Walking Daddy

Chapter 117

As I passed the first-floor lobby and made my way up to the second floor, I saw the restaurant that had once served breakfast to the hotel guests.

There was a bizarre symbol drawn on the large glass doors of the front entrance. On the other side of the doors, I saw the leader and his followers praying. The ninth Believer carefully opened the glass door and entered the chapel.

The leader who was praying turned around and looked at the ninth Believer and me. When the leader saw my face, his eyes went wide, and he ordered the other Believers around to leave at once.

As soon as all the Believers had left, the leader came up to me. As he moved closer, the smell of raspberry grew stronger. The leader opened his arms in welcome.

“Heavenly Father,” he asked, “what brings you to a place like this?”

“...”

I looked into his face, speechless. It wasn’t because he was familiar.

It was because he was welcoming me.

And I had to chop this person’s head off.

The fact that I had to kill someone who had welcomed me like this made me feel uneasy. It would’ve felt better if he’d just attacked me with no reason or hesitation instead.

I was probably a god in their eyes. I wet my lips and played along with him, lowering my voice as far as I could.

“The supply of food has been pathetic lately. I’ve come to take a look at the situation myself.”

When I was done speaking, the leader hesitated slightly, then knelt to the ground.

“I will quickly get some sacrifices ready and offer them to the gods at the temple.”

“That’s rather frustrating to hear. Are you saying there is no food here?”

I changed the topic subtly, trying to find out if there were any survivors in the hotel. The leader hesitated again, then looked down at the floor.

“They are of low quality, and unsuitable to offer as sacrifice… They are merely food prepared for us to consume.”

“Bring them.”

"What? How can we offer low-quality food as a sacrifice?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just bring it. I will determine the quality of the food with my own two eyes when I see it.”

"If that’s the case… I will make the preparations."

The leader got up, bowed deeply from the waist, and headed toward the entrance of the chapel. He took one step beyond the door, then turned around, his face full of suspicion.

"Heavenly Father,” he said questioningly.

"Go ahead."

“This may be a presumptuous question, but… can you change your appearance as well?”

My eyes twitched when I heard his question. I wondered if the leader had met the boss of the Family before. Since the two men earlier said that the dogs from Jongno had taken over this place, It was possible that someone who was familiar with what had happened in Jongno was here as well.

I knew that if I reacted to such probing questions, he might figure out my real identity. Therefore, I tried to answer as nonchalantly as I could.

"It’s more than possible."

"Oh, oh! Of course. I was surprised that your eyes have turned blue as well.”

“It’s all thanks to your prayers and sacrifices. Hurry up and get the food.”

"Yes sir."

The leader left the chapel.

‘Hmm… Something’s not quite right...'

I started to have doubts because of how easy things were working out.

After the leader disappeared, I looked around the chapel to figure out what was actually going on.

It was almost impossible to tell that the place used to be a restaurant. It held no traces of its former use. It looked like it had been converted into a chapel for the Believers a long time ago.

I looked at every single item on the podium, then walked over to the desk in the corner and went through all the drawers.

Once the leader brought the survivors to me, I was planning to save them and kill the dogs here. Before that, though, I needed to find clues related to the survivors.

If they were a cult, they would have kept a list of followers, along with a list related to the survivors. Despite searching high and low, though, I couldn’t find the list I was looking for.

Suddenly, a door in the corner caught my eye.

It led to a confessional.

When I went in, I noticed a false wall made out of wood dividing the room. I carefully removed the wooden plank, revealing another door behind it.

I wondered if this room used to be a kitchen. I had no clue why there was a door here, but I went ahead and slowly turned the doorknob anyway.

Unfortunately, the door was tightly locked.

I looked back out into the chapel again, then quietly closed the door to the confessional. Channeling my strength into my right hand, I shattered the secret door.

Crack!

I passed through the splintered wooden door and entered a small study. Judging by the faint scent of raspberries tickling the tip of my nose, I assumed that this study belonged to the leader.

