Proof of Qualification
"Are you two dating?"
Of all the nonsense to hear first thing in the morning.
The man asking was the owner of the Eclipse pub. Everyone just called him Kim, and I usually went with President Kim or Uncle Kim. Nobody knew his real name. He'd never offered it, and no one had ever bothered to ask. Kim was simply Kim.
"What kind of garbage are you spouting when we've barely finished breakfast?"
He only shrugged at the edge in my voice.
"I figured you two must've had a lovers' spat."
Mao Mei, unlike me, gave no reaction at all. Come to think of it, she did seem a little sulky herself. Exhibit A: this morning's spread was distinctly thin. And why, exactly, was I the only one without a fried egg?
"…The chickens didn't lay today."
I hadn't even asked. Petty little revenge, was it?
Except Uncle Kim's plate clearly had one. He even had a second for himself.
I was still wondering whether I should have done something the night before when Mao Mei finished eating, quietly gathered up a basket and a weeding hoe, and offered us a light bow. Off to forage for wild greens, most likely. I'd already cleared out the zombies in the area, so it was relatively safe for her to move around. The real danger, if any, would be the thugs in this shelter — though with the rumor going around that she was my woman, that probably wouldn't be an issue.
"Go easy on her, will you? Poor kid."
"The world's overflowing with poor kids. If you're eating and not dying, you don't get to call yourself pitiful."
"Aigoo, why's a young man so rigid? What, is it her face you don't like?"
"…"
When I said nothing, Uncle Kim scratched his head.
"Well, if those scars had been treated properly, she'd have been a looker. Shame, really."
It was the opposite, actually. Without that disguise, she never would have survived this long. But there was no need to spell that out.
"…Shouldn't you be making yourself scarce about now?"
"Fair point. Still, unlike the other brats, she handles the pub work, our meals, even the laundry… Honestly, we need her."
On top of that, the wild greens she brought back from the fields and hills every day kept our meals halfway balanced. She'd even planted cabbage, chili peppers, eggplant, and cucumbers behind the pub — wherever she'd managed to find the seeds.
"…Maybe Mao Mei wants to stay here. Whether it's for the food or for you."
"It's the food. Not me."
"Hahaha. A little short on confidence for a young fellow, aren't you? Or is it really about her face?"
I shook my head quietly.
"Not interested. More importantly, we need to deal with those bastards from yesterday this afternoon. You know we can't just dump them in a hole and call it done."
"Ah, right. I know. I already told everyone fifteen and up to assemble, just like you said."
In this world, even the dead were denied rest.
This was a place where particles from the crimson rifts drifted on the air — particles that brought the dead back. Not as themselves, of course. As zombies.
Which was why corpse disposal had to be done right. Bury them carelessly and it wouldn't be long before they clawed their way back up and came for us. You had to sever the head cleanly and hack off the limbs. And if circumstances allowed, burning was best.
Here, we did both — dismemberment and cremation. And every person took part, or at least watched. Anyone who wasn't a small child was no exception.
Once a person became a corpse, it was only a matter of time before they turned. No exceptions. Any region that failed to manage its dead properly was guaranteed, sooner or later, to suffer a zombie attack.
Roughly a hundred people lived in this survival shelter. The ones who ran the place were the same crew I'd gone boar hunting with. Even before I showed up, they'd been lording it over everyone here, bleeding the survivors dry. Not so different from the Central Plains I'd come from, really.
The Mount Hua Sect, the Wudang Sect, all those great clans — strip away the pretenses and they were just gangs. The state collected its taxes, and those bastards collected their own cut under the banner of "protection." Orthodox this, unorthodox that — the Orthodox factions were thugs in bed with the authorities, and the Unorthodox ones were thugs who weren't. The Demonic Cult was basically its own theocratic state. That was about the size of it.
So I acknowledged them, and I didn't interfere much with how they did things. The demands I made of the survivors here boiled down to two. One: take part in every funeral without fail. Two: find your own food. Anyone who kept those rules, I protected from the zombies and the giantized demonic beasts.
Why?
No grand reason. Just that Uncle Kim bore a strange resemblance to my master, whose fate I still didn't know. In truth, aside from being roughly the same age, they looked nothing alike. But the box my master had entrusted to me, and the girl who'd fallen into this world alongside me… both still sat on me like debts I couldn't shake. And since this man wanted to protect this place, I would protect him. That was all.
"On the road you now walk, may you go in peace. Forget every torment of the life you lived, and rest in eternal quiet. May you never return to this world as a creature of suffering. May these flames purify your soul, and become a warm light toward a new beginning."
Uncle Kim's low prayer carried across the gathering. Before the collapse, he'd been a funeral director.
Grim as it was, the limbs still had to come off. Cremate a body whole and you risked it turning halfway through and thrashing out of the fire — a headache nobody needed.
"Boss, you really gonna make the others do it?"
One of the thugs looked at me with something almost like concern. Happy enough to suck the survivors dry, yet somehow they managed a flicker of humanity at times like this. Who in their right mind enjoyed carving up corpses? No one. Not even these gangsters. Not even me. But someone had to do it. That was why every resident here shared the duty — to take a body apart.
The kind of hypocrisy that marched for animal rights, then grabbed fried chicken on the way home, had no place in a world like this. You wouldn't survive it.
I gave a quiet nod.
The survivors must have worked out a rotation among themselves; a few stepped forward. I handed them saws and axes. The axe would be the kinder tool, at least.
"I—I can't! Wh-why do I have to do this? Th-they should be the ones doing it!"
