It began solemnly.

'I don't care if I die.'

On a path where blizzards made it impossible to see even a foot ahead, Sa Gi-hyeok, having parted ways with Kim Da-in, walked with determination. Even as snow accumulated on his entire body and the cold stole his body heat, he didn't stop walking.

He had done too many terrible things. He had committed crimes, claiming they were necessary survival methods, that they were normal in this world.

"Such a cold world... But that didn't mean I had to lose my warmth too..."

Sa Gi-hyeok muttered bitterly as he rubbed his frozen hands together. Having been directly exposed to the blizzard for so long, he couldn't feel any sensation despite rubbing his hands.

It just felt like two wooden blocks hitting each other.

Much like the people living in this world. Having lost their warmth and humanity, they viewed others as mere objects, crashing into each other until one side broke.

Among such people, Sa Gi-hyeok had been particularly worse. Using the mind that had committed fraud to plan how to kill and exploit people.

Now, his desire to find warmth and goodwill again was probably just meaningless talk from someone without a conscience.

"It's too much to ask, isn't it? To meet kind people and live a new life."

Sa Gi-hyeok stared blankly at the white world around him, walking like a zombie. His consciousness gradually became hazy. Life force draining from him in the cold. With his foggy mind, he continued speaking as if conversing with someone.

"So I need a miracle. If I meet someone at the end of this path who welcomes me with warmth, then..."

At that moment, thud—his foot caught on something.

"Ahh!"

Sa Gi-hyeok tilted and fell forward. His entire body buried in a pile of snow. Snow rushing through the gaps in his suit. An intense chill felt throughout his body.

Sa Gi-hyeok's eyes snapped open. His mind instantly cleared as if stabbed with a knife.

"I'm going to die at this rate!"

He really was going to die. Freeze to death. This couldn't happen. The sensation of slowly freezing to death triggered his survival instinct, making his solemn resolve meaningless.

He immediately jumped up and frantically ran to a nearby building. Even as he fell and rolled several times in the process, Sa Gi-hyeok managed to enter a corner of a building with intact windows.

***

Cold and hungry. He regretted leaving so suddenly with nothing.

"Why did I do that?"

Huddled in a corner of a nearly ruined commercial building, Sa Gi-hyeok shivered and muttered pitifully.

He wanted to go back to when he had made his resolution, leaving behind all his clothes, food, and weapons. Should he have left like this in the first place?

'I left because I couldn't find goodwill while staying with people influenced by Kim Da-in.'

But wouldn't it be better than actually freezing to death on the road? Couldn't he at least have eaten breakfast before leaving?

'If I go back now...'

Just get breakfast and come back. Change into warm winter clothes, pack a little food. Though returning after such a dramatic departure would be embarrassing, a con artist shouldn't care about such things.

But looking outside, Sa Gi-hyeok soon sighed while hugging his knees.

"I don't even know where I am."

He had been walking in a daze for some time. Even if he wanted to return, he didn't know the way. With the blizzard so fierce, his footprints would have disappeared.

Grumble—his stomach signaled hunger, but there was nothing to eat.

Eventually, Sa Gi-hyeok tried to ignore his hunger by thinking of various random thoughts.

'Are the people I left behind doing well?'

They probably were. The infected would become zombies, but the uninfected would obtain enough food by treating the world with the malice they had learned from Kim Da-in.

The uninfected would likely purge the infected. It was a way to minimize losses by killing those destined to become zombies to save food, and these people would easily kill anyone if it benefited them.

But thinking of Kim Da-in, Sa Gi-hyeok tilted his head.

"Normally, a purge would make sense..."

Kim Da-in wasn't someone who would be purged. He was someone who would kill before being killed. Or would he? Would he infect all the uninfected to turn them into zombies that would move with him?

After briefly imagining Kim Da-in's choices, Sa Gi-hyeok scratched his head.

'I don't know. That person is unpredictable.'

During his time as a con artist, he had seen all kinds of people. Their reactions when approached, and their reactions after realizing they'd been conned.

People who believed naively, people blinded by greed, people who analyzed coldly, people who were initially suspicious, people who knew it was a scam but were confident they could get out before taking a loss.

After being scammed, there were people who threatened angrily, people who begged, people who took legal action, people who actually chased with knives, and so on...

But among all those people, he had never seen someone like Kim Da-in.

"He was an unpredictable person."

Sa Gi-hyeok muttered while curling up.

Even as a con artist who had met many people and could roughly predict people's reactions, Kim Da-in was different.

