Red Dot - 83

Hanseo left only ‘core-less materials’ behind in the 2nd research lab to erase his traces.

At first, he thought about disposing of everything, but then he wouldn’t know what the dead researchers wandering here had been up to.

He deliberately left behind test viruses and stabilizers. Since he left evidence of what the researchers here had been trying to create until now, someone could write an article condemning them in the future.

Next was the 1st research lab.

It was where the original research data, his and the test subjects’ blood, and nearly completed unfinished vaccines were stored.

Unlike the 2nd research lab, the 1st was extremely covert, and only a tiny number of researchers including himself could enter.

Of course, his adoptive parents were included among those few researchers.

“Ah, Hanseo…!”

His mother, who had been bustling about, was startled to find Hanseo approaching silently. In her hands were several vials containing the incomplete vaccine and virus.

Recognizing Hanseo and heaving a sigh of relief, his mother put on her usual ‘pretending to be kind’ smile.

“Coming from the 2nd lab? Everyone must have been infected by now, but you’re fine as expected. I knew it.”

Smiling as if she trusted him, his mother suddenly looked annoyed.

“When we proceed, we should use iron chains instead of restraints. Or maybe the researchers need better mental training first.”

The problem was that one test subject’s loose restraint failed to hold him when he turned into a zombie. Not knowing who had adjusted that restraint, his mother blamed the researchers’ carelessness as if talking about someone else.

“Hold these. Since my hands are full, I should at least take your blood packs.”

Handing everything to Hanseo, his mother headed for the blood storage room.

“Are you going to abandon this place?”

“Of course. Now that it’s become such a mess, we have to seal it off so no one can come and go. We made a sub-lab in Chungmusi anyway, so we’ll just go there.”

Hanseo recalled a research facility in Chungmusi that he had once visited with them.

As he calculated the distance in his head, he carelessly placed the items on a desk and picked up one of the vials.

“You’re abandoning it so easily.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wasn’t this a precious research lab and staff that made your dream come true for so long?”

His mother raised her eyebrows and glared at Hanseo. She had always taught him to be polite, but suddenly he spoke with a mocking, defiant tone that instantly put her in a bad mood. It felt like a dog baring its teeth at her after always obeying.

“If it’s no longer needed, we discard it.”

His mother crossed her arms and raised her chin at Hanseo approaching her. A smug, cold smile played on her arrogant face.

“We can always build another research lab. And researchers can be replenished. But our family cannot be replaced. Me, your father, and you – we’re indispensable to the research.”

His mother gently reached out and stroked Hanseo’s cheek.

“So as long as we survive, that’s enough. With just us, we can complete it.”

His mother’s face looking at Hanseo was filled with anticipation for her swollen dream.

Twenty-five years dreaming this vain fantasy.

If she hadn’t discovered the existence of the two-year-old Do Hanseo at the orphanage where she did volunteer work, she couldn’t have even started.

And now the fruit was within reach.

The virus that manifested from Do Hanseo’s blood devoured the damaged cells and rotten parts of the host during the infection process. This was like pre-repairing cells so that a fully infected host could still move actively even after initial death.

If you immediately administer the perfect vaccine after confirming the repair of the damaged areas, you can truly obtain a healthy body.

No matter what disease you had.
Even cancer and countless incurable diseases.

By combining the virus and vaccine, you create the ‘panacea’ that was my adoptive parents’ ultimate dream itself.
For that, Do Hanseo’s blood is absolutely essential.

Put another way, it means nothing can be done without Do Hanseo’s blood.

Reading his mother’s excited thoughts, Hanseo slowly formed a smile resembling hers.

“You’re right. If ‘we’ survive like you said, we can continue the same research without any problems going forward.”

“That’s right, so…! Ugh!”

As she was speaking, his mother’s throat was violently seized by Hanseo’s menacing hand, causing her to open her eyes wide and catch her breath. With her mouth gaping open and gasping, the contents of a vial whose cap had already been flipped open poured into her mouth. Immediately recognizing what was in that vial, his mother struggled desperately.

“Ugh, you…! Hack!”

Though his mother tried not to swallow it, she ended up swallowing the liquid. Because Hanseo had briefly loosened his grip on her throat on purpose, the liquid slid smoothly down her throat along with the gasp of air she finally took.

Once he confirmed she had swallowed the liquid, Hanseo fully released his mother.

“Cough, cough! Gag! Urrgghh!”

His mother frantically stuck her fingers down her throat, trying to induce vomiting. Though she did vomit up some of the liquid and stomach acid she had just swallowed, her pale face did not improve at all.

Then, his father appeared holding a USB containing all the research data and thick research files. With a horrified expression, he looked back and forth between Hanseo and his mother.

“Honey! The, the virus stock solution…! The one in the vial…!”

Tears of utter despair began streaming down his mother’s face.

“I made her drink it.”

“What…?”

Hanseo smiled and shook the empty vial, which had a ‘Z-Virus’ nametag on it.

“Do Hanseo!”

His father grabbed Hanseo’s collar in shock. The empty vial that had fallen to the floor made a crisp shattering sound.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

“Mom said as long as ‘we’ survive, we can complete the new drug.”

“How does that justify doing something like this?!”

As his fuming father stared at him, Hanseo, still smiling, suddenly grabbed the back of his head and violently pulled it back. With an “ugh” sound from the force causing his head to tilt back, the same virus stock solution his mother drank poured into his open mouth. Though his father tried not to swallow it after grasping the situation, Hanseo’s powerful grip mercilessly pressed down on his throat, forcing him to swallow it all.

