First, my thanks to Kyle Dos.

Without the vast supply of medical supplies I’d scavenged from his bunker, I wouldn’t have dared to attempt treating this creature.

It wasn’t anything elaborate.

I applied powdered antiseptic to the exposed rib area, covered it with gauze, and called it done.

Perhaps because it was no ordinary beast, Gold growled in pain only briefly during the treatment but didn’t display any hostility toward me.

After treating his wounds, I provided food.

I made it myself: meat from my freezer that had partially thawed during the Yun Colonel Incident and started to stink. I boiled it, mixed in supplements and edible antibiotics, and set it before him.

Gold sniffed the food and wrinkled his nose.

“Grrr!”

“Hey, cut it out.”

Apparently, even dogs can be picky eaters.

Considering Gold had likely grown used to feasting on deer and wild boar, a half-rotten, freezer-burned meal probably didn’t suit his tastes.

Still, as if understanding it was necessary for his recovery, he begrudgingly stuffed the food into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed it down.

Watching him slowly eat the meal I’d prepared, I began to understand why people keep animals as pets.

It was... hard to explain.

As the bowl emptied, I felt like something inside me was being filled.

I couldn’t help but empathize with the feelings of "cat moms" and kept a close eye on Gold’s recovery.

As expected of a wild animal, Gold healed remarkably fast.

In less than three days, he was able to walk—albeit slowly—on his own.

I took him to a secluded area in the mountains above the main bunker.

Clever as he was, Gold followed my directions while remaining constantly on alert, particularly wary of the presence of other people.

“There’s no one here. It’s just me.”

“Grrrrr.”

“What, you’ve been betrayed a lot or something?”

To my surprise, Gold nodded.

“…”

Just how much of my words does this dog understand?

Feeling a chill run down my spine, I set about building a shelter for him.

Using slate roofing materials scavenged from the village below, I patched together a roof. Inside, I spread out blankets and mats I’d taken from an abandoned house, along with industrial packing materials to insulate the space.

“There. It’s your house.”

As soon as the shelter was complete, Gold crawled right in, curled up, and looked at me with a purring sound that almost resembled contentment.

From his gaze, I sensed a degree of trust.

I felt a small sense of accomplishment—and the thrill of achieving something no one else had done.

The idea of taming a mutation, something unheard of, rekindled a faint fire in my otherwise cold and indifferent veins.

But as Gold’s wounds healed and his strength returned, my pride gradually turned into unease.

I knew all too well how dangerous a mutated dog could be.

In close combat, they were deadlier than most monsters.

Sometimes, as Gold rested with his head lowered, looking up at me, I would feel the urge to aim my gun and pull the trigger.

Visions of him suddenly lunging at me, ripping through my flesh and bones, flashed through my mind.

Each time, I calmed myself by remembering how he followed me and mimicked human songs.

Most of all, I thought about the woman Baek Seung-hyun had once destroyed.

Her unwavering belief, even in the face of a cat several times her size, made me wonder if trust was the key to taming a mutation.

Still, no matter how much I tried to suppress my instincts and give him faith, I remained a cautious man by nature.

The thought that Gold might attack me one day grew stronger with each passing moment.

Then one day, a new visitor entered my territory.

It was a bus.

The K-Walkie crackled as it picked up a public broadcast frequency.

“Is there a survivor in this area? We are not raiders or military. We’re ordinary civilians with a specific purpose for being here.”

That voice...

It was familiar.

“If anyone’s here, please respond. We’re not enemies. We only need some information. You can reply via radio if you prefer. We’ve also brought a small gift—fuel. Yes, fuel.”

Suddenly, it clicked.

It was Ji Chang-soo.

A little older, a little thinner, but undoubtedly the same loyal man who once followed Je Pung-ho to the brink of death.

But Ji Chang-soo wasn’t alone.

Through my binoculars, I spotted a woman standing beside him—calm and poised, but with a look of discontent on her face.

It was Ji Young-hee, the woman who once tried to dissuade her father from taking his own life.

“…”

What should I do?

Revealing myself for a mere barrel of fuel didn’t seem appealing, but I did have a past connection with these people.

They’d brought five armed men with them, but it didn’t appear they were here for me.

After all, I wasn’t exactly someone worth going out of their way for. Judging by their trajectory, they seemed to be heading southeast.

“Stay hidden.”

I whispered to Gold.

“I’m just going to handle something real quick.”

Gold stared at me for a moment before retreating deep into the slate-roofed shelter.

