Chapter 37: Routine
Chapter 37: Routine
#
"Shopkeeper! Give me everything from here to there!"
"You'll upset your stomach if you eat that much."
"And put Shooting Star in a cone!"
"You're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you..."
I looked it up, and the expiration date on ice cream didn't seem like something to worry about.
But since it was being stored in a display case opened for sales, I just couldn't eat it if it started to go bad even a little.
This time, instead of choosing only my usual flavors, I sampled a little of more than thirty varieties.
It felt incredibly luxurious.
"So what are you going to do about Min-su?"
"Should we go see him?"
"Isn't the situation kind of awkward? What would you even go and say?"
"Min-su, are you perhaps living with two other people? Would you mind introducing us?"
"Don't joke. Seriously. If Director Kim is right, one of them..."
"Yeah, one of them might have died. But we don't know what happened. We could ignore it, but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth."
"Exactly. The best option would be to run into him naturally and feel him out."
"Then should we call him out using the medicine as a pretext?"
"Oh, they don't have any medicine on their side, right? That could work."
Honestly, whether Min-su lived alone or joined up with a few survivors was completely irrelevant to us.
I considered that convenience store to be territory we'd already let go of, and since there were no other stores worth scavenging nearby, more survivors wouldn't increase competition for loot.
The worrying part was that our homes were close enough for any trouble there to affect us immediately.
In these cases, knowing even a little about the situation was better, so I wanted to gather some information.
Had two new people really joined Min-su, only for one to leave—or die?
If someone had left, why? If someone had died, who and why? That was the kind of information we wanted.
If only one person had joined from the start, then Director Kim had misidentified them, which meant her ability to pinpoint the number of survivors could also be wrong.
"If you're done eating, shall we get going?"
"Yes, it was delicious. Thank you!"
"You are welcome."
"Now that I think about it, suddenly offering him medicine may seem strange."
"True. It would be strange to start taking care of him now after keeping our distance from the beginning."
We continued talking while finishing the ice cream and cleaning up.
We discussed it for a while, but no convincing pretext came to mind.
We decided to think it over on the way home and left the shop to search the building.
#
[Canaria Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Clinic]
A fairly large clinic occupied the upper floors of the pharmacy building.
The clinic occupied the entire second and third floors, while the fourth and fifth floors had no signs.
The 1st floor—the pharmacy and the ice cream shop—had already been cleared out on our way in and out, so we headed straight for the 2nd floor.
At the top of the stairs, the clinic entrance stood directly ahead: a glass automatic door.
Beyond it was a spacious reception area with a desk and rows of waiting chairs.
Blood spattered the automatic door and glass walls, and the zombies beyond them shrieked and charged when they saw us.
Thwack thwack thwack
"Whew... Are you all right, Seon-yeong?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Is a clinic usually this busy in the morning?"
"I don't know. It must have been popular."
Patient and nurse zombies swarmed from the lobby, and the automatic door smoothly opened for them.
Several crashed into the door before it opened and bounced away. In the meantime, I climbed a few steps and faced the zombies pouring out.
Seon-yeong's Shield had grown quite large, so from the stairs, she blocked the entire corridor below with it while I brought my bat down on the zombies' heads as if we were playing whack-a-mole.
Around the time the Shield was about to break, Seon-yeong released the old one and deployed a new Shield almost instantly.
All the zombies ended up with dented skulls. I was more worried about the bat, which seemed close to its limit.
"Let's finish clearing the inside and hurry upstairs. Is the bat all right?"
"I think it's still fine. Will you take a look?"
"It looks fine from the outside, but I can't be sure. Even when I control my strength, it feels close to breaking."
"I can't even recognize the original color of yours anymore. Wasn't this thing coated? Can the color even change this much?"
Now worrying about our tools instead of zombies, we dealt with the remaining zombies in the 2nd-floor internal medicine department.
Could this bat not evolve into Blood-Soaked Bat +1 or something?
By now, it almost felt like a partner in arms.
"Seon-yeong, if you expand your Shield to the max like just now, how many more times can you do it?"
"To do it like we did on the stairs, about 3 more times? If I push it, maybe 4 times."
"3 times is enough. Let's head up, then."
Before climbing to the third floor, we agreed to fight from the stairs as we had on the second floor.
If the third floor also had an automatic door, the zombies would charge out on their own, so we planned carefully in advance.
After the strategy session, we climbed to the third-floor pediatrics clinic. Its automatic door was covered in colorful animal stickers.
With each step upward, more of the clinic became visible through the upper part of the door not covered by stickers.
