episode_0065

Everyone has probably seen a swarm of ants moving around at least once when they were young. If you were to ask what it felt like then, wouldn’t you say it was exactly the same as it is now?

The bridge was covered in black zombies that had gathered from all directions. It was enough to cover the colorful, abandoned cars that had taken up a significant portion of the bridge.

There is a limit to everything, and when it got to this point, rather than feeling amazed, I only thought it was disgusting and horrible.

And as I watched the old man striding across the bridge, acting as bait for those zombies, a corner of my heart felt uneasy.

Since I trust the old man’s skills, I don’t think he will get hurt, but if you ask me if I have any concerns, I think I would be able to say with certainty that I do.

All I could do was help him from a safe place to make sure he didn’t end up in a dead end. I set up a shock bolt on the protest and fired it into a puddle of water.

You might wonder what the heck a pothole on a bridge could be, but seeing the tanker truck overturned on its side made me think it was probably caused by the impact of an accident.

‘Phajijik!’

The zombies that were passing through the puddle suddenly stopped as sparks flew. The pungent smell mixed with the foul smell reached me from a distance.

These were corpses that had been dead for years, so they couldn’t have avoided decay. How nice it would be if their bodies were just slightly decomposed and lying still on the floor.

It is impossible to continue living like this forever, and a never-ending race is unpopular with anyone.

People are crazy about the speed that comes with breaking away from the everyday, but if it becomes an everyday thing, it’s just boring.

I helped the old man while spouting such useless sentiments.

With a ‘thud!’ the head of the monster that had been boasting its huge size flew off and fell to the ground. Its massive weight crushed the zombies that had been filling the area in front of it.

The screams of the zombies that were crushed were heard, ‘Geeeek! Geeeek!’

-Chijik.

The walkie-talkie that I had separately received from the old man suddenly became active. As I expanded my field of view beyond the old man’s periphery to the entire bridge, it certainly seemed that the old man had crossed more than halfway across the bridge.

When I checked the exit of the bridge, it was deserted compared to the swarm of ants underfoot, as if all the guys from the surrounding area had gathered there.

-Lure complete. It’s okay to blow it up.

And it was only then that I realized that I had never heard anything about how the old man was going to get out of it.

How could you, you idiot, forget that?

I blamed myself. Given the soldiers’ usual behavior, it was obvious that they would act as soon as the old man gave the signal.

How is the old man going to get out? The other side of the bridge is just as full of zombies… Surely he’s not going to fall into the river together and try to swim out?

There was something called the volume of the bridge. Unless the bomb’s power was on the level of a nuclear bomb, it was clear that the bridge would not turn into fine dust and fall down, leaving small islands here and there in the river.

As the waterway narrowed, the current would also become faster. No matter how confident the old man was in his physical strength, it didn’t seem like he would be able to withstand the current’s speed, which would even sweep away a vehicle.

“You, you! What are you planning on doing, you idiot!”

-Can you send me a wire as soon as you hear the explosion?

As soon as I shouted into my walkie-talkie to urgently call for assistance, the old man’s reply came back.

My brain quickly interpreted the old man’s words and I could figure out what kind of picture he was drawing.

I operated the other side of the wire extruder and fired the needles into the wall.

There was a clicking sound from the iron pin that had dug into the wall. I pulled on it carefully, but it didn’t budge at all, so it seemed to be fixed from the inside.

‘Wow!’ A huge explosion hit my ears. My ears started to ring and I felt a faint pain.

The place where I am standing is the highest point on the bridge.

Black smoke could be seen rising here and there from under the bridge, almost exactly where it met the river.

There was no time to waste. I pressed the button to minimize the elasticity of the wire and fired it straight at the old man.

And in that split second, cracks began to appear in my legs. The tinnitus gradually subsided and I began to hear the sound of steel bars bending.

It wasn’t just limited to one spot, more than half of the bridge just collapsed.

– Got it.

I immediately operated the ejector at the sound of a familiar voice coming from the walkie-talkie, and with a ‘wheezing’ sound, the wire that the ejector had spewed out began to quickly return to my house.

It was a completely different speed from when I first climbed the tower, and I had turned the speed up to the max because it was a race against time.

I was worried about the old man’s hand and shoulder, because they were flying around, hanging from the wire, like some kind of kite.

But somehow the location was a bit low. I felt like if I continued like this, I might crash into the tower I was on.

“Wow!”

It was only natural. Not only was the wire not free from gravity, but the old man was not light enough to float in the air like a kite.

The old man bounced up with a half-scream mixed with a yell. His shoulder… I wonder if it’s okay. I dislocated it last time when I hit it, but I didn’t think it would be okay after receiving that kind of tension.

“Are you okay…?”

“Don’t just sit there, go right now. It’s falling apart here.”

The old man spoke with a frown on his face. I couldn’t hear what he was saying clearly.

“What…huh?”

