Chapter 24
Following her to the most secluded spot, I smiled bitterly as I looked at the lone tent standing there. Compared to the groups of tents I saw on the way, her situation seemed even more pitiful.
“It’s humble, but please come in.”
“Excuse us, then.”
When she opened the tent door and asked me to come in, I cautiously followed her inside. Meanwhile, he hesitated, seemingly displeased, but reluctantly came in after I practically pulled him. Once we managed to sit down in the cramped tent, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the persistent stares that had followed us until we entered the tent were now gone. Anyway…
I took my time to carefully observe her. At first glance, she looked lifeless, like someone on the verge of death, but her recent actions and her eyes suggested she was still in relatively good condition.
“Forget what those guys said just now. They’re always like that. They treat every new survivor the same way and chase them away.”
“Really? Such mean people. Even though the situation is bad, there’s no need to go that far… They just have rotten personalities.”
She looked outside through the slightly open tent flap and then turned her gaze back to me.
“You came here to escape the zombies, didn’t you?”
“Yes. We managed to run away and survive.”
“Then you don’t know much about the situation here. It’s not much different from the outside. It might even be better out there…”
“Can I ask why you think that?”
“….”
I already knew what things were like inside the supermarket, but I couldn’t let her know that, so I decided to slowly get closer to her by listening to her talk. My goal was to hear about her brother, help her with her revenge, and then eventually recruit her.
“…It wasn’t like this at first. At the very beginning, I mean.”
“….”
“When the world first changed, the people trapped in the supermarket weren’t hostile to each other. They even said ‘Let’s work together to survive’.”
That made sense. It was probably their first encounter with zombies. They must have been scared and confused, trying to band together.
Come to think of it, wasn’t it similar in Stage 1? I quietly turned my head to glance at him, sitting next to me. The reason a group of survivors formed early on and why he was with them was probably the same.
“But it didn’t last long. On the first night, while everyone was asleep, a few people got caught trying to steal and hide food. From that moment, people started to be wary of each other and split up. Or maybe ‘split up’ isn’t the right word. Perhaps they were never united in the first place, and I was just naive to see it that way.”
“….”
“….”
“The funny thing is, more than half of the people there had secretly hidden food. Everyone was secretly watching each other to secure more for themselves. In just one day, people scattered, and fights began.”
Honestly, I could understand their feelings. In this day and age, who wouldn’t know about zombies? People had seen disaster scenarios in movies and comics, so they knew how to act in such situations. Knowing the importance of food, they would naturally try to secure their share.
Even though this place was a supermarket with plenty of food, there were also many people. No one knew how long this situation would last, and with so many mouths to feed, the food would run out quickly. So, even if they said they wanted to work together, securing their own food would have been their priority.
“Honestly, I don’t understand it. Why fight over food like that? This is a supermarket. There’s so much food. And if we wait a little, the government will come up with a plan and take action. Why hurt each other and fight?”
Hmm… naive or optimistic? It seemed like she had more faith in the world than I thought.
I couldn’t agree with her. In my view, she was looking at the world too positively. If the government could immediately respond to problems and people could live considerately of each other, why would wars happen and why would there be a need for police? It was because people weren’t like that that things like these existed.
“After that, people fought each other until a group naturally formed. They monopolized all the groceries on the first floor, and the remaining people were driven up to the second floor.”
“It seems like there are quite a few people here. Isn’t there a way for these people to join forces and resist?”
“No. Even though the numbers here are large, the people here are weak. Most are the elderly, children, or women. Moreover, the lower floors are mostly occupied by strong men or young adults….”
In short, only the strong guys gathered to take control of the first floor, and the weaker ones were driven to the upper floors. So, the guys being territorial earlier were those who were filtered out in the first round—weak in strength but big in talk, pathetic guys.
“Then how have the people here managed to hold on? There’s no food on the second floor.”
“They’ve been surviving on food they hid in advance. But even that is running out, and they’re fighting among themselves.”
How much could they have hidden in such a short time? The people whose food had run out were fighting each other. They can’t even go down to the first floor. Well, even if this situation becomes stagnant, eventually, one or two people will try to go down….
“The situation doesn’t look too good.”
“No, it doesn’t….”
Afterward, silence flowed. I pondered what to say to continue the conversation that had been cut off, but then I remembered him, whom I had momentarily forgotten.
‘Come to think of it, he’s been quiet since earlier.’
He must be confused since I dragged him here without explanation…. I turned my gaze to look at him. As I did, our eyes met, as if he had been watching me for a while. The moment our eyes met, he opened his mouth as if he had been waiting.
“Are you done talking?”
