Chapter 114 – Pacific Fleet (1)

Not many people in Yeongdo could evacuate to Jodo.

Not everyone who evacuated could board the ship.

In the end, only a tiny fraction of those remaining in Yeongdo could be saved.

But compared to Haeundae which we visited later, we saved many people.

Unfortunately, the ship arrived too late at Haeundae.

Unlike Yeongdo and Jodo with natural barriers as islands, people in Haeundae’s apartment complexes lost the protection of their high-rise buildings.

Ignoring the belief they couldn’t climb high, zombies and skeletons conquered the high-rises by running up stairs and climbing walls.

Most people died and turned into zombies inside apartments, with only a few escaping to the sea.

When we arrived at Haeundae’s coast, we saw these people floating on the sea in front of the beach.

People floating on planks, styrofoam, and what looked like garbage.

Though clearly exhausted and near death from floating so long, they were the lucky ones who survived to the end.

Even among those who jumped into the sea, only some lasted until we arrived.

After picking up about ten people floating in the sea at Haeundae, the ship headed south leaving burning apartments behind.

The ship’s destination was Jeju Island.

But some people had different destinations.

The next dawn, hours before reaching Jeju, our party and U.S. forces came up to the ship’s deck.

Those who struggled yesterday were sound asleep in cabins and corridors wrapped in clothes and blankets from containers.

The ship had stopped a while ago.

Standing on deck in the still dark sea, the container ship captain extended his hand to me.

“Why not wait until people wake up to leave?”

I shook my head while taking his hand.

“It’ll just be messy. Some will resent us, some will try to stop us.”

“Well, with the example right here, can’t argue with that.”

The captain agreed looking aside.

Despite the captain’s criticism, the former Yeongdo district mayor seemed unwilling to change his mind.

He sighed with a dark expression.

“What choice do we have? With everyone leaving like this, Jeju people will clearly look down on us. They abandoned us – no way they’ll welcome us.”

Watching him, the captain stroked the dented railing and said:

“Still, you’re going with a half-full container ship, should be fine.”

The former mayor uncrossed his arms and rubbed his face at the captain’s words.

“That’s why I’m staying quiet. If it was an empty ship, I’d be grabbing everyone’s pants to stop them from going.”

Fortunate. If we’d found another ship we might have had to sneak away.

I shook hands with the regretful mayor.

While I said goodbyes to the captain and former mayor, Ye-rim was being pestered by the port union chief.

“When I get to Jeju, I’ll tell everyone about the miracle of the holy maiden who revived me!”

“No, you really don’t need to…”

“I can’t do that. I can’t keep such a miracle to myself.”

Ye-rim looked at me pleadingly for help, but I pretended not to see.

Either way, many people knowing about her wasn’t bad.

Though I didn’t understand the principle, holy power seemed to grow stronger when many people believed in it.

If people knew and followed her actions, Ye-rim’s holy power would grow stronger.

While watching Ye-rim’s troubled expression, I spoke to Lieutenant Colonel Park standing to one side:

“You haven’t forgotten?”

At my words, the soldier who seemed to have aged years in a day nodded.

“How could I forget? One month, you said?”

At the lieutenant colonel’s words, I looked at Zahina precariously standing at the railing’s edge.

When I looked, Zahina spoke:

“Yes. Walking under the sea is much slower than on land, but they haven’t stopped walking. Though this ship passed them long ago, at this speed they’ll reach the island called Jeju within a month.”

Zahina had kept watching under the sea while the ship moved.

Amazingly, even after passing the continental shelf, zombies and undead kept walking east and south along the seafloor.

Though their speed was extremely slow due to terrain and water pressure, the already dead ones didn’t rest or stop.

“Can we block them when they arrive?”

I shrugged at the lieutenant colonel’s words.

“Not sure. Can’t gauge how many will cross the sea to reach Jeju.”

With luck, they might be crushed by water pressure and swept away by currents before reaching Jeju.

They might take wrong paths to Japan or America.

But honestly, that seemed hard to expect.

Could only pray small numbers would appear sporadically.

The lieutenant colonel sighed at my ambiguous words.

“We can only hope to block them. We have nowhere else to go from Jeju.”

According to David, zombies were appearing in almost every country now.

Countries opposite Korea had fewer zombies appearing due to weaker death energy, but still faced chaos.

Nothing to say about Russia and China under direct demon army attack.

