episode_0042

“What do you want to do now?”

Pastor Lee Won-sang spoke as if he was telling someone else’s story.

“A crazy person. I wonder if he’s a fake kid. He usually pretends to be clean, saying things like the Bible and such.”

I was shocked. What should I do? All I could think about was killing him. There was no reason for a person like him to live.

“I know. It is something that will be a great outrage and a punishment from heaven. If Brother Do-hoon wants to kill me, then I can’t help it. I have no choice but to die. But if that happens, I’m really worried about what will happen to the members of Hanmaum Church.”

The pastor smiled broadly and said, as if to say, “If you’re going to kill, do whatever you want.”

“…”

The old man and I were certain that the pastor had done something wrong. Even the brief glances we shared could tell what each other was worried about.

“With such a serious expression… There’s no reason for me to play around with the lives of the believers. I’m just worried about the various incidents that will occur in a group without a leader. Given Brother Do-Hoon’s personality, he wouldn’t be the only one to deal with it. Also, would the other survivor groups really leave the orchard, the goose that lays the golden eggs, alone…?”

Both I and the old man paused for a moment at those words. They were a dirty and sick group. They deserved to be punished, but when I thought about the chaos that would result from the absence of that group, I was reluctant to move recklessly.

Even without people fighting each other, the situation is tough to survive in as supplies become increasingly scarce and the zombies show no signs of decreasing.

Adding one variable with my own hands felt like a heavy burden to me when I was struggling with a lack of manpower.

But I don’t think we should just leave that kind of trash alone…

I looked at the old man. After all, it was the old man who had to make the decision.

“If the One Mind Church disappears, it is clear that the current balance will be disrupted.”

“As expected, Brother Do-Hoon knows it well. I think the current balance that has been achieved after three years of struggle is in a state of harmony that does not need to be touched.”

The old man just watched Pastor Lee Won-sang babble on with a stern expression. He felt a little disappointed in the old man, but he told himself that it couldn’t be helped.

“I agree. Peace, that elusive thing, has certainly come.”

The pastor smiled in satisfaction at the old man’s helpless words. The old man looked helpless.

“The story is over. Thank you for taking care of this request. Our Hanmaum Church will pay a price appropriate for Brother Do-hoon’s consideration, service, and dedication. Please continue to take care of us…”

The pastor extended his hand to the man, and the man naturally took it.

“But, Pastor Lee Won-sang.”

And the old man’s mood changed. Unlike usual, the old man who always spoke politely to his clients started speaking informally to them.

“Eww…!”

The face of the pastor holding his hand was distorted in pain, and sounds that should not come out of his hand came out. The cracking sound soon turned into a cracking and crumbling sound.

“I don’t work for people who muddy the waters.”

“Do-hoon, are you crazy! If I, if I die, it won’t end with something easy!”

With a cracking sound, the old man’s boot struck the pastor’s chest. A cracking sound informed him that the pastor’s ribs were now no longer functioning as they should.

The chair that had been standing alone hit the wall with a loud noise, carrying the pastor. It must have been expensive, because it barely broke.

“Kkeuk. Ugh! Kkeuuu! Why… Oh my… ”

“There’s already chaos because there’s no one, and if people like you continue to exist, the number will gradually decrease. It’s a world where it’s hard to even raise a child. If a scumbag like you lives, it’s a huge loss. I’ll also be able to receive fewer requests.”

The pastor’s head, which was hanging on the chair like a tossed-off squid, was grabbed by the man’s huge hand. The pastor’s eyes, which were caught by his head, shook incessantly, filled with fear.

A person who doesn’t even blink when someone kills someone else becomes ugly when he or she is in danger of dying. I had that feeling without realizing it.

“More than anything, turning a blind eye to such people is bad for the education of children. Enduring under a person with a bad personality can teach the lesson of patience, but working under a bunch of scumbags is like trampling on the children’s hopes.”

“Crunch…!”

A boiling sound rose up the pastor’s neck. One hand had already lost its form, so he used his remaining hand to try to tear off the hand that was holding his head.

“So don’t even think about surviving.”

The old man’s shoulder slightly fell back. The pastor’s body, which was hanging on his hand, was dragged along with it.

Plop!

Yuhwa, who was next to me, closed her eyes tightly at that moment. It seemed like she couldn’t bear to see a person’s head bursting like a watermelon.

As we dealt with the zombies, we developed a tolerance for such things, and only the old man and I were able to watch the last of the burrows.

“Ugh, I messed up.”

The old man looked at me with a look of defeat on his face, leaving behind a place filled with grayish-white lumps and bright red flesh and blood.

“Good job.”

I told him my honest feelings. Could I have done something like that? I was so overwhelmed by the responsibility I had for him that I didn’t think I would have done something like that.

I felt a sense of elation engulfing my body, as if I was feeling vicarious satisfaction from the old man’s refreshing handling of affairs.

“How do I fix this?”

“Well, you can hand it over to the Blue Apartment or the military base across the dam, whatever you want. Are those the only two weight classes that can handle it around here anyway? Rather than having small-timers get involved and make a mess, it’d be better for the big guys to come and push.”

I shouted without thinking too much. I knew that if I left it to the old man to think about, he would come up with some strange solution.

“I think it would be better to hand it over to Leader Park, that guy. We also have Hyeji with us. She’s also hanging on to the communication tower. It’s a good thing.”

“I see.”

Park Seung-ho, I personally didn’t like that guy that much, but I thought it didn’t matter because his relationship with the old man wasn’t that bad.

