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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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At some point, Camilla drove off the asphalt road. She sped down a bumpy, unpaved path, and this time, veered into a field that wasn’t even a road.
Anyone who saw her might have thought she was drunk driving. Not because she was swerving back and forth, but because she didn’t seem to care what appeared in front of her.
It was a path that was barely a path, one that would have been tricky to pass in a low-slung passenger car, thank goodness it was a truck. Even that path grew narrower, until finally, tree branches began to whip against the truck’s doors and windows.
How much time had passed?
A wrecked checkpoint came into view. The barricade had been cleared away. This seemed to be the training facility near the lake that Camilla had mentioned.
In the clearing, abandoned cars sat rusted and slumped, and skeletons were embedded in the ground. There were non-human things embedded in there as well. Camilla drove the car under a camouflage net. The tattered tarp between the bright red steel frames flapped like the hem of a ghost’s skirt.
We grabbed our gear and got out of the car.
The view was amazing. If only the buildings weren’t there.
It was shaped like a basin set among mountains and hills, and it bordered a wide lake. A light fog was spreading, pushed by the wind.
But the concrete buildings had long since been destroyed. Not a single thing was left standing whole. The small pier, likely built for docking yachts and barges, was gone, leaving only wooden debris.
“Oh, this? It was like this when I first came.”
Camilla answered nonchalantly, then began to tap the ground with her combat boot. She muttered something about it being around here, maybe here, and then,
Thump.
“Found it.”
As she gently brushed away the dust on top, a steel plate was revealed. It was a camouflaged door, similar to the safe house beneath the fire station.
Lifting the steel plate also revealed stairs leading down. The difference from the fire station was that the stairs here were wider and spiraled down. It was quite dizzying as we descended with a clanging sound.
At the bottom of the stairs, there was another steel door. It was wide open. Beyond the steel door, a fairly spacious bunker appeared. There was no lighting, so we looked around with the light from our cell phones.
At a rough estimate, it seemed to be about 20 meters long and wide. Empty shelves lined the walls, as if it had originally been used as a storeroom. Despite being underground, it was quite cool and dry. A faint sound of wind suggested there was a separate ventilation window.
“Thank god. Everything’s the same. This place was probably built over 50 years ago. Back then, Minsk occupied this area. Those guys really had good technology.”
Camilla let out a sigh of relief.
I didn’t want to stay for long, so I only brought the bare minimum of luggage. The truth was, I was also unbearably hungry. I was so exhausted I didn’t want to lift a single finger.
“Can’t be helped, I guess.”
I tore open three MRE packs with the shortest expiration dates. I left the main and side dishes as they were and took out only the powders that could be mixed with water, the candies, and the chocolate. I poured the powder into a water bottle, shook it around, and then held it out to the two of them.
“You have to pick one from 1, 2, or 3. Number 1 will taste like a normal sports drink, number 2 will be melon-flavored, but it’ll probably feel like drinking melted melon ice cream mixed with water. Number 3 is strawberry flavor. To be precise, strawberry-flavored cold syrup.”
“I’ll just drink water.”
Camilla complained, but there was no choice. After running around all day without a proper rest, we needed to replenish not just water but minerals as well. It wasn’t because I’d opened three MREs just to find the sports drink powder.
After a fair game of rock-paper-scissors, Camilla squeezed her eyes shut and chugged the strawberry-syrup-flavored drink, while Cassandra held her nose and drank the melon-flavored one.
Knowing that you can get sick even from drinking water the wrong way, I watched them worriedly and slowly sipped the sports drink. It was a bit more concentrated than I expected. Half the amount would have been fine.
We decided not to stand watch tonight. Instead, I piled up obstacles in the middle of the spiral staircase. A zombie would slip and fall sideways coming down the stairs, and a human would be quite flummoxed. If they knew about this place, that is. In any case, there were no signs of other people.
I was tired, but sleep wouldn’t come easily. Perhaps because I hadn’t eaten anything substantial, I was so hungry my stomach ached.
Most of all, the zombies.
Since dogs, crows, rats, and cats could become zombies, a parrot could become a zombie too. It wasn’t strange for a parrot to mimic human speech. But a zombie parrot mimicking human speech was unexpected.
The warning written on the whiteboard came to mind.
Whatever you hear in the field, never go alone.
The wolf zombie and the human zombie had been waiting for us. When the parrot cried for help, a person would have approached, and after that, they would have been eaten by the zombies.
The man inside the building must have held out until the very, very end, before finally taking his own life.
It was a bizarre symbiosis.
“Is everyone asleep?”
Camilla’s voice.
“No.”
“Cassandra’s not asleep.”
It seemed all three of us were wrestling with similar thoughts. Camilla stared into the void and muttered as if to herself.
“The ones we met today, they definitely seemed to be cooperating. A parrot, a wolf, and a human. It’s a combination I could have never imagined. But do zombies even have a concept of cooperation?”
Cassandra answered her.
“No such case has been reported so far. The rats in the lab just moved according to instinct. The strongest desire was appetite, then the need for sleep, and finally, sexual desire.”
“…Sexual desire?”
