Chapter 20
Chapter 20
4. A Winter That Will Someday Pass -2
The facilities were better than I expected.
When people think of an apocalypse, they usually picture windows boarded up with planks or flimsy barricades made from piled-up furniture.
Reality wasn’t much different from that image. You could find that kind of shoddiness all over Seoul too. There was a limit to what civilians could do when building a shelter without professional materials.
When social infrastructure was intact, you could easily get rebar and tools. But in an age when the apocalypse was closing in, there weren’t any delivery apps or Naver Maps. Where were you supposed to get materials, and how were you supposed to finish the work properly? In the end, amateur reinforcement was all most people could manage.
But this place, a facility cleanly converted from an officetel, was different. The entrances that needed to be sealed were solidly blocked with metal hinges and the like, and various items were neatly arranged on shelves. Seeing lights on inside, they must have a generator too.
Overall, it felt like professional preparation rather than amateur work.
There was even a small aquarium on one wall. Though it was full of green algae and had not a single fish. The gravel and structures showed they'd put real effort into decorating it. It looked like it had been maintained until relatively recently.
The fact that they had maintained a hobby aquarium at all during the apocalypse said plenty about the quality of this place.
Of course, it couldn't compare to a government-built shelter, but the quality was excessive for something three people put together. This would require a technician, and also...
"Was this place prepared before the world turned upside down?"
“⋯⋯Wow, how did you know? Taemin had the foresight to get everything ready before the Gate and zombie outbreak. That’s why there’s a small garden up top, and solar generators too. It’s really great.”
"A garden too? Wow..."
They could even make a garden. As I'd seen on the way here, the plant contamination level was low in this area.
They prepared thoroughly.
So that scruffy-bearded man—Taemin—was what you'd call a survivalist. If I'd prepared something like that with my idol earnings, I wouldn't have had to go through such rough times.
The blond guy chattered away, constantly marveling.
“But can you tell just by looking? Is it because you’re a soldier? No, wait, are you a soldier? Anyway, being a government guy really does make you different. Taemin, isn’t that amazing?”
"Mingyu, don't run your mouth. This way."
"...Ah, yes."
Taemin led me to what was essentially an operations room. On the wall of the small room was a whiteboard with a crack along the edge, and a map of the surrounding area was attached to it with duct tape. Various symbols were drawn on the map.
They must have marked dangerous places or areas already searched. Check marks were densely packed. It looked like most of this area had been searched.
"........"
Setting that aside.
I’d noticed it when I came in, but this Taemin guy’s attitude was odd. Normally⋯⋯ wouldn’t you at least act friendly for business’s sake toward someone who came to rescue you? Even if he didn’t trust strangers, with Sohye vouching for me, there shouldn’t have been any need to put up this much of a wall.
Was he the type to put on airs? No, it felt a bit different from that. Rather than showing hostility toward me, he seemed uncomfortable with the situation itself.
At the subtle tension flowing between me and Taemin, Sohye and the blond guy started fumbling. They seemed worried I might get offended.
The blond guy forced himself into an upbeat tone to break the awkward silence and spoke.
"Um, or would you like to look around a bit more? There's quite a lot to see here. Like, if you go up to the rooftop, there's a mystery circle made of zombie corpses, and if you look at it for a while it's pretty fascinating... is that weird? Haha, hahaha!"
"A mystery circle?"
"Yes, yes. Zombies die too if they starve long enough. But whether it's some kind of instinct or as if someone ordered them, they were dead in neatly drawn patterns. There were too many to clean up, so we've left them there. They're probably still there now."
"I'd like to see that if there's time."
Sohye quietly gauged the mood, then smoothly rose from her seat and spoke. This side's strategy was a gift offensive.
"Um, please keep talking. I'll go get something simple to eat, Noah. I have some Digestive biscuits I've been saving. You don't... dislike Digestive, do you?"
...The chocolate-coated version? It would be, right?
"Yes, I like them. Honestly, you don't have to go that far. Isn't this an age where I should be grateful even for boiled tree bark?"
I'd already been promised cup ramyeon, so my conscience stung a bit at expecting snacks on top of that. And Seoul and this small shelter were in different weight classes—if I took all the good stuff, wouldn't that be like sucking the liver out of a flea?
At that moment, the blond guy shouted with an expression of pure injustice and sorrow.
"Huh? Kim Sohye, you were hiding Digestive biscuits...?! Hey, when I asked last time you said there was nothing!"
“Sorry, Mingyu. I was saving these for my sister⋯⋯.”
"........"
The atmosphere froze in an instant.
Sohye smiled awkwardly and left the room.
"W-well, I'll be right back with them. Hehe."
After she left, I quietly glanced at the blond. He was clutching his head with the expression of someone who'd made a slip of the tongue, and for a moment our eyes met. What reflected in the window of his heart was a damp, stubborn knot of emotion.
There was no need to ask. I'd seen eyes like that dozens of times before.
I was certain that Sohye's older sister was dead, or in a state close to death.
I looked at the map on the whiteboard and thought.
First, let's sort out the situation.
Bongnae-dong, where Sohye's shelter was located, was an inland area, and as if to prove this was Korea, it was all mountains everywhere. The area around Bongnae-dong was packed with forests and mountains. Which meant it was a danger zone.
After the monsters arrived, the footpaths around forests and even two-lane roads had effectively become nonexistent routes. Because a passing tree branch could shoot out at bullet-like speed.
