Chapter 12

Survivors (2)

Dawn, eleven days after the monsters attacked the unit.

The base was in an uproar.

“Sergeant Shin, you’ve arrived?”

“Yeah… you found people?”

“Yes.”

Along with the monsters’ assault, all contact between our unit and the outside had been cut off. The two soldiers who had gone out to try to make contact went missing.

At that point, there was probably one thought shared in everyone’s heads.

‘What’s going on outside?’

After learning through the achievement system that there were others in situations similar to ours, the prevailing opinion was that society, too, must have been attacked by monsters.

But that was all. We had no way of knowing what had happened to the society that had been attacked by monsters.

‘We’re a military base, sure, but looked at another way, this is an attack that only about a hundred soldiers managed to hold out against.’

An attack that a hundred soldiers managed to hold out against.

Outside, there were not only soldiers but also police. Even if they were monsters that ordinary people would have a hard time defeating, outside there existed an enormous number of people.

Soldiers and police, and countless civilians.

In terms of facilities and manpower, the odds were much better than our unit, which was down to barely a hundred people. The prevailing view among the soldiers was that, somehow, they must have managed to hold out.

‘It’s an optimistic outlook with no real grounds, but.’

Out there, the families and friends of the unit members were living their lives.

As long as there was no way to check or go confirm things right away, thinking, ‘Everyone must be safe,’ eased the weight on the heart.

“The soldier who spotted them first said it was a group of about twenty.”

“They were all in shabby clothes… and judging by their location, they should reach the base within an hour or two.”

Because our base was located at the top of a mountain, we could observe the routes leading up the mountain. Worried that other monsters might attack the base, we hadn’t let up on surveillance. And instead of monsters, we had discovered innocent people.

In shabby clothes, about twenty people climbing this mountain that no one would normally come near. Unless they were some fanatical hikers ignoring the ‘No Entry to Military Area’ signs, there was only one reason for them to be approaching the base.

‘They’re running away.’

There was one fact we could be sure of. We didn’t know about other regions, but at least in Gangwon Province, where our base was located, it had become a place you had to run from monsters to survive.

“…Guess we’ll need to cook twenty more portions.”

By the time they arrived, it would be breakfast.

We didn’t know how things would go when we met them, but for now, feeding them first seemed like the right move.

* * *

“I-It’s real! There’s a military base here!”

“S-See, what did I tell you! Look over there! There are soldiers too!”

“Mommyyyy!”

“Sujin, we’re saved now…”

‘And so…This is the situation now.’

“Now, now. Everyone, please calm down!”

After hearing that the survivors had reached the vicinity of the base, the soldiers, myself included, went out to meet them right away.

“…There are a lot of them.”

“Yeah.”

The soldier who had first spotted them said there were about twenty, but when we counted properly, there were twenty-five. The number of survivors currently in our unit was ninety-nine, excluding the two missing out of the original 101. So the survivors amounted to more than a quarter of our unit’s numbers.

‘All ages and genders, all mixed together.’

From a grandfather who looked strict at a glance, to middle-aged men and women, to students, and even small children in their mothers’ arms. People with nothing in common had come together to form a group.

“Like we discussed roughly earlier, we’ll move the personnel from the 3rd-floor barracks to the 2nd floor, and have these people stay in the 3rd-floor barracks. First, we should make arrangements so they can eat, right?”

“Yeah, that should be enough for now…”

That was when,

“Greetings! Everyone!”

Someone appeared from behind us soldiers. We turned our heads in surprise and looked back.

“I am Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok, currently commanding this base! You are now safe, so please don’t worry and follow the soldiers’ guidance!”

“L-Lieutenant Kim?”

The only remaining officer in our unit…It was Lieutenant Kim.

‘Why is that guy suddenly here?’

Until the monsters appeared, and until the monsters’ leader attacked the base exploiting the blackout, Lieutenant Kim had done nothing but hide in a corner. Naturally, we assumed his response to the newly discovered survivors would be the same, that he would dump it on the soldiers and do nothing himself.

‘That’s why I didn’t even report it separately.’

And yet, Lieutenant Kim had suddenly shown up…It wasn’t just me who was taken aback. All the soldiers who had been dealing with the survivors stared at Lieutenant Kim as if dumbfounded.

“What are you all standing around for! Hurry and guide them! Sergeant Lee Minjae?”

“Y-Yes? I mean, Yes! Sergeant Lee Minjae.”