The moment he let go, his father frantically clutched at his throat like a deranged person, desperately trying to vomit up the virus. It was an utterly frantic struggle.

“You’re working so hard for nothing.”

It was already too late once it went down his throat. If even a single drop made contact with the inside walls after entering the body, infection was guaranteed. His own blood had created a virus that powerful.

Something his parents, retching to expel even a bit of the virus, clearly understood as well.

With the same desperate expression as his mother, his staggering father quickly reached for the desk beside Hanseo. He had spotted an incomplete vaccine among the vials on the desk. Though incomplete, it could at least slow the virus’s progression enough to buy time, so he needed to inject or drink it, whichever was faster.

CRASH!

Just before his hand reached it, Hanseo scooped up the vials and flung them against the wall, shattering them. The reddish liquid spilling from the shattered vials looked just like blood.

“No, no…!”

His mother shook her head and broke into tears. His father seemed to have lost even the strength to be angry at Hanseo’s actions, slumping defeatedly to the floor.

“Why…?”

The trembling question spilled from his father’s lips.

“Why are you doing this…? How could you do this to us…?”

“I want to see the ‘results’ of my own research.”

Just as they researched Do Hanseo, he had been researching and observing them all along as well.

“I’ll help you, so just wait a bit.”

Hanseo, who had briefly left them, soon returned. In his hand was a 400ml blood pack labeled ‘Base_Do Hanseo (RH NULL)’.

He tossed the blood pack onto his father’s lap where he sat slumped.

“This was the only blood pack of mine left in the blood storage room. With that amount, at least ‘one’ of you should survive until we reach the Chungmusi lab.”

His father’s eyes wavered as he gripped the blood pack.

Indeed, there had been only one of Do Hanseo’s blood packs left in storage. Blood drawn during a ‘dopamine overload state’ that devoured viruses.

Not as effective as the incomplete vaccine, but being its base material, it was still potent enough. With no incomplete vaccine left now, this was the only way to immediately slow the virus’s progression.

Leaning against the desk with his arms crossed arrogantly and chin raised like his mother had done, Hanseo looked down coldly at the two of them.

“But if you two share it nicely, the blood will run out before you even leave Inhansi, and you’ll both die. And after death, you’ll become grotesque zombies like the people in the 2nd lab.”

Hanseo’s lips curved into a vile smile.

“It’d be pretty funny to see the two of you who spoke of ‘saving people’ rampaging around like that.”

He openly mocked their words.

“Why don’t you both just die here instead?”

His distraught adoptive parents’ eyes looked to Hanseo.

“Since you wanted to help people so much, just die here. Then no one else will be harmed. No innocent citizens will be put in danger, and the dangerous virus won’t get exposed outside either.”

Hanseo gave them a casual smile.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about this research lab.”

Through that smile, he resembled an innocent child cheerfully plucking the legs off an insect one by one.

“No one will ever know what research you did or how much progress you made.”

His cold-blooded, cruel adoptive parents suddenly looked pitiful, akin to white grubs wriggling helplessly without legs.

When Hanseo arrived at the place where the 1st research lab’s data was compiled, he tried to dispose of anything related to himself there as well.

But he couldn’t bring himself to do it completely.
It felt like erasing it all would make his entire life disappear.

‘So what if it disappears?’

He felt pathetic for being unable to erase all traces of his wretched life that could hardly even be called memories. While others would reminisce over faded photographs, he had to ponder over scraps of these documents.

Leaving the research data untouched and carelessly tossing the test subject data he brought from the 2nd lab, Hanseo headed back to where his adoptive parents were.

All that remained were his mother who had died from a snapped neck, and a memo left for him.

[I’ll go ahead to the lab, so hurry over.]

She had kindly written down the exact address too.

As terrifying and fearful as he was, they couldn’t discard ‘Do Hanseo’s blood’ since it was endlessly needed. His mother abandoned everything else but couldn’t abandon her adopted son.

His father thought the only place for Do Hanseo to stay was the ‘research lab’ anyway. They had brainwashed him to accept that, and until now, Do Hanseo’s home had been an isolation room in the lab. So he clearly expected Do Hanseo to follow.

Unaware that Do Hanseo had been deliberately feigning compliance while brainwashed in order to gain his freedom.

‘How foolish.’

It was ridiculous that he had obeyed such people.

The derisive laughter he had begun toward his absent father eventually burst out into loud guffaws. As he shook with uncontrollable laughter, he noticed a door labeled ‘Blood Storage Room’ on his way out. Beneath it was a crumpled sticker with the same name tag that had been on his own blood pack earlier. It read ‘G-7 Test Subject (RH+O)’.

Come to think of it, the test subject with the G-7 nametag was one of the most recent humans he had killed.

The laughter gradually subsided.

As much as he disliked it, he realized what he had done.

The moment he decided to stop his parents’ new drug development, the killings (salvation) he had committed became meaningless.

He was simply a terrible murderer who enjoyed and reveled in taking lives.

An abnormal human who enjoyed nothing else, felt no joy or excitement except through killing.

From being a savior of test subjects, Do Hanseo had become a mere murderer. Taking a deep breath of the unusually fresh outside air unlike his own dark, gloomy interior, he had a premonition that the nightmares he had been living would be no more.

If so, today was a day with a leisurely afternoon class, so he should go early and take a comfortable nap.

After a sound sleep, many things would probably change.

Or rather, he hoped things would definitely change.

Because he wanted to enjoy being right in the middle of the hell they had created for themselves.

But little did he know, he himself would also change.

Because of a single person.