Scarecrows for the Human Pests
Farming, I’d heard, was brutal work. The natural environment—temperature, rainfall, and the rest—along with weeds, pests, birds, and wild animals like roe deer were all enemies. In other words, farming was war against nature, and since humans were part of nature too, it meant fighting harmful human pests as well. I first heard that warning from Park Yanggun.
“I grew up in the countryside. Stealing corn from the fields nearby and eating it was so damn good. Brings back memories.”
Inside the indoor farm bathed in purple grow lights, Park Yanggun’s face took on an inhuman hue under the violet glow as he spoke with longing. He talked about secretly swiping corn, roasting it over a campfire, and how delicious it tasted. He said he could never forget the flavor of that corn, even though the acrid smoke made his eyes water and tears stream down his face.
I nodded as if I understood. So he’s shown his thieving nature since childhood. They say a needle thief becomes a cow thief. Park Yanggun, who started as a corn thief in his youth, had never forgotten that innocent heart and had grown into an excellent thief.
Suddenly Park Yanggun glared at me.
“You’re thinking something weird right now, aren’t you?”
“…Huh? No, not at all. I was just thinking about corn. Wow. I really want some corn right now.”
As expected of a thief, his senses were sharp. Park Yanggun studied me with suspicious eyes for a moment before turning away.
“Watch out for people. Once you get rich quick, all sorts of bastards come crawling. I don’t know about the farming, but word must have spread that we hit the apartment complex and scored a ton of food. Rumors are the scariest thing.”
The man who used to steal crops was now wary of other thieves. It was sound advice. I hardened my expression and gripped my hammer tighter.
We had gathered a massive amount of resources, but we lacked the strength to protect them. When the weak possess treasure, they become treasure goblins. Just like those clumsy police officers who got hunted down, we’d only suffer losses. Since we’re easier prey than the police or the Hope Community, plenty of people will try their luck.
The apartment residents at least had numbers on their side. We had nothing. My head throbbed. I pressed hard against my temples.
Defense was something I truly didn’t understand. Killing people, smashing things, stirring up chaos—I was confident in all of that. No, precisely because of that, I felt even more lost. Ways to completely ruin this street kept popping into my head one after another. How was I supposed to block every single one? And what about attacks I couldn’t even imagine? It would be far more fun and relaxing to be the one attacking. This had no end.
Fortunately I wasn’t alone. I had capable comrades I could dump the burden onto.
“We’re in the perfect position to become targets for scams. Assets that no one would have looked at twice before, but now in these times, this is basically a fortune.”
“Resources suddenly exploding like this…”
“I know. We have to suspect everyone. We need to be wary of people from the nearby neighborhoods too.”
Sa Gihyeok, whose head worked pretty well, Jeon Dohyeong, who had suffered through inheriting a fortune, and the paranoid old man had already sensed the danger and begun a countermeasures meeting.
Farming progressed with difficulty. Blackouts suddenly grew longer without warning, and since everyone was a novice farmer, it was hard to be sure we were even doing it right. Above all, strange people began showing up on our street.
“Hello. Do you have electricity here?”
People arrived carrying armfuls of phones and portable chargers. Most of them were young, and they were trembling violently as if suffering from severe anxiety.
“…Why are you asking about electricity? Has the power not come back even though the outages have gotten longer?”
“A bird built a nest on the utility pole and it keeps causing blackouts. They can’t fix it.”
Even though the power plants were maintained, there weren’t enough people to manage the electrical infrastructure across the city. The urban landscape was slowly sinking into darkness. They habitually turned on their phones, but only the buttons clicked—no light ever appeared on the screens. The pitch-black displays simply functioned as mirrors.
“We just need to charge them. We can trade cigarettes or cola. Or do you have an electrician? If we could just fix that one pole, it should be fine.”
“We don’t have any experts either.”
I looked at them with fascination. It was just a phone. To wander the dangerous city like nomads in search of electricity because they couldn’t use it… They seemed to have the potential to develop into some kind of group in their own way.
In any case, they passed through as friendly visitors.
“Cigarettes? Oh, those? I’m a smoker, perfect. You can charge at my place.”
“Me too.”
Because of the cigarettes they offered as payment, the smokers gladly opened their homes. The Electricity Nomads pulled out tangled power strips, connected everything, and focused on charging phones and laptops. Once finished, they left without incident.
Of course, not all visitors were friendly. People from nearby neighborhoods came asking for handouts, and others who had heard the rumor that Villa Street was a treasure trove came begging.
“Neighbors should help each other, right? Here, take this.”
I kindly offered them drinks like cola or coffee. The guests, blinking as if the kindness was unfamiliar, suddenly gripped the cola bottles tightly. The liquid leaked from the syringe holes I had punctured. Traces of injected zombie saliva.
“What the hell is this dirty trick? It’s too filthy, I’m not taking it!”
“Don’t even think about looting. I’ve mixed it into every bit of food we have. You know Russian roulette, right?”
“We’re leaving!”
The visitors, their consciences miraculously restored, showered us with praise as they fled.
Sometimes truly vicious types showed up. Arson extortionists. Men who poured oil on the street, held lighters, and grinned wickedly.
“We heard you have plenty of food. How about sharing some with the less fortunate?”
I was slowly getting stressed. There really was no end to it. It was impossible to wipe them all out or exterminate them. Survivors who had clung to life like cockroaches kept coming after hearing rumors.
Having been forced to gather with people and suffer through labor—something that didn’t suit me at all—I felt my eyes starting to roll back. I barely held it together and responded calmly.
