The First Settlers
— Welcome to the Quarantine City Gallery. —
...
Some of the most obnoxiously melodramatic posts from the so-called beloved regulars had been deleted in bulk. But it wasn’t the moderators, and it wasn’t the posters themselves who had removed them.
They’d quit.
In the real world, there was even a phrase for it: logging out of life. But here, that line could mean only one thing.
Possession... reincarnation...? Transmigration?
Anyway, it had already been a week since Hwi-hyun had fallen into this world.
That was by no means a short time. It was enough time for a person to die however they liked—by hanging themselves, by dehydration, by falling from a height.
Those who had spent the week denying reality, insisting this was nothing more than a hideous nightmare, had eventually chosen the final solution.
"I’m scared."
And it was understandable.
Hwi-hyun hadn’t been able to bring new people into the quarantine zone yet, but he had thrown himself into restoration and development, wringing three more drones out of the repaired facilities. To him, it was all manageable enough. But according to the gallery freaks, there were plenty of people who hadn’t even bothered installing the game in the first place, and what had been easy for Hwi-hyun would have been nightmarish difficulty for them. Reading through the posts, most of them seemed to be in a situation similar to his—but the way they experienced it had to be completely different.
He couldn’t exactly blame those people for choosing suicide. This whole disaster was the sort of thing that made no room for common sense or reason in the first place.
Their extreme denial of reality didn’t make them irrational, and that made it even scarier. If suicide born of escapism wasn’t irrational, then what kind of world had he fallen into?
"Hah! No. I can’t get weak. I’m alive, so I have to keep living!"
Self-affirmation is the shortcut to a long life.
"You can be quiet... no, forget it. Show me the status window."
Executing.
For the past week, Hwi-hyun had barely slept at all as he buried himself in the upkeep of the quarantine zone. He’d done it to keep himself from drowning in the gallery’s walls of mental-collapse self-pity. And perhaps because of that effort, the quarantine zone was now in a condition that was at least passable.
The facility he’d poured the most effort into was the aquaponics system.
It wasn’t anything grand—just a bare-bones setup for raising potatoes, onions, carrots, and even carp and catfish—but in a world like this, there were plenty of people who’d gladly stuff into their mouths anything that could be swallowed.
"How’s the processing going?"
Proceeding smoothly.
"Good."
And those five ingredients, once produced, never got anywhere near a chef’s hands. Instead, they were mercilessly ground to pieces beneath the machinery of industrial processing, then turned into combat rations through vacuum microwave drying and ultrasonic compaction technology.
Whether or not there was a chef was beside the point. The resulting CCAR (Close Combat Assault Ration) was a next-generation combat ration that drastically reduced both the risk of constipation and the amount of space it took up, beating the famed American MRE in ways that mattered. You could practically live your whole life on it if you had to.
With every available drone now devoted to food production and processing, thirty servings of CCAR were produced each day, and stacked neatly in the underground warehouse. It had a strong survivalist smell to it. Conditions were still bad, but at least the fear of starving to death had been lifted.
Hwi-hyun heated up a freshly made CCAR and ate it, shivering at the uniquely miserable texture that no amount of effort could remove from combat food.
Still, right now survival mattered more than taste. Luxury was a fantasy he couldn’t afford.
*
"At this rate, we may starve to death, Captain Jeremy."
"..."
And twenty-one kilometers outside the place where Hwi-hyun was, a group of a little over three hundred survivors was pushing forward through anxiety, fear, and hunger.
They were the 1311th Infantry Company of the World Allied Forces, along with the 150 civilians they were leading.
The main force had already been completely shattered in combat against the infected, reduced to little more than a remnant band, and in the process they had ended up taking charge of the fleeing civilians. At first the mood hadn’t been too bad, but once the fuel ran out and the vehicles had to be abandoned, once the food ran out and then the bullets too, everything changed.
Suspicion and unease spread until people were being beaten for secretly eating a single can of food, and Jeremy Miller, the group’s unofficial leader, was experiencing firsthand how an army collapses when it has no bullets, no food, and no fuel.
