it so much.”
“I know. It’s rare for a subordinate to endure me, but Assistant manager Park lasted quite a while.”
Ha-jin let out a listless laugh at the answer that was certain of his self-awareness. Eden put down the shovel and decorated Chun-beom’s grave, touching the dirt directly with his palms. His meticulous touch contained a nonchalant affection for his subordinate.
Ha-jin picked a few wild roses next to a large tree. The white flowers were placed on the grave as they were. The two finished their farewell to Chun-beom with a long moment of silence.
Ha-jin, who roughly wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, called Eden in a choked voice.
“But… if we say we’re leaving like this, will Lieutenant Colonel So let us go easily? What will you do if he catches us?”
“We’ll have to get caught.”
Ha-jin furrowed his straight eyebrows.
“Then what about the others? We have to go meet them quickly, even now…”
Eden picked up the shovel on the ground and checked his broken wristwatch.
“Actually, by now, they’ve probably already left the cave.”
“Huh? They left?”
He explained to the confused Ha-jin the tacit rules of the special forces unit that Jeffrey had joined.
If an ally leaves the operation site and becomes unable to communicate, they wait at the agreed-upon location for 12 hours, and if they don’t appear within that time, they immediately advance to the next point and wait for a reunion later. It was a simple rule.
“Jeffrey is ruthless when it comes to such rules, so the group is definitely heading to the next point, Yongun Tollgate.”