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Walking through the bleached-white world, I often felt the illusion that I was the only one left in the world.

Only the footprints of animals like dogs, cats, and pigeons remained on the snow-covered roads, and abandoned cars, billboards, and streetlights had already turned into rusty scrap metal, corroding in solitude.

It felt like I was the only living person, leaving footprints in the snow as if I were the last of humanity.

Of course, it was just a feeling.

“Search him! How dare a zombie wear such nice clothes!”

“I’m human!”

“Human? …Still, die!”

Suddenly, a survivor jumped out and tried to kill me. Even when I said I was human, these survivors swung iron pipes without hesitation.

I had no choice but to aim my handgun, the “conversation etiquette injector,” before they finally acted like humans.

“Ah… I thought you were a zombie. You’re not even wearing a mask.”

A few survivors awkwardly laughed and raised their hands. They must have thought I was a lone zombie and clumsily attacked, only now realizing I was an equal survivor and regretting it.

I joked, “What if I am a zombie? Why do you think zombies can’t talk?”

The virus may have messed with their brains, lowering their intelligence, but their vocal cords are still human. They can mimic human speech like parrots.

For a moment, the survivors looked shocked and terrified. Ordinary survivors or zombies wouldn’t scare them—they were familiar with those. But if zombies regained human intelligence, that was a whole different story.

The zombies we killed to survive were just sick, and over time, they could recover.

“What? What?”

The survivors were more shocked than when I pulled out the gun, staring at me in panic.

I grinned. Without a mask, my smile was fully visible. The survivors repeated panicked sounds, as if their brains had short-circuited.

“Just kidding. It hasn’t even been three weeks yet. Here, take this.”

They were clumsy but had the makings of pillagers. They deserved the Pillage Manual.

The survivors dumbly took the crumpled paper I handed them, then flipped through it. Instinctively skimming the text, they suddenly trembled and stepped back.

“You… you’re that crazy terrorist!”

“You know me?”

I tilted my head.

Of course, they’d recognize me. I wrote about using fire as bait and weapon, with real-life examples. But they connected the dots too quickly.

“You’re a wanted man!”

Ah, the Alliance. They must have turned me into an external villain to boost their unity and comfort other survivors.

One survivor pulled out a paper with a poorly drawn sketch of me. I usually wore a baseball cap, rider helmet, or bulletproof helmet, so the sketch showed me with a hat, eerie white eyes, and a mask.

I was momentarily puzzled. “Can they find me with this?”

Now that I’m maskless and hatless, my appearance is completely different. If I had escaped the city, this would be pointless.

It’s just propaganda. But since I’m still roaming the city, it might work.

I clicked my gun. “I was just about to look for them… Where are they now?”

The survivors hesitated. I smiled warmly, then pressed the “answer” button—the trigger.

Bang. A bullet hit one’s thigh. Finally, they answered in a rush.

“I know! They’re back in the survivor zone!”

“The shelter?”

“Over there, no, I’ll show you on the map!”

The survivor pulled out a map, an essential in this era, and pointed somewhere. It was definitely outside the area I had previously set on fire. It seemed like a shelter built using the mobility of motorcycles.

I quietly looked at the map and casually asked, “Do you have any drones?”

“No. If we did, we’d have sold them to the Alliance.”

I needed a drone to cut off the Alliance’s lifeline.

‘In the end, the Alliance’s foundation is electricity.’

With solar power, they could replace almost everything. They could farm indoors, heat with radiators, and cook with induction stoves.

In other words, destroying their solar panels would cripple the Alliance.

As I continued my malicious imagination, I glanced at these pillagers.

“Now go. Before I kill you.”

The survivors hesitated, then stepped back. One twitched as if wanting to drop the Pillage Manual, but in the end, they clutched it like treasure and left.

I chuckled.

Malice and venom are my weapons. Guns, fire, hammers—they’re just expressions of that malice and venom.

So I spread malice and venom. I ignite fires in people’s hearts, burning the world. This is a fire that spreads from mind to mind.

I trudged through the silent city.

***

As each day passed, the day I turned into a zombie grew closer. Even in my calm heart, waves of doubt crashed. Would I really die like this? Was I really infected? Would I not even last a month?

At such times, I pulled out Uncle Suspicion’s notebook and jotted down fleeting thoughts. In a way, this was my real will. The Pillage Manual was just a tool.

“I wrote all sorts of things.”

Looking back at what I had written, I let out a hollow laugh. There was a lot of ugly stuff.

“Trust the government, they’ll distribute a cure before I turn. Chairman, you bastard.” Words scribbled in anxiety and impatience.

Sometimes, I wrote with malice for no reason. Just as people don’t need a reason to like someone, they don’t need a reason to hate. At the end of winter, spring waits. And beyond spring, winter waits. Everyone will die.

As I reviewed the will I had written instinctively, I suddenly looked out the window.

“Burning well…”

The city outside looked like a factory. Several buildings had turned into chimneys, spewing smoke.

Stupid, no, excellent zombies couldn’t handle fire properly and were burning down buildings.

The zombies I had given lighters to had become living fires. They lit fires to stay warm but couldn’t control them, burning down buildings.

I even saw zombies running to fire scenes to carry embers. Sometimes, it was eerie, as if the knowledge of using lighters was spreading.

I chuckled.

‘This is a success.’

Burning the city failed, but the zombies became a second fire, faithfully spreading the flames. Even the Alliance or survivors couldn’t stop it, and neither could the heavens.

It was the spread of knowledge, the contagion of malice.

“Let’s see. Roughly half succeeded.”

I counted on my fingers, recalling my journey.

I gave lighters to zombies. I handed the Pillage Manual to survivors with pillager potential. I infected decent people with the virus.

I thought of some survivors. Not good, but not evil either. Pretending to be someone infected and preparing for the end, I shared candy or food laced with my saliva.

I had done almost everything I could.

Then, I saw people moving busily outside. Voices filled with hate. The sound of motorcycle engines.

“Find that lunatic quickly!”

“We can’t give him time!”

They were Alliance members chasing me. Survivors I had encountered must have reported me, and now the Alliance’s avengers were frantically searching for me.

Finding one person in this vast ruin wasn’t easy.

‘If only I had a working drone, I could cut off their electricity.’

I sighed in regret. If I could load a drone with paint or dye and dump it on their solar panels, it would be enough to cripple them. That would break the Alliance’s growth momentum.

Then it hit me. Professor Kim’s knowledge. Solar panels generate less power in winter. Why? The snow freezes and blocks the sunlight.

“I’m not the only one who’s screwed!”

My city-burning plan wasn’t the only thing ruined by the heavens. Solar power was ruined by snow too. A laugh burst from deep within.

There’s nothing to be done. Sweeping with a broom would scratch the panels. Pouring hot water could crack them due to temperature differences.

Winter truly is the season of death. It brings failure indiscriminately. Even if I did nothing, the Alliance’s foundation was crumbling. Eventually, the Alliance would roll down the slope toward death.

I recalled the words I had written in my will.

“At the end of winter, spring waits. But beyond spring, winter waits.” A malicious statement that even if you endure winter, everyone will die.

But in this apocalyptic world, far more brutal than I imagined, how many could truly endure winter?

 

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