Her face, brightening at first with sudden hope, quickly shifted into disbelief as she searched Johan’s expression for any trace of a joke.
There was none.
His face remained grave and solemn.
Christina’s expression darkened as a heavy silence settled over the room, emotions gathering inside her like an approaching storm.
Then, just when it seemed things could not possibly get any worse, the soldier emerged from behind Johan with steady, measured steps, extinguishing their final glimmer of hope.
Christina’s brows drew together.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Seojun too...”
“Ugh.”
Trapped in the soldier’s grip, Seojun could barely breathe, let alone greet her.
For all his rambling speech, the soldier moved with brutal speed and efficiency. Holding Seojun’s life hostage, he forced Johan to surrender his weapon, then casually picked up the skewer that had rolled across the floor.
At least he did not go so far as to turn either Seojun or Johan into barbecue.
When did he capture Christina?
Seojun forced his sluggish thoughts into motion, but confusion clouded his mind.
Had there ever been a soldier in The Murderer of the Bloody Lake?
He could not remember one.
Admittedly, his recollection of the film was far from perfect. Even so, a deranged soldier felt like an entirely unfamiliar—and deeply unsettling—addition.
The man’s movements were swift and disciplined, but there was no question that his mind was unstable.
Seojun briefly wondered whether he might be connected to Gas Mask, but the soldier had said nothing about the Hamon Production Workshop or the serial killer in the gas mask.
Instead...
The corpse hurled at them by the monster had also been wearing a military uniform.
And this soldier had mentioned transported cargo.
It almost sounded as though he had been referring to the man-eating creature in the lake.
Could that really be what happened?
When Seojun combined Brass’s information with the soldier’s words, one possibility emerged: the military had been transporting the monster, only to lose it somehow in the lake at Hamon Campsite.
But that made no sense.
In The Murderer of the Bloody Lake, the monster had always lived in the lake.
Since when had the military been involved?
And how the hell did anyone manage to misplace a monster that ate people?
The whole situation sounded like something ripped directly from one of Bobby’s deranged conspiracy theories.
To Seojun, it felt as though someone had promised him premium domestic Hanwoo, only to serve him imported American beef instead.
Disappointing, to say the least.
As the soldier barked at Johan to tie his own hands, Seojun’s mind continued racing.
For the moment, he pushed the tangle of unanswered questions aside and forced himself to focus.
Then he saw it.
A narrow opening.
Even in such a desperate situation, Seojun found the faintest glimmer of hope.
First, he studied the soldier’s equipment.
Aside from the gun, he had no proper weapons.
Even a handful of cable ties would have made restraining Christina and the others far easier. Instead, he had bound them with clothing, which was hardly the most effective way to secure prisoners.
More importantly, whether out of arrogance or lack of supplies, he had left their legs untied.
That was an opportunity.
The soldier was alone.
They had numbers on their side.
Excluding William, who was unconscious, there were still four of them.
And the soldier did not seem intent on killing them immediately.
Not yet, at least.
Seojun licked his dry lips and swallowed.
Bullets were not infinite.
Sooner or later, the soldier would have to reload.
If they could seize that single moment, they might actually be able to turn the situation around.
His blood surged with renewed confidence.
Hope rose so sharply that it almost became suffocating, and Seojun had to force himself to calm down.
Next, he assessed the soldier’s physical condition.
The man looked intimidating, but the pus and blood oozing from his exposed skin were real.
He was in pain.
He concealed it well, but Seojun could hear the faint groans, see the irregular rise and fall of his chest, and notice the slight tremor in his hands.
The soldier was skilled.
But he was also badly wounded.
And most importantly, Christina was here.
Seojun was certain that the mysterious laws governing this world would protect her until the very end.
Bullets might strike her, but they would somehow miss every vital organ. She might collapse in a pool of blood, yet remain miraculously alive.
He himself, however, might not be so fortunate.
Still, all they needed was one opening.
Just one.
Seojun wished for it with everything he had.
He knew perfectly well that life would be easy if determination alone could make wishes come true, but that did not stop him from praying in every possible direction—to the sky, to the earth, beneath the ground, and perhaps even out into the distant reaches of the universe.
