Chapter 23: Adaptation
Chapter 23: Adaptation
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I stepped out of the building and mapped our route in my head.
We would continue straight for two blocks in the same direction we'd taken after turning left off the main road.
Then we would turn right and go another two blocks. The pharmacy stood in the corner building at the next intersection.
The route was simple, so I wasn't worried about getting lost.
'Getting lost wasn't the problem... We could lose our lives.'
When I had scouted from the rooftop, the building next door was still under construction.
As we headed toward the construction site, we would pass a narrow alley on the right, with two officetel buildings farther inside.
This block consisted of the convenience store building, the construction site, and two officetels.
Beyond this block was a narrow road, with the broadcasting station on the following block.
Grrrrrrr.
As we set off, zombie growls came from the narrow alley, just as I'd feared.
I took the hand mirror from my sling bag and checked. A lone zombie stood around a bend inside the alley.
I signaled to Seon-yeong and stepped straight into the alley.
Kwaaaaahhk!
The zombie made eye contact with me and predictably charged right at me.
I used the momentum of its charge, taking its head off with a light swing.
I could have waited for it to turn and ambushed it, but I no longer wanted to waste time watching a zombie and waiting.
After several encounters, I'd concluded that I could handle one or two zombies head-on.
That was based on my current physical ability, reflexes, dynamic vision, and the rest.
Kwaaaaaa! Ku-eeee-ek!
At almost the same moment I killed the zombie, the cries of several more rang out.
They came from the parking garage of an officetel building deeper in the alley.
Reacting to the cries of the zombie I had just taken down, seven zombies burst out at once and charged toward me.
'I hadn't accounted for that.'
I hurriedly checked behind me and in every other direction, but the group ahead appeared to be all there was.
I sprinted to the construction site and grabbed a broken brick in each hand.
"Shield! Tae-sik, check where I put it on the ground!"
Reacting quickly, Seon-yeong closed her eyes for a moment, created a Shield, and shouted.
Just as she said, a Shield lay low across the ground.
It was a bar-shaped Shield positioned roughly at an adult's knee height.
The elongated shield was blocking the alleyway.
The charging zombies would definitely trip over it.
"Nice."
After calling out to Seon-yeong, I hurled the broken brick in my right hand at the oncoming zombies.
Swooosh. Thwack.
Thanks to my enhanced body, even a simple thrown brick carried considerable force.
The broken brick struck a shorts-clad zombie squarely in the head, dropping it on the spot.
I set my stance and hurled the second piece of brick from my left hand.
This time it was slightly off, hitting another zombie in the torso.
The throw still carried plenty of force, and the zombie struck in the chest toppled backward.
"Careful!"
"Okay. You, too."
I picked up the baseball bat I had briefly set down on the ground.
The charging zombies began tumbling over one after another.
Together, Seon-yeong and I brought our bats down on the fallen zombies' heads one by one, like splitting firewood.
In moments, we'd finished the zombies that had tripped. I then dealt with the last one, which had recovered from the brick strike and charged late.
Once all the zombies were dealt with, I looked at Seon-yeong, and she nodded.
I nodded back at her.
When we nodded after a fight, it meant each of us had gained Available Points equal to the number of zombies we'd killed.
Shaking our heads meant the kill count didn't match the points gained.
We did confirmation kills, of course, but we also double-checked that the number of zombies dispatched matched the Available Points gained, just like now.
For now, we'd agreed on only a few simple, intuitive signals.
We kept adding new ones whenever the need arose, and I wondered whether I would remember them all.
"Whew."
I caught my breath for a moment and focused on the surrounding sounds.
The noise we'd just made could draw zombies from elsewhere.
Fortunately, once the rampaging zombies' shrieks stopped, the street fell completely silent.
"Good idea. That could've been dangerous, but you made it easy for us."
"Hehe. See? Brains matter. What do you think, Tae-sik? Wasn't I cool?"
"Seon-yeong, you're always pretty and cool. You're the best!"
I heaped on the praise, repeatedly giving her a thumbs-up.
Seon-yeong's hands still trembled slightly after every serious fight with zombies.
She was trying to calm herself down by joking around like this.
This time, though, my mistake had nearly put us in danger.
From the rooftop, the officetels' first floors had been hidden from view, so I hadn't realized they contained open parking garages.
I hadn't considered the blind spot. Since no zombies were visible at first glance, I'd simply concluded that there was only one in the alley.
