Marauder of the Apocalypse-Chapter 67: Letter

There are five stages of accepting death - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But maybe because death had become so common in this apocalyptic world, the hiking group skipped the first stage.

They didn't waste time with pointless denial. They jumped straight to anger and bargaining.

Requesting rescue, searching for escape routes, threatening me.

I walked circles around the roof, looking down below. Several corpses already lay on the ground. People who had tried climbing the walls barehanded and slipped, hit by bricks I'd thrown, or fallen after the ladder I'd hurled struck them as they tried climbing down on ropes made from blankets.

Bodies were scattered like trash. I wondered if enough piled up, would they work as cushioning?

"Want to clear those away..."

When I muttered this, Do-hyung, who had come to relieve me, shook his head.

"We'll get shot if we go near them."

"True enough."

They had one gun. They'd already fired warning shots into the air to threaten me. I might end up another corpse if I tried clearing the bodies.

There was only one solution. Throwing things from the roof. Killing them like whack-a-mole whenever they poked their heads out.

I nudged Do-hyung and yawned widely.

"Staying up all night made me sleepy. Keep watch carefully. Shout if anyone comes trying to rescue them."

"Yes. But... what about Mr. Park Yang-gun's family? They're trying to help them. Should we tie them up?"

"That's..."

Park Yang-gun's family was definitely a problem. Even if we called this imprisonment, it wasn't a real prison facility. Just moving the junk piled in front of the door would open it.

Park Yang-gun didn't seem capable of controlling them either.

The commotion had already started. Do-hyung and I went to the railing and looked down at the street to see Park Yang-gun's ex-wife emerge yelling angrily.

"How could you do this! Is this why you let us in? To kill people and take their things?"

"Stop! No, just calm down!"

Park Yang-gun tried desperately to grab her as she shook him off. At the same time, voices called out from the trapped people's windows.

"Help us!"

"Just open one door!"

Their voices still had strength - they must not be suffering too badly yet. Weren't they hot? Did they have water left?

As Park Yang-gun's ex-wife got closer, I grabbed a brick and hurled it hard at the ground. Bang, it hit a car with a loud crash and silence fell.

Park Yang-gun strode over and gripped his ex-wife's hand tightly.

"Don't do anything dangerous. Think of our daughter."

"...You've changed. I understood the stealing was like a sickness. But you weren't this bad. You weren't truly evil."

His ex-wife stared intently at Park Yang-gun. He turned his head as if avoiding her gaze. He seemed to mutter something but I couldn't hear from the roof.

In the end, only his ex-wife's near-scream carried up to us:

"These people helped us when we thought we'd die without you! When your daughter and I thought we were going to die!"

"We're divorced - how could I stay with you!"

"You're the one who wanted the divorce! Said you were ashamed in front of our child! This doesn't shame you?"

"This is normal in the city! You don't know how the world works now after living in the mountains!"

...Their argument seemed to be getting more childish.

Just then, Do-hyung nudged me and pointed beyond the street.

"Zombies are coming."

"So they are. ...Zombies approaching! Back away! If you want to die, hurry inside! We'll kill you!"

Park Yang-gun's ex-wife whipped her head up to look at me. I waved the brick at her.

"No, you monster!"

Park Yang-gun grabbed his ex-wife in alarm and hurried back to the villa they'd come from. As if filling the empty street, zombies that had woken from sleep flooded in.

I scratched my head. Would it be awkward to go back to my comfortable home to sleep? I looked down slightly at the tent I'd torn. Corpses in eternal sleep inside.

I'd sleep there.

"Let's throw these corpses out. Ah, tear off their clothes first. We can use them as rags to clean up blood."

"Um... are you sleeping here?"

"It's awkward to go back, and I need to stay here in case anything urgent happens."

So we threw the corpses far off the roof, cleaned the tent thoroughly with torn clothes, and I drifted into light sleep in the sweltering tent.

***

"Wake up. Some firefighter-looking people are here. Hey? Wake up!"

Slap!

Sharp pain instantly drove away my drowsiness. My cheek stung. I rubbed my cheek in confusion while blinking. What was that?

Do-hyung stood before me, urgently pointing beyond the roof railing.

"Looks like firefighter-type people came to rescue them."

"Oh. Wait, didn't someone just hit me?"

"I slapped you. You wouldn't wake up and it's urgent. Oh, they're almost at the villa!"

"Right..."

I suppose slapping was justified given the urgency. Though my cheek hurt quite a bit.

I struggled to my feet. It was bright daylight, and the heat had prevented proper sleep. My body felt completely drained.

After painfully putting on my clothes and gear, my body felt heavy. I trudged to the railing to look down at the street.

Fully armed firefighters were approaching, sweeping aside zombies as they came. Thick fire suits, sturdy helmets, fire axes that easily split people. They killed zombies even better than soldiers.

"Stay calm, don't fall!"

One axe swing took down a zombie. The thick fire suits blocked zombie attacks.

When waves of zombies occasionally surged forward, they used cars as walls to prevent falling while swinging their axes diligently. The red fire axes were stained with fresh blood.

They maintained decent formation and had clearly developed physical strategies.

Firefighters were truly as formidable as police. I couldn't even imagine how to fight them.

'How do we kill them? Fire bombs probably won't work against fire suits. Will guns work? But they're firefighters - won't they just treat their own gunshot wounds?'

Weren't they basically human tanks? Close combat was hopeless. Maybe such force was how they'd survived zombies and humans until now.

Do-hyung stared blankly at them before suddenly hitting me.

"What do we do? These, what, hikers? Seems like they called them."

"...We'll have to talk."

It wasn't that I was scared. Look at those zombies. Weren't they enthusiastically attacking then retreating? I was avoiding them because they were dirty. It wasn't worth fighting cowardly firefighters in full armor. Maybe if they fought honorably with just weapons and no armor.

