After making the scarecrows, I distinctly felt the psychological distance grow between and the street's residents. My criminal companions remained the sa, but ordinary people subtly avoided .
Casual greetings beca awkward, they avoided eye contact, and social conversation drastically decreased.
'They really don't appreciate my aesthetic.'
I scratched my head, feeling like a lonely artist. The street was decorated quite stylishly, yet people turned away.
This rejection reminded of life before the apocalypse, bringing up oddly nostalgic feelings.
'I always got rejected whenever I entered screenplay contests.'
In a way, now was better than then. At least so people appreciated my decorated street. I walked to the window and looked out.
The setting sun painted the sky. Shadows of corpse crucifixes stretched long across the street.
"Hehe."
"What an idiot."
Two elentary school kids, ard with masks and gloves, were playing pranks in front of the tied-up zombie. The children who initially cried seeing the street quickly adapted to their environnt and now tornted the zombie.
They poked its face with sticks.
The tightly bound zombie cried "kreeek" while turning its head to avoid the sticks, sotis jerking its body and opening its mouth wide, as if wanting to kill the annoying children.
"Kraah!"
"Run away!"
The kids ran away giggling, only to return and continue teasing the zombie.
I watched contentedly. Children were pure. Their purity helped them adapt well to this apocalyptic world, and they accepted my scarecrows without prejudice.
'Is this a kind of art too? It's entertaining.'
But children's innocence was always suppressed by adults.
"Kids! Mama told you not to go out in the street!"
A an mother burst out of the villa, smacking the children's backs and dragging them away. The children just laughed. A peaceful apocalyptic scene.
Though who knew how long it would last.
I sat back at my computer and connected to the internet, which sohow still worked. Many sites crashed randomly, but they functioned sowhat.
The shadow of the apocalypse clearly lood over the internet - depressing news, mad ravings, and doomsday theories.
I filtered out worthless information while checking various updates.
"Fire... really scary."
A forest fire that had spread for days in so distant neighborhood was finally extinguished. By rain.
Firefighting personnel were aningless. Though so remained nationwide, there was no way to move the personnel and equipnt. All highways and national roads were blocked.
Soone's drone footage clearly showed the state of the roads.
Barricades made by survivors, abandoned cars in the middle of the road, chain collision sites on highways, roads still blocked because no one could clear them.
Even with intact factories producing goods, the blood vessels for moving those goods were clogged.
'Modern society really was just a machine.'
As gears fell out one by one, society gradually ground to a halt.
I realized this fact reading various posts.
Neighborhoods with blackouts from electrical failures, neighborhoods with water supply issues from broken waterworks, gas stations running dry...
The infrastructure and resources that symbolized modern society were gradually disappearing.
Perhaps the world we knew was already dead, its corpse rolling forward purely from inertia.
"Apocalypse..."
Yet people lived on. Human adaptability was terrifying. When the world beca a corpse, they survived by feeding on its remains.
Lost in strange emotions, I read people's posts. With the apocalypse well underway, people shared wisdom about repairs and recycling.
I too borrowed human wisdom. The farming knowledge we desperately lacked. We planted seeds and managed them according to manuals, but couldn't tell if we were doing it right.
I contacted soone who could supplent that knowledge.
An expert in urban farming. A professional farr who made money from agriculture. A master of indoor farming.
Selling marijuana. Grown by . Quality guaranteed. Price in food.
I consulted the criminal's ssenger who secretly grew marijuana in buildings. They naturally used plant growth lights and even made makeshift greenhouses.
The marijuana dealer's knowledge, exchanged for my minor survival tips, proved genuinely helpful. They freely shared practical know-how that transford our amateur indoor farm into sothing proper.
We separated randomly mixed planters by seed type and easily installed devices to maintain appropriate temperatures for each. Watering beca simpler too.
Even the haphazardly arranged lights found proper positions.
Do-hyung wiped sweat from his forehead after finishing one round of organization and glanced at .
"Where'd you get this detailed knowledge?" he asked.
"Found soone selling hogrown weed on ssenger. Asked them."
"...Right. They're farrs too I guess."
Anyway, not soone we needed to recruit. Getting their knowledge was enough.
I changed the subject. How was the mood lately? Any signs of attacks?
"People stopped coming by. Think they're plotting behind our backs? Making alliances, preparing weapons, recruiting our people, luring zombies, getting ready to set fires, trying to put zombie corpses in the villa water tanks, power poles or gas lines-"
"Stop with the horrible stuff. Who'd go that far?"
I blinked. Wasn't this basic for attacks?
Looking at the electrical nomads' case, couldn't they target infrastructure? I'd learned from seeing that myself.
Do-hyung sighed deeply and turned away.
"Let's go to the strategy eting. The man says he got so information."
"Really?"
Information. Apparently the increasingly adapted man had been using food handouts to turn individual survivors into informants. Must have gotten results.
We went to the villa room where etings were held. Park Yang-gun and Gi-hyeok were already waiting. The man hadn't arrived yet.
Gi-hyeok, fiddling with his phone, nodded slightly. His words felt strangely mocking:
"You're late. Must have been busy."
"Talk nicer. Always feels like you're making fun of people."
