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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Xrecker
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When I returned to the boarding house, Soo-hyun was waiting outside.
“Oppa, the inline skaters are in my room.”
“Your room?”
I told them to put them in the rooftop room.
Soo-hyun nodded and explained, “Yeah, they were completely beaten up, how could they climb the stairs? I told them to stay in my room. It’s pretty cramped with six people in there.”
Hmm.
The stairs.
It would be difficult.
Soo-hyun smiled and patted my butt. “I put my clothes and things in your room. I’ll be imposing on you for a while.”
“Sure. But…”
I glanced behind me.
The elderly woman was standing outside the gate, staring blankly into space.
Soo-hyun asked in surprise, “Who is she?”
Hmm.
How should I explain this?
Looking at the elderly woman…
…I couldn’t find the words to describe her.
She looked lifeless, devoid of any will to live.
I turned back to Soo-hyun.
And shook my head slightly.
Soo-hyun didn’t say anything.
She just nodded a couple of times, smiled, took the elderly woman’s hand, and led her inside.
“Come in. It’s hot outside, isn’t it?”
“…Where… am I…? I should… go home…”
…Tsk…
I leaned closer to Soo-hyun and whispered, “Take her up to the rooftop room.”
Soo-hyun looked at the elderly woman and me with a troubled expression. “Oppa, what are you going to do? There are already too many people in the house. What should we do?”
I had already thought about that on the way back.
I whispered, “Don’t worry, I have a plan. Where’s Hoon?”
“Ah, he’s in his house. He went back as soon as he heard the baby crying.”
“Okay. Go upstairs. I’ll talk to Hoon.”
“Okay.”
I watched Soo-hyun lead the elderly woman upstairs, then knocked on Hoon’s door.
After a moment, he opened the door. “Oh, sir. What a mess. They’re all in Soo-hyun’s room.”
“Yes, I heard. Can we talk for a moment?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hoon gestured reassuringly towards the inside of his house, nodded, and then closed the door behind him as he came out.
“What did you want to talk about, sir?”
I sighed and said, “The house is getting cramped. You know that single-family house across the street? I’m going to clear it out.”
Hoon’s eyes widened as he nodded. “Oh, that’s a good idea.”
I nodded and said, “I’ll rest for a bit and then take care of it. Would you mind helping me move the bodies later? Stay here, don’t go anywhere.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll be here.”
“Yes. I’ll see you later. Ah, and I’m sorry, but…”
“Yes, sir.”
I cleared my throat and said quietly, “Those inline skating club members, they’re probably out of food. Could you ask your wife to help them out?”
Hoon frowned and waved his hand dismissively, as if it were the most natural thing to do. “Don’t worry about that at all, sir. We owe you a lot, it’s the least we can do. Just let us know if you need anything.”
I smiled.
Hmm.
Bringing him here was a good decision.
He was a diligent worker, and his wife had a good personality.
I smiled, patted Hoon’s shoulder, and went upstairs.
My Accelerate wasn’t fully recharged yet.
I’d smoke a cigarette on the rooftop while I waited.
The sunlight on the rooftop felt quite warm.
The inline skaters were probably downstairs, treating the men’s injuries, applying medicine and bandages, and the elderly woman was in my rooftop room, lifeless and lost.
This wasn’t the right time to enjoy the sunlight.
But what could I do?
The warm sunlight felt good.
I lit a cigarette, leaned against the rooftop railing, and looked at the scenery.
Ah, this was nice.
It felt like a waste to just lie around in my room, waiting for Accelerate to recharge.
There were two reasons why I was doing this on the rooftop.
First, the horde of human beasts I saw on YouTube. I was worried they might appear somewhere.
And second, to see if a group of starving survivors would come.
I walked around the rooftop, basking in the sunlight, and leisurely smoked my cigarette.
Nothing happened.
Except for the occasional screams echoing from somewhere, the streets seemed no different from usual.
I wondered what those survivors, the ones who beat people up for food, were doing now.
If they recklessly attacked other stores, they would be bitten by the human beasts inside and cause a chain reaction.
Then chaos would erupt, and screams would fill the air like a concert.
I didn’t hear any such screams.
Just occasional echoes from somewhere.
Why?
They couldn’t possibly have guns.
If they did, they would have been able to go outside on their own.
But those people were only able to go outside after receiving food from the inline skating club.
It was hard to imagine they had weapons.
Then were they armed with kitchen knives or something?
…There was no way to know.
