Chapter 25
Chapter 25
-------------------------------------------------
Translator : M.N 1391
Title: Mart Battle (1)
Chapter: 25
-------------------------------------------------
‘This is...’
A burning smell mixed with the stench of rotting corpses. It was proof that the ‘Queen’ had settled there.
Dae-shik silently walked around, lost in thought, scanning the floor.
‘Her territory hasn’t formed yet.’
Around the place where a Queen settled, a characteristic mucus-like secretion would appear.
The fact that it hadn’t yet meant there was still some time.
‘What should I do?’
The Queen was different from goblins or abnormal gluttons. With this team and this equipment, the odds of victory were far too low.
‘Maybe thirty percent... if that.’
Dae-shik carefully calculated the risks and returns. It was clearly high risk, high return, not the kind of gamble one should take lightly in an apocalypse. However, with just a bit of preparation, he could minimize the risk. No, more than just minimizing, it might even be possible to defeat it without taking any losses.
‘There’s still some time before things get truly dangerous...’
With that, Dae-shik quickly came to a decision.
He would first gather the necessary supplies and then return here.
“Miss Lee Hyena, there are other pharmacies besides this one, right?”
“Yes.”
Of course there were.
This wasn’t some rural backwater or mountain village; it was a proper city. It would be stranger if there was only one pharmacy.
“Is there a reason it has to be this one?”
“No, just that this one’s the biggest and closest to the police station...”
“Then let’s go to another one for now.”
The decisiveness of Dae-shik’s retreat took everyone, except Ji-hyuk, by surprise.
Juhun had seen Dae-shik take on zombies armed with nothing but a police baton and a sling made from plastic wrap.
And Hyena had witnessed far more, abnormal gluttons, swarms of zombies, even mutated creatures wielding guns. Even in scenes where a normal person would only be thinking of what to say in their will, Dae-shik had survived, and won.
For someone like him to retreat without hesitation could mean only one thing: whatever lay ahead was far more dangerous than anything they had faced so far.
Hyena and Juhun both turned toward the source of the stench, their expressions tense.
‘What in the world is in there…?’
The same thought crossed both their minds.
“Then let’s go that way.”
Hyena swallowed dryly and turned around.
The remaining four silently followed her lead.
* * *
After that, Dae-shik’s group arrived at a small pharmacy nearby.
They had encountered zombies and infected people along the way, but nothing serious.
As long as the others bought him a few seconds, Dae-shik would crush the zombies in an instant.
“Mister, Miss Hyena, finish them off.”
He even took the time to yield some of the kills to his teammates. Considering the future, he needed to help them strengthen their abilities as fast as possible.
“Let’s head back from here.”
But when their numbers were too high, Dae-shik chose to detour instead.
Partly for safety, and partly to conserve stamina.
In the apocalypse, you never knew what could happen. You had to save your strength for when it truly mattered. Going all-out every single time was not a wise strategy.
“Phew... Finally, we’re here.”
Once inside the pharmacy, Hyena quickly headed into the dispensary and began gathering medicine.
Painkillers, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, disinfectants, cotton, bandages, hemostatics, and so on... She gathered everything they might possibly need, and before long, her arms were full.
“S-So much stuff.”
Seeing the mountain of supplies, Ji-hyuk couldn’t help but break into a nervous sweat.
“Yes. There’s no guarantee we’ll find medicine again, so we should take as much as we can.”
Still, it wasn’t as if they had paid for their lives with nothing in return. There was no such thing as a free lunch, especially not now. He owed his life to them, after all. With that in mind, Ji-hyuk clenched his fists with renewed determination.
“Yes, let’s take everything! I’ll carry it all!”
His burning enthusiasm made Dae-shik chuckle quietly.
At the same time, he felt glad he had brought Hyena along.
Of all the medicine there, the only ones he could actually recognize were probably things like xirenol, xborin, and xphos.
“Then let’s move.”
One ice box, and a backpack on each side.
Ji-hyuk felt as though his spine were about to collapse.
“Ungh!”
But he forced every ounce of strength from his body to keep pace with the group.
After fending off several zombie packs and pushing forward again and again... they finally saw the safe house.
* * *
“Wow, you even own the building?”
As soon as they entered the lobby, Juhun asked the exact same question someone else once had.
“Hm...”
The old man nodded silently, as if all the mysteries of the world had just been solved.
The protagonist was usually some ordinary college student or office worker. And the people beside him, the right-hand man or left-hand man, were the ones who provided what the protagonist lacked.
Production skills and property ownership, that was more than enough to qualify as a protagonist’s right hand.
“Let’s unpack first.”
Dae-shik let out a small sigh.
He didn’t bother correcting their misunderstanding. He wouldn’t even know where to start explaining it.
Hyena kept stifling her laughter beside him. Apparently, she found it hilarious that someone else had asked the same question she once did.
“Whoo...”
Meanwhile, Ji-hyuk collapsed to the floor the moment he set his load down.
Ammunition, food, medicine, two backpacks, and an ice box full of side dishes.
Carrying all that alone, it would have been strange if he hadn’t been completely exhausted.
“Alright, let’s assign rooms.”
Dae-shik, seemingly tireless, immediately moved on to the next task.
