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That night passed quietly, and after walking until our feet hurt, we returned to the townhouse.

The sentry on the rooftop of the small house-like outpost saw us and called out in a bright voice.

“Are you back?”

“Yes! Any problems?”

“None at all!”

It really seemed like there were no issues. Even though I had left the townhouse unattended for a day, everyone was moving around as usual.

People preparing lunch. Smoke rose hazily around those cooking using barbecue grills or drums, and people carrying firewood or harvesting crops gradually gathered around them.

The food distribution officer handed out food in small portions, as if rationing.

Park Yang-gun waved his hand dismissively and walked to his house.

“I’m so tired I could die. I’m going to sleep first.”

“I should sleep too. My back and joints are killing me.”

“I want to wash up a bit.”

The criminal companions bid farewell in tired voices and slowly left. I was equally tired, so after glancing at the comrades eating, I returned home.

‘Home really is the best.’

Camping is no match. No matter how many corpse clothes and leaves you lay down, they can’t beat the modern marvels of beds and blankets.

Lying down without changing clothes, I felt the bed’s elasticity through my entire body. As I tossed and turned, a thought struck me before I fell asleep.

“Bed? Springs?”

Could I turn this into a weapon? The bed springs might work as trap components. If I cut them properly, couldn’t I make something like barbed wire?

‘I should ask the others later…’

With thoughts of modifying the bed into a weapon, I fell asleep.

***

Several days passed. During that time, there were no provocations from the flies, and the townhouse enjoyed peaceful times. Work, eat, sleep.

I didn’t share my exact plans with the comrades. I just told them to focus on defense and running the townhouse.

During breakfast, when people gathered in the central street of the townhouse.

“From now on, we won’t hunt or track separately. We’ll only defend. Even if someone provokes us, we’ll only shoot those who come close to the townhouse.”

The comrades, who had been working hard even taking night watch shifts, seemed to welcome this decision but also showed a hint of unease.

“But isn’t it dangerous to leave them alone?”

“They’re just flies. They don’t have the power to kill us. Of course, we’ll occasionally raid and pillage.”

After that, Sajihyeok and Jeondohyeong stepped forward to explain the townhouse’s operational policies.

“We won’t change the manpower allocation. Just work as usual.”

“We need to harvest all the vegetables and store them. If we leave them too long, they’ll spoil.”

It felt like settling into the townhouse. The comrades nodded in satisfaction. After all, pillaging was always a life-risking act, and the stress was no joke.

Rather than continuing actions that could get me killed, living like a normal survivor group was better for my mental health.

But if the stress completely disappeared, it wouldn’t be good, so I gave a final warning.

“But the alliance is still intact. Always be on guard. Be ready to flee too.”

“You mentioned it before, so we’re already prepared.”

With that, the announcement ended. People went back to eating, and those who had work to do went back to work.

We could draw groundwater, but handling waste was difficult, so someone carried waste to the mountain to dump it. Someone with a poorly made carrying frame and a hand axe. Someone pulling a cart around the fields.

It was the ideal image of a survivor group.

Then, Jeondohyeong’s voice came from behind.

“I took apart a bed and tried making some things. I couldn’t make a trap. Explosives are out of the question, and even if I managed to make a simple trap, the chance of it failing is too high.”

Turning around, Jeondohyeong was waving his dust-covered hand, holding tools.

“What about barbed wire?”

“I can make something similar, but it’s not efficient. We already have a nailed fence. It’s better to just use the bed as it is.”

It seems making proper traps is difficult. This is the realm of specialized knowledge. Like magic in fantasy genres, the unqualified can’t touch it.

I sighed with regret.

“It would be nice if we could make explosives.”

I don’t know how to make improvised explosives, but I roughly know how to increase lethality. From dealing with explosives while fighting the military as an alliance mercenary.

Fragments laced with poison. If possible, use a rice cooker to make it explode more powerfully.

“If it were easy to make, everyone would be doing it.”

“Can’t we get gunpowder by disassembling ammunition?”

If we gathered the gunpowder from bullets… After a brief thought, I shook my head.