I could feel the strong arms of the old man on my body. I couldn’t even hear what he was going to do, and he did it almost as soon as he arrived, so I couldn’t help but be absent-minded.

All I could realize, even if it was late, was that I was in the old man’s arms again, and that he was running along the cable and quickly heading towards the exit.

The wind hit me harder than when I was on the tower. It was so fast that I felt like my heart was sinking.

The sound of my heart beating breathlessly, ‘thump thump’, proved it.

Just when I was about to feel anxious, I felt the old man’s arm tighten. As if it were a lie, my anxiety disappeared and my head felt clearer.

My mind began to fill in how dangerous the thing the old man had done was and how reckless his method was, and I felt like I had to say something sharp to him.

“Dangerously…what is this all about.”

“I won’t do anything dangerous with you.”

“…”

Still… I had some words to add after that, but I couldn’t think of them properly.

I felt like I was just being stupid, or maybe it was the so-called youthful dementia.

Well, he’s an old man… It might not be dangerous from an old man’s perspective. Considering the old man I’ve seen so far, it seemed like he could easily handle something like this.

The old man is really great, so I’m with him as a partner.

I glanced up at the old man’s face while holding him in my arms. His hair was disheveled from running head-on against the strong wind, but I thought that even this old man wasn’t so bad.

I should say he has a bit of a wild side. The old man originally had that kind of charm, but in this situation, it seemed like it was maximized even more.

“Cool…”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, no! Nothing!”

My face was hot. What did I say? What did I say to you?

The old man tilted his head at my words and seemed to focus on the situation in front of him again. The cable was now almost halfway through…

‘Ppaang!’

My body shook with a loud crash. To be precise, I was being held by the old man, so it should have been his body that shook.

When I looked up to see what was happening, I saw that the tower that had been holding the cable tightly was falling sideways like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the cable, unable to withstand the increased tension, was flying toward us at a faster speed than the wire I had shot out.

Even if the old man’s body was strong, it felt like it would tear apart if hit by something like that, like a rubber band that had been pulled too hard and then let go.

“Sir, it’s dangerous!”

“Damn it! I know! Hold on tight, shorts!”

The old man’s body floated up for a moment. The cable that was attached to the old man’s foot was shooting towards the bridge that had not yet collapsed along with the one that was originally attached to the tower.

Just a hair’s breadth away. The cable reached the ground before us and struck the stopped vehicle with all its might, pushing it several meters away.

We were still a little bit off the ground. About 8 meters. It was getting shorter every minute, but not as dramatically as the cable car. Maybe it was because the old man had done his last run.

It was starting to gain speed. If we kept falling like this, neither I nor the old man would be safe. It was frustrating that I couldn’t do anything in this situation.

If the old man had been alone, his physical condition would have been different, so he would have been able to avoid injury if he fell, but now he had a burden called me.

Even while falling, I could clearly feel the old man’s movements as he tried to place his body lower than mine.

“Leave me alone. At least live, sir.”

“Shut up, I told you not to do anything dangerous with you.”

“Don’t be stubborn! I’m telling you to let go!”

The old man paid no attention to my screams. Rather, I felt him gripping my body more tightly, as if he sensed that I was trying to shake him off.

The feeling of floating earlier seemed like a lie. The acceleration was so fast that I could feel myself falling.

‘thud!’

Fortunately, we didn’t fall into the bare ground. The cable had pushed the vehicles back earlier, so the van ended up where we should have fallen.

All that could be seen from the side was the frame of a van with moss growing on it. It was able to think, move its body, and move its mouth.

I moved my body a little bit away from the old man and checked his condition.

“Ah… Sir. Are you okay…?”

I didn’t feel any pain in my body right away. Not only did the van act as a cushion, but I also had a human cushion called the old man.

But the fact that my body was fine meant that the old man had been greatly shocked.

The old man didn’t answer my question. I felt the ground beneath my feet give out. My body trembled without me knowing it.

“Ah, sir…sir. Why, there’s…no answer…uh”

Maybe it was because my body was shaking. My voice was shaking too. It seemed stupid and ugly to be doing this in a situation where there were zombies everywhere, but I didn’t have the time to care about that.

I shook the old man’s body little by little. I held on to him desperately, hoping he would wake up.

There didn’t seem to be any external injuries… but if something had broken and was bleeding, the white frame of the van would have turned red.

“Ah…uh…”

Even though I couldn’t even speak properly, I put my ear to the old man’s chest with the thought of doing something.

‘Thump…Kooung…’

My heart was pounding.

“Alive…”

Is he fainting? Yes, he must have been shocked a lot… We need to wake him up quickly…

I hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was right to wake up here. It was relatively quiet considering the zombies were rushing towards us.

Didn’t they get caught? I had to assume so.

Since we weren’t bleeding, the smell was unlikely to cause them to come after us.

Above all, the sunken frame served as cover.

“This idiot… ugh…”

He spoke while burying his face in the old man’s chest. His face grew hot from the warmth, as if proving that the old man was alive.