Chapter 19: Adaptation
Chapter 19: Adaptation
#
I got greedy again at the convenience store and did more shopping.
First, I grabbed several power banks, as Seon-yeong had requested.
I also packed travel toiletries, the few remaining snacks and ramyeon, plus socks and underwear.
I added a few boxes of condoms and several more cartons of cigarettes, and by then my backpack had barely any room left.
The damned bags of chips weren't heavy, but all that air took up a tremendous amount of space.
'Nothing else will fit.'
As I checked the road before heading back, something felt wrong.
What was it? I had the distinct feeling I was overlooking something.
I thought back carefully and realized what had changed.
The convenience-store clerk zombie's corpse was gone.
I'd definitely left it near the front door.
A nasty feeling settled over me as I walked to the car belonging to the driver zombie I'd dealt with on the first day.
'Ugh.'
The body was still inside the car.
The seat belt was still buckled.
The strange part was that one arm was missing and almost all the flesh had been stripped from the corpse.
It was practically just bones, seething with maggots.
Did corpses normally decompose this fast?
The whole thing was weird, but there was nothing I could do about it right then, so I turned and walked away.
I reached the apartment without incident, smoked a cigarette outside the entrance, and climbed the stairs.
Now that all the zombies were dealt with, maybe it'd be okay to use the elevator.
'No. You never know.'
I shelved the elevator idea right away.
If it broke down or something, there'd be nobody to help me, so I just took the stairs.
Knock knock-knock knock-knock-knock
Knock knock-knock knock-knock-knock
I tapped on the front door in a repeating one-two-three rhythm.
Earlier, when I'd returned, I'd knocked normally.
And from inside, a voice had called back, "Who is it?"
That would've been fine under normal circumstances, but not now.
Some other scumbag besides me could show up at the house.
So we'd come up with our own code.
It also kept Seon-yeong from joking, “Kim Tae-sik is back.”
'How had she held that joke in for so long...? Heh.'
Even the way she cracked lame jokes was cute.
Still, setting up a code seemed like a good move.
That way, even if we couldn't speak, we could still signal our presence to one another.
I waited a moment, and without a word, the door opened right away.
"I'm back."
"Mister? You were the one who made me call you that!"
This time Ga-yeong had opened the door for me.
I checked her face, and she looked a lot better.
"Why can she call you by your name but I can't?"
"People would curse me."
I gave a casual reply as I stepped inside.
The moment I entered the kitchen, a slightly spicy, delicious smell drifted over.
"Did you get back okay? You're loaded down again. You've been working hard."
"What hard work? What's that, though? Something smells delicious."
"Hungry? I'm making dinner. We should enjoy the ingredients before they spoil."
I went over to Seon-yeong's side and saw she was simmering kimchi jjigae with pork in it.
She was prepping some fish too.
Ga-yeong had opened the backpack I'd set down and was unpacking.
"Want some help?"
"Ga-yeong and I can handle it. Go wash up or go rest. It'll still be a little while."
Ga-yeong also insisted they could manage and told me to rest, so I went into the study.
I took off my raincoat and wiped off the blood spatter with wet wipes.
Then I grabbed a change of underwear and clothes and headed for the master bathroom.
I'd sweated a fair bit and fought zombies, so I was dying for a shower.
In the bathroom, I took off my clothes and stood in front of the mirror.
My muscles looked even more defined.
The fat had really melted off, and I could see the striations.
'Oh? This made no sense.'
I gave my dangling member a few squeezes and did some naked posing.
It felt as though I'd taken steroids.
I started showering, humming a tune in a self-satisfied mood.
At least when it came to building muscle, my ability was absurdly overpowered.
#
I finished my shower and sat down in front of the vanity for a moment.
All kinds of cosmetics and skincare products, which looked like Seon-yeong's, were neatly arranged.
There were more than ten products.
Next to them sat my single all-in-one lotion.
And next to that, three boxes of condoms.
'Who put these here?'
The second load of unpacking had been done by Ga-yeong.
I felt embarrassed but made a point of ignoring it.
According to what I'd learned from videos, condoms could be used for all sorts of purposes beyond their original function.
So you could say they were very useful survival tools, even in a world like this.
'No, come to think of it, where'd the one box go?'
A small question crossed my mind, but I swallowed it down without bothering to ask anyone.
I'd rest and watch Survival Man on MeTube.
Had today's video gone up yet?
— Hello! I hope you all survived another day safely. This is Survival Man, reporting in on Day 3. Ta-da! Can you see this, everyone? It's enormous, right? This huge creature is... a pheasant! Game I caught myself.
I went to the Survival Man channel, and Day 3's video was already up.
He sure was diligent.
The camera gave a close-up of a pheasant that looked enormous even through the screen.
'So that's what a pheasant looks like.'
The shot soon flipped back around, and Survival Man's face reappeared.
His beard had grown a lot in a day, and he looked a little grubbier.
Still, he'd made it through safely.
Survival Man had edited the video with only simple cuts and splices.
Skipping the whole middle process, it suddenly showed pheasant meat skewered on a wooden stick, roasting whole over the fire.
'How the hell did he catch a pheasant?'
The man was genuinely capable.