Do-hyung, who hated con n, grumbled with deeply furrowed brows. Gi-hyeok shrank his shoulders awkwardly.
"I just ant you worked hard..."
He quickly changed the subject, showing us his phone screen.
"Did you see this? Soone's zombie observation video. Pretty scary."
"Zombies are always scar-"
I started to dismiss it disinterestedly, but my eyes fixed on the CCTV footage. My jaw dropped as goosebumps covered my body.
"Ahhh!"
The zombie pulled open a glass door. To pull it open. A scream escaped as I instinctively backed away.
Pulling open doors? This was terrifying. Pushing was human instinct - this horrifically reversed that instinct.
'Zombies aren't human. They're monsters.'
As I trembled, everyone looked at strangely.
"It's just opening a door. They've always learned fast, why's this so shocking?"
"Do you have so phobia of CCTV footage?"
"No, no. The door, the door."
Gi-hyeok suddenly rewound the video to the zombie opening the door.
"Are you scared?"
It was chilling even watching again. I frantically rubbed my goosebump-covered arms. The intelligence to suppress instinct and pull open doors.
The reason they stayed in comrcial areas with that intelligence...
"They must have eaten all the packaged food and refrigerated supplies."
Most zombies stayed in large marts and shopping areas. But these zombies needed food to survive too. In other words, the already-learned zombies were living off food stockpiled in restaurants and marts.
So if those comrcial areas ran out of food...
A wave. The second wave was coming. When food ran out, the sowhat-learned zombies would surge into human territories.
Of course, comrcial resources far exceeded hos, so the wave would be sowhat delayed.
Though differently from , Park Yang-gun seed to notice the threat too. His drowsy nodding stopped as he narrowed his eyes.
"World's getting rougher. This ans people will have to fight each other."
Zombies crowded the shopping districts. Rather than facing all those zombies, it was better to target hos. Or form groups to raid weaker groups.
Zombies consuming comrcial resources, people fighting people, infrastructure slowly breaking down...
'I wasn't wrong after all.'
My early predictions when the zombie outbreak started were correct. This was a primitive world requiring hunting, combat, force, and plunder. Securing villa hos before marts showed early adaptation.
Then shouldn't we think about what cos after the city's lifespan ends?
That's when the man arrived.
"Sorry I'm late. Was cross-checking information."
"What information?"
Everyone looked at him. Dropping heavily into a seat, he spoke in an odd voice:
"Looks like we won't be targeted for a while."
How was that possible? Food cravings couldn't vanish overnight. Not unless food fell from the sky.
"Did they raid a mart or sothing?"
"No. Soldiers are distributing combat rations."
"Soldiers?"
I clenched my fists. Hope and anxiety flashed simultaneously. Was the military finally moving? Were they targeting this ti when zombies concentrated in comrcial areas? No, no. Then they wouldn't waste ti distributing rations. They'd be engaging in combat.
Could this be a chance to recruit deserters? At least get real guns?
The man shook his head, saying he wasn't sure of the situation.
"I don't know the details either. Need to see for ourselves."
"I'll co too."
I quickly raised my hand. Military intelligence was essential. How intact were they, how many infected, any military bases worth targeting nearby.
---
A day passed, and we went to where soldiers were supposedly distributing combat rations.
Given the terrible road conditions, the distribution points changed daily. Places accessible by car. And separated from zombies' comrcial areas.
By the ti I arrived with the man and so villa residents, many people had gathered, forming long lines.
Who knew where they'd all survived, but countless people crowded around.
This wasn't just a supply line. A marketplace atmosphere ford around those waiting for ration distribution.
"Cigarettes! Any kind! Trade for cola!"
"Any electrical technicians here?"
"Anyone with glasses? I'll adjust them as best I can if they fit my eyes!"
"Looking for soone!"
This was the power of a functioning military. Their re presence guaranteed safety and brought order.
Or they could beco terrifying entities.
"Combat rations aren't urgent, so let's split up. Get what we need."
"Right."
We dispersed too.
I walked slowly, observing people. There really were many. So promoted their groups. I glimpsed RiderZero and even firefighters.
"Hello. Please take my card."
A firefighter stopped , offering a business card. So security company na was written on it? I stared at him blankly and he smiled awkwardly.
"It's a company made by retired firefighter seniors and firefighters' families. Contact us if you need muscle. We're ard with fire axes and fireproof gear, so zombie cleanup's no problem."
Not real firefighters but an affiliated company?
"What about active firefighters?"
The firefighter smiled bitterly.
"The remaining ones still fight fires. It'd be disastrous if they couldn't. We supplent food with what we get from jobs. So please contact us if you need anything. We accept donations too. The food you provide helps keep fire stations running."
Unlike police, they seed to retain human hearts, having avoided being raided.
I nodded vaguely and headed to my destination.
The soldiers.
The soldiers controlling this crowd. Their numbers weren't small but weren't large either, and their mood and morale seed poor.
'This isn't the military atmosphere I know.'
I quietly observed the soldiers.
This wasn't the atmosphere of soldiers enduring harsh training or ergencies. Rather, they seed to have experienced sothing even more terrible.
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