True to his character as the first to escape from the townhouse, the fly quickly responded.
"I can definitely do that. I'll do whatever you want if you just let live. All I have to do is deceive the riders, right?"
"Are you serious?"
I stared at the fly without blinking. His eyes rolled around cunningly. It was obvious that there wasn't an ounce of sincerity in his words.
'Survivors will do anything to stay alive.'
That was why I thought I could persuade the townhouse survivors, but it was also why they might deceive .
He might pretend to follow my orders, then betray us the mont he made contact with the alliance.
I smiled faintly while swinging my hamr—the sa hamr that had shattered one of his knees. The fly's eyes trembled.
"I'm sorry, but your job is a bit different. To be precise, it's to help us prepare to deceive the alliance."
"Well, just tell what to do."
"Then tell . Your companions, the people who escaped from the townhouse. Where are they?"
Telling him to betray others because we needed to capture more flies to properly deceive the alliance. The fly swallowed hard. The trembling in his eyes intensified.
A faint voice ca out.
"That, I don't know. No, put the hamr down. Listen to . I really don't know. I was driven out by you guys. I've been moving around day by day for als and shelter."
"Haha."
Nonsense. Being driven out ant the fly's range of activity had to be limited.
No matter how much the alliance provided supplies, they couldn't supply all the water these people needed. The flies would have needed to establish a base near a water source, and such places were limited in this area.
Furthermore, any decent shelters would already be occupied by local survivors or zombies, making their options even more limited.
I crouched in front of the survivor and placed my hamr on his knee—the good one.
"You might be able to survive sohow with one damaged leg. But if you're not helpful to , why should I keep you alive?"
I felt trembling through the hamr. When I shined the flashlight on the fly's face, I could see cold sweat running down his haggard features.
"But I really don't know. We couldn't find a place to live. From the beginning, we were just wandering around, thinking we'd reclaim the townhouse from you guys."
Is that true? Really? If so, there wasn't much useful information to get from him.
Should I kill him? My hand was unconsciously tightening around the hamr when Sa Gi-hyeok spoke from behind with a confident voice.
"Where did you get water? There must be a place you regularly visited for water?"
"Ah, water. There's a stream a bit far from here. It's quite dried up, but still usable."
I pressed down on the fly's knee with my hamr.
"When and where. You need to tell the ti you go to the stream for water and its location."
"In the evening! I'll show you the location if you give a map!"
That was enough information to set up an ambush. I slowly stood up and went beside Sa Gi-hyeok, opening my notebook.
The ink had smudged from rainwater long ago. But I could still faintly make out the words written by the paranoid old man—what to investigate about people, how suspicious one should be.
"Good. Now I'll ask you a few more questions."
So Sa Gi-hyeok and I took turns asking various questions, and the fly answered diligently.
Resources provided by the riders, the number and profiles of townhouse survivors, missions assigned by the alliance, rough information about nearby survivors, conversations with alliance people, rewards they promised, and so on.
After completing the interrogation, Sa Gi-hyeok looked down at the fly with a dark expression and sighed.
"So the alliance is really keeping us in check. Giving guns to survivors who have a grudge against us and telling them to provoke us."
"It's a no-loss tactic for them."
The alliance's thinking was similar to what I had expected.
They planned to provide the displaced townhouse survivors with weapons, food, and a chance to reclaim their hos, slowly making us waste our resources.
If we couldn't withstand the provocations and spent our bullets, wouldn't that benefit the alliance? Moreover, it would deplete our energy to scavenge or raid for food.
The fly looked at his broken knee with a tired face, then suddenly raised his head as if sothing had occurred to him.
"That's right. The rider said sothing strange."
"What did they say?"
"They asked if I knew any zombie habitats. When I asked why they wanted to know, they said they were trying to test thods of luring zombies with drones."
I blinked. Luring zombies with drones? They were preparing a zombie wave too? I couldn't help but laugh hollowly.
"That's vicious."
That's the alliance for you. They'd use any ans necessary.
I'd felt it before, but they were quite insane people. The doctor who used poison, the corrupt police, and now electrical experts trying to use drones as zombie-guiding weapons.