Just spotting a wild pheasant was impressive, and catching it was even more so.
— I was lucky enough to find it near my shelter. It was wandering around with its head down... Ah, you know Survival Man, practically an outlaw hunter. Soon it will fulfill its destiny as my next meal.
The pheasant in the video looked to be about one meter long, just eyeballing it.
I didn't know how tall Survival Man was, but the pheasant looked bigger than a grown man's torso.
Where the hell was his shelter, that a pheasant that big was wandering around?
And were pheasants always such huge birds?
All sorts of questions came to mind, but Survival Man was too focused on the meat and his cooking show to answer any of them.
I skipped ahead, and that day's video ended with a mukbang of him roasting and eating the pheasant.
I'd been curious about how he caught it and whether it was really a pheasant, so it was a little disappointing.
"Tae-sik! Come eat dinner."
Watching the mukbang had made me ravenous.
Just then, I heard someone call me from the kitchen and went out.
#
"Wow~ Seon-yeong! It's really good! I wish I could just keep living with you."
It was really good.
The table was covered with pork kimchi jjigae and grilled salted mackerel as the mains, plus all the assorted side dishes that had been in the fridge.
Lately, I had been eating better than before the zombie outbreak.
Of course, that would end once the ingredients ran out.
"Oh, it's nothing special. Thanks for enjoying it."
"Seon-yeong, it is special. It's seriously good."
I could feel Ga-yeong subtly hoping we'd keep staying here.
We'd be together for a while, but she knew we'd leave someday, so she was probably worried.
If Ga-yeong's father made it back safely, I felt like we might be able to leave with a bit of an easier mind.
"You know that convenience store we hit first."
"The one with the big storage room? On the second floor where the drum academy is."
"Yeah. I went by earlier and it looked like someone had been there. We didn't take that much stuff, right?"
"Right. I think we left quite a bit. What, was there nothing left?"
"It wasn't totally nothing, but it was noticeably picked over. Then I cleared it out one more time, and now it's completely empty. Seems like other people are moving around scavenging too, mostly going for food."
"Whoa. Really? Then shouldn't we move tonight? Seems like we should hurry."
"I thought about that too... but what do you two think? If we push too hard, get sick, and end up bedridden, that's an even bigger loss. So don't feel pressured, just tell me honestly."
During dinner, I told them that other survivors had looted the convenience store across the street.
The news made Seon-yeong anxious; she thought we needed to secure more supplies quickly.
I thought the same.
But if we pushed ourselves too hard and got sick for a long time, that was even more dangerous.
Their condition mattered most.
"I got a full day's rest, and I'm fine now!"
"Ga-yeong, be honest with me. Right now there are no hospitals, no doctors, nothing. If you get sick, you have to assume it's life-or-death."
I made the danger sound somewhat extreme so Ga-yeong would feel free to admit if she was unwell.
Because Ga-yeong was the type to read the room too much.
"I really am better now... hmph."
"Tae-sik, why are you scaring people during dinner. I'm fine too, so let's head out after we eat. Ga-yeong, if you feel the slightest bit off once we're out there, say so right away."
Seon-yeong settled the matter and brought the discussion to a close.
We'd been moving without rest since morning, and now we had decided to go out again after dinner.
It was a grueling day, but far better than doing nothing and stewing in anxiety.
#
By the time the sun began to set and the sky turned orange,
We finished dinner and all headed outside together.
We'd put the batteries back into the lock and muted its chime.
Each of us wore a backpack, and Seon-yeong carried the baseball bat while Ga-yeong held a golf club.
Though our clothes said otherwise, our full stomachs and the pleasant weather made it feel almost like an evening stroll.
Seon-yeong and Ga-yeong were both extremely tense, their shoulders all locked up.
They'd tire quickly like that, so I smiled and patted each of them on the back until they relaxed a little.
'Still the same.'
I scanned the surroundings carefully.
Compared with our first outings, I spent far less time stopping and waiting.
I kept my ears open and walked slowly, and we reached the apartment shopping complex in no time.
Less than ten minutes after leaving the house, we arrived at the convenience store.
"Let's plan on moving everything here. Prioritize whatever looks essential."
We split up and began loading supplies into our backpacks.
I filled my backpack to the brim with the drinks and alcohol lining one whole wall.
Because of the bulk, I couldn't even pack half the stock, but the weight was already considerable.
Carrying it wasn't the problem; I was worried my backpack might not hold up.
"Ga-yeong, hold on."
Ga-yeong's movement looked off, so I opened up her backpack.
It must have been too heavy.
I removed about half of what she'd stuffed inside.
"Only carry about this much weight. We've got the stairs to deal with over and over, so don't overdo it."
While I checked Ga-yeong's pack, Seon-yeong noticed and reduced the weight of her own without being told.
I hefted her bag with one hand to gauge the weight, and it was comparable to Ga-yeong's backpack.
The backpack I was carrying weighed more than both of the women's backpacks combined.
At this rate, it might be better for me to carry two packs myself.
"Alright, let's take this home and come back."
"Yeah!" "Okay~"
As we stepped out of the convenience store, I checked how much was left, and it looked like we'd need to make at least five more round trips.
We kept making trips late into the night.