—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A mart, quite far west of the research facility. The zombie was lying flat on its back, sleeping.
It even snored, drrrng, so it looked like it was having a good life. I wonder if it was because of the memories of its former life that it brought its hands to its stomach and even let out a long yawn.
“Of all places, why is it sleeping at the entrance of the mart?”
And inside a large, all-glass revolving door at that. I wondered what kind of nuisance it had been in its former life to be doing that even now that it was a zombie.
“Won’t it wake up?”
I pushed the revolving door and hit the zombie’s head and feet. But even then, it wouldn’t wake up at all. Well, they did say that when you become a zombie, your senses generally become dull.
If I shot it with a gun, the sound of the glass shattering would echo loudly, and if I tried to stab it with a stick with a knife tied to it or an axe, it would be blocked by the glass door wall.
The window?
No, that wouldn’t work. They had put up sturdy security bars, so I couldn’t break in. The side and rear doors marked [Staff Only] couldn’t be entered without a key.
So for a customer like me, there was no entrance other than the main door.
The last resort was to make a commotion.
All I had to do was make a ruckus loud enough for even a sleeping zombie to jump up. But then I would have to give up on today’s shopping. Because zombies would swarm in from all directions.
“Screw it.”
But there was no rule that said a ruckus had to be made only with sound.
I went back to the pickup truck. First, I chewed on a chocolate bar and drank some water. I got out with the canned tomato spaghetti and solid fuel I had brought for lunch today. I lit the fuel near the revolving door and put the opened can on top.
Kibele Corporation’s food was all so tasteless that it was at the level of ‘if you don’t want to die, you have to eat this,’ but that canned food was even grotesque. I couldn’t understand, on my level of common sense, how tomato paste could taste like an unripe eggplant.
“Grk!”
Behold. Wasn’t this a smell that would make even a sleeping zombie jump up? As if it were still half-asleep, the zombie kept sniffing, looking for the source of the smell. Then it discovered the bubbling can.
Clunk, the revolving door turned, and the zombie came out. It looked at the boiling can here and there. Then thud. It kicked it over.
“You’re going to spill the food?”
I quickly picked up 2 stones and threw them. One missed its mark and hit the mart wall, and the other hit the zombie’s torso.
Absurdly, the zombie did not look at me. Rather, it looked more interestingly at the stone that had hit its body and bounced off.
Since it wouldn’t fall for a taunt, it couldn’t be helped. I had no choice but to approach it.
The zombie was now fiddling with the tomato sauce and noodle strands covering the solid fuel. I walked over with an axe in my hand.
It heard my footsteps, looked at me and growled.
It jumped up and extended both hands toward me. I took a step back and swung the axe diagonally down. Because I had no intention of being hit by the splattering blood.
The axe cut through the zombie’s upper body and lodged in its left thigh. The zombie flinched. I pulled it out smoothly and plunged it into its right thigh. The zombie lost its balance and fell forward. I aimed for its neck and brought it down lightly.
Its head fell off. Even though it was a zombie’s face, it strangely looked peaceful. As if it were continuing the dream it couldn’t finish earlier.
I opened the mart door and stepped inside.
This was my fifth visit. The shelves were much emptier than when I had first come, and I had taken about half of the warehouse items.
If Camilla, Cassandra, and I had mobilized both vehicles, we probably could have transported the amount in about 3-4 days, but we had decided not to.
It was to disperse the risk.
The concentration of Limos, the hunger-inducing virus, was on the lower side in this area. It meant that although we felt a chronic hunger, it wasn’t at the level of ‘if I don’t eat something, I’m going to die.’
Rather, it was at a level that stimulated one to move, saying, ‘I’m hungry, so I should find something to eat.’ In this kind of environment, not only zombies but also people moved quite actively.
The problem was that it was difficult to grasp whether there were any people in this area.
So I had deliberately left supplies at the mart.
“Really? If we’re going to take it anyway, isn’t it better to just take it all?”
Cassandra had expressed her doubt, but Camilla had understood my words.
“It’s a kind of trap. If the mart’s goods have decreased since last time, it would mean that someone living in this area took them. If they’re as they were, then there’s a high probability that there are no people in the area.”
That’s right.
If it was someone who had survived in an unprotected zone until now, their skills would be no ordinary thing. They would surely get a map and come to the mart to get supplies.
In other words, if the mart’s goods had decreased significantly since last time, it meant there were people in this area. If so, then we would have to quietly retreat and not even come near.
It wasn’t because I lacked confidence. It was because I didn’t want to make unnecessary contact and reveal my existence.
In a situation where there was no my side and no your side, where everyone was an enemy to everyone, the one who shot first was bound to die.
If you shoot a gun, it makes a sound, and your location is estimated. Then trackers would swarm in to catch you. The one who shot’s location was already revealed, but the tracker’s was not.
The one who shot would only have a vague guess that a tracker was coming for them, but they wouldn’t know when or where they would be attacked.