And whether it was the sky, the earth, the depths below, or the universe beyond, something answered.
“AAAAAH!”
The door of the abandoned dormitory flew open with a deafening crash.
A man burst into the room, screaming at the top of his lungs as he charged forward like a bull.
His voice echoed from the peeling walls, filled with equal parts fury and desperation.
Every head turned toward him.
Christina.
Airi.
William, whose eyes had only just opened.
Even the soldier, who was in the middle of restraining Seojun.
All of them stared at the man making his dramatic entrance.
His golden hair was impossible to miss, even in the dim room. It caught the moonlight streaming through the shattered windows and shone brilliantly.
It was Golden.
Johan alone did not allow his attention to waver.
His eyes remained fixed on Seojun.
The instant Golden entered, Johan launched himself from the floor and drove his large frame into the soldier.
A gunshot exploded through the dormitory as the soldier’s weapon discharged.
Johan and the soldier crashed to the floor in a tangled heap, dragging Seojun down with them.
Fortunately, the stray bullet missed his face.
The old dormitory took the damage instead.
The rotten floorboards, weakened by years of neglect, offered little resistance. The bullet tore through them and struck the ceiling with a dull thud, leaving a small hole behind.
The gun was still clenched in the soldier’s outstretched hand.
Without hesitation, Seojun sank his teeth into the man’s wrist.
“Aaaaaah!”
A howl of agony erupted from the soldier.
Seojun’s bite was not especially powerful, but the man’s exposed flesh was already decaying.
Just as Seojun had suspected, the weakened skin tore easily beneath his teeth, like overcooked meat falling apart beneath a fork.
Pus, blood, and scraps of flesh flooded his mouth.
Seojun forced himself to ignore the horrific taste and focused only on the gun.
“Ugh!”
“Johan! The gun! Stop the gun first!”
“Willy, wake up! Come on, Willy!”
“Ugh—aaaaah!”
The room dissolved into absolute chaos.
The soldier’s eyes bulged in shock.
Christina and Airi, still bound and unable to move, shouted curses from the corner.
Seojun could not speak with the soldier’s wrist wedged between his teeth and was beginning to worry about the damage to his gums.
Golden charged toward them in a frenzy, arms flailing, his wild and bewildered eyes perfectly reflecting the madness around him.
Crunch.
Seojun’s back teeth finally struck something harder than flesh.
Bone.
The corners of his mouth split slightly from the pressure, though he was too overwhelmed to notice the scent of his own blood.
Expecting his nose to distinguish anything in the middle of such chaos would have been unreasonable.
“Argh!”
At last, the gun slipped from the soldier’s hand.
Johan reacted immediately and kicked it away.
The weapon, which only moments earlier had been pressed dangerously close to Seojun’s head, skidded across the floor toward Christina’s feet.
In that critical instant, savage fury flared in the soldier’s pain-clouded eyes.
As Johan’s attention shifted briefly toward the gun, the soldier thrust his left thumb toward Seojun’s right eye.
Seojun reacted a fraction too slowly.
He tried to jerk his head aside, but his teeth were still buried deep in the soldier’s flesh.
With his mouth packed full of muscle and skin, he could not even scream.
Time seemed to slow.
The soldier’s hardened fingernail moved closer to Seojun’s eye.
Ah.
I see.
The realization struck him with sudden clarity.
The soldier was little more than a dying man.
He existed somewhere between life and death, his body already rotting while his sanity crumbled with it.
Seojun’s mind raced furiously as the finger approached the eye that led so directly to his brain.
Each instant stretched unnaturally long, captured like separate images in a frantic slideshow.
The nail was about to plunge between his wide-open eyelids, pierce the soft, wet surface of his cornea, and burst the eye apart.
“...Ah!”
With enormous effort, Seojun tore his mouth away and lifted his head.
He was still too slow.
He could not close his eye in time.
All he could do was watch in horror as the finger drew closer.
“Argh!”
Then, just as violence seemed inevitable, a wet and gruesome sound interrupted it.
“Get your hands off him!”