Like a flipped coin, they were madn using skills ant to help people and society to instead kill people.
Sa Gi-hyeok thought for a mont before speaking rationally.
"Zombie-luring drones... they really seem to be planning to use them. Looks like they've just created sothing and want to test it."
That makes sense. Don't zombies learn? If they tested it on zombies in the alliance's survival zone and the zombies learned, it wouldn't work anymore, so they'd conveniently test it on us.
I nodded at the fly.
"That's useful information. Is there any food you'd like? We'll provide a special al."
"I don't care about food. Can't you just remove this rope from my neck? I can't sleep properly because of it."
The fly pointed to his neck with his bound hands. The noose—a psychological restraint that tightened if he moved too far away.
I shook my head.
"That's not possible. We haven't verified if your information is true. Your stream could be a trap prepared by the alliance."
I couldn't naively believe everything just like that. That paranoid old man had suspected and suspected until he noticed my true nature. There was no harm in being suspicious.
The fly weakly dropped his arms and made another request.
"Then alcohol. I need a drink to forget the pain in my leg."
"No alcohol. It's a valuable resource."
Alcohol and cigarettes were resources used almost like currency. We couldn't give them away as special als. The fly looked up at with an incredulous expression, and I simply turned away.
"We'll see you next ti."
***
The alliance people weren't fools. If they saw one of the flies they believed we'd captured, they'd imdiately sense sothing suspicious.
That's why we needed to handle the flies all at once. No one should escape—kill those who needed to be killed, capture those who needed to be captured. Then use them to deceive the alliance.
After warning about the zombie wave, I went to the stream with my criminal companions. We naturally used bicycles for transportation.
As we carefully rode along the ssy roads, Jeon Do-hyung, who was leading, said:
"Now I see why there are so few survivors in this area. The stream is farther than I expected. Without bicycles, how many hours would you have to walk just for water?"
"But there are mountains instead."
The survivors here were people who had chosen the mountains over the stream.
It might be because they didn't have the strength to claim the stream, or conversely, they might have chosen the mountains since water could still be fetched from the stream. Or perhaps there were few competitors around here, making it good for scavenging.
"There's actually plenty to eat in the mountains. If you know what to look for."
As we rode, Park Yang-gun shared stories about his childhood in the countryside, and Sa Gi-hyeok fell off his bike.
"Argh! I fell! No, wait! Why are you leaving behind?!"
"...The road is relatively decent here. How did you even fall? We weren't riding that fast."
We stopped briefly to scold Sa Gi-hyeok. The road here was actually quite clean. Even with obstacles, we were riding slowly, so there was nothing to trip over.
"I think I'm hurt. It hurts."
Sa Gi-hyeok, who had fallen onto a pile of garbage, complained dramatically while righting his fallen bicycle.
I looked him up and down.
"Did you get pierced by a nail or sothing?"
Even riding slowly with durable clothes, a bad fall could lead to dangerous injuries. If he got pierced by a rusty nail, it would be hopeless. He might as well leave his last words.
"Huh? Was I pierced?"
"How would I know if you're asking ..."
"Sorry. It doesn't hurt that much anyway."
Eventually, we circled around Sa Gi-hyeok, and Jeon Do-hyung returned to his bicycle with a disgusted expression.
"Stop exaggerating. You're not even hurt."
"Hey, maybe we should just go back? I don't think I'll be much help."
When Park Yang-gun spoke bluntly, Sa Gi-hyeok shook the rifle slung over his body.
"How can you go without your marksman? Didn't you see get that headshot last ti?"
I waved my hand casually, taking Sa Gi-hyeok's side. It wasn't because I truly believed in his shooting skills.
"Let's just go together. If you fall and die on your way back, there won't be anyone to take care of it."
So we pedaled our bicycles more slowly than before and arrived at the stream the fly had ntioned. A stream with dried, overgrown vegetation. Paths had ford, suggesting frequent visits by local survivors or zombies.
"He said they co before sunset, so they should be here within a few hours. Let's spread out and set up an ambush to surround them."
"What are you planning to do when they arrive? You said we need to capture them, right?"
"There should be about four of them still alive, so we can just threaten them with our rifles."
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