Re: Survival

Chapter 30

“Honestly, I was watching the zombies storm into the mall.” Saeri whispered.

“I see.”

“I gave up… I thought…”

“Never give up until you see the corpse with your own eyes.”

It was the death of a loved one. Yohan would never consider bringing a zombie along just because it was once a family member, but he also wouldn’t give up hope that someone was alive until he saw otherwise.

For now, Yohan knew that they had to mourn for those that died. In the zombie apocalypse, the best way to mourn for a loved one was to ensure that they had the chance to rest in peace with your own hands.

Saeri stood up with a determined look on her face. As if he was waiting for her, Yohan assigned a new task to Saeri as soon as she stood up. It looked like he didn’t even care that she had just lost a family member.

“You really use people without any sympathy. You’re cold.”

“If you know that already, do your part.”

‘Working hard will take your mind off of it and help you get over this tragedy.’

“Canned food, dry food, canned drinks, and water are our priorities.”

“What about ramen? Most of them are expired.”

“Take it. If people get hungry, they’ll even eat trash.”

Ramen was usually good for six month, but following expiration and ‘best before’ dates was a luxury in the apocalypse. If it won’t kill you, you should always take the food.

Moving the carts up and down stairs was hard work, but they managed to get all the supplies to the mall entrance. Yohan left Saeri and Sweeper there to guard it while he and Ha Jin searched the rest of the mall to see if any Gold Moon members were still alive. Even though they were already exhausted from fighting zombies and searching the entire mall was cumbersome, it was something that must be done. The pair searched every floor and did not find a single survivor. However, they did find the remaining two walkie-talkies and now had four in total.

“Yohan,” Ha Jin called out as he rejoined the group at the entrance, “it’s really weird…”

“What is?”

“The director’s corpse isn’t here. If he died, he should have been a zombie or left a corpse somewhere. I looked everywhere, but didn’t see him.”

‘He had a long life for a third-rate villain.’ Yohan frowned.

“What should we do?”

“Hm… we’ll just keep that in mind. I would have liked to take care of him once and for all, but we can’t force it. We’ll need to tighten up our camp’s security and take turns patrolling the area. He probably didn’t get too far.”

The recon team brought all the supplies from the H Mall back to their camp. Afterwards, they visited two other convenience stores. The zombies that were once part of the zombie wave were now spread out and weren’t much of a threat. Still, there was enough of them on the streets that it deterred other scavengers. This was a good thing, as the supplies inside the convenience stores were untouched. The recon team made several trips. Soon, there was a lot more supplies in both the storage room and loading dock.

“Whew, I think we’re good on supplies for a while.” Sweeper commented. Yohan shook his head. He was planning on making their camp the main supply center that would support other camps. Even if they gathered all the supplies in the city, they still wouldn’t have enough for his purposes.

“We still need an efficient way to burn the corpses.”

The more they fought, the more corpses there would be. They couldn’t ignore the corpses, but they also couldn’t waste precious fuel burning them every time. Yohan traced his finger around Bucheon city on a large map, deep in thought. He had a lot to do. He still had to expand the camp, obtain more weapons, and block all the pathways that zombies in nearby cities could enter from.

And before all that, he had to gather all the survivors in the city. He had a solid plan, but there were a lot of variables. In the apocalypse, six months was a really long time. It was difficult to imagine what might have happened within the city in that time frame.

“Yohan, take a look at this.” One of his managers, Seo Jun, called him over. Yohan recalled how, when they conquered the first floor of the mall, Seo Jun locked the door behind them for safety and Yohan ended up promoting him to manager. Seo Jun had since adopted his role well.

“That’s…”

“It’s a slingshot.” Seo Jun showed Yohan a Y-shaped slingshot made from wood and along rubber band. “You know how there are a lot of nuts and bolts in the mall’s hardware store? Since we have to save ammo and arrows require us to recollect them after use, I figure we could use this to guard the parking lot. Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Could you give me a demonstration?”

Seo Jun led Yohan to the parking lot with a confident expression on his face. A bolt flew through the air. Seo Jun looked embarrassed as he missed a few more shots before one went deep into a zombie’s head. The zombie didn’t seem to realize what had happened and looked around with a bolt sticking out of their head before falling down dead.

“Zombie skulls are weaker than a normal human’s, so this is more than enough to deal with them.”

“Oh, that’s amazing.” Yohan said, honestly. As Seo Jun noted, this new weapon was light and easy to use. It could be useful in many situations. Of course, in a big battle between humans, where anything could happen, it would be less useful as a weapon. But it was good enough for guarding the parking lot.

Seo Jun tried to hide his smile as Yohan complimented him. His expression seemed to say ‘I didn’t do it to get compliments from you!’. He handed the slingshot to Yohan with one hand while scratching his head with the other.

“Anyways, keep this weapon in mind when planning. I’m going to make around ten more.”

“Thank you for your hard work. I think it would be good if one person had a gun while the other had a slingshot during guard duty.”

“Oh, well you don’t have to make changes right away. It’s not that big of a deal.” Seo Jun walked off. Yohan smiled as he looked at the manager’s back.

Yohan decided to rest for a few days, focusing on cleaning up the inside of the camp, which was light work since it was secure from zombies for a while. Between the combat, support, and recon team, there were less than 20 people. Additionally, the recon team didn’t stay at the camp most of the time, so usually there were just over ten people there. It wasn’t ideal, as some support team members had to participate with guard duty as well, but, all-in-all, the camp was becoming safer.

There were five people in the support team. Yohan chose them after interviewing each and every camp member. Ji Hye’s role was easy to decide, as her exceptional cooking skills helped raise morale. Seo Jun was also working hard as a manager and showed that he was capable of handling the role.

They had no choice but to include Elder Jung in the support team, designating her as a repair person. While she wasn’t technically adept, she was the only person that knew how to use a sewing machine, so she took on the entire role of repair person.

‘Lastly, there was also someone with an unexpected talent…’ Yohan’s train of thought was interrupted by a loud sound that reverberated throughout the mall. He went to investigate.

“What is this sound? Are you trying to attract a zombie army or something?”

“Jeez Yohan, don’t say scary things like that. Take a look.” Jung Hwan pointed at the steel door. A steel plate had been welded between the door’s hinge and the gap.

There was a welding technician among the camp members. Excluding the main entrance and parking lot emergency exit, they were planning on welding shut all the other entrances. Before, anyone could get through the side doors or emergency exit simply by breaking the handle. However, it was a different story if they broke the handle themselves and weld the doors shut. This would allow them to almost completely block out intruders.

Jung Hwan already knew the specialties of all the survivors and kickstarted the effort to secure the camp once he overheard that there was a chance that the director was still alive.

“That’s amazing. It’s great.” Yohan complimented them both. The pair were responded excitedly to Yohan’s compliments. They looked as if they had just received some sort of certificate.

‘A cook, a manager, a repair person, and a welder. And the final member of the support team is Elder Park, whose specialty is…’