Convict Unit: Black Parade

Model Student and Miss Hellth, trading fatal blows during their squabble, were swept away in a zombie landslide.

Flight Risk, caught by a horde pouring from a building during his bombing run, exploded.

In an instant, three of the five members were dead, or worse.

“We are so, so screwed,” Jae-hee muttered, his mind reeling in pure panic.

Just then…

“Oi.”

A hand seized him by the scruff of his neck.

“This way.”

Jae-hee stumbled, turning to see Ghost.

She practically yanked him off his feet, dragging him into a back alley. She held him with just one arm—her strength was terrifying.

And with her free hand, she instantly drew her sword and cut down the zombies blocking their path in a single, fluid motion. With every sweep of her blade, a zombie’s head was cleanly severed.

Her swordsmanship was nothing short of divine.

“Whoa…”

Jae-hee watched, mesmerized, an involuntary gasp of admiration escaping him.

“Grandma Ghost! I totally underestimated you. You’re incredible!”

“…”

“And that—what did you call it? Void Trinity? That sword is cool as hell!”

Ghost’s sword, Void Trinity, was a black blade from hilt to tip. Every time its ominous black arc cut through the air, the zombies in their path fell like stalks of wheat.

As Ghost continued her slaughter, Jae-hee kept up a running commentary of “Whoa,” “Wow,” “Awesome,” and “Ooooh!” until she finally spoke.

“Oi.”

“Yes?”

“Shut it. You’re distracting.”

“Kay…”

They plunged deeper into the back alleys in silence.

After they had ventured some way into the city’s interior and the zombies were no longer in sight, Ghost came to a halt.

Despite having run all this way while carrying Jae-hee and relentlessly cutting down zombies, her breathing was perfectly steady.

“Good, no zombies… and I can’t reach the Commander.”

She tried the comms unit several times, but it was dead. In areas with significant Realm Erosion, outside communication was always cut off.

Ghost nodded as if this were a good thing, then plopped down against the alley wall. Her long hair dragged in the filth on the ground, but she paid it no mind.

“Uh, excuse me…?”

Ghost gestured with her chin at the bewildered Jae-hee.

“Sit. We’re killing time here.”

“Oh, right. The zombies are going crazy right now, so we’re waiting until they calm down?”

“…”

“So how long do we wait…?”

“Twenty-three hours and thirty minutes.”

“What?”

Seeing Jae-hee’s confusion, Ghost pointed to the watch on her wrist. “The evac transport will be back in twenty-three hours and thirty minutes. We get on it and go home.”

“W-what about the mission?”

“We abandon it, obviously.”

“Ehh?!”

Ghost eyed him as if he were an idiot. “Three out of five team members are either KIA or MIA. What more do you expect to do? This mission is over.”

“Um, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, so could you maybe put that in simpler terms…?”

“Three of them are either killed in action or missing in action.”

“Aha.”

She was surprisingly accommodating.

He understood, but he still fidgeted, wringing his hands. “But… what about the Patissier?”

“What about him?”

“The target of this mission, callsign Patissier. He might be out there somewhere, waiting to be rescued.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You think anyone could survive in this zombie hell?”

Ghost pulled a cigarette from her coat and stuck it between her lips. Through the curtain of her white hair, he could see her mouth open, revealing sharp canines.

Flick. She lit it with a match, took a long drag, and exhaled a plume of smoke, muttering in a hollow voice, “This mission was bullshit from the start. It was never meant to succeed.”

“What?”

“This city was already a zombie-infested hellhole, and now they’ve gone into a frenzy. How the hell could there be any survivors?”

“Uh…”

“And even if there were, how would we rescue them? The rescue team is just as likely to get eaten. Which they did.”

Ghost gestured with her eyes toward the city’s outskirts.

In the distance, where the other agents had met their spectacular ends, zombies were shrieking with delight.

“An order came down from the top, so they couldn’t just ignore it. But they weren’t about to risk their aces, either. So they sent us—a team composed entirely of throwaways.”

“Th-throwaways? But they were all so skilled.”

