How To Be Misunderstood as a Villain in a Zombie Apocalypse

Prologue – Just like everyone else

Starting is always difficult.

It’s not because I don’t have anything to say, it’s because I’m at a loss as to what to pick out of many stories.

If you want to force it, well, ‘watermelon’. Let’s start with a watermelon that was smashed by a hatchet.

… I know what you’re referring to, but let’s say watermelon. I’m not good at talking, it’s not that I’m not polite.

There is no need to be offended from the beginning of a long, short story.

Anyway, watermelon. If watermelon is a problem.

No.

That’s what I want to say. Watermelons aren’t a problem, so you don’t have to worry.

It may not be such a big deal that the stench spreads all over the neighborhood.

The front door is knocked out over there and all the windows are broken.

The customers shuffling their feet from the other side aren’t a problem either.

Everyone is very angry and frowns, but it seems that they are protesting that they will not be able to live because of the terrible smell.

Perhaps thanks to the country’s generosity to bring at least some fruit when going to a neighbor’s house, everyone carries a piece of watermelon on their shoulders.

But for those people to step on the front door, you have to wait 5 minutes, no matter how tight you hold on, you have to wait another 3 minutes.

So we have to solve one really important problem in these three minutes.

「Is it better to be a fool or a smart person?」

Yes. This is it. I have a feeling.

This should be the starting point of the story.

* * * * *

Like anyone else, there was a time when I was innocent.

A time when I would not have been able to live soberly if I had known what I would face in the future. Looking back, I think I walked the risky line well. When I was in the first grade of elementary school, I felt sorry for myself and proud of myself.

I was frozen in front of the blank question.

※ Write freely in the blanks below.

『I wish the people of the world were ( ).」

My friends, I wrote down, ‘I wish I was rich, I wish I was full of love, I wish I were healthy and not sick.’

But I wasn’t.

I liked it so much that I didn’t write a single word in the notebook. As if it were a toy left in the closet for fear of breaking.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to write, it’s that I’m too desperate.

I couldn’t help but write it down.

The teacher came over. He looked down at me blankly and gently touched her shoulder. Her teacher quickly passed, but the warmth from her shoulder flowed down her arm and into her hand.

As if possessed by something, I wrote down the answer.

『I wish the people of the world (were smart enough to understand each other)』

A few days later, the teacher called me into the office. He asked while handing her an unopened lollipop.

“It’s because I’m curious about the teacher. What do you think will happen when people are smart enough to understand each other?”

“I don’t think we will fight.”

“Really? Why?”

“My mom and dad always fight, saying, ‘Why can’t you understand me?’. So if you understand, I don’t think you will fight.”

The teacher was very embarrassed, but I just said that my house was like that.

And I’m a pretty smart kid, so I knew at least that if you embarrass an adult, you’ll get slapped.

Just like when I said ‘I will go out and live alone’ to the question of who I am going to live with.

I was fully prepared, but nothing came flying and I couldn’t hear anything. Looking sideways at her, the teacher was smiling.

But I felt like I was about to cry.

“Teacher.”

Perhaps she thought her voice was too low, she cleared her throat.

“Teacher, I wish everyone in the world would become an idiot.”

“Why?”

“When you become a fool, you only think about what is right in front of you. I didn’t make it complicated, and I didn’t even worry about whether that person would cheat me or not. Eat when you are hungry, cry when you want to cry, get angry when you want to be angry. And when it’s over, forget about it.”

Teacher, there was a picture frame the size of her palm on her desk. Before, he was obviously standing upright, but now he was lying face down.

He fiddled with the corner of the frame, then quickly let go. Neither erected nor discarded, still lying face down.

“That’s why I like stupid, simple people.”

The teacher held my hand gently.

“Teacher is always here, so come whenever you have a hard time. Understand? I’ll give you some candy.”

She was laughing and crying. She was terrified Just like at my house, if someone cries here in the teachers’ room, someone else will get angry.

So she did something she hasn’t done since she was 6 years old. It was a truth in my childhood that if you give candy to an adult who is crying, it will stop.

But the reason why I didn’t do it after that was because I was scolded saying, ‘something the size of a pea is teasing adults.’

‘Ah. Could it be because the wrapping paper was not removed?’

It seemed right. My parents always taught me to be polite to adults. Juseomjuseom I took off the wrapping paper and handed out the candy.

“Eat.”

“That’s what I gave you. Eat you.”

