Chapter 120. Edwin Kalliger.
Chapter 120. Edwin Kalliger.
When we opened the door and stepped inside, we found bodies heaped in front of the entrance — proof that others had tried to escape this way too.
"Ugh, what is that smell..."
"Looks like a lot of people tried to force the locked door open, and that's how they ended up..."
We moved forward slowly, finishing off zombies that spasmed among the corpses with combat knives to make sure they stayed dead. The one piece of good luck was that the server room where the data was stored was on the top floor, so we only had to go down one flight of stairs.
The problem was what we saw the moment we reached the bottom of those stairs. The corridor was packed solid with a staggering number of zombies.
"Haah... Rep, how are we supposed to break through that?"
Crudely put, killing every zombie was the easy part. Killing them without making noise was not.
"Do you know how to open the server room?"
"Yes, they gave us the encryption key."
"In that case, I'll take point and carve a path through the zombies. The moment I do, run straight for the lab door, get inside, and slam it shut."
"Yessir..."
Nobody said they were worried. They knew I wasn't the sort of man who'd die to a pack of mere zombies.
"I'll give the signal."
I raised my hand. The entire squad watched my hand alone, every one of them braced. Then, in an instant, I swept it down, drew my sword, and lunged.
— Shrrrk!
Simply cutting their throats wasn't going to be enough. A carelessly built mountain of corpses could snag my people's feet.
— Graaaah!!!
— Urrrk!!!
Zombies shrieked every kind of scream. Drawn by the noise from ahead and behind, more of them flooded out of the lab rooms.
We pulverized the zombies almost as we moved, sprinting straight for the server room door. The Special Forces Commander slammed his body against it, quickly worked the encryption key, and got it open.
"Rep, I'm closing the door!"
"Open it again when I tell you."
— Thud!
'The door's shut. Now I've got no more business with you, right?'
— Chaos Swordsmanship, Destruction
I sheathed the blade in mana and thrust it forward. In that instant, the lab corridor fell silent, and then a colossal storm began to rage. And down what had been a straight hallway, as if some vast force had simply swept through, nothing remained but scraps of zombie flesh.
— Knock, knock...
"It's done."
The tightly shut steel door opened, and they swung it wide without a shred of caution.
"What were you going to do if a zombie walked in, opening it that wide...?"
"Haha. We trusted you'd tidied things up, Rep."
"First off, how's the server room looking?"
"We powered everything down in advance to guard against potential data corruption."
Wall to wall, the machines filled the space — a fairly impressive sight.
"Whoof... Pulling every one of these out and moving them is going to be a job in itself."
"Still, where else are you going to get your hands on America's research data this easily, and for free?"
"True enough... it's probably decades' worth of research data from these people..."
While we were pulling hard drives one by one, an intercom mounted on the server room wall started ringing. At the sudden ringtone, the squad stopped their work and lifted their heads.
"...?"
One of the soldiers nearest the intercom pointed at it and asked.
"Looks like an intercom... should I pick this up?"
That had to be a survivor, no question. So then, do we answer it or not? I had to choose: live with the nuisance, or pretend we never heard it.
"Pick it up for now. But don't say a word — just lift the receiver."
Afraid the sound might leak out, the soldier carefully lifted only the receiver. And from it came a voice that indeed sounded like a survivor.
"Are you a rescue team?"
"..."
"Hello? Anybody here?"
The soldier holding the receiver floundered, clearly unsure what to do. I looked at him and held out my hand for it.
"First, we are not a rescue team. We're people from Korea, here because we need data as payment for a deal with the United States."
"C-couldn't you please help us? I'm begging you. We'll do anything. Please, just get us out of here..."
"Hoo... First, where are you right now?"
"We're currently in the B1 food warehouse."
"Your number, and your condition?"
"Most of us are in decent shape. As for number... there are eleven of us total, including myself."
"How did you know we were here?"
There was no way they'd heard the helicopter. We'd flown at a fairly high altitude to keep zombies from swarming, so there was even less chance anyone underground had heard it.
"The truth is... the electrical supply room is adjacent to the food warehouse. At some point, I saw the signal that the server room door had opened and the power had come on, so I tried calling."
"..."
When I didn't respond, the man on the other end grew visibly more desperate.
"Please...!"
"Calm down for now. We'll talk it over among ourselves and then contact you. What's the extension number there?"
"Yes, the number is..."
The line went dead, and we fell into silence. After all, we'd come here with a lighthearted attitude far removed from any notion of a rescue operation.
"..."
"Rep, what do we do about this?"
"Haah... if we'd never known, then fine... but leaving them behind just feels wrong... what's our situation?"
"Right now every soldier is in good condition. And the chopper has the capacity to carry all of us and them."
"Heh, let's just call it doing one good deed. If we leave them behind for no reason, I feel like we'll be haunted by nightmares."