“It’s better to shoot and kill with the bullets than to make explosives with them.”

“Let’s just give up on explosives.”

It’s really a shame. Just having explosives as a prop would open up so many scenarios.

“Can’t be helped. By the way, what are the flies up to?”

“Probably gathering people, like you said.”

Jeondohyeong said bluntly.

“Aren’t we moving? You said we’d escape the city.”

“Who knows.”

Escaping the city. Rationally, it’s a great idea. There’s no reason to stay in the city.

The city’s resources are depleted. The remaining survivors and zombies are the hardcore ones. Our relationship with the alliance is bad, and the remaining military is a potential threat.

It might be better to leave the city and start anew in a quiet rural area.

But… I chuckled. Would living in a quiet countryside be fun?

“Isn’t it peaceful now?”

With electrical facilities and groundwater, the townhouse maintains a pastoral atmosphere. Life outside the city would be like this.

Just living, a boring life.

Jeondohyeong leaned on his crutch and poured out nagging words.

“What peace? It’s the calm before the storm. Don’t you know the alliance is targeting us? Using those survivors, talking about using some zombie-luring drone.”

“That’s why we can’t escape.”

I pointed to the sky.

“Imagine if a self-destruct drone falls from the sky while we’re running away. We’d all die.”

“Why would the alliance bother us if we’re running away?”

“No, it’s the opposite. They can’t touch us because we’re here. They’re afraid we’ll set the mountain on fire.”

Even if we really escaped, we couldn’t do it like this. We’d have to start fires, create chaos, and turn the world upside down before a path to survival opens.

“It’s not just the drones. The Delivery Vigilante Group. What if they beat us to it and set up improvised explosives on the road? Or what if the police and archers ambush us? What if they set traps laced with the virus?”

Jeondohyeong seemed to ponder deeply, then spoke in a faint voice.

“Things have gotten out of hand… How did it come to this?”

We fell over the fence by accident, and like gravity, we just kept falling.

Maybe if I hadn’t killed someone on the first day, maybe if I hadn’t killed the pastor, maybe if I had stayed in the Hope Community, there might have been another path…

But all the events were insufficient to stop the falling person. We fell relentlessly, breaking everything we hit.

“Anyway, don’t think too far ahead. Just think about what we need to do today.”

“It’s just that I regret the past. It feels like we started wrong from the beginning.”

I stared blankly at Jeondohyeong. In a way, he wasn’t wrong.

“True. If you hadn’t stolen electricity, we wouldn’t have met like this.”

If Jeondohyeong hadn’t stolen electricity from the bathroom at the foot of the mountain that day, we wouldn’t have moved together like this.

Park Yang-gun was the same. If he hadn’t stolen from the warehouse that day, it would have been different. If Sajihyeok hadn’t lived by scamming, he wouldn’t have been chased by pursuers and wouldn’t have come to Villa Street.

In the end, we were all criminals, and crime brought us together.

Jeondohyeong’s face turned red, and he shouted.

“No, the electricity theft!”

Then it happened. A light gunshot echoed. A provocation from the flies.

I turned my head toward the townhouse below and adjusted my rifle.

“Intel’s here. Let’s go.”

***

When the flies fired the shot, Park Yang-gun and I searched the funeral home for a while, and Park Yang-gun found a note. He unfolded it, skimmed it, and handed it to me.

“There’s some info here. Check it out.”

“Okay. Let’s see.”

Roughly scribbled handwriting. Frowning, I checked it, and it was useful information.

A report on gathering some people. The location and time of the next provocation building and the number of people to send. The timing and location of meeting with the rider.

The end of the information was a question.

Where should we leave the resources for you? Write it on the note and put it in the corpse’s pocket.

“Is he really a double agent?”

The information was too clearly written. With the bad blood, he should be hiding it. Is he trying to extract resources from both me and the alliance, as Park Yang-gun predicted?

Then Park Yang-gun asked.

“What are we going to do now?”

“We have to kill the prisoner we locked up at home.”

I glanced up at the townhouse. The prisoner we captured for information, with one knee broken. His usefulness has run out. No need to keep him alive and feed him.

 

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