Chapter 149 – Heading to New York (3)

As soon as I entered the main entrance of Walmart, bullets came pouring down.

However, there are very few ordinary people who can keep up with the movements of a knight who properly uses mana.

Most of the bullets were fired into thin air, and the few that actually followed me were all blocked by a shield infused with mana.

After breaking through the gunfire and entering Walmart, I saw that they had built a barricade using display stands and furniture centered around the door.

Behind the barricade, people were aiming their guns at me.

Looking at the frightened people, it seemed difficult to swing my sword without thinking.

Instead of drawing the sword at my waist, I grabbed the scabbard along with the sword.

Then, I leaped over the barricade and swung the scabbard.

Thud!

People were sent flying after being hit by the scabbard.

“Ugh!”

Sounds of something breaking and people’s screams followed, but I ignored them and pushed through the crowd.

A moment later, I reattached the scabbard to my waist and looked around the first floor of Walmart.

Behind the barricade, people were rolling on the floor groaning, and some were raising their hands in fear.

Deep inside, I could see women trembling with their children, but there was no one left who would dare to attack.

After confirming that everything was settled, I signaled to the outside.

“You can come in now!”

The party members waiting outside entered.

Yelena and Hoffman looked at the people rolling on the floor and tilted their heads in confusion.

“Huh, no one’s dead,” Hoffman remarked.

Yerim rolled her eyes at Hoffman’s words.

“What would happen if we killed them?”

“They were enemies trying to kill us. There’s no reason to let them live.”

“They’re living people. It’s better not to kill them.”

“Priests are always so kind-hearted.”

“It’s not because I’m a priest. There’s no reason to kill them if we don’t have to.”

“Sure, sure.”

Yerim was about to argue with Hoffman until he raised his hands in surrender, but I waved her over first.

“Yerim, please heal them.”

“Oh, right.”

Yerim had been too busy arguing with Hoffman to do what she was supposed to do.

At my words, Yerim blushed and hurried over to heal the injured.

As I watched Yerim healing the people, I spoke to David.

“David, take care of the rest.”

“This time, it’s my turn to step in. But, this is the first time in a while I’ve seen such a clean negotiation method. Without any tedious back-and-forth, you instantly neutralized the enemy’s force and even provided healing. The company would really like this negotiation method.”

David praised me sincerely, but it didn’t sound like praise to my ears.

A negotiation method that the CIA would like.

It felt like I had done something bad.

While Hoffman gathered the guns and set them aside, and Yerim healed the injured, David found the leader of this survivor group.

It was an old man wearing a cowboy hat.

He was the one who had shot at me with a shotgun, breaking both his arms, and even while Yerim was healing him, he glared at her with a hardened expression.

“The government has joined hands with the Chinese. I knew it. The zombies were made by the Chinese.”

I was left speechless by the cowboy’s words.

It was hard to follow his train of thought.

I didn’t even know where to start explaining.

Fortunately, I wasn’t the one who had to talk to him.

“We’re not interested in this Walmart. All we need is a container truck to take us to New York.”

David’s explanation, befitting a State Department employee, left the cowboy man stunned.

“Then why did you attack us?”

“We didn’t attack you.”

“You could’ve at least talked before fighting.”

“You started shooting before we could say anything.”

“But……”

The cowboy man tried to make excuses until the end, but unfortunately, the other people in Walmart weren’t on his side.

“Damn, I thought I was going to die. I told you to look around more before shooting.”

“Seems like you’re too hasty to be a leader.”

“I need to talk to the people behind me.”

Those who had just been healed by Yerim, their bones barely reattached, whispered among themselves.

Perhaps because the group nearly faced annihilation due to a wrong decision, the cowboy man’s leadership crumbled in an instant.

Sensing the unfavorable gazes of the people, the cowboy man quickly took action.

“Everyone, move! Fill up the truck with fuel and check the engine. The battery might be dead since the truck’s been sitting for so long.”

At the sudden change in the cowboy man’s orders, the people started moving, groaning and grumbling.

As they moved, the women and children who had been hiding quietly revealed themselves.

They stood at a distance, whispering among themselves.

“Look at their ears. They’re elves.”

“There’s a knight and a mage too.”

“Are they from a game?”

“Maybe they’re characters summoned from a movie.”

While the kids were talking about us,

“A knight, a mage, an elf, and even a Chinese person. What kind of people are they? Are they like the Avengers?”

The adults were also looking at us, making all sorts of guesses.

Even the cowboy man seemed curious, but David quickly silenced their curiosity with one sentence.

