Chapter 100: Loss
Chapter 100: Loss
#
'Oh! My first haul?'
I searched every corner of the café and found cookies in the storage room.
They were inside a freezer with a broken lock, hidden beneath a collapsed shelf.
The shelf had concealed them, so previous visitors must have overlooked them.
'That was quite a lot.'
The box contained twenty individually wrapped cookies.
I also found two bags of roasted coffee beans.
I didn't know whether I'd have the leisure to brew coffee, but I took them anyway.
I decided to save the frozen cookies for the next day and opened a can of ham.
I briefly considered conserving as much food as possible, but hunger won.
The best way to conserve food would have been to remain still and do nothing, but that was impossible.
'I would have to move around a great deal tomorrow, so I had no choice.'
After rationalizing the decision, I prepared a place to sleep.
I pushed several fabric sofas together into a bed and stacked tables near the entrance.
Once everything was arranged, I washed up briefly.
Without a toothbrush, I squeezed toothpaste onto my finger and brushed my teeth that way.
I lay down and sorted through my tangled thoughts.
'Or perhaps not? I didn't feel as tired as expected.'
I'd assumed I was exhausted, but once I lay down, I didn't feel particularly weary.
In hindsight, Won-ho had been a remarkably helpful stranger.
He'd even provided me with a starter pack.
His room had also supplied a day's worth of food.
Thinking I'd been fortunate, I closed my eyes.
My eyes snapped open.
It was still dark outside.
'Why had I awakened already?'
I remained lying down for a while, but sleep wouldn't return.
And I felt surprisingly good.
The clock in the café showed only three in the morning.
I rose and stretched.
My body was so flexible that I could perform a full split.
As I stretched, I marveled at my own body.
I had never been this flexible, even when I was young.
It was early, but I packed my belongings and went outside.
I headed toward Hoegi Station and resumed scavenging.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing again.
I wandered until I was sweating, but found almost nothing.
My body felt fine, but the lack of results was mentally exhausting.
Occasionally, I encountered zombies.
At first, each encounter put me on edge, but I gradually grew accustomed to them.
Their movements were so slow that they posed almost no threat.
Of course, before I gained my ability, they would have been terrifying opponents.
Now, though, I could crush their skulls with ease—so easily that it felt anticlimactic.
Had I really spent all that time moving around in fear of creatures like these?
Two days passed that way.
At midnight, I slept wherever I happened to be and resumed moving before dawn.
The midday heat was severe, so I remained indoors whenever possible.
Despite rationing the cookies, only five remained.
They seemed likely to spoil soon, so I planned to finish them that day.
Crunch. Crunch.
Whenever I wanted something to chew while walking, I ate a few coffee beans.
I kept some in a zipper bag in my pocket, but had already finished an entire bag.
'Even eaten like this, the caffeine seemed to work.'
The slightly bitter, nutty flavor was better than expected.
Chewing coffee beans made me crave cigarettes.
Why were there no cigarettes left in any convenience store?
Had there truly been that many smokers?
I'd divided the area into zones and roughly searched as far as Hoegi Station. That day, I reached the vicinity of Kyung Hee University.
Na-yeon had described it as a field of zombies, so perhaps fewer people had scavenged there.
I first entered the tallest building nearby.
I skipped the devastated first floor and climbed the stairs.
Places without zombies that had already been ransacked were always picked clean.
Open doors and broken windows usually meant someone else had already passed through.
That was especially true of the first floor.
Through trial and error, I'd learned to identify places where worthwhile supplies might remain.
The building housed cafés and restaurants through the fourth floor.
Above that appeared to be offices belonging to an affiliate of a major corporation.
Because the building was large, searching each floor took considerable time.
I moved through the first four floors relatively quickly, but from the fifth floor onward, the number of rooms slowed me down.
The higher I climbed, the more zombies appeared.
'Should I simply go back down...?'
I'd reached the thirteenth floor, but the results hardly justified the effort.
I searched the small pantries in the restaurants and offices, but all the remaining food was moldy.
A few cups of instant noodles, some snacks, instant coffee, and tea bags offered minor consolation.
Grrrrrr.
'Ugh. There were so many zombies.'
No wonder the building hadn't been picked clean.
I steeled myself against the urge to quit.
The reward was meager compared with the effort, but at least I was finding something.
The increasing number of zombies meant other scavengers had not reached these floors, which gave me some hope.
'Please let me find something worthwhile.'
When I climbed another floor and opened the emergency-exit door, zombie growls immediately reached me.
I continued forward without hesitation.
By then, a few charging zombies posed little difficulty.
Kwaaaak!
"Hmph!"
Whoosh—whack!
"Fuck. That took ten years off my life."
Startled, I swung the baseball bat on instinct.
After killing the zombie that had rushed me, cold sweat ran down my back.
It had charged much faster than the others, leaving me stunned for an instant.
Fortunately, its weak point was still the head. One mistake could have killed me.
This time, I had truly been lucky.
I examined the zombie, whose face had completely collapsed inward.
It looked no different from the outside.
But it had clearly differed from the other zombies.
The instant I rounded the corner, it sprinted toward me and reached me far faster than expected.
