Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Crossing the highway.
Just as we entered Sejong City.
Looking around.
"There's nothing here."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
There were almost no zombies or people.
Excluding a few regular zombies, the number of zombies on the streets was only a tenth of what it was in Daejeon.
It felt strange that the streets could be this empty.
"But isn't that good news? It means they clean up the zombies periodically."
"That's true."
You have to look at this positively.
It means they care about cleaning the streets.
Plus, you could say they have supplies to spare.
They can only afford to clean like this because they have supplies, right?
"Anyway, let's head to the shelter."
We didn't need to look at the map anymore.
Because there were vehicle tracks on the ground.
"They must trade with quite a few places."
"Yeah."
There were quite a lot of vehicles.
Looks like they even use large transport trucks.
They'd need a lot of fuel for that, which means they can handle that much.
We walked for a few minutes like that.
Then.
"Over there."
"Oh..."
There was a place that looked like they had built a wall out of iron.
That was Sejong Shelter.
"Whoa... it's huge."
"Yeah."
Even just the gate was the size of a decent building.
There were sentries standing on the wall, and lights were installed here and there.
I figured those lights would be visible from quite far away at night.
However.
"What's up with those people?"
"Huh? Yeah, what is it?"
People were camped out in front of Sejong Shelter.
Most of them looked like drifters.
"Ah, because they don't have entry passes?"
"That's a shame..."
You need qualifications to enter the shelter.
At least be a young person in their 20s, have engineering knowledge, have plenty of food, etc.
It meant that only those who had something—knowledge or youth—could enter.
However.
"Look over there."
"Hmm..."
In front of the gate.
They were in the middle of screening people.
It felt like they were entering one by one.
Furthermore.
People wearing what looked like black armor were checking the crowd themselves to see if anyone was infected.
"At least they care, huh."
"Yeah."
The first impression was very good.
To think they'd take care of people outside the shelter like that.
"Anyway, shouldn't we be able to get in?"
"Right. You brought the food, right?"
"Yeah."
I planned to use the food I'd taken out of the Dark Room to get into the shelter.
And so, our turn came.
-This is a quarantine zone. Please follow the instructions.
Lee Su-ah and I were separated.
Looks like they take men and women separately.
As I moved according to the instructions, a person with an exhausted expression asked me a question.
"Are you Korean?"
"Yes."
"Could you try pronouncing 'probability distribution table'?"
"Probability distribution table."
"Confirmed."
This... is the test?
I was a bit dumbfounded.
Because it was too easy.
But when I listened to what was behind me.
"Hwaguru Bunuru."
"Please turn back."
They weren't passing.
Probably they don't accept the mentally unstable or foreigners.
I moved on to the next section.
Why did you come, how did you spend your time in school in the past, etc.—it was just a personality/aptitude test.
After passing somehow.
A quarantine checkpoint appeared.
It was an officer in combat gear, a Sergeant First Class.
They examined my body here and there.
"Temperature check normal, no bite marks, no weapons."
I passed easily.
"Is it easy up to here?"
Looking at others, some were locked in quarantine-like rooms, or taken into suspicious containers with soldiers.
"Hmm..."
Looks like they kill them immediately if infection is certain.
Anyway.
The last part remained.
"Do you possess any exceptional talent, knowledge, information, abilities, or supplies?"
This time it was a female soldier.
She was wearing glasses, and she looked so strict.
But when I saw her rank insignia, I understood.
Master Sergeant. She was an administrative supply officer.
'Hmm... that makes sense.'
I showed my backpack to the female soldier.
It contained a lot of food that Lee Su-ah and I had split up.
The admin supply officer nodded and smiled satisfactorily.
"Pass."
I left the backpack and passed.
'What the hell. My food.'
It was taken, but oh well.
I got in, so it should be fine.
Having passed, I was able to fully enter the shelter.
There were a few soldiers at the entrance, and they handed me something.
"This is an electronic bracelet. You must never lose it."
A bracelet that looked like a cell phone.
When I checked the display, there were strange numbers and a money symbol.
They have a currency system here too.
"Fascinating... oh, there's a guide over there too."
Some people were giving explanations like guides, and people who had passed like me were watching them intently like baby birds.
'It's freedom, but if you do whatever you want, your Citizen Points get deducted?'
That was the gist of it.
It seemed they uniquely had something called Citizen Points here.
If you hit -5 points, you're automatically expelled, and -10 is the death penalty.
-10 was for rape, murder, robbery, etc.
"Wow... it's like communism, but well."
Still, there's nothing like this for controlling people.
"Lee Su-ah... will it take a while?"
It seemed like it would take some time.
"Shall I look around?"
I was curious about the inside of the shelter.
I started walking around aimlessly.
"Oh..."
There was an apartment complex.
I asked a passerby.
"Excuse me. How do I get into those apartments?"
"Uh... only high-ranking officials and soldiers can enter there."
"Aha... so regular people can't get in?"
"Yeah, I suppose so. But I heard if you have a high citizen rank and lots of money, you can get in... I don't know for sure though."
"I see. Thank you."
I sent the person I asked on their way and looked at the apartments again.
Just looking at them, they looked very comfortable.