“It’s classified.”

While the women and children whispered, the men, with their bones barely reattached and their pain not yet subsided, prepared the trailer.

They even loaded the trailer with canned goods and supplies we hadn’t even asked for.

While the people were loading the trailer, I cut out several windows in the trailer walls.

Cutting out the walls made the trailer look ugly and ruined the insulation, but having a clear view of the surroundings was more important.

With the now bizarre-looking Walmart trailer, we left Philadelphia.

The people of Walmart waved at us as we left.

When we said we were heading to New York, the Walmart people were too scared to follow us.

“After the meteor fell, New York became a city of monsters.”

It seemed that New York had become an incredibly terrifying place for them.

It was strange how much more scared they were than expected, but we had no choice but to go.

On the road from Philadelphia to New York, abandoned cars lined the streets, and zombies roamed around.

Because of this, it would have been difficult for ordinary people to drive to New York, but we had a mage and the daughter of the sacred tree.

Zahina moved the earth to push the cars aside, and Yelena used her magic to blow away the cars blocking our path.

Some zombies attacked us because of the noise, but there weren’t many.

And those zombies were all taken down by Zahina’s sniper rifle and Hoffman’s bow.

As we got closer to New York, more cars blocked the road, and more zombies roamed, but the trailer didn’t stop and kept heading toward New York.

We drove along Route 95 and arrived near New York Liberty International Airport by evening.

As expected, the site of the airport was now just a huge crater.

It was a crater that was hard to believe was made by a falling satellite.

Fortunately, the road passing by the airport was intact, and perhaps because of the fallen satellite, there weren’t many zombies.

Passing by the airport, we crossed over to Route 78 and finally had Manhattan in sight.

Just beyond Jersey City, across the water, we could see Manhattan Island.

The skyline of Manhattan, filled with countless skyscrapers, came into view.

“Is that the Manhattan skyline? Is there something wrong with my eyes?”

Yerim spoke in a dazed voice as she looked at the Manhattan skyline, but I felt the same way.

The skyscrapers themselves weren’t different from what I remembered in my past life.

Beyond the skyscrapers, there would be the crater made by the satellite, but from here, the crater wasn’t visible.

However, something else clung to the surfaces of the buildings that formed the forest.

Buildings painted in brown and dark blue.

The dark colors were dead trees and vines.

It seemed impossible, but it looked like the dead vines had wrapped around the buildings during winter.

But that couldn’t be.

From a distance, the thin-looking vines were clearly thicker than most large trees.

Dead vines as thick as large trees wrapping around buildings.

This was biologically impossible.

But if the one who made them was the Demon King, the King of Death, then it made sense.

“They’re undead plants. When the Demon King’s army invaded our land, they created these soldiers. This rift is indeed connected to the land of the sacred tree.”

Zahina explained to us what the vines wrapping around the buildings were.

Another enemy had appeared, but our task remained the same.

To confirm whether this rift was connected to the land of the sacred tree, and then cross the rift to help establish a new gate.

The obstacles had increased, but since things rarely went according to plan, it wasn’t surprising anymore.

Fortunately, the giant vines weren’t visible outside of Manhattan.

Our destination, the western part of Manhattan city, was just as we had seen it before.

David drove the trailer again, crossing the bridge toward our destination, Sunset Park.

“Stop!”

A moment later, we arrived at Sunset Park, which was blocked by a barricade made of abandoned cars.

Behind the barricade and in the surrounding buildings, people were hiding, aiming their guns at us.

The people here were different from those we had seen at Walmart.

The equipment they had, their positions, and the way they aimed at us showed that these weren’t ordinary people.

They didn’t shoot carelessly.

“Stop! Who goes there?”

“David from the State Department.”

“Everyone, put your hands up and step out of the vehicle.”

Questions and answers were exchanged, and we followed their instructions and stepped out of the vehicle.

They also seemed surprised by our appearance, but their stances didn’t falter.

When David finally stepped out of the driver’s seat, a man walked out from behind the barricade.

He was a middle-aged man with short hair.

He seemed to know David, as he extended his hand with a friendly expression.

“Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Likewise.”

“Are these the ones?”

“Yes. They’re the ones who came from another world to capture the Demon King. The expeditionary force from Ea.”

Although our party included people like Yerim from this world, no one objected to David’s words, and the middle-aged man shook our hands.

“I’m Jansen Egger, a free knight.”

The man on the other side responded.

“I’m Tom, from the Department of Homeland Security.”

The man who shook my hand had a smartwatch on his wrist.

The smartwatch was blinking with an orange circle.