“The first floor, me and Mr. Lee Juhun. In an emergency, I’ll respond first. Mr. Lee Juhun, use your ability with a one-beat delay and cover the rear.”
“Hmm... Makes sense.”
Juhun nodded, slightly impressed.
Even just adding a short delay before acting would maximize the potential of his invisibility.
If the enemy were human, they’d likely end up ambushed, or the fight would be over before it began.
“Second floor, the old man. Bring your gun downstairs.”
If things didn’t end after that, then the gun would come into play next.
“Third floor, Miss Hyena.”
The doctor needed to stay somewhere safe, but not too far up, since she needed to respond to emergencies. The third floor was the upper limit.
“Mr. Kim Ji-hyuk, you’re on the fourth floor. Don’t leave your room under any circumstances. You’re still at risk of infection. I’ll come check on you periodically, to make sure you’re alright.”
“Thank you.”
Receiving a higher floor than expected, Ji-hyuk blinked in surprise.
High places were always safer, everyone knew that.
He had assumed, since he was the lowest-ranking among them, that he’d be placed on the most dangerous first floor, and he’d already steeled himself for it.
‘The fourth floor...’
But his awe didn’t last long.
“The supplies go on the fifth floor. We’ll all eat together. And we’ll take turns keeping watch from the fifth floor, twenty-four hours a day.”
“W-Wait, we move the supplies to the fifth floor every time?”
“Yes.”
Dae-shik’s curt reply made Ji-hyuk’s face fall back into a dead gray.
“Then let’s eat.”
Dae-shik picked up the ice box as he spoke.
“Oh? You’re helping carry it?”
“The porter’s job ends outside. I’m not planning to overwork one guy indoors too.”
Before Dae-shik even finished speaking, Juhun had already slung one of the bags over his shoulder.
A grin spread across his face again. It really did feel like he’d landed a better job than expected.
* * *
After tidying up, the group unpacked the side dishes they’d brought from the police station.
Dae-shik then lit a portable gas burner and began grilling Spam and Vienna sausages.
“Wow...”
Juhun’s mouth watered involuntarily.
“Daaamn...”
The old man, too, couldn’t help but close his eyes and let out a sigh of delight.
Spam and sausages, kimchi, a few side dishes, and steaming instant rice heated in boiling water.
None of them had ever imagined they’d get to eat a proper meal again, not in a world crawling with zombies.
“Let’s eat.”
Dae-shik spoke casually, lifting his chopsticks.
“But... are you sure about this? There’s five of us, right? If we eat like this, our food will run out fast.”
Even as he swallowed hard, the old man couldn’t shake his concern about their rations.
“When there’s food, you eat well.”
Dae-shik calmly picked up a piece of Spam.
His ability required fullness to function properly. If nothing else, eating well was essential.
Even beyond that, he simply never wanted to starve again.
Besides, poor meals killed morale.
If that went on too long, nerves would fray, tempers would flare, and emotional control would collapse.
To prevent that, it was necessary to have a proper meal now and then, to relieve stress.
There was a reason soldiers were obsessed with food. They instinctively understood that eating well was key to keeping both body and mind intact.
Of course, he wasn’t doing this blindly.
“Don’t worry too much. We’ll be out scavenging for more food tomorrow.”
He gestured toward the others, as if urging them to pick up their spoons.
Hyena, of course, was the exception, she was already chewing on a Vienna sausage. Clearly, this kind of life was nothing new to her.
“By the way, Mr. Dae-shik, what was that thing earlier?”
After swallowing the sausage dipped in ketchup, Hyena asked.
“I’m not exactly sure myself. Just that something dangerous is there.”
“You’re not planning to just leave it, are you?”
A rhetorical question, she already knew the answer.
Though she hadn’t known him long, she’d learned one thing about Kim Dae-shik: he wasn’t the type to avoid obstacles.
This retreat was only a strategic one, to find a way to take that thing down.
“Of course not.”
Dae-shik answered shortly.
“I knew it.”
“So what’s your next plan?”
Juhun asked, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.
“Tomorrow... we’re going to the mart.”
At the word “mart,” a heavy silence fell over the room.
“Why?”
“Uh... are you sure that’s a good idea?”
The old man’s voice trembled with unease.
In apocalypse stories, marts and department stores were practically dungeons.
They had everything, food, clothes, supplies, but also hid the greatest dangers.
“It’s not D-Mart, so don’t worry too much.”
Dae-shik smiled.
“But it’s still a pretty big mart, so brace yourselves.”
* * *
The next morning.
Dae-shik and his group left the safe house together.
The mart he was targeting was located on the first floor of an officetel complex. Smaller than a D-Mart, but much larger than a neighborhood shop, a proper mart for the residents of the complex.
‘Finally, I get to check this place out.’
In truth, Dae-shik had been eyeing this mart for a while.
He just hadn’t dared to enter before, not with only Hyena by his side.
But now, things were different.
“Mr. Lee Juhun.”
At Dae-shik’s signal, Juhun vanished from sight.
He began scouting the area around the mart, maintaining a careful distance from the roaming zombies. Even invisible, he couldn’t let his guard down, zombies were sensitive to sound and smell.
A few minutes later, Juhun returned, breathing heavily.
“Dae-shik, there are armed survivors around the mart. What should we do?”
Dae-shik’s expression twisted grimly.