No matter how advantageous a terrain you had for defense, the situation of having to ‘face’ an enemy who might come at any time was already putting yourself at a disadvantage.
But for now, there was nothing special.
I took out my phone and compared it with the pictures of the shelves I had taken last time. If there was nothing special, I just passed, and if I had taken something, I took a new picture. Almost everything was similar to when I had last come.
“Eek.”
Suddenly, a picture of Leti popped up.
She definitely wasn’t naked, but it was a bit embarrassing. It was a picture of her in a pretty dress with the tip of a peeled banana in her mouth, but her cheeks were hollow as if she were sucking on it, not chewing it. On top of that, her lips were even sparkling as if she had newly applied a tint.
『Caesar. What did you have for breakfast? I had a banana ㅠㅠ I’ve gained so much weight lately… I think I need to buy new underwear』
The reason I had saved the picture was a little different.
『Leti, where on earth did you get a banana?』
Then this time, she had sent a picture of herself taking a bite of the banana.
『My older brother who lives in Römer sent me a special food exchange coupon! With this, I can go to the city hall’s high-end grocery store. They even have fresh vegetables and eggs because they keep the generator running! The reagents are on their way, so when they arrive, let’s go grocery shopping together. We have to make a charlotteka^^』
I didn’t feel a childish jealousy like, ‘some people are eating canned food here.’ Rather, it was a bit strange. The Hampton I had been to last time was definitely not a situation where ‘fresh agricultural and marine products’ were being traded.
Besides, according to the internet news, which was getting slower and slower, the main roads were gradually getting blocked. Because of the zombies.
The roads were paralyzed because of large and small accidents caused by drivers turning into zombies while driving. If something like that happened on a bus or a refugee or criminal transport vehicle, then a group of zombies would occupy the road.
The zombies would stay in the wrecked scrap metal heap, and if they saw an approaching vehicle, they would all attack at once, eat the people, and rummage through the cargo for anything edible.
Of course, it didn’t mean that zombies could systematically distinguish things like people, but that they would rummage through it as if digging through a carcass, and then take a bite and eat what they could and spit out what they couldn’t.
In the process, many zombies had died from eating things they shouldn’t have, but most of them still survived.
Most of all, most of the main roads now were not human ‘non-protection’ zones, but human ‘protection’ zones. It meant that the concentration of the hunger virus contamination was either 0 or so faint as to be meaningless.
The hungry ones were better. Because you could lure them with food and shoot them all. But the zombies that weren’t suffering from hunger, instead, were violent, aggressive, and even cunning, as if they were suffering from frustration.
But in a situation like this, a store that sold ‘fresh food’ like this had appeared in Hampton, the largest city in the central-southern region? It didn’t add up at all.
Something was happening.
Again, a nagging feeling brushed past my spine. The sight of this land, where only ruins remained. This land, which was only ash and dust, kept coming to mind.
For some reason, this area in particular had been thoroughly destroyed. There was a rumor among the users that it had been left that way because the content had not been fully added, but if so, they could have just left it as a forest or a wasteland, was there a reason to go to the trouble of destroying it?
It seemed I would have to have a serious talk with Camilla and Cassandra. For now, I would have to pack the necessary items and just finish the comparison and contrast work.
The hygiene products section. I packed soap, shampoo and conditioner, toilet paper, other hygiene products, and… and….?
It was gone. Five bottles of scent remover used by hunters, a combination of shampoo and body cleanser. A number that could not be missed even by mistake.
I blinked my eyes. I gripped the trigger of the rifle slung in front of me. Once again, I slowly looked around. It was the same, not a single zombie corpse.
When I had first come here, I had deliberately made a loud noise. It was to draw out all the zombies inside. Because I didn’t want to smell the stench on my second and third visits.
The inside of the store was, therefore, relatively clean, just with some dust piled up. I carefully knelt down and looked at the dust on the floor in the sunlight.
Faintly, footprints were visible. Some were bigger than my footprints, and some were smaller. Since they were made after the dust had piled up, it didn’t seem to be zombie footprints.
‘It’s people.’
There were people in this area. People who hadn’t touched anything else and had only taken the scent remover.
They hadn’t taken food, hygiene products, or even daily necessities.
They had only taken this. And even the shampoo and conditioner on both sides were as they were.
Only, they had taken just the scent remover.
This meant that they already had all the other items. And the fact that they only lacked scent remover meant that there was a reason to get rid of their scent.
They weren’t survivors. They were hunters. There was no more reason to hesitate.
I first took the food and hygiene products and loaded them into the car. I diligently loaded and carried them with a cart and a hand truck. Thanks to the special training with Camilla, I had learned ‘how to move efficiently,’ so I wasn’t that tired even after moving everything.
After I had finished loading everything, I scrawled some wonderful words on the wall with a red marker pen.
『O Goddess of Hunger, look down upon us! We, your faithful flock, will follow only the Goddess’s will!』
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
