-The Utility Value of Zombies
“Let’s go home, treat your wounds, and hear what happened.”
“Yes. Understood.”
As I led the way toward home, Gil followed, but he kept looking around.
“Is it because of the zombies?”
“Mage, are all those people dead?”
Gil asked, pointing at the men trapped inside the ice wall of the freezing magic.
“No. They’re not dead. They’re just frozen. They may have been wounded a bit by the ice blades, but they won’t die. The ice will melt with time.”
“Then let’s hurry and leave.”
Gil quickened his steps, looking anxious. At the same time, he gestured to the zombies, telling them to leave quickly.
“Everyone, hurry and go! Get out of here and hide in another neighborhood.”
“Yeah, got it. We should go.”
“All of you, please be careful.”
“You be careful too, Gil.”
“What’s there to worry about when Gil’s going with the mage? We’re the ones with a problem.”
“Let’s get out of here before the ice melts.”
While Gil spoke with the zombies, his gentle waves of mana enveloped the surroundings as if drawing a circle.
They seemed even clearer than before.
They flowed out softly, coiling around the waves nearby, moving in concentric circles as if surging in and receding again. They were communicating with the faint waves of mana the zombies carried.
‘Even seeing it again, it’s fascinating. The flow of those waves is almost like they’re having a conversation.’
The zombies scattered in an instant. They vanished into the darkness of the street, quite literally like shadows.
Gil and I headed home. Even after we left the alley, Gil kept looking around.
I extended detection magic and swept the area. I didn’t see any particular movement.
“Are you worried there might be more of their gang? They don’t seem to be nearby right now, so don’t worry.”
“Mage, those people are very dangerous. They’re not just thugs. They’re from an underground organization.”
Gil lowered his voice, as if afraid someone might hear.
“I understand. Let’s go home first and talk there.”
“Yes. Let’s hurry.”
As we climbed the hill toward home, I didn’t see a single person, let alone a rat. It was late at night, and the neighborhood was simply quiet.
Once we got inside and I saw Gil under the bright light, there were quite a few wounds on his face and body.
Fortunately, though, they were bruises and abrasions, so they didn’t seem to require any special treatment.
I searched through the desk drawer and took out disinfectant, ointment, and bandages.
“Let’s disinfect the wounds first.”
I treated his wounds simply. It was just disinfecting them, applying ointment, and putting on bandages. During all of it, Gil sat very quietly without letting out a single groan.
For a seventeen-year-old boy, he was calm and well-behaved.
‘To think I’m enjoying the luxury of protecting and caring for someone.’
For no reason, I felt a lump in my throat. It was an emotion I had never felt before.
In my previous life, I had always been alone. Then, with the help of one person, Father Bruno, I had barely managed to live while passing myself off as human.
I had never helped anyone else.
And yet now I was caring for another person. It felt almost like a luxury.
After finishing the treatment, I handed Gil a glass of water and sat across from him, bringing up the matter.
“Now tell me. What happened with those guys earlier?”
“Those people have been kidnapping zombies from the streets for a while now. So I was watching them, and today I secretly followed them. But on the way back, I got caught.”
“You followed those guys? Where to?”
“A laboratory. I’d wanted to tail them for a while, but those people move around by car. So I couldn’t follow them. Today, I had the money you gave me, Mage, so I was able to take a taxi and follow them.”
A shallow sigh escaped me.
I had given him money so he could eat his fill, wash up, find a room, and rest comfortably, but apparently he had used that money to tail an underground organization.
I had thought he was a meek boy, but it seemed that wasn’t entirely true.
“You little brat, you sure go around doing dangerous things on your own. But a laboratory? What exactly are those guys? Didn’t you say they were an underground organization?”
Instead of answering my question, Gil threw one back at me.
“Mage, do you know why our government accepted the zombies’ immigration?”
It was a question I had thought about as well. Other races were one thing, but zombies didn’t seem to be of much help to society, so why had they accepted their immigration?
I had been unable to find an answer.
“Who knows. Maybe they came along as an additional condition during negotiations for the immigration of other races.”
“But from the dimension where the zombies lived, only they immigrated to Earth. Mage, you know zombies were once human, right?”
Perhaps because he had lived closely with zombies while being homeless, Gil seemed to have a special interest in them.
The conversation seemed to be drifting slightly off topic, but he must have had something he wanted to say.
I searched through Oudin’s memories in my head and answered.
“I know. They say zombies are humans who, in their dimension, spent their whole lives doing hard labor as slaves to another race before dying.”
They said a black mage had resurrected those already-dead humans and turned them into zombies.
Some scholars claimed that zombies were descendants of humans who had been dragged from Earth to that dimension in the distant past.
It was true that zombie genes matched human genes exactly.
“The black mage brought dead humans back to life. That’s why zombies gained the ability to regenerate endlessly. They were reborn as immortal beings who don’t get sick and don’t age.”
“Endless regeneration, huh…”
Unless zombies were completely burned away with fire magic, they did not die. Calling them immortal beings was no exaggeration.
