In the Raging Tide
Maybe the mannequins we'd strewn across the entrance were doing their job. Inside, it was quieter than I'd expected—quiet, at least, beside the living hell the streets had become.
BOOOOM! BOOM!
CRASH—clang! Crack! Crunch!
KABOOOOOM!
The city was coming apart. A massive department store sat right beside the building, so I felt it all the more keenly; even with Echo Sonar switched off, the sound of its glass walls blowing out still hammered in my ears.
For the first time, I was afraid of the zombies. The dead had fused into a single colossal organism and were swallowing the city whole. Other hunters might already have been swept up in it. But not now.
This isn't the time to worry about anyone else.
The building's interior was heaving in the same tide. Thud-thud-thud-thud! From every direction came the sound of doors and furniture being smashed—crack, snap, crunch.
Good thing I scoped out that cabinet.
The cabinet was the only reason we'd lasted this long. I'd thought of the hiding trick back when I was watching the footage: stay silent, and maybe we could hide just like this. And look at that—it worked. Not that we were perfectly safe.
Thud. Crack! The zombies were wandering straight over us, stepping on the cabinet as they went. It was sturdy enough not to crumple, thankfully, but every time they did, Yoo Sia flinched in my arms.
Having thoughts like these in a moment this desperate was a little much. Nnngh. The softness pressed against me was becoming a serious problem.
She seemed to feel it too. She shifted, trying to change position, but the space was so tight there was only so far she could go. I patted her shoulder—just hold on a little longer—and she gave up and went slack.
She's a bit heavy.
Say that out loud and I'd get hit, wouldn't I? The weight couldn't be helped. Her gear weighed a great deal.
She walks around wearing all this?
Being a woman, it must have been even harder on her.
Huh?
As if the same thought had struck her, Sia stowed her weapon and shield in her subspace bag, and then the thick riding jacket and the helmet after them.
W-wait, wait—
Something gave with a soft pop, and what I could feel grew softer still.
Oh my god.
At this rate I was going to get way too strong....
Not even moonlight reached inside the cabinet. I couldn't see a thing—which meant I had no choice but to focus on the sensation!
Our Father, who art in heaven....
I recited the Lord's Prayer, desperately trying to ignore it.
Namu Amitabha, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara....
I even chanted scripture. A dramatic interfaith reconciliation between Christianity and Buddhism. The emergency called for nothing less.
I jerked.
A sudden touch made me shudder, and Sia gave my shoulder a light tap. Then she traced something onto my chest with a finger.
Am I heavy?
How was I supposed to answer that? I couldn't exactly put my hands on her to write back. One wrong move and it'd be clink-clink—straight into cuffs?
Is this Sia's scheme?!
A ploy to wipe the Ghost Boots debt!
Don't want to end up in a cell? Then let's nicely pretend none of this ever happened. That could be it!
No. Have I taken this too far?
Try to think about anything else, and every stray thought I owned came crawling out.
Are you okay?
This counted as force majeure, right? She asked, so I was answering?
Instead of an answer, I gave her back the lightest pat.
She flinched.
You ask, and then you flinch—what am I supposed to do with that? Your Honor, I really was trying to stay perfectly still.
Desperate as the situation was, the peculiar circumstances let even the tension drain away, and time passed. About three hours went by like that. The wave outside, of course, still hadn't stopped.
Grrgle.
Sia's stomach growled, and she sucked in a startled breath.
She'd be hungry. Amplify the body like that and the energy burn had to be enormous, and all she'd eaten was a cup of ramen.
Food was one thing. Sleep was impossible too. Drift off and let a single breath come out too loud, and it was obvious how that ended. So we'd had no choice but to lie there stacked together, wide awake and stone sober.
Don't think about it. Don't think about it.
I sang the national anthem in my head. Please don't let this be my last act of patriotism.
Another three hours passed after that.
We could probably head out soon.
The inside of the building had been quiet for a long while. The zombies had all moved on. Outside didn't seem finished yet, but—
Even so, we ought to be able to slip out now.
I activated Echo Sonar to check. No gurgling cries.
"Sia."
"Yes..."
"I think we can leave now."
"Haa, finally.... But how do we get out?"
"Ah?"
Right. I'd only been thinking about staying alive. I hadn't spared a thought for how to actually get out. Sia kept silent too, apparently drawing a blank of her own.
"Ah."
"What? Did you think of something?"
I had. A method had come to me. The thing was—
"It's, um."
"What is it? Just say it."
"This is purely a way to escape. There is absolutely no other meaning."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, so hurry up and tell me."
Nnngh.
"You and I hold on tight and roll sideways."
It wouldn't be easy, but there was no other way.
"Ugh..."
Sia sounded just as cornered. It wasn't like I wanted to do this either.
Probably.
"Can't be helped. Let's try."
"Right. Put your gear back on first. You could get hurt while we're rolling."
"Okay."
Once she was geared up again—
"I'm dressed."
She whispered it, embarrassed.
Don't whisper!
"All right. Starting."
Locked tight in an embrace with Sia—
"One, two, three!"
We rolled hard from left to right.
Clunk.
