episode_0177

The humble but hearty lunch immediately had its effect.

Calmness of mind and replenishment of energy.

The soldiers naturally put their heads together and exchanged opinions.

The topic of the meeting was how to deal with the zombies.

How to deal with the damned large zombies.

But no sharp solution emerged.

Still, the atmosphere wasn’t as gloomy as before.

Captain Lee and the team members burned with fighting spirit.

A strong nuance came through that they wouldn’t retreat, even if it meant dying here.

At this, Captain Lee no longer held back his team members.

He, who had been prepared to die alone, also abandoned the thought of immediate death.

In fact, Captain Lee was the most fired up.

One could tell by the way he poured out various opinions.

‘…It’s easy to understand, which is good.’

Simple, perhaps, but not bad.

With this atmosphere, it felt like they could overcome any crisis.

If this were a movie, it would be the kind of atmosphere that leads to a climax before the credits roll.

Of course, movies are movies, and reality is reality.

Good ideas don’t come easily.

No, the ideas themselves were tactics worth attempting.

The problem was that they wouldn’t work.

They dragged a round table and placed a crude map on it.

The soldiers gathered around it, exchanging various opinions, but it was difficult.

They were heavily outnumbered.

No matter what they did, it seemed impossible to overcome such vast numbers.

‘……’

While the soldiers were in their meeting, I stared out the window.

I held my binoculars and continuously observed the large zombie.

‘It’s like some kind of field boss.’

As Heize said, it moved back and forth between the hospital and the helipad.

Its slow movements, as if it were just casually strolling, were irritating.

The giant zombie kept traversing the distance without tiring.

If possible, I felt like slitting its pig-like throat.

I didn’t know if it was leading the many zombies or just being swept along in their midst.

Either way, it was a difficult situation.

“Hoo…”

Captain Lee’s expression was not good as he stretched his back and sighed.

He looked down at the map and muttered lowly to himself.

“No matter what we do, we can’t break through….”

“……”

The soldiers fell silent.

The reason for their gloom was that they knew well the terror of a large number of zombies.

They faced reality by comparing it to the Gangnam incident, where they had sufficient troops and weapons.

They felt frustrated, knowing that it wasn’t something that could be solved by simply fighting to the death.

As the meeting entered a lull, Captain Lee subtly called me over.

“Seonghan. Do you have any good ideas?”

“Well…?”

“Haha. My apologies. I’m just so frustrated…”

He gave a slight, embarrassed laugh.

I put away my binoculars and joined the soldiers.

Looking at the map, I quietly asked.

“Where are we located right now?”

“Around here.”

Their location was roughly in the middle of South Post.

The helipad and hospital were at the southwestern end.

There was a gate there that connected to the outside.

Beyond that were Yongsan Station and Sinyongsan Station.

They were major subway stations used by countless people.

“Since the US military has withdrawn, perhaps they flowed in from this direction?”

“That’s highly probable.”

“If we end up fighting, we’ll have to be prepared for their numbers to increase even more from there.”

“…Damn it.”

The situation was already difficult; I tried to consider the worst-case scenario.

From experience, things never go smoothly in the field.

Problems always arise once you make a plan and start.

You have to consider that.

“We’ll have to fight with guns, but they’ll be drawn by the sound.”

“…Honestly, even if we spray bullets, it won’t make a difference.”

Captain Lee readily agreed.

His willingness to consider possibilities and think flexibly was unlike a typical soldier.

“Ugh! I wish we could just bombard them with missiles! Seriously!”

“Hey. If you did that, all our supplies would be gone too.”

“No, I’m just saying!”

“Sergeant Kim, honestly… a tank… no, something like heavy equipment to push them over… Oh, never mind.”

“Wouldn’t those huge bodies flip a tank?”

“Ugh, seriously, where did something like that even come from…”

Perhaps out of frustration, the team members’ opinions were going wildly off-track.

Listening to them, I muttered softly.

“If we each had a minigun, it might be doable.”

“……?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

At my words, everyone’s eyes widened.

Captain Lee blinked, then chuckled softly.

“Seonghan.”

“Yes.”

“A minigun isn’t a weapon you carry and fight with.”

“??”

He kindly explained to me, who didn’t understand.

“Miniguns are electrically operated.”

“…Electric?”

A firearm that uses electricity?

“They’re equipped with motors for high-speed rapid fire. Have you ever seen someone carrying a minigun and firing it wildly in a movie?”

“Uh… yes.”

“That’s cinematic staging.”

