Chapter 51 – Hometown (2)

It was almost dangerous, but thanks to my heightened senses, I could grasp the situation around me.

“There are hardly any living people.”

I couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of each person, but I could tell which areas had survivors.

However, until I sensed the safe zone, I barely felt the presence of any living people.

As expected of a city, there were a lot of undead.

It seemed that the Demon King’s army had passed through Daejeon after coming down from the north.

Unlike the capital region, Daejeon had fewer high-rise buildings over 30 floors, which might explain why there were fewer survivors.

“Still, it seems like the safe zone is quite large. It looks like we’ll reach it in about one kilometer or maybe a thousand steps…”

Humans occupied an area spanning several blocks.

The undead were only surrounding it and couldn’t enter inside.

I hadn’t seen it myself, but it was a typical safe zone.

“Isn’t that also inside the city? Can they really create a safe zone in such a place full of buildings?”

At Hoffman’s question, I looked at Zahina.

Though her range wasn’t large, Zahina could also create a safe zone.

Unfortunately, its effect was only as good as a mosquito repellent, helpful for sleeping outside but not much else.

However, the safe zone she created wasn’t fixed in one place.

“My method is different from that of the priests…”

I had no choice but to agree with Zahina’s words.

I had never seen anyone else who could create a mobile safe zone while moving.

It had to be different from the method used by priests to create safe zones.

But since there was no one else to ask…

What I knew wasn’t much different from what Hoffman knew.

“What I know is that high-ranking priests bless powerful relics placed in temples to create areas where evil spirits cannot invade.”

“I’ve heard the same. They say it can’t be done just anywhere…”

If that were possible, they would have set up safe zones in every city and village.

But in reality, only a few places had established safe zones.

On top of that, issues regarding the qualifications of priests and the authenticity of relics caused quite a stir among religious orders.

‘Could it have been made in places like churches or temples?’

For something like that, the range of the safe zone was quite large.

In any case, now that I knew it was possible to create a safe zone in this world too, I had to meet them and confirm it myself.

Who made it and with what?

Even on our side, priests and clerics were hard to come by.

Forming a party with one was like plucking stars from the sky.

If we could find such a priest here or learn how to become one in this world,

Maybe this world could stand against the Demon King’s army on its own.

Or,

‘We might be able to find some holy water before we run out.’

In fact, this was the most important thing.

Just thinking about our nearly empty bottles of holy water made my stomach churn even now.

Moreover, now that we’d reached our destination, we just needed to hold out in the safe zone and wait for the gate to appear.

There was no better place than a safe zone for ‘enduring.’

My party members agreed when I suggested heading to the safe zone, and we set off immediately.

Fortunately, thanks to using my abilities excessively, I was able to find a safe path leading to the safe zone.

We just had to move through areas with lower concentrations of undead.

“The problem is that it seems difficult to use my senses for a while…”

The side effects of overusing my abilities weren’t limited to just nosebleeds.

The enhanced super-senses I gained upon arriving in this world were now paralyzed. Mana detection was also affected.

“I’ll leave monitoring our surroundings to you.”

“……”

“Understood.”

Zahina nodded at my words, and Hoffman confidently responded as well.

In fact, all of our party members had excellent detection abilities.

Hoffman, a mountain soldier with a background as a thief, was more than capable of keeping watch over the surroundings, and Zahina was sensing the area in real-time.

As a nature sorcerer, she was more attuned to natural objects, but since air and wind also flowed through the city, it didn’t seem like she had any trouble sensing her surroundings.

I veered off the road as soon as we passed the tollgate.

While it seemed like the best route to the safe zone would be to follow the main road connected to the tollgate, that road was now filled with abandoned cars.

Among the cars were wandering dead—zombies.

There weren’t many near the tollbooth, but further ahead toward downtown, countless zombies were wandering around.

After leaving the road and passing through a small apartment complex—though it wasn’t exactly a safe zone—we arrived at an area where fewer undead were sensed.

The next block after the apartment complex was entirely occupied by one facility:

[Daejeon Water Supply Quality Research Institute]

“So that’s why I couldn’t sense any undead—it’s a water facility?”

Abandoned buildings and stagnant water treatment plants where algae had started to grow.

The water treatment plant, which was supposed to purify water, was instead rotting it away.

“Drinking tap water would be a disaster.”

We’d been drinking bottled water from the start, but seeing the decaying water made me realize once again that civilization had collapsed.

There was no way anyone would still be in this abandoned water facility. Since there were no people, there wouldn’t be any undead like zombies either.

However, when I sensed carefully, I could tell that there weren’t any undead in this block at all.

Bubbling.

As expected, a monster resembling a fish emerged from the algae-covered treatment plant.

It was a corpse mermaid.

Gripping onto the walls of the treatment plant and crawling out, this corpse mermaid wore clothes—unlike those we had seen in rivers before.

Although its work clothes were covered in algae and soaked in water, making them look terrible, I could still make out the name tag on its chest:

[Facility Management Department – Park Hae-won]

“Was he the last civil servant left behind?”

