Chapter 44

. Deserters (2)

“W-What business do deserters have with us!”

‘Deserters, huh.’

I didn’t even bother hiding my irritation as I spoke.

“Is that the first thing you say to the people who just saved your lives?”

“…Ah. Ahem.”

Only then did the middle-aged man seem to realize that we had just saved them.

“Yes, that was rude of me. I apologize. It was just a mistake, so please don’t take it the wrong way.”

“A mistake.”

Was there really anything on my end that could be misunderstood?

If anything, it felt like they were the ones misunderstanding something. Maybe that muttered remark of mine was taken the wrong way.

“…We’re truly grateful that you saved our lives! I express my thanks. But… what I said earlier wasn’t a lie. We don’t have anything to give you—”

“No, I think you’re the ones misunderstanding something.”

‘Give us something?’

‘We weren’t planning on taking anything from you in the first place, sir.’

I was about to explain that, but…

“We are—”

“Please, just let us go this once…”

“…”

This guy. He looked like he came out to talk, but somehow, it felt like we weren’t communicating at all.

‘Was I the only one who felt that way?’

I let out a sigh and raised my voice.

“We’re!”

“H-Hiiik!”

“…not deserters.”

The man shrank back when I slightly raised my voice.

I did feel a little bad. But if I didn’t do this, the conversation felt like it would never move forward.

We might have left the barracks, but, we were still in contact with the troops who remained behind, and we were moving together with Lieutenant Kim, the nominal commander of the unit.

As a military unit, discipline still existed. Being called deserters was honestly unfair.

“I-I apologize if the word ‘deserters’ offended you. Then what should we call you? Elders?”

“No, it’s not about being offended by the word. We really didn’t desert.”

This conversation seriously wasn’t going anywhere.

That was when…

“What that soldier said is all true. Please believe us, just this once.”

A man stepped out from among the soldiers and spoke.

Lieutenant Kim, the current highest-ranking commander of the 423rd Battalion.

“You are…?”

“Hello. I am lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok.”

“W-What did you say?”

“To be a bit more precise.”

Lieutenant Kim continued as he revealed the rank insignia on his uniform.

“I belong to the 423rd Air Defense Battalion, a direct subordinate unit under the 12th Corps of the Republic of Korea Army Ground Operations Command. lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok.”

“A lieutenant? You mean an officer?”

“Yes. I was originally a company commander, but for now, I am acting as the battalion commander, at least in name.”

Within the unit, people called him a useless officer. But outwardly, Lieutenant Kim looked like someone who could appear in a military propaganda video for morale education.

He had the face of a model soldier. Even the fact that he was a commissioned officer, a lieutenant, instead of just an enlisted soldier mattered. He was ignored inside the unit, but his speaking skills and political sense were top-notch.

When all those elements came together…

“S-So you really are regular army?”

“My goodness.”

“You were really soldiers? Not deserters?”

Only then did the survivors seem to believe that we weren’t deserters. They looked at us with unfamiliar eyes.

‘…This is going way smoother than when I was talking.’

‘Come to think of it, when I talked to the siblings, Suyeon and Su-hyeok, they were terrified of me. But I got along with Team Leader Lee Sang-ah pretty quickly.’

‘Sure, Lieutenant Kim had a good impression. But still…’

‘Is my first impression really that bad?’

Now that I think about it, people did sometimes say I looked sharp or intimidating.

As I stood there quietly, feeling slightly wounded in my delicate heart, Lieutenant Kim subtly turned his head and looked at me.

Nod!

Our eyes met, and he gave me a small nod.

‘Leave this to me, Young-jun.’

That’s probably what he meant.

‘Come to think of it, that was one of the reasons I kept Lieutenant Kim around.’

Considering his position as a commander, if he awakened, he might get a pretty decent class. That was the main reason I’d kept him alive, sure.

But thinking about it again, the fact that he could step forward as the unit’s representative in moments like this was also one of the main reasons.

I nodded back at him, ‘I’ll trust you with this. Go ahead and handle it however you want.’

“Actually, I find something odd.”

With my tacit approval, Lieutenant Kim immediately resumed the conversation with the man.

