Chapter 21. Plans for the Future and the Word of Power.
Chapter 21. Plans for the Future and the Word of Power.
"Wait— just wait!!! I'll give you everything here, just spare my—"
—Shhk.
The moment his head tumbled, the battle was over. I could see the ones who had already fled in terror, and the ones who had thrown down their weapons and surrendered.
Come to think of it, I haven't seen that bastard Choi Jae-hyeok since before the fighting even started.
"Chaeyeon, get the civilians together outside. Jia, keep a perimeter watch, just in case."
Hmm. The prisoners are the problem. I'll have to discuss this with the department store people first.
I herded the prisoners into one spot, put up a barrier to prevent escape or resistance, and contacted the department store group.
It's true that a group grows stronger the bigger it gets, but the problem is that the department store isn't an ideal place for long-term living. Even now, the department store people are using the motel attached next door for sleeping quarters.
The motel's nearly at full capacity, too.
Just as I was about to head back into the hospital, I spotted Choi Jae-hyeok walking out from the opposite side.
"As expected... the people here stood no chance against you."
"Why did you stay in the hospital? With this much chaos, you had a window to run."
"I'm not even an Awakened. If I ran, how long do you think I'd survive?"
"Then what's your reason for showing yourself now?"
"To put it simply... I thought a clean, painless death would beat getting torn apart by zombies."
He was lying. The look in his eyes was nothing like a man weighing death. There was no resignation, no fear, no despondency in that gaze.
"You're pretty calm for a man making that claim."
"Truth is, I want to live. Who wants to die? That's why I didn't run. I waited. Because I felt that if I stayed by your side, I'd survive longer than with any other faction."
"So you're negotiating for your life."
"No. It isn't a negotiation. It's a request. To be precise, not a simple request— an entreaty."
There were people like this on Titan, too. Opportunists who clung to life by swapping masters depending on which way the wind blew.
"I won't make this call on my own. My group's opinion is the top priority."
"Just the fact that you aren't killing me this very moment is acceptable enough."
He glanced at the corpses scattered across the floor and went on.
"At the very least, I'll have lived one day longer than all of them."
* * * * * * * *
The department store people I'd contacted arrived, leading a sizable contingent of troops. Just as we'd arranged, they came with plenty of supplies and vehicles to transport people.
The soldiers who got out of the cars— and Seo Ji-hoon along with them— were speechless at the horrific sight before them, momentarily frozen.
"So Mr. Cheon's words weren't empty talk at all..."
"I'll give you the full details once we're back and everyone's gathered."
They loaded people onto the trucks and hauled away supplies. This was a hospital, so there were more medical supplies than I'd expected. We didn't have a doctor among us right now, but we took all the drugs anyway, just in case something went wrong.
Once we arrived back at the department store, we reported everything that had happened up to now to the survivors. Just as I'd figured, the regime here had been coercive— beatings if you couldn't pull your weight. What came as a surprise was their relatively generous assessment of Choi Jae-hyeok.
He'd had enough sense not to openly take their side, but he had apparently looked the other way on certain things, and he'd occasionally slipped them a little extra food besides.
For a man in his position, finessing the account books a bit wouldn't have been any trouble at all.
Then we gathered again and began a meeting to decide Choi Jae-hyeok's fate, and the opinions split more sharply than I'd expected.
Some opposed him because of the group he'd belonged to. Others argued for a degree of extenuating circumstances, citing his competence at holding a high position as a non-Awakened and the survivors' own testimony. As the gap between the two stances refused to narrow, they all turned their eyes to me— the one who'd brought him back alive.
"My position is that I think bringing this man into the group is fine."
"You handled the whole thing yourself, so I can't really object, but wouldn't it be dangerous?"
No matter how ferocious a beast, it can't challenge a lion. And if it's not a lion, but a dragon? What they were worried about wasn't me. It was the risk of cracks forming in the faction for no good reason.
"What if I told you there was a method that was one hundred percent safe?"
"Mr. Cheon, is that possible? If it is, there'd be zero risk."
"Showing you will be more convincing than telling you. Bring him in."
A few minutes later, the soldiers brought him in. The moment he entered, he scanned the faces in the room and spoke.
"Has a decision finally been reached on my disposition?"
"Yes. Make yourself useful, and I won't care one bit about whatever past you have. Do not lie to our people, and do not cause them harm— indirectly or directly."
