Red Dot - 152

Chapter 152

Junseong met Ki-hyuk for the first time exactly when he experienced his 20th dream.

Back then, only a few days had passed since Junseong resolved to tackle the zombie-infested dream in his own way.

To add one more thing, around that time, Junseong was thoroughly exploring various zombie movies and dramas at Daewook’s suggestion.

That day, as always, Junseong woke up in a room with alarms blaring, urged those around him to escape as usual, and stepped outside.

‘A solution….’

While Junseong quietly gathered necessary items at a hardware store, only the word ‘solution’ floated aimlessly in his mind.

‘In typical zombie stories, a solution usually means a vaccine, right?’

When he thought about it, it seemed obvious.

Though the cause varied in each zombie story, it ultimately boiled down to a ‘virus.’

In this dream, if a zombie bit a person, the bitten person underwent a change and eventually turned into the same, so assuming it was an infectious virus seemed reasonable.

The natural enemy of a virus was a vaccine.

Thus, Junseong needed to find a way to create a vaccine somehow.

‘The problem is how to find it.’

This thought lingered as he moved from the hardware store to a convenience store, then to a pharmacy.

However, with endless worries, Junseong decided to first save his sister and think further afterward.

Since it was a dream, he could have searched for clues to a solution while busy rescuing his sister and ensuring her safety.

But that was something he couldn’t do.

Even if it was clearly a dream where he felt no pain, for her, it was no different from ‘reality.’

The sudden appearance of zombies, the brutal deaths of those around her, the bl00d-soaked corpses of acquaintances lunging to bite, and the monstrous human crowds worse than beasts.

Due to accumulated experience and memories, Junseong was already immune enough, but she would feel a world of difference in terror.

He didn’t want to leave her alone in that.

Even if he had to leave her, he needed to ensure at least minimal safety for her.

There wasn’t any grand reason.

He was her only brother.

She was family.

That… was the reason.

With a simple reason and firm resolve, Junseong moved, and that day, as always, he thrillingly saved Chaeyi and safely got her two friends into a subway shelter.

While lying in a tent set up in the subway shelter, Junseong calmly pondered the word ‘vaccine.’

‘Vaccine…. Cure…. Immunity….’

As he recalled related words one by one, Junseong decided to step away from the concept of ‘finding a vaccine.’

Unless a finished vaccine fell from the sky, it ultimately required materials and research and development capabilities.

As for development capabilities, the government would likely assemble a team of Korea’s top researchers, so a mere civilian like Junseong didn’t need to worry about that.

What about the main materials for a vaccine, then?

This, too, seemed like something Junseong couldn’t handle.

Only experts who could analyze and experiment could determine which materials affected the virus.

Thus, finding materials wasn’t something Junseong could do either.

‘So, what can I do?’

What could he, who lacked the ability to find or create a vaccine, do to obtain a solution to this crisis?

“Ah….”

While deep in thought, an exclamation naturally escaped his lips.

He recalled the zombie apocalypse movies and dramas he had watched.

Many of those works frequently and importantly featured scenes where the protagonists searched for the virus’s origin.

And that often led to a vaccine or immunity.

‘Right…. Come to think of it, there were many cases where the virus’s origin held hints or answers.’

Junseong felt a corner of his previously foggy mind clear up considerably.

The next day, after sending Chaeyi’s group off in a rescue helicopter from Inhan Hospital, Junseong, left alone, decided to plan an entirely new route based on his earlier thoughts.

‘Last time I went this way, there was a building with relatively few zombies, so I should head to its rooftop first to scout the area.’

For now, he had no information about the origin.

If so, he had no choice but to explore and investigate as he went.

Leaving Inhan Hospital alone, Junseong ran tirelessly toward a building he had marked as his destination.

Zombies lunged ferociously from all directions along the way, but Junseong calmly swung his machete without panic. Even if it meant taking a detour, he stuck to paths he had experienced in previous dreams, so calculating the zombies’ positions and timing wasn’t too difficult.