Though not attacked by demon armies, Japan and Southeast Asia next to Korea struggled to maintain government.

In that situation, hard for them to accept refugees from Korea.

Watching the worried lieutenant colonel, David casually mentioned:

“If this goes well, our military, U.S. forces might move.”

“U.S. forces? You mean come to Korea?”

“Hard to give definite answer. But knowing the cause of this situation, our cowboys won’t just leave it alone.”

The U.S. soldiers nodded at David’s words.

“I cursed when U.S. forces withdrew from Korea… Now I’d welcome even U.S. forces moving.”

The lieutenant colonel said that while nodding to me.

Only those three people and some crew were out on deck seeing us off now.

As goodbyes were finishing, a soldier holding a satellite phone to his ear called softly:

“They’ve arrived.”

Simultaneously, Zahina standing at the railing’s edge tilted her head looking down at the sea.

“Sea servant?”

Before her words finished, a huge steel pillar rose from the dark sea.

*splash*

Then small waves rose in the calm sea as a steel ship revealed itself.

“Is this a submarine?”… Zahina said as waves spilled over the railing.

Zahina seemed quite surprised by the submarine.

Honestly, I was surprised too.

They hadn’t told us the arriving ship was a submarine.

When no ship appeared at the promised time, I’d wondered if it might be a submarine, but that submarine was too big.

Though only a quarter the length of our 400-meter container ship, a 100-meter submarine was by no means small.

“It’s the Jimmy Carter? The higher-ups went all out.”

While U.S. soldiers recognized the surfacing submarine, David spread his arms introducing it to us:

“This is the USS Jimmy Carter, third Seawolf-class. One of only three largest nuclear submarines in the world. The white kni…”

It certainly seemed to have rushed here.

The surfaced submarine’s surface was a mess. The steel submarine was covered in scratch marks.

Plus several skeletons clung to the submarine’s surface.

Leaving David speechless looking at the submarine, I launched myself toward it.

Clearing the skeletons clinging to the submarine wasn’t difficult.

I swung my sword smashing the skeletons above water, and with Zahina’s help could clear all skeletons clinging underwater too.

Only after sending all skeletons back to bones did the submarine’s hatch open.

Pale-faced submarine crew emerged after the hatch opened.

The crew wore expressions of long-suffered terror.

“Time is short, please board first.”

David, troubled by the crew’s appearance, first pushed us onto the submarine.

Like that we managed to board the submarine heading to the U.S. Navy fleet after various troubles.

The submarine carrying us submerged again then turned east.

We could hear what happened to this submarine while greeting the submarine captain.

“When contacted, my ship was on solo operations. We were passing through the Sea of Japan.”

“It’s the East Sea.”

“Ah, East Sea. Anyway, my ship was closest so we rushed to rescue you all. Those skeletons attached to the ship when passing Dokdo… I mean Takeshima.”

Though Ye-rim objected to the captain’s explanation, thanks to him quickly correcting himself, the explanation continued without issue.

“Hearing strange monsters moved near the surface in Korean waters, we stayed as close to the seafloor as possible. Never thought skeletons would attach to the ship.

Those bones were so tough, the sound of them scratching the hull nearly drove the whole crew mad.”

The captain shook his head.

One undead came to mind at mention of monsters moving near the surface.

“Must be corpse mermaids?”

Hoffman seemed to think of the same undead.

Though not seen in Busan, seems corpse mermaids roamed the sea too.

“If under Dokdo, must be undead from the east coast.”

Among the skeletons I smashed, some undead wore partial clothing. Korean was written on those clothes.

Undead already passing Dokdo…

Unlike southern undead blocked at the Nakdong River line, east coast undead seemed to have entered the sea long ago.

Plus though the submarine was attacked now, the undead hadn’t just arrived at Dokdo.

“Undead will reach Japan faster than expected.”

After the captain’s explanation, we explained what we saw at the beach and what Zahina confirmed.

The captain sighed hearing our story.

“Though we contacted them coming here, nothing the Japanese government can do even knowing. Many cities destroyed, Self-Defense Forces near collapse, no way to block them.”

Japan’s situation seemed worse than expected.

But now wasn’t the time to worry about Japan.

Ridiculously, we now had to prepare for talks with U.S. forces.

Like that the submarine carrying our party continued south.

Destination: East China Sea.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet group was stationed east of Shanghai in the East China Sea.