Chapter 115 – Baekdudaegan Global Seed Bolt (3)
The hatchet split the skull cleanly, with about half of the blade lodged in it.
[At this level, you die instantly.]
The man’s body was turned over, with his booted feet under his sides. The face of the end of corruption turns towards me.
Dalkak.
I stepped on his chin and his mouth opened with the sound of bones colliding. Look inside with the muzzle flashlight.
“He died as a human.”
Significant mutations occur outside the walker’s body, but in an advanced state of decomposition, it is quite difficult to distinguish it from a human corpse.
In this case, the most obvious way to tell is to look at the inside of the mouth. Teeth and jaw are the areas where infection first causes changes, and the range of variation is also large.
The corpse I stepped on had neat teeth and even a few gold teeth.
[Are you talking about murder?]
“Maybe.”
Although Artemis had experienced many battles with me, this would be her first time encountering fratricide among humans.
Cheolpuk.
As we go a little further in, the floor is filled with water.
[There is a leak in the sprinkler pipe.]
As I followed the direction of the shoulder cam, I saw a stream of water falling from a red pipe on the ceiling. Although it is a slow pace, the water level at the bottom is constantly increasing.
[I’m glad I arrived on time.]
Power supply is also in jeopardy, and water is rising from the floor. If it had arrived even a month later, all the precious seeds would have rotted.
“Since there is no maintenance, it is time for the taste to go away. Rather, it was wise that it ended at this level.”
This is also a reason to advance the future schedule. The condition of facilities that are not reachable by human hands will continue to worsen.
The warehouse we arrived at was lined with containers labeled with varieties and classification symbols.
Although it does not contain all the seeds on Earth, there are all that can be said to represent a stem in plant classification.
Fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes, flowers and trees, and even weeds used in lawns.
This is the ark of life.
Puzzle pieces were put together to rebuild a world contaminated by infection and burned by a nuclear weapon.
I stopped in front of a freezer. There are countless square plates that look like small CD cases. These are animal embryos. I took out one of them.
The name written on the label is representative of the dairy cow breed.
“They say it’s Holstein.”
The shoulder cam gazed at an embryo resembling a tadpole.
[Synthetic processed oil wasn’t that good? Did you really miss milk?]
“No. What I missed was the sound of crying. Should we make a small ranch and zoo in the shelter? The amount of grass produced from hydroponic cultivation facilities is enormous. “Residents will also like it.”
The sight of cows chewing dried hay after cultivation itself purifies the hearts of those who see it.
I put the embryo case back in its original position and nodded to the robot waiting behind me.
The robot began moving things into a portable freezer that was loaded onto the helicopter.
I expected at least one or two battles, but it was extremely peaceful inside. The infected body was not even visible.
[We found the body of another researcher.]
Guided by Artemis, we arrived at the deepest room, the director’s office. The doorknob was broken, as if it had been locked.
As we entered, we saw a corpse buried deep in a chair.
“This is.”
There was an awl stuck between the ribs. Although it appears that the vital area was avoided, it is a fatal injury if not treated immediately. Now that most of the flesh has rotted away, it seems like it will clatter and fall off with the slightest impact.
“Senior researcher, Park Il-hwan.”
I was able to identify him by the name tag around his neck. A large amount of sleeping pills are spilled near the corpse.
[I found the journal after the infection war.]
It was a memoir.
According to records, when the aftermath of the infection war reached the central region, this place, like the shelter, was placed under lockdown.
However, while we were a facility that had everything, this facility lacks everything. The contents of the diary were full of fear, anxiety, and lack.
〈Senior researcher Park Il-hwan’s diary〉
First record.
I don’t know how long it’s been since the world was engulfed in monsters and flames.
There are only three people left here, including me. Ji-hye, a newcomer, and Yeong-cheol, my classmate.
The director, deputy director, and other researchers all left to protect their families.
In fact, there is one more researcher, but ‘that’ is no longer a human.
I barely succeeded in trapping him inside the test cultivation room, but looking back, I think it was a bad idea.
If only I had the equipment inside, I would have attempted simple farming inside the bolt by drawing water from a fire hydrant.
Now that the inside is probably contaminated, it’s all meaningless.
Second record.
The situation is deteriorating rapidly. There is less than a week’s worth of food left. Tensions are rising.
One time, the sound of a spoon hitting the plate almost led to a fight. My claim that monsters outside might hear the sound of the fight calmed everyone’s excitement.
I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. But no matter what happens, we must protect the seeds.
Third record.
It’s quite outside now. Instead, the inside became noisy. As always, the fight that was supposed to end in a war of nerves turned into a fight.
Jihye was barely able to stop her after she started bleeding from her crushed nose.
Youngcheol looked down at his blood-soaked hands and looked like he couldn’t believe what he had done. I think we’re all going crazy here.
It’s quite outside, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. No matter where you look at the three external cameras, you can see strange, abnormal movements.
Fourth record.
Food ran out. That was quite a long time ago. There is still no contact from the outside or any signs of rescue.
Yeongcheol watches the seed storage with ominous eyes.
Fifth.
When I wake up, I have no wisdom. She broke the blockade and escaped. She even left the door open.
