Rainbow City Chapter 8

Seokhwa walked over to the desk and started putting the research materials back into his backpack. The reason he acted so rushed was because he wanted to get out of there quickly.

Was it really Adam? Could it be that Sunbae, who was trapped underground after the doctor died, went crazy from hunger and looked like Adam? But they saw it clearly, right?

Perhaps…He may have killed Sunbae, who was human.

When Major Kwak Soohwan asked him if he was Adam, he nodded, meaning he was his accomplice. As his head pounded, he tightened his grip on the straps of his backpack.

“Now go up.”

This time too, Kwak Soohwan took the lead and Seokhwa followed behind him. The question of whether he was human or Adam crossed his mind countless times. Seokhwa approached Sunbaewho was lying in the same spot and tried to collect his blood.

“There are some rumors.”

Kwak Soohwan grabbed Seokhwa’s arm.

“Rumors?”

“The rumor is that his son became Adam. His son wasn’t seen in the lab since he went to the Violet Zone. Everyone was asking the old man where his son was? Every time, he made an excuse that he was sick. Looking at this, I think I know why. I think that his son had transformed into Adam and the doctor locked him up without being able to kill him.”

“Adam…Maybe not.”

“Really? So now I’m going from a liquor thief to a murderer?”

Since Kwak Soohwan spoke as if it was no big deal, he felt confident that Sunbae was Adam. Thanks to that, Seokhwa felt like his anxiety was calming down.

“They said the Adam recovery team is coming, so then they’ll find out if I’m the killer or not.”

“If Sunbae isn’t…”

“Dr. Seok.”

Kwak Soohwan cut him off.

“Even if Dr. Seok told me not to kill him, I would have killed him, so the result would have been the same, and if this is a crime, then I committed it alone.”

He lifted the straps of his backpack upwards, giving him the appearance of walking on his tiptoes. In that state, he went down to the jeep, and on the way back, he was convinced after seeing the materials that Dr. Oh had left in his basement. He thought Kwak Soohwan was probably right.

When he fell asleep with his knackered body, he had a dream of Dr. Oh for the first time in a long time.

In his dream, Dr. Oh was hastily putting something into his briefcase. Dr. Oh, who had been looking around the lab anxiously, was about to quickly turn around his pillar and go outside.

Bang! A single gunshot was heard and the doctor fell to the floor. His black and red blood gradually expanded the area around him. A man wearing black clothes and black shoes approached Dr. Oh’s body and took out the briefcase the doctor was holding. The man wiped the blood off the bag and then pulled down his black mask.

It was Major Kwak Soohwan.

“Ah!”

When he suddenly opened his eyes, he saw another hand trying to pull out the document he was holding in his hand. He had the illusion that the hands were covered in dark red blood, but they were only black leather gloves.

“…What are you doing?”

Since he saw Kwak Soohwan taking Dr. Oh’s briefcase in his dream, he became alert seeing Kwak Soohwan now.

“I wanted to see what this is, too?”

HIs eyes slowly closed and opened, shaking off the sleep. It didn’t matter if Kwak Soohwan saw it, but he felt uneasy because of his dream. Well, it’s just a dream, right? He didn’t need to be stubborn, so he handed him the research materials.

He turned off the engine without even looking at the data presented to him. He looked at the time and saw that it was almost midnight. Since there was no need to move the car, he didn’t wake him up for a long time after we arrived. Seokhwa followed Kwak Soohwan, who got off first, and opened his mouth.

“Major Kwak Soohwan.”

Kwak Soohwan asked why he was calling and he looked back. He looked a little hesitant, and it seemed like he was trying to say something trivial like thank you or thank you for your hard work.

“…I will also become an accomplice.”

What kind of bullshit is that?

“Dr. Seok, while you were sleeping with his mouth open, I got a call from the Adam recovery team. Aren’t you getting an answer seeing how the military police left me alone?”

“Are you sure it’s Adam?”

“More than that, we were both in our right state of mind so how did that Adam speak?”

Right. Even he wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told him what Adam had said.

After verifying his identity before getting on the elevator, Kwak Soohwan selected the floor where his room was located. However, Seokhwa pressed the additional floor where the research building was located. Kwak Soohwan sighed softly and canceled the floor he had selected.

“Now that you’ve slept to your heart’s content, you’re heading towards the lab..”

[18th floor, open.]

It was at the same time as Kwak Soohwan’s words. The elevator stopped at the 18th floor and the doors opened.

“Huh?”

A major in uniform looked surprised as he stepped inside. Immediately after laughing, a strong smell of alcohol wafted into the air. It was Yang Sanghoon, an army major and Kwak Soohwan’s colleague who was off-duty from today until tomorrow.

“Who is this? Isn’t it Major Kwak?”

After pressing the 27th floor, Yang Sanghoon blew into the faces of Seokhwa and Kwak Soohwan.

“Isn’t the smell of alcohol amazing?”

You want to drink, right? He was giggling and getting drunk. He was filled with the desire to slam my fist into his mouth, but if they fought in this narrow box, Seokhwa could die of shock. He was not a freshwater crayfish, but if he thought he was doing something wrong, Colonel Jang would nag him terribly.

“Dr. Seok, are there any stones you’ve collected that can be used as a tombstone?”

“Nothing that big.”

Seokhwa only shook his head once.

“Then that bastard’s tombstone should be made of cobblestone. Yang Sanghoon, known as tiny dick, after drinking, passed away after trying to pick a fight with Kwak Soohwan. Your dick is the size of a pebble, so that should be enough.”

“What? You bastard! Do you want to know how big my dick is? Huh?”

With that, he unzipped his pants and flashed his lower body. Kwak Soohwan hurriedly raised his military boots to trample the dirty thing with his feet.

