I didn’t give him a straight answer, but Kim Hyeong-Jun didn’t think much of it. He got to his feet, and I straightened as well. Kim Hyeong-Jun flashed me a satisfied smile.

‘Do you have anything else you’re curious about?’

I started to think about what else I could ask. I remembered the questions the zombie who attacked the high school had asked me. It had asked me what would happen if we ate human brains, if we ate zombie brains, and the number of underlings we could have. I wasn’t going to let this chance go to waste.

I asked Kim Hyeong-Jun all the questions I’d been wanting answers to. He titled his head in confusion, and followed up with a question of his own.

‘Ahjussi, you’ve never left Haengdang-dong?’

‘No.’

‘That’s why you don’t know anything, huh?’

I cleared my throat and smacked my lips. Kim Hyeong-Jun chuckled and continued.

‘We can only have two hundred underlings at a time.’

‘You seemed to have a lot more than that, though.’

‘Our control extends by fifty more underlings each time we eat a brain. I fought with gang members in Seongsu 1-dong and 2-dong day and night.’

‘So basically, the weak get wiped out while the fittest survive.’

‘Exactly. And each time we eat a brain, our physical abilities increase as well. So do those of our underlings.’

I slowly nodded as I absorbed...