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“If you want a mutant as an underling, you have to turn it into your underling before it mutates. The ones that are already mutants won’t turn into your underlings, no matter how much you push them.”

‘I already know that.’

“And among the mutants, there are some odd ones.”

‘Odd ones?\'

I repeated his words as a question, raising my eyebrows, and the enemy leader continued in a calm voice.

“You will encounter some mutants that won’t hunt for new dreams even after becoming a mutant. Those are the ones that meet the conditions to become a stage-two mutant.”

‘When you say stage-two mutants… Are you talking about the one that showed up at Gangbyeonbuk-ro?\'

"That’s right. Stage-one mutants all mutate into similar appearances, but from stage two onward, their appearances vary. I don’t know what makes them different, but stage-two mutants look completely different from each other.”

\'How many stage-two mutants do you have?\'

“I ordered one of them to kill itself, and you killed the other one.”

‘You ordered one of them to kill itself? Why would you do that?\'

“I was curious if it would follow my orders.”

It seemed like he’d been meticulous in his experiments with mutants.

In order to have a mutant as an underling, the first and most important thing was to ensure the chain of command was intact. One could be killed by one’s own mutant underling if it didn’t obey orders.

When I nodded, the enemy leader sighed and spoke for the last time.

“Since I told you everything you wanted… Would you let me take my last breath?”

The enemy leader smiled a faint smile, one I had never seen before. It wasn’t the fake smile he offered when he tried acting cool, but the smile of someone who had found peace and tranquility.

It seemed like he’d really let go of everything. What he’d said was true—he didn’t have any more regrets.

I took a deep breath as I watched him. I then wrote down some questions I still had for him.

- Your desire hasn\'t been destroyed yet. Are you sure you want to give up? Are you sure you don’t have any regrets?

“Don’t make me even more miserable than I am right now.”

I titled my head, not quite catching what he meant. My expression seemed to demand some clarification from him, since the enemy leader smiled thinly before speaking again.

“I didn’t turn into a black creature even after I realized that my daughter was dead. Who would forgive a foolish father like me? I can\'t even forgive myself.”

“...”

“This means that the current me values being part of the Family more than the fact that my daughter is dead. How heartbreaking is that?”

“...”

“Desires are only desires. They can’t be a reason to keep living. I don\'t want to be controlled by my desires anymore. Let me… At least let me decide how I want to meet my end.”

The enemy leader slowly closed his eyes and humbly accepted his death.

I got up and took one last look at the end of the enemy leader. Looking at him made me think about a saying I’d heard a long time ago.

- Life is difficult, and sometimes you go down roads that you don’t want to.

Sometimes we believe that we\'re moving forward. That, by looking backward, we can understand how to move forward. But in the end, we end up retracing our paths, walking in an endless circle our entire lives.

I prayed that in his next life, he wouldn’t be tied down to the limits he set for himself. With that, I ended his lonely life.

* * *

After talking to Kim Hyeong-Jun, I decided to eat the enemy leader’s brain.

I slept for a full day after eating it, and finally regained consciousness around sunset the next day.

As soon as I woke up, I tried out something I’d been curious about. The Seongsu-dong leader had been a zombie that could talk. Deep down, I’d hypothesized that I would be able to talk as well if I ate his brain.

“Grr…”

However, I could still only utter the disturbing, throat-rending noises. It was the same as when I’d taken care of the Majang-dong leader. It seemed like the problem lay with them being zombies, not with their powers.

I smacked my lips in frustration and rubbed my throat with my right hand.

I was getting more certain that the only way to regain my speech was to eat a human’s brain. I sighed in disappointment.

I shook my head and got up, then went straight to Shelter Silence to find Kim Hyeong-Jun.

I saw him far away, working on reinforcing the defense line. I walked over to him and met eyes with him without saying a word.

Kim Hyeong-Jun was startled and jumped into the air when he saw my face.

‘Oh, what in the world! You surprised me! When did you wake up, ahjussi?\'

I chuckled.

‘It seems you’re more or less done here. Let’s go. There’s something I want to show you.\'

‘Something you want to show me…?\'

When I nodded, Kim Hyeong-Jun hesitated and looked at Park Gi-Cheol, who was next to him. The two then exchanged some words in sign language.

I waited for them to finish their conversation. After a moment, Kim Hyeong-Jun smiled. He seemed pleased.

\'Let\'s go. I’m done talking.\'

\'What did you two talk about?\'

‘I told him I was going away for a while. And I asked him to take care of my wife and son.\'

Oh right. He’d told me that he had a son. A newborn who had just turned one.

The feeling of going to work and leaving your child behind, when they were the most precious thing in the world… I could definitely empathize with him.

I patted Kim Hyeong-Jun on the back without saying a word. He recognized the meaning behind my gesture and smiled sheepishly.

‘Alright, lead the way. Let\'s get going.\'

I took him to the zombie prison in Haengdang-dong. He clicked his tongue after looking at the zombie prison.

‘Did you make this while I was hibernating after eating the black creature’s brain?\'

‘Why, you don’t like it?\'

‘You know, ahjussi, you have a rather vicious side to you. Haha.\'

\'I have to do what I have to do to survive.\'

I answered him calmly and recruited more underlings.

I’d gone to Seoul Forest with one thousand underlings, but after the fight, I had fewer than one hundred remaining.

I realized that I had to recruit new underlings slowly, or else my brain wouldn’t be able to withstand the pain. I decided to recruit one hundred a day.

Of course, I wasn’t going to recruit just any zombie. I planned on recruiting zombies that had vision, and those that didn’t look away when I looked at them. I knew that I wouldn’t be one hundred percent successful even if I recruited underlings that met the required condition, so I had to recruit all the ones that didn’t look away in order to increase my chances.