“Is there enough room in the barracks for these people to stay?”

“Y-Yes, sir. There is.”

“Tsk, your answer isn’t very crisp. Take responsibility and guide them properly. I’ll check later to see if you did it right. If any problems arise, report immediately.”

Space in the barracks for the survivors to live in.

There was some.

As soon as the survivors were discovered, the soldiers who had woken up at dawn had struggled to clear out the entire third floor. Of course, we were planning to guide them there anyway, even without being told.

“And Sergeant Shin Young-jun!”

“Sergeant Shin Young-jun.”

“They must all be hungry, so once the barracks guidance is finished, make sure they can eat right away. Preparing about twenty-five extra portions won’t be a problem, right?”

“…Yes.”

“Then get to it.”

There wasn’t a problem, per se. The base’s original headcount was a hundred…Adding twenty-five more.

‘There’s no way preparing an extra quarter of the total rations is something that can just be done instantly.’

As soon as the survivors were discovered, we headed to the mess hall and prepared additional food. Naturally, we had planned to guide them to the mess hall and feed them first without being told.

‘…Lieutenant Kim is technically doing what he’s supposed to do, but something feels off.’

It felt uncomfortable, like something was going wrong.

“S-So that’s how it is. Understood!”

“Now, now. Everyone, calm down and do as the soldier says! We’re safe now!”

Whether we liked it or not, an officer was an officer. When we soldiers tried to guide them, perhaps because of their excitement at finding soldiers, they hadn’t followed very well. But there was something about Lieutenant Kim’s words.

They followed the guidance properly.

Lieutenant Kim may be bad at his job, and greedy to an ugly degree, but…

‘He’s good with words, at least.’

He was fairly tall, with broad shoulders.

A rugged, masculine face. The very image of a soldier straight out of a picture.

On top of that, he spoke well…The only remaining officer in the base, and a lieutenant, at that.

To soldiers, it might not be much, but to civilians, it sounded like quite the impressive rank. It was only natural that his words carried more weight than those of enlisted men.

Honestly, that was the part that made the soldiers even angrier. Even when Lieutenant Kim clearly messed something up during base operations, he would smooth it over with that ‘model soldier’ air and his glib tongue, or worse, it would end up being blamed on the enlisted soldiers.

‘Well. At least thanks to him, the guidance of the survivors seems to be going smoothly, so maybe I should count that as a good thing.’

Setting aside how much the unit members disliked Lieutenant Kim, right now, he was doing his job. So thinking positively was probably the right call probably.

“Lieutenant, th-thank you so much…”

“Haha, not at all. Protecting civilians is a soldier’s duty! I merely did what I was supposed to do.”

“You saved us! Thank you so much, Lieutenant Kim…”

“You’re all safe now. You must be exhausted, so don’t worry and focus on resting first!”

The situation was taking on a very strange shape.

That much was certain.

* * *

“The barracks on the 3rd floor will be yours. The soldiers who were there have all moved down to the 1st and 2nd floors, so there should be enough beds.”

“The 3rd floor? Ain’t that the highest floor? You soldiers making worn-out folks climb up to a place that’s hard to reach…”

“Mr. Park, Grandpa!”

“Tsk, old folks like me have a hard time even climbing stairs. I nearly died climbing the mountain, and now the soldiers can’t even show a little consideration…”

The expressions on the soldiers’ faces, which had already been shaded with something unpleasant, openly crumpled at the old man’s words. Some of the other survivors seemed to try to signal the old man with their eyes, but as if he didn’t care about others’ looks at all, he kept grumbling.

Just as the soldiers’ gazes were about to sour further, Gwang-il, who had a relatively gentle temperament, stepped forward.

“Haha, I can see how it might look that way. But monsters usually come in from the 1st floor. We haven’t encountered any monsters with wings yet.”

“Hmm.”

“On the first day the monsters attacked our base, all the soldiers who died were the ones stationed in the 1st-floor barracks.”

“Huh.”

Only then did the old man’s dissatisfaction seem to ease somewhat.

“You must have gone through a lot outside, so we understand. But we hope you can trust us a little. We will guarantee your safety.”

“Ahem, w-well, if that’s the case, you should’ve explained that first…”

“Grandpa, please, let’s just go inside.”

Somehow persuading the old man, we guided the survivors to their respective barracks. Surprisingly, what the survivors reacted to most wasn’t the beds…It was the toilets and showers.

