Chapter 116 – To the South
Although it is not set as a rule, special meals are provided whenever the shelter achieves great results.
This is when Artemis produces meaningful research results or brings valuable loot from outside.
The residents who learned this looked forward to the launch of a robot exploration team or an expedition led by me. Because I can eat delicious food when I come back.
I often ask, ‘When are you going out again?’ I also get a subtle feeling from the look of anticipation.
This is what I expected up to this point, but there was an unexpected incident during the Sidbolt expedition.
[Did you know that a religious ceremony was held for the manager’s safe return?]
Kids reported.
Some residents tried to bestow spiritual strength on me heading to the battlefield.
Although it was difficult for me, as an atheist, to understand the search for God even in this situation.
In archival footage, a group of Muslim women gathered on a lawn in a corner of the park. They knelt and prostrated themselves in the direction of Mecca.
The palms face the sky and the forehead touches the ground. The grass dug in between the neatly gathered soles of my feet.
“I pray that you protect him from misfortune. May his enemies fall without reaching his side. Please return him safely to us.”
The prayer group included a woman who had previously been sentenced to caning and had the soles of her feet beaten.
Kids said it wasn’t long before they regained their faith. Even after entering the shelter, I did not pray until quite some time had passed.
It seems that his will was broken when his life was uprooted by monsters and all the common sense he once believed in was denied.
However, once I found peace of mind here, my broken will was restored, and I resumed praying one by one.
The first time we gathered together as a group was to wish me good luck.
The last blessing given to their lives was an expression of gratitude for the peaceful life granted through the country.
Through prayer, their bodies and souls were molded into a cup, and an infinite amount of wine called gratitude poured out.
The prayer that started in the morning on a holiday. The dedication to the safety of just me continued into the afternoon.
It was neither flashy nor dynamic. However, it was a heart-warming sight that could not be compared to anything else.
* * *
The special meal commemorating the success of the Seedbolt expedition is pizza.
Due to the conditions of the shelter, it was difficult to make American-style pizza with overwhelming toppings (which Italians despisely call pig pizza), so a light yet flavorful Italian pizza was chosen.
The hydroponic cultivation facility provided ample quantities of grains and fresh vegetables.
The thin dough made from a combination of wheat flour and cornmeal is baked to golden color and gives off a fragrant smell.
Basil was embroidered on the paste made from fresh tomatoes.
Margherita pizza, completed with a combination of red, white, and green, was placed in front of the residents.
I hold the pizza as if holding a treasure and carefully put it in my mouth.
Joy filled their eyes like spring water. I licked my lips meticulously, not wanting to miss even a single strand of the stretched white cheese.
The accompanying drink, as always at shelter dinners, was beer. Even though it seems like quite a bit has been sent out, it’s still piled up in the warehouse.
When I think of pizza, I think of cola first, but Artemis tells me that it is a traditional combination in Italy, its home country.
While the residents were happily eating, I was watching the video on the screen in the central control room.
[The pizza is going to get cold. Why don’t you do it while eating?]
“Uh.”
I answered half-heartedly and kept my gaze fixed on the front.
Then, it was only after I heard someone say that they had pizza on their nose that I was able to focus on eating properly. It has already lost quite a bit of its warmth.
What is playing in the central control room is a screen of drone carriers sent to the south.
As soon as I returned from the Sidbolt expedition, I immediately formed an investigation team and dispatched it to the south.
In the meantime, I vaguely thought that they couldn’t hold on as the survivors’ communication rapidly faded and fell into silence.
But what if that’s an illusion?
What if communication was simply cut off by the noise tree?
The moment my thoughts reached that point, I couldn’t sit still.
It’s not because I’m steeped in the heroic mentality of having to rescue survivors.
This is because the mere existence of information exchange is a source of strength in this long and lonely fight against infectious agents.
The speed of a drone carrier built as a mothership is relatively slow, even considering that it is an airship.
However, the advantage of going straight without being affected by terrain was able to offset the slow speed to some extent. Moreover, it is just the right speed to move forward while looking around at the situation on the ground.
In order to lighten the weight as much as possible for long-distance flights, only two drones were docked with their weapons removed.
Drone carriers have been transmitting videos in real time.
Most of them only show the remains of destroyed human civilization and collapsed structures.
The colorfully colored exterior walls, glass, signs, and other interiors are no longer there.
Everything was coated in broken concrete dust and dirt. There are only two things: dull gray and brown.
