The Other Survivors' Base
I decided to keep walking. It was true that encountering other survivors made me uneasy. But I'd come to this place from the beginning specifically to find them. Turning back now wasn't an option I could pick.
Further north from the northern safe zone. On ground that was even flatter than the surrounding plains, they had gathered. Since I felt uncomfortable revealing myself openly on the plains, I circled around through the forest to reach the survivors' location. It ended up wasting more time than necessary, but the detour let me hide myself among the trees and unilaterally scout the other survivors through my telescope.
"Three, six, nine... Roughly seventeen, huh."
Their village... Could you even call a cluster of people a village when there were no actual houses? With no proper homes in sight, it didn't seem right to call it a village. It wasn't quite a settlement either. Anyway, they had simply settled on the open ground and clustered together. There were no houses or hideouts. Just flat earth.
They sat in small groups chatting, while some aimlessly wandered around. Others were sprawled on the ground as if taking an afternoon nap. ...Was this really the main base of a survivor group? No matter how clear the weather had been with no rain, had they truly been living like this without any shelter the entire time?
It had already been over a week since I arrived on this island. If they had come at the same time as me, that meant they'd endured a full week in this state. Moreover, their clothing showed they belonged to the same category as the survivors I'd encountered earlier. A filthy, unkempt gathering of castaways who hadn't washed or changed clothes. Had these people completely given up on being human?
"This is hopeless."
A sigh escaped me involuntarily. They were just like the men I'd seen clumsily hunting earlier. Their faces clearly showed the effects of not eating or washing properly, marked by obvious hunger and exhaustion.
"Now that I think about it..."
This group had a noticeably higher proportion of women. The male-to-female ratio seemed roughly five to twelve. Adding the seven men I'd encountered earlier made the numbers match up. So they'd left all their female partners here. This appeared to be their actual headquarters. That meant a total of twelve couples. Seven men out hunting, five remaining at the base? And all twelve women were here.
But the condition of the men staying at the base was...
"...They're no different from homeless beggars."
The ones sitting and talking were mostly women, while the remaining men were almost all lying flat on the ground. It was hard to tell if they were sleeping or dead.
"......"
One thing was certain—this group had no future. The heavy resignation and irritation etched on their faces. They looked less like people trying to accomplish something and more like they were waiting for someone to come save them. A bunch of defeatists with no intention of moving on their own.
-Rustle. Rustle.
"Hm?"
The sound of footsteps on grass. When I turned my head, I saw a woman entering the forest a short distance away. Alone? What was she doing? I watched her through the telescope.
A young woman with short hair. She seemed around the same age as Seunghee. The woman entered the forest and squatted down.
"......"
She'd come to relieve herself. Which meant they didn't even have a proper toilet. That also explained why the men's equipment was so pathetic. These people truly didn't have a single coin to spare.
I lowered the telescope. The grass blocked the view anyway, and I had no desire to watch. Her features seemed decent enough underneath the filth, but she was so dirty that her overall condition was terrible. When I returned home, I had plenty of proper food waiting. I had no interest in picking up some discarded snack from the roadside.
But... even setting that aside, I wanted to talk to her. To find out how they'd ended up living like this. What they were even doing with their days.
I approached the woman as she did her business, keeping my footsteps silent. The map showed no other survivors marked nearby. Even with a woman separated from the group like this, the others showed no interest. ...If I'd been a hunter, this woman would have been as good as dead.
She was keeping some watch over her surroundings, but her attention was focused on the survivor group rather than the forest. She clearly hadn't even considered the possibility of someone emerging from the trees.
"Hey."
"Eek!"
Right as the woman finished her business and pulled her panties back up, I spoke to her quietly from behind. As expected, she hadn't imagined anyone being there and jumped in fright.
"Stay quiet. Unless you want to die."
"H-hiii..."
She looked like she might scream, so I pressed a tree branch against her neck. I was pretending it was a knife to scare her.
"I'm sorry, please spare me, please spare me..."
"Be quiet. Answer my questions properly and I'll let you go."
...Maybe my approach was wrong. Had I scared her too much? The woman began to sob with hiccuping cries.
"Come deeper into the forest. It stinks here."
"Uuu..."
Still sniffling, she obediently followed me deeper into the woods. I positioned myself behind her and made her walk ahead.