Even though the downside of an apartment is that it's cramped, it's a place where water, electricity, and heating are all taken care of.
"Tsk... I want one."
While I was drooling like that.
"What are you doing? Let's go."
Lee Su-ah appeared from behind.
She was also wearing an electronic bracelet on her wrist.
"Where are we going?"
"Well... to work?"
"Work?"
What is this?
Did Lee Su-ah lose her mind?
"Aren't we hunting zombies?"
"Zombies? Where would there be zombies here?"
"They say there are lots of zombies in the basement here. So if you catch them, they give you money?"
"...Really?"
It was a very good situation.
Lee Su-ah and I are hard counters to zombies, to the point where we could be called zombie specialists.
"But how much per one?"
"10,000 won?"
"Only?"
"Hey, they say one pack of ramen is 5,000 won."
"Heeeeh!"
Did I hear wrong?
Ramen that used to be 700 won is 5,000 won here.
"7 times the price..."
It was massive inflation.
"Then one bottle of water..."
"Right, it's 4,000 won."
"Crazy."
One zombie.
And you have to drag the corpse yourself to get 10,000 won.
That means to eat even one meal a day, you have to catch at most 2 of them.
It meant that for a gas burner, water, and a pack of ramen, a regular person has to risk their life.
"But wouldn't everyone just die like this?"
The fact that there are zombies in the basement means they could come up.
If that happens, wouldn't it be a huge problem if they came up to the surface?
"They say it's structurally impossible?"
"..."
"We'll know when we go there."
Lee Su-ah, looking confident, took me to the zombie hunting ground.
Zombie hunting ground.
A place full of zombies located in the basement of Sejong Shelter.
As it was a basement, it was very dangerous because it was dark.
As soon as we approached the entrance, cold air came up.
A smell from a world completely different from the surface.
"Ah, so that's why they said it's structurally impossible."
"Yeah."
There were many paths to the zombie hunting ground.
However.
It didn't seem like the zombies would ever come up.
"What's with the ladder... is it 30m?"
We had to go down a steel ladder.
A whopping 30m.
It was the height of a decent apartment building.
"That's why they can't come up."
There were still quite a few ladders.
About 3?
There was also one being newly installed.
"Those people..."
"Looks like they caught some zombies and came up."
They look like young people in their 20s.
They were all holding out something from the zombies to the soldiers with exhausted expressions.
They had dark circles under their eyes.
It was the face of people who had been fighting for a long time.
"Ah, so you don't have to bring the whole corpse up."
"Yeah?"
You just had to bring the nose, which there is only one of on a zombie corpse.
"Looking at them, it seems like they catch about 2 and come back."
"Yeah... that's safer."
You have to be very careful with this kind of work, because if you get greedy, you could become a zombie yourself.
It wasn't for nothing that they offered 10,000 won per zombie.
"Let's go."
"Sure."
We started climbing down the ladder.
I had never felt 30m feel this long.
Tak! Tak!
When Lee Su-ah and I landed, the sound of our landing echoed like a cave.
It was like a mine here.
Humid and cold air.
The ground underfoot was uneven, and I could hear water dripping from somewhere.
"Were they trying to build an underground bunker?"
"I don't know. But since our voices echo, speak quietly."
We relied on our headlamps to look around.
Maybe because it was a bit cold, I even got goosebumps.
Then.
Kkaaaang!
Someone was hunting zombies.
It was a teenage boy swinging a metal baseball bat.
Judging by his thin body, it looked like he wasn't eating well.
There were several bruises on his forearms.
Furthermore.
There was another girl next to him.
She looks like his younger sister.
As we watched quietly.
"What are you looking at?"
He sure is prickly.
Lee Su-ah, as if finding him cute, spoke to him.
"Hey! Are you alone? Do you want to kill zombies with us?"
"Who are you, lady?"
"...What?"
Lee Su-ah's expression froze in an instant.
I barely managed to stop Lee Su-ah while holding back the laughter that was about to burst out.
"Hey, hey, he's a kid, a kid!"
"There's no juvenile law here. Let me go for a second."
I barely managed to calm Lee Su-ah down.
"I'll help you out, let's stick together."
At my words, the kids hesitated for a moment.
"I don't think they're bad people, oppa."
"Still..."
"Just trust my intuition once. I've never been wrong."
Unable to win against his younger sister, the teenage boy agreed.
"What are your names?"
"Kang Tae-san, this is Kang Ju-ah."
"Alright, I'm Choi Han, and this is Lee Su-ah."
We ended up forming a party.
After forming the party.
We went around looking for zombies.
It looked like there were none near the entrance, as if people had already caught them all.
But as we headed deeper and deeper.
The voices of zombies were everywhere.
"Gueeeh..."
"Ueeeh..."
At the many sounds, Kang Tae-san seemed scared and gripped his bat tightly.
"Hey, hey, don't worry, I'll take care of it."
I stepped forward confidently.
"Like this!"
I swung my fist at the approaching zombie.
Then.
-Level up!
"Huh?"
I leveled up out of the blue.
Then.
-Level 10 reached.
-Dimension Category unlocked.
-Select 1: Apocalypse, Cyberpunk, Martial Arts, Xianxia, Spirit Realm...