Chapter 60: Joining
Chapter 60: Joining
#
We woke at dawn as usual and began preparing for the move.
We'd held a meeting after dinner the night before and decided to make our apartment the main base.
I was now organizing everything so that we could bring the Prugia group over and live together.
"Ga-yeong, you happy? You don't have to leave home."
"Yeah, I'm actually relieved... During yesterday's meeting, I got a little depressed because their apartment seemed to have more advantages."
Ga-yeong had commuted from home all the way through college, apparently.
Maybe because of that, she was really attached to the place.
When we initially concluded that moving would be more advantageous in terms of scavenging range and travel time, the despair on her face had been painful to watch.
I felt sorry for her, but survival had to come first, so there was nothing I could say while she agonized over it.
Water was what ultimately reversed the decision.
The Prugia women had discussed the housing issue as well and contacted us that night. Eun-mi pointed out that if the water supply failed, our home near the Han River would be better for survival.
"Are you sure it's okay for just me to go? Leaving just the two of you here makes me a little uneasy."
"The two of us are fairly strong now. We can't all stay together every moment of every day. If you dwell on every possible disaster, there'll be no end to it, so just go. At least we'll be together—you're the one heading out alone, so I'm more worried about you."
I knew Seon-yeong was right, but knowing that did nothing to ease my worry.
So I left early that morning, determined to return as quickly as possible.
#
Knock knock knock.
"Good morning, Raid Leader. Nothing happened on your way over?"
"Oh, it's Eun-mi. Good morning. Nothing on my end. How about here?"
"We've been fine too. We've just been busy packing since dawn. Please, come in."
When I went inside, I saw the women scrambling to pack clothes and the things that needed to go first.
The apartment was a mess, and a glance into the unit next door showed that it was in the same state.
"We've each packed at least one backpack. Should we head out for now?"
"Yeah, we'll probably be making trips all day, so don't try to carry too much at once. I brought a cart on the way here, so we can load the heavy items onto it."
I watched the women moving busily and waited a moment. Soon So-ra came over and said something.
It looked as though they'd been preparing since dawn too.
On my way here after leaving the house, I'd stopped by the bungeoppang cart and broken the lock.
I smashed the lock mechanism a few times with a fire extinguisher, and it broke more easily than I'd expected.
It was far sturdier than a trolley, which made it perfect for hauling their belongings.
"Oh... I feel like I've seen this somewhere before? Raid Leader, where did you get this?"
"I took it from one of those covered carts used to sell bungeoppang. Once I removed the cooking machine, gas cylinder, and everything else, it looked useful. Let's open the side door and put the breakables inside, then stack the rest on top and tie it down with rope."
Most of their personal belongings were already packed into the backpacks they carried, so we loaded the shared supplies and scavenged goods onto the cart.
The six of us worked steadily and soon had the first load ready to move.
"Ye-jin, speak up if you get tired while we're walking. The rest of you, don't grow careless just because we can rely on Su-jin's ability. Watch every direction and maintain formation as we move."
Su-jin had a detection ability that allowed her to map an area of roughly twenty meters around herself and view it like a minimap.
It was like a top-down aerial view, and she said people and zombies were marked on it too.
It was an incredible ability that let her track her surroundings in real time, but while using it, all five of her senses were cut off.
For reference, Su-jin was the woman I'd found on the first day being tortured, hung in the air with an ear-tie restraint.
Despite what she had suffered, she was bold enough to resume scavenging the day after we rescued her. She was one tough woman.
"So-ra, take point. Su-jin, come here. Sit here and activate your ability as soon as we leave the apartment complex. Everyone else, take a shield and watch your assigned direction on the flanks and rear. Move out."
I had Su-jin sit on the handle section of the bungeoppang cart, between my arms and facing me as I pushed.
The supplies piled on the cart blocked my view ahead, leaving me with a close-up view of Su-jin's chest instead.
Eun-mi walked beside me and made up for it by calling out directions, curbs, and anything else I needed to know about.
She stayed close to my side, carrying a detached sink-cabinet door as a shield.
"Raid Leader, downhill ahead. Are you managing?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's not a steep slope, and the weight's perfectly manageable."
"Good, I'm glad. We had so much to move that we were worried about what else we could leave behind, but none of us even thought of using a cart."
At the start of the march, everyone looked tense.
At first, they struggled to hold formation and moved awkwardly. As we continued, though, they gradually adjusted, dividing the directions among themselves and matching one another's pace.
I glanced back and saw Ye-jin was walking fine too.
According to Ha-na, the healer, Ye-jin's uterus was so badly damaged that she probably wouldn't be able to have children anymore.
Ha-na wasn't a doctor, and her ability was only Regeneration, but she said that using it let her sense whether an injury could be fully healed or was beyond her power.
She'd healed the wounds in Ye-jin's vagina and around her genitals, then told me that deeper internal injuries still remained. When she tried to regenerate those areas, though, the ability stopped having any effect beyond a certain point.
"We'll need to veer slightly left. There's a speed bump ahead."
"Speed bumps are fine, just go over it."