.

I went through the drawers in the study intently.

There were several documents related to the dogs and the members of the Family. There was also a map of Seoul right next to them. This map had clear differences compared to the map of Seoul that was in my possession.

The areas controlled by members of the Family were marked with an X, and the locations of the remaining Shelters in Seoul were clearly marked. There were much fewer shield symbols on the map than before. It seemed that many survivors had already become food for the dogs and the Family. The map also showed the size of the Family’s forces that had crossed the Sogang Bridge into Yeouido.

I assumed that the map had been made just before the Gangnam Operation.

I wondered if they’d been abandoned after the Gangnam Operation had been launched. I couldn’t find any further information about the Gangnam Operation.

It seemed like the Family had abandoned this group

At that moment, I recalled the incident that had happened at Gwangjang Intersection.

- Everyone has to prove their faith. We must dispel the wrath of God!

They believed that God’s wrath was the reason they’d been abandoned by the Family.

If they knew that the gang was focusing on the Gangnam Operation, they would have known why the members of the Family had left this place alone recently. Why were they using God’s wrath as an explanation? Weren’t they referring to the Family when they said God, and sacrifices when they mentioned daily bread?

I felt like I was close to the truth, and yet it was so far out of reach.

It was as if there was a piece of blurry, opaque glass in between me and the truth. I couldn’t grasp the essence of it, the truth of what was happening with this cult.

Then, all of a sudden, an interesting thought crossed my mind.

‘The fanatics here… What if they don’t know about the Family?’

Until that moment, I had only looked at the fanatics from my perspective. However, in order to know one’s enemy, one had to put oneself in their shoes to fully understand them.

If the fanatics here didn’t know everything about zombies, and if they didn’t know about the Family… There was a high chance that they were masquerading their ways as a religion in order to survive.

If the dogs disguised themselves as the children of God and showed the ordinary people that they didn’t get eaten by zombies… It would be more than enough to convince the people that was God’s plan. Once that happened, they could accept any future inhuman acts as God’s plan, and live their lives with a wrong set of beliefs.

My jaw fell open as I came to this conclusion.

I couldn’t believe that people would willingly deceive others so fully. It was astonishing to realize that people could weave such elaborate deceptions on others.

The dogs here had deified the members of the Family and fed the survivors of Gwangjang-dong with false beliefs, earning their trust along the way and turning all of them into fanatics. And these fanatics had no clue that everything they were doing was no different from the inhuman acts of the dogs, since they believed that all they were doing was part of God’s plan.

I couldn’t help but wonder why the other fanatics didn’t know anything about what was happening behind the scenes when there was this much information related to dogs and the Family in this study.

‘Wait. Doesn’t that mean that only the leader knows about the dogs and the Family?’

When this conclusion hit me, chills went down my spine and cold sweat trickled down my forehead.

I quickly left the study. I noticed that the leader was still not back. I saw some guards patrolling outside the chapel.

Hurrying over to them, I asked them, “Where’s the leader?”

"Pardon?"

“When is the leader coming back with the daily bread?”

“What… What do you mean by that?”

"Answer me!"

I furrowed my brow, and they knelt hurriedly, their faces painted with terror.

“My apologies!”

“No, no. It's alright. Just explain what’s going on. Where did the leader go?”

“He went to get some spirit of Achasan.”

“What…?”

Now, what kind of bullshit was this? I guessed a cult wasn’t called a cult for no reason. I’d been offered nonsense after nonsense from the moment I’d set foot in this place.

I clicked my tongue vigorously and descended to the first floor. There, I noticed twelve men and women wearing clean clothes standing at the entrance of the hotel, holding each others’ hands and singing a hymn I could not understand. They seemed to be the twelve Believers.

I walked up to them.

“Where did the leader go?”

“So it shall be!”

They didn't answer my question, but fell to their knees once they saw my face and began to recite some prayers.