“I can finally wash…”

“I thought I’d die from how grimy I felt I endured it because it was literally a life-or-death situation, but still.”

After the outside power supply was cut off, we had been relying on the base’s generator, so everyone was careful about saving electricity, but the water was originally drawn from groundwater flowing down the mountain. Even if we used it freely, it wasn’t a big problem.

‘Hot water doesn’t come out, though.’

Even so, that alone seemed like a blessing to the survivors.

“Meals are already prepared, so once you’ve settled in a bit, you can come straight to the mess hall.”

“Oh! Even meals.”

“The soldiers will guide you later.”

After confirming that the barracks guidance was more or less done, I figured I should at least mention the meals as well.

Just as we were about to head toward the mess hall…

“Um, excuse me.”

A woman spoke to us, a woman who looked to be in her late twenties.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Th-The person who welcomed us earlier. Lieutenant Kim, was it?”

“Yes.”

“He’s the highest-ranking officer in this base, right?”

‘Well…We’re not exactly sure about that ourselves.’

“…Ah, yes. Well. That’s right.”

“I think I need to have a bit more of a conversation with him. Do you know when that might be possible?”

“…”

Unlike the old man, the woman’s tone was polite.

There was nothing wrong with what she was asking. It seemed like a reasonable thing to bring up.

But, the expressions on the soldiers’ faces, upon hearing that, stiffened even more than when they had dealt with the old man.

“Um, did I say something rude…?”

The woman seemed to read the atmosphere, and looked a little flustered.

“Ah, it’s nothing.”

‘A conversation.’

‘A conversation, huh.’

“You’ll probably be able to talk to him soon. We’ll let you know when things are ready.”

“Ah, yes. There are some things I really need to tell him. Thank you so much.”

“Then, please get some rest.”

With that, aside from a few soldiers left to guide the people, the rest of us left the barracks together.

“Ha. They say they need to talk to Lieutenant Kim. This is driving me crazy.”

The words spilled out the moment we stepped outside.

“I was more pissed when I heard that than when that old man complained about the 3rd floor. It wasn’t like she said anything bad, so I feel a bit sorry, but still.”

“I get it. I think everyone felt that way.”

The woman hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet, hearing that made us strangely angry.

Honestly, I couldn’t help but agree. When I recalled the sight of Lieutenant Kim giving ‘commander-like’ orders to me and Sergeant Lee Minjae, my face naturally twisted.

‘Oh! Come to think of it…’

“Where’s Minjae Hyung?”

“You mean Sergeant Lee Minjae? As soon as he finished guiding the civilians, he stormed off somewhere, fuming.”

“What?”

“He probably went to Lieutenant Kim, I’d guess…”

Looks like he was really pissed.

“…Honestly, I thought if war broke out, the problems would come from among the soldiers.”

“Huh?”

The one who said that was a private from the same communications platoon as Minjae Hyung.

“Sergeant Shin Young-jun, you’re senior to Sergeant Lee Minjae, so you might not know this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well. In the comms platoon, we used to joke that if war broke out, we’d first put a stray round into Sergeant Lee Minjae’s back of the head, or stuff like that. We said things like that a lot.”

‘Ah, so that’s what he meant.’

“Pfft, Minjae Hyung can be pretty tough.”

“‘Pretty tough’? If you mess up even one thing, he chews you out to death…”

That probably wasn’t just one or two people. If seniors go too easy on their juniors, work often ends up suffering.

I’d probably been talked about the same way among the cooks under me.

“But once things actually went down, having someone like Sergeant Lee Minjae, who handles things decisively, turned out to be a relief.”

“Yeah. Maybe because we went through all this together, you start to feel this weird sense of camaraderie.”

“Hm. Camaraderie.”

‘Right, camaraderie.’

Over the past two weeks, the unit members had fought together against monsters.

Some had received help. Some had helped others and been thanked. We had shared the absurd experience called Awakening. Even if it had started with us being trapped in the base and attacked by monsters, forced to fight together just to survive, now, among the unit members, there was a clear sense of camaraderie.

‘…Ah!’

Only then did I realize the true nature of the discomfort I’d felt when looking at Lieutenant Kim today.

“Comrades” That word…

‘Lieutenant Kim isn’t included.’

Lieutenant Kim didn’t fight alongside us. He neither helped anyone, nor received help. He didn’t share the experience called Awakening with us.

Not even a comrade, someone you hesitate to even call a colleague. And that person is claiming to be our highest commander.

‘Something needs to be done.’