“It’s bigger than a pebble.”

To Seokhwa, who responded impassively, Yang Sanghun waved his own genitals as if wagging his tail.

“Right? Mine is a rock, right? Huh? But what about you, should you be the person to acknowledge my size? No! But we have such a person with such a face at our shelter!”

When Yang Sanghoon pushed his face towards them, Kwak Soohwan stood in front of him, and at the same time, the elevator door opened.

“If a rock breaks, it turns into a grain of sand, right?”

Kwak Soohwan pushed Yang Sanghoon’s lower body with his military boot and sent him out of the elevator.

“Agh! Fuck! Hey! Ugh!”

Yang Sanghoon, who was struggling holding on to his trampled lower leg, gritted his teeth and was about to rush in, but the door closed just then. No matter how much he drank, the smell of alcohol was still in the air.

“Dr. Seok, that kind of thing happens when you drink alcohol. I’m not like that.”

“Major Kwak Soohwan.”

As soon as he arrived on the 34th floor, Seokhwa called him.

“Don’t tell me to head to bed first. I have to guard you until you get to your room anyway.”

“If a rock breaks, it becomes a stone. When a stone breaks, it turns into a stone.”

Seokhwa, who had been hiding closely behind me in the Red Zone, started walking in front when he came to the research building.

“Fuck, no wonder he’s Doctor Stone, going on a spiel about stones.”

***

There was a slight commotion in the elevator, but Seokhwa was still not in a good mood.

He once again requested confirmation from the Adam recovery team and was waiting for a response. He took out the second pill from the pill box and ate it.

[Clinical 2 for physical strength enhancement]

There were a total of six bottles of clinical trial pills for strengthening physical strength at Seokhwa’s place. Nevertheless, like most soldiers, his physical strength never improved.

A research paper left behind by Dr. Oh.

To be exact, the 7th Adam Mutation Journal had blood stained here and there, making it difficult to read. He didn’t know whose blood it was, but he could only guess that it was probably Sunbae’s. Although Adam’s blood was unpleasant, there was no contagious disease caused by this dried blood.

The Adam virus was an antigen that was actively transmitted only to living organisms, that was, when the body’s functions were not suspended. Infection did not occur simply by consuming Adam’s blood; this only occurred when the virus penetrated the blood. Moreover, Dr.Oh had clearly been conducting mutation research with him. He had been conducting research on soldiers with unusual characteristics, but surprisingly, there was no data on Kwak Soohwan.

Seokhwa couldn’t eat dinner, so instead he ate a sandwich made with beans and looked at his phone. The lights were blinking and the phone was ringing.

“Yes, this is Seokhwa from the research building.”

[Oh, Dr. Seokhwa? It’s about the body recovered from Red Zone 13. You asked if it was really Adam?]

“That’s right. Are you sure it’s Adam?”

[I’m sure. Just looking at the blood clotting reaction, it is Adam’s blood. However, Major Kwak Soohwan also asked the same question. Did Adam really talk?]

“…I think so.”

[He thinks so?]

A suspicious voice was heard from the Adam recovery team.

“If it’s truly Adam, then I’ll hang up.”

[Wait a minute!]

Seokhwa tried to hang up the phone but ended up putting it to his ear because of the urgent shouting.

[Shit, I think he hung up? Even if Major Kwak thinks that, it might be different for the doctor to say so.]

However, the other person probably thought he had hung up and blurted out something.

Even if Major Kwak was like that, what did it mean to say it would be different for the doctor to say so? Seokhwa held the receiver closer to his ear, but all he heard was the sound of the other person putting the receiver down. Seokhwa, who had been staring at the phone he had removed, returned it to its original place.

Seokhwa rolled a stone on the desk that was as round and mysteriously colored as a pearl in his hand. He thought that the first thing to do was to put the jumbled journals in order, so he tried to read the countless papers one by one.

His physical strength was inferior to others, but fortunately, once he saw something, it was stored in his brain like a photograph. He expected it would take some time because Dr. Oh’s journal was not sequential and the contents were sparse.

Even after thinking about it carefully, he could only assume the fact that Adam talked was because we were both not in their right state of mind, as Kwak Soohwan said. However, the voice of Sunbae who called his name could not be easily erased.

Buzz, Buzz

Seokhwa looked down at the journaI and then raised his head. Outside the lab, someone was ringing the bell repeatedly. Seokhwa got up from his seat and walked out to where the central pillar was. As he looked out the transparent glass window, he saw Kwak Soohwan standing in his uniform. Seokhwa reflexively lowered his gaze to his hands. He wondered if there might be a gun in hand, but it was because of the remains of the dream that still remained.

Kwak Soohwan was holding a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a glass in the other hand. When he looked at him as if asking what the hell he was doing, he grinned and gestured to open the door with his chin.

Instead of opening the door, Seokhwa muttered through the wall pad speaker.

“Is there a problem?”

[Dr. Seok, I brought some comfort liquor for you.]

He waved a bottle of whiskey through the glass door.

“I don’t drink alcohol.”

[I got this with great difficulty from Major Yang. Let’s drink it together, shall we?]

Seokhwa lowered his gaze for a moment.

“Major Kwak Soohwan, please identify yourself first.”

He placed five of his fingers on the glass door.

<Major Kwak Soohwan, 32 years old, Rainbow City>

A notification asking ‘Do you want to allow entry?’ also appeared on the wall pad. When Seokhwa gave permission, the double glass doors opened sequentially.

“Dr. Seok is less affectionate than I thought. You can just open it, why do you even need to verify my identity?”

Even though he was walking lazily, the sound of his military boots could be heard clearly.

“Dr. Oh also passed away here.”

“I guess, it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”