"Heh. What, do you want me to write a written oath or something?"
"No. A single word, spoken in oath, will be enough."
"Is that really enough? It's not as if I can't do something that simple, but..."
"That one word alone is sufficient."
"「I swear.」"
The moment he answered, a rippling aura flowed from my hand into the spot where his heart was. He flinched in shock for a second.
"Your name is Choi Jae-hyeok, correct? If you're curious, go ahead and try telling a lie."
He considered it for a moment, then spoke a falsehood.
"No."
As soon as the words left his mouth, he clutched his heart, cried out in pain, and collapsed into a heap. When I pulled the energy back into myself, he opened his eyes again.
"Keh-ke-ke... the price for satisfying my curiosity was steep. I now understand exactly what you meant, Mr. Cheon. But what precisely did you do to me?"
"This is the Word Spirit. However trivial they seem, words carry power. I made you an offer, and you swore an oath with your own mouth. That act is no different from signing an invisible contract of your own free will. A contract with exceptionally strong enforcement."
He nodded. Then, at my gesture, the soldiers escorted him back out.
"You've all seen it now. Do you think this is sufficient?"
"After you've done this much for us, withholding belief would just be stupid."
"Actually, there's something I'd like to propose to all of you."
At my words, everyone looked curious. I rarely interjected during their discussions; I usually preferred to just observe.
"We have too many people. The motel we sleep in is already over capacity, and scavenging for food in the city center is riddled with problems. There's no guarantee we won't keep getting more people, either. So I want us to relocate somewhere with land suitable for farming, aiming to become at least partially self-sufficient."
We weren't a group numbering in the thousands, and we weren't trying to run some massive agricultural operation. We just needed open ground with decent sightlines and a bit of soil. The city center, packed dense with buildings, is extremely vulnerable to invasion and infiltration.
"Sihu, I get what you mean, but don't you think this is a little sudden?"
"I know what the old man is worried about. The cultists are still out there, and I'm not saying we do this right this instant. But if we look to the future, food's going to run short eventually, and there's a limit to how much we can keep scavenging by ourselves."
"Also... as you've all probably felt, we need more firepower. So I'm thinking— what about visiting the military base in Gyeryong, since it's the closest one to Daejeon?"
"Indeed... as Mr. Cheon says, if we can resupply from a military base, transport helicopters become a real option. Especially since we have soldiers among us who can pilot them."
"It's true, like you said— if resupplying is doable, then the problems of firepower and transport get solved in one fell swoop."
"Yes, and the intersection in front of the department store is big enough for takeoffs and landings."
Honestly, the issue of operating firearms hadn't even crossed my mind. There's a joke in South Korea that you could dump a single tank in the middle of a busy district and have it moving in under an hour. Besides, most of our people here are soldiers who escaped from their bases.
"First, for the time being, please compile the specialties of the soldiers and the men who've completed their service, and also find out what kind of work they did in civilian life."
In a situation like this, the most critical assets are doctors and technicians. The system for ongoing maintenance has collapsed, and even a minor wound carries a high risk of death.
"Sorry to interrupt all of a sudden, but I can operate a helicopter as well."
Come to think of it, Mr. Chu Seong-geun had said he was a soldier back in the day— deployed overseas, even. But I hadn't known he could fly a helicopter.
"Let's set the military base issue aside for now. The biggest problem is those cultists. If the bulk of our troops leaves, those bastards will hit us for sure."
"As Mr. Cheon says, we'll have to settle things with them one way or another... because those bastards won't even talk, let alone negotiate."
"Actually, on the way to Daejeon, I once heard stories from other survivors. They said those bastards somehow track down survivors who are in hiding, put them at ease, and then carry them off."
"Then...?"
"Yes. The method is to send a small number of people out and make them come find us themselves."
"Looking at you, Mr. Cheon, I don't doubt it'd be safe— but they're an extremely paranoid bunch."
"I've done infiltration like this before. Never thought I'd be doing it again, though."
"In that case, how specifically do you intend to infiltrate?"
"To be honest, on the way here, I had a conversation with that bastard Choi Jae-hyeok once."
They were startled that the idea had originated with Choi Jae-hyeok, and Seo Ji-hoon immediately ordered the people outside to bring him back in.