"Rep, I say this just out of concern, but you are the group's Representative. And we are soldiers who follow orders."
"Good grief... is this the moment where I'm supposed to be touched?"
"Haha, I'm just saying."
The problem was that we'd still have to fight through a huge number of zombies to reach B1. Theoretically, we could sprint at full speed down to B1 the same way we'd just done.
'The trouble is, we only know the layout from a map. We don't know what's waiting along the route...'
The survivors might have barricaded the way for their own safety. And the instant anyone took one wrong step, a zombie could bite them and kill them.
'No, with those numbers, you'd be crushed to death, plain and simple.'
Honestly, the lives of every single person who'd been living and spending day after day beside me mattered more than those of total strangers. A thought suddenly struck me, and I gathered them all.
"How many grenades do we have on us right now?"
"Three per person, thirty-three in total."
"In that case..."
We decided to lure the zombies with noise. We would tie all thirty-three grenades together, pull the pins, and immediately hurl the bundle far away. It couldn't be too far or too close — it had to be thrown so that the explosion carried clearly. Under my direction, the soldiers bound the bodies of the grenades together and then carefully tied the safety pins together as well.
"Rep, pulling this cord will yank every safety pin at once."
"Hooo..."
The target was the open lot where the food trucks were gathered for the event. It was visible from the window here, and if we were lucky, a chain explosion reaching the trucks would create an enormous noise.
"I'm throwing. Everyone cover your ears."
— Ping! Whoooosh!!
The moment the safety pins came free, I hurled the bundle of thirty-three grenades. The impact of the grenades knocking together loosened the cord, and they began scattering under the trucks and among the zombies.
— BOOM!!! Bang!!! Bang!!!
After several seconds of colossal explosions, we heard the zombies scream — loud enough to make the building ring. And then the footsteps of countless zombies streaming out of the building felt almost like an earthquake.
The soldier who'd witnessed the enormous blasts muttered to himself.
"Never thought I'd live to see that many grenades go off at once..."
"It looks like most of the zombies have cleared out. Everyone has suppressors mounted, right?"
"Yes, they're kept mounted at all times as a basic rule."
"We don't know when those bastards might swarm back in, so let's go down fast and clean. Speed is everything."
"Understood. All soldiers, CQB formation!"
We spaced ourselves at regular intervals, covering every direction, and made our way down the stairs.
"Seems like those explosions earlier were pretty damn effective."
"Sure looks that way."
Where the horde of zombies had been, not a single one that had crammed the corridor remained now. Except for the occasional cry from inside a lab room, it felt like every last one had gone outside.
Aside from the parking garage, B1 was the lowest level. When we arrived, a large steel door barred the way. The Special Forces Commander knocked carefully on it.
— Thump. Thump. Thump...
"We're the people from the server room."
— Clunk...
We heard the electronic lock release and stepped inside. Just as expected, there were eleven survivors — none of them showing any signs of malnutrition. Seeing multiple people walk in, some clasped their hands and prayed, while others went limp and slumped to the floor, beginning to sob.
"Truly... truly, thank you... I will most certainly repay this kindness..."
"Hoo, calm down, first."
"At the very end, we had genuinely considered trying to fight our way through those things..."
Once they'd regained a measure of composure, I asked them.
"A fairly long time has passed since the apocalypse broke out. How did you hold out?"
"It was a blessing in utter misfortune... we..."
In anticipation of the large crowds the event would draw, they said they'd received a food supply delivery far larger than usual.
"So most of you are cooks, then?"
"No. Every one of us here is a researcher."
"How did researchers end up in a food warehouse...?"
"We had a bit of free time, so we were heading out as a team to look around the event. Then everything broke loose, and we frantically gathered in here. The people normally assigned here... probably went to the restaurant to prep the event food and then..."
Looking around, I saw large quantities of food boxes and cans piled in the corner. And judging by how many were already eaten, that huge stockpile was on the very brink of running out.
"If you're researchers...?"
"I am the director of this facility and a physicist — Edwin Kalliger."
"You're the director?"
"Yes. And as you can see, we've been trapped, so we had no way of knowing how the situation outside has been unfolding..."
It looked like filling them in on everything would take far too long, so I gave them a rough summary of the nations whose governments still survived and the overall state of things outside.
"I see... So you stopped here for the research data."
The thought that the research data they had accumulated all this time was being taken made his expression grow a little regretful. But the fact that the emotion wasn't anger or displeasure made it clear this man was a researcher to the core.
'I've met the type now and then... craftsmen who never involved themselves with factionalism or politics, devoting themselves solely to research and creation...'
Suddenly, I recalled what they'd said about repaying us. I'd have to ask their intentions, but if it worked out, they would be a tremendous help to our village.