It wasn’t difficult to find. She was in a crowd of wild dogs about 200 meters away. When she found out, the meal was almost over.
A loud crunching sound could be heard dozens of meters away, as if he was breaking her bones and sucking out the marrow inside her like a hyena.
Those guys who looked like they were missing a bite looked at me, who appeared just in time.
She ran away with all her might. What was seen through the seed bolt door that narrowly closed was the appearance of a horribly mutated monster.
Thud! Thud! The heavy impact sound of hitting the bulkhead is still vivid.
Sixth.
I fought with Yeongcheol.
The guy who couldn’t overcome hunger was eating the seeds we had sworn to protect even at the risk of our lives.
There are already more than hundreds of seeds that have entered his stomach. He munched on it like a savage.
Seventh.
Now I am the last survivor.
More than 2,000 seeds entered Yeongcheol’s stomach, and the moment he touched the embryonic disc, he decided to subdue him.
However, things went wrong. As a result of a combination of misfortune, hunger, neurosis, and hand tremors, the originally intended capture ended in murder.
The only luck I’ve had is beginner’s luck. The ax I swung at the first person cut off his head smoothly.
Instead, I gave up my side to the awl he swung, and it was stuck all the way to the handle, so I couldn’t even think of pulling it out.
There are still monsters roaming around outside. Looking at the external situation I heard on the radio, there is no rescue team, and I probably won’t be able to survive for a few days with these injuries anyway.
However, the remaining seeds were saved. I hope it gets into the hands of someone who will put it to good use.
I’m full. And I’m sleepy.
I had no idea sleeping pills were this delicious. I want to be full until the end.
〈 End record 〉
“…”
He carefully lowered his body from the sofa to the ground and folded his hands over his chest.
[I found a hibernating walker in the cultivation test room. The door is locked.]
This may be the entity mentioned in the journal.
“Just leave it alone.”
It’s easy to kill, but I didn’t want even the slightest element of contamination to get involved in the process of securing seeds and embryos.
But this is not a world that will just leave my intentions like this.
[Three slave cows, fast approaching.]
Did he wander around, drawn by the sound of a helicopter, and find us?
We decided to add ‘slave’ as a prefix for infected animals. A dog is a slave dog, and a cow is a slave cow. Something like this.
It is a name that reflects the characteristic that the probability of infection increases as creatures become more dependent on human civilization.
The two robots guarding the entrance entered a combat stance. We were able to share the robots’ view through the PDA.
The robot’s vision is shaken by the running of the slave cows, which have grown to the size of a van.
The skin, unable to withstand the rapidly swelling muscles, was torn in various places. Between them, blood-red muscle fibers are clearly visible, like an anatomy diagram.
This is also the reason why the early infected animals were called ‘Zombie XX’.
The cow’s eyes, once full of innocence, now sparkle with hunger for flesh.
The horrendous facial deformities cannot be left out. The eyes, nose, and mouth were all twisted and ‘stuck’ irregularly.
Between the twists and turns, unnatural anger and violence that seems artificially injected overflow. Just as it prevents the eyes, nose, and mouth from returning to their normal positions and finding their good nature.
When the distance was narrowed to 100 meters, the slave cows screamed. It was closer to a scream of pain than a roar of anger.
What stopped it were 12.7 mm lead bullets. If it had been 5.56 mm, it would not have been possible to guarantee stopping that charge.
[Clear. There are no other dangers nearby.]
I looked away from the PDA and moved the senior researcher to the cot in the night room. And a few items that could be considered keepsakes were collected as grave goods.
The work was soon completed, and the senior researcher’s body was decided to be buried right next to the seed bolt.
As the robots carefully placed the remains in the pit and were about to scoop up the dirt with a shovel, birds from the nearby mountains flew up all at once.
Kujijijik!
The top of the mountain a few hundred meters away shook. Several trees are falling one after another on a lush green mountainside.
“Stop work! Everyone on board!”
The helicopter started a beat faster than my words, and soon it started shaking with a loud noise.
Kwazijic!
Trees keep falling. As a rule of thumb, 10 trees have already fallen. The direction was clearly heading this way.
The robots aimed 12.7 mm rifles at the helicopter body. The two aircraft moved to the left side of the machine gun and were ready to fire at any time.
When the helicopter rose about 5 meters, there were less than 200 meters left.
Ujikkeun!
The movement stopped for a moment.
And then a roar that felt like it was going to tear was heading towards us. It was a sound like a mixture of the yelling of a drunken man and the roar of a gorilla.
Seven red eyes appeared among the trees. Each one was the size of a watermelon, and the sight of them slowly following us as we ascended was creepy.
If the people next to me were human soldiers instead of robots, someone would have been so scared that they would have opened fire.
Did they decide it was too late to attack? ‘It’ moved to another place after a while, noisily knocking down trees. In the end, I couldn’t see anything other than my eyes.
It was a moment before I could breathe a sigh of relief. The senior researcher’s grave, which had not yet been covered with dirt, came into view with the body deeply dug up and with most of the body exposed.
Not far from him, the group of slave dogs he had seen in his journal could be seen wandering towards him.
“I’m sorry. “You deserved to be treated better.”
There was nothing we could do now.
They reached his remains and jumped into the pit one by one.