“There is a survivor here.”

I picked up the K-Walkie and responded.

At first, they didn’t recognize my voice.

“It’s Park Gyu.”

As expected, they weren’t here for me specifically.

After a brief exchange of greetings, I invited them over.

While Gold growled in the background, I had an idea.

It was time to put something to the test.

*

“...You’ve been living here?”

Ji Chang-soo stared at my camouflaged house, visibly surprised.

It wasn’t an unreasonable reaction.

The rust-covered, seemingly ready-to-collapse container house was objectively unfit for human habitation.

“People don’t come to places where there’s nothing to take. Call it having no possessions, perhaps?”

I spouted some line I’d picked up somewhere, carefully watching their reactions.

The experiment was a success.

From the outside, my camouflaged house was practically invisible. Even when people stood right in front of it, it emanated an unwelcoming aura that made them reluctant to enter.

Thanks to that, we conducted our conversation outside instead of inside the house.

The reason Ji Chang-soo, someone I thought I’d never see again, was standing here in my territory was due to shadows of the past.

He handed me a printed photograph.

“Please take a look at this.”

It was a picture I’d seen on the community forums—a photograph of Chairman Je Pung-ho.

Despite having turned into a zombie, the man once revered as a titan of industry still led thousands of followers. The crude A4 print made the image even more grotesque.

“I cannot bear to see the Chairman, who gave me everything, wandering the earth in such a state. I want to give him a proper burial.”

That was his reason.

Beyond Gold’s domain lay an abandoned city, and within it, a horde of zombies supposedly led by someone who looked like Chairman Je Pung-ho.

However, reaching the city was no easy feat.

The surrounding area was crawling with stationary monsters, raider bases, and remnants of the Chinese military who had managed to land here—dangers far greater than zombies.

The mention of Chinese forces caught my attention, so I asked for details.

“A battalion-sized unit landed near Asan, but they’re all light infantry. Their heavy equipment was sunk by one of our submarines, so they’ve been stranded. With their homeland in ruins, they’ve got nowhere to go. They just stayed put.”

I had been so focused on Seoul that I hadn’t realized such interesting events were unfolding in the south.

The only viable route to the city was through the southwest, which happened to be Gold’s territory.

Gold was far more infamous in Seoul than I was.

A bounty had been placed on him long ago.

Countless extermination squads had been sent after him, only to return empty-handed—or worse, as his pack’s next meal.

Ji Chang-soo was well aware of this. But when he finally came near Gold’s domain, fear got the better of him, and he started seeking nearby survivors to improve his odds, however slightly.

That’s how he ended up here.

Apparently, he had also tried contacting the sniper and her daughter, hoping to at least gather some information.

“I never expected anyone to be here, let alone someone like Hunter Park Gyu. This must be divine providence.”

Ji Chang-soo clasped his hands in prayer, expressing gratitude to the heavens.

“To think that Hunter Park Gyu has stationed himself here to help people like us—it’s nothing short of a blessing.”

“…What?”

This guy was jumping to conclusions far too quickly.

I hadn’t agreed to help, nor did I plan to.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve been out of active duty for a long time. I’m in no condition to fight. If I were still as capable as I once was, do you think I’d be living like a beggar out here?”

I gave him some basic information to help him, and that was it.

After Ji Chang-soo left, his daughter, Ji Young-hee, approached me.

I’d always felt she was easier to talk to than her father.

“It’s okay. I know this must seem like madness, but I never intended to drag you into it.”

Ji Young-hee stood there, a cigarette in her mouth, glaring resentfully at her father as he boarded the bus.

“I don’t understand why he’s so obsessed with Chairman Je Pung-ho. It’s not like this is the Joseon era.”

Her ring finger caught my eye—a glittering band she hadn’t worn before.

“This?”

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

“I ended up marrying someone from the Pafung Group, but…”

After a brief pause, she exhaled the smoke along with a heavy sigh that seemed to rise to the heavens.

“He’s dead.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“He was a decent man, but too weak to survive in times like these.”

Her tone was detached, as if recounting the death of a stranger.

It made me wonder if she had ever truly cared for him.

She glanced at me.

“And you? Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Divorced?”

“Never married.”

“I heard hunters tend to marry quickly.”

“There are always exceptions.”

“Don’t you feel lonely?”

This woman had never pried into my personal life before.

Back when the Pafung Group still maintained some semblance of structure, she had asked for my help but showed no interest in me as a person.

But the world had changed, and so had her tone and gaze—there was a hint of something more lingering in her voice now.