“Uh… Isn’t the immediate aftermath more of a problem…?”

The pharmacist, whose real name is Han Yu-hwa and pseudonym is Maria, immediately said this, looking very bewildered by the current situation.

Sure, that’s true. But anyway, the old man will take care of it.

I would have thought about that much. The people outside, such as butlers and warriors, were preparing for the night prayer, and then they did something.

Even if the old man was short-sighted, it was obvious that he would have thought about such a one-dimensional response and committed the act.

“Um…”

What the heck, no way. You did that without even thinking about it…?

“I don’t know about women, but men who rush in are just as many criminals as you, so just destroy them.”

Common sense would not have it that the victims in the underground bunker and all the male believers living in Hanmaum Church were related.

“There are good people, but that’s a little…”

As expected, one of the victims, Han Yu-hwa, tried to stop the man who was trying to leave without permission.

Hmm? That’s right. There was a witness, so what kind of stupid thing were you trying to do?

A good idea occurred to me.

*

bang!

“Pastor Lee Won-sang is dead!”

The old man slammed the door open with a violent bang. Everyone who was preparing for the night prayer and who was focused on the commotion that was coming from the pastor’s office could see the old man’s bravery.

Well, you could say he was brave in a nice way, but he seemed ignorant to me.

“Mo, Pastor?”

“No, how did that happen? I clearly saw you going into the pastor’s office with those people…?”

“Didn’t Brother Do-Hoon kill him? If you look closely, he was an outsider.”

“When you were going around the church, doing things like investigating orchards, I heard you swearing at the pastor. That guy is a son of a bitch. A son of a bitch.”

The women were agitated, the men were anxious and half of them were blaming the old man.

“Yes! I killed him! I had no choice but to kill him! The pastor you respected and relied on! He was a criminal who deserved to be killed! He was an adulterer and a vicious man who took someone else’s life without permission!”

The commotion was silenced for a moment when the old man shouted at the top of his lungs. The revelations that came out of the old man’s mouth must have been quite shocking, as the brief silence served as a springboard for the commotion to grow even louder than before.

“What does that mean…?”

“Pastor…?”

“There’s no evidence! If you’re lying about killing the pastor!”

It was an expected reaction. When a story starts to circulate that is completely inconsistent with the usual behavior of a person you trusted, anyone would be inclined to deny it.

Of course, with a feeling of “no way?” in one corner of the heart. If there is no evidence, people will follow their initial judgment, but if there is evidence, it is human nature to turn back in an instant.

If you have even a little bit of moral sense ingrained in your head, it is human nature to want to stay away from people who turn their backs on that morality.

“As you know, Miss Maria! Ms. Han Yu-hwa standing behind me here is the witness!”

Maria, who had been touched by my hands, appeared before everyone.

The bright red handprints on her cheeks, the amount of crying she had done, her swollen and bloodshot eyes, and the bare skin that could be seen even in this cold weather were confessing what had happened in the pastor’s office.

Clear circumstantial evidence that needs no explanation. Anyone with a brain would have been able to immediately connect Yu-hwa’s appearance with the old man’s revelation earlier.

“Oh my god… That guy Lee Won-sang.”

“Even when he looked at our daughter, his gaze was strange. He was that kind of person…!”

“Honestly, Brother Do-Hoon wouldn’t be the type of person to do something like that for no reason, right?”

“That’s right… Last time, when Hanmaum Church was going through a hard time, I helped them without even receiving a proper reward.”

The widely known reputation of the old man also added credibility to such circumstantial evidence. The chaos soon began to take one direction and settle in one direction.

It went as planned.

“Don’t slander the pastor! How dare you kill someone else’s pastor and then insult the dead man!”

And there were several men who directly opposed this trend. They seemed to have some kind of stake in the Hanmaum Church. It was obvious that quite a few believers were gathering around them.

“And. Pastor Lee Won-sang wasn’t the only one who raped Ms. Han Yu-hwa.”

Of course, until the old man utters his next line.

I laughed to myself. Under normal circumstances, Maria’s testimony would not have had much effect. Because of the reputation that Pastor Lee Won-sang and his followers had built up.

But in the current situation, it was a different story. That reputation had gone to waste.

“Kim Dong-jun, Park Young-bong, Han Sang-cheol… raped me. Yesterday… and the day before… a year ago…”

“What did you say…?”

Many of the people who had gathered around them were startled and began to distance themselves from the three.

“This is a conspiracy! What is lacking in us that we should rape Maria!”

“Soldier Kim Dong-jun has two spots on his inner thigh. Soldier Han Sang-cheol has a Mongolian spot on his testicles.”

Han Yu-hwa trembled in humiliation. She bit her lower lip so hard that blood flowed out.

I did ask him to act, but it seemed like he was being sincere. I didn’t ask him to tell such a frank story.

The old man’s round eyes glanced at me and seemed to be questioning me as if he was asking me if I had ordered him to do that. I tried to explain with my eyes.

No! No!

“These trash humans!”

“How!”

“Come to think of it, at some point, didn’t you stop seeing the girls who came in before?”

“At that time, I explained that those people were going to another survivor group… No way…!”

Now the wheels of the cart gained the power to move on their own without having to push them. It gradually gained momentum and grew in size.

“I found those innocent girls in the underground bunker. They were zombies! Those not-so-human guys raped them and then killed them!”

The old man’s death sentence has been passed. In this cold winter, the stoning of heretics has begun.