“Huh…?”
“We’ve got a rough idea of how things are going here, so let’s get up now. Noona.”
“Now, wait just a minute. Come to think of it, we haven’t even introduced ourselves to her, have we? She helped us, so we should at least know her name!”
He didn’t seem interested in her at all. He just wanted to leave this place, and I desperately wanted to keep him here, so I blurted out anything to keep him here for a bit longer.
“I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Han Ji-ah, and this is Lee Do-yoon.”
“…I’m Seo Ga-eun.”
“Since you helped us and gave us information, I’d like to return the favor somehow…. Ah, are you hungry? Do you like bread? We have some food…. Do-yoon, is it okay?”
Food supplies must have run out by this point, so she must be starving herself. Thus, I decided to offer her some food to get closer. Don’t they say someone who gives you food is a good person? Moreover, it’s not easy for someone to share their supplies in such a situation, so it would certainly help to lower her guard.
I looked at her with a relaxed smile while nudging the person next to me with my elbow.. If I were alone, I could just take the food out of my bag, but now that I was with him, I couldn’t act by myself. Moreover, the food we gathered at school was no longer in the bag but somewhere else, and I needed his help to get it. When he didn’t respond to my actions, I turned my gaze back to him. He was looking at me with a sullen face.
“You told me not to use it carelessly in front of others.”
“It’s okay right now.”
“I’m fine. You don’t have to do that.”
She, who had been looking uncomfortable with the situation since earlier, said this to stop me. It seemed she thought he didn’t want to share the food, but there was no way that was true. We were going to loot the food here soon anyway, so there was no need to worry about food.
Moreover, he was naturally more inclined to cooperate rather than to reject or dislike others…. Ah, but he did become a bit twisted after being betrayed in the last stage…. But he wouldn’t have changed completely like in the game yet. That would happen later in the game. Anyway, the reason he was hesitating seemed to be because I told him not to use his abilities carelessly in front of others.
People tended to reject those who were different from them. In such a sensitive situation, this tendency was even more pronounced. It was obvious he’d be called a monster and pelted with stones if he used his abilities openly.
The reason I knew this was because I had already experienced it in the game. He tried his best to use his abilities to protect people from zombie attacks, but instead of being grateful, they called him a monster and pointed fingers at him. Well, from their perspective, the dark things that suddenly sprouted from the ground and the zombies were both monsters alike, but it was too much to treat someone who had protected them rather than attacking them in such a way. Anyway, I said that because I didn’t want him to go through such an experience.
“It’s not that. Do-yoon, hurry up.”
In the end, at my urging, he quietly moved my shadow. As it slid and gathered into a round shape in front of me, I reached my hand inside. As I pulled out what I had grabbed, the woman’s eyes, watching this scene, widened.
“Huh?!”
“Ah, it’s… no need to be surprised! Here, take this! You’ll be thirsty after eating the bread, so have something to drink as well.”
When I took out bread and a drink from the shadow and handed them to her, she seemed frozen and did not accept them. I knew she would react this way, but I could not help it. Before leaving the basement, I had already transferred all the food from the bag into the shadow, so this was the only way to retrieve it.
Earlier, before leaving the basement, I noticed a bag filled with food. Although this place was a secret space and there was no worry of someone coming in, I was still concerned. So I used the shadow to create an inventory and put it there before leaving, but if I had known it would turn out like this, I would have just left it or brought the entire bag.
“Go on, take it! This is just… like magic, right? Amazing, no? Haha….”
I forced a smile, saying words that didn’t come naturally, trying to loosen up the frozen woman. She looked at me with a gaze that didn’t believe a word of what I was saying, as if to say, “What kind of nonsense is this?” Throughout this, I just kept smiling. Perhaps understanding my intention to just smile and move on, she said nothing more and accepted what I had offered.
“Take it.”
“I’m really fine…. And it’s a bit awkward to eat alone….”
“We already ate before coming here, so we’re fine.”
“….”
The woman, who had been silently staring at the bread and drink in her hands, eventually tore open the packaging and began to eat when I said that. I felt it might be impolite and burdensome to stare at her eating, so I averted my gaze. But then….
“…?
“Sniff… Sniffle…”
“Uh… are you okay over there?”
Suddenly, she stopped eating the bread and started crying, which made me so flustered that I could only dart my eyes in every other direction. My gaze met his as I was at a loss for words.
Why is she crying all of a sudden?
I don’t know…
Both clueless, we just kept blinking our eyes. At that moment, the woman, who had been quietly sobbing, began to cry like a damn bursting.
They both don’t know how to comfort other people when they’re crying lol