“I’m giving it back.”

You even took off the wrapping paper, sir. My arm hurts.

“… Don’t you want to eat?”

“No. You look sad.”

“Me?”

Why do adults make people feel frustrated by pretending not to know when it is obvious? That was always a complaint.

The teacher looked up at her ceiling and took the candy while blinking her eyes. She then gave her a hug. She said something, but I couldn’t hear her because she mumbled.

‘If the teacher were my mother, she could be held every day.’

It felt like a dream, so it was nice that it wasn’t a dream. There was no smell of alcohol, cigarettes, or sweat from her teacher’s arms. It was just the smell of shampoo.

“You can be a great adult. I believe in you.”

After a long time, the teacher who was released from me, she gave her a handful of candy with difficulty.

Fearing that her parents would tell her where she stole it from, she put it in her bag and ate it all.

‘If the people of the world become fools, will they really be happy?’

I couldn’t find the answer until I finished eating quite a lot of candy.

And time flew by as if it had been fast-forwarded.

The family situation improved dramatically. My parents didn’t fight anymore, and eventually there was even a sense of laughter and harmony.

I laughed along, but somehow, all of this was unfamiliar and awkward.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t a genius. I was just a precocious child who noticed a lot.

It wasn’t that I didn’t study. When I received the test paper, my head just went blank.

When I came to my senses in surprise, everything I had already memorized and learned ran away, and all that was left was a sense of skepticism.

Everything I studied,

Everything I knew,

Was it real?

Can you be sure that all of that is right?

I don’t mean to say ‘the inner child who was shaken by the unstable family’ or ‘the past that could not be healed’.

It sounds too fragmentary and even cowardly to say that, and I look like a human hurriedly walking around with open wounds.

I just wanted to say that I grew up skeptical and unable to mix well, like oil on water or water on oil.

It’s not my parents’ fault. Eventually, the two reconciled.

It is not the fault of poverty either. It wasn’t to the point of pouring money on the floor, but I grew up not lacking.

The problem was me.

Not keeping pace with my parents and not stopping the bleeding by inserting money into the wound were ultimately my own actions.

The life after that, yes. It wasn’t normal. The hurdles of what people call ‘normal’ are so high that it is difficult to reach them without imagining them.

Instead, I could have ‘played’ a suitable human being.

Unfortunately, I went to a decent university, went back and forth between my own room and dormitory, got a part-time job, an internship, and was discharged… To job readiness. As for what others were doing, I did quite well.

But on the other hand, there was a sense of difference, something like a crack.

It feels like you took on a good role and memorized the script, but then the role suddenly changed.

I’m forced to imitate, but I feel like I’m not the real me in the world.

Still, I lived a good life until now. It wasn’t a great performance, but it wasn’t to the point of NG. I believed so.

…… When you open your eyes, the world inside the game you enjoyed for a long time. Until that, too, falls into the world of the zombie apocalypse.

Perhaps death could be the way out. Like when you wake up from a bad dream.

But it might just end like this. Like many endings I’ve seen, I might become a zombie wandering this world, wandering while trapped in my body.

As I sat in vain, what I remembered was a short question and answer session with the teacher.

Aren’t those neighbors the idiots the teacher said?

Those who drool at the smell of ‘watermelon juice’, struggling to eat what is in front of them, whether they sprained their ankles or twisted their backs, aren’t they fools in the form of real people?

But what about me?

I am smarter than them. I know that my destiny will be with them. I know how difficult and painful it can be to live in this toilsome world.

You can clearly see the dreadful hardships of having to cover food and drink, finding a place to lie down and stretching your feet, and being prepared for the fact that the life that was natural until yesterday may not be the case today.

I know the hardships ahead of me. They don’t know

I know they are miserable. They don’t know themselves

I understand them. They understand neither themselves nor me.

I can’t expect anything like that from them in the future.

Then there is only one question left.

Should I become a fool like them and live according to my instincts without knowing either happiness or unhappiness?

Or should I live as a wise person who knows pain, joy, sorrow, lust, joy, and pain as I do now?

If you want to live as an idiot, all you have to do is stay still. Just stay there without lifting a finger.

However, knowing all the pain, if you walk the path of wisdom.

You have to stand up. Have to meet Even though you know what it tastes like, you have to eat the hardship and grow the pain.

Decisions are probably just a snap of a finger.

So I would like to ask you a small favor.

Please lend me enough courage to move a finger.