Chapter 22: Adaptation
Chapter 22: Adaptation
#
I checked the space that had been hidden behind the partition.
I followed the sound, looked down at the floor, and felt all the tension drain out of me.
A female zombie was pinned under a large copier on the floor.
A large desk had been propped diagonally atop the copier, as though someone had deliberately weighed it down.
Only one of the zombie's arms stuck out. It clawed incessantly at the floor as it shrieked.
Its body was heaving frantically, but it didn't look like it could get free.
I easily finished off the zombie that couldn't budge an inch.
"Oh, I remember now. That Min-su guy from earlier—I heard about him from a younger colleague on the Support Team."
"Yeah? Tell me more when we take a break later."
After dispatching the zombie, Seon-yeong mentioned Min-su as though something had just jogged her memory.
Whatever kind of person he was, I had no intention of teaming up with him.
Even if he had a good reputation, I still felt uneasy about traveling with him.
Still, knowing what kind of person he'd been would be useful.
After clearing the third floor, we made our way up to the fourth.
The room on the fourth floor was split into two spaces.
Beyond the entrance was a combined kitchenette and break room, with a conference room farther inside.
Two zombies were trapped inside the conference room.
I opened the door, went in alone, smashed both zombies' skulls, and then headed for the rooftop.
When I climbed the stairs, the rooftop door was propped open with a fire extinguisher.
By then, it was around noon, and the beating sun stung my skin.
There was an ashtray off to one side and two wooden benches.
It looked like a spot where people came up regularly to smoke.
"Looks like we're all done up here, right?"
"I think so. We're eating before we go, right?"
"Let's do that. I'm suddenly starving. Go wait in the break room. I'll have one cigarette and come down."
Seon-yeong went down first, and I stood at the railing on one side of the rooftop and surveyed the direction we'd come from.
There was no sign of movement anywhere on the road, including around the stall where Min-su had been.
I shifted my gaze toward the apartment complex and stared into the distance. Only the clouds drifting slowly by gave any sense that time was passing.
I smoked and observed the apartment complex where we'd set out from.
I scanned the apartment windows that weren't covered.
I could see movement in a few of them.
'That one's a person. Hm... that one's a zombie.'
It struck me how naturally I could distinguish zombies from people now.
The apartments were fairly far away, too.
My eyesight was good before, but lately it seemed to have gotten even better, maybe because of my ability.
After fighting zombies several times, I'd apparently learned to tell them apart to some extent just from the way they moved.
I could now handle four or five at once comfortably, too.
Somewhere along the way, I'd adapted to this situation remarkably well.
#
I came down to the break room.
Seon-yeong had laid out rice balls and drinks on the small table in front of the sofa and was waiting.
"Hurry up. I'm starving now."
"You could've started without me. Huh? Where did the drinks come from?"
"They were in the fridge right here. There's a coffee machine and beans, too, so let's have coffee after we eat."
"Oh, nice. Let's take off the raincoats while we eat and relax for a little while."
I set my backpack down and we ate lunch together.
Luckily, there were plates, so we were spared the indignity of eating rice balls straight from the bag.
When Seon-yeong had packed rice balls for us to eat outside, the sight brought back memories of field-fortification duty and made me flinch.
Rice balls were a lunchbox staple, sure, but when they came in a zipper bag, I couldn't help but think of the army.
"So that guy Min-su... apparently people complained that he was a total slacker."
As we talked over lunch, the subject of Min-su came up naturally.
Seon-yeong said she remembered a younger colleague she was close to on the Support Team venting about him.
"Oh, I wasn't gossiping about him. All I did was listen while we were drinking."
According to Seon-yeong, Min-su seemed to have no interest at all in earning a permanent position.
He did the bare minimum, watched for chances to slack off, and was generally of little help.
For example, whenever a meeting needed setting up, Min-su would often disappear on the pretext of making copies.
And it wasn't just making copies—he'd grab a smoke with a supervisor from the next team and take his sweet time in the bathroom on the way back.
"She would've been the youngest on that team if not for Min-su. I guess it really got on her nerves."
She said it stressed her out even more seeing Min-su suck up to the higher-ups with that cutesy, schmoozing act to score points.
No matter how hard someone tried to manage his image that way, the people who mattered saw through him quickly.
Still, for someone who had to work with him, it must have been infuriating.
"Assistant Manager Kim over there joined the company at the same time as me. He's no pushover, but maybe he let it slide because Min-su's contract was only six months."
"I know Assistant Manager Kim. The guy who was always walking around with a goofy grin? Was he twenty-nine? Were you two close?"
"We joined at the same time, so we were friendly enough. Wait, he was always grinning? No way. He was always scowling."
"He was? Whenever I ran into him having a smoke, he was pretty friendly and even offered me candy and stuff."
"Whoa... so the real sly one was someone else. Anyway, it sounds like Min-su was just clumsy about it."
