Chapter 17: Adaptation
Chapter 17: Adaptation
5. Adaptation
When I entered the living room, Seon-yeong was doing yoga in black leggings and a black tank top with a built-in bra.
Ga-yeong was in the kitchen eating instant porridge.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah. Heard you were aching all over. Got a fever?"
I set the fever reducer I had brought out on the table.
"Yes. I have a slight fever and a bit of a headache. It isn't severe, but I have no energy."
"Eat slowly, take the medicine, and get plenty of rest."
I sat across from Ga-yeong, who was eating her porridge, and opened the map app on my phone.
About 350 meters northeast along the road from here, there was a pharmacy.
It was a complex with a bank, a coffee shop, restaurants, and various shops.
'The J Broadcasting Station building is there too.'
I alternated between standard mode and street view, simulating the round-trip route and memorizing the way.
While I was at it, I studied the area within roughly five hundred meters of the apartment complex.
It seemed best to familiarize myself with the area in advance, even if only mentally.
Good thing I had a pretty good sense of direction.
"Is there anything I can help with?"
"No, I'm fine. Don't worry about it and just rest."
"Okay. I'll go back to my room then."
Ga-yeong finished her meal and went into her room, leaving me alone in the kitchen to keep staring at the map and memorizing the streets.
It would be easy after walking the route once, but memorizing it from a map was harder.
A while later, Seon-yeong, having apparently finished her yoga, rolled up her mat and took a bottle of water from the fridge to drink.
"I was wondering what you were up to. Looking at a map, huh?"
"Yeah. I've never been over this way. It's not sticking, though. You done?"
"Yeah, but I'm not sure if we should be this relaxed."
Seon-yeong's exposed skin glistened with sweat.
'Yoga made you sweat that much, huh.'
I'd never tried it myself, but watching her, I figured you needed a strong core.
Seon-yeong was flexible, and her joints also had an impressive range of motion.
Her disciplined, athletic body suddenly struck me as attractive.
"In a way, it's not like we're just lazing around. Physical ability will probably be more important moving forward, don't you think? Exercising is a kind of preparation too."
"Hmm... now that you mention it, yeah. It's not like zombies distinguish between men and women... I should work on my stamina too."
It was something I'd heard somewhere, but people in the old days supposedly had much better stamina than modern people.
I wondered if that saying came about because modern folks spend so long sitting down.
From then on, we'd need far more stamina than ordinary healthy living required.
I wondered how long Seon-yeong would keep switching between casual and polite speech.
She seemed to have a hard time dropping the formalities with me.
#
I laid a large towel on the master bedroom bed and had Seon-yeong lie down.
It was time for the promised massage.
I decided I could skip the stretching and begin with acupressure.
Following the routine from my part-time job, I planned to massage her from toes to head for about an hour.
I covered Seon-yeong's upper body with a towel and moved down toward her feet.
"I'm going to pop out for a bit this afternoon after lunch."
"Huh? By yourself?"
"Yeah. I'm just going to check the road up to that commercial building we passed. I already cleared it out once, so it should be a quick trip."
"Then let's go together. It's still dangerous to go alone."
I took hold of Seon-yeong's foot as we talked.
Her foot was larger than I had expected.
There were a few calluses too.
I'd seen her sweating, but there was no smell.
I liked her natural scent and worked diligently on her foot.
"I'll be careful, so don't worry and rest. That way we can go out together next time."
Perhaps she knew her condition was poor. After I continued persuading her, she finally agreed.
Instead, she repeatedly urged me not to overdo it.
I had no intention of taking risks without Seon-yeong's shield either.
If I got bitten, Enhanced Recovery or not, it was over.
'Where's a zombie vaccine when you need one?'
I wondered if someone out there had started researching one.
Or the government, maybe.
Thinking about a vaccine led me back to my ability.
I wondered if my skin would get tougher if I kept raising Body Enhancement.
Then I wouldn't need a vaccine.
"Ah... that's good. Urgh... ah... that feels amazing."
By the time my wandering thoughts ended, my hands had moved past Seon-yeong's legs and waist to her back.
When I kneaded her shoulders, Seon-yeong made an old-man groan of pleasure.
The pressure was pretty strong, but she didn't complain of any pain.
"What do you feel like eating for lunch?"
"There's a lot I feel like eating. I'm kind of craving jokbal, or something spicy. What about you?"
"I'm not particularly picky. I eat a lot, but I rarely crave any specific food."
"That's true. You eat almost anything. Even at work, whenever someone suggested a place, you always just agreed."
A strong stomach inherited from my father and an undiscerning palate.
In all my life, I could remember having indigestion only once.
Perhaps my sense of taste was dull; I'd never been much of a gourmet.
I ate large portions but was not picky, so food had never caused me trouble.
If I had to name a preference, I preferred meat.
"Then should I rummage through the fridge and whip something up for lunch?"
"Sounds good."
I worked over Seon-yeong's entire back, moved up her neck, and finished with a firm scalp massage.
As planned, after massaging for about an hour, I started to break a light sweat.
Normally, the work was strenuous enough to leave me dripping with sweat, so the difference in my stamina was obvious.