“There was an arson extortionist last time too. That guy poured oil on himself. Why are you all so clean?”
“…What?”
“If you want to negotiate, pour oil on yourselves first.”
The arson extortionists exchanged glances and spoke in awkward voices.
“We poured all the oil out, so there’s none left to put on ourselves… No, I mean, if you don’t want the street to burn, just give us some food. We don’t need much.”
“You can just roll around on the oil you already spilled. Go ahead and do that.”
When I spoke firmly, the hesitant extortionists reluctantly rolled on the ground. Oil soaked their bodies. They opened their mouths again to resume the threats. I stared at them blankly, then pulled out a lighter.
“Burn to death!”
“Whoa! Get away!”
“Aaaagh! This guy’s insane!”
The extortionists fled in panic. I chased them all the way to the end of the street with wild eyes, but unfortunately I couldn’t catch survivors who had sensed their lives were in danger. Watching the backs of their heads disappear into the distance, I panted heavily.
Weeds of human beings. There are too many harmful pests. I need to borrow the wisdom of farmers.
We needed scarecrows. Just like scarecrows that chase away sparrows, we needed scarecrows to chase away humans.
The daily countermeasures meetings were extreme. The people of Villa Street, who had launched an apartment raid with murderous intent, took life-or-death battles as their premise.
“Too many people have come in the last few days. The rumor has spread properly. They’ve only approached casually so far, but they could band together and attack at any time.”
The old man gripped his ballpoint pen tightly as he spoke. His face was dark with worry. He probably imagined the situation reversed—that just as we had gathered people to attack the apartment, they could gather people to attack us.
Sa Gihyeok glanced at me.
“These are people driven by the desire to live and the desire to possess food. Since this person here threatened them with zombie saliva, maybe they won’t come?”
No. I shook my head.
“If you heat it, it’s over. They only left because they weren’t desperate enough to fight. If they get truly desperate, they can come looting anytime.”
There was cola that couldn’t be boiled, but if you didn’t drink it, that was that. Jeon Dohyeong, who had mingled with the Hope Community, and the thief Park Yanggun also began offering their own opinions.
“How about contacting the police or the Hope Community in advance and requesting support if a battle seems likely? Of course we’d have to give them some food as payment.”
“What if we give it first and then steal it back?”
They were all vague discussions without any direct countermeasures. The conversation dragged on without much substance, and I stood up in frustration.
“I’m going to make some scarecrows.”
“…Scarecrows? What kind of scarecrows?”
“Scarecrows to chase away harmful pests.”
They looked at me with puzzled expressions. Suddenly Jeon Dohyeong nodded as if he understood.
“Ah! To stop birds from building nests on the utility poles? Yeah, it would be tough if the electricity keeps cutting out.”
“Something like that.”
With that, I armed myself heavily and headed out to the street. Inspiration surged in my mind for the first time in a while, and my body felt light. I summoned the scenario writer inside me and focused on directing.
Scarecrows. I should recycle whatever materials I have. They need to be threatening. And they must have that apocalyptic feel.
I worked diligently. Sweat poured off me, but whether because I was working alone or because I was doing something I genuinely enjoyed after so long, unlike farming it felt incredibly refreshing. I lost track of time, and before I knew it the street was covered in scarecrows.
As I stood there smiling with satisfaction, the others who had finished their meeting came out of the building. The moment they stepped out of the villa entrance, they froze. They seemed stunned by the scarecrows I had created.
Jeon Dohyeong spoke in a dumbfounded voice.
“…You said you were making scarecrows.”
“I did.”
I gestured at the street. My scarecrows—human crucifixes. I had taken the corpses strewn across the street, tied them to street trees, utility poles, and traffic signs, then stuffed wooden planks into the sleeves to spread both arms wide. A straight line of Corpse Crucifixes stretched along the road. I had even used up taser cartridges to capture zombies and turned them into crucifixes as well.
“Krrraaaagh…”
“Wait, zombies? Why are there zombies?”
“They’re Virus Generators. If I keep harvesting saliva, I can mass-produce viral weapons. I feed them the leftovers from what we eat.”
These scarecrows secured both function and presentation. At this level, even clumsy humans wouldn’t dare approach. I gazed contentedly at the street drenched in apocalyptic atmosphere and the Corpse Crucifixes. With the traitor’s corpse the old man had hung swaying in the wind, the place finally had the proper vibe of a looter’s stronghold. It felt like my territory, and I liked it.
My stress is easing a bit. People really should have hobbies.
This was the period of focusing on farming and protecting our stockpiled resources. As a scenario writer, I had rediscovered my hobby.
Sa Gihyeok’s eyes twitched violently before he forced out a laugh.
“You have quite the artistic sense. Wow. This would appear in nightmares. How did you come up with something so— I mean, this kind of…”
“Right? I originally dreamed of working in film. Actually, I was thinking of placing corpses by the windows of empty houses too—”
As expected of a fellow criminal, he understood this sensibility! I brightened and chased after the retreating Sa Gihyeok to continue the conversation, while Park Yanggun and the old man discussed practical matters.
“Even thieves will run away after seeing this. The small fry will just turn back.”
“…We should prepare buckets or water basins mixed with saliva. For intimidation purposes.”
“Yeah. With zombies tied up right in front like this.”
The zombie let out a mournful “Krrraaagh.”
And so, peaceful days passed for a while. Perhaps my scarecrows were effective—there were no visitors, and everything was quiet. Whether this silence was the calm before the storm or simple peace, I couldn’t tell.