"What's your name?"
"Sniffle... L-Lee Inyeong..."
"Age?"
"T-twenty..."
We stopped after going far enough into the forest. The woman immediately began begging with both hands clasped together like a fly rubbing its legs.
"Mister, please spare me. Please, I'm begging you..."
I was wearing military fatigues with a mask over my face and keeping my voice low. It made sense that she'd call me "mister." In fact, it was better this way.
"Just answer what I ask. Then you won't have to die."
I tossed the tree branch I'd been holding behind me. The woman stared at it blankly.
"How many people are in your survivor group total?"
"Um..."
When I asked, she rolled her eyes and hesitated. It was obvious she was trying to lie.
"Don't even think about deceiving me. I've already counted all of you."
"T-twenty-eight people..."
"Twenty-eight? Not twenty-four?"
"Ah, th-that's... four people left after fighting..."
The woman became visibly flustered at my words. So the twenty-four seemed to be accurate.
"Left after fighting?"
"Yes. They said it was too hard to survive here... that they would go live separately..."
"Do you know where they went?"
"No... They headed into the forest, but I don't know after that."
Hmm. So in addition to this group of twenty-four, there were at least four more. Those four who left might be more dangerous than the twenty-four here. At least they had the will to do something.
"Are there any other survivors besides your group?"
"Other survivors... This is the first time I've seen any."
She kept glancing at me as she spoke. It didn't seem like she was lying.
"Um, excuse me... where are we? How do we get back? Is this really being filmed?"
Having relaxed a bit after our conversation, the woman now started asking me questions.
"I'm not done talking yet. You can ask after I'm finished."
"Eep... okay..."
One sharp word and she immediately became dejected. Her reactions somehow reminded me of Seunghee.
"Why are you all living like this? Don't you have a separate base?"
"Base... that's our base over there."
The woman answered blankly. By "over there," she must have meant that bare ground.
"Did you all start in that same spot from the beginning?"
"No... We were a bit scattered at first, but people nearby all gathered here..."
"What about cell phones?"
"I don't have one, but my older brother does... Ah, I came with my brother. Other people came with their older or younger sisters, uncles and nephews, and um, there are even mothers and sons."
Similar to my situation. So it seemed two family members were dragged in together.
"So why are you living in such poverty?"
"Poverty... that's what I want to ask..."
She muttered gloomily. So they weren't choosing to live like this.
"Haven't you had sex?"
"Excuse me?"
"I asked if you haven't had sex."
She suddenly scrambled backward.
"Uh, um..."
She looked around as if searching for a weapon.
"Calm down. I can tell you don't know anything."
This woman seemed completely unaware that having sex gave you coins to buy items with. How could she not know after already spending a week on this island? But when I thought about it, the answer was simple. If I had tried to hide it, I could have kept it from my mother. What this island was, how to get coins, what missions were—everything. Just hide the phone and keep it secret from your partner.
"Doesn't it seem like your brother is hiding something?"
"Hiding something...?"
"Yeah. Like the men secretly talking among themselves."
"Ah."
It looked like something clicked for her. And seeing her reaction, something clicked for me too.
"What did your brother say about this island? How have you all been interpreting this place?"
"My brother... said it was a reality show. Surviving on a deserted island..."
"I see."
So he was deceiving his clueless little sister? Or maybe her brother genuinely believed it. That this was all a reality show. And that the moment he touched his partner because he couldn't endure anymore, cameras would appear and eliminate the survivor.
Her brother might truly think that way and has been holding back from touching her. There had probably been several missions like that. The other men were likely the same.
"This is ridiculous."
How could things turn out like this? Though I supposed it was possible. The surrounding environment was the problem. This place was safe. Too safe. The weather was good enough to sleep on the bare ground, no dangerous animals appeared, and there were no murderers who killed people on sight. If they'd experienced life-threatening danger, they wouldn't have been able to maintain such carefree attitudes.
But they had faced no such risks. They could survive just living like this. Like how Kaylee only came asking for help after her son became critically ill, if they'd faced some crisis, things might have been different. However, because it was too safe, they had simply wasted eight days.
"Um... can I ask a question now?"
The filthy young woman asked.
"No. You can't."
"Hng..."
Now then, what should I do? In truth, my course of action had been decided from the very beginning. To do nothing at all.