Ghost snorted at Jae-hee’s timid protest.

“That Model Shithead supposedly staged a coup back when he was a Hunter. Killed his own Guild Master to take over. When the crime came to light, he was thrown in here.”

“…”

“There were rumors he was planning something inside the prison, too. The Commander probably wanted him gone sooner rather than later.”

Next, she moved on to Miss Hellth.

“They could never fully seal Miss Hellth’s powers. Even with the restraints, she could just draw her own blood and form her spear. It wasn’t as powerful, but it was still dangerous.”

“Oh, right. She had her spear when we first met, even with the restraints on.”

“She caused trouble with it in prison all the time. On top of that, she was a gambling addict. Always stirring up problems over credits. She was an uncontrollable inmate.”

“Hmm.”

“You saw her ignore the Commander’s orders earlier. She was a lost cause. I doubt the Commander ever looked kindly on her.”

Jae-hee mumbled a defense. “What about Flight Risk? He was… a bit weird, but he seemed like a good guy!”

“Flight Risk pulled his exhibitionist stunts in downtown Seoul more than ten times. It was just a misdemeanor, so he’d get out quickly. The last time he was arrested, I think it was for flying naked over the New Year’s bell-tolling ceremony. It shut down the entire live broadcast.”

“Woah.”

“So he’d pissed the hell out of the higher-ups in Seoul. It’s understandable they’d want to send him off to die.”

“Even so, that’s so…” Jae-hee trailed off, lost for words.

Ghost held up an index finger. “You’re no different. You’re just another throwaway to fill out the roster.”

“Say what?!”

“A Speedster is useful in a lot of ways, but throwing an untrained kid like you into the mix? This mission was a sham from the beginning.”

Jae-hee’s jaw dropped.

Ghost continued coldly.

“This unit may be full of convicts, a unit that can be disavowed and abandoned at a moment’s notice, but we still have a job to do: handling the government’s secret operations quietly. The standard procedure is to put recruits through a rigorous selection process and at least six weeks of basic military training before deploying them.”

“…”

“What does it mean that you were thrown into a mission without any of that? It means you’re just another piece in the set of throwaways.”

Jae-hee’s shoulders trembled as he finally squeaked, “Th-then what about you, Grandma? Are you a throwaway, too?”

“I’m the insurance.”

Ghost ground out the cigarette on the floor.

She ran a hand through her disheveled hair, over her face, and leaned back against the wall, looking exhausted.

“The Commander plants a failsafe in every mission. Here, that’s me. I’m just a knife that demon Hae-eun Seo wields as she sees fit.”

“…”

“If things go south, my job is to slit the other members’ throats, incinerate the evidence, and retreat. Or, if that’s not an option, to complete the mission alone. Even in this cleanup crew, I’m the cleaner who takes care of all the shitty loose ends. That’s me.”

Hearing this, a thought suddenly occurred to Jae-hee.

Huh… Now that we’re talking, this old lady is surprisingly chatty.

How’d she stay so quiet before?

“S-so anyway. Are you really just going to sit here all day?”

“I am.”

“Won’t the Commander be pissed?”

“Of course. That demon planted a parasite in us and strapped a bomb to our necks. Normally, she’d be threatening us with those, pushing the two of us to complete the mission. But you know what’s so great about Daejeon?”

Ghost now lay down on the ground, stretching out with a lazy yawn. She wrapped her long hair around her body like a blanket.

“The Realm Erosion is so bad that outside communication can’t get through. How’s she gonna know if we’re working hard or slacking off? It won’t be a problem if we take our time getting back.”

Is that right…?

Just as Jae-hee was about to accept this, he noticed something odd in what she had said. “Huh? A parasite? An explosive collar? We have those? They didn’t give me anything like that.”

Ghost cracked open an eye and stared blankly at him. “Didn’t they give you something for motion sickness?”

“Huh? You’re right. The Commander did. Before we got on the transport.”

“That was a pill to implant a parasite called a ‘Gu.’”

“Wahhhh?!”