Suddenly, the motto of eternal life came to mind.
The thing Samir had desired so desperately. The effect of the Golden Apple that Vanaheim sought to create through biotechnology.
“That’s exactly why. The reason our government accepted the zombies’ immigration.”
“Because of the zombies’ regenerative ability?”
“Yes. They brought them here to exploit their regenerative ability for human life-extension technology. They say they look like corpses, that they stink and they’re dirty, and they don’t even treat them like people, but they’re trying to suck out only what they need.”
My nerves instantly went on edge. The sickening greed of humans dreaming of eternal life had appeared once again.
“How are they supposed to use the zombies’ regenerative ability? Are you saying the government is taking zombies and experimenting on them?”
“Zombies keep disappearing from the streets. The uncles and aunties who lived with me disappeared too. They just vanish like that, without even having time to say goodbye.
But zombie disappearance cases have never once been on the news. How could that happen unless the government was turning a blind eye?”
Gil looked furious and, at the same time, sorrowful. Fire burned in his eyes, but moisture had gathered at their corners.
I thought Gil’s story made sense.
There had to be a reason the government accepted the zombies’ immigration. If they had no practical value, it wouldn’t have done so.
Moreover, unlike other races, zombies did not work and lived as vagrants, yet they were left alone. That alone was enough to arouse suspicion.
“But didn’t you say those guys from earlier kidnapped zombies? Are you saying they’re connected to the government? That the government subcontracted the work to an underground organization?”
“At first, I thought so too. I thought those people were taking zombies and handing them over to the government or somewhere like that. But when I followed them, they had their own laboratory. They were a biohacker organization.”
“Biohackers?”
“You don’t know about biohackers? They’re people who steal data from biotech companies on the internet and personally conduct experiments like biological modification.”
I knew about them. They existed in Oudin’s memories.
Biohackers who hacked information from biotech companies, such as gene maps of other races and biological modification technology, and conducted dangerous experiments.
They were another criminal group that existed in this world’s underworld.
Since there was no telling what kind of monsters biohackers might create through gene editing, they could be considered as dangerous as black mages.
However, they had not yet demonstrated any actual power.
“So you secretly followed them to that laboratory?”
“Yes. You know that man named X from earlier? I think he’s their field leader. He came to our neighborhood several times. You remember when the zombies changed strangely last time, right? I thought it was his doing. He showed up again today and took the zombies away, so I secretly followed him.”
I fell into thought for a moment. Last time, a grayish energy had flowed from the zombies infected by the virus.
I had assumed it was the work of a black mage. But perhaps it could have been the work of biohackers?
Gil might have been mistaken. But both could be true. If there was a black mage behind the biohacker organization.
“What did you see at the laboratory?”
“They weren’t experimenting right then, so I didn’t get a proper look at anything. I only found out that it was the laboratory of a biohacker organization.
They left the kidnapped zombies in a van and went inside the building, so I drove that van and escaped. I came back to the neighborhood and was letting the zombies go when I got caught. They must have chased me.”
“Where is that laboratory?”
“It’s near Yongsan Family Park. There’s a warehouse-like building in a secluded spot behind the woods.”
As we talked, the tension seemed to leave him, and Gil’s eyelids began to droop.
The adrenaline that had poured out while he was being chased and beaten was likely subsiding, bringing on a sudden wave of exhaustion.
“Lie down now. It’s late, so sleep here tonight.”
When I pointed to the mattress with my hand, Gil forced his eyelids open and asked,
“Where are you going to sleep, Mage?”
“I’ll take care of myself, so don’t worry. And I’ll handle those guys too, so don’t do anything. It’s dangerous, so for the time being, be careful not to let those guys see you.”
“Yes, Mage. Thank you, as always.”
Gil bowed his head to me and then collapsed onto the mattress as if falling over.
I took out the whiskey and drank a mouthful. My mouth tasted bitter.
It had been an extremely long day for me as well. Incidents and information were pouring in.
The pursuit of Ren that had begun with Vanaheim’s request. What I learned as a result was, instead, the connection between black mages and Vanaheim.
The dangerous experiments behind a product called the Golden Apple, created by those who dreamed of eternal life.
But what the black mages were trying to realize was likely not eternal life for humans, but domination of the world using it as a pretext.
Just as Samir had done.
Gil, whom I met while subduing zombies behaving strangely. From that child’s perspective, new information had flowed in.
Could there truly be no black mage behind the humans kidnapping zombies and experimenting on them?
This world currently seemed to be in a hair-trigger situation. As if the door to disaster might open at any moment, a black shadow was flickering in the distance.
Traces of Samir were scattered everywhere. The vast shadow of evil, borrowing the name of eternal life, was casting a deep pall over all sides.
‘I will stop it.’
Together with the whiskey, I swallowed my resentment down my throat. The passion for revenge was engraved upon my heart.
To accomplish it without failure, I had to become stronger.
After confirming that Gil had fallen completely asleep, I opened the magical space and stepped inside.