The Campus Runs on My Sweat
I ended up inside a zombie apocalypse novel. For the past few days, I’ve been dragged around and worked like a dog. They needed someone with a strong stomach to scatter zombie corpses across the plaza, so I went. They told me to bring drum barrels because they planned to burn the useless plants that had overgrown everywhere, so I hauled those over too. They wanted to divide up the surrounding areas for zombie cleanup, which meant meeting with Professor Jeong Changhun. After that, I scattered the zombies we’d killed across the plaza, cleaned out the water tanks, and even lugged a speaker up the mountain just to yell “Yahoo!” from the summit. I literally ran around the campus and its outskirts without a single break. So I thought maybe, just maybe, people’s perception of me would shift a little. It didn’t. Not even a bit. I was still seen as the poor female student who’d barely survived death by zombie multiple times and suffered through every hardship imaginable. Kim Yeonhua and Lee Ayoung even looked at me with pity. Instead of suspecting me of being glued to Kang Siwoo all the time, they just patted me on the back and said, “Unnie, you’ve worked so hard.” It was as if they’d completely ruled out the possibility that I could ever date Kang Siwoo. Like, Ah, no need to worry about that older sister at all! That kind of vibe. It was a little depressing to be treated that way, but at least they weren’t wary of me. That was something to be grateful for.
“Ugh.”
It would be nice if their view of me changed in a more positive direction. Wouldn’t a girl-crush image be better than “the neighborhood idiot noona”? But that was that, and this was this, so I quietly finished off the zombie still twitching on the ground. With that, the cleanup around the lower Ha-dan 2-dong Community Service Center was complete. The path to the Nakdong River was now open, which meant we could naturally secure a water supply. From now on, we wouldn’t have to conserve water anymore. We could use as much as we wanted for farming.
And that wasn’t all. There were tons of apartment complexes nearby. Even though nearly two months had passed since the outbreak, there were bound to be plenty of survivors. If those survivors saw us coming to draw water from the Seunghak Campus? They’d obviously flock toward the campus area. And survivors inevitably produce more survivors—not in the literal sense, but in the sense that they’d spread word. If Kang Siwoo, Professor Jeong Changhun, and I worked together and just dispatched search teams, that would be enough. Train the students into elite soldiers, expand our forces, and even throw in some territory-building tropes. Done! Then I could live comfortably as the unshakable second-in-command, strutting around like I owned the place.
A fleeting ominous thought crossed my mind, but I pushed it down. Nah. Kang Siwoo treats me so well. The whole “kill the dog after the hunt” thing? No way. Where would they find another person like me? Ah, more importantly, my body was starting to feel unbearably hot.
“Siwoo~”
“Yes, Yeji?”
“I’m burning up right now.”
“There’s a river right ahead.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking!”
The Nakdong River was clear and pristine. We set our gear down and I dove right in without hesitation. Winter was approaching, so the water was icy cold, but that only made it better. My body temperature dropped instantly, washing away the aftermath of battle. I smiled as I watched the others dip their feet in. All of this was thanks to me and Noh Changhun. In the original story, there should have been a toad breeding ground near the Nakdong River by now. If that had happened, the water wouldn’t be this clean. It would have been murky and unpleasant to drink straight from. Zombies do care about their environment, but only when they don’t expect combat. Since Baron was aggressively expanding his territory, the toads would have been mass-produced. Those toads would have scoured the area for nutrients, bred like crazy, and gradually turned the water filthy. It was hilarious that zombies had a setting where they cared about the environment, but it made sense. They adopted all kinds of reproductive methods to survive. Realizing that shambling corpses had too many problems, they evolved rapidly to blend into the ecosystem. That’s why a clean environment benefited them, and later variants would even specialize in collecting only trash. Anyway, that wasn’t my concern right now. I just wanted to enjoy the clean, cold water.
“By the way, Yeji.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really need to hold my hand that tightly?”
“I can’t swim.”
“I came along because I suspected you couldn’t swim, but I didn’t think you’d be this bad at it.”