A normal person would certainly have been killed by that speed.
"Don't get careless. One mistake and I'm dead."
I pulled my wandering focus back together.
Did individual zombies differ from one another?
There was no way to distinguish them by appearance, so caution seemed to be my only option.
#
'Military uniforms?'
When I reached the twenty-first floor, zombies in military uniforms appeared.
Their presence was completely unexpected, and there were many of them.
A few wore civilian clothes, but most were soldiers.
'What was this place? This made no sense.'
Kwaaaaak!
I crushed the zombie's skull as usual.
The unusual zombie on the lower floor had put me on guard, but its kind apparently wasn't common.
No others like it had appeared since.
The soldier zombies seemed no different from ordinary ones.
'Could their abilities depend on the kind of people they had been before turning?'
After considering the possibility, I decided it was unlikely.
If strength varied by the original person, then young, healthy soldiers should have been stronger on average.
Yet the soldier zombies I'd killed were no stronger than the middle-aged zombies outside.
Still pondering the question, I continued searching.
Deeper inside, I found a wooden plaque hanging on the wall.
[Capital Defense Command, 1st Air Defense Brigade, 307th Air Defense Battalion]
"Whoa. Was this an actual military unit?"
It truly was.
I'd never imagined a military installation occupying floors of a building in the middle of the city.
The first thing that came to mind was guns.
And all kinds of firearms.
'Could I actually find a firearm?'
Truthfully, I'd begun hoping for one earlier.
But every soldier zombie I'd encountered was unarmed, so I remained uncertain.
Even if there were rifles, would there be live ammunition?
This wasn't a frontline unit, after all...
I searched every corner with renewed intensity.
Excitement made me forget my hunger.
I found a gun more easily than expected.
Several stood plainly in what appeared to be a barracks room.
The arms rack was unlocked as well.
'Damn, they were still using these.'
A K2 rifle—the same model I'd used during my military service.
It even had the same worn sling.
More than ten years had passed, yet it looked exactly as I remembered, drawing a bitter smile from me.
I first took two rifles, then examined the barracks.
A metal wall locker stood beside each bed.
At least the lockers and beds had improved considerably.
Every locker held body armor, a combat vest, and other equipment in the same place.
I searched through them and selected gear in the best condition.
Each squad appeared to use one room, because the next barracks also contained eight beds.
I killed the scattered zombies while searching every barracks room.
Up through the twenty-second floor, I found barracks, bathrooms, showers, and similar facilities.
As I moved through the soldiers' quarters, my outfit became increasingly bizarre.
I wore a combat vest over my baseball uniform, put on the backpack, and slung a rifle across my body.
Once I added an ammunition belt and body armor, I looked ridiculous enough to be embarrassed in front of anyone.
The amusing part was that I refused to use the canteens or mess kits.
Eating or drinking from them looked likely to give me a disease I'd never had before.
I tried wearing a field pack once, then abandoned it.
Its capacity was slightly larger, but it was incomparably less comfortable.
Won-ho's backpack was far better.
'Damn. Even with my increased strength, the body armor was unbearably heavy.'
On the higher floors, zombies appeared in partial and full combat gear.
Seeing them in helmets and body armor, I briefly wondered how to crush their skulls, then simply tried swinging.
Not one had properly fastened its chin strap.
They also collapsed if their necks were severed.
After killing them, I searched the tactical vests they wore.
'During my service, we definitely carried magazines in these.'
Could they truly have had no live ammunition?
Was there really a military unit without live ammunition?
After repeatedly finding nothing, I grew anxious.
Then, on the twenty-third floor, I finally found it.
A room resembling an operations center contained a large magazine-storage locker.
Its locks were also open, allowing me to obtain ammunition easily.
Strangely, very few slots were empty.
'Had these soldiers failed to fire even a single shot at the zombies?'
I filled my backpack with as much live ammunition as I could carry.
'It would have been nice to find grenades as well.'
I found no grenades, but did discover night-vision goggles.
I also took a dull bayonet from a box.
The backpack pressed heavily against my shoulders, but I continued scavenging in high spirits.
'Ah, I wanted to test-fire the rifle.'
I restrained myself because the gunshot might draw every remaining zombie.
In my head, I'd already selected a target and begun imagining how to zero the sights.
The corridor was narrow, but I thought I might manage if I positioned myself carefully.
Grrrrrr.
Come on. Get over here.
A lone zombie stood at the end of the final corridor.
Only two doors remained to be checked.
The rooftop lay above this floor, so I had almost cleared the entire building.
'What time was it?'
I felt as though I'd spent the entire day inside.
I'd entered in the morning, and the sun was already setting.
Whoosh—whack!
I killed the zombie before the first door and searched its belongings.
'What was this ring of keys?'
Roughly twenty keys hung from it.
Jiggle. Jiggle.
Ah. Some doors were locked after all.
I tried the keys one at a time in the handle.
After trying three, I grew irritated and kicked the door open.
Boom!
The door panel shattered.
"Oh my..."
Had all my hungry wandering led to this moment?
I looked around the room feeling as though a single tear might roll down my cheek.
'How many times could I trade all this for sex?'