Soon I met the eyes of a female zombie standing blankly inside, and she began moving to charge us.
Thud thud thud
"It's opening. Get ready, Seon-yeong."
We heard zombies crashing into the door. While it opened, we dashed upward and took position on the stairs leading to the fourth floor.
Even when zombies slammed into it, the automatic door didn't break easily and held on before slowly parting left and right, spitting the zombies out.
Kwaaaaak Keeeeeeek
"Choi Seon-yeong! Snap out of it."
"Hup... Sh... Shield!"
I grabbed the dazed Seon-yeong, shook her, and shouted until she came back to herself.
Her reaction had been late; the shield appeared only just in time.
Seon-yeong barely stopped the charging zombies, and from behind her shield I brought the bat down as mechanically and emotionlessly as I could.
"Hic... hic... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
"What are you sorry for? Don't cry, Seon-yeong. You did great. They're just monsters."
After dealing with every zombie that rushed out, I held the sobbing Seon-yeong tightly and comforted her.
The zombies we dealt with this time were all female zombies.
Two nurse zombies and five adult female zombies.
Mixed among them were four child-sized zombies.
They were so small that they would barely have reached my waist.
One of them was even so small that it looked barely 1 meter tall.
Apart from their unnatural movements and clouded eyes, the child zombies looked no different from living children.
I held Seon-yeong and patted her back, but I was comforting myself as much as her.
I had anticipated this when I saw all the syrup bottles while scavenging the pharmacy.
Maybe that was why I had put off this building until the very end.
"It's okay... it's okay... We helped them. Never forget, we were just dealing with monsters called zombies. We let them rest."
I muttered words I wasn't sure were meant for Seon-yeong or for myself.
No matter how accustomed we became to this world, there were some things we couldn't simply accept.
I'd killed more zombies than I could count while reminding myself they were no longer human, but today was difficult even for me.
To protect Seon-yeong's mind and my own, I kept whispering.
We sat together on the cold floor until her trembling finally subsided.
#
Seon-yeong calmed enough to stand, but seeing the corpses on the floor overwhelmed her again.
In the end, I took the risk of sending Seon-yeong back down to the second floor and clearing the third floor alone.
Honestly, no matter how much I insisted that zombies were monsters and not people, seeing the fallen corpses shook that thought.
I had at least gotten fairly used to the adult zombies I'd met so far, but seeing zombies that had been young children today was truly difficult.
Even I, whose mental damage recovered to some extent from the influence of my ability, was struggling this much; normal people probably had an even harder time enduring it.
Gritting my teeth, I opened all the doors on the 3rd floor and dealt with the zombies.
There must have been many sick children nearby. Every door I opened released a small zombie alongside a large one.
What made it even harder for me while clearing the 3rd floor was the sight of the small zombies that had been gruesomely attacked by other zombies and turned.
How frightened and hurt each child must have been.
I would put them to rest now.
It was a scene certain to leave deep scars, but I did not look away as I dealt with the zombies.
This was the reality the survivors now had to endure, and no one could avoid it.
I doubted I would ever return to this clinic.
I stopped thinking and quickly swept medicine in small glass bottles, syringes, ointment, gauze, adhesive bandages, and other supplies from the drawers into my backpack.
Most of it was in boxes with labels, so it seemed like I could check them later.
When I came down to the 2nd floor, Seon-yeong was gathering the medicine there.
Without a word, we opened the remaining cabinets together and finished up the scavenging.
"Seon-yeong, looks like we're about done. Let's go check the 4th and 5th floors."
"Can we stop here for today? I think we can leave the rest for another time..."
She was probably afraid of passing through the 3rd floor.
And it seemed like we could skip it, just as Seon-yeong said.
Avoiding things isn't always the answer, but we could break the routine just this once.
Day after day, we gradually expanded our territory and wiped out zombies.
Thoroughly checking buildings for the sake of the future had become our routine, but it seemed best to back down just for today.
"No. Let's go. We have to overcome situations like this, right? It's fine."
"Seon-yeong, you don't have to force yourself to overcome everything. Hard things are hard, and I think it's okay to avoid what you can. Let's head back a little early today."
"Hic... okay. I'm sorry. Honestly, it's too hard. I can't go back up there..."
I was strict with myself, but there didn't seem to be a need to be that way with Seon-yeong.
I resolved to clear the rest alone later. For the first time, we backed off before finishing a building.
That did not mean I'd be fine coming back alone.
This goddamn world kept throwing new trials at us.
I thought I had adapted fairly well, but apparently I still had a long way to go.