Strangely enough, things he experienced in dreams, even from much earlier cycles, came back vividly as if they happened yesterday. Not to the point of remembering every passing person, but at least everything that happened during actions taken with firm resolve remained crystal clear.

‘If I were this sharp in reality, wouldn’t that be nice?’

If Chaeyi heard this, she would have scrunched up her face and told him not to deceive her, but Junseong was sincere at the time.

Lost in random thoughts, he soon reached his destination.

While thrusting his machete into the head of a charging zombie, he calmly gazed at a building.

It was a neat, seven-story small officetel, recently built. He had been there once before, and the number of wandering zombies wasn’t too high. Perhaps it was thanks to the sturdy door locks or latches typical of an officetel.

‘There are probably survivors hiding, too.’

It was the second day since the zombie virus spread, around 2 p.m. with plenty of sunlight.

Even if people were holed up in their homes, terrified of the virus, only two days had passed, so they were likely still expecting rescue. Telling them no rescue team would come if they waited longer would only get him treated like a lunatic.

His destination was the rooftop anyway.

Since he had no intention of checking for survivors one by one or comforting them, he decided to focus solely on reaching the rooftop. He chose this place because it was relatively taller than surrounding buildings and somewhere he had been before.

‘Oh, there was one more good thing.’

Electricity.

In a previous cycle, even on the fifth day, the building had a steady power supply.

Naturally, on the second day now, electricity was still running, and even the elevator was operational. If he had to climb stairs to the seventh floor while dealing with zombies on each level, it would have been exhausting, but with a functioning elevator, he only needed to be cautious on the first and seventh floors.

The first floor, with relatively few zombies, was predictably easy to handle.

The problem was the seventh floor.

‘Come to think of it, the seventh floor was pretty crowded.’

There were quite a few zombies around the seventh-floor stairs and corridors.

The reason was simple.

People chased by zombies naturally headed to either the first floor or the rooftop.

The low number of zombies on the first floor was likely because the lobby and building entrance were open, so they probably escaped outside through there.

But on the seventh floor, the rooftop door was closed, and the only path was a narrow staircase.

Zombies, unable to perform even basic actions like turning a doorknob or using an elevator, didn’t have many movement options.

When the elevator arrived, nearby zombies let out screeches upon hearing the short ding of the alert. Enduring the unpleasant sound that irritated his eardrums, Junseong calmly took down the zombies charging at him one by one. While doing so, he slowly moved toward the rooftop door.

Clunk.

As soon as he turned the doorknob, a sound like something catching rang out. The doorknob, which should have turned smoothly, barely moved and stopped.

‘Damn.’

He overlooked something obvious.

The rooftop door might be locked.

‘How stupid can I be?’

His earlier thoughts about being sharp felt foolish. Failing to anticipate something like this.

He had thought too lightly of a place he’d been to once. Back then, he hadn’t even made it to the rooftop amid the chaos, so what made him assume it would be open?

While fending off zombies rushing at him in front of the rooftop door, Junseong was half-resigned.

‘This cycle’s a bust. In the next cycle, I’ll either find a way to open the rooftop door or pick another building of similar height….’

Before he could finish the thought, a zombie suddenly lunged out from among the others. His machete, stuck in another zombie’s head, was lodged too deep to pull out.

This cycle was about to end, he thought.

Slam-

Suddenly, the rooftop door swung open.

Thwack!

A leg shot out and kicked the head of the zombie about to bite him.

As the zombie was knocked away, a strong force yanked Junseong back, and he collapsed onto the floor.

Bang-!

When the loud sound of the door closing snapped him back to his senses, his body, weighed down by a heavy backpack, lay limply on the rooftop floor.

Startled, he sat up, and a voice reached him.

“Are you okay?”

A kind voice filled with concern enveloped Junseong.

Raising his head, he saw a man looking down at him, blocking the bright light.