I didn’t mind, but we were still strangers.

I looked toward my camouflaged house and let out a sigh.

“At first, I did feel lonely. But once I let go of my desires, everything seemed abundant.”

“You sound like a monk.”

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

“We’re well-armed.”

She glanced back at the bus, where armed men were mounting a massive machine gun on the roof.

A 12.7mm heavy machine gun.

I nodded in approval.

“That should suffice.”

“As promised, we’ll leave you a barrel of fuel. It’s synthetic, but it’s decent.”

“Can it replace diesel?”

“Our bus runs fine on it. I’m not sure how much strain it puts on the machinery, though. But, uh—wait!”

Her face suddenly turned pale.

Even before turning my head, I knew why.

Heavy breathing filled the air, and a massive shadow loomed between us.

Standing near the main bunker, a giant dog the size of a lion glared at us.

It was Gold.

“Gold.”

Click.

I aimed my gun at him.

“Stand down.”

Gold bared his teeth at Ji Young-hee, who froze in place, her face drained of color.

“Is he... yours?” she stammered.

“Not exactly.”

“Then?!”

“It’s complicated.”

I turned to Gold again and warned him.

“She’s not an enemy. She’ll leave soon. She won’t hurt you.”

At least toward me, Gold showed no hostility.

His aggression was directed solely at Ji Young-hee.

“Gold.”

I spoke his name again, this time with more weight.

Voices rose from the bus.

“What’s going on? Young-hee!”

Ji Chang-soo’s voice reached us.

Gold glared at Ji Young-hee for a moment longer before abruptly turning and sprinting out of my territory.

“Gold…”

He was leaving.

I watched as he crossed the hills where I’d built him a home, leaping down steep slopes and disappearing into the fields beyond.

He was heading southwest—back to the plains he once ruled.

“Gold.”

Ji Young-hee raised her gun, aiming at his retreating figure.

I grabbed her weapon and forced it down.

She shot me an indignant look.

Shaking my head, I kept my gaze fixed on the distant figure of Gold.

“...Let him go. It’d be a waste of bullets.”

“Did you seriously try to raise that thing? A hunter, of all people?”

“Not raise. Just... care for him. He was badly injured. And don’t they say even beasts understand gratitude?”

“I doubt he’s bringing you a thank-you gift anytime soon.”

Ji Young-hee switched her weapon’s safety on and slung it over her shoulder.

“I wasn’t expecting anything in return.”

Far off in the fields, black shapes began to appear one by one.

I didn’t need binoculars to recognize them.

Mutated dogs.

They were responding to Gold’s howls.

Among them was one I hadn’t seen before.

Through my binoculars, I confirmed it—a massive dog with short black fur and a face twisted like a demon. Its size rivaled that of a bull.

So that’s the one.

The beast that injured Gold, drove him from his pack, and claimed his throne.

Its size and appearance set it apart from any other mutated dog I’d seen before.

Ji Young-hee muttered beside me, “...I really don’t want to go now.”

Why had Gold returned to the black dog?

Was he planning to challenge it again?

To reclaim his pack and territory?

It seemed impossible.

While Gold had recovered enough to move, he wasn’t in any condition to fight a beast of that size.

Even at his peak, I doubted he could win against that monster.

Gold stood before the black dog, surrounded by his former pack, now standing with the newcomers.

They no longer considered him one of their own.

The black dog bared its teeth at Gold.

“Grrrr!”

Its growl was so powerful that it reverberated across the plains, almost like a shockwave.

But even in the face of such raw force, Gold calmly stepped forward, toward the creature that had taken everything from him.

“...Gold.”

I felt a pang of regret.

If he came back to me, I’d take care of him.

I’d even give him fresh meat.

But instead of fighting, Gold did something unexpected.

He lowered his tail, crouched slightly, and rolled onto his back, exposing his belly.

Even I, with my limited knowledge of dogs, recognized the gesture—it was a sign of submission.

Once the leader of the pack, Gold was acknowledging the stronger dog’s dominance, asking to be accepted back into the group.

“...Hah.”

A deep sigh escaped me.

Disappointment in Gold mingled with the realization that my feverish curiosity had been extinguished.

Perhaps taming a mutation had always been a fool’s errand.

Some wolves became dogs. Others remained wolves until the end.

Gold had chosen the path of the wolf.

“Even dogs know how to change their stance when the situation calls for it,” Ji Young-hee quipped bitterly.

“My father’s worse than that dog.”