“Why did you think we were deserters?”

“Huh? Are you really asking because you don’t know?”

“Yes. If anything, I thought survivors would ask soldiers for protection when they found them.”

“Ah. Well. Under normal circumstances, that would be the natural reaction.”

“It sounds like you’re saying these aren’t normal circumstances. Could you explain why?”

“Hmm. It’s not hard to explain.”

Lieutenant Kim’s question was the same thing I’d been wondering. Seeing our uniforms, it was natural to think we were soldiers. But…

‘Calling us deserters right off the bat is a bit much.’

At Lieutenant Kim’s question, the man opened his mouth.

“As you know, the world ended up like this, and a lot of people died.”

“Yes. It’s truly tragic.”

“I agree. But the dead are dead, and there were people like us who somehow survived. And those who survived ended up with one question.”

The man spoke while looking at our uniforms.

“What are the soldiers doing, and where are they, exactly?”

“…”

It was only natural.

In a situation where monsters appeared and slaughtered people, this was precisely the kind of crisis where soldiers should have been protecting civilians.

I glanced toward Team Leader Lee Sang-ah.

When our eyes met, she shrugged. She herself had been one of those people who held that very question. That was why she had led her group to move toward a military base.

“But then we found out.”

However, It seemed that cases like hers were rare.

“That all the military bases were wiped out.”

“…What did you just say?”

“The military bases were wiped out. At least, all the bases in this region.”

Not just Lieutenant Kim, but every soldier listening from behind widened their eyes.

‘Wiped out?’

“Is that really true?”

“Do you really not know? Or are you pretending not to know?”

“For now, it’s the former. Please continue.”

His attitude said, Why don’t you know when you’re the ones involved?

But for us, this was genuinely the first time we’d heard such a thing.

“Cough. After adapting to this environment as best as we could, some people went looking for the military bases they knew about. There are tons of bases in Gangwon Province, aren’t there? Everyone knew one or two, and they managed to reach them.”

Up to this point, it made sense.

Lee Sang-ah’s group had done exactly that. But then…

“What they found weren’t soldiers resisting.”

The man continued, letting out a sigh.

“The soldiers were all wiped out, and the bases had been taken over by monsters.”

“…What does that mean?”

“For some reason, especially powerful monsters had settled in the military bases. And not just one or two, dozens, even hundreds of them.”

The man rubbed his arms as if he had goosebumps.

“Our group also went to one base. Monsters far stronger than any we had seen before, each and every one of them. Hundreds of them gathered together like that…”

“…”

“If the soldiers were caught off guard like us, I can understand why they couldn’t hold out.”

The idea that all military bases had fallen initially sounded absurd. But now, parts of it made an unsettling kind of sense. It wasn’t just me who felt that way. One of the soldiers listening nearby muttered with a grim expression.

“…The lizards.”

For some reason, those monsters had focused their attacks on our base.

On the Day of the Catastrophe, within half a day of the lizards’ assault beginning, more than half of our unit had died.

‘Thinking about it, the lizards were extremely powerful monsters.’

The fact that there were no other monsters near our mountain base except lizards said enough, that area must have been under their control.

In reality, among all the monsters we encountered on the surface, very few felt stronger than the lizards. Maybe only ‘Mac,’ the one guarding the hardware warehouse.

‘We barely survived because we figured out their weakness and kept increasing our awakened fighters.’

If we hadn’t known their weakness, no, even if we did know, if we hadn’t quickly realized how to increase the number of awakened, a monster that required dozens of bullets to take down just one. Our ammunition would’ve run out in days, and the unit would’ve been wiped out.

“If it weren’t for Young-jun, we would’ve been included among those ‘wiped-out military bases,’ too.”

Minjae muttered quietly.

The soldiers’ gazes all turned toward me.

“Yeah, hunting lizards barehanded and figuring out the awakening method…”

“And it was Sergeant Shin who figured out the lizards’ weak point. Considering how tough their scales were, even awakened fighters probably wouldn’t have been able to break through their defenses. Honestly, aside from the weak spot, they were more threatening than any monster we’ve encountered on the surface.”

