11. Manhunt
11. Manhunt
The 3rd floor had nothing but blankets and things resembling beds.
A living space where they had piled up layers of blankets and padded jackets because of the cold weather.
ㅡWhoooosh
ㅡGrrrraaaaah
I heard the sound of Infected and looked outside.
They were drawn in by the sound of gunfire, but I could see them stumbling around, unable to find anything outside.
ㅡWhoooosh
ㅡRattle
I slammed the window shut.
I narrowed my eyes.
For now, I didn't hear any footsteps from the floor above.
ㅡDrip
ㅡDrip
ㅡGurgle
The only sound was the blood flowing from the men's corpses.
Still, walking straight into the floor above wasn't ideal.
I could move like this because of the advantage that bullets didn't affect me, but charging in head-on was too risky.
First, I checked the guns on the men's corpses.
Rifles. Both magazines were mostly empty.
Well, that was to be expected since they'd been firing full-auto earlier. I checked the men's clothes for magazines.
'Two each, huh.'
Four 30-round magazines. I checked inside; they were full. 120 rounds.
I took all the magazines and turned around.
I figured it would be best to head toward the emergency stairs for the 4th floor as well.
'Classroom 401, they said.'
It's right there if I go straight up.
ㅡTap
ㅡTap
I turned and went up to the 4th floor.
The 4th floor had lights on.
Toward Classroom 401. Right in front of it, there were desks, chairs, and padded jackets.
Padded jackets spread out on the chairs.
No signs of life...
They said they were standing guard at 401, so I thought they'd be here, but I guess not.
Still, I had to check.
I reloaded my rifle and poked my head in first.
Checking Classroom 401 first.
'Not here.'
The only difference is that this place looks more comfortable to live in than the 3rd floor.
Inside, there were things like electric blankets and an electric heater. Since electricity and water hadn't been cut off yet, the place reeked of condoms and the fishy smell of semen in some spots; they must have been fucking like crazy here too.
ㅡTap
I closed the door and moved on.
ㅡTap
ㅡTap
ㅡCreeeak
Since a tool was more dangerous than a gun, I moved out in the open.
Making footsteps on purpose.
As if telling them to shoot.
ㅡTap
ㅡTap
ㅡCreeeak
Nothing up to Room 404.
No central restroom or stairs to the roof either.
405
406
407
And finally 408.
It was the moment I opened the door.
ㅡRat-tat-tat-tat-tat-bang!
I heard the sound of something being fired in full-auto.
"Aaaahhh!"
"Aaaack!"
Along with screams, the guns fired.
I dodged to the side.
Bullets falling to the floor. ㅡThwip-thwip-thwip Bullets embedding into the walls and concrete.
I could see the bullets rolling.
"What the! Fuck! Is that body armor?!"
The guy couldn't even imagine it was a superpower.
Well, who would think it's a superpower?
Then, I heard the man's voice.
I saw the man in front.
An ordinary guy in his 20s wearing glasses.
Next to him, I saw two women. Two naked women sitting there, unable to do anything.
Semen was dripping from their lower abdomens.
Looks like the men who came up earlier were having fun here.
"Don't come closer. I told you not to come closer!"
ㅡRat-tat-tat-bang!
The man held the gun, keeping the two women in front of him, and threatened me.
I moved.
ㅡBang!
One woman collapsed.
"Aaaahhh!"
The man held the gun with a woman, who was a head shorter than him, in front of him.
A hostage, huh.
The remaining woman cried.
"Hic! Sob! P-please, save me!"
"Shut up! You bitch!"
I raised my gun too.
At that moment.
ㅡRat-tat-bang
The sound of gunfire rang out.
The man felt relieved.
The woman despaired.
I fired in full-auto.
ㅡRat-tat-tat-tat-bang!
The man fell as a corpse.
What was I supposed to do?
I'm not some apostle of justice.
I can't risk my life for women I've never met.
Of course, that doesn't mean the women died.
I checked the man.
30 rounds of ammo. He had 6 left in the magazine. 156 rounds in total.
"Sob! Sob!"
The woman didn't die.
Neither did the woman who seemed to have been shot earlier.
Because I used my ability to block all the bullets so they wouldn't hit.