Johan seized the skewer from the soldier’s waistband.
Without hesitation, he drove it into the man’s body.
The uniform split open.
The skewer tore through skin, muscle, and organs before emerging from the other side, dripping blood and scraps of pink intestine.
Huuu...
Seojun could not tell whether the deflating sound came from the soldier’s stomach or his mouth.
Golden finally reached them and delivered a savage blow to the back of the soldier’s head.
Already impaled by the skewer, the soldier could endure no more.
He collapsed face-first onto the floor.
For a moment, the room went still.
The soldier did not rise again.
Only the faint trembling of his body suggested that he might merely be unconscious.
Realizing that the man was no longer moving, Golden stood over him, his face flushed with rage.
He drew several deep breaths, trying to steady himself, then marched stiffly toward Seojun.
“Hey! Fortune teller! Are you all right?”
He seized Seojun by the shoulders and shook him vigorously.
Seojun’s injured shoulder, which had only just begun to heal, immediately turned red again.
Golden’s hair dye seemed to be of questionable quality. Sweat had caused a golden sheen to spread across his forehead.
At that moment, Seojun sincerely felt like losing consciousness.
For one brief instant, he even envied the soldier.
When Johan saw Seojun’s head whipping helplessly back and forth, he stepped in and caught Golden by the wrist.
“Ow—hey!”
“Golden. That’s enough.”
Johan shoved him away with enough force to nearly throw him off balance.
His grip left Golden’s wrist white, and as the blood returned, a dark bruise began forming across the skin.
Golden had every reason to be angry.
He might have been slightly shorter than the slender Seojun, but he was powerfully built, with thick forearms and a broad chest developed through his passion for boxing.
As always, however, Johan paid no attention to Golden’s imposing physique.
“This isn’t the time, Golden.”
He turned back to Seojun and gently brushed his thumb across the split in his lip.
Seojun flinched.
Johan immediately became restless.
“Jun, does it hurt? I’m sorry.”
His expression fell, as though he were genuinely distressed by the fact that he had no ointment with him.
Seojun still hurt all over, yet Johan’s concern somehow eased the tension in his body.
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
Then he noticed Golden glaring from behind Johan, and the smile slowly vanished.
Wait.
I haven’t used all my good luck on Golden, have I?
Cold sweat broke out across Seojun’s back.
He quickly pushed the dreadful thought away.
At that moment, he heard a soft kicking sound against the floor.
Seojun tensed.
For one terrible second, he wondered whether the soldier had somehow regained consciousness.
He turned sharply.
Instead, he found Christina and Airi staring at them in utter disbelief.
The gun was still rolling near Christina’s feet.
“Could you untie us?”
“Yes,” Airi added. “Please untie us.”
Johan awkwardly scratched the back of his head and walked over.
The soldier had tied them so tightly that dark bruises had formed beneath the bindings.
“Ugh...”
Christina rubbed her aching wrists while Airi limped toward William.
She lowered herself onto the filthy floor and carefully rolled him onto his back.
While dragging Christina and the others into the dormitory, the soldier had repeatedly slammed William’s head against the ground, claiming that he needed to make an example of anyone who resisted.
He had continued until William lost consciousness.
The soldier had insisted that he took no pleasure in hurting others, but his temper was short and his violence merciless.
The memory made Airi’s chest ache.
“Oh, Willy!”
“Mm... Airi?”
Fortunately, William was in relatively stable condition.
There was a cut across his forehead and some bleeding, but nothing immediately fatal.
Of course, he had also been shot in the leg and had injured his collarbone.
Still, he was alive.
Compared with Bobby, whose fate remained unknown, William was doing remarkably well.
Seojun gave a small nod, impressed by the man’s resilience.
Johan noticed the movement and casually placed a hand against Seojun’s forehead.
“What? Get off me.”
“You don’t have a fever...”
“What is this strangely uncomfortable feeling?”
Despite his verbal protest, Seojun had already grown accustomed to Johan touching him and did not make any real effort to pull away.
Once everyone had been freed, they exchanged glances.
Now it was the soldier’s turn to be tied up.