It was the moment the brow of Cha Jong-u — who up until now hadn’t so much as twitched an eyebrow — creased, almost imperceptibly.
The question that every journalist in the room had been sizing each other up over finally broke loose from one of them, and the hall went quiet in an instant. The camera flashes that had been firing relentlessly seemed to catch the shift in atmosphere and fell briefly still as well.
As every eye in the room focused on Cha Jong-u, he held his mouth in a hard line for just a moment — then, almost inaudibly, let out a short laugh. And then, unhurried, calmer than he’d been all day, with the measured ease of someone humoring a child’s silly game, he slowly opened his mouth.
“When the fear of a disaster runs deep, absurd conspiracy theories tend to take root.”
At this opening, the journalists exchanged glances. As the flashes — frozen in that strange suspended silence — began going off again one by one, he continued.
“The fact that you have witnessed phenomena that seem like something out of a film does not mean it is appropriate to treat the administrative capacity of the state as a movie script. The government wishes to make it unambiguously clear that malicious rumors fed by public anxiety will be met with a firm response proportional to the severity of the matter.”
“…….”
“…Above all.”
It was a clean, decisive statement. Without a single crack showing, Cha Jong-u lightly closed the briefing pad in front of him and anchored a hand on the podium — and then raised a subject no one in the room had anticipated.
“The place the government is currently watching most closely is ‘Hyeonjin High School’ — the origin point of this incident, and the place where students remain trapped inside. A total of 192 personnel, including special operations units and fire department responders, are currently on standby, and the surrounding roads have been controlled to facilitate a smooth rescue operation.”
The reason the journalists gathered here were inwardly taken aback by this particular topic was simple — Hyeonjin High School was currently the most attention-commanding location in the country, and the place where the largest number of students remained trapped without being rescued.
The government had announced days ago that it would begin controlling the surrounding area and launch a rescue operation — yet to this day, there had been no news of any progress.
Hyeonjin High School — the original outbreak site. With public attention and public fury concentrated there more than anywhere else, a single careless word could bring the full weight of criticism crashing down.
Fully aware of that, Cha Jong-u chose his words with more care than ever.
“Given the difficulty of precisely gauging the scale of internal casualties, we have determined that a premature entry could in fact pose greater risk….”
“What you’re saying, then, is that rescue operations have not yet even begun?”
But despite Cha Jong-u’s careful handling, the journalist who had asked the question showed no intention of letting the subject go.
At the relentless follow-up, Cha Jong-u narrowed his eyes slightly and checked the journalist’s affiliation. The same person as before.
Cha Jong-u paused briefly and took in the cameras moving rapidly around the room.
With everything being broadcast live, every second counted. His tone, his expression — even the slightest sign of being flustered, and his opponents would have something to grab onto.
Knowing that, Cha Jong-u chose silence over a hasty defense.
Prolonged silence without offering an explanation was generally considered tantamount to handing your opponents your wrist — but Cha Jong-u had always operated on a different principle from those who tried to gloss over matters like this.
Words once spoken are difficult to walk back. But silence grounded in deliberateness often drives things toward a completely unexpected turn. Particularly in matters of this weight, that tendency tended to assert itself forcefully.
The journalists, catching onto Cha Jong-u’s silence, descended on it like piranhas. To the staffers nearby, it looked as though Cha Jong-u had made a critical misstep — as all eyes snapped to Hyeonjin High School in an instant. But even in the middle of the chaos that erupted, Cha Jong-u held his expression steady and unmoved throughout.
“…Minister.”
Questions poured out one after another like accusations. The rapid-fire flashes filled the room. A Ministry of the Interior official standing nearby called to Cha Jong-u in a lowered voice.
But even at that, Cha Jong-u didn’t move — he simply let his gaze drop.
He paid no attention to the unease spreading around him.
He was simply waiting. Timing the single moment that would turn this around.
“Could it be that rescue operations are being delayed because the government is hiding something?”
And the question Cha Jong-u had been waiting for came exactly as he had anticipated — from that same journalist. The noise of overlapping voices that had been filling the room all swelled together at once.
Only then did Cha Jong-u lift his lowered head. But he deliberately did not look at the journalist’s face. The venomous eyes, the self-satisfied posture — he already knew what he would see without looking. From the moment that question left her mouth, she had no doubt felt she’d landed something big.
But Cha Jong-u answered without flinching. This was the moment the force of the silence he had endured through all that criticism finally broke open.
“Most of you journalists may not be aware — but that school is where my son is currently enrolled.”
He had known from the moment the same suspicions were raised again and again that this briefing had already ceased to be a venue for government explanations and had transformed into something else entirely. Most politicians would have failed to cut through it head-on and found themselves swept along by the other side’s momentum — but Cha Jong-u knew clearly.
Mistakes happen when you try to get through the immediate moment by any means necessary, and the carefully built image of someone who governs for the people crumbles along with it. The journalist who had thrown the question knew that too — and that was precisely what she had been angling for.
“And my son, as well, remains trapped inside Hyeonjin High School without having been rescued.”
But what they had failed to account for was that Cha Jong-u was faster at calculating these things than most. And his decision to go straight through it created ripples no one had foreseen.
“Had I been thinking only of my son, I could have ordered the rescue even a little sooner. I could have been someone who, consumed by despair, was no longer able to carry out his responsibilities. As a father, I would be lying if I said I was not consumed with fear of losing my child.”
Cha Jong-u drew a quiet breath, then continued.
