Magic on the Dead Chapter 85

Could it be that he was attacked by zombies and couldn’t return?

For whatever reason, the assumption that he might have left his side crashed down on him like a certainty, and his thoughts completely shut down.

Hajin grabbed his dizzy head and forced his heavy body to get up. Tick, tock, tick, tock… Relying on the dim moonlight from beyond the window, he checked the time on the bedside table. The hour hand was already approaching 9 PM.

“……”

Not once, for any reason, had Eden ever wandered the streets late at night.

Anxiety gnawed away at his breath and reason, greedily expanding its territory. Though his stomach was cramping with hunger from not eating all day, the thought of putting anything in his mouth didn’t cross his mind at all.

A quiet yet destructive feeling persisted, as if he were in the eye of a typhoon.

“Fuck…”

In the end, Hajin couldn’t stand it and got out of bed. If he was in a dangerous situation, there was no time to be peacefully preserving his own place.

Fumbling through the pitch-black darkness, he found a battery-powered camping lantern. Relying on the orange light, he stepped out the front door, and a jet-black hallway greeted him.

Since his physical condition was not good, he planned to search only the nearby area for now, without overdoing it.

He went down the stairs and scoured every corner of the parking lot. But he couldn’t find any trace of Eden and Pi anywhere. His heavy body sagged in the humid night air. At this rate, it wouldn’t be Jung Taegeon, but his own life that would be in danger.

A short while later, Hajin returned to the room with nothing to show for his efforts and collapsed in the living room. After chugging a bottle of water, he roughly wiped away the cold sweat that was trickling down his temples.

“Haa…”

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

He felt strange. Was it because he had never been separated from him since the zombie outbreak? The current situation of Eden not being by his side still felt unbelievable.

Guuuhhh—!

The faint howl of a zombie from beyond the veranda window made his heart drop. Hajin mumbled in a daze.

“Jung Taegeon… Jung Taegeon…”

In fact, it wouldn’t be strange at all if he never met Eden again. Like Chunbeom’s sudden death, he too could leave his side at any moment.

Hajin, at a loss in the face of the sudden emptiness and loneliness, chewed on his lips relentlessly.

One moment, it felt like he would return safely if he just waited quietly, and the next, anxiety that he would lose him forever if he didn’t go looking for him alternately muddled his mind.

In the end, he buried his face in his knees and sat still for another 30 minutes. As time passed, his whole body ached as if with muscle pain.

Just as a pained exhale escaped him, thud! A loud sound of something hitting the front door echoed.

“…Hah.”

Startled, Hajin reflexively got up. Without a moment’s thought, he hastily grabbed the doorknob.

“Guuh, keck, keeck!”

He had already thrown the door wide open when a disgusting and bizarre groan grabbed his ear.

🃏

A fierce curse escaped Eden’s lips as he held the broken flashlight.

“Fuck, this damn backwater.”

He hadn’t been able to find a proper pharmacy even as the sun set. He had wandered around diligently, hoping to find at least a nearby convenience store, but it seemed the small store they had visited in the morning was the only retail shop in this neighborhood.

Without realizing his wristwatch was broken, he had wandered aimlessly for hours, and before he knew it, pitch-black darkness had fallen. Before it got any later, he really had to go back now.

Only after stopping by an old tavern and grabbing a portable gas burner and a carton of orange juice did he reluctantly turn back.

“Hoo…”

A sense of weariness was evident in his deep exhale. He too was utterly exhausted. The forced march, getting soaked by the pouring rain while carrying Hajin, the unexpected nursing duty, and on top of that, wandering aimlessly for hours to find medicine had pushed him to his physical limit.

“Let’s go, Pi.”

After dealing with two zombies that came running at Pi’s growling signal, they were finally at the apartment entrance. He climbed the stairs, the pickaxe, its blade worn to a nub, dangling loosely.

As he wiped the blood from his hands, his eyes, in the beam of the flashlight illuminating the hallway, suddenly caught sight of a bloodstain he hadn’t seen before.

Halt. Stopping in his tracks, he righted the flashlight and slowly scanned the hallway. A bright red bloodstain was spread across the hallway like paint. Judging by the state of the blood, it wasn’t very old.

Pi’s reaction was calm, so it was clear there were no monsters nearby. His gaze, calmly following the trail of the unknown blood, stopped at one point.