“Plus, my feet don’t even touch the bottom here. Ahaha…”
Kang Siwoo slowly flexed his arm, grabbed the riverbank, and pulled us both out. He hopped in place a few times to shake off the water, and suddenly every eye in the area locked onto us. I wondered what was going on, but at least it wasn’t pity this time, so I figured it was fine. I gathered our things, slung Beopbong over my shoulder with a solid smack, puffed out my chest, and surveyed the surroundings. Then I asked Kang Siwoo,
“So the remaining tasks are survivor rescue and resource procurement, right?”
“Pretty much. For the time being, I’ll have to go around with you, Yeji. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely! The radar’s turned off too, so it should be fine.”
“Good. Let’s head back early today and get some rest.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. All we need to do is return and select new personnel.”
As Kang Siwoo said, there really wasn’t much for me to do once we got back. No one tried to put me to work in the first place, which made it even better. I just relaxed in my room and passed the time. It was a relief that the campus was finally getting on track. The group that had barely numbered fifty people had now grown close to two hundred. The students who used to be a disorganized mess were starting to look like they’d actually learned how to fight. Everyone was assigned at least one simple task, and there were hardly any complaints from the community.
“Man, that guy really is competent.”
To prepare for any potential problems in advance, he’d even created an anonymous bulletin board. He selected representatives from each field and held meetings. On top of that, he recorded what happened on other boards and posted official notices. He was making full use of his ten years of experience. At this point, I couldn’t tell if this was a zombie apocalypse world or just a normal university community. And most satisfying of all was that he didn’t drag me into annoying tasks. Politics, theory, meetings—anything that required using my brain to talk with people, he kept me completely out of it. It wasn’t that he hid things from me. It was more like, “Yeji doesn’t like participating in that sort of thing, right?” In fact, Kang Siwoo would organize the agenda items separately and show them to me. If I had any thoughts or ideas, I should speak up, he said. It seemed he wanted the perspective of someone who wasn’t fully part of the group. Whenever I casually tossed out random opinions, he’d enthusiastically agree that they were good ideas.
“So yeah, it works out great for me.”
Finishing work early and resting was nice, but boredom was inevitable. There was no Wi-Fi, no entertainment. And I didn’t know many people here, so in situations like this, there wasn’t much I could do besides sleep. Since I hated that, I decided to move around for once and got up from the bed. Come to think of it, they’d cleaned up the gym that the physical education students used and reopened it. Kim Yeonhua had pestered me to work out with her sometime, so it should be open.
“Might as well go check it out.”
In a zombie apocalypse world, physical health was the most important thing. Zombies didn’t go easy on the weak or elderly, after all. Naturally, people had started exercising. That explained why the gym was so crowded. Plus, in this community, supplies were distributed first to those who worked. Even if it meant pedaling a bicycle-powered generator, you had to contribute to earn quality food.
Of course, I had no idea how to get there. But humans are social creatures. When I asked around, a female student happened to be heading that way, so I tagged along. Honestly, calling it a “gym” felt embarrassing. There were a few machines, but it looked like they’d just gathered whatever was available to make it seem complete. And it wasn’t even damaged during the outbreak—they’d just cleaned up equipment that had been locked away and abandoned. I’d expected better from a university physical education facility, but reality was disappointing as usual. Still, it wasn’t completely terrible. Everything necessary was there, and they’d laid out mats in place of the electric machines they’d removed. If the chance came later, it might be worth bringing in more equipment from an actual gym.
“Unnie!”
“Hey, Yeonhua.”
“Are you here to work out?”
“I was bored, so I just came to look around.”
“Ah…”
Kim Yeonhua let out a short sigh, clearly having hoped I’d come to exercise with her. I’d originally planned to just watch, but I had nothing else to do anyway. Plus, it was a good chance to get closer to her, so I smiled and said I’d appreciate her guidance.
“Then I’ll teach you a bunch of things, Unnie.”
“Thanks. By the way, where’s Ayoung?”
“She’ll probably be at the school library. She might come to work out later.”
“Really? Then I’ll be in your care today.”
“Of course, Unnie.”
Kim Yeonhua smiled warmly. Yeah, it would be so nice if we could all get along like this. She had no idea how much I’d suffered being caught in the middle of a harem rivalry when I wasn’t even interested. Anyway, hoping things would continue to go smoothly, I slowly picked out a suitable machine and started listening to her explanation.