Chapter 51: Beneath the Dead Tree

The people who had been unable to leave the dying Park Isu behind finally seemed to grasp the severity of the situation and hurried toward the buildings.

There were still countless children and villagers asleep inside, completely unaware of the alarm bell.

“…A-Ahyoung. Song Ahyoung.”

Ahyoung was gone.

She was always a light sleeper who woke at the slightest sound, so I assumed she’d already run outside on her own.

But apparently I was wrong.

No matter how desperately I searched the crowd, I couldn’t spot the small round crown of her head anywhere.

Maybe she had exhausted herself digging for herbs all morning and simply couldn’t wake up.

No—

Did any of that even matter right now?

Tap— tap—

“Hah… hah…!”

I ran like mad.

I didn’t care what objects blocked my path or what stood in front of me.

I just sprinted straight into the building.

She had definitely fallen asleep beside me, on the bed I usually used.

If she still hadn’t woken up, she had to be there.

Bang—

“Oppa…”

“…Ahyoung. Ahyoung-ah.”

As expected, she was there.

But something seemed wrong.

Her lower body was moving terribly slowly.

There were screams everywhere.

The surroundings had become a sea of fire.

Yet her legs had cramped so badly she couldn’t move properly.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine the terror and helplessness she must have felt in that moment.

“Let’s go outside with oppa. We’re getting out of here together.”

I hurriedly scooped her into my arms and grabbed my medicine bag, a water bottle, and the flashlight with its remaining battery.

Gunfire rained down indiscriminately.

The building’s windows shattered one after another with deafening crashes.

Instinctively, I curled over to shield her head.

Every fear I had ever experienced compressed into a single instant, turning my mind completely white.

“Hah… hah…”

Adrenaline surged through me.

My body wasn’t in any condition to exert strength, yet I refused to loosen my grip on Song Ahyoung.

Instead, I pushed myself harder, stomping forward with everything I had just to escape this hell somehow.

Vroooom—

“…Ah…”

A familiar engine sound echoed from somewhere nearby.

The moment my worst fears became reality.

“f*ck, grab every last one of them! I knew something was suspicious. So these bastards were hiding here all along?”

Behind the shadows of fleeing villagers, the roaring engines of motorcycles thundered loudly.

The men riding them carried hunting snares in their hands.

Every time the leader gave a signal, they hurled the ropes without hesitation, tightening them around people’s throats.

Villagers collapsed into the snow, faces turning blue from suffocation as they writhed helplessly.

“Oppa, why are those people doing this? Why are they taking everyone away?”

“…A-Ahyoung.”

“Tell them not to. Go ask them not to take the villagers away. Please?”

Completely unable to understand the seriousness of the situation, Song Ahyoung whispered tearfully.

Hidden in the shadows, I bit down so hard my gums bled.

I couldn’t let her see me breaking down too.

The fact that I could do nothing despite hearing her desperate plea made me feel pathetic all over again.

‘How did things end up like this…?’

‘No, more importantly, how did they even find this place?’

The people attacking the village were unmistakably raiders.

The same rebels who had slaughtered civilians and kidnapped children in the conflict zone a month ago.

“…Lee Shinwoo.”

The raiders had no way of knowing about this village before now.

And Park Isu, who left with Shinwoo, had returned in that horrific condition.

Those two facts were clearly connected.

Which also meant something terrible must have happened to Shinwoo’s group.

Or perhaps—

Like Park Isu, they were already dead.

“Ah… what do I do…?”

“Oppa…”

Even as tears refused to stop falling, I forced myself to focus on the small warmth in my arms.

I still didn’t fully understand what had happened.

But right now, the only thing that mattered was Song Ahyoung’s safety.

Nothing else mattered.

No matter what, I had to protect her.

I could never hand this child over to them.

Step—

“Hah… hah…”

I hid silently in the darkness until the sounds nearby faded, then sprinted toward the hill behind the village.

Calling it a hill was generous.

It was practically a mountain impossible for ordinary people to climb.

But it was also the only route leading outside without passing through the iron fences.

Most importantly, it connected directly to the downstream creek.

If we were careful, we could move to another village without being seen.

“Oppa… I’m scared…”

“It’s okay. Oppa will figure something out somehow. I’ll never abandon you, Ahyoung.”

Sweat poured down my body like rain.

