Chapter 113: Rescue
Chapter 113: Rescue
27. Rescue
Rrrrrrrumble. Step. Step.
Just before dawn.
I pushed the handcart through the streets.
The surroundings held the pale gray light that preceded sunrise.
'Ah... I don't think this is right.'
I was no longer certain I had chosen the correct route.
I had deliberately abandoned the most efficient path to my destination.
Yet my instincts insisted that this was the right direction.
As I followed the route that felt morally right rather than geographically correct, I recalled the conversation before my departure.
'Yu-jin. You know the neighborhood nearby, with the old detached houses and villas?'
'Yes. Toward Baek Hospital?'
'Right. Don't scavenge there. It contains Mutated Zombies and an enormous number of Ordinary Zombies.'
'Ah... You came through there, did you not? I'm surprised you made it safely.'
After breakfast, while sharing some food and water, I had warned her.
She gave me a pen, notebook, spray shampoo, and several other things from the apartment before seeing me off.
'That's the wrong direction. You need to go the other way.'
'This is the right way for me. Don't worry. Go back inside.'
'What? You said a force of Mutated Zombies might be there.'
'Exactly. Stay away from that district. Understood?'
'All right... I do not understand why you are going, but please be careful. I hope we meet again.'
That was how I parted from Yu-jin as she watched from the balcony.
As when I first saw her, she wore no bra. Bare skin showed through her loose clothes as she leaned on the railing and waved.
'Those two long points... They truly were unusual.'
While I walked wherever my thoughts led, the surroundings gradually brightened and the sun rose.
Ahead, a shadow stretched far beyond the height of its owner.
A zombie.
Fwooong. Thwack.
Thud.
The lone zombie standing in the road died before it could make a sound.
Each time I threw a stone, I noticed how much my accuracy had improved.
I could now strike a head from this distance.
There definitely hadn't been a zombie at this spot the previous day.
I'd encountered five together farther in, but crossed this exact stretch without incident.
'I know I came through here...'
With that doubt in mind, I retraced my route.
Back toward the house where I'd spent the night with the kid.
#
Zombies appeared one at a time at regular intervals.
I had cleared every zombie from this road, yet new ones now occupied it.
What Yu-jin had told me was shifting from speculation toward certainty.
'Now there are suddenly five?'
The farther I proceeded, the more zombies appeared.
Their arrival felt artificial, as though someone had deliberately positioned them.
Why did their numbers increase?
'Am I approaching the center, or is something trying to block me?'
If a Mutated Zombie was responsible, what was it thinking?
I eliminated the clustered zombies and surveyed the area.
Their numbers continued growing, and I had to keep moving among them.
Dragging the handcart any farther would be too dangerous.
[Daebak Officetel]
I headed toward the tallest nearby building.
My plan was to hide the duffel bags on the officetel roof and scout from above.
'No zombies in the open interior here either.'
As a precaution, I knocked on every door while climbing toward the roof.
Occasionally, a zombie reacted from inside a locked unit, but no living person answered.
'Open interior spaces are empty, but sealed rooms still contain zombies?'
By now, the existence of a Mutated Zombie capable of controlling others seemed nearly certain.
'Unless survivors were pretending not to be home and ignoring me... Was everyone here dead?'
If zombies had occupied the district and were even patrolling it,
Locked doors might have stopped them, but if they had searched every accessible building...
The survivors would have been isolated and slowly starved.
For the first time, I truly felt that I had entered territory ruled by zombies.
'That's fucking terrifying...'
Even survivors capable of moving unseen would find no nearby food to scavenge.
Everything fit if the controlling zombie possessed enough intelligence to gather the district's supplies.
It was still speculation, but speculation grounded in what I'd personally observed.
'This is definitely no place for humans to live...'
Clatter. Clatter.
Bang. Creeeak.
I reached the roof of the nine-story officetel.
The door had been locked, so I forced it open.
"Ah..."
Three skeletons sat against the rooftop railing.
Not a scrap of flesh remained on the yellowed bones.
The three bodies sitting side by side conjured several grim possibilities.
I pushed aside the imagined tragedy of a family of three and approached the railing.
"Let's see here."
