Red Dot - 113

Chapter 113

Just as the rain that had paused began pouring down again.

Kwak Dujae, who had gone down to the fifth floor of Inhan Hospital with Do Hanseo, stopped in his tracks when he noticed fresh red bloodstains appearing suddenly.

“Wasn’t it said that there were no zombies from the 7th floor down to here?”

“That’s correct.”

“But this blood…”

“You heard what happened here on the second day, didn’t you?”

Although briefly, they had heard through Junseong about what had occurred on the second day. Among the survivors in Inhan Hospital, there was an organized group involved in illicit organ trafficking. They had been caught trying to work on individuals one by one, and the survivors had driven them out.

“It’s just that corpses inevitably appeared when the survivors fought to expel the organ trafficking group.”

However, whether they expelled them alive or killed them was left unsaid.

Do Hanseo, with a vaguely unsettling smile, glanced back and laughed lightly.

“You wouldn’t hold it against them for fighting back, considering they were about to lose their organs and lives, would you?”

Dujae, who had hesitated momentarily, nodded with a bitter expression.

In this apocalyptic situation, he couldn’t blame anyone for committing justified killings in self-defense, especially against a group brutally harvesting organs from innocent survivors.

The survivors must have been gripped with unspeakable terror, knowing they could be killed and stripped of their organs if they didn’t kill first. Dujae himself had fought intruders with lethal intent when they came in the early morning, so he couldn’t claim to be free of understanding their feelings.

Walking past the scattered bloodstains and the trails where bodies seemed to have been dragged, Dujae proceeded deeper into the hospital until he reached an operating room that felt unusually cold.

The trays filled with surgical instruments of unclear purpose and the strong smell of chemicals amplified the eerie chill of the space.

Do Hanseo moved effortlessly in the room, appearing oddly natural and without a trace of awkwardness. Despite his demeanor, it was hard to imagine him wielding surgical tools to save someone’s life.

There was an unsettling energy in Hanseo’s dark eyes as he gazed at a sharp scalpel.

‘Rather than healing, it feels more like…’

Dujae quickly erased the image of the intruder who had severed his arm from his mind. He scolded himself for likening Hanseo, who had saved his party, to a brutal killer.

Sitting on the operating room sheet, Dujae looked apologetic as he loosened the bandage around his arm under Hanseo’s guidance.

The severed wound was, as expected, gruesome. However, Hanseo didn’t even flinch. In fact, Dujae, seeing his own wound with fresh eyes, was the one who turned his face away.

Hanseo’s gaze was indifferent, as if he were looking at an ordinary paper cut, and his unsettling smile lingered on his lips. Without hesitation, he fetched various medicines and tools, treating the wound with an almost mechanical precision. For a moment, Dujae wondered if Hanseo was a real doctor at this hospital.

“The first aid seems to have been done well enough. As long as you keep it clean daily, you’ll be fine until you can receive proper treatment later,” Hanseo remarked, pressing clean gauze to the amputated area and securing it tightly with a bandage. He sounded almost like he was imitating a typical doctor’s advice.

Dujae moved his tightly wrapped, severed arm a few times and looked grateful. Beads of sweat lined his face, having endured significant pain during the treatment without anesthesia.

“Thank you. Your name was Do Hanseo, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Hanseo gave a curt reply as he began to stand, but Dujae, still sitting, looked up at him intently.

“There’s a bruise on your left cheek. Did someone hit you?”

Unlike the dim seventh floor, where only minimal emergency lighting was on, the operating room was brightly lit. The brightness was necessary for clearly seeing and treating wounds, making Hanseo’s face fully visible.

Hanseo touched his left cheek lightly. Even with just his fingertips, he could feel the lingering warmth of the bruise.

The stiff, almost mechanical smile softened slightly.

“Let’s just say it’s the price for defying my master.”

“Master? You have a master?”

Dujae widened his eyes in confusion before quickly shifting to a look of understanding.

“Your master must be more violent than they seem.”

“I wish,” Hanseo replied with a wistful look, stroking his left cheek as though cherishing it.

Dujae, watching Hanseo curiously, stood up from the operating table.

“If you leave it, it might linger longer than you expect. Since we’re down here, why don’t we find something to reduce the swelling?”

“No need.”