This was definitely the Body Enhancement effect.
Enhanced Recovery seemed to speed the replenishment of spent stamina, while Body Enhancement increased my total stamina.
"Ah~ so good. I could get addicted to this."
"How was it? That loosened you up, right? I'll do it again sometime."
"Heehee, you promised. What if I pester you for a massage every day? You'll get tired of it."
Seon-yeong kept stretching her body this way and that and headed to the kitchen, clearly satisfied.
I wished someone would give me a massage too.
#
"How is it?"
Slurp
"It's good. Really."
I gave Seon-yeong a thumbs-up and gulped down the broth.
We had clams in the fridge, so Seon-yeong made us kalguksu.
When I asked whether kalguksu was difficult to make at home, she said it wasn't.
Seon-yeong said she could make it whenever she had the ingredients, but I'd never attempted the dish myself.
"Wow. The broth is wonderfully refreshing."
"It's a major corporation for a reason, right? Should we wake Ga-yeong up to eat too?"
"Let's leave her be. When you're sick, it's best to sleep a lot. If she gets hungry, she'll wake up and come out on her own."
This excellent flavor must have been devised by several PhDs.
There might always be a share for someone who had gone out, but not for someone who slept through it.
It was absolutely not because I wanted to eat an extra bowl.
"Ah, right. I watched a video earlier."
As we ate, I told Seon-yeong about the survival pack.
She said she'd try packing her own bag in the afternoon.
"I should study too."
"Study?"
"Mm... I need to know the roads too. If we're going to move around together."
She meant she'd prepare herself so she could accompany me starting the next day.
She said she'd study the local geography and gather information while I was out.
She really was a great partner.
After finishing lunch, I rummaged through the clothes hanging on the rack.
Ignoring design and function, I simply searched for the largest clothes I could find.
I found another pair of sweatpants with an elastic waistband for the bottom, and for the top, I chose a windbreaker in a generous size.
Even though they were elastic-waist pants, they were still a little small, but I had no choice.
'Oh? This is nice.'
There were several neatly folded poncho raincoats in one of the drawers, so I pulled one on over my clothes.
They were probably rain ponchos Ga-yeong's parents used while hiking.
I put on the backpack I'd packed in the morning and tightened the chest and waist straps snugly.
A small side bag would have been useful too.
Finally, I grabbed the blood-stained club... no, baseball bat in one hand, and left the room.
"I'll be back."
"Tae-sik. Take this."
Seon-yeong handed me a mask and a digital watch.
I couldn't remember the last time someone sent me off from home like this.
'Phew... I could do this.'
A slight tension settled over me at the thought of going out alone for the first time.
The route had already been cleared, so I reminded myself not to tense up and to remain calm.
#
Click
Since I'd removed the batteries, I could open the door without the door lock chiming.
I checked outside while the safety latch was still on.
Something like Schneider's cat might be lurking.
After confirming nothing was out of place in the hallway, I stepped outside.
I smiled once to reassure the tense Seon-yeong, then closed the door.
Since the apartment building went up to the 20th floor, I had quite a ways to climb.
I pulled out a compact mirror to check around me as I began ascending the stairs.
I had climbed more than ten floors without seeing a single zombie.
It was strange, but it made sense given how little intelligence the zombies had shown.
'A zombie opening a door and coming out... that's probably a stretch.'
Right now, we didn't even have a way to open locked doors, so we'd completely given up on scavenging the apartments.
Even if there were zombies that turned inside their homes, wouldn't they just stay quietly inside?
Grrrrrrr
Finally, as I set foot on the stairs leading to the top floor, I heard the distinctive growling of zombies.
Carefully checking with the mirror, I saw there were a total of three zombies on the stairs to the rooftop and the 20th-floor hallway.
Messy blood splatters were clearly visible on the door of unit 2001.
The most noticeable one was a zombie in a suit.
Its clothes were a mess, and one arm was dangling as if barely attached.
Since it alone was so badly damaged, the suited zombie had probably fled here before dying.
It was all just guesswork, though.
Three of them... could I handle them?
It was a bit iffy.
It wasn't that I thought the fight was impossible; what held me back was knowing that a single bite meant death.
I mentally played out the fight.
If I took one out with a surprise attack from behind, two would be left.
The problem was two of them charging at once.
There were no obstacles to block the zombies' movements.
'I just needed enough time to swing the bat.'
As I pictured myself swinging the bat, a hollow laugh escaped me.
I really was an idiot.
Every time, I imagined the same full swing.
I had only been simulating the stance ingrained in me during my years as a player.
Naturally, the movements were big, and it took a long time to recover my stance.
'I had already been through this once.'
I'd already faced multiple zombies at once in front of the fitness center.
Back then, I'd used thrusts and short, forceful blows instead of relying only on full swings.
A force of ten was enough to smash a skull, but I'd kept imagining attacks with a force of one hundred.
I needed to think about more efficient movements from now on.
It would save more stamina too.
'I was having a lot of realizations today. Was this my day of enlightenment?'
Just then, I saw the back of a zombie's head as it turned away, so I quietly climbed the stairs.
I silently warned the zombie that had exposed its back.
Always watch your back.