We had escaped without even grabbing coats, so I wrapped my own jacket around her trembling shoulders instead.

The wind cut into my skin like knives, but in a situation like this, cold no longer mattered.

If we slowed down even slightly, they would catch us immediately.

So I forced my legs to keep moving, desperately widening the distance between us and the village.

Thunk—

“Ah!”

I had no idea how long we’d been running.

The flashlight had died, leaving the mountain pitch black.

While stumbling through the darkness, my foot suddenly caught on a rock.

“Ah… ngh…”

Thankfully, I twisted my body at the last second and protected Ahyoung’s head.

But instead, the back of my hand smashed hard against the stone.

Whether it was broken or the tendons were torn, I could no longer put strength into it.

Carrying Ahyoung any farther was impossible.

Vroooom—

“Hey, over there! Don’t let them get away!”

I was hurriedly tearing the hem of my pants to wrap my bleeding hand when a blinding light suddenly exploded behind us.

The motorcycle gang I thought we’d escaped had caught up again.

I grabbed Song Ahyoung’s hand tightly and forced my cramping muscles to move.

Bang—!

“Kyaaah—!”

I lifted Ahyoung onto a large rock first so we could climb higher.

Just as I jumped after her, a bullet struck right beside my fingers as though it had been waiting for me.

The impact left visible marks even on the hard stone.

Unable to endure it anymore, Song Ahyoung let out a terrified scream.

Her sharp cry echoed loudly through the towering trees.

Using the sound as their guide, the raiders slowly closed in on us.

Bang—!

Thud—

“…Huh…?”

“Go! Hurry up!”

I shouted at Song Ahyoung when she hesitated.

But before she could even follow my command, she suddenly collapsed to the ground.

The white shirt she wore slowly turned red.

Song Ahyoung had been shot.

Shot by the raiders.

“A-Ahyoung… Ahyoung-ah…”

A piercing ringing filled my ears.

The shrill tone sounded exactly like the warning alarms from the Center’s training facility.

Like someone in a daze after a car accident, I gently shook her body, trying to wake her.

But the child with her eyes tightly shut only let her head droop limply.

Her short hair swayed against the back of her neck.

The thick smell of blood spread around her too.

It was too dark to tell where she’d been hit.

But somehow, it looked like the bullet had narrowly missed anything fatal.

“No… no, no. No…”

I hurriedly pulled her into my arms and hid inside the hollow trunk of a dead tree.

The raiders were barely ten meters away now.

My blue lips trembled uncontrollably.

But Ahyoung’s face looked even paler than mine.

With my scraped-up hand, I brushed the hair stuck to her face aside.

I couldn’t tell whether the faint pulse beneath my fingertips was real or just wishful thinking.

“Ahyoung-ah… oppa’s here. I-I’m here. Ahyoung-ah… Ahyoung…”

I just kept whispering softly into her ear over and over, terrified she might stop breathing completely.

“Ah— can you hear me? Huh? Can you hear this?”

The men who had been chasing us like they intended to shoot us dead were suddenly speaking through a loudspeaker.

Their voices were filled with excitement.

They were mocking us.

“Come out right now or this bastard here dies too. Though honestly, if you’re all gonna die anyway, dying together with your little friends sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

“Hey, let me try. Oi, this bastard’s coughing blood already. All I did was punch him in the stomach a couple times. f*cking dramatic. People like this should all be locked in cages and burned alive. That way they stop crawling back out like cockroaches.”

“Hey, calling him a cockroach is too harsh. Parasite fits better, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t see what was happening behind me.

But one thing was obvious.

They had taken one of the villagers hostage and were trying to break my resolve.

Would I ignore the hostage and cling to life a little longer?

Or would I step outside the dead tree and die together out of loyalty?

“…Don’t. Don’t come out!”

Just as I was about to give in and step outside, a rough, ragged voice stopped me.

And immediately, I recognized who it belonged to.

“Don’t… don’t come out. I don’t know who’s there, but run as far away as you can…”

Lee Shinwoo.

It was him.

Thud—

Cough—

“Hey, what the hell? We tied this bastard up and dragged him around, and he’s still alive? We kept calling him a bug and turns out he’s tougher than a damn cockroach.”

“Step on him again. Looks like he still hasn’t learned.”

“Oi, enough already. We’ve already got more than enough food and supplies, haven’t we?”

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