Chapter 11: Here He Is. Your Friend
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 11: Here He Is. Your Friend
Some people were receiving meals that were quite luxurious for a zombie apocalypse.
White rice, soup, and a few simple side dishes on a cafeteria tray.
Plus a small carton of milk.
A spread like this, reminiscent of a school lunch, was surprisingly decent given the circumstances of a zombie apocalypse.
They had probably cleaned out the nearby convenience stores and small supermarkets early on.
Of course, they weren't the only survivors around, but Seongsu Apartment was a fairly large complex. If this faction was powerful enough to gather people in the community service center's auditorium, they likely had a substantial stockpile of food.
That would explain how they could hand out such decent meals this early on.
The people who got served first...
...were mostly older folks or those with decent looks. The ones served after them received much simpler rations.
Triangle kimbap.
Cup ramen.
Compared to the first group, these people looked shabby and clearly hadn't washed. They were likely outsiders, or people without Modes.
Actually, scratch "likely." They definitely were.
Because I could see the Users' status windows.
The envious stares they directed at the tray-holders were pitiful, but from my perspective, even those meager rations were actually quite generous.
In a zombie apocalypse, even a simple triangle kimbap is a luxury you can only enjoy in the beginning. Two weeks in, and you'll never see one again.
The crowd naturally split into separate groups to eat.
Honestly, there was no practical reason for everyone to gather outside to eat like this.
Even if they weren't original residents of the complex, everyone likely had a safe house or two. And even here at Seongsu Apartment, there were plenty of empty units left behind by those who had turned into zombies. Anyone who joined the self-governing body could have easily just moved into one of them.
But they didn't do that. This was all for show.
It was a demonstration of hierarchy: Look at the class divide. If you want to climb higher, prove your worth.
It was a childish psychological game, but highly effective.
Even if those without a single Mode felt resentful, the harsh, undeniable reality was that they were useless compared to anyone who possessed even one.
"Got the coins?"
As soon as the hunting squad returned, one of the tattooed thugs walked over and sneered.
The other men paid their coins first, then approached Kim Ji-hee with expectant looks.
They probably assumed Kim Ji-hee hadn't managed to gather enough.
More accurately, they had rigged it so she couldn't.
Our squad was a fairly well-organized hunting group. They knew that if everyone chipped in just one coin, Kim Ji-hee could easily reach her five-coin quota. The thug's smug confidence meant he had almost certainly ordered the men beforehand not to help her.
The fact that a tattooed thug had been assigned specifically to our squad in the first place made their intentions obvious.
Too bad for them, that thug was currently zombie food.
When Kim Ji-hee handed over her coins, another tattooed thug's face stiffened.
He glared at the other men, but they only looked back with bewildered expressions.
His eyes darted around.
"Where's Jeong-cheol?"
He was looking for the one person missing from the group.
The four men from our squad shifted uncomfortably and avoided his gaze.
"Where the fuck is Jeong-cheol, you pieces of shit?"
I didn't know if the men and the thug knew each other.
They probably didn't.
But the thug didn't care, immediately barking profanities at them.
Even so, the men kept their mouths shut.
They probably had no idea what to say.
Telling the truth wasn't hard.
He killed him.
He killed him and fed him to the zombies.
But they were terrified of the consequences.
After watching me plunge a kitchen knife into a man's throat without a second thought and feed him to the zombies without a shred of guilt, who would have the balls to point at me and say, "He did it"?
It wasn't just about fear.
That guy was dead.
And I was alive.
They had no idea whose throat my knife would find next. There was no way they were going to risk their lives to snitch to some thug they'd just met.
I decided to relieve them of their dilemma.
"He's right there."
"What?"
"You're holding him. Jeong-cheol, I mean."
"...?"
In the thug's hand was the one kilogram of meat I had acquired from my first and only hunt of the day.
"This? This is pork."
"That's Jeong-cheol. A zombie ate what was left of him, and when I killed that zombie, this meat dropped. So technically, isn't that Jeong-cheol?"
"What the fuck are you talking about, you piece of shit?"
Admittedly, it was a bit too philosophical of a joke for a thug to grasp.
But I wasn't entirely wrong either.
Not that it mattered.
Honestly, if he didn't take the bait after this, he wasn't a thug—he was a complete idiot.
The thug stepped forward and grabbed me by the collar, lifting me off the ground.
This guy was a bit bigger than the last one. He had a full head on me, and my toes barely scraped the floor.
