WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Hiding a House in the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 32: Gold (2)

──────

First, thanks to Kyle_Dos.

Without the large quantity of medicine I brought from his bunker, I wouldn't have dared treat this guy.

It wasn't anything elaborate.

I applied powdered disinfectant to the exposed ribs and covered them with gauze.

Maybe it really was a spiritual creature. Aside from briefly growling in pain during treatment, Gold showed no hostility toward me.

After treating its wounds, I gave it food.

I made its meal myself. I boiled some meat from the freezer, meat that had thawed during the Lieutenant Colonel Yoon incident and been set aside because it smelled bad, then mixed in nutritional supplements and oral antibiotics.

Gold sniffed it and frowned.

Grrr!

“Hey.”

Dogs were picky eaters too.

Then again, it usually ate tasty things like water deer and wild boar. Of course this half-rotten frozen food wouldn't satisfy it.

Still, it seemed to know it had to eat this to recover. It forced the food into its mouth, chewed, swallowed, and sent it down into its stomach.

Watching it choke down the food I had prepared, I felt like I understood a little better why people kept animals.

How should I put it?

As its bowl emptied, it felt as though some part of me was being filled.

Understanding a Cat Mom's feelings[1], if only a little, I continued keeping an eye on its condition.

True to its wild nature, Gold recovered remarkably quickly. In less than three days, it was able to walk, albeit slowly, so I brought it to a secluded spot in the mountains above the main bunker.

Smart as it was, it obeyed my words while constantly watching its surroundings.

It especially seemed to dislike having other people around.

“There aren't any. No one but me.”

Grrrrr.

“Have you been betrayed that often?”

At my words, it nodded.

“...”

Just how much human speech did this bastard understand?

A chill ran through me as I built it a home.

I patched together some slate roofing I had picked up in the lower village, then spread blankets, bedding, and plenty of industrial packing material salvaged from abandoned houses inside.

“There. Your home.”

The moment it was finished, Gold slipped inside as though it had been waiting for it. It curled into a ball and looked at me quietly, making a soft purr.

There was a certain trust in its gaze.

I felt a little rewarded. More than that, the thought of doing something no one else had done, of accomplishing the feat of taming a mutation, lightly warmed blood that had long gone cold.

But as its wounds healed and its strength gradually returned, my satisfaction slowly turned into anxiety.

I knew how terrifying mutation dogs were.

In close combat, mutation dogs were far more dangerous than most Monsters.

Whenever it pressed its head against the ground and stared up at me, I sometimes felt the urge to raise my gun and pull the trigger right then.

The image of it suddenly pouncing on me and chewing me up, bones and all, kept flashing through my mind.

But whenever that urge arose, I remembered how it followed me and how it had imitated a human song, and I calmed myself.

More than anything, I was inspired by the woman Baek Seunghyeon had blown apart.

Perhaps the woman's faith, which had let her remain calm even before a cat several times her size, was the true secret to how she had tamed a mutation.

But no matter how hard I controlled my impulses and tried to show trust, Park Gyu was a defensive man.

The thought that Gold might hurt me grew larger in my mind by the day.

Then, one day, another visitor came to my territory.

A bus.

Crackle.

The walkie-talkie picked up a transmission on the public frequency.

“Are there any survivors nearby? We aren't raiders or soldiers. We're ordinary civilians, and we've come here for a reason.”

That voice.

I'd heard it somewhere before.

“If anyone is there, please respond. We aren't enemies. We only want a little information. You can reply over the radio, but we've prepared a small gift. Fuel. Fuel.”

I remembered.

It was Ji Changsu.

He had grown older and thinner, but it was definitely Ji Changsu, the loyal retainer who had been prepared to die alongside Je Pung-ho.

But through my binoculars, I saw Ji Changsu hadn't come alone.

Beside him stood the woman who had tried to persuade me to stop her father from killing himself.

Ji Younghee, was it?

With a dissatisfied expression, she stood awkwardly behind her father.

“...”

What should I do?

Showing myself for a can of fuel wasn't particularly tempting, but these were people I knew.

They had brought five more armed men, but they didn't seem to have come to see me specifically.

I wasn't important enough for them to come all this way looking for me. Judging by the fact that they had only stopped briefly and were heading southeast, anyway.

“Stay hidden.”

I told Gold quietly.

“I'll go take care of something for a moment.”

It watched me silently, then retreated deep beneath the slate roof.

“There is a survivor here.”

I took out my walkie-talkie and responded.

They didn't recognize my voice.

“This is Park Gyu.”

As expected, they hadn't come to see me.

After briefly exchanging greetings, I invited them over.

Gold growled, but there was something I wanted to test.

“...You live in a place like this?”

Ji Changsu stared at my camouflage house with a startled expression.

His reaction was understandable.

Objectively speaking, the rusted container house that looked ready to collapse at any moment was not somewhere people could live.

