Superstar From Age 0

Chapter 204

Kim Suhan’s friend, who was disguised as a zombie, lay on the floor.

His padded jacket was torn to shreds, and his ribs and arm were exposed to the bone from being bitten by zombies. 

A piece of an archery arrow was stuck above his closed left eyelid, making it look like it had pierced through. 

He felt a chill even looking at himself.

He was playing the role of a zombie hit by Go Juwon’s arrow.

‘I should be easy to find.’

Unlike his other friends who were probably swarming somewhere else, he had been chosen for this role because of his height. 

He wondered if he could brag about this to Kim Suhan and his friends. He chuckled as a zombie.

“Action!”

He stopped laughing and hardened his expression at the sound of the assistant director’s voice. 

Even if it was a part-time job, it was still a job. It was time for him to become a brain-dead zombie.

“Ready, action!”

Clack!

As soon as he heard the sound, Im Jangwoo looked behind him. 

There was a zombie right behind him. 

He broke out in a cold sweat. 

His heart sank and his head felt dizzy, but he had no time to lose his focus because of the horde of zombies rushing at him.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes!”

Im Jangwoo and the couple had learned that zombies were sensitive to sound while they were escaping. 

The sound of car engines, the screams of people. 

Whenever there was a loud noise, zombies always flocked to it.

‘Mister, behind you!’

It was a loud voice that could be heard even from here. 

There must have been zombies inside the hospital as well. 

The kid wouldn’t be safe either.

Im Jangwoo worried about the kid as he swung down the broom he was holding at the zombie.

If they hit their brain, they stop moving. Aiming for the zombie’s head was Im Jangwoo’s instinctive attack, remembering the zombie that looked really dead after not moving at all.

Im Jangwoo pushed aside his worry for the kid and ran with the couple to where there were fewer zombies. 

Im Jangwoo and the couple fought off the zombies and ran to the entrance. 

Im Jangwoo looked around cautiously and glanced at the third floor where the kid had been standing.

The kid who shot the arrow seemed to know that too and hid himself, not showing up.

Im Jangwoo and the couple quickly went inside. 

And they quickly found a place where they were blocked from all sides.

The three people who entered the nearest room on the first floor realized that there were no zombies there. The couple collapsed on the floor exhausted, but Im Jangwoo tightened his slackened nerves again.

“I’ll go up to the third floor and check. You two stay here.”

He didn’t know how long they could last in an office without a bathroom or water.

Im Jangwoo swallowed his words.

The couple also realized what he meant and looked anxious.

It was the day his wife was discharged from the hospital. 

They didn’t expect this misfortune to happen. Would it have been better if they had left the hospital sooner? 

If it wasn’t for the detective they met in the parking lot, they would have been turned into monsters without a fight.

“Detective!”

The couple hesitated as they grabbed onto him. Im Jangwoo, who had no gun and was just a slightly stronger ordinary person in front of zombies, gave them infinite trust because of his ‘detective’ title.

“That kid might be too late already. So…”

Im Jangwoo’s expression turned cold as he looked at the couple who might have already become another monster.

He had to hold out until his fellow detectives and police officers arrived, but that didn’t mean he would stay in a corner by himself. He didn’t care if the couple didn’t help him. But he didn’t want them to stop his actions either. Besides, the kid had saved them.

The couple lowered their heads at Im Jangwoo’s cold gaze. 

If it wasn’t for the kid, Im Jangwoo would have been killed, and then they would have died too.

“Please stay quiet and hide here. I’ll go up and see.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the third floor…?”

A cheerful voice of a kid interrupted Im Jangwoo’s serious expression. 

The three adults were surprised and looked behind them. They didn’t know when he had opened the door and came in, but they saw him locking the door.

“Mister. Why aren’t you locking the door? They’ll come in soon.”

They were speechless at his natural appearance. He looked like he had been living here for days. The adults just listened to what he said.

“It’s better to go up to a ward than here. The wards have separate bathrooms. We’ll have to find food separately though.”

Im Jangwoo, who had regained his senses a bit, looked at the kid.

The kid, no, the middle schooler had an archery bow on his shoulder, and a black bag and a quiver with arrows on the other shoulder.

He looked out of place in his thick clothes that seemed to be layered, and the equipment that archers only wore on TV, compared to the three adults in normal clothes.

The only thing they had in common was that they all had blood on their clothes.

Im Jangwoo, who was only blinking his eyes, opened his mouth.

“How did you get here from the third floor?”

That was what he was most curious about. 

It might have been easier to move around in the hospital with many rooms than outside with nowhere to hide, but it was the same that they didn’t know when a zombie would pop out of any room.

The kid smiled brightly at his question. Ahem. 

He coughed and took off the bag with the remaining arrows from his shoulder and unzipped it. 

And he opened it wide.

“I have 12 cell phones from God!”

There were colorful cell phones there.

A transparent case cell phone, a character case cell phone, a caseless cell phone… 

At a glance, they didn’t look like they belonged to the kid. 