“……”

The blood trail began right in front of the door where Hajin was supposed to be sleeping. Eden’s face hardened as he recognized the situation. The front door, which should have been quietly closed, was even slightly ajar.

“……!”

Thump. He felt his heart plummet. He quickly ran to unit 301 and threw the door wide open.

“Do Hajin…!”

Hajin, who should have been lying in bed, was nowhere to be seen. A chilling silence filled the house.

“……”

Eden gripped the flashlight tightly and scanned the floor. He searched for any possible bloodstains and footprints, but there were no signs of anyone having broken into the house.

In that case, Do Hajin had walked out on his own two feet. But why? And all those bloodstains…

“Fuck, really.”

A curse escaped him in his bewilderment. He dropped his belongings as if throwing them down and left the house again.

The trail of blood stopped at the fifth-floor landing. He shone the flashlight down, looking for signs of a fall, but he couldn’t find anything.

An unpleasantly anxious feeling consumed his reason. Before he knew it, cold sweat was trickling down his spine.

Do Hajin was not weak. He was a person who, even while cowering in fear, could think clearly and had better reflexes than anyone. Whether an intruder had broken in or he had encountered a zombie, it was much more likely that nothing he should worry about had happened.

Logically, that was the case. But instead of reassurance, his heart pounded with an increasingly unpleasant rhythm as time went on.

“Whine! Whimper…!”

Pi, sensing Eden’s unstable state, put its front paws up and clambered onto his body.

Eden closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket. It was the half-handkerchief Hajin had given him at the supermarket.

“Pi.”

Placing the handkerchief in front of Pi, he asked in a strained voice.

“Can you find him?”

Sniff, sniff. After calmly sniffing the scent, Pi nudged Eden’s knee with the tip of its nose, nudge, nudge, and then let out a short bark. “Woof!”

Pi led Eden to the first-floor entrance. No sooner had they passed the security post than dark clouds gathered once again. Pitter, patter… The raindrops falling on the top of his head were ominous.

Pi’s steps, which had been diligently searching for a trail, gradually slowed in the fiercely pouring rain. As the situation worsened, the muscles in Eden’s jaw bulged thickly.

“Wait here.”

If he kept letting it get rained on, the dog might get sick too. In the end, he put Pi back inside the staircase and ran into the downpour.

“Do Hajin!”

He shouted Hajin’s name, relying on the faint light of the flashlight in the darkness where he couldn’t see an inch ahead. Every time he yelled, a chilling howl echoed faintly from somewhere.

Rumble— With the thunder, Hajin’s name echoed once more.

“Do Hajin…!”

Eden pushed back his soaking wet bangs. His whole body was drenched by the rain that crashed down like waves. Undeterred, he scanned under the parked cars and crawled on the ground.

“Fuck, really… where did he go.”

With his face scrunched up more fiercely than ever, he ran to the back of the apartment building.

The rain, which must have been a squall, subsided as quickly as it had come, in less than five minutes.

Without even a moment to spare for the fickle sky, Eden stared intently at something beyond the parked cars. In the dark, an orange light was flickering.

He hardened his jaw again and ran behind the dump truck where the light was spreading. But when he arrived, all that greeted him was the lit portable lantern and the red bloodstains splattered over it.

There was a lot of blood, but no body, no zombie. Had Do Hajin really been bitten by a zombie?

Once again, Eden’s gaze grew cold.

Drip… drip…

His heart pounded, thump, thump, in time with the sound of the raindrops falling from the tip of his chin onto the asphalt.

Just then, the precariously dangling blade of the pickaxe detached from the wooden handle. Clang—! Glaring fiercely at the worn blade that had fallen to the ground, he spat out another curse.

“Fuck, nothing is going… .”

Slap, slop!

Just then, the wet, squelching sound of footsteps came from behind him. An irregular rhythm, a foul stench mixed with the smell of rain, a quivering breath…

No sooner had he half-turned than a piercing scream echoed from somewhere.

“Mr. Jung Taegeon!!”

“Kyaaaak—!”

Thwack! With the impact that struck the back of his head, a stinging sensation flared up on his neck. He turned and thrust the flashlight he was holding straight up.

“Kiiieek!”

As he fell over onto the bushes, a slimy liquid splattered onto his chest. Splat.