“……”

“That’s a common misconception.”

My face flushed as he explained with a soft chuckle.

According to his additional explanation, they’re connected to helicopters, cars, or boats due to their power requirements.

Furthermore, he said they weigh over 40kg alone, so they’re not weapons people carry and fight with.

‘Ah… Brother Arnold…’

The scenes in movies where he destroyed police cars or laid waste to jungles with a single minigun.

Those memorable scenes were all fiction.

With this new fact, another illusion shattered.

…This place doesn’t suit me.

The atmosphere was extremely awkward.

Just as my heart felt empty from the broken illusion.

“Idiot.”

Heize snickered and said something towards me.

I didn’t understand the meaning, but her attitude was highly uncomfortable.

I narrowed my eyes and quietly asked Ensign Lee.

“…What did she just say?”

“Th-that…”

“What is it?”

“…Idiot… she said…”

I glared at the snickering Heize.

A person can not know something; why go that far…

“…Hey.”

“Huh?”

“You know Korean?”

“Yeah.”

Damn it, she said ‘Yeah.’

Everyone’s gaze turned towards Heize.

“Then why have you been speaking English all this time?”

“You didn’t ask?”

“You little—!”

“Why? It’s true, isn’t it? You didn’t ask.”

The blonde, blue-eyed girl wore an innocent expression, as if asking what the problem was.

As I approached with the intention of giving her a smack, she wrapped her arms around herself and hid behind Ensign Lee.

“He’s hitting a girl. Help me.”

“Ugh…”

“Bad guy.”

“Hey, you, come here.”

Suddenly, laughter erupted from the unexpected farce.

With their loud laughter, I couldn’t help but laugh too.

“Then Lawrence also?”

“No. Lawrence only listens.”

“Hmph… Fine. It’s my fault for not asking.”

“Yeah.”

“……”

Instead of slamming her down on the ground earlier, I should have kicked her butt.

Anyway.

Thanks to the sudden burst of laughter, my mood lifted.

The laughter subsided, and everyone began to concentrate again.

Heize also stopped messing around.

I collected my thoughts, fixed my gaze on the map, and quietly spoke.

“Let’s think simply.”

“Simply, you mean?”

“If you’re walking down a road and it’s blocked, what do you do?”

“…You either clear the path, go around, or turn back?”

Thinking simply.

It was a habit I had from my adventurer days.

I nodded at Captain Lee, who answered even a childish question seriously.

“Zombies are blocking the way right before our destination.”

Captain Lee and the team members began to focus on my words.

“We can’t physically break through. So, exclude that.”

“Hmm.”

“Since those guys are camped out, bypassing them is also excluded.”

“Hmm…”

“And retreating now is difficult, so that’s also excluded.”

“There’s no answer then…”

Everyone’s expressions soured at his words, which felt like a repeated refrain.

I continued unconcerned.

“If neither of those works… what about getting rid of them?”

At my words, Captain Lee frowned slightly.

“You just said we couldn’t physically break through… Ah!”

I smiled faintly at Captain Lee’s sudden realization.

The team members, however, had a ‘Huh… what is it?’ kind of reaction.

“Zombies react sensitively to sound.”

“…Are you saying we should lure the zombies?”

I nodded slightly.

“We’re outnumbered. Instead of fighting them head-on, we lure them away and eliminate them. How about that?”

“…That makes sense. But how do we eliminate them? All we have are rifles.”

Captain Lee, arms crossed and one hand propping his chin, approached cautiously.

Under his gaze, which shone with seriousness, I tapped the map with my finger.

“Here.”

“That’s the Han River, though.”

“How about luring them here and drowning them?”

For a moment, all the soldiers collectively gasped.

“Uh… that might actually work?”

“If we can clear them without fighting…”

“No, wait. How do we lure them? We still have to go outside, right? No matter how much we drive, the car will flip before we can break through.”

“The path itself is a problem, and more zombies might gather in the middle. If that happens, we’ll be isolated and die instantly.”

The soldiers poured out their opinions.

They were clearly wild ideas, but they didn’t dismiss them carelessly.

It seemed they were desperate to find a solution, no matter what.

Captain Lee, in contrast, fell silent for a moment and pondered.

“Drowning them in the Han River won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“That many rotting corpses submerged in the water would surely cause contamination.”

“Ah…”

“And even if they flowed downstream with the current, they’d get blocked somewhere. Like sewage facilities or dams.”

“Oh, right.”

