episode_0169

***

“Huh?”

Sergeant Kim Dongwook wore a blank expression as he watched Seonghan lightly leap over the windowsill and run off.

And it was the same for the other soldiers.

Sergeant Park Yeonkyung even kept rubbing her eyes.

“Captain. Did you see that?”

“Is that even… possible?”

“I told you many times, didn’t I? He’d be a great help to us.”

“No, even so, that’s… wow…”

“You never said he was such a monster, did you?”

Sergeant Kim Dongwook, still clutching his side where Seonghan had poked him, looked astonished.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the spot where Seonghan had run past.

Chief Warrant Officer Lee Misook, who was also stunned beside him, chimed in.

“…Is he really human?”

A cautious, yet absurd, question was asked.

But it was also a valid question.

Chief Warrant Officer Lee Misook, who had asked the foolish question, murmured.

“It was like that on the helicopter earlier too…”

“Oh, right. I didn’t see everything, but zombies were just exploding…”

The soldiers who had witnessed Seonghan fighting, even if just a little, while frantically dodging, were busy saying a word each.

It wasn’t that Captain Lee didn’t understand his subordinates’ reactions.

Captain Lee was just as confused.

“Captain, did you know?”

“A little. But I didn’t know it would be this much.”

“Hah… I can’t believe it even after seeing it… truly…”

While his team members were dumbfounded, Captain Lee spoke calmly.

“Regardless, he’s someone who’s helping us. Be careful what you say in front of him. He seems to strongly dislike being called a monster or anything like that. Still… he seems to be more considerate of us than I thought, so I hope you don’t make a mistake and antagonize him. Especially Sergeant Kim, Sergeant Park.”

At Captain Lee’s designation, the two trembled.

“Wh-what did I ever do…”

“Captain… what should I do…”

They were the two who had marked their first meeting in the worst way.

Captain Lee himself had called the two aside and severely reprimanded them.

The two turned pale and shuddered.

“……”

Captain Lee simply patted their shoulders without a word.

***

He quickly ran along the old paved road.

It seemed old, as weeds were visible growing through the cracks.

The same went for the visible buildings.

The scattered houses and buildings that remained felt old.

The country-style brick buildings naturally showed no signs of life.

Doors were wide open or broken.

As such buildings continued, the entire area looked like an abandoned street.

Most were single-story buildings, making it awkward to walk on their roofs.

And even those thinned out once open lots appeared.

‘…….’

Most of the empty lots had traces of demolished buildings.

The ground was either unkempt, or some of the structural framework remained.

Normally, it would have been neatly organized, but it was now in ruins.

Coupled with the current situation, it looked desolate.

And these empty lots continued one after another.

Unlike outside, there were no abandoned cars on the road.

Trash and scraps of clothing blown by the wind caught his eye.

But surprisingly, there were no traces of zombies.

There were no bloodstains or signs of predation that he had grown tired of seeing.

Nor were there any neglected, rotting corpses.

‘…Did they evacuate?’

He was quite puzzled, but he brushed it off, thinking it was good that things were good.

If there were few casualties in the current situation, that was a good thing.

Because it was proof that there weren’t many zombies.

He ran through the utterly lifeless empty lots as if wandering.

With no buildings, it was rather difficult to get his bearings.

After running a little further, he found an intact building.

He slowed down and approached it carefully.

‘A sports field… Ah. Is this a parade ground? Then that must be…’

He approached the building painted white.

The closer he got, the more he could tell it was an old building.

A simple design with angular features.

It seemed to be a military-related building.

Without hesitation, he first found the entrance and went inside the building.

‘…….’

The interior was quiet.

The floor and window sills were covered in dust.

Leaves and other debris were scattered, as if blown in by the wind.

Abandoned paper scraps and trash.

But again, there were no traces of zombies.

Not even grotesque sounds could be heard.

It seemed to have been emptied before a zombie attack.

Otherwise, it couldn’t have been vacated so cleanly.

He moved his steps in the chillingly profound silence.

Only the sound of his safety boots hitting the floor was audible.

“…What is this written here…”

Is this what it feels like to be a blind man with open eyes?

He didn’t understand the meaning of the English written with the arrows.

In the end, he started searching everywhere, one by one.

The subsequent search of the building was quick.

There were no locked doors, and nothing much to examine inside.

The building itself was empty.

Perhaps they only took important things, or just simple necessities, and evacuated.

Only things of little value remained inside the building.