They were already marching on one meal a day, and their destination was the quarantine zone where Hwi-hyun was. Administratively, it was the Roseberry quarantine zone.
They’d heard it had probably collapsed too, but a quarantine zone that fell suddenly was bound to leave a good deal of supplies behind. That was why they’d kept forcing the march. Of course, they had no idea how much those supplies would be, or how they should be distributed if they existed, or what they were supposed to do when they were all gone.
Captain Jeremy, an infantry company commander, simply didn’t have the knowledge for that sort of thing, and neither did his subordinates or the civilians. They could only keep dragging themselves forward with their stomachs clenched tight, because it had to be better than dying.
"The food..."
"We only have enough for a week now. Any food around here has been contaminated by spores, so it’s inedible. We managed to salvage some sealed drinking water packs, though."
"Still, if we ration it, we could stretch that to a month..."
"If we ration it, it becomes a week. One meal a day."
"Damn it."
Jeremy bit his lip. There was no way out now.
Too many people, too few supplies. Their strength was draining away little by little, and one soldier who had spent the pre-operation days bragging about his belly fat and talking about how he ought to go on a diet was now having to steal the pants of a dead comrade because his own size no longer fit.
In the midst of this overwhelming helplessness that no mere captain could do anything about, he made a single decision.
"Keep walking. If we keep going for about a week, we can make it to Roseberry. We’ll secure whatever supplies are there... rest a little, and then contact Allied Forces Command. We’ll manage somehow."
"Understood."
*
Warning! Proximity alert!
"Pff—hk!?"
The sudden alarm made Hwi-hyun nearly spit out the water he’d been drinking.
A proximity alert? There shouldn’t be any infected anywhere near here... should there?
"Where is it!?"
South checkpoint. Unidentified armed nomads are attempting to destroy the gate.
"Nomads? Pull up the CCTV."
Executing.
What appeared on the screen was a cluster of gaunt, skin-and-bone people, several men so close to the gate that only their heads could be seen, and a soldier wearing officer’s insignia, watching with a tense expression.
-Isn’t there any way to open it?-
-I’m sorry, but... the checkpoint doesn’t have opening and closing authority... we need master authority...-
-If we had even a little explosives or a vehicle, we could’ve blown it open or rammed it down...-
"Those uniforms... World Allied Forces?"
As Hwi-hyun muttered, his voice leaked out through the speaker connected to the checkpoint. That was his mistake for not checking the related settings.
The people on the CCTV jumped in alarm and raised their guns toward the speaker. Hwi-hyun realized what he’d done, but almost immediately saw the opportunity in it.
He was the Command-Minister. In other words, the highest authority in the quarantine zone. That meant he could crush a junior or field-grade officer under rank alone.
"Ahem! Ahem! I am Lee Hwi-hyun, Command-Minister of the Roseberry Quarantine Zone. State your affiliation."
-I-I’m Captain Jeremy Miller! Commander of the 1311th Infantry Company! We were with the 31st Division, but the main force has been annihilated, and our contact with headquarters has been cut off. We... no, I... we need humanitarian aid. There are civilians. One hundred and fifty of them! There are many children, elderly people, and women as well.-
"The 31st Division?"
Interest flickered in Hwi-hyun’s eyes.
The 31st Division was the star of an early-game quest in the game days: the chain quest called The Scattered 31st Division. You could almost call this fate.
"...According to Article 51 of the World Allied Forces directive, the affiliation of any defeated remnants passes to the Command-Minister of the quarantine zone that accepts them. Do you consent?"
-I consent! Please...! We need help...!-
Jeremy was practically prostrating himself on the ground, begging. Looking closer, the soldiers’ faces were nearly dead already. Apparently the march hadn’t been a pleasant one.
"System. Open the gate."
Executing.
Clank! Rattle-rattle-rattle!
-I-it’s opening! It’s opening!-
"Come in first, and then we’ll talk. Welcome to Roseberry."
January 25, 2053.
It was the day Roseberry received its first settlers after reconstruction.
---