"You watch the roof."

I stretched widely and went inside through the roof door. The shaded interior was slightly cooler at least.

Suddenly I heard the hiking club leader's voice from beyond the entrance.

"Come out and face us."

A triumphant voice now that rescue firefighters had arrived. I smiled awkwardly and slowly sat down on the second floor stairs to wait for the firefighters to come up.

Muffled voices and heavy footsteps approached.

"This the right address? Let's handle this quick, get the food, and go. Too hot to wear this anymore."

"Yes, senior. But if they're imprisoned, the person who imprisoned them..."

The firefighters climbing the stairs with axes in hand stopped. Eyes met through the transparent face shields of their fire helmets.

Their presence was chilling. Axes painted with zombie blood and protective suits. Numbers filling the stairway. The pressure was intense.

I cheerfully waved my gun at them.

"I'm the one who imprisoned them. Why are you here?"

"..."

The narrow stairs of the old villa. The firefighters, made bulky by their suits, could only come up one at a time. The environment favored me.

Of course they'd win in a real fight to the death, but I needed to hint that I wasn't defenseless.

Without roughly equal force, dialogue was impossible.

The firefighter in front who'd been climbing the stairs stared intently at my gun before slowly adjusting his grip on his fire axe.

"The people trapped in there hired us. Asked us to rescue them."

"You came all this way in the heat for nothing. So, are you going to rescue them? Think carefully."

I playfully waved my gun toward the entrance where people were trapped. Then pointed at myself with my other hand.

"Fighting a perfectly healthy person like me to save people who are going to die anyway. Or avoiding making an enemy of me and letting dying people die. You know which to choose, right?"

Simple cost-benefit analysis. The trapped people were as good as corpses. At least in my eyes.

Try to save them and create conflict with an armed survivor. Even if they were firefighters who saved people, as survivors whose minds had been worn down by the apocalypse, they should be able to make that calculation.

The firefighter didn't make any moral arguments. After silence, he sighed.

"Sir, we need to make a living too. We'll just open the door. What happens after is up to you."

"That won't work. How about this instead?"

I leaned forward and waggled my gun slightly.

"Work with me? If you help kill them, I'll give you almost all their resources. I'll just take a small share."

"This business requires trust. Attacking clients makes you marauders."

What trust? The reward must not be enough. Even RiderZero had no problem talking after saying they couldn't sell information because it would hurt business.

This world wouldn't last long enough for trust or business anyway.

"Marauders, well said. Why side with marauders? This was our area originally, but they invaded and tried to settle here. So."

I met his gaze seriously.

"I just want them dead. I don't want anything else, so take all their resources. Mountain herbs, spears, hiking clothes, whatever."

"What bullshit! When did we invade?"

Having apparently overheard my conversation with the firefighter, one of the hikers shouted from beyond the entrance. I wouldn't be outdone. I turned to look back.

"Says the people who came armed with spears and guns. If you wanted to talk, you should've come unarmed. Bringing weapons was a threat from the start."

"How can we move without weapons!"

"Then you shouldn't have moved at all. Whether zombies or you, anyone who comes here is a threat. Why should we share water when the tanks barely have any left anyway."

There was no clear answer to who was wrong. The dynamic of imprisoner and imprisoned had shifted to a complex survival competition. There was no good or evil here.

The firefighters drummed their helmets as if getting headaches and started discussing among themselves.

"What do we do? This is complicated."

"Killing people is..."

I waited patiently. They wouldn't decide to kill me here.

The firefighters' discussion grew quite heated. Some said killing people couldn't be undone, others that they couldn't pass up this opportunity since jobs were scarce and scavenging wasn't enough to live on.

It seemed they'd split into factions - one wanting to abandon the job, the other wanting to kill the hiking group.

I added appropriate encouragement from the side.

Zombies were people too but you've already bloodied yourselves. Some people wander searching for family who turned. Everyone carries a zombie in their heart. You'll get tons of resources if you raid.

They gave me fierce looks but ultimately decided to kill the hiking group, perhaps due to hungry families they needed to feed.

The firefighters and I exchanged messages by phone.

Agreed. We'll definitely take the resources.

Just leave me a few headlamps. Ah, there's someone with a gun on the fourth floor - we'll keep them trapped to die.

We said different things out loud to reassure the hiking group.

"A job is still a job. You'd definitely die fighting too. Please step aside."

"No, ah... At least they can't live here. They have to go far away."

"That's your problem."

So I pretended to back down, and the firefighters skillfully cleared away the junk. As soon as the entrance opened, a hiker with a spear burst out with wild eyes.

"Thank you! Get the fee from the leader. And you, you!"

I snickered while hiding behind the firefighters. Wrong time to point that spear at me.

Thunk, a fire axe split the hiker's head. The same mechanical movement as killing zombies. The sudden assault continued.

The hikers' counterattacks were generally blocked. How to put it - the difference in experience was clear. Whether from making zombie killing their main work or fighting zombies wielding all sorts of weapons, their experience showed.

The closed entrance doors were the same. Even when hikers in other units realized the situation and locked their doors, the firefighters, experts at breaching, practically destroyed the doors to open them.

That way they cleared everyone except the unit with the gun-wielding hiking club leader.

"...This much food?" frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

The firefighters gathered the hikers' bags to check and their eyes kept shaking.

"This much from one raid..."

These people who had somehow survived as moral survivors until now got a taste of raiding. One fight had earned them enough food to last days. Even firefighters who had dimly maintained their sense of duty and morality focused on the food more than the dripping blood.

I also watched their backs with trembling hands.

'What is this?'

In combat without guns, no one could beat these people. They seemed likely to become marauders.