I'm easily 180 centimeters tall, so this felt a little unfair.
"What happened to Jeong-cheol, you son of a bitch?"
"Why are you looking for him so badly? You guys sucking each other's dicks or something?"
"You piece of shit."
His fist slammed into my face.
Seeing how he threw a punch without hesitation in front of a crowd, he seemed to rank pretty high among these thugs.
Or maybe they had already agreed to act like this.
After all, any excuse to establish dominance and create a threatening atmosphere was worth taking.
I put on a slightly fearful expression and spoke.
"He's dead... Jeong-cheol."
"So why?"
"You really want to know?"
The biggest problem with guys who mistake themselves for the alpha is that they never expect the weak to fight back.
It's the most pathetic contradiction of the bully mindset.
Since they never dare to challenge anyone actually stronger than them, they develop a sixth sense for sniffing out the weak, focusing all their energy on flexing their authority.
Because they've never failed, and because they assume the weak will always just take the beating, it never crosses their minds that they might get absolutely fucked.
Just like right now.
One of his hands was gripping my collar, holding me up, while his other hand was raised, ready to slap me after that initial punch.
His eyes were locked onto the red mark his fist had left on my face, clearly planning to strike the exact same spot again.
Consequently, he paid absolutely no attention to my free hand, which was already drawing a kitchen knife from below his arm.
I raised my left hand to block his free arm's trajectory, and with my right, I thrust the kitchen knife upward.
Rising from his blind spot beneath his right arm, the blade slid effortlessly up into the soft flesh beneath his chin.
"Keugh!"
"Jeong-cheol, dumb-shit, whatever his name was, he died just like this. Curiosity satisfied?"
I didn't push it any deeper.
I needed the crowd to see that I had deliberately spared his life.
"What the?!"
"Did he just stab him?"
The crowd began to murmur in shock as the other tattooed thugs rushed forward.
In an instant, a wall of thugs formed between me and the collapsed man.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing, you bastard?!"
"Didn't you see him hit me first?"
"You son of a bitch!"
"You want to die too?"
They couldn't kill me here.
There were several reasons for this. No matter how thuggish they were, the self-governing body had too many eyes on them.
The so-called "executive committee" only numbered about ten, while the ordinary survivors outnumbered them tenfold.
In a society where order hadn't been fully established, unjustified violence would only destroy their authority and block their path to total control.
Besides, I had a justification—even if it was a bit of a stretch.
He grabbed my collar first and struck me.
Stabbing him in the neck might be considered excessive force, but he was clearly gearing up for a second strike.
On top of that, I had brought back meat.
"I risked my life on this hunt to bring back a kilogram of meat. Then this guy grabs me by the collar and starts beating me, blaming me for Jeong-cheol's death. Was I just supposed to stand there and take it?"
"..."
Kim Ji-hee and my squad members had definitely heard the exchange.
From a distance, the others probably couldn't make out the exact words.
They would have only heard the commotion and the guy screaming.
Therefore, they had no immediate excuse to punish me.
There were too many eyes watching.
"Get the fuck out. We don't care how useful you are, we don't keep troublemakers in our group. Beat it, you piece of shit."
One of the tattooed thugs stepped forward, his eyes burning with murderous intent.
I left without a single regret.
I had accomplished everything I wanted here.
The fatal flaw of a group like this is that even the smallest crack can cause the entire structure to collapse.
When a bunch of thugs covered in PTSD-inducing tattoos stick together, the majority has no choice but to submit out of fear, even if the thugs are outnumbered.
But what happens when the crowd realizes those thugs are just flesh and blood, no different from themselves?
They won't take it lying down anymore.
That was more than enough.
In a zombie apocalypse, a group cannot survive unless it is absolutely seamless.
Gathering together multiplies your strength, but maintaining that unity is a different story.
[Main Quest 1]
- Survive the Zombie Rush
- Time Remaining: 5 days, 20 hours, 11 seconds
- Survival Time: 72 hours
- Reward: 3 Points, 1 Hunting-type Cheat Mode
This wasn't some cozy campsite where they could play house, hoard pretty women to fuck, exploit the weak for labor, and laze around.
This was a world where even if like-minded people banded together and gave it their all, survival was never guaranteed.
Sure enough, the Zombie Rush mode was active here too. Having finished my business, I left Seongsu Apartment behind.
I waved to Kim Ji-hee.
"See you later."
I, too, had five days of preparation ahead of me.