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Chapter 29 – A City With No Laws
4.
10 January 2017
It was 4 PM, around the time the sun would begin to set, a gathering of people and vehicles were silently there.
The snow had begun to acc.u.mulate since the day before, there were vast sheets of snow covering the ground with only the slightest semblances of life.
It seemed as though there was no life in the city.
A city of the dead.
"Boss······ Isn’t it too quiet?"
Chang Sung Hoon asked.
He felt like he would also join the dead if he didn’t say anything.
"All of the citizen in Bucheon City aren’t dead, are they?"
Instead of replying to Chang Sung Hoon’s worries, Kim Tae Hoon placed his gloved index finger up to his lips.
Chang Sung Hoon tightly closed his lips.
"Tsk."
Looking out at the silent world, Kim Tae Hoon could only express his disapproval in his mind.
"Just what the h.e.l.l happened?"
Meanwhile, Kim Tae Hoon went over the events that had happened in the last few days.
After establis.h.i.+ng a home base in the library, Kim Tae Hoon had been spending his days trying to improve the const.i.tutions of the members in the Mek Clan.
Not only did he had to use a carrot and stick method in order to motivate the awakened who would become future hunters, but he also had to fortify the library and its surroundings.
He didn’t have the time to go and explore Bucheon City.
The reason why Kim Tae Hoon decided to move out was because of the snow that hadn’t stopped falling since yesterday.
Monsters were similar to beasts. On top of that, animals did not easily move when it snowed.
In other words, the snow was a great opportunity for Kim Tae Hoon to come into contact with other survivors while avoiding the monsters, and so as soon as it began to snow, Kim Tae Hoon made his preparations.
The goal this time was to observe the situation, contact survivors, and salvage for important items.
For that, Chang Sung Hoon decided to tag along. He knew the location of a low-key mansion that a rich playboy used to store artwork.
"Chang Sung Hoon is right, it’s too quiet."
He had prepared himself to face some sort of crazy disturbance when he came to the city.
"It’s unexpected."
The situation was beyond Kim Tae Hoon’s expectations.
"Common sense would dictate that there would be a group of survivors here."
Kim Tae Hoon thought that the downtown district would be somewhat organized by now.
What made humans terrifying was their ability to quickly adapt to hards.h.i.+p through trial and error.
Even if monsters freely roamed the Earth and societal infrastructure had collapsed, humans would still be able to adapt.
There were no crazy disturbances that took Kim Tae Hoon by surprise.
For example, the dragon flying over the area would have caused a great deal of confusion, but that wasn’t the case. There were no signs of monsters running about or causing mayhem.
Furthermore, Kim Tae Hoon and Chang Sung Hoon were slowly narrowing the distance between them and Sinjung-dong Station.
Bucheon’s Sinjung-dong Station was located in an area with great commercial development. There was a supermarket, there were department stores, and there was even the incredibly large Bucheon Wonmi Police station.
"If there were any survivors, there would definitely be traces of them in this area."
There are few places in Bucheon that were as suitable for survivors to take shelter in.
Kim Tae Hoon suddenly stopped in his tracks. At the same time, his hand went up. Seeing Kim Tae Hoon’s hand, Chang Sung Hoon halted his steps.
Hweeng!
Whilst standing before the cold wind, Kim Tae Hoon’s gaze focused on a pile of snow sitting in the middle of the road that they were going to go down.
There was nothing special about it. They appeared to be piles of bags of manure covered in snow.
However, Kim Tae Hoon was sure that what lay under the snow were not bags of manure.
With focused eyes, Kim Tae Hoon stared at the pile of snow.
With that, he painted a picture.
A picture of a large hand dusting off the snow.
Tuk, Tuk!
Before long, the things under the pile of snow were revealed.
It was a corpse that had been frozen blue. And it wasn’t just a corpse, but one that had been decapitated.
"Ugh!"
Barely able to suppress the vomit rising from his throat, Chang Sung Hoon spoke.
"Looks like there are monsters. f.u.c.k······."
At that moment, Chang Sung Hoon couldn’t help but recall the mud troll.
He recalled a scene where bullets would harmlessly strike a mud troll as it bit off people’s heads.
It was a traumatic experience that he would carry for the rest of his life. Recalling that traumatic scene, he s.h.i.+vered. The werewolf hide that he had been wearing fell onto the floor because he was trembling.
Kim Tae Hoon, however, had a different expression on his face. He did not recall the mud troll that consumed human heads. In fact, it had nothing to do with a mud troll.
"Monsters didn’t do this."
Kim Tae Hoon was a.s.sured in what he said.
"It was a human."
Monsters hadn’t done that to the body.
"What?"
Alarmed, Chang Sung Hoon vigilantly watched his surroundings.
"Murder can arise in such a situation after all."
It would be ridiculous to wish for murder to not happen in this situation.
Murder cases could spring up any number of times.
"But decapitation is a different story."