“And think about it. If it weren’t for Sergeant Shin’s cooking, we would’ve all been wiped out the day the chieftain attacked.”

“Now that I think about it, the fact that we didn’t end up as lizard food is a miracle. If Sergeant Shin hadn’t been here, ugh.”

‘Ahem. They weren’t wrong, but it was still embarrassing to hear.’

“We don’t know why such powerful monsters appeared specifically at military bases. I heard that the larger the base, the stronger the monsters that settled there… Because of that, survivors nowadays consider military bases taboo zones they shouldn’t even approach.”

We had survived by sheer coincidence, with several factors lining up just right.

If all other bases were in similar situations, there was no way they could’ve survived unless they were as lucky as we were.

“The annihilation of the military bases was something we could at least accept. Honestly, given how quiet the military had been when the monsters first appeared, we had half-expected something like that.”

“Then what you mean is—”

“The real problem is something else.”

The man cut himself off and swept his uneasy gaze over our soldiers again.

“The deserters.”

That was the real reason they had thought we were deserters.

“Honestly, I still find it hard to trust you completely.”

“If we intended to attack you, we would’ve done so already. Please go on.”

“Well, that’s not wrong. While military bases were being wiped out by monsters, some soldiers managed to abandon their bases and escape. Being soldiers, they naturally had powerful weapons like guns. If they had used those guns for good, that would’ve been great, but…”

“It wasn’t like that, was it?”

“Unfortunately not. They seem to use them on humans more often than on monsters or zombies.”

Soldiers who somehow escaped from the monster assaults. Unlike us, who still maintained at least the shell of military discipline, those who abandoned their units probably had no restraints left.

And if they had guns in their hands?

‘What they’d do to survive was obvious…Looting.’

The man shook his head as he continued.

“Quite a few survivor groups have been robbed by deserters with guns. If they only took supplies, that would be one thing. But sometimes, they even take people with them…”

“…”

“In fact, there were rumors of deserters being spotted near here. We tried to avoid this area as much as possible, but other routes were blocked by zombie hordes, so we had no choice but to pass through here.”

And then they ran into us…

“Just seeing your uniforms, we assumed you were those deserters. I’m sorry.”

“I understand.”

After the man finished his explanation, Lieutenant Kim spoke in a gentle tone.

“As I mentioned, we are not deserters. And…”

We now had surplus supplies. The process of awakening survivors was also underway. Judging from what we’d heard, they didn’t seem like a problematic group.

“So we’re looking for forces who can fight alongside us.”

Anyone who could become a source of strength, given the current situation, it was worth taking them in.

Lieutenant Kim must have judged it that way.

“Fight alongside you? You mean protect us?”

“Normally, that would be the case. But since we lost contact with other units, we don’t really have that kind of leeway. You could think of it as civilian recruitment during wartime.”

“Recruitment…”

“It’s not much, but if you join us, we can definitely help you gain the strength to protect yourselves.”

We were obviously talking about awakening, but from their perspective…

“So you’ll provide firearms or something?”

“Something like that.”

It was natural for them to interpret it that way.

Either way, it didn’t really matter, the man fell into thought at the proposal.

After thinking for a long while, he finally spoke.

“Let me ask first. If you’re recruiting, do we have a choice?”

“Of course. We have no intention of forcing you.”

“In that case, I’m sorry, but our answer is no.”

It was a little unexpected. But when I heard his reasoning, I understood.

“You may not be deserters. But you’re still a group we just met for the first time. Entrusting ourselves to strangers like that is too big of a gamble.”

“We have no intention of harming you.”

“I understand. But from our perspective, it’s hard to trust you. There’s still a chance you could be deserters… And honestly, because of those deserters, people’s perception of soldiers in general isn’t very good. We don’t want to take unnecessary risks.”

“I see.”

Perhaps thinking further persuasion was pointless,

Lieutenant Kim nodded with a heavy expression. These were people who had survived in this world. It wouldn’t be strange for them to have their own rules for survival. And once such rules were established, it was hard to overturn them with mere words.

“I’m sorry. I hope you won’t hold this against us.”

“Of course not. It’s your choice. We won’t take issue with it, so don’t worry.”

