Chapter 41

The Ghost of the Mart (2)

“It was like a ghost appeared.”

Hearing Suyeon’s explanation, both Sang-ah and I went blank.

‘A ghost, huh.’

‘…For real?’

* * *

The destination Suyeon mentioned was a mart similar to the one we had visited this time.

The difference was that this one was bigger in scale.

“To be honest, we also found it strange that the goods in such a big mart were left completely untouched.”

“It must’ve seemed suspicious. But you still went in anyway?”

“We didn’t have the luxury to turn back just because it seemed suspicious.”

A mart that big, and well-known for its location. There’s always a reason why survivors haven’t looted a place like that. More accurately, it wasn’t that they didn’t loot it, they couldn’t.

“There was no problem at the entrance… but the moment everyone had gone in a bit deeper.”

“People suddenly started dying. That’s it, right.”

“Yes.”

That was everything we heard from Suyeon.

I told the two siblings to rest for now.

Then I went back to the unit and relayed the conversation we had.

“So yeah. We decided to take them in on the condition that they give us that information. Come to think of it, I kind of decided that on my own, so… sorry about that.”

“No, sir. If it’s your decision, Sergeant Shin, there shouldn’t be any major problem.”

“It’s nice if we get more people. It’s just that they’re kids, which is a bit concerning.”

In effect, it meant increasing the number of members in our unit.

I felt a bit guilty for deciding it alone, wondering if it was really my call to make.

Fortunately, everyone seemed understanding about that part.

The trust they had in me probably played a role, but that likely wasn’t the main reason.

The soldiers had grown rather indifferent and cold outside of unit matters. But their sense of comradeship drew a clear line at whether someone belonged to our unit or not.

Maybe not for complete outsiders. But if it was about bringing someone into the unit, they tended to be quite generous.

However, the real problem was somewhere else.

“Well… recruiting them is fine and all.”

One of the soldiers raised his hand, his face looking slightly pale after hearing everything.

“That thing. It’s not really a ghost, right?”

“…”

“Sergeant Shin?”

“…”

“P-Please tell me it’s not! That’s scary!”

“Well. Even if you say that.”

During the time people were dying, there was no sign of any monster.

Just hearing the story made it sound like a ghost had shown up. A part of me still thought there was no way it was really a ghost, but…

“To be honest, with things the way they are now… even if you told me a real ghost showed up, I think I’d believe it.”

There was no place where rumors about ghosts spread as often as in the military.

After duty, soldiers would sometimes return to the barracks making a big fuss, claiming they’d seen a ghost.

Back then, I would’ve said.

— “You just saw things wrong, idiot. What are you, a kid? There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

And brushed it off, but now that monsters were roaming the world.

“With zombies walking around and all, if a ghost showed up, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, that could happen,’ honestly.”

“T-That’s…!”

At my answer, the expressions of the soldiers changed in all kinds of ways.

Some stayed calm, some frowned slightly, but the problem was that.

“C-Cough.”

There were also guys whose faces had visibly turned pale.

“So, uh.”

“Do we really have to go there?”

“…Why are you all shaking like that?”

“W-Who’s shaking?!”

The soldiers had gotten quite used to battle. But that and ghosts were two completely different things.

Even the toughest fighters sometimes can’t watch horror movies alone, right?

The soldiers were no exception. Some of them looked relatively composed, but a few had gone pale and were even trembling.

“Are you really men, acting like this?!”

A soldier shouted.

That now-familiar massive build.

“You’re the same guys who endured life-and-death battles with monsters! Where did that guts go, the guts that shoved knives into a lizard’s mouth?!”

“P-Corporal Jeon?”

It was Corporal Jeon.

“They say the Marines can even beat up ghosts! Ghosts or whatever, we can drive them off with our courage!”

“But… we’re not Marines, sir…”

“…Is that really the same Corporal Jeon who runs away saying he’s scared when we watch horror movies?”

“Uh. Maybe not?”

He used to be one of the biggest cowards in the unit.

I could roughly guess why he was acting like that now.

‘Cough. A side effect of the mental treatment, huh…’

It was probably because I had overdone it with the ‘courage’ dish.

The effect of the dish should’ve worn off by now. But maybe you could call it an aftereffect. It felt like his sense of fear itself had been stripped away. Normally, his gentle nature meant there were no problems.

“To see the great sons of Korea cowering like baby deer! What a disgrace!!!”

Seeing the others cower seemed to have really triggered the side effects. The already frightened soldiers now looked like they were about to cry under Gwang-il’s scolding.

“It’s not decided that it’s really a ghost.”

Sergeant Lee Minjae was the one who calmed the atmosphere.

“It could just be a monster that can kill without being seen, creating a ghost-like phenomenon. Jumping to the conclusion that it’s a ghost isn’t good.”

“Is that so? Just hearing the explanation, I can’t think of anything but a ghost.”

“That’s because you’re trying to understand the target with the common sense you already have.”

Minjae-hyung habitually reached into his pocket for a cigarette. But it had been a long time since he’d run out.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, he continued.