‘These people are crazy. They’re perfectly possessed. These people can’t be saved.’

The absurdity of the situation made me raise my voice.

“Where did the leader go?!”

“According to God’s plan, he went to seek spiritual energy.”

“My plan? What the hell is spiritual energy? Is your daily bread the spiritual energy?”

“Spiritual energy is the source of all things, and makes our lives as human beings insignificant…”

I put my hands to my face as I listened to their prattling.

The dogs here… No, the fanatics here were impossible to talk to.

Suddenly, I remembered what the two men I’d rescued from middle school had said.

- The people I want to save… They’re all in this school.

The countless bodies that were hung helplessly along the school’s walls flashed through my mind. I thought about what they had said and realized that the people?that they wanted to save were all already dead.

There were no survivors in this place left to save.

All the people that were left were just fanatics who ate human flesh and worshiped zombies with their entire being.

I placed my hand on my forehead and let out a sigh of despair.

My gut feeling was never wrong.

The leader had already run away.

I quickly left the hotel.

“Heavenly Father!”

“You must not abandon us!”

I heard the fanatics shouting after me. I ignored them and scanned the surroundings. No matter how hard I looked, I could not locate the leader.

My blue eyes flashed as I concentrated on my sense of smell.

When I’d met with the leader in the chapel, I’d smelled a hint of raspberry on him. However, it was nearly impossible to detect that same scent outdoors.

I couldn’t think of a way to locate him. It was a dead end.

I quickly climbed up to the rooftop and surveyed the area below.

'If he’d sensed that something funny was going on, he wouldn’t have gone to Guui-dong or Jayang-dong.'

The leader had been in touch with the gang members until the commencement of the Gangnam Operation. But once the Gangnam Operation kicked off, the battle in Gwangjin-gu had begun as well, and he probably lost contact with the dong leaders of Guui-dong and Jayang-dong. He probably noticed that the two of them had fallen, and would have chosen a different route.

That narrowed his possible escape routes to two.

He would have either fled to Achasan, or gone up the northern end of Achasan-ro that led to Guri-si.

Judging by his knowledge about zombies, however, he probably wouldn't have taken the main road.

He would have taken a route that led through an area in which he could conceal his body or his body odor. An area where he could plan out what to do next.

‘Bingo.’

I looked over at Achasan. The path led past Achasan and into the ridges of Yongmasan. Once one crossed over Yongmasan, one would end up in Myeonmok-dong.

He probably hadn’t considered that even the dong leader of Myeonmok-dong had fallen as well. I knew he would try to get to Myeonmok-dong to plan out his next move.

I headed for Achasan without looking back. I had to catch him before he got away.

If he made it out alive, the Family would eventually discover our whereabouts, which would render our move meaningless.

If the reinforcements sent by the Family made their way to Gwangjang-dong, another war was inevitable.

I entered Achasan and quickly made my way through the bushes. I could smell the scent of raspberry tickling the tip of my nose as I made my way through the long grass.

‘Bingo.’

The leader was here somewhere.

I made my way up Achasan with a smirk…

KAAA!!!

A cry echoed through the air, stopping me in my tracks. It resonated through the air, making me feel dizzy. A nerve-wracking memory flashed through my mind, and chills ran up and down my body.

It was a cry I could never forget.

The unforgettable feeling of death that came upon me awoke the fear inside me. I found myself unable to move, as if my two feet had sunk into a swamp. I could feel my blood circulation begin to fail, and I grew dizzy with the symptoms of low blood pressure. My mind started ringing, and a constant high-pitched whine rang in my ears.

I was barely able to turn around to see where the sound had come from. It was quite a distance away. I assumed it was coming from the border of Gwangjang-dong.

My mind immediately went blank, and my eyes began to tremble.

“So-Yeon,” I muttered.

The black creature had appeared.

It had appeared in the very place where So-Yeon and my family were.