We finished our meal while chatting about this and that from the office.
I took the cup of coffee Seon-yeong had made for me and went back up to the rooftop.
A post-meal smoke was non-negotiable.
I lit up and surveyed the direction we were heading this time.
From there on, every block was lined with commercial buildings and cut through by numerous alleys, so our pace would probably slow considerably.
One block over, there was a tall building blocking the view.
The tall building belonged to a broadcasting station. The question was whether we could get past that area safely.
'Looks like I'll have to adjust the plan.'
From the rooftop, I could see zombies scattered along the road and through the narrow alleys.
We'd barely run into any zombies on the roads up until then.
The population density here seemed far higher than around the apartment complex.
Naturally, there'd be a lot more zombies, too.
#
"Seon-yeong, let's go with Plan B. I took a look from the rooftop, and this is going to be tougher than I expected."
"Got it. Wait, there was an A and a B? Is there a C, too?"
"Haha... it just sounded like the right thing to say."
"I was wondering... Since this is a commercial district, there probably are a lot more zombies. That's what you mean, right?"
Seon-yeong caught on right away to what I was getting at.
"If we loot every building as we go, it'll take far too long. Let's clear a route first and focus on scavenging afterward. We'll secure the medicine, then clear the other buildings as we travel back and forth. That's Plan B. Okay?"
"Yes, Commander. Understood."
I wanted to move as safely as possible, but other people were probably on the move too, so we'd have to hurry.
Facing zombies for the first time was terrifying, but after several encounters, people learned the tricks.
Anyone with courage would adapt quickly.
"Oh, right. Look at this. I'll show you something neat."
As we finished cleaning up and prepared to leave, Seon-yeong told me to wait a moment, looking rather pleased with herself.
Then she grabbed her baseball bat—the one with the cute stickers stuck all over the handle—and looked at me.
Suddenly, her baseball bat swung at me.
Flinch. Thunk.
Seon-yeong swung the bat at me.
I flinched on reflex.
The baseball bat hurtling toward my torso stopped midway with a dull thud.
Looking closely, I saw a long, opaque, rod-like shape blocking Seon-yeong's swing.
"Jeez, you scared me. What is this? Some kind of stick?"
"That's a Shield too. I was about to spend my Available Points before we ate, and I saw that something new had appeared."
* Creation: Shield
* Strength Increase (10), Range Increase (2)
* Available Points: 0
Seon-yeong explained the new upgrade to her ability.
A new option called Range Increase had been added.
But that wasn't all.
Spending her points had increased the number of Shields she could create, and now she wanted me to test their strength.
"Does Range Increase mean its reach got longer?"
"Yeah. Right now, its reach seems to be about three meters. But here's the funny part: Range does mean reach, but it also increased the Shield's surface area. Did you notice the square Shield I made beside you earlier?"
"What? Then why'd you keep making them round all this time?"
"I just never really thought about it. Anyway, it forms into whatever shape I imagine, but that's difficult. Circles are easiest, and simple shapes like squares or triangles are manageable too. Just now, I tried to make a baseball bat, but it came out as a plain rod instead."
"So Range Increase also raises the total area you can use to form a Shield? It looks like you can shape it however you want within that limit."
"That's what I think for now, but... I feel like I'm still missing something. I want to experiment, but I can't do that here, so it's frustrating. It's like I don't even understand my own ability yet."
Even what we'd learned so far greatly expanded the ways the Shield could be used.
Its versatility had increased enormously.
It was definitely a lot stronger, too.
Unfortunately, I was afraid the baseball bat might break, so I stopped after striking the Shield a few times and couldn't measure its strength precisely.
I tried punching it, too, but Seon-yeong's Shield held firm without so much as a quiver.
'How was it fixed in empty space like that?'
There was no way to know. I could only call it mysterious.
Abilities really were something alien.
"Watch me. Ah!"
Whump.
Once I finished testing the Shield's strength, Seon-yeong stepped onto the rod-shaped construct.
She wobbled for a moment as she tried to keep her balance, then toppled to the floor.
The Shield had vanished abruptly, leaving her unable to land properly.
"You okay? You're not hurt, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I knew when it was going to disappear, but it was higher than I expected."
Seon-yeong said she could feel the Shield's remaining duration shorten every time I struck it.
She'd had a rough idea of when it was going to vanish a moment before, too, but she lost her balance and fell.
Just as I was gradually learning about my ability, Seon-yeong was learning to understand her Shield.
She said it felt like learning to use a brand-new sense in her body.
"Then, when we get back, let's experiment and practice as much as we can before bed. I'll help."
"Sounds great! I should practice every night before bed. I wonder how much I'll be able to do today."
She seemed really happy that her ability was developing.
Which was only natural, but I was worried about her stamina.
If she exhausted herself by pushing the Shield to its limit during practice, she might hurt herself.
She looked ready to keep experimenting until she collapsed, even if her nose started bleeding.