You Need to Finish the Tutorial to Craft? (2)
“You said your personalities didn’t mesh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“It’s a common story. A leader who gets led around by women, community members shoved aside by politics, the injustices piling up…”
The Hamsmill of my story was somehow turning into more and more of a bastard.
But maybe Hamsmill wouldn’t have minded. A successful leader’s life that even got him tangled up with women had to be better than getting sniped off a cliff during a bungee jump.
“A common story, huh. Do other communities often fall apart the same way?”
“When even blood relatives betray each other, what chance do people who aren’t related have?”
“The harder the times, the more a man’s true nature shows.”
He kept moving forward steadily, shotgun tucked under one arm, leaning on his cane. He looked healthy enough, and his cheeks weren’t sunken.
“Forgive me for asking, sir, but may I have your name?”
“Curtis Omen. And you?”
“Lee Hyunwoo.”
“Then what should I call you?”
“Hyunwoo is fine.”
“That’s your name, is it?”
“And your family name is Omen.”
“That’s right.”
I gently angled the flashlight ahead of Mr. Omen. In the game, old people often tripped and bruised themselves if the light wasn’t bright enough.
“Worry about your own footing. My night eyes are still sharp.”
“At your age, a fall could be serious.”
“Do you even know how old I am?”
“You look like a combat veteran. At least eighty, I’d guess.”
“Eighty-seven. Thrown into Normandy at twenty-one.”
Normandy.
Wait—that Normandy?
“Sir, when you say Normandy—”
“You know it?”
“…How did you make it out of that hell?”
“Luck.”
A survivor even more impressive than I’d imagined. He’d lived through that war and a nuclear war on top of it…
At the very least, it meant I was safer with him around.
Good. My pack had been completely empty, so I’d thought my luck was pure trash. But maybe a survivor group led by a combat vet…
“Ugh.”
Too bright.
Were we there? The flashlight…
“Dad, you said you’d be right back.”
“You have any idea how hard it is dragging this old carcass that far?”
“That’s why I said I’d go with you… Who’s that next to you?”
“A poor bastard who got lost.”
“In times like these, you can’t just bring anyone—”
“I’d rather haul this yellow monkey around than a bastard like you.”
Yellow monkey?
Sir, that’s a bit harsh.
And he’d just called his own son a son of a whore…
“Since Dad brought him, I guess I don’t have much room to talk…”
“His pack’s empty too. Guy’s got the guts to wander around bare-handed, so he’ll be useful enough.”
The light finally died, and from up ahead I could see the faint orange glow of a campfire’s warmth. On top of that, a delicious smell.
The soup he’d mentioned earlier?
“Name?”
“Lee Hyunwoo.”
“…For now, come inside and we’ll talk. You were really out there bare-handed?”
“Technically my food and weapons ran out, but… yeah, bare-handed.”
“Huh. Lucky bastard.”
“Nothing more important than luck when it comes to staying alive. No question.”
A wrinkled hand patted my back. A scar that looked like an old burn sat on top of it.
“Let’s go. When you’re old, moving around just makes you hungrier for no good reason. But that bastard over there—”
“Dad!”
I hurried after the old man’s retreating back as he disappeared down the corridor with a booming laugh, determined not to lose him.
Following the L-shaped hallway, I found a room with a massive steel door standing open.
So the survivors waiting inside weren’t a group at all—just a small family.
“You’re late. The soup I went to all the trouble of boiling is about to turn into stew.”
“In that case you take it off the fire and set it beside it, like I taught you.”
“And do you know how much a soot-covered pot messes up the inside of a pack?”
A World War II veteran grandfather.
A father with a stylish black beard.
And a daughter with shining ebony hair… and a survivor’s build.
Classic tomboy?
“Who’s the guy over there?”
“An unlucky bastard.”
“Somehow still breathing.”
I smiled as I unslung my pack and sat.
Yeah, this family was no ordinary bunch.
From the WWII veteran grandpa, to the father whose arms were as thick as my thighs even if he had a bit of a gut, to the daughter with a pistol strapped to her leg. And looking at the gear behind them…
“All of you were military?”
“My boy was in the same unit as me. Our pretty little granddaughter was about to head to basic. I tried so hard to talk her out of it.”
“And that’s exactly why we’re still alive in this shithole.”
“I raised my daughter tough, at least. Even as a kid she used to beat the boys down.”
“Must be in the blood.”
The wary eyes seemed to soften a little.
But Mr. Omen, sitting across from me with a plastic bowl in front of him, didn’t look nearly as comfortable. More like he was dissatisfied.
“Proud of yourself for driving nails into your mother’s heart. You should’ve been a father who protected his daughter, not one who left her without a mother—”
“You were a war hero. So what was I supposed to—”
“Both of you, stop it!”