I thought I'd gotten fairly good at moving through zombie-infested streets, but I still had a long way to go.
Keep my ears open while sweeping my gaze ninety degrees to either side of our direction of travel.
Double-check every place where my view was obstructed.
Use the hand mirror. Over the past three days, I'd developed a few techniques of my own.
So I thought I was adapting well.
But after this incident, I realized that foresight mattered too.
When I spotted the officetel buildings, I should have considered that they might have open parking garages on the first floor.
That design was common in Seoul.
Then I might naturally have suspected that more zombies were nearby.
"Let's move."
I caught my breath for a moment and started walking again.
Experience mattered, of course.
But I could no longer excuse myself by saying I was inexperienced or that it was my first time.
A first mistake might leave me no chance for a second.
I needed to make a habit of thinking one step further.
'Could there be zombies in there, too?'
As I passed the construction site hidden behind tarps, I considered the possibility that zombies might be inside.
No. If there were zombies, they would have already come out after hearing the noise.
Then I rejected that thought too.
As I forced myself to keep thinking, I suddenly became irritated.
This was all because my body was too weak.
If I were strong enough to mow down any number of zombies, I wouldn't have to rack my brain like this.
If I strengthened my abilities further, could I develop skin that even zombie teeth couldn't pierce?
Or perhaps physical ability that would keep any zombie from catching me.
When the body was weak, the brain had to work overtime.
I still had a long way to go.
So I invested 10 Available Points and raised Body Enhancement.
I could have spent every point I had.
But I wanted to see how much each Sub-trait changed when I raised it by five or ten at a time.
The numbers looked neater that way too.
For the time being, I planned to raise each trait in multiples of five and develop a sense for how much each increase changed it.
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I wondered if my train of thought and conclusion were even correct.
Anyway, I ended my self-reflection and looked at the J Broadcasting Company building across the street.
It was a large building that occupied an entire block.
Even at a glance, it looked like it was over twenty stories high.
"Hey... I don't think we can pass through there."
"Yeah. We only came to check it out, but it looks like we'll have to go around."
Across the two-lane road, there was a small open area, and behind it, the main entrance of the broadcasting company building was visible.
The main entrance had a large revolving door flanked by ordinary doors.
Floor-to-ceiling windows extended along both sides of the entrance, so the first-floor interior would normally have been plainly visible.
But now, the view was obstructed by bloodstains smeared all over the glass.
Still, I peered more carefully through the gaps between the bloodstains.
The first floor was a single open lobby with a high ceiling.
The problem was that this spacious lobby was full of zombies.
Zombified men and women in all kinds of clothing wandered about.
There couldn't be any living people among them. The entire building seemed to have been overrun.
There might still be survivors on the upper floors, though.
"I'd guess there are at least thirty of them."
"More than that. At least fifty, just from what I can see. Try grouping them and counting by fives."
"I see. Then should we turn back? Do you think they'll notice us if we pass along this road?"
"There's a bit of distance, but... I'm not sure. I was thinking of turning back altogether anyway, just in case zombies burst out ahead while we're on this road."
"That's true. If they happen to notice us and pour out... Ugh. That's horrifying."
Even if the worst-case scenario happened, I felt like I could get away if I ran while carrying Seon-yeong on my back.
Even so, we chose the safer detour.
We abandoned our planned route and backed into the alley we'd come through earlier.
"Let's go this way."
"Okay."
We passed through the alley and came out onto another road.
After seeing such an enormous horde, I felt drained.
It hardly felt real, either.
We turned left and followed the road until another convenience store came into view.
Just how many convenience stores were there in this country?
And why were convenience stores always walled with glass?
Was there ever a time when a convenience store had no customers at all?
While dealing with the three zombies visible inside, it suddenly struck me just how many convenience stores there were.
"Whew... Let's keep going."
"What about across the street? Do you think it's safe?"
"I think it'll be fine as long as we don't make any noise."
Fortunately, I saw no zombies in the building across from us.
There was a small coffee shop and a restaurant on the first floor. There could have been zombies inside, but our view was obscured, so we just passed by.
We followed the building wall and soon reached an intersection.
We were past the halfway point now.
We'd made much more progress than I'd expected before setting out.
"Jackpot. We absolutely have to check that place out."
"Oh? You're right."
Diagonally across from the intersection stood a ten-story building.
Signs in large lettering at the top and on the first floor of the building read 'Hana Trading.'
There, we discovered treasure.