The only thing he could confirm was…

‘This must be the barracks…’

He found a space with adult-sized iron bunk beds and lockers.

It was a completely different scene from the familiar Korean barracks.

As he stepped inside, he could tell it was empty just by looking, but he checked every corner.

The bunks and lockers were messy and unorganized.

Inside the lockers, neglected clutter lay scattered.

Only after seeing the slightly dusty bunks did he become convinced.

‘These guys somehow knew and evacuated beforehand.’

He didn’t know how, but the US military evacuated without casualties.

After searching all the buildings, he further solidified that thought.

All he found were rotting food ingredients in the kitchen.

The only gain was a large can of tomatoes rolling on the floor.

He picked up an abandoned can and went outside.

He brushed off the dust, opened the lid, and slowly poured a little into his mouth.

“…It tastes like tomatoes.”

He walked, crushing the peeled, sour fruit pulp with his tongue.

From the atmosphere, it seemed other buildings would be the same.

He emptied the can and searched the building across from him, but it was as he expected.

‘Captain Lee will be disappointed.’

The local procurement, on which they had placed a small hope, was effectively scrapped for now.

There were still many places he hadn’t looked.

He also still had time.

Just as he was about to move on to find the next place.

‘…?’

He found tire tracks a short distance away.

Short but distinctly remaining tire tracks.

He approached to check the tracks.

“What’s over there?”

Looking around, he headed in the direction where vehicles seemed to have come and gone.

After running a little along the paved road, something caught his eye.

A warehouse-like cement building appeared.

Barbed wire fences were installed all around the building.

What appeared to be the main gate allowed the barbed wire to be opened left and right.

And a guard post was installed.

The moment he saw that, he knew this was it.

He immediately rushed over in a single breath.

It had an overall old feel but wasn’t broken.

The guard post and barbed wire were also wide open.

The same went for the warehouse door in front.

He first entered the open warehouse.

“Ah…”

He had found the right place.

It was the armory Captain Lee wanted.

He could tell just by looking.

Even a quick glance showed a strict facility layout.

Instead of walls, barbed wire fences were set up like partitions.

And even a desk, presumably for issuing and receiving weapons.

Beyond that, iron display racks and weapon stands were visible.

Unfortunately, they were all empty, but he had found it.

Just in case, he went deep inside and searched thoroughly.

But there was nothing left.

It was so clean that there weren’t even spent casings rolling around.

“These guys barely even shower, so why are they so clean?”

He clicked his tongue, seeing only dust instead of the items that should have been there.

It was a great pity about the weapons that should have been inside.

Even just this much would have been a significant help…

Carrying his sense of emptiness, he came out and lit a cigarette.

“Inhale- Exhale~”

He quietly smoked his cigarette and thought.

‘They seem to have evacuated in a hurry, but they scraped clean all the important stuff. Maybe the main post is completely empty.’

He hadn’t seen any traces of casualties yet.

The only zombies he’d encountered were those in the multi-family housing.

There certainly were zombies.

But it didn’t seem like there were many.

‘The zombies I encountered earlier were civilians too. No soldiers… Were they people who couldn’t escape in time?’

His thoughts lingered on the situation, which was different from what he’d seen so far.

He flicked the fully burned cigarette with his finger.

And then he started moving again.

There’s no end to speculating about an uncertain situation with just thoughts.

Even if it’s crude, running and verifying with his own body was much more productive.

‘Only while the sun is up.’

Having set a time limit and solidified his resolve, he ran diligently.

If he saw a barrack-like building, he first went in and searched it.

Since the structure and layout were similar, he easily found other armories as well.

But they were all empty.

He found the few remaining buildings and three or four armories, but they were all empty.

All he found was a pile of dust.

There wasn’t a single bullet dropped, and all he found were discarded grease cans and empty jerrycans.

‘Damn clean bastards…’

As he exited the last armory he searched, he felt the temperature drop sharply.

It was well past afternoon, heading towards evening.

The sun would set in a little while.

He skipped lunch and ran hard.

In terms of location, it seemed he had searched the middle and lower parts of the main post.

This seemed like he’d done enough…

‘…Let’s go back.’

It was obvious that searching further would only lead to a waste of time.

He decided to return to where Captain Lee and the others were and turned his body.

As he was about to run slowly, the wall to his right in the distance caught his eye.

‘Right. As long as I’m going that way.’

On his way back, he started running along the outer perimeter.