“If that happens, it could cause unknown problems.”

My thinking was too short-sighted.

Even if I ignored the contamination, I hadn’t considered what would happen downstream.

No, water contamination is important too.

Just when I thought perhaps we should just deal with them on the spot.

“Seonghan.”

“Yes.”

“How did you cause that fire back then?”

“…Pardon?”

“The one in Yangjae-dong. When you turned the street into a sea of fire.”

“……”

I was caught off guard.

To suddenly bring that up.

“Fire? Oh! Now that you mention it, Seonghan is an arson villain…”

“Shut up!”

“Oops.”

Ensign Jo reprimanded Sergeant Kim, who had clapped his hands thoughtlessly.

Regardless, Captain Lee asked seriously.

“If water doesn’t work, then fire. If you don’t mind, could you tell us?”

“W-well, first off, I want to say I didn’t do it on purpose?”

“Understood.”

“…It was a Molotov cocktail.”

“A Molotov cocktail?”

“How it happened was…”

I briefly explained what I had done to enter Holy Sale Yangjae.

Throwing a Molotov cocktail and the fire spreading to a gas cylinder, causing it to explode.

There wasn’t much to the story, so the explanation was brief.

It was just that the street had burned.

“A peculiar thing is that fire seems to catch easily on them. Zombies burn well.”

“Hmm…”

“But even throwing Molotov cocktails might not be enough…”

Actually, I had prepared Molotov cocktails.

I hadn’t just slept through the nights at the Konkuk University shelter.

I had inspected tools and made Molotov cocktails late into the night.

Of course, this was merely preparation as a supplementary measure.

There were easily over ten thousand of them.

Even if effective, it didn’t seem like it would lead to a significant result.

In Yangjae-dong, the gas cylinder just happened to explode, causing all that chaos.

So, I hadn’t considered the option of burning them away.

But Captain Lee seemed to think differently.

“…Captain Lee?”

“……”

Frowning and deep in thought, Captain Lee seemed not to hear me.

After staring intently at the map for a moment, Captain Lee spoke.

“Heize.”

“Huh?”

“Are there any gas or oxygen tanks in the base?”

Captain Lee seemed serious.

He was really looking for gas tanks.

He questioned Heize about various things, but the answer he wanted didn’t come.

“Base has no such thing. All taken.”

“…Is that so…”

“Fuel… ro, ro! is here.”

“Fuel? Are you talking about gasoline?”

“Yeah. But here.”

“Ah…”

The place Heize pointed to was an area expected to have supplies.

She stopped pointing at the map and pointed at me.

“Ssanghan.”

“? Are you calling me right now?”

“Yeah. You.”

“Seonghan.”

“Ssonghan.”

“Seong. Han.”

“Ssonghan?”

“Seong! Han!”

“Ssong! Han!”

“…Just call me Han.”

“Got it~ Han.”

“…Why?”

“That, fire happens. Need it?”

“It would be good if we had it.”

At my answer, Heize, her blue eyes shining, said something unexpected.

“Captain no need. Other things okay?”

“…Other things? What other things?”

“Pollutant & waste oil.”

“What’s that?”

“Ah!”

Unlike me, who didn’t understand, Captain Lee’s eyes lit up.

“We have pollutants and waste oil. It was a chronic problem at Yongsan Base.”

“Yeah. Didn’t clean up. No money.”

“…It was left neglected because of money problems?”

“Yep!”

“So where is it?”

When I asked skeptically, Heize pointed to the map without hesitation.

“Here, here. Probably.”

“It’s problematic if you’re not certain.”

Heize merely shrugged.

Her words sounded so light, it made me uneasy.

However, Captain Lee, examining the map, had a slightly different idea.

“She’s probably right.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yongsan Base had a lot of issues because of pollutants.”

“And?”

“I don’t know the details, but I heard the processing of those pollutants was delayed.”

“Because of money?”

“Something like that. It seems there were things whose disposal was postponed.”

“Hmm…”

“And the location Heize pointed out is a scheduled demolition site. They probably collected them there and left them neglected, or covered them up with something.”

At Captain Lee’s earnest words, I re-examined the map.

‘It’s next to the gate, isn’t it?’

Immediately to the left of the hospital and helipad.

It was quite close to the gate.

And coincidentally, the area was where the zombies were gathered.

Heize had thrown out the idea so casually, but it was more than I expected…

‘This… it might work?’

“If we can just draw their attention, it might be possible.”

Suddenly, those blue eyes began to look beautiful.