“That’s a relief.”

The man let out a sigh of relief.

He must have been genuinely worried that we might hold a grudge.

“Then… may I ask what you plan to do next?”

“Huh? Didn’t I tell you?”

It felt like a sensitive question, but he answered casually.

“There’s a reason we deliberately came this way, where the deserters were rumored to be.”

“Really? What reason would that be?”

“I heard there’s a group around here that’s secured an enormous amount of supplies.”

‘A rumor?’

“Some survivor group supposedly looted some kind of secret government bunker or something. They’ve got plenty of food and weapons. The problem is, they don’t have many people. There’s a limit to how long you can just hide from monsters. So the rumor is that they’re looking for survivors to join them, offering to share their weapons and food.”

Plenty of food and weapons.

And they’d just share it?

Those conditions sounded so sweet they made your tongue melt.

“It sounds suspiciously good… Is that rumor reliable?”

“Well. Is there any information in this world right now that’s 100% reliable? Maybe joining you would actually be the better choice. But like I said, we trust fellow survivors looking for companions a bit more than soldiers. This rumor is pretty well-known among survivor groups, too.”

“…Understood.”

“I’m sorry. We really are grateful for you saving our lives. If we ever meet again, I swear we’ll repay this debt.”

In the end, our first encounter with a sizable survivor group on the surface ended there.

“Take care. I hope you achieve whatever you’re aiming for.”

“You too. I hope you survive.”

Even as they left, they kept glancing back. They were probably worried that we might change our minds and attack them.

In a world like this, that kind of wariness was necessary.

After the survivors left…

“So, Young-jun. How was that?”

“You handled it well. From now on, it’d be better if Lieutenant Kim steps forward in situations like this.”

“Haha, I’m confident in playing the role of a figurehead, so leave it to me anytime. Though, um… how should I put this.”

Unlike when he was talking to the survivors, Lieutenant Kim now looked awkward and hesitant.

I had a pretty good idea what he was about to say.

“…I’ll give you one extra meal for the next three days.”

“T-Three whole days? Thank you! Thank you so much!”

The reason Lieutenant Kim obeyed me was because of the 『Happy Emotion』 from my cooking. More precisely, he was addicted to the happy emotions my food provided. This time, he’d done a good job, so rewarding him felt appropriate.

“By the way…”

“This could be more serious than we thought.”

The soldiers’ expressions were grim. The process of awakening the survivors we’d already taken in was nearing completion.

At the latest, it would be done within two days.

‘But one of the main reasons we came down to the surface was to expand our faction.’

I had assumed there would be many more survivors on the surface. Our original plan was to absorb them and turn them into awakened fighters. But…

‘I thought there’d be large survivor groups out here. Turns out that’s not really the case.’

Surprisingly, most survivor groups were quite small.

The reason was simple.

‘Because the monsters are too strong.’

To increase your numbers, you needed awakened fighters.

Ordinary survivors weren’t much help for survival. But increasing awakened fighters wasn’t easy either, because the monsters were so strong.

You could awaken through zombies, but the probability seemed random.

Not many people awakened even after killing zombies. Naturally, survivor groups were forced to remain small.

‘We need to absorb those small survivor groups and bulk up somehow. That’s the plan.’

Until recently, I hadn’t been worried about this.

I thought our image as soldiers would help when persuading survivors.

“So the very image we were relying on is getting wrecked by certain people, huh?”

The very survivors we needed to absorb were instead being drawn elsewhere by other rumors.

For us, whose goal was faction expansion, this was a pretty big problem.

“Young-jun, I think we need to solve this problem as soon as possible.”

“I agree with Sergeant Lee Minjae. If people’s perception of soldiers keeps getting worse by the minute, that won’t be good for us either.”

“I know, but…”

The problem was…

“We need to know where those deserter bastards are before we can solve anything.”

We couldn’t resolve this immediately. But at least the problem itself was now clear.

Once we found out where those guys were, we’d deal with them as quickly as possible.

* * *

But then…

“Hey! You old guys over there!”

“…?”

“Looks like there are a lot of you. Hand over everything you’ve got and get lost.”

That moment came sooner than expected.