If a normal person showed reactions A through Z in situation A, Kim Da-in would suddenly produce something like 1 or !.

Suddenly killing all the survivors in the villa district, killing children, making survivors run multi-level marketing schemes, setting mountains on fire.

He was even more skilled at understanding and manipulating human psychology than a con artist.

"Haha."

Sa Gi-hyeok suddenly laughed. He remembered when Kim Da-in had manipulated his mind, the mind of a con artist.

Telling him he chose cooperation and consideration only because they were beneficial. Telling him to do what he was good at. Saying that in this world, conflict and strife were the foundation of survival. Kim Da-in had consistently sculpted his mind at will.

Everyone around him had been like that. Knowingly or unknowingly, they had been stained with Kim Da-in's malice.

He was probably the only one who had come to his senses. Even Jeon Do-hyung had moved according to Kim Da-in's methods. Park Yang-gun had looked like a habitual criminal from the start, so there wasn't much to stain.

Sa Gi-hyeok looked at the blizzard outside and smiled brightly.

"Still, it was a good experience."

Kim Da-in had been right. Initially, he had pursued consideration and cooperation because he thought goodwill was beneficial.

But after experiencing various events with Kim Da-in, he came to truly believe that goodwill was the only hope.

A world filled only with malice was hell, where people were desperate to kill each other. The end of such a world could only be destruction.

In Sa Gi-hyeok's eyes, a white light formed, resembling both the radiance of sunlight and the whiteness of winter.

'Kim Da-in was right. I'll either freeze to death or be killed in an attack.'

But perhaps, by some miracle, he might meet someone with warmth. Of course, the possibility was practically nonexistent. His experience as a con artist told him this was an implausible scam from the start.

Sa Gi-hyeok calmly ignored his inner voice.

'It's definitely possible. If I risk my life, I might find it.'

He had seen the possibility.

People who had fled to the survival zone in the face of fire.

RiderZero had tried to gather their strength to deal with the fire, and survivors had certainly tried to work together.

Although Kim Da-in had ruined everything, Sa Gi-hyeok had seen the possibility of cooperation then. Without Kim Da-in, survivors would have united around RiderZero.

Because RiderZero had been there, because she had shown hope, Sa Gi-hyeok renewed his determination.

"I can do it, I can do it. My thoughts aren't delusions; they're definitely possible."

As long as someone like Kim Da-in didn't suddenly appear and overturn everything...

Imagining Kim Da-in's intrusion, Sa Gi-hyeok shuddered.

"Mr. Kim Da-in. Let's really never meet again."

A person with abnormal thought circuits. A person from whom strange conclusions emerged. Even as a zombie, he might become something different from other zombies.

So Sa Gi-hyeok went back out into the blizzard and began walking without a destination.

***

When thirsty, he ate snow; when hungry, he chewed on stay-awake gum found in abandoned cars; when cold, he either took shelter in any building or lit fires using lighters taken from corpses' pockets.

As time passed, Sa Gi-hyeok's body grew thinner, and his skin turned pale. His already clumsy body kept rolling in the snow at the slightest misstep. But despite falling repeatedly, Sa Gi-hyeok always got back up and continued walking.

He didn't know where he was, just moving in search of people.

But perhaps because he was walking in an area with few buildings, like the outskirts of the city, people were rarely seen.

Sa Gi-hyeok wiped the fog from his glasses and laughed dejectedly. His hand trembled uncontrollably.

"The problem isn't warmth. There just aren't any people. Did I go in the wrong direction?"

He seemed destined to die lonely in these ruins devoid of people.

"I guess it's good I don't see zombies either..."

After hesitating briefly, Sa Gi-hyeok looked back, then forward again. The thought of turning back was daunting. In fact, he couldn't even remember the way.

Sa Gi-hyeok weakly put on his glasses and let his arms drop. It had been nearly three days since he'd eaten properly. Though there was still time before starvation, his head ached and his entire body felt powerless.

Deciding to rest for a moment, Sa Gi-hyeok entered the bathroom of a nearby commercial building and sat on the toilet.

"The bathroom really is the warmest place."

Convenience stores, cafes, restaurants, and ground floor buildings all had glass fronts, but with all the windows broken, the cold air rushed straight in.

Only the bathroom, with intact windows and doors, provided some barrier against the chill.

Crouched on the toilet, Sa Gi-hyeok tried to find the most comfortable position, and unwittingly dozed off while sitting.

How much time had passed?

He heard human voices.

"What's this? A corpse? Why did it come here to die?"

"I think it's still alive."