It was like checking the areas he hadn’t fully seen yet.

He moved as if uncovering a hidden map in a game.

Had his expectations been too high?

There was nothing special about it just because it was a US military base.

Were they really military facilities? Most of them were old.

He knew to some extent about the outdated things in the Korean military.

He’d seen news reports that decades-old canteens were still in use.

Looking at the buildings, it seemed militaries were similar in any country.

Though not for guns or other armaments.

Still, wasn’t this America?

Perhaps his tension had snapped due to the repeated failures, as stray thoughts entered his mind.

‘Uselessly large… Hmm?’

As he ran diligently, something caught his eye.

‘…….’

Its location was behind a large empty lot.

There was a small burial mound that looked a bit awkward and out of place.

Wondering what it was, he approached it.

The mound was strictly enclosed by an iron fence.

And it wasn’t just a simple pile of dirt.

It looked like a sandcastle children would make.

But the entrance was no joke.

A black iron door that clearly screamed, ‘I am sturdy!’

It was a completely mismatched combination, but that’s what he saw.

Passing what must have been a strict perimeter, he approached and scrutinized the iron door.

‘What happened here?’

The large, heavy iron door was tattered.

It was crumpled, twisted, and on the verge of falling off.

And around it, dirt and stone fragments were scattered.

Even black scorch marks extended slightly from beneath the door.

There probably had been an explosion inside the door.

The sight of the iron door bulging outward also seemed to indicate that.

He squinted his eyes slightly and focused.

‘No zombies…’

He stared into the gap in the door, but it was only pitch black.

He immediately pulled out his flashlight and squeezed his body into the gap.

Thudding-

As he stepped inside, stone fragments fell from the ceiling.

He had only taken a single step, but it was utterly dark.

There was nothing to see, but there was something to feel.

A foul odor that stung his nose.

The strong smell of rotting corpses wafted through the air.

He immediately adjusted his grip on the flashlight to his left hand and pulled out his knife.

He slowly turned on the flashlight.

Flash-

As he switched to booster mode, the interior instantly lit up.

At the same time, he slowly rolled his eyes, calmly surveying his surroundings.

The ceiling was quite high.

And a gentle slope leading downwards stretched out.

He saw that a spot about 2 meters from the entrance had collapsed.

Piles of rocks that slightly blocked the passageway.

Centered around them, black scorch marks remained distinctly.

‘Part of the wall must have collapsed from an explosion.’

It was the trace of an explosion, not just a fire.

Looking at the scene before him, it was easy to tell.

He checked the ceiling and walls, but they didn’t seem likely to collapse.

He slowly approached the pile of rocks.

‘…….’

A broken human arm protruded from between the rocks.

Seeing it this close, he could discern faint traces of blood mixed in.

Brown bloodstains mixed with soot.

Seeing the blood-stained helmet discarded on the floor, it seemed an accident had occurred.

The strong stench of death seemed to be coming from the corpses buried beneath.

Inspecting the debris, he bent down and examined the floor.

‘Are those bullets?’

On the floor, there were bullets, not spent casings.

Several bullets were also buried among the rock piles.

With a thought of ‘no way,’ he stood up and quickened his pace.

He quietly passed the pile of rocks and headed further inside.

Ahead, a corridor continued, similar to the interior of a typical building.

After walking a little further, he came to a small guard post.

‘…….’

The gentle slope ended, leading to a clean, straight passage.

He walked along the path that continued beyond the guard post.

The interior, though designed to be lit, had lights that weren’t working.

Relying on his flashlight, he walked, scanning up and down.

It wasn’t like an underground tunnel.

It was a solidly and safely built underground facility.

The deeper he went, the cooler and drier it felt.

After passing a short corridor, he entered a wide space.

“Wow…”

It was a huge space with a high ceiling, probably over seven thousand square feet.

Inside the space he found, sturdy-looking display shelves were neatly arranged.

And the shelves were filled with familiar boxes.

He approached and examined one of the boxes.

The iron box was clean, without a speck of rust.

『1000 CRTG……』

『USA/……』

Confirming the familiar label, he carefully opened the lid.

Inside, clean, gleaming bullets were neatly arranged.

He gently set the bullets down and looked away.

Everything in this large space was ammunition cans.

Though some were different sizes or completely different shapes, they were all ammunition cans.

Some of the shelves were a little empty, but it didn’t matter.

“Yes!”

He clenched his fist tightly amidst the cold metal boxes.