“Cough, think about it. Most of the monsters we’ve seen so far are already outside our common sense. The very situation of monsters appearing in the world is like that.”

“Hmm. That’s true.”

“It’s better not to be fixated on defining the enemy with only our existing common sense and vague images. That’ll just make it harder to figure out its real nature. Those things aren’t kind enough to appear in forms that fit our common sense anyway.”

Just as he said, we hadn’t seen it ourselves, and it was dangerous to be certain about the enemy’s identity based only on hearsay.

In the end…

“There’s no choice but to go and see for ourselves.”

Seeing it with our own eyes, there was no other answer.

“It’s gotten more complicated than expected, but we can’t just go back empty-handed.”

“I’ll get the vehicles started right away.”

Thanks to the modified vehicles, traveling short distances wasn’t a problem.

Once we decided, there was no time to hesitate. The soldiers quickly prepared to move out. The two siblings who were joining us did the same.

As I brought them out to get them into the vehicle.

“…Hic.”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“N-No. It’s just… this isn’t the kind of vehicle I imagined.”

“Ah.”

The vehicle’s appearance was… yeah, not great.

Still, they quickly composed themselves and got in.

“Moving out.”

“They say we’re moving out!”

The vehicles started heading toward the place Suyeon had told us about.

Not long after we set off.

I noticed Suyeon, sitting next to me, glancing around restlessly.

“Is something bothering you?”

“Huh? No, it’s just…”

Suyeon looked out the window at the other vehicles, uneasy.

“I was wondering if there was something like a tank.”

Since we were soldiers. She probably assumed we naturally had tanks and such.

“Sorry, but we don’t have anything like that.”

“What?”

“No tanks. If you look over there, we do have military vehicles like the Retona, at least.”

“Th-Then, how are you planning to deal with the monster at the place we’re going to?”

“Hm? First, we’ll figure out what it is. But basically, the soldiers will deal with it directly.”

“W-What?!”

Suyeon exclaimed in shock at my answer.

“Th-That’s impossible!”

Impossible, huh.

“You were the one who suggested we go there by giving us the information, though?”

“That’s because… I thought since you’re soldiers, you’d have some other method…!”

“Some other method?”

“Like tanks, or missiles… If there’s a ghost inside, I thought maybe if you just destroyed the place itself, the ghost would disappear too—”

‘I see.’

When people think of the military solving something, that kind of image probably comes to mind.

‘But, well…’

“Like I said earlier, unfortunately, we don’t have tanks or missiles.”

“…!!!”

A small radar unit stationed on a mountaintop.

There was no way we’d have tanks.

‘Well, we did have anti-air guns, but we couldn’t exactly haul those down here.’

“Besides, if we handled it that way, the mart itself would be completely destroyed, wouldn’t it? Then we wouldn’t be able to secure the supplies in the mart, which is our goal.”

“Ah. Th-That’s…”

Had she not thought that far?

Suyeon’s face turned pale.

“Th-Then… I’m sorry I brought this up, but maybe it’s better not to go in at all…”

“We don’t have that much leeway either. Unless it’s an enemy we absolutely can’t deal with, it’d be a shame to turn back without even seeing it.”

“…I told you! There were two Awakened ones, and both of them died!”

“Yeah. It’ll be dangerous. But you know.”

I could tell what she was thinking.

The place that wiped out the survivor group the siblings belonged to. She was probably worried that, because she had guided us there, we might end up like them, an enemy whose identity we couldn’t figure out…It might really be a ghost.

“We’re not exactly without confidence either.”

* * *

The three-story large mart we arrived at, guided by Suyeon. Our first impression upon seeing it was this.

“…It’s rather eerie.”

Eerie, the reason that impression came so easily was simple.

“It’s too intact.”

Ironically, its overly intact appearance made it feel even more eerie. It wasn’t just at the level of being ‘unlooted’ like Suyeon had said.

“The lights are just off, but this is…”

“It’s exactly how a mart used to look.”

It had been over two months since monsters appeared on the day the world fell. Since then, all we’d seen were the collapsed remnants of society.

This intact scene felt eerie instead.

“What kind of thing is inside that even this place was left alone.”

“If it really is something like a ghost, and we can’t even touch it, what do we do then?”

The soldiers asked me, there was only one answer I could give.

“What do you mean, what do we do? Then we run.”

“R-Run?!”

“If it’s not even a ghost but a monster that we judge to be impossible to deal with, of course we run. Just in case, drivers, keep the engines running.”

“That’s pretty cowardly, sir?”

“Call it strategic.”

We were able to deal with ‘Mac’ because there was room to exploit. But you can’t exactly feed something to a ghost, can you?

‘Of course we’d run.’

“Of course, that’s only in the worst case.”

There was no need to be scared stiff already.

“You don’t know until you try.”

“That’s true.”

The soldiers nodded at my words. They were now quite composed when it came to battle.

The problem was…

“I-If it’s really a ghost, you really have to retreat…!”

The few guys who were still trembling.

“T-These cowards…!”

“Hey, calm down first.”

Seeing that, Corporal Jeon’s face turned red.

“With that kind of mindset, you won’t be able to fight properly.”