The surrounding buildings were low enough that I could see the entire neighborhood.
Following my route backward with my eyes, I searched for the house where the kid and I'd stayed.
'I can see the broken glass on the wall. That must be it.'
The similar roof colors had made it difficult to distinguish the houses.
Then I spotted the glass I had personally placed and identified the correct house.
I watched for a while, but saw no movement.
'Then I'll hide the duffel bags here.'
I concealed them behind a rooftop ventilation unit.
Leaving the supplies made me uneasy, but traveling light would help if a horde surrounded me.
I set everything down and repacked my backpack.
In case of emergency, I prepared enough essentials to survive for at least three days with the backpack alone.
'Shampoo, body wash... Damn it. One bar of soap is enough.'
Abandoning each item I'd hoarded like a squirrel caused genuine pain.
And I was doing all of this to save one kid.
If they had already escaped safely, the entire effort would be pointless.
"Seriously... Why am I going this far?"
I slumped into the shade, opened a combat ration, and voiced the question aloud.
I didn't understand myself.
Why had I turned away from the east and returned to a district I'd struggled to escape?
The kid and I hadn't known each other long enough to justify this loyalty.
'Is it because of the damned candy and chocolate?'
The small sweet things they had given me.
Had those melted, sticky treats truly meant that much?
I wasn't a child. If that was the reason, it was pathetic.
Tssk. Tssk. Hoo.
Ah. There were the cigarettes too.
And the small cup in my hand.
Everything had come from trades with the kid.
The world had gone mad and filled with incomprehensible things.
In that world, a child had approached me first while waving a white flag.
Rather than begging for help, they had proposed an equal trade.
'Though at first I thought they were a thief.'
Had I unconsciously felt some kinship with them?
The image of the tiny figure walking determinedly beneath an oversized backpack remained vivid.
Perhaps it wasn't kinship. Maybe I had simply begun to think they could become a companion.
'I don't know. Just be alive.'
#
I rested in the shade and periodically returned to the railing to survey the area.
The sun had risen too high for me to remain exposed continuously.
I intended to watch for only that day.
If I found no trace of the kid by evening, I would return to my original route.
'Have these bastards lost their minds?'
I no longer knew how many times I'd left the shade to check the surroundings.
Now zombies were gathering around the officetel.
Groups approached from every direction.
They were forming an encirclement centered on the building.
The zombies stopped at a fixed distance, and I considered my options.
'What's this, an inescapable formation? Do they expect me to sit here and be trapped?'
This wasn't an open plain.
The city contained countless obstacles, and my physical abilities far exceeded the zombies'.
I recalled parkour videos I'd watched online.
My current body could reproduce those movements.
I could use the buildings either to lose the zombies or divide and destroy them.
From above, I constructed the plan as carefully as possible.
I identified areas with fewer zombies and mapped a tentative route.
I also searched for suitable places to fight.
To memorize the route, I repeatedly studied distinctive structures that could serve as landmarks.
'Huh? Is that the kid's cloth? How long has it been there?'
I was sweating in the muggy heat while tracing the optimal route when I noticed it.
A white cloth hung from the roof of a detached house farther away, not the one where we had last stayed.
Against the orange roof, it was visible even at a distance.
'It can't have been there long. I would have noticed.'
I narrowed my eyes. The cloth the kid always carried came into clear view.
I didn't know why they had placed it on the roof, but it proved they were alive somewhere in the district.
The question was whether I could reach them safely.
'There is only one way to find out.'
My decision made, I immediately descended from the roof.
There was nothing else to prepare.
I left the cumbersome bow and arrows behind.
I carried only a backpack, the K2, and a baseball bat.
Even after reducing the load, it still exceeded the weight of a soldier's full pack.
But it barely restricted my movement.
It actually felt light.
Tap. Tap. Crash.
I descended to the fourth floor and shattered the corridor window.
Climbing onto the frame, I jumped to the roof of the adjacent commercial building.
Kwaaaahhh!
Zombies howled from the road in front of the building.
When I reached the first floor, I found them gathered beyond the glass entrance.
I flung the door open, drew breath into my stomach, and shouted.
"Sparta!"