Hmm.
Not the happiest family, apparently.
“Just take the soup. Grandpa, quit hounding Dad already. He did his best.”
“—”
“One more word and I’m dumping all the dishes on you, Grandpa. Your call.”
“That’s why I didn’t bring this yellow monkey along.”
“Grandpa.”
“…Fine, fine. Whatever.”
I carefully accepted the bowl that was passed to me and watched the ladle tip out chunks and red broth. The smell, the tender shape of the meat, the empty can packaging shoved into a corner—yes. Definitely tomato beef soup.
Plenty of green beans too. The taste was… fine. Nothing to complain about.
“What’s his name?”
“Hyunwoo, he said. Family name Lee, given name Hyunwoo.”
“Please call me Hyunwoo.”
“Sara Omen. Just call me Sara.”
“James Omen. Call the old man by his last name; just James is fine for me.”
“Sara, James, and Mr. Omen.”
“Make it Curtis. There’s three sets of ears that prick up at ‘Omen.’”
The old man had already emptied his bowl and was wiping down his shotgun with a handkerchief. Those smooth, unhesitating hands… that meant his shooting skill was sitting at the advanced level.
I remembered it clearly.
That motion.
The sniper I’d left in charge of base defense used to clean his gun in exactly that posture.
“Anyway, nice to meet you. Well, the fact that Grandpa didn’t shoot you the second he met you means he figured you were trustworthy.”
“Looked pretty vacant. That dumb face of his couldn’t plot a conspiracy if it tried. Yeah—those eyes. The ones that say he has no idea what anyone’s talking about.”
Mr. James started coughing. Sara looked at me for a moment, then tilted her head.
“People with vacant faces are usually the ones who hit you from behind.”
“This one’s got the guts to try disarming a booby trap.”
“If you’re talking about those man-catching traps, anyone would try once.”
“And they always fall for them.”
I took the last spoonful and let my eyes wander once more.
At least one gun per person, plus holsters for sidearms. No mass of scars, and their clothes were even clean—their mental state was solid too. The way they could fight one second and chat the next said the same.
And they were prepared enough to keep a proper level of caution toward me.
“Thank you for the meal.”
“Was it okay?”
“Yes, thanks to you.”
I set the bowl down and reached my conclusion.
The numbers weren’t large.
But I absolutely had to start with this community.
No carpenter, porter, cook, or doctor was a little disappointing, but two veteran soldiers plus one with a military background made three. Not only could I freeload through the tutorial, these were clearly people who could easily drive off the threats that noise from early settlement construction would attract.
Having no one who could treat injuries was dangerous, but I couldn’t think of a better starting point than this.
No weapons meant moving somewhere else was out of the question.
“Um, Sara, James, and Curtis.”
“Go on. So—do you think you’re cunning enough to plot a conspiracy?”
“No, but… if possible, I’d like to travel with you, even if it means doing the chores.”
Three pairs of eyes gathered on me for a moment.
Curtis spoke first.
“See? Told you a useful monkey showed up.”
“Dad—no. At least give us a reason.”
“We’re already short on dish duty. If he tries anything funny, we shoot him in the ankle and leave. The zombies will handle the rest—”
“Last time you did that, Dad burned through three magazines. He even had to abandon one.”
Last time?
Hold on. What?
All that monkey talk wasn’t a joke—he meant it?
“…Don’t be scared. The guy deliberately led us toward a zombie horde. Started spouting nonsense about us being sacrifices, so we made him the sacrifice instead.”
Sacrifice?
Religion was content too, of course, but “sacrifice” gave me a bad feeling.
“Was that man… red-skinned, by any chance?”
“Just an ordinary guy you’d see anywhere. Except his head was gone. Well, most people’s heads are gone these days.”
“At least he was whiter than y—fine, fine. Can’t even joke around.”
Sara glared at Curtis, sighed, and spoke while gathering the bowls.
“He was really obsessed with skin. No, not like Grandpa… more like ‘the old skins that ruined the world have no right to exist—’”
Shit.
“W-why all of a sudden…?”
“The Rebirth Church.”
I quickly checked beyond the door.
A dark corridor.
The occasional creak of metal.
Rats squeaking inside the walls.
Still safe for now?
“You know something, don’t you?”
Curtis loaded shells into the shotgun he’d been cleaning and looked at me with a suddenly serious face.
Sara and James too.
All of them had casually moved their hands to their pistol holsters.
“…If it’s not too much trouble, could we move? Right now.”
I’d thought I was lucky. I wasn’t.
Of all things, I’d joined a survivor group already marked by that damn Rebirth Church.
Of all things, right from the start.