Red Dot - 150

Chapter 150

“Don’t do that. It makes me want to tear you apart.”

“Are you some kind of zombie bastard?”

“Even a dog bastard knows how to tear things apart, so I’m just saying be careful.”

What kind of bullshit sounded so sincere, damn it.

Junseong glared at Hanseo, whose eyes looked unusually sharp, and pushed him aside to walk ahead.

As they had confirmed when they entered, the apartment entrance and the ground parking lot where they stood only had empty cars. No signs of living people or wandering zombies appeared yet.

Junseong, walking ahead, carefully observed the vehicles sparsely parked in the ground lot. He stopped behind a black sedan.

“Take this.”

Junseong gestured toward the black sedan and tossed something small to Hanseo. Hanseo caught it, hearing a jingle, and saw it was a car key.

“This is the director’s car. I remember it had plenty of gas.”

Junseong recalled using the director’s car to go to the bl00d bank with him in the last cycle.

When they visited the director’s house with Changmin, they moved quietly and the distances between their destinations weren’t too far, so they didn’t need a car.

But this time was different.

“We’ll take this car to the military shelter. It’s not too far, but it’s tough to go without a car.”

“Where is it?”

“There’s a navigation system in the car, so I’ll set the location.”

Junseong remembered the director’s car navigation worked well and headed to the passenger seat. While Hanseo, who climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine, Junseong entered the military shelter’s location into the navigation, which couldn’t use some functions due to the internet being down.

“Doesn’t Nam Ki-hyuk know that place too?”

Hanseo asked while watching Junseong set the location, and Junseong answered without worry.

“No way. I never went there in my dreams.”

Junseong discovered the military shelter’s existence in ‘reality,’ not in his dreams.

In his recurring dreams, Junseong tirelessly sought solutions and gathered no small amount of information in reality too.

That’s when he found the ‘military shelter.’ Junseong speculated one reason the civilian shelter on the city’s outskirts was so well-equipped, despite being hastily built, was because it received initial supplies from this place.

In his dreams, Junseong never mentioned the military shelter to his companions or suggested going there. His main goal was to find a fundamental solution to the zombie virus spreading in the world, and shelters were merely secondary for allies and survivors.

Besides, in his dreams, the situation wasn’t like now, with zombies swarming even outside Inhansi. A swift lockdown happened instead. There was no need to visit another shelter, especially a military one that didn’t allow civilians.

So, even if Nam Ki-hyuk remembered the dreams, he wouldn’t think of the military shelter.

Junseong entered the military shelter’s address into the navigation and checked the distance. As expected, it wasn’t far from the director’s apartment, but it was quite a distance from the civilian shelter their group was heading to.

After checking the distance, Junseong grabbed a sturdy shopping bag from the car trunk’s clutter before starting. He transferred all the bl00d packs from the director’s house to the bag and placed it in the backseat.

Hanseo wondered why Junseong moved them separately but soon understood.

Junseong’s backpack contained items for setting traps, small tools, leftover smoke bombs, and a few spare gravel bombs. For safety, storing the bl00d packs separately was the right call.

Junseong, carrying the now-lighter backpack, climbed into the passenger seat and glanced at Hanseo in the driver’s seat, struck by a sudden thought.

“By the way, how do you know how to drive?”

“What do you mean, how?”

Hanseo, who started the engine and smoothly reversed out of the parking space, skillfully checked the side mirror.

“You never learned to drive.”

Hanseo smirked at Junseong’s words. Even then, he pressed the accelerator and turned the wheel with ease.

“You noticed well.”

“When I didn’t know your past, I let it slide, but if your story’s true, it’s weird that you can drive.”

Hanseo lived confined in a research lab by his adoptive parents.

Even during school, he only went between the lab and school without detours, obediently enduring experiments without rebelling, despite not being physically chained.

For Hanseo, who lived gaslit to the point of not even dreaming of freedom, his inhumane adoptive parents wouldn’t have taught him to drive.

After all, knowing how to use transportation wasn’t unrelated to physical freedom.

Hanseo spoke while smoothly driving the car.

“I thought I had to mimic everything.”

“Mimic?”

Inside the moving car, Hanseo’s eyes turned cold.

“Doing what they wanted made things easier. Moving before they even asked made it even easier.”

Junseong tightly pursed his lips. He thought he understood what Hanseo meant by ‘mimic.’

“To do that, I had no choice but to become like that person.”

If it’s that person, they’d move like this, say this, want this…

Figuring it out in advance and acting first always earned praise. It was just formal words, like patting an obedient dog’s head, but those moments piled up and granted minimal freedom. His adoptive father especially hated slow or clueless people.

So Hanseo decided early on to mimic his adoptive father.

Not with his heart, but with his head.

That might be why.

That might explain why Hanseo could cram his adoptive father’s research processes and results, which used him as a test subject, into his mind.

Hanseo spoke with the same smile as his adoptive father in the director’s video.

“Thanks to that, I know how to drive.”

“…Don’t say it like that. You’re just sharp and quick-witted. It’s not because of that bastard.”

Junseong felt a bitter taste in his mouth and turned his gaze out the window. Hanseo looked at Junseong’s small, dark head with an amused smile.

Meanwhile, the car passed the ground parking lot and headed toward the apartment entrance.

Kyaaak-!

A metallic screech echoed nearby. Then, several zombies suddenly rushed out.

Tadak-tadak.

Hands clung to the car.

Puk-!

Bodies recklessly charged and bounced off.

Kihuk- Kak-!

Kreur-!

Bl00d-boiling screeches blocked by the car’s body.

Junseong quietly watched the zombies clinging to the car, then turned to Hanseo. He thought maybe fewer zombies, or none, would approach Hanseo’s side, but surprisingly, about as many stuck to the passenger side as well.

It made sense, in a way.

Even if zombies avoided Hanseo, it likely wasn’t due to sight. With their red film-covered eyes, they could barely see anything close, so they wouldn’t distinguish human shapes to attack.

Sound was the same. Lacking intelligence, they reacted blindly even to their kind’s screeches, so distinguishing by sound was impossible.

‘Then maybe smell.’

Perhaps pheromones.

Suddenly, Junseong grabbed Hanseo’s shoulder and brought his face near Hanseo’s neck.

Hanseo, far from startled, casually bit Junseong’s ear.

“Ugh, why’d you bite?”

“Why’re you tempting me? Want me to pounce on you in the car?”

“Your head’s full of those thoughts, huh?”

“Can’t exactly deny it.”

The bandage-covered throat and the still-sore butt from this morning’s hit—yet this pitch-black beast kept trying to go into heat at every chance.

Junseong shot Hanseo a fed-up look and mulled over the scent he just smelled.

Honestly, it just smelled like bl00d.

‘Makes sense.’

While heading to the director’s apartment, they had to deal with a few zombies to avoid watchful eyes. The bl00d likely stuck to them, so the smell was natural.

‘Maybe zombies smell something different.’

Unless he became a zombie, he’d probably never know.

Thinking this, Junseong turned his gaze forward and flinched.

On the road stretching outside the apartment complex, a woman in a bl00d-soaked white coat staggered in the middle. Perhaps hit by a speeding car, one leg’s shinbone jutted out sharply, and an arm twisted grotesquely.

Junseong recognized the woman and looked at Hanseo.

“Hmm.”

Hanseo’s unchanged expression looked as emotionless as if he saw just another zombie.

Then.

Bang-!

The female zombie, screeching after spotting them, got hit by the charging car and flew far away. Crashing headfirst defenselessly, she twitched violently a couple of times before stopping.

Junseong couldn’t tear his eyes away from the female zombie in the side mirror until she became a tiny dot.