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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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The 4-story research facility was the tallest building in this area.
Moreover, instead of a simple iron bar railing on the rooftop, they had built a wall about as high as my chest. I had gone around and checked all the surrounding buildings, and I couldn’t see what was happening on the research facility’s rooftop at all.
“This should be safe enough.”
That meant the three of us could rest and wander around on the rooftop as much as we wanted.
In a time like this, where the gendarmerie glare at you in the human protected zones, and zombies leisurely stroll through the wheat fields in the unprotected zones, ‘basking in the sun without worrying about anyone’s eyes’ was a truly great luxury.
Of course, we had to worry about zombie birds, but since they formed large flocks and were noisy, it was harder not to notice them, so we could just avoid them.
And now, I was laying a large plastic sheet on the rooftop. I placed bricks on the corners to spread it out, and then tilted the flowerpots we had brought from the surrounding private homes and buildings to pour out the soil.
Because it had been neglected for a long time, it had hardened, and there was no moisture. I broke up the clumped parts by tapping them with a shovel and cleared away the dead plant leaves.
Camilla brought another flowerpot, and Cassandra brought a petri dish. Camilla, like I had done, broke up the soil from the pot and spread it widely on the plastic sheet, and Cassandra took some soil and put it in the petri dish.
With the three of us working together, the job was finished quickly. I brushed off my hands and headed for the shade next to the water tank room located in the middle of the rooftop. I flopped down on the sunbed I had set up in advance.
“It feels like we’re at the beach.”
As I muttered in a small voice, Camilla burst out laughing.
“Want to go to the resort by the lake? It’s pretty nice there in the evening.”
By ‘by the lake,’ she meant the Liberation Army training facility that we had used as a base camp before coming here.
“There was a resort too?”
“Of course, there is. If you go up a little more from there, there’s a resort for the rich. A place they usually keep empty and come to enjoy on weekends or holidays.”
If we could sunbathe like this there too, I thought it wouldn’t be bad. The white bikini that had been in the carrier came to mind. I was sure it would look pretty.
“Let’s go.”
“Huh? Now?”
Cassandra, who had been half-dozing, woke up with a start.
“Not now. We have to till the field first. By the way, are you getting any sleep?”
“I’m getting enough sleep.”
But with a woman who was yawning languidly and had dark circles under her eyes saying that, I couldn’t trust her at all.
“Cassandra has to finish her work quickly…”
But Cassandra couldn’t even finish her sentence and fell fast asleep.
Camilla whispered.
“See. It was a good idea to bring her, right?”
Once it became certain that we had to stay here for a while, we had to prepare a lot of things. The most urgent problems were food and water.
Actually, I wasn’t too worried about water.
First of all, there was a large water tank on the roof of the building. Even if the electricity didn’t work, it was just that hot water wouldn’t come out because the hot water boiler wasn’t running, but there was no problem with the supply.
It had a faint chemical smell because disinfectant had been sprayed to prevent it from spoiling, but that didn’t matter. If worse came to worst, we could just boil it and drink it. On top of that, with the bottled water and drinks we had brought from convenience stores and marts, we had enough hydration for the time being.
The key was food.
The vast majority of our food consisted of Kibele Corporation’s canned goods.
The problem was that these canned goods contained the hunger-inducing virus, so we couldn’t just eat them; they had to be cooked.
In this human unprotected zone where you get hungry just by breathing, this drawback felt even greater.
Most of all, they tasted terribly bad. They had to be cooked to a level almost close to reconstitution to become food that wouldn’t make you feel bad after eating.
On top of that, canned goods had a strong insurance-like nature. Weren’t they items that could be ‘eaten safely’ even in the worst-case scenario?
It became subtly uncomfortable each time we opened one. The kind of nagging feeling you get when you calculate how much has been deducted from your monthly subscription.
The decision to grow crops was for that reason. But we couldn’t just scoop up any soil. Because even the soil in this land was contaminated.
After some thought, we decided to prepare as many different types of soil as possible. From some flowerpot, from a wheat field, and there were also some sold in bags and sacks at a horticulture specialty store.
We decided to use half of these as they were, and to dry the other half in the sun to sterilize them, like now.
In the midst of that, Camilla deliberately dragged Cassandra out. It was because she wouldn’t leave the computer at all.
“But Cassandra has to finish this work quickly…”
Cassandra was still engrossed in the database search optimization work, so she wouldn’t listen at all. So I made this suggestion.
“Then can you determine which soil is the safest to grow plants in, or which is unsuitable? Since we’re experimenting anyway, I thought it would be better if we had an expert.”
“Well, Cassandra doesn’t know much about that area…”
“Maybe, you might be able to find a way to neutralize the hunger virus.”