“If there's nothing to take, people won't come looking. You could call it non-possession.”

I repeated something I'd heard somewhere as I watched their reactions.

The experiment was successful.

To others, my camouflage house was difficult to see from a distance, and even up close, it gave them no desire to enter.

Since they were reluctant to enter the camouflage house, we spoke outside.

A shadow from the past had brought Ji Changsu here, someone I had thought I'd never see again.

He showed me a photograph printed on paper.

“Please look at this.”

It was a photograph I had seen on the community.

A photograph of Chairman Je Pung-ho.

An entrepreneur of this era who still led thousands of followers even after becoming a zombie, printed crudely on an A4 sheet.

“I cannot bear to watch the chairman, who gave me everything and showered me with kindness, wander this world in that state. I want to hold a funeral for him.”

This was the situation.

Beyond the territory controlled by the Gold Pack was an abandoned city. A group of zombies believed to include Chairman Je Pung-ho lived there.

But entering the city was no easy task.

Around it were lairs of Settled Type Monsters, a raider stronghold, and remnants of Chinese troops who had barely managed to land. Things more dangerous than zombies were everywhere.

It was my first time hearing about the Chinese remnants, so I asked about them.

“A battalion-sized unit managed to land near Asan, but they're all light infantry. Our submarines sank their ships and heavy equipment together. Besides, their homeland has fallen. Where would they go, and what would they do? So they settled in.”

My gaze had been fixed on Seoul all this time, but it seemed interesting things had been happening in the south as well.

Other than that danger zone, the only remaining route into the city was from the southwest, where the Gold Pack was.

Gold was much more famous in Seoul than I was.

There had been a bounty on it for a long time.

Extermination squads had gone after it repeatedly, only to return empty-handed. Some were defeated and became food for Gold's gang.

Naturally, Ji Changsu knew all this. But when he actually came near Gold's territory, he suddenly became afraid and looked for nearby survivors to improve his odds, even a little.

He had also headed toward the sniper mother and daughter, who were famous around here if not as famous as Gold, intending to at least get information through radio contact.

“To think Park Gyu Hunter is living in seclusion in a place like this when I didn't even expect to find anyone. It feels like a revelation from heaven.”

Ji Changsu prayed repeatedly and thanked the sky.

“To think Park Gyu Hunter settled here in order to help us like this.”

“Pardon?”

Wasn't this man jumping the gun a little too fast?

I hadn't said I would help, and I had no intention of helping.

“I'm terribly sorry, but I've been away from active service for a long time and am in no condition to fight properly. If I still had my old skills, would I have come down here to live like a beggar?”

I helped him only to the extent of giving him some information.

When Ji Changsu left, his daughter Ji Younghee approached me.

I'd felt this before, but she seemed easier to talk to than Ji Changsu.

“It's all right. Even I think this looks crazy. We can't drag Park Gyu Hunter into it.”

With a cigarette between her lips, Ji Younghee glared resentfully at her father as he returned to the bus.

“How long is he going to go on about Je Pung-ho? I really don't understand. It's not the Joseon era.”

A glittering ring was on her ring finger.

It hadn't been there before.

“This?”

Noticing my gaze, she took a deep drag on her cigarette.

“I did end up marrying someone from Pafung Group, but...”

After a brief silence, cigarette smoke rose freely into the sky with a deep sigh.

“He died.”

“I'm sorry.”

“He was a good person, but too weak. Too weak to survive in this era...”

There wasn't much sadness on her face for someone speaking of her husband's death.

Perhaps she had never given her husband even the smallest amount of love.

She glanced at me.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Divorced?”

“Never married.”

“I heard Hunters marry early.”

“There are always exceptions.”

“Aren't you lonely?”

This woman hadn't asked about my private life at all before.

Even with no future ahead, when Pafung Group had still managed to maintain appearances, she had asked for my help but shown no interest whatsoever in me as a man.

But perhaps because the world had changed, there was something stickier in her gaze and the tone of her voice than before.

I didn't dislike it, but she and I were still strangers.

Looking toward the camouflage house, I sighed and answered.

“At first, I did feel lonely. But after giving up my desires, everything began to seem abundant.”

“You sound like a monk.”

“Are you leaving right away? Mutations aren't easy to deal with.”

“We have enough weapons.”

She looked back.

The armed men were mounting a large machine gun on the bus roof. A 12.7 mm heavy machine gun.

I nodded without thinking.

“That is enough.”

“As promised, we'll leave you a can of fuel. It's synthetic fuel, but it's usable enough.”

“Can it be used instead of diesel?”

“Our bus runs fine on it. I don't know how much strain it puts on the engine, but, um, wait. Over there!”

Ji Younghee's face suddenly turned pale.

Even before turning my head, I felt like I knew why.

