Chapter 68: Schneider
Chapter 68: Schneider
15. Schneider
A pair of amber eyes watched us from the shadows.
The sun hadn't fully set, but the creature's black fur blended into the shade and made its eyes burn all the brighter.
"Schneider?"
The word escaped me without thought.
We'd discovered a kitten covered from head to tail in pitch-black fur.
The tiny creature, perhaps twenty centimeters long, sat quietly beneath the furniture we'd stacked that evening.
"Oh my god! That is way too cute."
"Where's your mommy? Are you all alone?"
The women lost all composure.
They kept their distance but stamped their feet excitedly and spoke to it in words it couldn't possibly understand.
"It isn't even trying to run. Let's keep moving."
The unexpected encounter brought us to a brief halt.
If I did nothing, they'd spend forever staring at the kitten, so I started walking first.
"It must have a mother, right?"
"Its mother may be nearby. If we leave, perhaps she'll return for it."
The women whispered behind me.
Schneider, huh...
By then, I understood what Seon-yeong had meant when she mentioned Schrödinger's cat.
I knew that Schrödinger had been a scientist rather than a soccer player and that the phrase came from his thought experiment.
When I looked it up, I hadn't understood the complete explanation.
I knew nothing about quantum mechanics and couldn't grasp why opening the box was supposed to be significant.
Determinism? Indeterminism?
None of that was the point. What Seon-yeong had said on the first day had essentially been a joke.
She'd been certain there were no zombies, but until we opened the door, there could either have been one inside or not.
A zombie had once burst from behind a door we believed safe. The shock of that incident taught us to remain constantly alert.
In the end, Schneider had become our private code for never letting down our guard.
Whenever that vivid memory returned, I found myself saying the word.
"So that's why you still say Schneider."
"Oh... I thought those two and Raid Leader knew someone named Schneider."
As expected, Seon-yeong was explaining my muttered word to the others.
"It's basically our way of saying, stay alert. Though even I don't understand why Schneider was supposed to be a soccer player."
"Focus. We still haven't finished clearing the building."
I didn't get it either.
Why had I ever believed Schneider was a soccer player?
I ended the chatter, and we began searching the apartments in order from the first floor.
"We'll move the zombie corpses first, then everyone can scavenge together."
#
"Ueurgh..."
"Bleurgh..."
It was chaos.
As we lowered the corpses at the recycling area, Su-jin suddenly bolted toward the flowerbed and vomited everything she'd eaten.
Beside her, Seon-yeong and Eun-mi dry-heaved miserably.
"Huuup... I've never smelled anything like this in my life. Are you all right?"
"I'm struggling too. I still haven't gotten used to it."
"But seriously, they're already almost nothing but bones."
"I don't understand how, but the rapid decomposition may actually be better for us."
Had the corpses rotted at a normal rate, they would have created a massive sanitation problem.
We probably would have needed gas masks every time we stepped outside.
"Haa... I'm sorry."
"It's fine. All of us are forcing ourselves through it. This isn't easy for anyone."
After finishing, Su-jin rinsed her mouth and returned.
Fortunately, there were only four bodies that day, so we transported all of them in one trip.
Now we needed to return, gather everyone who had remained home, and begin scavenging.
"Alright, let's go."
When we returned to Building 301, the black kitten was gone.
Still hoping to find it, the women peered beneath the furniture, but it was nowhere in sight.
"What exactly would you have done if you found it?"
"It was cute, that's all. I only checked whether it might be hiding somewhere."
"I'll go on up."
Eun-mi appeared completely uninterested in the kitten and went straight upstairs.
I lit a cigarette and waited. Before long, every woman who had remained inside came downstairs.
"Take every food item, even anything questionable. We'll transport it first, and Ye-jin can examine it gradually with Information Display later."
"Understood. May we take personal items we need as well?"
"Of course. That's part of scavenging. Take anything useful, even if it's secondhand."
As our life stabilized, the list of things we considered necessary grew longer.
Once desire entered the picture, there was no end to it.
The same thing had happened when I first began living alone.
Once I earned money, the number of things I wanted constantly increased.
Later, I ended up throwing many of them away.
"Mister, could you help me with this?"
"What do you need? Should I dismantle it?"
"Yes. I need it to organize the seventh floor."
"I'll carry it down intact. You gather other items."
At Ga-yeong's request, I entered the bedroom and found a metal storage cabinet.
It covered an entire wall but consisted of several separate sections, so I didn't need to dismantle everything.
The compartments held an assortment of clothing, ornaments, cat food, and other miscellaneous items.
"Ga-yeong! Look at this. Bleh-bleh."
"Eek! You startled me. What is thaaat? I've never seen one before."
While helping empty the cabinet, Seon-yeong found a pink dildo and used it to tease Ga-yeong.
The fairly large toy bobbed around as though alive.
Ga-yeong waved her hands in alarm, while Seon-yeong gripped and shook it without the slightest hesitation.
"Do you think that's everything?"
"Uh-huh! I'll go out and round up the others."
"Uh-huh, huh? You only make your voice that cute when—eek! Ow, ow, ow."
Seon-yeong pinched Ga-yeong's cheek and walked into the living room.
It was time to carry another load home.
As I prepared to remove the cabinet, I noticed the pink dildo inside a box on the floor.
Curious, I opened it. The box was filled with adult toys: several dildos, a vibrator, anal plugs, and similar items.
Were those real handcuffs? Probably not.