“That’s true.”

“What are you planning to do? Maybe it’d be better to exclude them from this operation.”

As he said.

If they were that scared, they wouldn’t be much help in battle. But getting angry wouldn’t solve anything.

Besides, this was exactly why I’d distributed that item.

I spoke to the waiting soldiers, including the ones who were trembling.

“Everyone. Take out your combat rations.”

“Yes, sir!”

The soldiers took out their combat rations from the pouches on their waists.

“Eat number 1. Execute.”

“…Enjoy your meal, sir!”

Our unit’s unique combat stance.

The consumption of combat rations began. The one I ordered them to eat this time was number 1.

It wasn’t anything special. It was just the one we were most familiar with.

『Jerky Made from Lizard Meat Containing the Courage of a Low-Grade Chef』

“Heh. Ghost hunting, huh.”

The effect appeared immediately. The expressions of the soldiers who bit into the jerky changed rapidly.

“I was getting sick of zombies anyway. This is perfect.”

“Grrrr…”

“Where is the enemy! Is there anyone worthy of satisfying me?!”

“Kiiyaaaaah!”

“Yeah, yeah. Nice to see you all fired up.”

The soldiers were brimming with courage.

“Unnie… the soldier uncles are weird…”

“W-Were they always like that?”

“Well. Since there might be a dangerous battle, it’s just to raise morale beforehand.”

The two siblings, who hadn’t eaten the combat rations, looked confused. But after a rough explanation, they seemed to accept it.

I looked at the soldiers, now fully fired up, and said.

“Let’s go in.”

“Kiiyaaaaaaaaaah!!!”

“To the battlefield!!!”

Bang!

The soldiers burst in, overflowing with courage, but despite that momentum.

“It’s quiet.”

The mart was devoid of any sign of life. All we could hear around us was the rough breathing of our own soldiers.

“We’ll advance further for now.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Ah.”

“…?”

“Something’s strange.”

Su-hyeok, the younger sibling following behind us, spoke up.

“What is?”

“This is where hyung Cheol collapsed…”

“What?”

Now that he mentioned it, it was strange. The survivors who were said to have died here.

There wasn’t even a trace of their bodies, a clearly abnormal phenomenon.

“Everyone, hold—”

I was about to give the order to halt. But the other soldiers, fearless, were continuing to move deeper inside.

“Where are you. Where is my enemy… urgh.”

The soldier walking right in front of me, he suddenly let out a cry of pain.

‘An attack!’

Snap!

I quickly reached out, grabbed his shoulder and threw him behind me.

“Medic, chaplain!”

“Yes, sir!”

On the waist of the soldier who had been thrown back was a wound as if he’d been stabbed by something…Blood was flowing from it.

“What are you doing?! Treat him quickly!”

“Understood!”

“Everyone else, halt! Prepare for an attack!”

“Halt, halt!”

“They say everyone halt!”

The soldiers faithfully followed the order.

“Urgh…”

“Please bear with it for a moment.”

Behind me, the soldier with a hole in his waist was being treated.

I had been walking right behind him. I had seen clearly what happened.

The problem was…

‘There was definitely no enemy, yet he got stabbed by something.’

I couldn’t tell what that something was.

“It’s the same…”

Suyeon, who had been following behind us, spoke. I didn’t even need to hear the rest to know what she meant.

‘It’s the same as when the survivor group was wiped out.’

If it really was the same situation.

The attack wouldn’t end here. I stayed tense and scanned the surroundings.

* * *

“…What?”

The attack didn’t continue.

“…What you said earlier.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Explain it again.”

Without lowering my guard.

I spoke to Suyeon.

“Explain in more detail what happened here.”

“Ah, well, even if you ask me to explain in more detail… that really is all there was. Auntie Sun who was in front got attacked… and as the rest of us ran away in a panic, everyone got attacked by something.”

‘Hmm…But for us, there had been no additional attacks.’

If there was a difference…

‘We didn’t run away, and we stopped.’

After confirming that the attack hadn’t continued, I calmly assessed the situation.

Right in front of me was where the soldier had been stabbed. There was a bit of blood splattered on the floor beneath.

There was nothing strange to be seen.

If there was anything notable. It was that the spot was very close to a shelf…?

At that moment….

『Trait – Ingredient Identification has been activated.』

Maybe because I was closely observing the surroundings.

The trait activated.

『Ingredient Identification』

『Aluminum』

『Polyamide』

The spot where he’d been stabbed was the snack aisle.

After what happened last time, the limits of what counted as ‘ingredients’ for me had disappeared.

I could even identify the components of snack packaging that weren’t food ingredients. Of course, knowing what a snack bag was made of didn’t seem to mean anything…

『Cedar』

『Polyethylene Terephthalate』

『Blue Droplet』

『Aluminum』

.

.

.

‘…Huh?’

‘Something strange was mixed in there?’

I looked around that area again.

This time, actively using the trait and the text that appeared.

『Blue Droplet』

The object that the text appeared over, was a snack bag that looked completely ordinary no matter how you looked at it.

“That’s how it is, huh?”