Antisocial Chapter 15

Chapter 15. Immunity

The four survivors were helplessly tied up and made to kneel in the yard. Do-kyung had managed to catch them all.

If Bo-yeon hadn’t clung to Do-kyung’s arm and twisted the direction of the gun at the last moment, at least one of them would have been shot.

‘Never again. Don’t act in such a dangerous way.’

Do-kyung was extremely angry. Bo-yeon’s heart still trembled when she thought back to that moment.

If he had the ability to kill, Bo-yeon would have died then. But in the end, Do-kyung chose to beat them instead of using the gun. That’s why everyone was in such a mess.

“Moon Bo-yeon, get inside.”

Do-kyung spoke to her in a calm, annoyed tone. The four men, helplessly captured, looked at Bo-yeon with earnest eyes.

Their gaze seemed to beg her not to leave this monster alone, not to walk away. Ji-won’s condition was especially bad—he was suffering from a high fever due to an immune response.

Even though he was immune, it seemed unlikely that he would escape unscathed if bitten by a zombie.

“I-I want to be here….”

Bo-yeon was so scared that tears almost welled up in her eyes. She whispered, shivering.

Still, she held on with the determination that she couldn’t let someone die. Do-kyung’s eyes became fierce again, but he didn’t push Bo-yeon away forcefully.

Thinking back, he often hugged or touched Bo-yeon. He had never pushed her away first.

“Farmer or engineer. If you have a role, tell me now.”

“I-I’m a doctor!”

The middle-aged man shouted. Even in this situation, it was an elite profession, treated with respect.

“You ran away leaving the patient behind.”

When Do-kyung laughed indifferently, the man’s face turned red. There were no farmers or engineers among them.

“What’s your specialty?”

“…Surgery.”

“That old man is a plastic surgeon! He always bragged that he was the director of a successful hospital!”

Ji-won, trembling from the betrayal of his colleagues, spoke indignantly. Even though his voice was hoarse from pain, it had shifted to a more polite tone.

“But there must be something in his head.”

He said this as if asking Do-kyung to explain what he knew.

“…The infectious agent ZB0 is neither a virus nor a bacterium, but a type of microorganism that humans have never encountered before. When a person is bitten by a zombie, the microorganism escapes from the venom glands in the teeth and travels to the brain through the blood vessels. Once it settles completely in the brain, it turns the person into a zombie as we know it. If the host’s brain is damaged, the microorganism also dies.”

“And, among those who received blood transfusions from immune people, some turned into zombies.”

“They deliberately let zombies bite them, and when they show an immune response, they take their blood and transfuse it as is. Most of the immunes succeeded in defending against the microbial invasion through macrophages, one of the innate immune responses. It seemed like an experiment to study the white blood cell response.”

“They even opened human brains!”

“Yes… That’s why we desperately escaped.”

The doctor and Ji-won poured out the information they knew.

“At least the lower regions are said to be under government control. I thought that crazy group might be affiliated with the government. The equipment they used was ridiculously advanced. Even if they weren’t working with the government, at least some huge power must have been involved. That’s why we fled to Seoul. There aren’t many people here, and there are plenty of supplies…”

“In Seoul, an immune person can live a good life, and he even wants a slave. He’s so proud of himself.”

Ji-won stuck out his tongue as if disgusted.

“Lee Ji-won!”

“Don’t believe him. Choi Sung-sik, that piece of trash. Everyone else is the same!”

Ji-won’s judgment seemed to be clouded by a high fever, or perhaps it was simply the sense of betrayal from being abandoned. He grumbled at every step of the way.

“Koo Young-cheol is a pervert who boasted that he could eat a meal in a refugee tent. Kim Jung-woong is a dog who followed along and said Seoul is a lawless land. He wanted to rape a woman together.”

“Hey, you punk! You giggled with me at the time, saying you’d do the same!”

“I’m just following you guys! I was also just saying I’ll pay for a woman!”

All of a sudden, she was blinded by the internal strife. Everyone seemed normal, and she wondered what all that talk had been about.

