C18
Chapter 18: The Mountain Village (2)
As with the first time I saw a remote village a while ago, seeing the asphalted national highway was a new experience.
It reminded me of my previous life.
Of course, the road in front of me was different from the one I had seen in my previous life.
The road was littered with abandoned cars and painted with bloodstains.
It was like watching a scene from an apocalyptic movie, except there were no bodies lying on the ground, rotting away.
Instead, I saw the rotting, shambling, moving dead, the zombies I had seen in novels and movies in my previous life.
“It’s a strange road, not even cobblestone, and what’s more, it looks like it’s made of iron, and there’s nowhere to harness any animals or demons to pull it…….”
Hoffman looked around in wonder as the road wound its way up the side of the mountain.
Zahina’s expression didn’t change, but she scanned the road and the abandoned cars.
“That’s…….”
I stifled my reflexive response.
Luckily, the two didn’t seem to hear, but I couldn’t help but stiffen my expression.
‘This is awkward…….’
This was harder than I thought it would be to feign ignorance.
Apparently, in the novels I’d seen in my previous life, it was much easier to hide.
After all, it seemed like something that could only happen in a novel.
It wouldn’t be the first time, and at this rate, it wouldn’t be long before they realized I knew this world.
I turned to the two behind me, barely concealing my expression.
“Let’s go in the direction of the setting sun.”
I turned to the west, where the afternoon sun was pointing.
I knew where we were headed because there was a half-broken sign for Seoul hanging over the westbound national highway.
We found the national highway and continued southwest on it.
It was a flat asphalt road, but unfortunately we couldn’t travel much distance before nightfall.
This was because of the dead, or zombies, that were walking on and around the highway.
There weren’t many of them because there was no authorization around, but they were a nuisance nonetheless.
The zombies were either coming from cars stopped on the highway, or they were coming from a nearby town that I didn’t recognize.
The abandoned cars made walking uncomfortable.
I was tempted to check out the abandoned cars, even though it would raise more suspicion from my party members.
Unfortunately, all of them had dead batteries and wouldn’t start.
I had no idea how to get a dead car moving. If I had internet access, I might have been able to find a way, but there was no phone service, so it couldn’t be the internet.
In the end, we had to walk on our own two feet.
My secret was safe.
After walking for a while, I noticed that the sky behind us was colored by the setting sun.
It was the second sunset I had seen in this world.
Into that beautiful sunset, the undead were running.
-Screech!
The screams were coming from zombies that still had vocal cords.
Unlike the voices of living beings, the shrill, piercing sound of air leaking out of the undead as they ran but one after another, they fell in front of me, just as they had all afternoon.
With their throats cut, their backs and limbs blown off, even the undead were forced to fall.
Unlike the skeletal soldiers, who were nothing but bones, animated by the power of the demon king, the ones coming at me now were the dead, zombies, animated by death energy.
They were often stronger than the skeleton soldiers because they still had flesh and muscle, but leaning on their flesh and muscle, they were easier to take down.
Of course, while I was taking down the undead, I also encountered some that jumped on abandoned cars and pounced on me, and some that suddenly reached out from under cars.
-Poof!
The undead jumping on the car was hit by an arrow from Hoffman and rolled off the roof,
“One undead under the wagon on the left!”
The undead hiding under the carriage had been forewarned by Zahina.
Naturally, I was able to take care of the undead that Hoffman had knocked over and the one hiding under the car without the slightest risk.
“I apologize, sir. A spare arrow would have been more helpful.”
Hoffman apologizes as he clears a group of undead and retrieves an arrow from the undead’s head.
“It’s okay, they’re still pretty helpful.”
I waved at Hoffman.
True, the arrows weren’t much help to me, but since he wasn’t a knight or wizard, I was grateful for the assistance.
Plus, it’s not like he was completely oblivious to mana, so if the undead were tainted with death energy, he’d be able to clean up.
Hoffman went through each of the undead I’ve sliced, plunging his sword into their hearts and cutting their throats.
When he finished, they stopped writhing.
Of course, a sprinkling of holy water or a priest’s prayer would have turned them all back to dust.
Otherwise, I could have cleared the battlefield just as well as Hoffman, but clearing the battlefield was a chore.
In fact, as far as unhelpfulness goes, the elf woman was worse than Hoffman.
She’d been at the back of the line since we’d gotten onto the highway, acting as a sounding board for the undead.
In her hand was a sniper rifle she’d acquired some time ago, but she couldn’t use it now.
The sound of gunfire was a problem, but she couldn’t use it because there were no more bullets.
‘Maybe I should raid an ammo stash before I go to Seoul.’
For a moment, I thought about it, but quickly dismissed it.