Murder is one thing, but decapitation is something else. Accidental murder or murder for the sake of survival wouldn’t result in such a grisly scene.
At that moment.
"Kkyaaaahk!"
They heard a scream.
Kim Tae Hoon got up from his seat.
"Chang Sung Hoon."
"Yes."
"From now on, we are a rare kind of human."
Hearing that, Chang Sung Hoon had a resolute expression on his face.
The most important thing that Kim Tae Hoon had been teaching the Mek Clan in these past days was the resolution to kill if their lives were threatened, regardless of whether or not the opposition was a monster or a human.
5.
"Sa, save me, please. Please let me live."
A snowy field.
There was a naked woman begging for her life, trembling in the harsh snowy field.
"Please, please."
She was constantly rubbing her hands together, but it wouldn’t be enough to save her from frostbite.
There were three men surrounding the woman.
The three of them were wearing thick vests, holding makes.h.i.+ft spears made of curtain rods and kitchen knives in their hands.
Although they were crudely made, they were still armed.
They were not ordinary people.
Holding onto their spears, the three men were not there to show this woman any mercy.
"Please, please let me live. There are others besides me."
Hearing the woman’s incessant pleas, one man spoke up.
"Should we enjoy ourselves before we kill her? Hmm?"
They were words that made the woman’s face pale even more.
Instead of replying to the man’s craven words, the other two simply licked their lips. The woman had a look of despair on her face.
"Anyways, since she’s already naked, all we have to do is take off our pants right? Isn’t that right?"
The man spoke to his two colleagues again.
A dirty invitation.
Unexpectedly, the other two didn’t quite seem to want to join in just yet.
"d.a.m.n it, come on, let’s have some fun!"
"Please, please let me live. I’ll do anything. Anything······."
The woman said as she resigned herself to her fate.
"See, look! She said she’ll do anything right? She’s gonna get eaten by monsters anyways right, so who cares, n.o.body will ever know, right? Isn’t that right?"
The man said, this time a bit angry. The other two exchanged glances.
Puk!
One of the two males that had exchanged glances suddenly had an arrow stuck in his eye.
It was sudden. Without a sound. Without missing a beat, the arrow penetrated through his eye, pa.s.sed through his brain, then left through the back of his head.
"Hmm?"
"What?"
Everyone, including the woman who had been begging for her life and rubbing her hands, were surprised.
Their minds went blank.
A white figure began to approach one of the two remaining men.
Like a leopard pouncing on its prey, a black fist, whose speed could not be considered to be human, suddenly appeared before one of the males.
Kwajik!
The man’s head shattered along with his helmet.
Fragments of his helmet and his skull spattered onto the snow.
Now the only one who remained was the man who had been trying to make predatory advances on the woman.
However, the man was still making an expression as though his soul had left him.
"Huh? What?"
The opposition’s fist that had shattered another man’s helmet and skull was flying towards him.
Bbuk!
"Keuhuk!"
The man who was struck in the nose spit out a tooth while screaming.
However, the screams didn’t last long.
"Kuhk, kuhk!"
As soon as he tried to scream again, the opposition firmly grasped his head in a headlock.
"Ca, can’t breathe."
The man tried to untangle himself from the choker’s arm, but quite frankly, it didn’t feel like a person’s arm.
At the same time, the arrow that had already taken a man’s life began to move on its own.
Hwiii!
The arrow moved like a snake, and zoomed towards the man’s eye, giving off a slightly hazy aura as it got closer.
While trembling, the man wet his pants.
Kim Tae Hoon opened his mouth.
"If you speak nonsense you will die. If you hesitate to answer you will die. If you speak too loudly you will die. If you understand, nod your head."
Although he couldn’t breathe, he hurriedly nodded.
Then Kim Tae Hoon released the strength in his arms.
"Keuhuk!"
The man let out a sound of gasping for breath.
"Heuk, heuk······."
Chang Sung Hoon approached the naked woman and covered her with werewolf hide.
Although the outer coat of the werewolf hide was coa.r.s.e and reeked of blood, it was surprisingly warm.
"Shh. Stay quiet."
However, Chang Sung Hoon gave the woman a stern warning instead of compa.s.sion.
This area could be considered to be an enemy territory. It was an area that gave no advantage to Kim Tae Hoon and Chang Sung Hoon.
Then the woman spoke.
"Whatever information that guy knows, I know as well. If you let me live, I’ll tell you. I am from the same place where that guy is from."
An unexpected speech.
Hearing what that woman said, the man suddenly shouted while panting.
"Are you betraying me you b.i.t.c.h······."
Betray.
Hearing those two syllables, Kim Tae Hoon willed the arrow that had been floating in front of the man’s eye to move forward.
Kim Tae Hoon pulled the arrow out of the man after he collapsed onto floor, and while pointing the arrow in his hand at the woman wrapped in wolf leather, he spoke.
"If you speak nonsense you will die. If you hesitate to answer you will die. If you speak too loudly you will die. If you understand, nod your head."
The woman nodded.