Once they realized there was nothing left at the milk store where the inline skating club was staying, they would look for other options.
Then their target would be small stores.
But based on my experience, even the smallest stores had two or three human beasts inside.
Human beasts were ferocious.
They were fast.
They didn’t care if their limbs were torn off or if they were fatally injured.
There was no way to stop them with just a kitchen knife.
How could you stop something that would lunge at you and bite, regardless of whether it was stabbed?
This wasn’t a fantasy novel or a martial arts story. Doing acrobatic flips and hitting pressure points was practically impossible in real life.
Moreover, these weren’t rational humans; they were human beasts that attacked indiscriminately. For ordinary people to wander around with kitchen knives against them was suicide.
If that were possible, the world’s militaries wouldn’t have been so helpless.
In other words, the survivor group that received help from the inline skating club wasn’t raiding unfamiliar stores.
That was the only explanation.
…Which meant…
…they knew.
About me.
They must have seen the pile of burned bodies that the inline skating club had gathered, and they knew who created it, and how the supermarket became safe.
They must have heard it from the inline skating club members.
And they knew which houses were safe to receive food from, and which houses were infected.
They would hear growls if they passed by.
…This was tricky.
What should I do about them?
I didn’t care if they got bitten and turned into human beasts somewhere, or rather, it would be beneficial for me if they did.
I could kill them and level up.
But wasting Accelerate on these humans, who didn’t even give me experience, was annoying, and they were a nuisance in many ways.
I wasn’t…
…a savior.
I had no reason or desire to feed all these people.
The number of people I was taking care of had increased significantly, but I didn’t want it to increase any further.
Besides, these were the people who beat up the inline skating club members, who I was starting to like.
There was even less reason to help them.
Then, since I didn’t want to waste Accelerate or help them, my only option was to ignore them.
Damn it, this was inconvenient.
They should have just stayed home and starved to death, why did those overly kind inline skating club members have to make things so complicated?
…It wasn’t their fault.
Seriously.
I could just ignore them.
Oh? They’re starving to death over there?
Then like this, like me.
I lowered the corners of my mouth and shrugged.
It meant, “So what?”
It was my signature gesture.
Like this.
Oh? Starving to death?
Oh dear, what a shame.
Not my problem.
Like that, while saying that.
Shrug.
Like Marie Antoinette, who was rumored to have said, “Let them eat cake,” when told the people had no bread.
Shrug.
“Oppa, what are you doing?”
Shru-
Hmm.
Cough.
“Ah, my shoulder is stiff.”
I casually rotated my shoulders and turned around.
Soo-hyun frowned at me, then chuckled.
“I’m going downstairs to help Ye-eun with the food preparations. Keep an eye on the ahjumma.”
“Mmm. How is she doing?”
Soo-hyun gave me a troubled look and shook her head.
It seemed like communication was difficult.
“Okay.”
I nodded and went into the rooftop room.
The elderly woman was sitting there quietly.
That… the way women sat, with their knees together and bent to the side, it looked uncomfortable, but it also looked quite elegant.
…Not so elegant on an elderly woman, though.
I grabbed a 500ml bottle of cider from the refrigerator, opened it, and plopped down on the blankets.
Clang, the scabbards bumped against each other.
“Hoo.”
Gulp, gulp.
Ah, refreshing.
I glanced to the side, and the elderly woman was staring blankly at the wall.
…She looked like…
…she couldn’t accept the reality of the apocalypse.
Ahjumma, this was the apocalypse.
The world you knew was long gone.
I wanted to tell her that.
“What did you do before all this, ahjumma? Were you a housewife?”
The elderly woman blinked slowly and mumbled, “…It’s over now… now…”
This was frustrating.
She looked about the same age as my mother.
“Have you been able to contact your children?”
No response.
I took another sip of cider and said, “I can’t contact mine either. My parents, my younger sister, my friends. I can’t reach any of them.”
Flick.
I lit a cigarette.
“But I’ll keep looking. I won’t believe they’re dead until I see it with my own eyes.”
The elderly woman blinked slowly.
I continued, “Aren’t you curious if your children are alive or dead? If they were bitten or died, then they’re dead. But they might be alive.”
The elderly woman still didn’t respond.
I understood why Soo-hyun looked so troubled.
It felt like I was talking to a wall.
I clicked my tongue.
“Those people were awful. Why did they beat up those nice kids like that? They even gave them food. That’s so annoying.”
The elderly woman slowly turned to look at me.
“…How are… they…?”
…Oh.
Could we finally have a conversation?
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