Ch.9494. The Road to Ulsan (1)

Lee Su-a immediately thought of opium when she heard the word “poppy” because opium is extracted and manufactured from poppies.

Most people would immediately think of drugs when they hear the word “opium,” and indeed, what Hyeon-a had discovered was actually opium used as a narcotic.

This opium was highly addictive, perfect for destroying the body, and a drug that was difficult to treat once addiction set in.

It was only natural that Su-a was horrified and scolded her sister.

“You’re going to distribute that in Daegu?”

“Even Gyeongju is short on medical supplies and treatment medications right now. Opium is extremely effective as a painkiller.”

“Well… that’s…”

However, while opium had strong side effects, in this apocalypse, there were too many people suffering painful days without even having access to opium.

Opium provided strong anesthetic and pain relief effects, as well as sedative effects and was effective for treating colds and diarrhea. In fact, before opium was classified as a narcotic, it was commonly used as medicine.

Even in modern times, some extracts from opium were approved for medical use, and its effects were widely known. In this apocalypse with limited pharmaceuticals, it was practically a panacea.

To be honest, if asked whether there were any more effective and easily obtainable medicines than opium in this apocalypse… it would be much cheaper and simpler to obtain opium than to find advanced medications without side effects.

“Besides, even the Balhut Cult has partially approved it as a painkiller for the Awakened and as a surgical anesthetic. Opium can be bad if used badly, but good if used with good intentions.”

“That… uh. Hmm? Wait a minute?”

Even in modern times, codeine and morphine are extracted from poppies for medical use.

The Balhut Cult had dragon priestesses in Gyeongju and Pohang providing free healing arts, so opium had largely lost its significance except in very urgent situations. It was used in a limited way as a painkiller or anesthetic for military expeditions or for patients who couldn’t be treated by dragon priestesses.

Of course, these people could withstand the side effects of opium because they were Awakened with superhuman bodies, and even then, they received medical opinions and diagnoses to ensure opium wasn’t misused.

‘Well. She’s not exactly wrong. She’s not wrong, but… huh? Wait, what?’

Even the Balhut Cult was using opium for treatment purposes… so was declaring to distribute opium really such a bad thing?

Wouldn’t it actually help Daegu where medical supplies were scarce?

Su-a was beginning to be persuaded by Hyeon-a’s logic.

“Even in America, they use narcotic painkillers without limits, so Daegu must be desperate for this opium, right?”

“We’re not villains, are we?! Sister! That’s strictly for medical use, not for drug abuse!”

“That’s what I’m saying they need it for medical purposes, right? You know how badly people get injured fighting zombies. Not just minor wounds. How desperately they need painkillers? Even more so with mutant zombies.”

“Ugh!”

She argued that even America permitted unlimited use of narcotic painkillers for medical purposes, and strongly claimed that Daegu desperately needed opium as a treatment.

However, the two forces that had approved opium had only permitted it for treatment purposes, not to create unnecessary opium addicts by using it as a narcotic.

After Su-a’s rebuke, Hyeon-a seemed to realize she was saying something harsh.

“I understand your concerns. All of this will be transferred under Kim Ha-yeon’s name.”

“Is that your only excuse?”

She swore not to be associated with the Balhut Cult, but Su-a sighed, asking if that was the best excuse she could come up with.

Hyeon-a, with an expression that truly seemed not to understand, added that if this didn’t convince her:

“If I make a mistake, I’m prepared to forfeit my life.”

“Don’t say that seriously. It’s scary.”

She declared that she would stake her own life if she failed.

In response, Su-a told her not to actually throw away her life, lamenting that her sister’s current demeanor was frightening.

Indeed, it would be bewildering for a family member when their sister casually suggested becoming an opium dealer.

And now she was saying she’d stake her life on it, which doubled the absurdity.

‘The problem is that her argument isn’t wrong! Yes, it’s the apocalypse! In an apocalypse where even finding medicine is difficult, the need for opium as a painkiller or anesthetic is actually real! That’s what makes it scarier!’

What was even more frightening was that if you removed the word “opium” from her argument, it was largely correct.

With external exchanges essentially cut off, Daegu was currently facing major problems with food and medical supplies.

Su-a had already understood through internal documents obtained from Go Jun-woo that Daegu lacked medical supplies, so Hyeon-a’s claim that Daegu needed opium wasn’t entirely wrong.

For those facing immediate death, it was easier to worry about side effects later.

Before the apocalypse, people might have hesitated because it was a narcotic, but now, in the apocalypse, one could predict that countless people would want that opium.

“No, I’m serious! If I fail, I’m prepared to give up my life.”

“…”

And the sister before her, who seemed like an enemy, was shouting about throwing away her life, making Su-a feel sick to her stomach.

Realizing that matters concerning Daegu had already left her hands, Su-a could only try to stop Hyeon-a who was moving forward on her own.

“Do we have any news about Ulsan?”

While the Su-a and Hyeon-a sisters were arguing about the treatment of Daegu, Choi Yu-na, the leader of the Balhut Cult, began preparations for the conquest of Ulsan.

To gather information about Ulsan, she delegated to Jeong Dong-geon, who would lead the expedition. Jeong Dong-geon received support from the administration and the NTS to collect information about the Ulsan community.

And the final result was:

“Yes. The Ulsan community is too quiet compared to other regional communities. It’s not that there are no posts at all, but most of them are unrelated to the current apocalypse.”

“That’s suspicious.”

Suspicious. That one word summed it up.

While the entire Korean peninsula had not been quiet for a single day due to zombies, the Ulsan community seemed detached from the apocalypse.

Of course, there wasn’t a complete absence of news from Ulsan, but compared to other communities, Ulsan was too quiet.

“There’s no internal information at all. In the early days of the apocalypse, there were so many sources of information, but now there are no posts about what’s happening where, or which areas have zombies.”

Above all, the internal information was strangely too scarce.

In the early days of the apocalypse, the Ulsan community, like other communities, showed efforts to exchange information and use various means to survive.

However, at present, there seemed to be no effort to survive, and there was no information exchange at all, as if there was no information about Ulsan.

Trivial chatter was all that remained on the Ulsan community.

“That’s strange. Even we occasionally have posts about zombie appearances.”

Even for the Balhut Cult, which was under the protection of the Dragon God, it was nearly impossible to have no zombies appear at all.

There were wild zombies on the outskirts of the city, and naturally, if wild zombies were spotted, it had become a kind of community rule to inform others of their location and regional information.

So if Ulsan was this quiet without anything special, it felt suspicious precisely because it was quiet.

“Since ghost fleets have appeared in the East Sea, haven’t they appeared in Ulsan as well?”

“There’s no mention of that either.”

Moreover, Ulsan was below Pohang and was a port city occupying the East Sea.

Naturally, there should have been news about the ghost fleet that was reported to have appeared in the East Sea, but there was no news about the ghost fleet on the community.

In such a case, one could say that Ulsan was in such a mess that it couldn’t pay attention to the sea, but:

“If Ulsan had fallen, there should at least be refugees, but there are no refugees either.”

“No refugees either.”

In that case, the appearance of refugees would have been inevitable.

There should have been refugees leaving the destroyed Ulsan and heading to nearby Gyeongju, but no such refugees had been spotted recently.

Gyeongju and Ulsan were connected by road, and if one wanted, it would be easy to come up from Ulsan to Gyeongju.

There would be zombies on the way, but at some point, the Balhut Cult was managing the area, so if one risked their life to escape, they could certainly come under the protection of the cult.

“What do you think?”

“The military predicts two possibilities.”

Lost in thought, Yu-na asked Jeong Dong-geon for his opinion, and Jeong Dong-geon seemed to have already prepared his report, as he stated two predictions without hesitation.

“Ulsan might also be ruled by a tyrant similar to Jo Sun-do.”

The first was that a tyrant similar to Jo Sun-do had emerged.

Small to medium-sized survivor camps had fallen under the tyrant’s rule, and the tyrant’s information control had made the Ulsan community quiet.

If an Awakened with enough power to rule the entire Ulsan region had appeared, this was a plausible story.

“Then, wouldn’t someone rise against the tyrant? Or at least refugees, or forces rebelling against the tyrant…”

The problem was that even such a powerful Awakened couldn’t achieve perfect information control.

There would certainly be those who opposed the tyrant’s rule, and without a cheat-like existence like Bahamut, the tyrant’s rule would inevitably be unstable.

The moment they were defeated just once, their dominance would be greatly shaken, as the Balhut Cult had witnessed with their own eyes.

“Yes. Even in North Gyeongju, which we experienced, there were refugees, or camps that only cooperated but remained as subordinate forces. There was even a rebellion inside in response to our expedition. Therefore, we judge this possibility to be small.”

Yu-na mentioned the example of North Gyeongju, and Jeong Dong-geon seemed to agree, saying that the emergence of a tyrant was unlikely.

Rather, he seemed to place more emphasis on the second prediction, as he opened his mouth with a serious expression.

“The military is considering the worst possibility that Ulsan has been completely annihilated.”

“Ulsan has been annihilated…?”

Ulsan had been completely annihilated, so there was no one left to post on the community.

It was essentially the worst outcome in the apocalypse, but:

“It’s not an impossible story.”

The problem was that this wasn’t an impossible story.

Rather, in this apocalypse, it was so plausible that it was naturally acceptable.

“Now that the zombies appearing in the East Sea have been identified as undead, new undead that we don’t know about could appear. Especially the undead called banshees that appeared in the East Sea were reported to be troublesome. If undead similar to those banshees appeared in Ulsan, it would be the worst for survivor camps that couldn’t respond in an organized manner.”

The appearance of new zombies, or rather, undead banshees, had already been confirmed.

Banshees, which caused panic in the Awakened, were powerful undead that could put even Awakened in great danger unless they had strong magic resistance.

If undead similar to such banshees appeared in Ulsan, survivor camps that couldn’t act in an organized manner would be highly likely to face annihilation.

“The fear created by banshees gives birth to new suspicions, making it impossible for survivors to gather and cooperate with each other.”

“Yes. But it’s also strange that there’s no internal news like this. If they acted separately, it means they had the brains to act separately… If all the citizens inside the city were annihilated, it’s a possible story, but in such an extreme situation, refugees risking their lives to escape from Ulsan should appear.”

The problem was that if an unmanageable enemy appeared, people could leave the city and seek refuge in another city.

They would face a choice between dying here or dying after fleeing, and human psychology would lead them to flee in order to survive, even if only barely.

“My adjutant, Son Sang-hui, initially fled from Pohang as a refugee.”

He mentioned Son Sang-hui as evidence, and their first meeting was when she was trying to flee to another place because she couldn’t handle the mutant spider zombies, and fortunately encountered Jeong Dong-geon.

“But there were no refugees on the path from Ulsan to Gyeongju.”

“…Hmm.”

In this strange situation where even refugees were absent, Yu-na had to make a decision.

As her concerns deepened, Jeong Dong-geon looked at the Balhut Cult leader with a serious expression.

“A decision…”

[Let’s advance.]

“Lord Bahamut?”

Instead of the worried Yu-na, Bahamut made the decision for her.

At Bahamut’s words, Jeong Dong-geon was surprised but waited for the next words, and soon Bahamut’s words reached the ears of Yu-na and Jeong Dong-geon.

[If the situation has come to this, it means something has happened inside Ulsan, and that something could threaten us. Rather than just watching the situation, it would be better to fight to prevent that something.]

Bahamut mentioned a kind of preventive war.

If they didn’t know the identity of that something, they would launch a preemptive strike before it became a threat.

“I agree.”

From ancient times, the one who succeeded in attacking first had the advantage in battle, and the opponent was zombies anyway.

No matter how cowardly their tactics might be, whether surprise attacks or otherwise, there would be no argument against it.

Of course, there was a possibility that they weren’t zombies, but Jeong Dong-geon was convinced that there was a high probability that Ulsan didn’t have a provisional government like Daegu.

[Haven’t you already prepared for the conquest of Ulsan? If you cancel the expedition because there are elements of doubt, those preparations would be wasted.]

“Yes.”

Above all, they had already made many preparations for the conquest of Ulsan.

It was too late to cancel now, as the time and manpower already invested would be wasted, so they had to proceed with the conquest of Ulsan to make the consumed time worthwhile.

[And we don’t need to aim for the complete recapture of the city of Ulsan. If what we need is the port area, can’t we just recapture the port area?]

“That’s not impossible.”

And they didn’t need to recapture the entire city.

If what the cult needed was the port area, they could just recapture the port area and recapture the rest later. Such a strategy was entirely possible.

[Let’s go to the site first. After a thorough investigation, let’s set a clear goal. Does anyone have any objections?]

“No objections.”

“Everything according to the Dragon God’s will.”

As Bahamut summarized the situation, Jeong Dong-geon and Choi Yu-na bowed their heads and declared that everything would be done according to Bahamut’s will.