I don’t know if the military base from my previous life is still there and it was hard to imagine how many undead would have been created if a fight had broken out in the military base.
On top of that, it’s possible, albeit unlikely, that the military base could have survived.
Getting ammunition from an intact military base would have been more difficult.
In the end, I decided to move toward Seoul as originally planned.
I would be able to get guns and ammunition from police stations, police boxes, and districts.
To be honest, I noticed the undead under the car she pointed out before she did but I wasn’t going to pretend I did.
She was surprisingly stubborn about this sort of thing.
She seemed to be the kind of person who couldn’t wait until she had something to do, even if it meant using an unfamiliar gun.
Well, let her think she has something to do.
Besides, it couldn’t hurt to have more eyes.
However, the main reason I kept my mouth shut was to hide my skills.
A leader needs to know the abilities of his party, but he doesn’t need to let them know his abilities.
As we headed west, dealing with the undead, we were able to salvage a number of items.
There were various items in the abandoned cars and wallets from the pockets of the dead.
The items in the car were not those of an ordinary traveler but hastily packed suitcases and valuables that belonged to evacuees.
Most of the abandoned cars were from the west so all of them must have fled from Uijeongbu or Seoul.
I swept out the spoiled food and stuffed the rest of the stuff into the space-expansion bag.
I hadn’t seen them in a long time so I wanted to check each one of them, but it was impossible to do so on the national highway, which was open in all directions.
There were also a lot of bills in the car.
I realized that they must have been taken from the evacuation.
They must have been a backup plan since they couldn’t use their cards.
These bills seemed useless.
As I sifted through the items, I came across some IDs in wallets.
I quickly put the other IDs away, but two of them stayed in my hand.
It was because of the names on the IDs.
They were the names on a note I found inside a house in the village.
The names of their children were written at the end of the old man’s letter.
The note didn’t mention their last names, but it was clear they were the same people.
The same names were on the IDs I’d gotten from the undead I’d run into.
I looked at the IDs and smiled bitterly.
I hadn’t expected the old man’s sons to come running for him.
Were they running to rescue their father? Or had they sought refuge in the old man’s home?
Either way, the two sons were very filial, which I hadn’t expected.
They were unlike me, whose past life was only a memory.
Now I was going to the place where I had lived in my previous life, but it was different for his sons, who had become undead here.
Unlike his two filial sons, I felt no such urge toward my family and friends from my past life.
The reason I’m running so hard now isn’t to save my past life connections, but because I needed to make sure that my memories were not wrong.
Similarly, I felt a strange emotion when I saw villages and mountains from my past life, but that was it.
Apparently, I’ve been slightly spoiled during the war.
Fortunately, before nightfall, we found a place with a roof over our heads.
It was a common gas station and rest stop along the national road.
The gas station was not unlike many I’ve seen in my life.
There were no signs of explosions or fires like in zombie movies.
The rest area next to it wasn’t a big rest area like a highway rest area, but rather a small restaurant and shop with the name rest area, just like the rest areas on other national roads.
However, this rest area looked different from the ones I had seen in my previous life.
The entrance and windows were boarded up and there were rotting corpses lying around the rest area.
Of course, the rest area wasn’t completely devoid of moving undead, but it was clear that there had been a battle with the undead in this rest area.
“It can’t be…….there are still survivors out there?”
I started to shake my head at Hoffman’s question, but Zahina spoke up before I could.
“There’s a little…….life inside that building.”
It was strange.
My senses don’t pick up anything…….
My senses have become much sharper since I came to this world, and now I’m not hearing anything?
I thought, since I have my senses, they’re useless, but they’re not.
Hooray for cross-validation.
There was a good chance there were survivors, so there was only one thing to do.
“How many undead around here?”
“Four. Three in front, one behind the house.”
Zahina’s words did not differ from my senses.
Strange, finding the undead shouldn’t be a problem.
With that thought, I drew my sword.
“Hoffman, I need backup.”
“Aye, sir.”
I took out one undead after another while Hoffman kept the others at bay with arrows.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes to take out the three undead in front of the rest house and the one scratching at the wall behind the rest house.
With all the undead taken care of, we made our way to the boarded-up rest stop door.
“There aren’t any other undead around.”
My senses picked up no undead either.
I signaled to the two men, then called out to the barred door.
“Is there anyone inside?”
I would like to speak in Korean, but since there are two people looking at me, I have no choice but to shout in Imperial Language.
If there’s someone in there, they’ll say something.
If a person answers, there is an elf behind me, so there is no problem.
However, I couldn’t count on being heard.
The nasty marks on the rest stop door looked quite old but I was wrong again.
“…….Is that a live person?”
A small voice came from inside the kitchen.
It wasn’t the Imperial Language but the first Korean I’ve heard in decades.