It was a sight like the skin shed by a crustacean.
The shell of human civilization.
Life and vitality have completely disappeared, and only air, dust, and smoke are inside.
“What kind of snake has that changed?”
A huge snake was discovered passing through a winding alley in a rural village. Probably not a real snake.
This is because there are no snakes large enough to fit two to three adult men living in Korea. Moreover, even the Amazon anaconda cannot break down a blocked wall and pass by.
[Maybe it’s an isopod rather than a snake? The pattern on the back is very different from that of a snake?]
As soon as Artemis finished speaking, the guy flipped his body over, and a scene of mutual insults unfolded.
Even if you catch a small number, there are more than 100 light brown legs growing out. Each one was as thick as an adult male’s arm, and the muscle joints in the center wriggled brilliantly.
“Another screen!”
Artemis closed that screen and increased the size of the other screen.
[Was I accurate? Hehe.]
Meanwhile, it was Artemis who was shrugging about her insight.
He even discovered Ground Zero. Not a single blade of grass grew in the huge pit, and no infectious agents came near it.
The radiation detector built into the carrier was activated and made a noise unique to a Geiger counter.
That’s because it’s a much more advanced detector than a Geiger counter, but it employs the same acoustic effect. The gloomy sound announcing the risk of radiation exposure further highlighted the desolation.
We also discovered a habitat for bizarre mutant trees. It is a tree-type infection that is difficult to see along with the noise tree.
Beneath the twisted branches grow fruit the size of soccer balls, resembling the intestines of a bodybuilder who has taken steroids to the limit.
Although it was roughly round, it was terribly lumpy and an ominous crimson color. It was closer to an egg than a fruit.
In fact, there were some fruits that spilled out their contents, like grape skins that had been plucked and eaten.
A long body tissue similar to an umbilical cord stretched from the center of the fruit.
A cat appeared from nowhere and jumped up to take a bite of something that was hanging in the air just as it reached it. The cute front paws fluttered in the air trying to catch the umbilical cord.
However, when the unhatched fruit nearby started to stir, it quickly ran away.
[Interesting. If a robot exploration team had gone, they would have brought one or two items frozen and packaged. I want to scan what it looks like inside. It’s a breeding method that combines both plant and mammal methods.]
There was regret in Artemis’ voice.
Is it thanks to the creation of a research center outside the shelter?
Sometimes I thought she might be a myeloid, but these days she seems to be infinitely more tolerant and tough when it comes to her scientific interests.
“If the drone had been armed, I would have ordered it to shoot down all the fruits.”
On the other hand, my instincts as a former soldier were telling me to burn or explode everything.
The highway we found along the way was a cemetery for cars. Abandoned cars are rusting away in the worst traffic jams. There was an endless line of jam-packed vehicles.
The sight of refugees stamping their feet, stranded and unable to go anywhere, is pleasing to the eye.
In the meantime, there are traces of a huge being breaking through the vehicle like a miracle of Moses.
Cars thrown upside down on top of trucks, cars bounced off highways and rolled down hillsides. It looks like the hand of God came down from the sky and threw it around like playing with a toy.
“Juggernaut?”
[For now, it seems likely, but there may have been an even bigger entity. Even if it were a juggernaut, it would be difficult to move forward while crashing into a group of cars.]
“It could be several.”
[Well, guess what.]
The traces of the breakthrough started from the side of the highway leading to the mountain. This is why we ruled out the possibility that a huge truck pushed it all the way.
‘I’ll never let anyone go after this!’
There were often places where it was assumed that the Korean army fought to the death with such determination.
Beyond the collapsed barricade, a charred armored car, a tank with its main gun torn off. There were bulletproof helmets and rifles lying everywhere.
The further south you go, the more often these traces of resistance appeared, and the scale became smaller each time.
By the time we reached Busan, the number of armored vehicles had decreased significantly and tanks were not visible at all.
The land over which the drone carrier passed was filled with only traces of destruction, distortion, and writhing.
The destination of this journey was the southern tip, but we couldn’t just keep moving forward.
Occasionally, when we discovered a type of infection we had never seen before or when we found what seemed to be traces of survivors, we stopped for a moment to observe and track.
I was able to get useful information from the former, but I got nothing from the latter.
And finally we reached the southern tip of the country. The sight that awaited us there was truly jaw-dropping.
A white tsunami was rushing from the ground.
Constantly.
