XG 84 - They just had to grab stuff that looked important

The sound of the door unlocked successfully brought a smile to Lee Su-Hwa's face. When they stepped in, there was no one and there was hardly any sign of mess, especially when the previous state of the shop was not much different from what a person would call messy.

Ash connected the walkie-talkie. "Captain, we found keys and a car inside the shop."

Kang Xunsu's end was extremely noisy. "Good. Pick two usable cars and collect useful tools from the store to fill up the boot. Don't make loud noises if you can."

Ash tried to open the boot after checking that the car in the garage was able to start. But the boot refused to open no matter how he tried, even with the others helping. The last resort available was to pry it open forcefully.

"No, don't do that." Lee Su-Hwa quickly stops the boys before they really use something to pry the boot open. "It will be useless if it can't be closed again, or if it flaps open and blocks the back view."

"So this car is here for the boot to be fixed," Ash concluded once his inexperience self checked the car from top to bottom and was unable to spot any obvious defects. 

"Can we still use this car?" Kim Sung-Ho asked. 

"Use it," Ash declared. Even without the boot, they could still stuff goods at the back seat, even if they could only put lesser goods with people riding inside. Once they go back to the lab, maybe someone could fix the boot. 

Lee Su-Hwa grabbed a bunch of keys to test which car it belongs to. Yuna insisted on following her and refused to let go of her arm. After repeatedly telling the young girl she must not make noise, Lee Su-Hwa finally allows the girl to follow, since she has the ability to protect herself and Lee Su-Hwa if needed. 

Lee Su-Hwa waved at the boys. "I don't know much about mechanical tools and don't have enough strength to do the heavy lifting, so I will leave it to you gentlemen."

Ash silently thought to himself that he does not know either, since his post-graduate program had nothing to do with repairing cars. Not that Kim Sung-Ho knew either. 

Anyway, they just had to grab stuff that looked important. 

🔪🔪🔪

The sole survivor, Minho, upon hearing Kang Hansik’s voice, had quickly called out from his hiding place. 

Wong Xue Guo does not remember how many people there were in Kang Hansik’s group. In the end, among the buddies that had scattered around the street, only one survived. They had picked a fried chicken shop, and it was a complete mess. Spoilt food was spilled everywhere, tables and chairs were overturned and there were also dead bodies among them. 

The smell in this shop was absolutely disgusting. At this rate, she might unconsciously start rating which smell was the most disgusting. 

Flies were flying around busily and each of them were plump, well fed. The sight of worms wiggling around the spoilt food nearly send her running out of the shop. In her entire eighteen years, she had never seen spoilt food, much less worm growing from it!

“You idiot! Next time, don’t run around and remember to follow me closely!” Kang Hansik scolded as soon as he saw his remaining teammate. “Where are the others?”

“They… the rest are dead! I’m the only one left. The zombies jumped up from under the snow…”

Kang Hansik’s expression does not look good hearing that, but he did not scold the poor fella anymore. “Are you injured?”

“No! I’m not injured! Hansik Hyung [1], let’s get back to the base, okay?”

[1] Hyung is a Korean term for a guy calling their elder brothers or male seniors.

“Then what’s with the large amount of blood on your waist?” Oh Junghan pointed out, tactfully keeping a distance away from Minho. 

“This… this is Kibum and other’s blood… Junghan Hyung, are you suspecting me? I said I’m not injured!”

Not only Oh Junghan suspected Minho, even Kang Hansik too. The air surrounding Minho was filled with a heavy scent of blood, too thick to be coming from dry blood. Not only that, Minho’s skin looks dry and coarse, unlike how he looked hours before. His lips were purple-ish and blue in color as if he was poisoned. 

Kang Hansik succeeds in lifting Minho’s shirt and reveals a large bite wound on his hip, still bleeding out. Minho had lied that he was not injured. 

This silly boy! 

If he admits he was injured and lies about how he got it, he might be able to fool them. But he did otherwise and was too eager in insisting he was not injured, like a guilty liar. Yet, it was also thanks to his choice that they discovered the truth immediately. 

Wong Xue Guo’s eyes flashed and she grabbed Chen Yibo’s wrist. “I always assume Yuna’s father having purple lips is because he’s dead, but maybe that’s also a sign for those without the gene?”

Before Chen Yibo could share his own thoughts, he heard Kang Hansik yell at Minho, “You stupid fool! Till when do you intend to hide it? Until you become a monster and attack us?” Kang Hansik even smacks Minho’s head in anger. 

“I… I don’t want to die!” Minho brawled.  

“That’s why you are a fool! I know how to save you!” Kang Hansik turned around, looking for someone. When he could not see the person he was looking for, he rushed out of the shop and saw Kang Xunsu. He would have called out regardless of the danger if Kang Xunsu had not met his eyes by chance. 

The wave of zombies had slowed down, seemingly attracted by something only they could sense, and ran away, leaving behind the tempting humans. 

Wong Xue Guo, still relying on the novels she had read about zombies, had a moment of fun to think that maybe it was a Zombie King who had summoned them over for a gathering.  

“You! Tell him to save my friend!” Kang Hansik rudely ordered Chen Yibo, earning a severe frown from Wong Xue Guo that reacted from his tone without understanding the substance.

Chen Yibo relayed his request good-naturedly and Kang Xunsu eyed the jersey guy with a funny look. “You want to borrow a bullet?”

It took a while for Kang Hansik to understand Kang Xunsu’s words and then grow angry. “Why would I want to borrow a bullet?! I’m telling you to save my friend, just like how you did to that uncle!”

He had seen they had a zombie bite that uncle, but he does not know how long the zombie needs to continue biting. At that time, he was not interested in knowing more, and only now did he regret not learning more when his buddy needed help. 

Kang Xunsu arched an eyebrow. “Why would I? We are not in the same group. It's already generous of us to help you find your friend.”

‘Uncle’ Do Eunhyuk suddenly said, “They helped me because I offered something in return.”

Kang Hansik understood Do Eunhyuk was giving him a bit of advice. But what could he give in return? 

“I will bring you to the survivor base and vouch for you!”

“Not interested,” Kang Xunsu answered lazily as he counted the remaining bullet he had. 

“I will give you food!”

“What kind of good food do you have anyway?” Kang Xunsu scorned and frowned when the remaining bullet he had was not satisfying. Did he really need to grab a knife and learn butchering techniques just like Madam?

However, he doubts he could reach her level, regardless of how much he trained. Her movement was too fluid and energetic for his style. 

“Then what the bloody hell do you want?!” Kang Hansik yelled in frustration.

Kang Xunsu finally looked at him, then scanned his figure from top to bottom. Then he slowly said, “I want nothing from you.”

Kang Hansik was so angry that he could not speak and could only moderately appease himself by shooting them murderous glares. He was also angry at the translator Chen Yibo, who faithfully translated every word correctly with the essence properly conveyed. 

Park Donghae eyed the pitiful Kang Hansik. “If there’s nothing, you can help me farm vegetables and plant rice.”

“Who wants to be a farmer!” Kang Hansik snapped. 

“Brother Xunsu, his hair does not turn white and he still maintains his normal body mass,” Chen Yibo interjected. 

“He might not have the gene so he won’t end up as a zombie but dead instead,” Wong Xue Guo added. 

While Suzie Yap had mentioned all possible symptoms for those infected humans, she had never mentioned about those people without the gene’s reaction after being bitten. It was for the reason that it was not important to know about.

“What did you say?” Kang Hansik asked aggressively, unable to understand what they said but somehow able to sense it was not anything good.