“This parasite obeys the commands of a queen. When the queen gives an order, it can inflict pain on the host, or even kill them with shock. And the queen is controlled by the Commander.”

“Blech!” Jae-hee frantically gagged, but the pill he’d swallowed hours ago wasn’t coming back up.

“And as a side effect, the parasite also alleviates motion sickness.”

“What the hell! So she didn’t lie, but she totally tricked me!”

“That’s her way. She doesn’t lie. She just hides what’s more important.” Ghost then gestured toward Jae-hee’s neck. “And the explosive collar, the ‘Guillotine,’ is already around your neck.”

“Ehh?! I thought this was a body cam!”

“It has a camera as a secondary function. Its primary function is being a bomb to suppress convicts.”

“This is seriously messed up!”

“What did you think, that they’d let a bunch of Awakened convicts out into the world on trust alone?”

Ghost snorted.

“If we don’t return to the rendezvous point in twenty-three hours, the Commander will detonate the collars and order the parasites to self-destruct. And then…”

“Eek!”

“The bomb on your neck will explode, taking your head with it, and the parasite will burn your insides. No convict can stand against this double restraint.”

Jae-hee turned pale and frantically rubbed his neck and chest.

Only now did it really sink in that even out here, he was still a prisoner.

Ghost’s sharp words continued.

“So normally, no matter how fucked up the situation gets, we’d be forced to carry on. But the Realm Erosion in Daejeon is so strong that even satellite communications can’t get through. There aren’t any working cell towers left.”

“So…”

“Right. We kill time here, go back to the rendezvous point, report mission failure, and head home. She executes you for rebellion or escape, but not for mission failure.”

With that, she fell silent, as if her earlier talkativeness had been a lie. She closed her eyes, apparently planning to actually sleep.

“…B-but.”

Jae-hee hesitated, then mumbled, “Since we’ve come this far, couldn’t we at least… try to find the Patissier in the time we have left?”

“…”

“We’re already pretty deep into Daejeon, and the point where he was last reported isn’t that far.”

“…”

“And besides, you’re super strong, Grandma Ghost! You can just slice through hordes of zombies like shing, shing, shing, right?”

“Don’t talk so lightly, kid…” Ghost let out a sigh. “There’s no need to risk our lives for something so uncertain. And while I’m confident I can protect myself, what about you?”

“I can run really fast! Those slow-ass zombies can’t catch me!”

“The Commander told me you burn out quickly when you run at top speed.”

“Urk…”

“You don’t even know the true nature of your own ability yet.” Ghost scoffed. “And you want to go into that zombie pit? To find a target you don’t even know is alive or dead, or where they even are?”

“Urrrk…”

“I don’t know how you ended up in this shithole, kiddo. But remember this.”

Ghost’s piercing blue eyes shot out from between the strands of her tangled white hair.

“Live only for yourself.”

“…”

“Now that you’re in this unit, you’re going to be dropped into the middle of hell again and again. That cheap sense of justice, that altruism to help others… get rid of every last trace of it. Be selfish. That’s how you survive. Got it?”

But, Jae-hee thought, restraining himself from saying it out loud, if that’s true, then you shouldn’t have saved me back there. And it’s not like I’m some great humanitarian, either. I just figured a successful mission was the fastest way to get out of prison…

As he pouted, a sound came from his earpiece.

Beep-beep—

An alert. A signal had been detected.

“Huh? What’s this?” Jae-hee wondered.

“…Someone nearby is broadcasting a wide signal. A shortwave radio, maybe.”

The Realm Erosion blocked communication with the outside world, but signals could still travel within the city.

Ghost quickly adjusted the channel on her comms unit.

Jae-hee, who had no idea how to operate the device, fumbled with the buttons until he luckily landed on the right channel.

«Ahh. Can you hear me?»

A young man’s weak voice whispered through the static.

«This is Patissier Four.»

Jae-hee’s eyes widened. Ghost, on the other hand, just furrowed her brow, as if this had made things more complicated.

The man’s tearful voice crackled on.

«Is anyone alive out there…?»