"Anyway, it's a relief. I'm okay personally, but there were a lot more people who wanted to leave that apartment."
"Yeah. Thanks to you, Eun-mi, things seem to have worked out for everyone. If we'd chosen this place as the main base, some of you would have suffered every night."
So-ra had told me when I first arrived that one of the reasons they wanted to leave Prugia Apartments was because of bad memories.
According to her, some of the women had startled awake in the middle of the night during both nights they spent there.
Eun-mi had remained unconscious from sleeping pills throughout her captivity and was relatively unaffected, but the others no longer wanted to stay in the apartment where they had been imprisoned and sexually tortured.
That was probably an extremely important reason in its own right.
At first, they had mentioned only the practical advantage Eun-mi raised—the ease of securing water. After speaking with them face to face, though, it was clear that the psychological burden mattered even more.
#
"Su-jin, what do you see? How many people are in Building 301?"
"Only two people. Aren't they Ga-yeong and Seon-yeong?"
"Really? An older woman used to live here. Anyway, you all did well getting this far. Let's head upstairs."
When we arrived at the house, I had Su-jin open her eyes and check how many people were in our building.
The older woman who had collapsed the last time we saw her had apparently either left or made a grim choice.
We all went up to the fifth floor together, and Seon-yeong and Ga-yeong welcomed us as we arrived.
"This is our place. We'll use the two units on the fifth floor as living quarters and the sixth floor for storage. One person can move into our unit, while the other four share Unit 501. That way, we should be able to respond more easily if anything happens. What do you think?"
"Sounds good! We'd rather be close enough to rely on one another than stay alone and anxious."
"Alright, then let's leave unpacking for later and go back for more supplies."
"Who should stay here? There aren't any zombies on the route back and forth anymore, right?"
"Yeah, it's clear. Seon-yeong, you want to stay here and tidy things up with So-ra and Ye-jin?"
"Got it, that's probably best."
"Let's all go downstairs, carry up what we loaded on the cart, and leave again immediately. It'll be hard, but let's push a little longer and finish the move today."
"Yes, Raid Leader!"
The women answered almost perfectly in unison.
Since So-ra had an offensive ability, if she stayed with Seon-yeong they'd be able to handle things to some degree no matter what happened.
I wanted to leave one more person behind, but there were still many supplies to move, and even one additional pair of hands would help the transport team.
Seon-yeong was pretty skilled in a fight by now too, so I decided to trust her and set out again.
"Ga-yeong takes point. Even though we've cleared all the zombies, don't let your guard down. Keep your shields ready at all times."
"Yes, Mister."
"Everyone else, do the same as before. Maintain formation as we move."
Having Ga-yeong at the front made me slightly uneasy.
Something about her gave me the distinct impression that she had no sense of direction.
"Raid Leader, I'm detecting people in another building. I'll organize the details and tell you later."
"Oh, thanks."
At some point, Su-jin had slipped between my arms and settled onto the seat beneath the handle I was holding.
She must have been using her ability and checking which buildings had people in them.
She couldn't hear me while using her ability, but I answered anyway.
The Mapping ability even had a marking function.
I desperately wanted to experience what using her ability felt like.
I thought it would be fun to actually see something like a game minimap in real life.
With its human navigation system aboard, I pushed the bungeoppang cart back and forth between Prugia Apartments and our home.
#
"Raid Leader! More than thirty zombies are coming this way. Something's wrong—there's no person being chased. The zombies are moving on their own."
We were on the third transport run.
On the way home, Su-jin—who had been sitting quietly until then—suddenly opened her eyes wide and shouted.
The sun was high in the sky by then, and everyone was worn out.
The repeated trips along the same monotonous route had caused all of us to lower our guard. We'd planned to finish this run and then stop for lunch.
I'd let my own guard down too.
Nothing like this had ever happened before, so the warning caught me off guard. Eun-mi, though, immediately fired a question from beside me.
"Direction, distance, speed—fast."
"They're coming from the route behind us. Twenty meters away—I called out as soon as they entered my range. I can't determine their exact speed. They're just fast."
"Everyone, weapons only—drop the luggage and run. Follow me."
Su-jin's calm, precise answer snapped my thoughts back into focus.
We abandoned our backpacks and the cart and ran at full speed, matching the women's pace.
"You all know the bunker location, right? Run there. I'll catch up soon."
"Yes!"
I sent the women ahead and looked back. A horde of zombies was charging toward us.
One zombie had surged far ahead of the pack. As it ran, its eyes locked directly onto mine.
Every zombie I'd encountered until then possessed roughly the same physical ability, but the one staring at me was outrunning the rest of the horde.
Unlike the shrieking horde behind it, this one made no sound. Its mouth remained clamped shut, and its gaze stayed fixed squarely on me.
That bizarre eye contact sent a chill down my spine.
Up until now, the zombies had never done anything but stupidly circle in place unless they'd spotted a person.
That was why we'd never been attacked while using routes we'd already cleared.
The horde charging toward us was unquestionably an anomaly.
Especially the silent one at the front, running faster than any of the others.
One bizarre zombie with its mouth shut and its eyes locked on mine.
What the hell are you?