A woman was shaking from head to toe as she protested. Why make us do this? This is men's work — no, work for butchers like you. That was the look she threw at me and the thugs.
"Last time, Eclipse handled the bodies alone."
Not long ago, one of the survivors had turned, and Uncle Kim had managed the entire funeral by himself.
"R-right. I h-heard Uncle Kim used to be an undertaker. He's done this plenty of times. The person who already knows how should just do it."
"…"
I let silence settle on her.
The only reason I'd stayed here this long was that Uncle Kim didn't want to leave. Holding out hope that his daughter might still find her way to him, he'd endured every filthy job and every thug's abuse without a word of complaint. I had no obligation to protect these people. I could just as easily let them slide back into being squeezed dry by the gangsters, the way things used to be.
"I—I'll do it! Give me the axe."
A familiar voice. Mao Mei.
Her foraging basket was piled high with fisher greens good enough to wrap rice in. Ever since she'd seen how much I liked wild vegetables, she'd been out gathering whenever she could spare a moment.
"…It's not your turn. You haven't even been here that long."
"No. That's exactly why I should do it. Not everyone can handle this as easily as Uncle can."
Her eyes were colder than usual. Was she trying to earn my recognition? Or looking for a reason to condemn me? Hard to say. A thin, crooked smile found its way to my lips before I noticed.
I tossed her the axe I usually carried on hunts. It was a little large and heavy for a girl her size. Mao Mei dragged it across the ground as she walked toward the corpses, then heaved it up with effort — and brought it down.
A dull thud. No blood sprayed. No arm or leg came free. Of course not. A slight girl's strength was nowhere near enough.
She raised it and swung again. Another thud. Her aim was off; the blade buried itself in the chest and wouldn't come loose. Both her hands were trembling. Tears welled in her eyes — but they didn't fall.
Uncle Kim couldn't watch any longer. He stepped in, severed the heads of both corpses, and cut through the ankles. That much alone would keep them from running wild even if they turned.
"Stand back. We don't need a repeat of last time, with one of them bursting out of the fire."
A clean rasp of steel. He finished the remaining limbs without fuss. Mao Mei couldn't even get to her feet; she just knelt there, shaking.
I walked past her without breaking stride.
"You did well. Starting tomorrow, get up early. I'll teach you enough to protect yourself."
Her eyes went wide. The trembling in her hands stopped. She only nodded, silent and steady.
Soon the flames would rise, and the funeral would be done.
Looks like I had one more thing to protect.
"…Why are you here too?"
I was fairly certain I'd said I would only be teaching Mao Mei. So why was Uncle Kim standing there dressed like that? And where on earth had he dug up a full dobok — a taekwondo uniform, no less?
Mao Mei, at least, was in workout clothes. Though for some reason she was holding a pair of chopsticks. Why?
"I heard the whole thing. You're handing out those terrifying techniques of yours, aren't you? I ought to learn a thing or two myself. Don't you think? I can't keep leaning on you forever."
If he was the innkeeper, I was just a guest passing through. No shop stayed standing forever on the strength of a traveler's sword.
"Hah. Fine. But why is Mao Mei holding chopsticks?"
"Huh? Weren't you going to teach us how to throw them?"
"…What is this, a Chinese action movie?"
I wasn't running a circus act. Throwing techniques were a side skill at best — teach only that and what good would it do?
"I don't know what either of you came expecting, but we're starting with stamina. Since it's the first day, we'll take the run nice and slow."
Both of them fixed me with determined stares and got ready to run.
I'd said it before: I was a third-rate swordsman who couldn't even raise Sword Qi. That led some people to assume I had no inner power at all. But murky as it was, I did have a solid ten years of internal energy — and that alone made me the fastest man on this earth.
"Gaaah— p-please— hueeeegh—"
"…Hueeeegh."
Unbelievable. This wretched already? Vomiting multiple times after a mere thirty minutes of mountain running? Pathetic.
I was starting to understand the look my master used to give me. Nothing for it. No one fills up on the first bite.
A month of this and their stamina would come around. Only then would I start on the basics of martial arts. Without a foundation of endurance, nothing else would stick.
After more than an hour of morning running, I came down the mountain with both of them tucked under my arms, completely wrecked. Mao Mei was too far gone to even put breakfast together. Uncle Kim was still out cold.
No choice, then.
Clatter, clatter. I washed the dishes in a rough pass and started cooking. Making rice over a briquette stove was trickier than it looked, but rice was forgiving — as long as it was more or less done, it was edible. Side dishes I just pulled from what we already had.
I shook Uncle Kim awake and piled a generous bowl in front of a half-ruined Mao Mei.
"Th-that's too much, M-Master!"
Since when was I Master? Well. Either way, she needed to eat.
"No. You need this much. Uncle, you take it easy!"
"…Y-yeah. Got it."
Roughly forty kilos? Maybe less.
"What's your weight?"
"…I'm not sure, but even before, I never went over forty kilos."
"That so? Then we'll aim for an even fifty. Come on — eat."
You needed fat on the body before you could put muscle on it.
"You need more meat, too. Huh? Where'd the jerky I left out yesterday go?"
"It's gone? That's odd…"
Uncle Kim's face twisted.
"Tch. Looks like the gakdagui paid us a visit. I thought those little bastards all froze to death last winter…"
Gakdagui? Sounded like some kind of insect. What was that supposed to mean?
For a man who usually laughed off a bit of theft with an easy chuckle, Uncle Kim's reaction was unusual. He looked thoroughly disgusted.