The bullets that couldn't reach the floor rolled around.
'...'
I could assume that even excluding the dead Kim Min-jun team, others had gone outside.
22 people in total. Kim Min-jun's group of 4. The 6 guys who were here. 12 people left in total. Excluding the women, that is.
I could assume those were the 3 external teams.
That means they'll return before daybreak.
I think just taking this much and leaving would be enough, but since I'm doing this, I have to see it through to the end.
'Can I kill 12 people?'
Should I have kept one guy alive?
No, never mind. I have these two women.
#
ㅡSwish
ㅡSwish
Blood flows. The smell of blood is familiar now.
I could see the two women shivering, perhaps because of the weather.
Lee Seo-yoon isn't here right now. That means there's no way to verify.
To put it bluntly, these girls could also be sluts who were sleeping around with those guys.
I opened my mouth.
"Hey."
"Hic."
The woman who cowered, and...
"Yes..."
...the woman who at least answered.
I asked the woman who answered.
"Are you guys in the same gang as these bastards?"
Then the woman shrieked.
"No!"
"Don't scream."
"Y-yes..."
"Then were you captured?"
"...Yes."
Captured, huh. I suppose so. They looked like a group of looters.
"Where were you captured from?"
"...The underground shopping mall."
Underground mall? Aren't they trying to break through Green Fresh Market?
"What were you doing when you got caught?"
"That is..."
As she was saying that, the woman who was crying next to her suddenly interrupted.
"U-um, more than that, u-um, our clothes..."
I turned my gaze.
"I'm the one asking right now. Or is that more important than what I'm asking? If it's important, say it. But if it's not, I'm going to smash your head in with this crowbar, so keep that in mind."
"..."
The woman cowered.
"Are you lacking common sense? Well, I guess you must be, since you ended up coming to a place like this and getting into this mess."
ㅡBam!
I kicked the chair next to me, knocking it over.
ㅡClatter
The desk was pushed by the chair and fell over.
I saw clothes next to the fallen desk.
I calmed down a bit and said.
"Put them on."
The women, who had been cowering in silence, carefully put on the clothes.
I confirmed that the woman who had interrupted was cowering, and said to the woman who had answered.
"Tell me, how did you get captured?"
"...Y-yes."
The woman who answered, looking terrified, began to explain.
#
Apparently, they were originally people at a temporary shelter.
"What temporary shelter?"
"U-um, Mirae Middle School. That's where the temporary shelter was."
"Not Eunha High? Isn't that where the text message said to go?"
"Yes? U-um, we're at Mirae Middle. Ah, the, the district must be different."
The woman flinched as she tried to take out her smartphone.
Well, she's naked right now, so there's no way she'd have a smartphone.
Anyway.
"There are people there? This place is ruined."
"Yes. U-um, there are."
"How many?"
"I'm not sure... but quite a lot. Over 50 people."
"That many are alive? How did you evacuate there?"
"I don't know. I was playing with my younger sibling and we just went in together..."
"Hey. Woman."
I called the woman next to her.
"...Y-yes."
"How did you evacuate?"
"I was at home, and I came out with my family..."
"During the day? I woke up at 4, and you moved?"
"We went by my dad's car... and then."
"And?"
"...Mirae Middle School is in a completely isolated place... that must be why. The Infected can't get in easily."
"I see."
Then why did the people there get captured here?
"U-um, we ran out of food, so we formed an External Team."
"External Team?"
"Yes. If you go past the school, there's a path that leads to the underground mall. The market is dangerous, so we decided to get food from the underground mall..."
"You went out. So. You met these bastards and got captured?"
"...Yes."
"What about the men?"
Her expression darkened without an answer.
Of course. They must be dead.
"How many of you came out? Still, seeing as they sent women out too, I guess they have some brains?"
"...Two men and four women. And, originally only men went out, but... um, people kept running out."
Aha. I understood.
The men who went out first to find food all died, and now that there are only a few men and women left, they pushed the women in too.
And then they ran into the Eunha High School people here, got everything taken, and got captured.
It's obvious.
"Right?"
"...That's right."
"The other two women. They must have survived, right?"
"..."
"..."
The women clamped their mouths shut.
I also kept my mouth shut and waited.
Then the woman opened her mouth.