I glanced around, unnecessarily checked a second time that no one was watching, and emptied the entire box into my pack.
They might prove useful someday.
As life grew more stable, the list of necessities grew longer.
This wasn't greed. These were genuinely useful supplies.
#
"Hey, we need to talk."
"Huh? What about?"
"What is this?"
"Ah... How did that get in there? It must have fallen in somehow."
We'd finished scavenging and separated to sort the collected items.
I left my Survival Pack in the master bedroom and went to the bathroom. While I was gone, Seon-yeong discovered the box.
Of course I'd been caught.
"Good grief... So that's why. I wondered why you carried your pack into the bedroom."
"Hahaha. We'll use all of them eventually, won't we?"
"What are you going to use these for?"
"No, not me. You're going to use them."
Seon-yeong's face reddened. She struck my chest with the dildo and stormed out.
Being hit with a dildo felt strangely humiliating.
Before anyone else discovered them, I hurriedly hid the toys in the wardrobe.
While sorting the remaining contents, I found a bag of cat food in my pack.
I didn't remember taking it. Apparently, something truly had fallen in by accident.
"I'm gonna go have a smoke."
I entered the living room and asked the still-busy Seon-yeong whether she needed help.
She said that she was nearly finished and needed nothing, so I prepared to go upstairs.
I had once smoked in the stairwell directly above the entrance with the window cracked open. Now I went to the eighth floor instead.
With so many nonsmokers around, I'd moved farther away to keep the smell from bothering them.
I'd placed an ashtray and sofa in the eighth-floor hallway.
"Raid Leader, may I come with you?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Come on."
I left the apartment, and So-ra followed from the unit across the hall.
"Are you coming for a cigarette, or is there something you want to discuss?"
"For a cigarette. I used to smoke and wondered whether I could borrow one."
"You should have told me earlier. I have plenty. What did you smoke before?"
"I used a vape. Just give me one of yours for now, Raid Leader."
"Oh, a vape. Come downstairs with me later. I have several devices, so you can take them."
"Whoa~ Really? Thank you!"
We reached the eighth floor, sat beside each other on the sofa, and smoked.
One thing led to another, and I gave her a cigarette.
Compared with the other women, So-ra behaved relatively casually around me.
Perhaps it was because we were close in age.
"How are the younger women? Do they still wake during the night?"
"No. They seem to sleep well since the move, though it's possible I simply haven't noticed."
"And you? You good?"
"I've always slept well. The only thing that still bothers me is that we killed those bastards far too easily."
Hmm... She was frightening.
When we found So-ra, an enormous number of beads had been forced into her anus.
Because her ability involved water attacks, I assumed they had drugged her with sleeping pills and kept her unconscious, as they had Eun-mi.
The sick bastards had tied her legs together and left her facedown with only her hips raised.
They secured her to the foot of the bed and placed a washbasin underneath.
Apparently, they never bothered taking her to the bathroom after arranging her that way, leaving us to witness the filthy consequences.
Waste had smeared across her legs and the bed as well...
According to So-ra, even her captors considered that too disgusting and didn't rape her.
They had still sexually tortured her with the beads, so her anger had clearly not subsided.
"Raid Leader, would you like me to cut your hair? It looks a little long."
"Yes, I need a haircut. Do it whenever you have time."
"I'll do it as soon as we go down. I'm done sorting my stuff."
So-ra had worked as a hairdresser before the outbreak.
She'd been home when the disaster began because she was scheduled for an afternoon shift.
My hair had grown long, and I'd considered shaving it off with clippers. Her offer came at the perfect time.
"Ugh, those bastards. The younger women went too easy on them, so they died without enough suffering. After everything they did to us..."
She continued venting her anger as we descended toward the apartment.
The three men other than their leader had been castrated before death.
Seon-yeong told me that So-ra had poured filthy water over them, then used her ability to sever their testicles and penises.
The men had apologized and begged her to kill them, so she ended the torture there.
They'd bled to death in that condition...
Could that truly be called an easy death?
From the women's perspective, perhaps it could.
In any case, So-ra was far from ordinary herself.
I had never done anything to anger her, had I?
"Thank you so much. I stayed quiet because I worried you might not have many cigarettes. I should have asked earlier."
Back at the apartment, I gave her every vape device and bottle of e-liquid she wanted.
"I'll get ready, then. Come to our apartment. Let me see whether we have a barber cape..."
"We have one. I'll ask Seon-yeong and bring it over."
"Oh, why do you have one of those?"
"Early on, we scavenged a hair salon and Seon-yeong took it. Go ahead and prepare."
"Yep!"
So-ra truly loved to talk.
I'd never noticed before, but throughout our smoke break, she barely stopped speaking.
Well, she had paused briefly whenever she inhaled.
Feeling drained, I sat for a moment and stared blankly ahead.
"Seon-yeong, you mentioned scavenging a hair salon before. Did you take any tools?"
"Nothing except the barber cape. Why?"
"I'm cutting Raid Leader's hair. The scissors here may not be suitable, though."
"The salon is directly outside the complex. It's close."
I could hear So-ra and Seon-yeong speaking outside the room.
Bang
"Raid Leader, you said the salon was nearby. Could we make a quick trip?"
"You can trim it roughly with what we have... No, never mind. Let's go."
So-ra's eyes burned with determination.
Fine. Once we retrieved the equipment, she could use it repeatedly.
The more comfortable life became, the longer our list of necessities grew. Seriously.