The Livestock's Enemies Are Fellow Livestock
Lee Chung-ryeol had always gotten the sense that the rations he received in the name of "conservation" from those guys at Seongjeong High felt light. In reality, the halved rations were far lighter than that. And his mood was infinitely fouler.
'Ungrateful little shits. Kids with no home training... Normally, they wouldn't even dare meet my eyes...'
Lee Chung-ryeol seethed as he recalled what Jeong Da-jeong had said to him just moments ago in front of the gym.
"If you don't want it, give it back. Or would you like to talk to my master directly? Shall I call him?"
"Yes, I figured you'd say that. So what are you going to do? Sorry, but I have my own work to do, so I can't keep listening to this."
"Bad blood? Oh, of course... we do. How could we not, when you touched something that belongs to my family?"
Smooth—
"If you get it, then get lost."
A snot-nosed little brat who'd lucked into a sparrow's nest was strutting around like she owned the place. Birds of a feather flock together, huh? She'd picked up her boyfriend's bad habits, threatening with a hammer like some thug. No manners at all. When an adult asks nicely, you should listen. These MZ generation girls were all the same problem...
"End times, end times. So much food, and yet so stingy. Tsk tsk."
The vice principal huffed and puffed to swallow his rage. But he wasn't the only one more pissed off than usual.
"I told you not to do it if you thought this would happen..."
The female teacher's mutter, disguised as a soliloquy, made the vice principal glare at her.
"Park Teacher, what did you just say?"
"It was just to myself."
Her insolent attitude, worlds apart from how she treated him as vice principal, finally made flames shoot from Lee Chung-ryeol's eyes.
"To yourself my ass. You said that knowing I'd hear it!"
"I said it was to myself!"
"Huh? Did you just yell at me?"
"Aigoo, Vice Principal, why are you like this?!"
The female teacher had gone too far with her words, but what really set the vice principal off was the other teachers silently nodding in agreement.
"Now it's my fault? Did I eat it all by myself? You all gobbled it down too. Instead of being grateful, you're blaming me? Is that right? Huh? Park Teacher. Kim Teacher, is this right?!"
Those bastards had left in the middle of the night. And they'd left the door wide open defenselessly. Were they just supposed to leave it like that? The vice principal felt like he was going insane with injustice.
But the female teacher kept whining regardless.
"That's why we got caught, right? You said it wouldn't happen. You swore up and down that taking just a little from all this wouldn't be noticed!"
She jabbed at the rations, which were only half the usual amount, and shrieked bitterly.
"We got caught and now it's like this! I told you not to do it, but you went ahead anyway! How are you going to take responsibility?!"
"Ha, hahaha? You were quiet as a mouse when you were wolfing it down yesterday like it was honey. But now this bitch..."
"Sigh, fuck. Here we go again."
The curse from the male teacher, whom they'd expected to play peacemaker as usual, froze both the vice principal and the female teacher.
"Kim Teacher? What did you just say..."
"Why? Can't the vice principal or Min-young Teacher do whatever they want, but I can't? Look, to be honest, I'm already exhausted, and I just want you two to stop fighting so I don't have to listen anymore."
The other teachers nodded slightly in agreement. Seeing that, the vice principal realized his mistake and set his anger aside for the moment.
"Ahem, ahem. Um. Park Teacher, Kim Teacher, and everyone else here—I'm sorry if I got a little heated and said something stupid."
But the teachers' gazes remained cold. Facing them, the vice principal felt like he was losing his mind. They'd somehow figured out the teachers had touched the food, and they'd seen him casually kill the student supervisor. He couldn't demand more. And now the rations, barely enough to wet their mouths, had been halved.
The vice principal had no sharp solution, but to preserve his authority, he squeezed out some wisdom from his years.
"I'll handle it somehow. But in return, everyone here needs to help me out."
"Help how, exactly...?"
The vice principal casually split the rations in half. He divided the halved food among the teachers, his faction members, and then looked at what remained.
"This is all we got."
If you couldn't add more food to the table, remove the chopsticks. That was the vice principal's political answer.
...
But those excluded from that table—not teachers—were driven mad.
In the administrative office, away from the teachers' staff room.
"This is all...?"
One chocolate bar and a 500ml water bottle with less than half the water. No way that could sustain an adult for a day.
"I'm seriously gonna lose it."
The previous rations had been just enough not to die. This was basically a death sentence.
"Th-they suddenly said they were cutting rations. That's what they told me."
The senior clerk relayed what the vice principal had said while handing over the food.
"Suddenly? Just cut them with no reason?"
"Yeah, sigh. Who knows what those crazy bastards are thinking—you or me?"
