Jin-woo's jogging brought him back to the east wing. Hearing the eerie silence upon entering the building, he didn't feel a ounce of apprehension.
Unlike before, when his nerves were stretched thin upon first entering, he felt relaxed, having only a slight focus on observing his surroundings. But even that seed redundant as Seong was there to alert him of any dangers around the hall corner.
Jin-woo made his way to the stairs leading up to the second floor, but he paused montarily before moving to turn the corner nearby instead.
Seong seeing this asked puzzledly.
"Jin, what's up?"
"I'm just checking to make sure the cafeteria where everyone will gather is safe."
As Jin-woo said this he headed towards the cafeteria, and upon entering he glanced around at the corpses that littered the floor.
From the number of bodies here, about half had made it outside at the very least, but Jin-woo didn't know how many of those students were still alive. Perhaps they had all died.
With a heavy heart, Jin-woo walked forward and continued to examine the bodies. Seong upon seeing this finally understood what Jin-woo's words ant.
"Oh, you're checking for the second type of infected people."
"Hm, if there's even one of them here this entire room is unusable since we can't take the risk of moving it. We don't know how dangerous the virus is, whether the gloves created for protection from ordinary bacteria can block it."
Seong's expression turned serious. He had actually forgotten about this matter sowhat. Those zombies outside were the main danger of course, but there was still a silent but deadly threat lingering inside the building. With a flicker of his body, he went around the room checking to make sure all of the bodies had bite marks.
Though having bite marks or not wasn't a definite indication of a second type of Infected, it was only a preliminary marker. To truly distinguish the second type of Infected in this instance, Jin-woo ca up with the idea of checking for injuries apart from bite marks.
As long as their bodies had injuries it ant that they were attacking the surviving students and facing retaliation.
It didn't take the two youths working together more than a minute or two to ensure a second type of Infected wasn't mixed among the bodies. All of the bodies had grueso head injuries, ensuring the sure death of the zombies.
Just from these wounds, Jin-woo could only imagine the desperation of the students who were alive.
After leaving the cafeteria, Jin-woo finally made his way up the stairs and headed for the classroom filled with students; his feet further breaking the fragnted glass under his soles that ca from the floor-to-ceiling window he previously shot and broke.
However, on his way, Jin-woo would stop and lean against the wall several tis. His pale face and sweat-soaked shirt made it obvious to anyone that he was exhausted.
Despite the concerns Seong voiced for him to head back to the security room and contact everyone like before to inform them to co to the cafeteria, Jin-woo refused as it was unknown whether or not the remaining zombies would be drawn to his classmates and the students in the classroom due to so many people moving together.
He was the only one with a gun so his presence while escorting them was logical. As for Ah-yong, she was alone on the fourth floor where the concentration of the zombies was. If she t one, or God-forbid, two lingering zombies, she had no one to rely on.
Seong could not argue the points Jin-woo made and he would seem heartless if he did. However, seeing his best friend like this, he couldn't help but feel restlessly worried.
So, since he couldn't help him directly, Seong decided to start cheering like a fitness trainer would from the end of the hallways.
"Co on Jin, you can do it! One foot in front of the other, that's it, push through the pain. Pain is only a construct of the mind, a re chemical reaction in the brain, just ignore it and keep moving forward!"
An exhausted Jin-woo couldn't help but burst out laughing at Seong's pep talk. Though this indeed made him forget his exhaustion sowhat.
By the ti Jin-woo reached the classroom full of students following Seong's directions he was panting, but he could still stand straight while knocking on the door.
Soone ca to the window to cautiously peep out after the knock, but upon seeing Jin-woo their eyes lit up.
Jin-woo spotted the youth but thought his actions were quite amusing. He couldn't help but wonder if the people inside thought a zombie would knock on the door to trick them into opening it.
However, even though this made Jin-woo chuckle slightly, he understood this was a sign of how traumatized they were to go against their logical reasoning and check before opening the door.
Jin-woo took a deep breath and then released it. At the sa ti, a small commotion was heard behind the door before it was suddenly open. Explore more stories with empire
The first people Jin-woo saw were a slightly older boy and a girl. They both showed excited expressions as the door was opened, but upon seeing Jin-woo the girl was montarily taken aback.
The boy, however, suddenly jumped forward and embraced Jin-woo in a tight hug. If not for Jin-woo pointing out his arm in a sling, the youth would not have seen it. He didn't even ask if Jin-woo was the one who helped them. He just constantly repeated 'thank you' over and over again, though in a barely audible whisper.
For the past three hours or so, all the youth's mind was preoccupied with was to stay still and silent as possible, so even now when he no longer had to, he was still in that state of mind.
As the girl stepped outside to let the other students and teachers leave the classroom, she was still observing Jin-woo with a surprised expression. But finally, she spoke up and asked.
"Is your na, Lee Jin-woo?"
Rubbing the boy's back who was still hugging him, Jin-woo turned to the girl and nodded.
Seeing this confirmation, the girl hesitated for a mont but then bowed deeply and said.
"Thank you for saving us. If not for you I don't think we would have a chance of surviving until help arrives."
Other students seed to have recognized Jin-woo as well, after all the story of a middle school prodigy killing his friend and then going mad due to his schizophrenia was bound to spread to the high school campus. Even on the elentary school campus, those young kids were retelling this tale as a scary legend of their school to frighten unaware classmates.
The freak.
The friend killer.
These words used to describe Jin-woo were just two of the many, many nicknas that rose to the top, and of course, his real na was spread all the sa as well.
However, rumors were still rumors, so at this mont when the so-called 'friend killer' and 'freak' stood in front of them after sacrificing himself to give them a sliver of a chance to survive, such rumors were dashed from their minds to be replaced by a weight of gratitude so imnse that each student here were monts away from bowing down in servitude to repay such kindness.
This really wasn't an exaggeration as Jin-woo had to stop a few people from kowtowing on their knees while thanking him.
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