"...One died because she was ugly, and one died while resisting..."
"I see."
Of course. This is the kind of world it is.
Well, more than that, a decent group at Mirae Middle School, huh.
About 50 people. In my opinion, there's no future.
It makes no sense to try and find food for 50 people in a place that's this fucked up.
It's hard enough for me to eat right now.
The best option is to reduce the number of mouths to feed and turn into a group of looters.
The next best option is to go down to the countryside to farm and be self-sufficient, or hole up somewhere in the mountains.
But seeing them act like that, they'll probably blow up before they even become a proper group of looters, or a revolution will happen from below.
The latter... it takes a hell of a long time to get from here to where they farm.
And how do you farm in a world like this?
In the end, you have to assume they're fucked.
'Better to just know about it for now.'
They don't seem to have superpowers anyway.
"Well, okay. Then, what time do those men come back?"
"...I've only seen it once so I don't know, but they came in around 3 o'clock."
"Front door? Back door?"
"...I think it's the back door."
"Right. Last question. Do you guys have superpowers? Like magic?"
"Yes?"
"..."
The look on their faces was like, "What kind of weird nonsense is that?"
"Good."
"That's enough."
I've extracted all the information.
Well, that's all the information you can get from women.
I stood up from my seat.
Two pretty women who were naked.
They were hot, but I didn't have a hobby of eating pitiful women.
"U-um..."
"You have something to say? As long as it's not asking for compensation after I saved you, I'll listen."
"..."
"..."
The women kept their mouths shut.
I stood up from my seat.
Not the front door, but the back door. That makes sense, since you have to come out toward the back door for the market.
"Stay here, or leave. Do whatever you want."
"W-wait..."
I headed toward the back door.
Since the lock there was picked...
...I thought it would be better to just shoot the guys coming in rather than waiting for them inside.
If I shoot from a distance, I won't die.
#
I removed the lock and the latch.
It's better to have nothing at all than to leave it halfway.
If it were picked, they might suspect someone broke in, but if it's gone entirely, they might think it was removed from the inside.
'It's cold.'
I waited on the 1st floor by the back door.
I wanted to curse, but I deliberately kept my mouth shut. Talking to myself in a world like this is a fucking moronic thing to do.
ㅡClick
I turned on my smartphone. The internet and phone lines were all cut, so now it's just a device used as a photo album and a clock.
How long had I waited like that?
The moon was hanging high in the sky, and it was nearing 3 AM.
I saw a group of people quietly approaching from afar. Looters with bags stuffed full.
As expected of people who had adapted to this kind of world, I could see them moving while keeping their mouths strictly shut.
If I shoot here, they'll run away.
The back door has a wall, so I can hide. I hid my body behind the ruined parking lot.
I heard voices.
"I guess so. Ah, fuck. Because of that goddamn bastard."
"You're going to get an earful."
As they got closer, I heard them chatting.
Then, they discovered the door was unlocked.
"What the. This is unlocked?"
"Looks like they cleared it from the inside."
"Se-hun hyung?"
I guess there was a man named Se-hun among the guys I killed.
"We can just ask inside."
"Guess we should. But honestly, it doesn't matter if we leave this open."
"The last person, just pick up that rock and put it there. Just in case."
"Yeah. Phew, more than that, is that for real?"
"What, the radio? The one from Cheongju Elementary?"
"Yeah."
"The rescue is probably a lie. I don't know about the superpowers. Still, I think we should mention this. If they're really rescuing people, we'll need to prepare to go there. We also need to experiment with that zombie blood."
"You want to do the experiment?"
"Fuck off. Just make the women do it. The ones who came from Mirae Middle."
"What if they die?"
"Just catch more."
"You idiots. Stop talking nonsense and let's just go in, rest, and report. Aren't you guys cold?"
Complacency. That complacency is what kills them.
Should I keep one alive, though?
Because there was something they said that I shouldn't just let slide.
Rescue and superpowers.
'Nothing for a month, and now a rescue?'
Dark, moonless interior of the parking lot.
After confirming all the men had entered, I aimed at the guy in the front.
And as I pulled the trigger, I fired toward the back.
ㅡRat-tat-tat-tat-bang!
The men fell, blood splattering from their bodies in droves.