Chapter 64: Mutation
Chapter 64: Mutation
#
"I don't believe Kim Tae-sik is the sort of person who would lie about that. But if you were trying to frighten us into joining you, even now—"
I listened in silence as her voice grew increasingly certain, all but accusing me of lying.
"Kim Seung-hee, believe me or don't. I couldn't care less. And don't call again."
Click.
If I continued listening to Director Kim and allowed her words to upset me, I'd be the only one who suffered.
I cut her off and hung up.
It was something I could never have imagined doing during my office-worker days.
Setting aside the foul mood she had put me in, the act itself felt cathartic.
Anyone who had never done it wouldn't understand.
That tiny act—interrupting someone and hanging up first—could feel profoundly liberating.
After I ended the call, Manager Lee's name appeared on the screen again. I ignored it and headed to the sixth floor.
All eight of us worked steadily until the storage area was roughly organized, then left the remainder for the next day and called it a night.
#
"Su-jin, come on over."
I'd washed first and was sitting at the wide living-room table, opening a can of beer.
Seon-yeong and Ga-yeong joined me, followed by Su-jin when she emerged last from the bathroom.
Then the women from Unit 501 came filing over, and before I knew it, all eight of us were drinking together.
"Raid Leader, so what's the schedule starting tomorrow?"
"First, let me tell you about the routine we've been keeping."
I explained the daily routine we had followed until then.
Now I needed to determine how to adjust it for five additional people.
"The problem is that doing everything together was inefficient, and most of you wouldn't have the stamina to keep up. I'm fine, but the rest of you would probably collapse halfway through. So speak up if you have any good ideas."
"How about this? We do rotations, like a shift system."
"Rotations? How do you mean?"
"Isn't the daily schedule divided into three main periods—morning, afternoon, and evening?"
Eun-mi suggested three rotating shifts, similar to soldiers taking turns on forward sentry duty, so that everyone received regular breaks.
We could adjust the details to suit our situation and create a schedule that gave everyone adequate rest.
The longer we discussed it, though, the more complicated the roster became.
I stopped the women before they became completely absorbed in drafting duty rosters and proposed a different approach.
"Forget the shifts. Let's all go out together in the morning. Traveling outdoors is the most dangerous part because of Commander Zombies. So..."
The better plan was for all eight of us to travel together in the morning, minimizing the risk, then divide the afternoon and evening apartment scavenging into shifts with rest in between.
"For now, we'll focus on clearing our apartment complex. Zombies are unlikely to gather into large groups inside a building, so only one or two people need to accompany me there."
"Wouldn't that place far too much of the burden on you, Raid Leader? The rest of us would have much more time off..."
"Ah, don't worry about him. He can keep moving at that pace every day without tiring. He's always... Anyway, there's no need to worry."
"Right. My ability keeps stamina from becoming a problem, so don't concern yourselves with me. And strictly speaking, being off duty won't mean lounging around."
With eight people, even preparing meals and cleaning afterward required considerable work.
We also needed to decide how to distribute food and prepare defenses for our home.
Eventually, every public utility—electricity, water, and gas—would fail. We needed contingency plans for that future as well.
"From now on, use your off-duty periods to prepare for those problems. Consider the time after the evening schedule your only true rest. We'll be working hard every day."
"Still, with more people, we should come up with more useful ideas. When there were only three of us, everything felt hopeless. We didn't even know where to begin."
"That's true. If we put our heads together, we're bound to find at least a slightly better approach. I wish the internet still worked. Searching through books may help too."
Once I established the general direction, the women immediately began offering ideas.
They discussed their own knowledge, things they'd heard somewhere, and even videos saved on their devices.
And just like that, I successfully transferred the problems I'd been agonizing over alone to the women and created an environment where I could scavenge without thinking.
#
"Wow, there really were a lot. So-ra, how much did your Available Points increase?"
"I'm already up by seven. You?"
"Five for me! If we're at this much, how much do you think the Raid Leader got..."
It took two more days to clear a route all the way to the elementary school.
After all that work, we could finally scavenge the stationery shop, hardware store, and numerous restaurants.
There were so many shops that we decided to spend the next several days hauling supplies.
"Start with the hardware store. Even if we don't recognize half the items, take everything."
The hardware store was a gold mine.
No one in the group possessed relevant knowledge, so we had no idea what many of the tools and materials were for. We decided to move everything anyway.
Emptying an entire shop seemed daunting, but two trolleys and the bungeoppang cart allowed us to transport far more than expected.
We could also pack a considerable amount into our backpacks, though the weight quickly became a problem.
I didn't dare fill even my own backpack completely for fear that it might tear.