They sensed something fishy in the vice principal's selective words, omitting the bad parts.
"Sigh... They won't really let us die like this, right? Let's ration what we have as best we can until then. Yeah?"
But for now, that was it—no one pushed further. Until the incident blew up.
...
The next night. Everyone lay listlessly, trying to conserve energy, when the door suddenly burst open.
Bang—!
Crash!
The janitor dragged a male teacher into the administrative office. Trailing behind, flustered, was the female librarian.
As everyone stared in shock, confused, the janitor bellowed in fury.
"Janitor sir, what's going on? Why that guy...?"
The janitor yanked the male teacher's hair. His nose was already bleeding from several hits.
"Say here exactly what you said earlier!"
"W-well, um..."
"Lady, shut your trap!"
"Th-that. Where do I even..."
"What else? Start with how you teachers have been stealing our food!"
Here's what happened.
The female clerk and male teacher, secretly dating since before the apocalypse, met again that night. When his lover complained of hunger, the male teacher gave her food. She played coy, saying she couldn't accept it, so to reassure her, he swore secrecy and spilled the backstory.
The janitor, hiding and eavesdropping, heard it all.
"You crazy fuckers!"
"I'd chew you up and it still wouldn't be enough!"
Tensions between teachers and office staff had been bad even before the end times. After, when the office head volunteered to lock the school gate against zombies but got bloodied in a fight and they refused to open for him—that built-up grudge was strike one. Strike two: learning teachers stole food for themselves, causing the cuts. And now, even the reduced rations were being siphoned. They finally exploded and stormed the staff room.
Hand over our food, the male teacher told us everything.
They barked demands. The teachers, initially feigning ignorance, soon changed tack.
"Fine, say we did. What're you gonna do about it!?"
"What? You fuckers!?"
"Petty assholes, as expected. Waking up sleeping people over this..."
Thwack—
And so began the survivors' brawl. But with teachers outnumbering them several times over, it wasn't even a fight.
"Huff, huff. Get lost! You shits!"
"Ha, fuck. Moving around just made me hungrier."
Ptoo—
"Ugh... uuuugh..."
Beaten black and blue by the teachers, they were chased out in tatters.
Naturally, rations stopped coming their way the next day.
"Ah..."
Gurgle, groooowl—
"Ugh... ugh..."
Drip... hack—
"....."
The only sounds from the administrative office were moans of pain and growling empty stomachs.
To make matters worse, the janitor, struck in the head with a golf club, suddenly convulsed.
Tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble...
"Ugh, ack... ack... ack, ack..."
"Sir? Janitor sir!?"
"Ack, ack, ack...... ack............"
Sluuuurp—
His body suddenly stilled.
Watching, the survivors' eyes filled with the same realization. If we stay like this, I'll end up like that too.
Heavy silence descended.
Moments later, one survivor stood and headed for the door.
...
Whoosh.
Step, step—
Click—
"Hyeongtae...?"
"What."
"Where are you going...?"
"To the gym."
"What!? To that psycho?!"
The survivor called Hyeongtae turned with hollow eyes.
"...So we just die like this?"
His fist clenched until his knuckles cracked.
"Better the psycho than begging those teacher bastards who deserve to die."
"....."
"Who knows. Maybe, like they said, he'll at least let us eat till we burst before we go."
Not hope of survival, but desperate refusal to die like this. Yet it resonated bone-deep with everyone, hitting their hearts.
Smooth—
Smooth—
"I'll come too."
"...Suit yourself."
In the dead of night, they shuffled to the gym door like zombies and knocked.
……Step… step… step, step.
Clear footsteps approached, contrasting their feeble shamble—Cheongun's.
Creeeak—
Cheongun appeared, opening the door.
"Um..."
Smooth—
One tried to speak, but Cheongun held up a hand to silence him.
"Hungry, right?"
Smooth—
Through the open door, a table laden with food.
As they trance-walked over the threshold like moths to flame, Cheongun said cheerfully,
"You nuts?"
"Pardon?"
"You're not human anymore."
Snicker—
"Where do you think you're going, you mutts, barging into the house?"
He jerked his chin at Jeong Da-jeong, who dumped a pile of food before them in an instant.
Whoosh—
"There. Eat."
Treatment too humiliating and degrading for one human to give another...
Gulp—
Groooowl—
Gulp.
But feeling grateful instead, they were no longer human.
Chomp, chomp. Gulp, gulp—
Woof. Woof—
"Gulp, gulp—. Gulp—."
…Gaaaarf…
Stuffing canned food with bare hands, they devoured. Watching the livestock, Cheongun smiled whitely.
Looks like tomorrow's walk day.