“But the fact that my son is in that place does not give me the right to put an enormous number of rescue personnel and other students at risk for my own personal gain. The current situation is not a simple accident. It is a critical matter with the potential to escalate into a national catastrophe. That is why the government will proceed with every possible measure of caution — and more caution still — to ensure the rescue operation is carried out safely. Thank you.”
The moment he finished, flashes exploded in rapid fire. Journalists rose from their seats one after another to get in a final question — but he was already making his way out the door at the far end of the room.
The moment Cha Jong-u stepped outside, he let the rigidity drain from his body and drew in the fresher air with relief. That son of a bitch — where did he dig that up from. The profanity that had been bubbling up from somewhere deep inside him he exhaled quietly, almost like a sigh.
He turned immediately to his chief of staff, who followed him out a moment later, and gave his instructions.
“Get the party members together for an emergency session right now. Move as quietly as possible — not a single rat gets wind of it. Oh, and—”
Cha Jong-u yanked roughly at the necktie constricting his throat, paused to gather himself before continuing, and then lowered his voice.
“…When the rescue operation gets underway — have them comb through all the kids and report directly to me if there are any individuals showing unusual infection signs. This is important.”
“Yes, understood.”
At the sight of his chief of staff bowing his head crisply, Cha Jong-u finally moved.
Tonight, there was a great deal of groundwork to lay to bring the situation under control.
* * *
“What the fuck is going on.”
Kim Jae-yun had come straight down from the second floor in one go, and the first thing out of his mouth at the scene before him was a curse.
The annex entrance had been completely quiet right up until they’d gone upstairs — but now zombies were massed outside, pressing up against the glass doors.
Jae-yun joined Min-jae and Seok-hui, who were throwing their whole bodies against the door to hold it, and asked again.
“Someone explain what happened!”
At the urgent voice, it was Hong Seok-hui who answered first.
“Shit! You guys said you were going to get weapons, and you were taking a while, so I came out into the hallway to check if something had happened — and there were zombies inside that weren’t there before. I managed to drive them out somehow, but in the process I drew aggro.”
“What? Didn’t you secure the door properly earlier?”
“I did! I locked it and everything. But I don’t think these ones came through the door. There are a lot of windows in the annex, right. One of them must have been left open.”
“Damn it….”
Jae-yun bit down on his frustration and looked around. It seemed like the zombies had been driven out and the door relocked again — but if the zombies were drawn in by noise and their numbers grew any larger, holding the door with their bodies alone was never going to be enough.
We barely just survived and now this.
Just as he was searching for something sturdy enough to brace the door, Han Chae-rim’s voice came from inside the pool area. He turned toward the sound, and there was Chae-rim, shoving a metal shelf from inside the pool area and pushing it toward them at speed.
“Use this to block it for now!”
The shelf Chae-rim had brought was tall and wide enough to cover a decent portion of the door’s surface. Min-jae and Jae-yun, who had been holding the door with their bodies, took the metal shelf and quickly jammed it against the door.
It was better than blocking it with bare bodies, but the shelf itself wasn’t exactly light, so even this wasn’t a situation to feel at ease about. That was when Do-hyun moved.
Do-hyun handed over to Chae-rim the bow he’d had slung on his back along with the fistful of arrows he’d brought, then ran quickly into the pool area. He moved swiftly to retrieve the bamboo spear he’d brought from the main building, then scanned for the heaviest structure he could find to brace the door with. But given where they were, it turned out to be far harder to find something suitable than he’d expected.
Do-hyun gave up on finding a structural piece and instead gathered up the school banner cloth and mat that Jae-yun had brought earlier, along with anything that could serve as a rod, and ran back to the door. He wedged the rod through the door handle to keep it from moving.
“Cover the whole door with that cloth.”
There were already enough zombies gathered outside that he couldn’t expect it to do much — but he passed the cloth to Jae-yun and Min-jae all the same.
While the others worked in tight formation, Do-hyun propped the thick mat up against the front of the shelf, adding another layer of reinforcement to the door. It would give way instantly under sustained pressure too — but it was still better than nothing. At least if zombies tripped over the mat, it might buy them a few seconds in a critical moment.
With the mat in place, Do-hyun pulled out a chain lock from among the items he’d passed to Chae-rim and wound it tightly around the door handle.
“Shit, good thing we brought this or we’d have been done for….”
That chain had been one of the things he’d found while Jae-yun was talking nonsense. Watching him wind the chain around the door handle, Jae-yun looked quietly taken aback — which made sense, since he’d been the one upstairs telling Do-hyun that kind of thing was too awkward to use as a weapon.
Aware of that, Jae-yun added a word.
“My bad. My foresight was lacking.”
“Shut up and hang the cloth properly.”
“Yes sir.”
Jae-yun, without another word, got back to what he’d been doing. He and Min-jae had climbed up on the shelf to hang the cloth, and only now stepped back down to the floor.
Covering the full face of the glass door definitely seemed to settle the zombies more than before — but given that their location had already been exposed, it was hard to feel truly at ease. Do-hyun stepped back from the door to read the zombies’ movements, and finally spoke.
“We can’t stay like this.”
Hong Seok-hui, his face noticeably paler than before, looked back at him.
“Wh — what do we do then?”
In truth, Do-hyun didn’t have a sharp solution on hand either. The main building connected to the annex had long since been overrun by zombies, and leaving the annex wasn’t an option — the door right here was the only exit to the outside.
After a brief moment of thought, Do-hyun answered shortly.
“We run.”
“Run where, exactly?”
At the anxious, pressing voice, Do-hyun raised one finger and pointed it upward.
“Up.”