The surprising thing was that they were all wrapped in white bandages.

Theft?

Im Jangwoo shook his head reflexively. His occupational disease popped up from time to time.

“There are 13?”

His wife jabbed him in the ribs at her husband’s silly remark. 

The kid smiled broadly.

“One is mine. It’s inconvenient to carry it around when I shoot arrows. I might drop it while running away.”

“Well, okay. But why the cell phones?”

“Shut your mouth.”

The husband closed his mouth at his wife’s fierce glare.

She was worried that he might have heard what they said earlier. 

He must have been out of his mind then. 

To say that to such a young kid… The wife’s face shadowed and the husband also looked down as if he felt guilty.

“I’ll start now. Go up the stairs right away.”

The kid held up his cell phone.

The cell phones that were confiscated along with his own cell phone in the nurse’s office. 

And the cell phones that had lost their owners and were lying in the hallway. 

He only found the ones that weren’t locked and registered their phone numbers. 

The kid looked at the name that popped up on his contacts list.

[Yellow pickled radish case]

That’s why the name was like that.

All the cell phones in the shelter had been modified by Go Juwon. 

He blocked the speaker and set the ringtone volume to medium. He didn’t want to attract any zombies from afar by setting it to maximum.

He also turned off all the phones, locked or not, in case they rang at a bad time. 

He only turned them on right before using them. He felt sorry for the owners of the phones and the callers.

The cell phone with a yellow pickle case.

Go Juwon remembered the missed calls piled up on it and clenched and unclenched his fist a few times before pressing the call button.

Zombies and blood.

An apocalyptic scene where no human voice could be heard.

-Baby lion, tu-tu-ru-tu-tu! Cute, tu-tu-ru-tu-tu! In the jungle, tu-tu-ru-tu-tu! Baby lion!

The cheerful nursery rhyme filled the bloody hallway.

His wife, who had been hospitalized for obstetrics, crumbled her face. 

Her husband bit his lip hard.

Go Juwon hardened his face for the first time since meeting the adults. 

He had turned on and off the music quickly, so he didn’t pay attention to what song it was.

The only one who didn’t flinch at the nursery rhyme was detective Im Jangwoo, who had faced all kinds of cruel and unforgivable crimes.

“Kid. Let’s go up.”

“…Yes.”

“Let’s go up.”

The zombies rushed toward the cell phone and Im Jangwoo led the way up the stairs. 

The couple and Go Juwon followed him. 

Behind them, they heard a ringtone that children would like. 

That cell phone would never ring again, crushed under the zombies’ feet.

Second floor.

Im Jangwoo gestured and Go Juwon turned on his phone and handed it to him. 

Im Jangwoo threw it with all his strength.

-I can’t leave you behind. I turn around once more

This time, a ballad.

“How many floors do we have to go?”

“Fourth floor.”

Everyone nodded at Go Juwon’s words. They thought it was easier than expected to avoid the zombies and moved their steps.

They climbed up to the third floor and reached the fourth floor. Im Jangwoo gestured again and Go Juwon smiled.

“It’s okay. I have something prepared here.”

“What?”

Go Juwon showed him his phone.

[In front of the right stairs on the fourth floor]

Go Juwon pressed a button and music sounded from the opposite side of the stairs they were on. 

The zombies, sensitive to sound, screamed and ran toward where the sound came from.

Im Jangwoo and the couple looked at the phone with a blank expression. It wasn’t a call button this time.

“What is that?”

“A Bluetooth speaker.”

It was a music play button.

They heard Red Crown’s song from afar, and the adults opened their mouths wide.

“Cut! OK!”

Director Choi Daeman’s voice echoed.

Kim Jongho, who had relaxed his tension, nodded his head repeatedly.

“A Bluetooth speaker… The speaker company must be mad. But Seo-jun, isn’t that song by Red Crown? You’re in the same agency as Seo-jun.”

Kim Jongho asked casually, still listening to the song from the polar bear speaker, but Seo-jun was startled and pressed the pause button. The music stopped, and the staff who were preparing for the next shoot moved their steps with regretful faces.

“Haha. It just happened to be like that.”

Seo-jun smiled awkwardly and said.

‘If it affected my acting, I would have refused.’

Director Choi Daeman, who liked any popular song, told Seo-jun to choose one of the songs in the top 10 of a music site.

He got a call from Seo Eunchan who heard about it.

It wasn’t strange for a middle school student like Go Juwon to listen to Red Crown’s popular songs, Seo Eunchan said, and Seo-jun nodded slightly.

He was going to choose number one anyway, but he felt uneasy as if he had done something for Eunchan’s uncle. 

Seo-jun scratched his cheek.

Kim Jongho searched for a music site with a smile. 

He would have chosen Red Crown’s song too, even if he was Seo-jun.

Red Crown’s Midnight was still number one.

“But do they need any promotion when they’re number one for four weeks?”

“Right? I thought so too, but my uncle didn’t seem to think so.”

Seo-jun tilted his head as he remembered Eunchan’s uncle who laughed over the phone.