So to move safely to another region, you needed a wide road.
"Ha, there was originally a four-lane road leading out of here. But of all places, a Gate opened right on top of it!"
That road had been blocked by the previous Gate incident. Bongnae-dong was now effectively surrounded by forest. It meant they'd have to break through that fierce blue-green in any direction.
Then the question was which route to take.
First, the final destination was Camp Ace, where the military unit was stationed. Getting these people there could be considered the mission objective.
"Um, Camp Ace is straight north from here. Fortunately, it's not that far."
"How far is it?"
"About... 80 kilometers."
Assuming you walked comfortably on well-maintained roads, it was a distance of about three to four days. Considering the areas swallowed by the plant bastards, the speed would drop further, even if you detoured through cities to avoid the forest.
This world was a neighborhood with an extra scoop of zombie disaster on top, so if you went toward the cities, you'd have to tussle with countless zombies.
“But my sister said the soldiers at Camp Ace regularly sweep the area and search for survivors. So really, we only need to reach the city near Camp Ace⋯⋯ Onseong.”
"Onseong... it's here. 43 kilometers? The travel distance gets cut almost in half. So the plan is to get here and wait for contact with the military?"
"W-well, it'll actually take longer than that. We can't go in a straight line. Um, we'd actually worked out an escape route already. We can't stay here forever, right? The shortest route from here to Onseong City is—"
The blond friend examined a worn notebook and drew a zigzag line on the map. It was a route that avoided the forest as much as possible, passing between cities where concrete and zombies awaited.
Well then.
I drew a straight line with my finger between this shelter and Onseong City. The straight line was painted entirely in green, meaning forest.
"Let's go this route."
At that, the blond guy went pale too.
“⋯⋯Um, uh, mister soldier. There’s way too much forest there.”
"Yes."
"We're cutting through the forest?!"
"Yes."
I nodded calmly.
Meanwhile, in the ruins on the outskirts of Onseong City.
In this city where there was no sign of the living, only zombies shambling about and slowly dying—a white light flashed. Another hunter had descended into Kim Sohye's world.
Tap.
The soles of worn sneakers touched the marble-finished floor.
The woman who entered the Stage on the rooftop wore a black hood. Her jet-black hair was tied into twin tails that hung forward over her collarbones. The slender build visible beneath the cloth made it clear she was a woman.
She inhaled deeply—then spat as if something foreign had gotten in her mouth. Ptui.
Then she muttered.
"—Ah, this rot. It's been a while since I've smelled the scent of an apocalypse."
Apocalypse.
Ruins all smelled similar, regardless of what had destroyed them: the thick, clinging stench of blood and pus, and the hollow smell of asphalt. Breathing it in brought pressure and nausea instead of anything refreshing.
And the freshness of phytoncide subtly mixed in.
She recalled old memories. Her world had also met a slow apocalypse, and under the pressure of monsters tightening by the hour—humans fought and killed each other over a handful of food.
Eve, the dimensional terminal, had died too. Her world's connection to the System was completely severed.
Fortunately / or unfortunately, at that time—she had been on a different stage.
A dimension without an Eve “drifts.” It falls away from the System’s network and becomes isolated in the dark cosmos. Naturally, the return command can’t even be executed.
To reach that world, you'd have to navigate by tearing through physical space. It was impossible at D-rank level.
So... she was a "Drifter."
A wanderer who had lost her own world and roamed only through the worlds of others. A kite with its string cut, surviving by moving from stage to stage.
But she didn't dislike her situation.
“The ecosystem here should be interesting too. A place with zombies mixed in? People must be desperate to steal from each other, knives out and everything. Heh heh⋯⋯ That’s right. That’s how it should be. Life is survival of the fittest.”
Because she hated her own world.
A world where people stabbed others in the back for survival, that absolute value. A world where all manner of morality and philosophy sank beneath the rubble, and only the essence of living things ascended to the sole throne to rule over all creation.
A world where the strong eat and the weak are eaten.
She bared her teeth in a crooked smile and muttered. The scar running vertically beside her mouth twitched.
"It looks inconvenient for a long stay in many ways, so let me finish this quickly and move on to a stage with some civilization left. I'm sick of shop-bought food. I want omakase."
She pulled a compass from her chest and opened the System's Community board. A specific post on the board contained detailed personal information about her hunting target.
Name: Noah Won. A white-haired young man.
"Considerable defensive ability... well, short-armed vanguard types are easy to cook."
The compass displayed the direction and distance to Noah Won's location, updating every minute. Luck was on her side too—he was getting closer to her. There seemed to be no need to go looking for him.
She lay on the building rooftop waiting, going over her target's track record. Helps others even in tutorial stages, doesn't pass by people in trouble on other stages either... or so it said.
"Heh. Heh heh..."
Disgusting.
A "good person" is a failed strategy in a world heading toward apocalypse. Those fools chase after ridiculous things like morality and then drop dead from exhaustion on their own.
Seeing that kind of thing frustrated and disgusted her. People like that must have thought acting that way made them better human beings.
Clink, clink...
In her grip, the "Nails" clashed against each other, making a strange sound. As the "Nails" increased one by one in her hand, their functions resonated with each other and grew stronger.
"Wait for me, Noah Won. I'll make you a grave right here."
A human destined to be culled anyway—she would personally give him a funeral.