Camilla’s horrified voice. I was a bit taken aback too. Zombies and sexual desire.
“The desire to preserve the species exists in everyone. It seems to be the same for zombies. It’s just that the appetite is overwhelmingly stronger than the sexual desire. Anyway, a case like today is a first.”
For the Administration, who had likely researched even masturbating, crazy zombies, to say that a ‘case like today’ was a first, it must be truly rare.
“But, Johan. What on earth did you do today?”
“I did quite a few things today, which one are you referring to?”
“You made the zombies angry.”
Ah, she must be talking about recording the parrot’s voice and playing it back.
I had seen it in an animal video before I fell into this world. They would hide a recorder behind a mirror and play the sound of a dog barking, and the surprised dog would run up, look in the mirror, and become extremely confused. They called it a hidden camera for animals, but it was basically abuse.
“Well, I figured it was better to make them angry. Anyway, you have a higher chance of winning if you fight in an advantageous place. To do that, it was better to provoke them and draw them in. But why do you ask?”
“Because no one Cassandra knows was as skillful as you. Everyone knows that zombies are easily drawn to food. That works well in Human Non-Protection zones, but not so well in protected zones. But with you, it was as if the zombies were being sucked in.”
How should I explain this away? Lots of experience? I’ve fought them many times before?
“I just tried it to see if it would work. I wasn’t sure. It’s a relief it worked so well. It’s just that the way the zombies cooperated like that is a bit strange. At this rate, it feels like zombies will start turning door knobs.”
I said it as a joke, but the atmosphere sank heavily.
“…It might be possible.”
Cassandra spoke cautiously.
“Zombies?”
“Animals have intelligence too. I’m not talking about how much abstract thought they have, or how human-like they behave. It’s just that animals also know that ‘when I do this, that result happens.’ Smart dogs behave as their owners intend and are guaranteed food and a place to rest.
Maybe those zombies also happened to become like that by chance. A parrot can’t hunt a person. But it can eat what someone has already hunted and killed. Unintended symbiosis, would that be an accurate way to put it?”
Come to think of it, it seemed I had done something to make the wolf and human zombies chase me. They came because they heard the parrot’s voice, only to find a single human with a gun and no food.
“I’m not sure if that’s a talent. I just do what I do.”
Camilla chimed in teasingly at my answer.
“Usually, that ‘doing what you do’ doesn’t work. So that’s definitely a talent. Though it seems to work pretty well on people too, not just zombies. But why do you ask that?”
“…To put it another way, it means Johan can exert influence on zombies. Being able to move an opponent according to your will also means that some degree of control is possible.”
“What, are you saying I’m some kind of genius at making zombies angry?”
I said it half-jokingly, but Cassandra seemed to be taking it quite seriously. But, I don’t know, I was skeptical.
In the unprotected zones, both humans and zombies are hungry. So if you give them a little stimulation to satisfy their hunger, you can get a pretty big effect. I was just using that fact.
But in a protected zone, like a city? I didn’t have much experience fighting there, so I couldn’t say for sure.
“It’s getting more and more complicated. If zombies get smarter, I can’t imagine how tiring it will get.”
Camilla grumbled. I felt the same way. But Cassandra seemed to have a different idea this time as well.
“I checked with the rats in the lab. Their intelligence didn’t drop as much as you’d think. It’s just that other desires are much greater than their intelligence. Could a person who has starved for two whole months resist food placed in front of them? That’s a bit of a different issue from intelligence and self-control. What’s happening to those zombies now is something like that.
But if, say, the competition for food becomes more and more fierce, and the number of competitors increases, it’s certain that the zombies will also change their strategy. Because that’s what ordinary animals do. The kind of accidental cooperation and solidarity we saw today might increase.
It’s not just the virus that’s fighting to survive. The hosts are too. They compete, fight, and survive, trying to spread their offspring to live on. And finally, they won’t stop changing until they find the optimal answer to conquer everything.”
“Sounds like humans.”
Camilla agreed, but my thoughts were a little different.
“I don’t know. Humans twist their surroundings to fit them. The Cro-virus, on the other hand, tries to dissolve itself into its surroundings. The goal is the same, but the means seem to be complete opposites.”
“And now the two have merged.”
At Cassandra’s declaration, we all sighed.
“What’s going to happen from now on.”
No one answered. The future was a slightly distant domain. Camilla tossed and turned before finally falling asleep, and I too drifted off.
“…I want to atone. For all of this.”
Cassandra whispered.
“What did you say?”
But Cassandra didn’t answer. I didn’t know if it was sleep talk or a heartfelt confession disguised as sleep talk.
I thought simply. We go to the lab, Cassandra finds a vaccine, Camilla and I get treatment.
And after that, well… whatever happens to the world, we just live comfortably.
If we can find a vaccine, that is.
Cassandra might be trying to solve a problem with no answer. The story that the vaccine was useless because the mutation was too fast came from none other than Cassandra herself.
Before I fell asleep, a thought crossed my mind.
She said the virus wouldn’t stop mutating until the conquest was complete.
What if, the virus inside my body becomes the most superior species. And all mutation stops…?
“Ha.”
Thinking such nonsense, it was time for me to sleep.
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