I couldn’t know why he had fallen into this treatment plant and turned into a corpse mermaid.

If we searched through the abandoned buildings, we might have been able to figure out who he was and why he ended up alone here. But unfortunately, we didn’t have time for that.

Instead, we allowed him to rest again on land.

Rather than decapitating him as usual, we laid him down as intact as possible on the ground next to the treatment plant.

“He’s holding something in his hand. Is that…a phone?”

Zahina pointed at the hand of the corpse mermaid lying on the ground.

In its webbed hand was a phone.

Even after becoming undead, it had continued to hold onto that phone.

On impulse, I took out the phone and connected it to a portable battery I had charged in advance.

Though it had been underwater for quite some time, the phone was still intact.

After a moment, the phone powered on again.

There was a lock screen, but even with his webbed fingers, I managed to unlock it using his fingerprint.

Icons appeared on the screen.

Of course, all communication and internet services were down.

Messaging apps wouldn’t open without an internet connection either.

Fortunately, I could still check text messages.

As soon as I opened them, there was a conversation thread with messages from his daughter:

[Dad! Pick up your phone! Mom got bitten by some strange person!]

[People are acting weird! Mom and I ran back home!]

[Are you okay? I’m worried because you’re not answering.]

[Mom is sick! What should I do?]

[Mom turned into a monster. There’s nothing I can do. I got bitten by Mom too. I’ll probably turn into a monster too.]

[I love you, Dad.]

From these sequential messages, I could piece together what had happened.

Checking through his call log revealed that he had tried to contact his daughter after she sent her final message.

For some reason, it seemed he hadn’t been able to contact his daughter earlier.

He must have seen the message too late and tried to call her, but all that remained was a record of failed calls.

“Was it suicide?”

Though I wasn’t certain, I could guess what had happened afterward.

After realizing that his entire family had turned into zombies, he likely threw himself into the water treatment plant as well.

“This just ruined my mood. We should’ve just kept going.”

Hoffman sighed.

We had seen and experienced similar situations many times before, and though we had become somewhat numb to it, that didn’t mean we felt nothing.

It was like a wound that had healed but still stung when rubbed.

Just as Hoffman said, it left us with a bitter feeling.

While we clicked our tongues in frustration, Zahina alternated between looking at the phone and the corpse mermaid lying on the ground.

Unlike us, she seemed to have gained something from this encounter.

I wasn’t sure what it was, but I hoped it would be useful to us.

I put the phone into my spatial expansion pouch and resumed walking.

Aside from the corpse mermaid we encountered at the water facility, no other undead appeared.

We didn’t forget the lesson learned from the water facility and moved quickly toward the safe zone.

We passed by an apartment construction site and through a residential area filled with townhouses.

As we walked through an alleyway, zombies jumped out from all directions.

From the third floor of one of the curtained townhouses, we could hear cries for help,

but we quickly dealt with only those that posed a threat and hurriedly left the residential area.

After exiting the neighborhood, we had to stop right in front of the safe zone.

Undead were stationed right in front of it.

Instead of crossing the road, we hid behind a building.

Across the two-lane road was an unusual sight for a city—a park(?) filled with dense trees and greenery.

In front of that park were hordes of undead.

It wasn’t just zombies. Among them were skeletons too.

I could see skeletons wielding swords as well as those holding spears and even guns.

“The Demon King’s army.”

These were skeletons armed with guns—the first I’d seen since our encounter at the demilitarized zone (DMZ).

Judging by their weapons and numbers, these skeletons weren’t just stray undead left behind by the Demon King’s army.

“It doesn’t seem like their main force is here…”

Even though they had surrounded the safe zone with undead, there weren’t enough skeletons for it to be a full-scale siege.

The strength of an undead army ultimately came from its numbers.

Even if only part of the Demon King’s army from North Korea had come down here, I could easily imagine how overwhelming their forces would be.

“At least part of the Demon King’s army is surrounding the safe zone.”

If they had spotted the safe zone, there was no way they would have just left it alone.

Unless they were directly commanded by one of the Demon King’s subordinates, breaking through a safe zone would have been difficult for them. But they also couldn’t leave it untouched either.

So, they must have left part of their forces behind to maintain a siege around it.

“This has gotten a bit more troublesome, but nothing has really changed.”

My party members agreed with my words.

The sudden appearance of the Demon King’s army was unexpected, but in any case, all we had to do was break through them and enter.

Though I hadn’t been able to fully utilize my skills while fighting against the Demon King’s army before, I was still a knight specialized in breaking through enemy lines.

Breaking through this kind of siege would be an easy task for me.

I gripped my sword and checked on my party members one last time before launching myself toward the undead surrounding the safe zone.

Fortunately, there were quite a few people gathered inside that safe zone.

Compared to Daejeon’s total population, it was a small number indeed—but still,

there was a chance I might run into someone I knew from my previous life.

A friend or a colleague from work,

Or perhaps even my beloved.