That’s why they came to Seoul? They wanted to commit a crime in this situation?

But after hearing it, her own situation didn’t seem much different. Judging by their reactions, it didn’t seem like they were telling the truth.

Originally, when society collapsed, the weak—such as the elderly, children, and women—were the first to suffer. In reality, when a disaster occurred and people were isolated, they knew the social infrastructure would soon be restored once it was over.

Yet humans, as animals, committed serious crimes like murder and rape more easily than expected. The zombie outbreak, however, showed no signs of being resolved.

In particular, South Korea was a country in a food crisis, with a grain self-sufficiency rate of less than 20%. Since the zombie outbreak occurred simultaneously around the world, there was no way food imports would be smooth.

If food essential for survival was limited, competition was inevitable.

“……”

Bo-yeon felt her airway swelling from stress and silently took out her inhaler, spraying it. This was probably the only relief she could find.

Thinking about it, it seemed like it had been a long time since she had started using it. It was shocking to realize that, during the time she spent with Do-kyung, she had actually been less stressed than when she was locked up in the bunker alone.

As Bo-yeon’s face became miserably distorted, they tactfully changed the subject.

“Well… It’s true that the refugee situation is dire, but I heard that the military recently succeeded in raiding Incheon. Since there are many logistics centers in Incheon, the situation must have improved a bit.”

“That’s stupid. The fact that the military is even stealing means the situation is the worst! It means the government is on the defensive. How tired must the military be from fighting zombies every day? Do you know how many people died in Incheon? They said there were many deserters!”

They were fighting each other, picking at each other, as if their emotions were running high.

“If there’s a place where refugees gather, is it possible… to find my separated family?”

She didn’t want to talk to them because of her disgust, but she couldn’t shake off her anticipation and asked. She didn’t even realize that Do-kyung was staring at her.

Wasn’t there a slight possibility that her family couldn’t return home because there were too many zombies in Seoul and had no choice but to turn back?

Even after five months of no contact, Bo-yeon couldn’t completely let go of her family.

“There is such a system, but it’s hard to find them because refugee management isn’t done properly. Even if you do find them, they usually can’t be moved to another refugee camp.”

“Ah…..”

It’s not easy. Bo-yeon hung her head bitterly.

“Ha, that’s okay… I told you everything I know, so let me go. I was the most cooperative. I didn’t even run away.”

To be exact, he couldn’t run away, but Ji-won said it shamelessly.

“It’s nighttime now. You want to survive on your own with that body?”

Young-cheol found that annoying and started to argue.

“I just have to avoid the mutants, what are you talking about? There aren’t many people in Seoul, so there won’t be many mutants.”

“Humans are scarier than zombies, you idiot. How could the survivors in Seoul who’ve lived this long be normal people?”

Young-cheol glanced at Do-kyung as he said that.

“Do mutants follow humans?”

Do-kyung showed interest in the mutant story for the first time.

“I’ll tell you.”

The doctor, Choi Sung-sik, quickly joined the conversation.

“This is the latest information, so if you’d stayed in Seoul, you wouldn’t have known. Haha.”

Sung-sik laughed jokingly, but Do-kyung made a cold expression, as if telling him to explain properly. Sung-sik opened his mouth again, puzzled.

“Hm. The research lab we were held in also conducted zombie research… As you know, zombies eat humans to recover their bodies, right? Even though the mutants hunt both zombies and humans, they prefer humans. They say they regenerate faster when they eat humans. That means humans are a more efficient energy source for them than zombies.”

Humans are a more efficient energy source? That meant a shift in the ecosystem, where humans had once reigned as the top predator.

“There is also the view that humans are ultimately necessary as an energy source for the maintenance or evolution of the mutants’ destructive bodies. Even now, humans are still being eaten, and the mutants are increasing.”

Even ordinary zombies were strong, but the mutants were truly monsters. Bo-yeon was afraid that the number of such creatures would continue to grow, realizing that the human race was truly on the brink of extinction.