"Oh. This might actually work?"
Still not enough, though.
"We need more rebound. The second we roll one way, roll straight back the other."
"Got it. Let's try."
Embracing tight again. Roll left!
Clunk.
Then right—
The cabinet swayed.
"One more!"
Rattle—
CRASH!
"Ghk—!"
"Aah—!"
The rocking cabinet finally flipped, and the impact was absorbed, in full, by my back.
"Jaeha, are you okay?"
"Yes. I'm just going to lie here a second."
"Th-then I'll step out for now."
"Right."
Sia scrambled out of the cabinet in a hurry.
Whew. I lived.
In more ways than one.
I emerged plastered in medicated pain patches, and—
Something smells amazing!
Sia was boiling something.
And I was hungry anyway.
The building was quiet, but outside was still loud. Eat in the meantime, and it would probably die down. I sat a little ways off.
"Are you... okay?"
"Yes."
The awkwardness hanging between us was hard to sit through.
"So what are you making?"
"Kimchi stew."
"What? Actual kimchi stew?"
You could cook kimchi stew inside the Tower?
Sia lifted the lid of a small pot.
"Ooh."
Kimchi stew was bubbling away.
"It's the packaged kind. I only added canned ham."
"Aha. Where'd you get it?"
I'd never even heard of anything like that on Hunter Gallery. Cup ramen alone was rare enough.
"You can find these at the mid-sized marts on the second floor. Anything smaller than that doesn't carry them."
A mart of that size couldn't have been easy to clear.
"So it's a pretty rare item, then?"
"Hehe. It is."
Sia smiled, proud of herself. Fair enough. It couldn't have been an ordinary difficulty.
"It's ready."
"Thanks for the meal."
Bubbling kimchi stew, with instant rice on the side. A rather luxurious meal.
We're not eating apart this time?
I stole a glance at Sia while we ate. Her face was only faintly visible in the dark, moonlight tracing the delicate line of it.
Sia might actually be seriously pretty....
Once the meal was done, we made a plan.
"How about we cross the road again first?"
"Let's. This place is dangerous."
Whatever else, we couldn't keep farming here. The spot was wrapped in roads on every side. Make one loud noise and the zombies would come swarming.
"Then how about around here?"
The shopping street across the road. It looked good for farming, too.
"I thought that place looked good as well."
Same eye for these things, as expected.
"Shall we head back to our base first, then clear our way over to this side slowly?"
"Sounds good."
We checked our gear for a moment.
"Shall we head out, then?"
A nod.
We left the building quietly.
Whoa....
The city had been smashed to pieces. Not only the structures we'd passed through—building walls, abandoned vehicles, street trees and lampposts, the sidewalk pavers and the asphalt itself all bore the scars.
We're going to have to be careful.
The real problem was the debris catching our feet with every step. One mistake and we'd go tumbling. And if that happened—
I dropped low enough to plant my nose in the ground and focused hard, setting one foot down, then the next. In that suffocating tension, a crossing that should have taken ten seconds took us three minutes.
"Grrrrk."
"Gwooooh."
We slipped past zombies packed shoulder to shoulder and made for the base.
I might actually live.
The roads were the most dangerous part, but the shopping street was no joke either. The moment an aggro chain started, the ones sleeping inside the buildings would come pouring out too.
"Let's clear that building first."
"Right."
We couldn't skip a single one. Leave them because it was a hassle, and our way out would get cut off. At least a lot of the buildings were already sealed shut. Small mercy.
I slipped into a jokbal joint—a pig's-trotter restaurant—and the moment I did—
Thock!
I caught the one about to drop and eased it to the floor.
Crack!
Sia dropped one too.
Hm?
Something was off with her. She'd just stopped dead. What was she doing? I triggered Echo Sonar, but there were no zombies nearby.
"Sia, is something wrong?"
"I... got a skill!"
"Ooh! What is it?"
"Stealth Strike!"
Stealth Strike
"Finally!"
This would make us safer, and clearing would get easier too. That much less of a drain on concentration.
"Thank you. It's because you told me. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't even have known a skill like this existed."
"Hmm. Was it that much?"
I'd told her how I'd come by it, sure, but the conditions didn't seem all that steep.
"Of course it was! I hadn't gotten it until now either."
True enough. If the method had been simple, she would have picked it up ages ago.
"But what are the exact conditions?"
"Maybe because you need an axe like this?"
That sounded plausible. The axe I'd lent her was an E-grade Sturdy Hand Axe—powerful enough to pop a zombie's skull in a single blow, and quiet enough that it didn't make much noise. An item meeting those conditions wouldn't be easy to come by.
"Here. Thanks for letting me use it."
"You too."
Now that she'd gotten the skill, we swapped weapons again.
"Want me to tell you how I got my skills, too?"
"Oh, please!"
If it was Sia, she probably had plenty of good ones.
"You fight a zombie horde head-on and win. You'd probably have to take them down alone, though."
"Ah. That's a no."
I refused on the spot. It wasn't as if I had a skill like her Adrenaline.
We were deep in that talk about how to actually acquire skills when—
A glint.
"Oh!"
I'd found an item under the work counter.