"But we haven't seen any Mutated Zombies. I expected them to appear constantly."
"Right. Are they rarer than we thought?"
We shouldn't have said that.
Had I jinxed us by saying it aloud?
Right on cue, a Mutated Zombie attacked us during the return trip.
"Raid Leader, a zombie is approaching. Seven o'clock, approximately twenty-five meters away. Uh... one? There's only one."
"Take combat positions here. Are you certain there's only one? Use your ability again and keep monitoring it."
"Definitely one. And it's moving slowly. I think it's walking."
The zombie wasn't yet visible, perhaps because we were inside an alley.
Strangely, it was approaching us at a slow walk.
A zombie walking toward living people.
Everything I'd experienced until then made the sight absurd.
Since there was only one, I chose not to flee to a bunker and instead prepared to fight.
"Eek... Raid Leader, the Mutated Zombie is visible at seven o'clock."
Su-jin closed her eyes again, and the Mutated Zombie appeared soon afterward.
The approaching zombie was so enormous that anyone would have identified it as mutated at a glance.
"Whoa... It must be more than three meters tall. What do we do?"
"At that speed, we can escape without trouble. For now, So-ra, attack it first."
"Understood. Once it enters my range, I'll fire a Pressurized Jet at its head."
So-ra created water.
She believed that she gathered moisture from the air, though she wasn't entirely certain.
Perhaps for that reason, she could create only a small quantity of water.
Compression, her Sub-trait, allowed her to concentrate that small amount into a laser-like jet powerful enough to kill zombies.
Whether because of the ability itself or her own skill, she'd never missed.
Whoosh—crash-crash-crash!
Koooooong
So-ra attacked, but the shot had little effect.
The Giant Zombie, which had been lumbering slowly, began to accelerate.
It wasn't merely tall. Its sheer mass was extraordinary.
It blocked the jet aimed at its head with one arm. The forearm was so thick that the attack managed only to bore a hole through part of it.
Failing to penetrate completely, the attack seemed merely to enrage it.
"Raid Leader. It's regenerating."
The flesh around the hole in its forearm visibly swelled and filled the wound.
At first glance, killing the thing seemed difficult. Its slow speed, though, kept it from feeling immediately dangerous.
"Combat positions. We're going with Operation D."
"Operation D? What's D?"
"It isn't very fast. Keep its attention and hold it in place. I'll circle behind and try to crush its skull."
I answered Eun-mi quickly, then concealed myself behind an abandoned car.
So-ra fired again while the other women threw stones and anything else available to hold the creature's attention.
"Shield."
Crunch.
Seon-yeong deployed a Shield at knee height to trip it, but the barrier shattered from a single impact.
Destructive power befitting that enormous mass...
"Ga-yeong, stack your Shields behind hers. Deploy as many as you can."
"Got it!"
Seon-yeong and Ga-yeong deployed their shields again.
Seon-yeong formed one thick Shield, and Ga-yeong layered several more directly behind it.
Kwadeudeudeuk
Kuoooh—thud.
The Shields appeared ready to shatter completely, but at the final moment they succeeded in stopping one of the Giant Zombie's legs.
Its enormous body toppled to the ground.
"Now! So-ra, hit the back of its head with everything you have."
"On it, going now."
I sprinted forward as So-ra's water jet streaked past me even faster.
I set down the baseball bat and raised the heavy sledgehammer taken from the hardware store high overhead.
Whoosh—Bang.
I aimed at the back of the Giant Zombie's head—already damaged by So-ra's attack—and brought the sledgehammer down with all my strength.
The enormous skull burst apart on impact.
"Urk..."
I had swung with full force. The sledgehammer crushed its head, struck the asphalt beneath it, and sent a violent shock through my hands until they went numb.
The worse problem was the revolting stench and the mixture of bodily fluid and sticky black blood that sprayed across me.
I'd only just changed into new clothes because my normal scavenging gear was beyond repair...
And the windbreaker was white, damn it.
"Good work, everyone."
"Ugh, the smell... So-ra, if you have enough energy left, can you spray him with water?"
At Seon-yeong's request, So-ra sprayed me from head to toe with low-pressure water.
Most of the filth washed away, but the stench remained lodged in my nostrils.
"I suppose Commander Zombies aren't the only type of Mutated Zombie."
"Apparently not. From now on, we should record the characteristics of every new type we encounter."
Ga-yeong immediately took out her tablet and began recording the encounter.
Having already documented the Commander Zombie, she should have no trouble identifying the distinguishing traits.
"All right, let's move again. God, the smell... Su-jin, consider yourself lucky that you can't smell anything right now."
We made it home safely. From that day onward, all kinds of Mutated Zombies began to appear.