“…Well. But…”
It seemed like she was about to say something, but Cassandra shook her head.
“Okay. I’ll help.”
And then she finally came out of the dark room and collapsed asleep on the warm rooftop.
Camilla, looking pitiful, gently supported Cassandra’s bent neck to make her comfortable.
“She barely sleeps at all.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Yeah. She keeps looking at her laptop and muttering. Sometimes she writes something down on paper. She’s so focused that she doesn’t answer well even when I call her. And why does she sweat so much…”
In fact, Cassandra was working while enduring all of Camilla’s harsh training.
It’s just that the harshness wasn’t focused on strength and endurance like it was for me and Camilla. It was about correcting the crooked posture from sitting at a desk too much.
So it wasn’t a matter of ‘grabbing a busy person and just draining their energy.’
How sad would it be to have forward head posture when the world is already going to ruin.
Cassandra was a person, and people need to rest. Even machines break down if you run them continuously. Camilla and I looked down proudly at Cassandra, who was sleeping, even snoring lightly.
But this leisure was also only for a moment.
“Camilla. Can you watch Cassandra for a bit? I’m going to go throw out the trash. It’s piled up a bit.”
“Give me a kiss before you go.”
I got up and kissed her. Camilla grabbed me by the collar and gently pulled me closer, asking.
“What color am I wearing today?”
“Forsythia?”
“Oh, you got it right?”
“It peeked out from your collar earlier when you bent over to empty the soil.”
“Pervert.”
Camilla laughed and kissed me on the cheek.
It was our own little game. If Camilla wore the underwear I had chosen, it meant let’s meet that night. If she didn’t, it meant she wanted to rest today.
Of course, as always, both of us would be fickle.
Mmm, Cassandra tossed and turned. I was startled and pulled away, but Camilla squeezed my butt firmly.
“Go on.”
I went downstairs and got my gear.
A silenced Glock 9mm pistol, and a silenced MP9 submachine gun that I hoped I wouldn’t have to use. A tactical vest with a water bottle and an energy bar, a balaclava, a backpack, the bundle of trash, and a cell phone.
Piling up trash was a crazy thing to do. Keeping it inside the building was a hygiene problem, and piling it up outside was no different from shouting, ‘people are living here, so hurry up and come and loot.’
So like this, I tied it firmly to both sides of the electric bicycle and abandoned it little by little on the street. To let it roll around on its own in the wind and rain.
Zombies standing at a distance approached me. Some even walked quickly, at a speed similar to running.
To those, I made a point of throwing a tightly balled-up tin can.
When they started bleeding from their foreheads and bodies with a thud, they would soon get into a fight with other zombies and try to eat each other.
I had already thrown out all the trash, but I deliberately rode my bicycle a little further. I needed to sort out my thoughts, and it was something I had to do without the two women knowing.
Cassandra was working with almost no sleep to find a cure and a vaccine. Camilla, while feeling sorry for Cassandra, couldn’t hide her subtle expectations.
At night, when we covered each other instead of a blanket, after comforting each other by lending our hands and bodies, Camilla would whisper softly.
“Johan. All of this will pass, right?”
“Of course.”
“It has to pass. These kinds of days can’t go on forever. It doesn’t make sense.”
But this world was ‘made that way.’ There was nothing related to a cure in the major update history of the Eruptor Protocol, and although I had installed some mods while half-asleep, I hadn’t installed anything related to a cure.
So Cassandra was just wasting her effort.
But the force that kept the people of this world, including Camilla and Cassandra, going, was hope. That one day all of this would pass, and they could go back to how things were before.
The fact that the catastrophe was confirmed was perhaps something that only I in this world knew.
Cassandra might, perhaps, find the answer. That this world could never get better. That the world had already completely changed.
Of course, Cassandra would not try to admit it. In that respect, she was stubbornly holding on. And I knew how and to what extent a smart person could go crazy if they became dogmatic.
Back when I was living alone, it was a matter of, ‘whatever,’ but now the situation was a little different. At least around me, I didn’t want something like that to happen.
So I had come to care for my women. But, just as they had things they couldn’t tell me, I also had things I couldn’t tell them.
It would be one thing if there was some distance, but in times like these, it was a little frustrating.
“What should I do?”
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In the end, I came this far.
A small village with about five houses. The houses had all burned down and collapsed, but in the midst of that, one armchair was relatively intact.
I sat on the chair, took out my phone, and sent a message.
– Are you busy?
5 minutes later, a call came. It was Leti. Thankfully, it wasn’t a video call. Strangely, whenever we had a video call, Leti would take off her top, which was often a bit troublesome.
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