I heard rough breathing, and a huge shadow fell between us as though splitting us apart.

Beside the main bunker stood a massive fierce dog, nearly the size of a lion, glaring this way.

Gold.

“Gold.”

Click.

I called its name and aimed my gun.

“Back off.”

Gold bared its teeth at Ji Younghee.

Backing away with a pale face, Ji Younghee asked me,

“A-are you raising it?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?!”

“It just happened.”

I warned Gold again.

“This person isn't an enemy. She'll leave soon. She won't hurt you.”

At least, Gold showed no hostility toward me.

The one it clearly regarded with hostility was Ji Younghee.

“Gold.”

When I spoke again, putting feeling into its name, a commotion broke out near the bus.

“What is it? Younghee!”

Ji Changsu's voice rang out.

Gold glared at Ji Younghee, abruptly spun around, and swiftly left my territory.

“Gold...”

There was no mistaking it.

Gold was leaving.

It crossed the mountain where I had built its home, raced down the steep slope beyond it, crossed a fairly deep stream, and vanished into the plains past it.

It was heading southwest.

Toward the plains it had once ruled.

Click.

Ji Younghee aimed her gun at Gold.

I forcibly pushed the barrel down.

Ji Younghee glared at me in protest.

Shaking my head, I watched Gold recede into the distance and replied,

“...Leave it. It'd only waste bullets.”

“Were you trying to raise a monster like that? You, a Hunter of all people?”

“I wouldn't say I was raising it. I only looked after it for a while. It was badly injured. You know, they say even beasts repay kindness.”

“I don't think it'll bring you a gourd seed[2], Mr. Park.”

Ji Younghee put her gun on safe and slung it over her shoulder.

“I wasn't expecting repayment.”

At the far edge of the plains, black dots began appearing one by one.

I didn't need binoculars to know.

Mutation dogs.

They must have heard Gold's howl and come out.

One among them was unfamiliar.

I checked through my binoculars.

It was indeed one I had never seen before.

With black, short fur that reminded me of a pit bull terrier and a skull twisted like a demon's, it was nearly the size of a bull.

Was that it?

The one that had injured Gold, driven it from the pack, and taken its position as leader.

Its appearance and size were in a completely different league from ordinary mutation dogs.

I had seen countless mutation dogs, but this one stood alone.

Ji Younghee muttered beside me.

“...I really don't want to go anymore.”

But why was Gold returning to that black one?

Was it really going to challenge it again?

To reclaim its lost pack and territory?

That was foolish.

It was true that its body had recovered enough for it to run, but not enough for it to fight something that huge.

Looking at the black one's size and face, I didn't think Gold could win even at full strength.

It would be a shame for the creature I had spent days caring for to die so pointlessly, but this was no longer my concern.

Gold stopped before the black one.

The other dogs, former subordinates Gold had once led, stood behind the black one alongside dogs that appeared to be members of the new pack, watching Gold.

Judging by the way they bared their teeth threateningly, they no longer seemed to consider Gold part of their pack.

The black one bared its teeth at Gold.

Grrrr!

Its growl was so loud that I could hear it clearly from several kilometers away.

Even before that shockwave-like growl, Gold calmly took one step toward the black one that had taken everything from it.

“...Gold.”

I felt regret.

If it came back to me, I was willing to treat it well.

I was even prepared to give it decent meat.

Contrary to my hopes, the situation developed rapidly.

The black one opened its jaws, revealing teeth like saw blades.

“...”

Was this the end?

Gold looked back.

As though it had forgotten something.

For some reason, I felt like it was looking at me.

The next moment, something unexpected happened.

Gold lowered its tail, flinched, then suddenly rolled onto its back before the black one, exposing its belly.

Even I, who knew little about dogs, knew that posture.

It was submission.

Gold, once the pack leader, was acknowledging the rank of an animal larger and stronger than itself, asking to be accepted back into the pack.

“...Hah.”

A sigh escaped from deep in my lungs.

Along with my disappointment in Gold, I felt my feverish curiosity collapse.

Could mutations really not be tamed after all?

Perhaps this failure had been foreseeable.

The essence of the animals we called dogs was the gray wolf.

When it chewed up the extermination squad that had killed its companions, I had seen that nature.

Not every gray wolf wanted to become a dog.

Some were tamed, but some died wolves.

“...”

It had chosen the wolf's path rather than the dog's.

That was all.

“Even dogs know how to change their attitudes depending on the situation.”

Ji Younghee's mocking voice came from beside me.

“I think Father is worse than that dog.”

Footnotes:

[1] Cat Mom: a Korean term for someone who feeds and cares for stray cats, often used with a faintly mocking edge.

[2] Gourd seed: In the folktale of Heungbu and Nolbu, a swallow repays kindness with a gourd seed. In Korean, “gourd seed” (bak-ssi) also sounds like “Mr. Park.”

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried