episode_0135

After much deliberation, I decided to let them live.

“R-really?”

The team leader and the others brightened considerably at the mention of being spared.

But their suspicion wasn’t completely erased.

Their wavering doubt was evident.

Perhaps they wondered if I would make them drop their guard only to stab them in the back.

Those suspicious gazes felt quite stinging.

“If you don’t believe me, I can finish you off now.”

“……”

“So watch your eyes. My mind is about to change.”

This wasn’t an empty threat.

Letting them live was closer to a whim.

If, after finally making up my mind, they acted so annoyingly, I might change my thoughts.

Bound, the people fell silent at my blatant words, full of personal desires.

“Don’t even think about coming to Sagajeong. Forget about Director Jang as well.”

“That… I understand….”

The team leader seemed to have something to say but held it back firmly.

“Forget about me too.”

I lifted myself from the creaking chair.

I approached the team leader, who was staring down at the floor.

As I got close enough for our breaths to mingle, the team leader trembled slightly.

“If you ignore my words or cause me trouble, then I will see your end. Truly.”

Though I had murmured it lowly, the team leader and the others seemed to have heard it clearly.

Because as soon as my words ended, they nodded repeatedly.

It was the kind of line a third-rate villain might say, but when I said it, it felt different.

My own tone, tinged with a sticky ferocity, impressed even myself.

With those final words, I slowly stood up.

Then I picked up the flashlight and lowered its intensity.

As the light that brightly illuminated the control room dimmed, my vision sharply narrowed.

The team leader and the others flinched, as if their eyes couldn’t adjust.

Taking advantage of that moment, I put the sample collected from the zombie into my inventory.

I thought that I might have use for it someday.

…Hopefully, it would be used in a good way.

For a moment, I indulged in sentimental thoughts as I picked up the flashlight and gun.

The rest was, I suppose, in place of guns and ammunition.

I decided to leave behind the tools and vodka on the table.

Turning, I left the control room without lingering.

As I strode away, the team leader urgently called out to stop me.

“H-hey!”

I glanced back to see the team leader whimpering like a dog needing to relieve itself.

And with pitiful eyes, he pleaded softly.

“If you could just untie this…”

“Handle that much yourself. I left the tools.”

“Ugh….”

“Let’s not meet again.”

Finishing my words, I briefly looked at Investigator Park.

In truth, this man played a large part in my decision to spare them.

I could tell that he had been speaking only the truth the entire time.

The straightforward account of his past actions wasn’t a great achievement.

It was merely information enough to gauge how things were unfolding.

This man risked his life in dire conditions fraught with danger.

And he had simply and silently done his duty.

If Investigator Park had a fault, it was perhaps being entangled with the Daehan Gang.

I couldn’t lump him in and deal with him just for that one thing.

If I had, it would have felt like disparaging the efforts of a man faithful to his original mission, which made me act on a whim.

I didn’t want to become that kind of person.

The kind that denies everything about a person in an instant and casts them into ruin.

Investigator Park, who couldn’t possibly know my thoughts, merely averted his gaze when our eyes met.

At his reaction, I smiled bitterly and began to walk away.

As I walked, the space behind me grew darker.

And the people held their breath, not moving an inch.

For their sake, knowing they must be anxious that I might change my mind, I quickly left the area.

“Heh….”

Once I was sufficiently far, I heard faint shouts and struggles.

A small chuckle escaped me at the sound of their struggles.

I had tied them up quite thoroughly, but since I left the tools, I figured they would cut themselves free and move without much difficulty.

I increased the flashlight’s brightness to its maximum again.

I stopped thinking about the people I left behind and began to leave the corridor.

As I walked back through the corridor, messy with corpses and their remains, I also searched and checked the warehouses and break rooms I passed.

Only traces of life remained in each, but no supplies were visible.

I strode through the corpses and emerged into what must have been the food court in the basement.

“……”

I blinked, looking at the results I had wrought.

A path was laid across the wide space with the corpses of zombies I had cut down.

Just as I had run from the entrance to this very spot.

I hadn’t realized it when I was just cutting them down and forcing a path through, but looking at it again, I seemed to have mowed down an enormous number.

Seen this way, it was quite a sight.

However, I had no leisure to feel proud of my unrusty swordsmanship.

A stench, unable to escape due to poor ventilation, stung my nose.

Frowning at the terrible smell of corpses, I surveyed my surroundings.

According to the team leader, they had organized supplies nearby.

‘Found it.’

An temporary area, cleared by removing stalls and display cases to create a wide space, partitioned off. All remaining supplies had been organized here.

“Oh….”

Looking at the neatly stacked mountain of food, the remaining quantity was quite substantial.

It was clearly a different amount from when I had monopolized it, but still a lot.

They said over 200 people had stayed here, and seeing the remaining amount, it seemed they had conserved quite a bit.

‘They organized it pretty well, didn’t they?’

Perhaps keeping group living in mind, the food was neatly organized by type, stacked methodically. It was a sight that would make it easy to identify types and quantities.

Thanks to this, I could easily and conveniently sweep it all into my inventory.

Faster than before.

Unbeknownst to me, my inventory’s upgrade wasn’t just its capacity.

The looting speed had also significantly increased.

It might just be me getting used to it, but it felt more than twice as fast.

The development of the utility assisting me was certainly welcome.

However, it was regrettable that my core abilities showed no signs of recovery.

In the current situation, I should probably be grateful for even this, but…

…Anyway.

Thanks to the minor utility improvements, it didn’t take long to gather all the food the Daehan Gang had carefully collected.

Compared to the very beginning, when I whimpered and painstakingly picked things up by hand, this was a giant leap forward.

Celebrating the growth of my abilities, I checked each booth prepared by the Daehan Gang. And I swept everything up.

Additionally, I gained some information during the process.

‘Aha….’

As I looked at the packaging of the items that were being sucked into my inventory, I noticed goods from other supermarkets mixed in.

It wasn’t a large quantity.

It seemed they hadn’t been content with just one supermarket.

It was a wise choice, if they didn’t get overly greedy.

Stocking up when possible was beneficial in many ways.

And, as expected, I could no longer see fresh meat or vegetables.

It seemed my options had narrowed even further, with only long- and medium-term preserved food items filling the space.

Furthermore, the amount of bottled water was considerably small.

Electricity and water had been cut off.

As food storage became difficult, the importance of drinking water became even more pronounced.

While I had lived relatively comfortably in the shelter, the situation outside had deteriorated this much. I couldn’t gauge how much harder and more difficult it would become in the future.

‘It was definitely a good thing I went around early on.’

The fact that I had monopolized the supermarket early on was a significant advantage.

If I hadn’t done even that, I might have had to diligently roam around now.

Forget about washing; I might have even had to worry about drinking water.

In that sense, I somewhat complimented myself as I gathered the supplies.

While I was at it, I also properly packed clothes that I hadn’t thought to care about before.

The quantity wasn’t large, but the variety was diverse.

Men’s, women’s, winter clothes, children’s clothes, and so on.

‘Children’s clothes….’

Now that I thought about it, Miri didn’t have spare clothes.

Our companions also didn’t have winter clothes, so they had worn several layers.

And those were just jeans or jackets I had picked up.

It was truly fortunate that I could acquire them even in this way.

With the clothes and alcohol, I finished gathering all the organized supplies.

In terms of quantity and quality, it wasn’t as satisfying as before.

I decided to just consider it a minor bonus.

Although I could have felt a proud satisfaction looking at the empty space, I quickly left the area.

The smell was so bad it felt like it would cling to me.

As I walked towards the exit, I scanned my surroundings, but there were no supplies.

Only empty spaces remained where fixtures had been removed or torn out to create the area.

Just in case, I raised my flashlight and checked the ceiling.

Fortunately, I didn’t see any zombies hanging from the unusually high ceiling.

Before, I would have exclaimed in admiration at the lofty ceiling, but now I was on guard.

With a small sigh at the clear contrast of the present, I headed outside.

I went up to the first floor, broke through the blocked entrances and exits, and headed towards the loading dock.

“…What a waste.”

The loading dock I had subtly hoped for was empty.

There were abandoned cargo trucks, but they were empty or had already been ransacked.

No stored items were visible in the huge warehouse.

It seemed that what I had gathered was already everything that had been scraped together.

Looking at it this way, it seemed I had been quite lucky until now.

‘…This should be enough to break even.’

Considering I ran all this way and caused such a ruckus, I considered it fortunate enough not to return empty-handed.

Without any further lingering thoughts, I exited the building.

Outside, evening was already approaching.

The rain had stopped, but the persistently cloudy weather quickly cast shadows over the streets.

Facing the chilled wind, I walked towards the building opposite the entrance.

Thud—

I climbed back onto the rooftop I had stepped on before entering the supermarket.

‘…….’

The wind blew a little fiercely, striking my face.

Although the sun was setting, I intended to wait for a while instead of heading back immediately.

I took out a large bottle of water and thoroughly washed my head and face.

I tried to wash off as much of the dried dark blue blood as possible.

Dousing myself with cold water in this weather brought on a sharp headache.

But my mind felt clear, and the foul smell seemed to be washed away by the wind.

I took out a towel and roughly wiped off the water while watching below.

Specifically, the entrance and the parking lot.

Rumble rumble—

“Hmm….”

My stomach rumbled violently.

Since I had been running and moving without eating anything since morning….

I took out simple cooking tools from my inventory.

I placed a pot on the container burner and boiled water.

I opened a can of tuna and put it whole into five packets of ramen.

All the while, I kept watching below.

While the ramen boiled, the streets quickly grew dark.

The streets, devoid of any light, soon felt ominous.

From afar, a faint, familiar grotesque sound seemed to echo.

In this dreary atmosphere, I stirred the ramen.

‘I can’t stand it.’

My stomach was so hungry from the rebound of having starved all day.

Ramen that was more thoroughly soaked in hot water than properly boiled.

Facing the hot steam rising from the pot, I frantically shoveled it down.

Sometimes, it was like this.

Though hunger is the best sauce, there were times when I crammed food in without time to taste it.

Someone might say it looked rather pathetic if they saw me, but there were times like this.

I couldn’t properly taste it and completely emptied the pot.

Instead, I distinctly felt the awareness of having filled my stomach and the warm fullness radiating from it.

“…I should really fix this habit….”

With a small regret, I put away the tools.

Leaning against the railing, I lit a cigarette and looked down again.

The Daehan Gang, whom I left behind, would come out.

And I intended to see how they would act.

The Daehan Gang was practically Taeseong’s hands and feet.

So, their default position was as my enemy.

It was just awkward to indiscriminately kill them all as one group.

So I intended to watch.

How they would act once they were free.

Investigator Park, strictly speaking, was like the administrative branch’s hands and feet.

He himself had performed his original duty, but well…

He was the type to follow orders exactly as they came down from above.

I couldn’t trust him, but it wasn’t to the extent that I would kill him on the spot.

So I intended to wait and observe.

‘…Is this an excuse?’

…Or perhaps I was hoping they would provide an excuse.

What if they couldn’t give up their lingering attachment and headed to Sagajeong to contact Director Jang?

I was restraining myself because I wasn’t a psychopath.

If the moment came when it was confirmed that they were that namul and that rice [an idiom meaning they are all the same/no different], then.

I suspected they would deeply regret having ignored my words.

Tapping the railing I was leaning on with my fingers, I waited for a long time.

A clanking sound came from the blocked Holy Sale parking lot.

Someone was trying to get out.

Two streaks of light shone through the gaps in the debris blocking the entrance.

They looked like car headlights.

And a short while later.

A vehicle squeezed through the gaps in the broken debris and emerged onto the street.

The black SUV I remembered.

I watched the SUV, which was moving silently along the dark road, as if it were an electric car.

The direction the SUV was heading was the same way I had come from.

‘…….’

I slowly began to move.

Thump-thump!

‘What will they do…?’

I became curious about what choices the people who had crawled out would make.

And if possible, I wanted to confirm one more thing.

I started running across the building rooftops, following the slowly moving SUV.