Dystopia Of Night - Chapter 2 Part 8

“Ahhhh!”

4883 tore at one of the college students who attacked him. When the student fell down after being bitten on the ankle by its sharp teeth, 4883 climbed on top of the student and continued to attack.

“Jaewon!”

Another student tried to save Jaewon, but 4883 did not let go easily. It was then that Hansol looked to Sehan for help.

Sehan stomped his foot down on 4883’s head as he was busy biting on Jaewon.

“Keugh!”

4883 was buried in the ground, twitching and grinding its sharp teeth, gnawing at the soil.

“W-What do we do?”

“Since it seems like he can’t regenerate, we have to cut off his head. Or crush it completely.”

Sehan reached out his hand to Hansol. Hansol handed him the baseball bat he had. At the moment Sehan was about to swing it, Yuju spoke up.

“What about burning it?”

That thing is no longer human. Yuju thought to herself, feeling guilty.

“We have a fire and it won’t take much effort.”

“Not a bad idea.”

Sehan and the students shoved a gag into 4883’s mouth and pushed him into the pit of fire.

Whoosh! The flames that were burning calmly shot up high and engulfed the body of 4883 as if it were delicious. It was a phenomenon similar to when it touched the head of the snake monster.

Like the snake monster, fire was also 4883’s weakness. Had 4883 changed like that because he was bitten by the snake monster?

Everyone had the same thought, but there was no time to ponder. While struggling with 4883, Kyeong-joon had stopped breathing and had started acting like 4883.

“Kueeeek!”

Kyeong-joon’s teeth shone sharply as he ran towards them like a reanimated zombie.

Sehan quickly reacted and subdued Kyeong-joon. He and the others burned Kyeong-joon like they did with 4883.

However, everyone’s complexion was grim.

There was still one person left.

They simultaneously looked at Jaewon, whose face was as deadly pale as 4883 and Kyeong-joon.

“H-Hyung…! Not me! Not me, Hyunho!”

Jaewon shouted, looking at his surviving friends. But Hansol and Hyunho didn’t grab Jaewon’s hand. Their eyes were full of distrust.

“It seems to be contagious when bitten. And it seems to be highly contagious.” 

“This is not the time for this. We have to kill him before he completely changes.”

The middle-aged police officer urgently spoke as he pulled out his gun and pointed it at Jaewon.

“Not me! I’m not dead! Unlike them who are all dead!” 

Jaewon looked around frantically, hiding his bleeding ankle.

“You turn into a zombie if you die. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Zombie. 4883 and Kyeong-joon looked like zombies — dead but still moving. If they call those symptoms as zombies, then the source of the infection must be the snake monster.

“This is crazy. Even the monster bastards are annoying, and now this…!”

The middle-aged policeman grumbled and held his gun as if he would shoot at any moment.

“Please wait a moment. He just looks a little pale.”

It was different from burning a corpse. Jaewon was alive. Yuju stopped the policeman who seemed ready to shoot and spoke calmly.

“Let’s quarantine him for now. Even if we determine later that he is infected, it won’t be too late. If we tie him up tightly, he won’t be a threat even if those symptoms appear.”

Yuju’s words were rational. They didn’t blindly defend Jaewon, but took a reasonable approach. Those who agreed with her nodded.

“Yuju-ssi is right.”

“I agree too.”

Sehan, who had been quietly watching Yuju’s actions, looked at the students and spoke.

“You guys agree too, right?”

Hansol and Hyunho immediately nodded, but Jaewon looked hesitant.

“But being tied up is a bit…”

“As you can see, there’s no suitable space to quarantine you. If you want to clear up any misunderstandings, then prove it yourself.”

Jaewon didn’t really have the right to refuse. He realized that he had to listen to Sehan’s words when he still had a chance to be treated like a human. 

In the end, Jaewon nodded, and they decided to tie him up and monitor him.

***

It has been three more days since Jaewon has been quarantined.

The tentacled monsters still came in groups of four, but once they were all defeated, a snake monster would appear. The time frame was about 30 minutes earlier than before.

After about a day, Jaewon began to transform like 4883 and Kyeong-joon.

The middle-aged police officer who was monitoring Jaewon noticed that as time went on, Jaewon’s breathing became more labored and his teeth became sharper. The officer shot and killed Jaewon with a gun while he was still somewhat human.

It was a murder that happened while Jaewon’s mind still remained human.

However, the people couldn’t stop the middle-aged police officer with a gun, and their circumstances didn’t help.

On the seventh day, the time between monster appearances had decreased even further.

Following Sehan’s orders, the people killed three of the tentacled monsters first. Then, they avoided the slow-moving and noisy tentacle monster and waited for daylight to kill the remaining one.

The snake monster, which slithered through the darkness, was threatening, but it couldn’t hide under the bright sky. They easily defeated the snake monster by exploiting its weakness, fire.

Once the snake monster was dead, a new monster appeared. It was a tree. The evergreen tree transformed into a thorn tree and attacked the humans. 1768 and Hyunho were pierced through their abdomens by the thorns and died. The monster, which sucked blood until its prey died, turned back into a normal tree. The tree was satisfied after hunting two humans.

The events had happened so quickly that there was no time to figure out the tree monster’s weakness. It wasn’t in an animal form, so there was no way to attack its head, and it was too difficult to cut the hard tree.

The tentacle monster and snake monster were somehow being dealt with, but the tree monster was not. The fact that there was no way to deal with the tree monster made the people afraid of its reappearance.

Hunger was also a problem. People who frequently starved due to insufficient food began to look towards the forest, not knowing what might be lurking there.

That’s when Sehan gathered the people.

“There are certain rules for the appearance of monsters. A new rule is added every three days.”

Sehan had discovered all the weaknesses and attack methods of the monsters. They trusted his thoughts and nodded their heads.

“A new hypothesis has been added as of today.”

“A new hypothesis?”

“The danger is increasing as time goes by.”

Since there were people who couldn’t understand right away, Sehan explained it easily.

“It means that something stronger and more terrible is coming every three days.”

They were all shaken. The relatively slow and harmless tentacle monster, the snake monster that caused dangerous contagious diseases, and the unidentified tree monster all came to mind sequentially.

“This is not a safe zone. It’s a trap that gets more dangerous as time goes by.”

There was nowhere to feel safe. That’s what Sehan was saying.