Kim Hyeong-Jun and I devoted all our efforts to recruiting underlings and researching mutants.

* * *

After about a week, we were able to make great progress with regard to mutants.

Thanks to the information that the Seongsu-dong leader provided us, our experiments had gone smoothly,

We didn’t have any stage-two mutants yet, but we were able to develop six stage-one mutants… Actually, five first-stage mutants.

One of the things we learned through our experiments was that one stage-one mutant was as good as fifty underlings.

I’d developed the ability to sense where my underlings were and the total number of them after I’d gotten rid of the Majang-dong leader. The moment I created a stage-one mutant, I noticed that my total number of underlings immediately went up by fifty.

In that sense, five stage-one mutants would be equivalent to two hundred and fifty underlings.

I ordered fifty underlings to fight a stage-one mutant in order to measure the mutant’s combat capabilities. Through this, I learned that mutants had better combat capabilities than the fifty underlings.

The mutant\'s ability to learn was demonstrated even when it was fighting against fifty underlings.

It seemed like it had decided to go for a brute-force frontal assault at first, but as the battle dragged on, it began to come up with more efficient ways to deal with the zombies.

It used its reach advantage, surrounding obstacles, and even utilized geographical features.

However, as good as its outstanding abilities were, it came with a price. It had to eat a zombie brain at least once a week, no matter what. If not, it quickly devolved into viciousness.

That was the reason why we had initially created six, but were only left with five.

We weren’t able to contain the mutant that had suddenly devolved into viciousness. After not eating a zombie brain for a week, the mutant lost its green glow and tried to attack me.

I had no choice but to put it down.

Once a mutant lost its green glow, it didn’t regain its glow even after it ate a zombie brain. Once it lost its glow, it was free of the chain of command.

Their superior abilities came at a cost. They were a lot more complicated to deal with, since they had to be fed constantly, and so having a large number of them would be a burden.

It seemed wise to limit the number of stage-one mutants and continue our stage-two mutant experiments with the ones we had.

I could currently command a total of a thousand, six hundred and fifty underlings. The number of underlings I could control had gone up by two hundred and fifty thanks to the five brains I’d eaten over the course of the Seoul Forest battle.

Kim Hyeong-Jun could control one thousand five hundred and fifty.

Kim Hyeong-Jun also ran stage-two mutant experiments with five mutants. Of course, he didn’t forget to stop by Shelter Hae-Young to report his progress in between experiments.

Lee Jeong-Uk heard about the mutant’s vicious tendencies and urged me to take care of myself.

The others at the shelter were getting used to using crossbows while I conducted research about the mutants. Everyone practiced firing the crossbow for three hours a day, and the Lee brothers taught the college students how to handle firearms.

The Lee brothers took on the responsibility of being reliable drill instructors to everyone, and offered emotional support as well.

In addition, the elder taught the children and college students who’d grown up in the city about edible plants and plants with strong toxins. The elder also taught them about farming.

It was just like the saying—life is an endless journey of learning.

The children learned academic knowledge from the principal, strategic knowledge from the Lee brothers, and the means of survival from the elder.

Of course, as it was still dangerous for children around So-Yeon’s age to handle firearms, they only learned about farming.

The emergence of mutants and the Shelter Seoul Forest battle had reignited the motivation of everyone at Shelter Hae-Young once again.

For better or for worse, we were learning and growing through these incidents.

* * *

Autumn, with its clear blue skies, smell of grass, and colorful leaves welcomed us.

The gentle breeze that only blew at night was now replaced with a chill wind that blew day and night.

I’d been living every day to its fullest, and hadn’t even realized that a month had passed.

In the meantime, I’d bolstered the number of my underlings to the amount that I’d had before the battle, and I even took care of one bait that had entered Haengdang-dong. I also started cleaning up Majang-dong, and brought back the zombies I’d caught there to the zombie prison in Haengdang-dong.

It all seemed to be smooth sailing, but there was one exception.

It was the experiments with mutants.

I continued my experiments, and six stage-one mutants seemed to be my limit. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not get a mutant to turn into a stage-two mutant.

I had no doubt that none of them looked away when we met eyes, and none of them had desires. But all of the mutants ended up vomiting blood and then fainting in the process of becoming a stage-two mutant.

Research regarding stage-two mutants was as hopeless as it could be. However, thanks to that, I learned a new fact about stage-one mutants. It was that stage-one mutants seemed to cease wanting other desires after a certain amount of time.

After a while, the stage-one mutants remained under my command even though they hadn’t consumed any zombie brains in two weeks.

Kim Hyeong-Jun and I continued our research on stage-two mutants at the zombie prison located in Haengdang-dong, just like any other day.

“GWAAA!!!”

Kim Hyeong-Jun screamed and kicked the floor while I was concentrating on my research. I looked at him, wondering if he had finally lost it.

\'What\'s the matter?\'

‘Why isn’t it working?!\'

\'Well, it won’t start to work just because you get frustrated.’

‘I made five stage-one mutants within a week, but I haven\'t been able to create a stage-two mutant for over a month!\'

\'That’s why you have to think calmly and rationally.\'

‘Ha…’

Kim Hyeong-Jun shook his head and let out a deep sigh.

I was not different. Things were frustrating for me too.

However, I knew that we wouldn’t be able to just get stage-one mutants to mutate to stage-two mutants just because we got frustrated.

After a moment, Kim Hyeong-Jun spoke, his voice colored with frustration.

\'Ahjussi, do you think there was something that the Seongsu-dong leader didn\'t tell us?\'

‘Something he didn’t tell us?\'

‘There’s got to be something. It doesn\'t make sense for us to keep failing like this!\'

Kim Hyeong-Jun grumbled and sat cross-legged on the floor.

I rubbed my chin and recalled the conversation I had with the Seongsu-dong leader.