Hanseo’s gaze turned cold in an instant, making even Dujae flinch.

“Why would I get rid of something I worked so hard to earn?”

How hard it was to gain such a thing without being hated.

Hanseo gently caressed his cheek with his fingertips, recalling Junseong’s face.

The truth was, it didn’t even hurt.

Apart from a faint tugging sensation on the skin of his cheek, it barely felt like he had been struck. What stood out instead was Junseong’s reddened hand and the way his usually calm brows furrowed in discomfort.

So delicate, Hanseo thought.

For a moment, he considered finding something to help with the swelling for Junseong’s sake, but he dismissed the idea. While Junseong might panic, Hanseo wished for the mark left by striking him to linger as long as possible.

‘It’s fine. No matter who it is, I’ll hit and kill them in his stead if needed.’

Until his wounds heal—or even afterward—he would be Junseong’s substitute hands.

As these thoughts ran through his mind, Hanseo’s dark gaze turned toward Dujae’s severed arm.

‘If an arm is gone, the only one left to rely on is me… In that case, perhaps the legs too…’

Kang Junseong couldn’t have helped but fear Do Hanseo if he had known the madness creeping into Hanseo’s thoughts.

Junseong, whose limbs were gone and who couldn’t survive without relying on others.

However, brushing aside such thoughts, what surfaced instead was the image of someone who held his hand tightly, walked beside him, and took the lead to protect him with determination.

“If you must sacrifice yourself… let this damned world burn.”

“It’s too early to be certain that you spread the virus.”

“No. Even if that’s true, I’ll change it.”

“I’ll pin everything on those who deserve your revenge.”

The madness in Do Hanseo’s eyes gradually faded.

“I’ve always wanted to be your loyal dog, loved as I am. So I hope you realize you’re not ‘alone,’ Master.”

Despite saying that, he entertained a thought far from a dog’s nature.

Preferring to be the “master of a fierce dog” over “a powerless possession.”

Thinking of Junseong brought a natural smile to his lips, a sight that was unexpectedly pleasant.

Kwak Dujae, noticing who Hanseo was thinking about, chuckled lightly.

“You two really get along well.”

Hanseo, offering only a subtle smile instead of a reply, stepped out of the operating room. Following him, Dujae changed his expression and asked,

“By the way, what are your plans moving forward?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Hanseo responded,

“I’ll do whatever Junseong decides.”

“Hmm, I guessed Kang Junseong was the leader. But you haven’t really decided on what to do next?”

“We don’t make the decisions.”

If it were the others in their group, they might have said decisions should be made collectively, but everyone knew better.

The route they took was always shaped by Junseong’s framework and completed by the others filling in the details.

In the end, every beginning and conclusion was dictated by Kang Junseong.

Hanseo, blindly loyal to Junseong’s decisions, didn’t even find value in the idea of consulting with others.

Dujae rubbed his chin as he spoke.

“I see. Contrary to what I knew, the zombie virus has spread outside Inhan City. For now, we’ll have to decide whether to gather everyone here or move to another area. Once Junseong’s younger sibling’s group joins us, I have a vehicle I scouted on my way here…”

“Hey, old man.”

Hanseo stopped in front of the emergency staircase door on the fifth floor, calling to him. When Hanseo turned his cold gaze over his shoulder, there wasn’t a trace of the earlier smile.

“Don’t try to take over what my Master should handle.”

How dare he, so insolently.

Feeling an ominous, bone-chilling energy from Hanseo, Dujae couldn’t breathe until the emergency stairway door creaked open.

The cold from Hanseo was incomparable to anything Dujae had felt earlier in the operating room. The killing intent, sharp and unrelenting, seemed capable of slicing his throat without hesitation.

‘It’s familiar.’

The murderous gaze of a killer who had laughed while cutting off their own arm flashed through his mind.

He swallowed dryly.

‘No, what am I thinking…’

To compare someone who had helped him to such a merciless killer—what an offensive thought.

Shaking off Hanseo’s glare from his mind, Dujae climbed the stairs silently. He chalked it up to Hanseo being overly sensitive when it came to the person he called Master.

In the tense atmosphere, they quickly reached the seventh floor.

The moment Hanseo pushed open the tightly shut emergency stairway door—

“Ahhh—?!”

A startled scream greeted them.