Chapter 61 – Memories (1)

Come to think of it, we’d been moving almost non-stop since coming to this world.

We rested briefly in Namyangju, but after that, it was a constant cycle of fighting and moving.

Still, we couldn’t all rest in the current situation.

Besides Yerim herself, we couldn’t leave Zahina and Hoffman, who weren’t familiar with this world, alone in the safe zone.

I led Yerim and party members outside the safe zone.

Seeing Yerim walking through the underground passage with pursed lips, I spoke to the party members following me.

“I know everyone is tired. We’re not out today for reconnaissance, but to create our own hideout outside the safe zone.”

Yerim tilted her head at my words, but Hoffman immediately understood what I meant.

Well, a mountain soldier would certainly have experience making bases or hideouts.

I continued speaking to the still puzzled Yerim.

“When we’re out scouting, there might be times we can’t return to the safe zone on time, so we need a place to take shelter. Also a place to rest when we’re tired.”

Actually, more than that, the hideout I wanted to create was an evacuation point in case something happened to the safe zone.

However, I couldn’t tell that to Yerim directly.

In the end, I had to give the standard reason.

While Zahina and Yerim nodded at my explanation, Hoffman caught my hidden meaning.

“We should make it somewhat far from the safe zone.”

I nodded at Hoffman’s words.

“That’s why I chose a place with some distance.

Going west from the marshalling yard station, crossing the Yudeung Stream, there’s a large park.

It’s a place with a large park called Hanbit Arboretum and cultural facilities like an art museum and arts center inside the park.”

In times like these, nowhere was safer than a park.

Of course, if not in the city, hiding in mountains or going to an island would be better, but if that were the case, there’d be no reason to come here.

The same went for high-rise buildings.

They might work for ordinary zombies, but when the Demon King’s army arrived, high-rises were useless. They would only block escape routes.

“Though the park must be a mess after so much time, there won’t be fewer undead anywhere else in the city than in a park.”

People wouldn’t gather in a park with zombies around.

The same went for cultural facilities.

Without people, there would certainly be no zombies or undead.

There might be a few zombies remaining, but we could clear that many in a short time.

“So you’re planning to turn one of the empty buildings in the arboretum into a base.”

I nodded at Hoffman’s words.

We had enough food in our pouches. We also had plenty of necessities like cooking utensils, sleeping bags, and tents,

If we set some traps and asked Zahina to create a small mobile safe zone, it would become our hideout.

Everyone seemed satisfied with my decision.

“So today we’re just finding the hideout and resting?”

Yerim’s protruding lips returned to normal, and even the calm Zahina’s face brightened.

Even Hoffman, who had seemed unmotivated, quickened his pace.

With everyone walking faster, we could quickly exit the underground passage.

We came up to ground level and left the marshalling yard station.

Instead of going east like yesterday, we crossed the railroad tracks and headed west.

The decrease in undead was the same here too.

Even walking along the main road beside the apartment complex, there weren’t many zombies attacking.

Skeletons weren’t even visible.

Whether they were never here or had disappeared recently was unclear, but thanks to that, we could move comfortably.

Yerim moved with us in the center of the party.

She continued training even while walking.

She spread her hands toward approaching zombies and shouted loudly.

“Purify!”

At her shout, the approaching zombies flinched and stopped in their tracks.

But unfortunately, that was it.

The zombies didn’t burn or disappear into light.

They just paused briefly before approaching again.

“Maybe not this… Then, Clean! Purify!”

She tried to purify the zombies using English and game terms, but not even a wisp of smoke appeared.

Slash! Slash!

Finally, I cut off the heads of the approaching zombies.

Then I cut off the limbs of the zombie approaching from the back and brought it to her.

“Try placing your hand directly on it.”

“Ugh!”

Seeing the limbless zombie, Yerim tightly closed her eyes. But she reached out her hand with eyes still closed.

Her hand touched the forehead of the zombie I was holding by the neck, and she spoke again.

“Purify…”

Before she finished speaking, a scream came from the zombie’s mouth.

“Kraaaaaah!”

Along with the scream, smoke poured from the zombie’s mouth.

The emerging smoke was black smoke – death energy.

The mouth wasn’t the only place death energy flowed from.

Black smoke poured from the ears, eyes, nostrils, and other openings.

The flowing smoke quickly stopped, and the screaming zombie collapsed to the ground.

The fallen zombie no longer looked like a zombie.

It was just a dried-up corpse.

Yerim had purified the undead.

“As expected, she can purify undead too.”

No wonder the undead were wary of her.

But unlike me, she didn’t look satisfied.

“Hmph, in games it works fine from a distance…”

Yerim seemed unhappy about having to make direct contact.

Area purification…

Though I saw it in games in my previous life, I’d never seen it in the other world.

I’d heard rumors about the Empire’s Archbishop performing such miracles, but they were just rumors.

The safe zone had a similar effect, but it needed holy artifacts and couldn’t be moved once set up.

‘Come to think of it, what’s the holy artifact in this safe zone? It can’t be ordinary.’

When time allowed, that would need investigating too.

Anyway, though Yerim seemed displeased, we confirmed she could purify undead.

Actually, a cleric’s purification ability wasn’t as useful as healing ability.

Purification required direct contact with undead to be effective, like Yerim just demonstrated.

But there were rarely occasions when clerics needed to touch undead while fighting them.

If such situations arose, it meant the cleric was prepared to sacrifice their life.

How many clerics lost their lives along with purification in the early stages of the war…

That was a major reason why there were so few clerics who could use purification now.

Seeing disappointed Yerim, I felt I should warn her too. We couldn’t lose our newly gained cleric.

While training Yerim like this, we continued walking west.

Soon after, we stood on a bridge crossing the stream and saw the park beyond.

With dried trees and overgrown weeds in the grass field, the park looked empty even from afar.

“Well, shall we go?”

Just as everyone started crossing the bridge at my words.

Yerim seemed to remember something.

“Ah! Right. It was there!”

Looking at her sudden exclamation, Yerim was looking not at the park, but below it.

Beyond the bridge and apartment complex, four diamond-shaped high-rise buildings.

Pointing at those buildings, Yerim said.

“I heard people who couldn’t enter the safe zone gathered in those buildings.”

I remembered the buildings she mentioned too.

The building layout and shape were famous among gamers in my previous life for resembling the villain company’s building in a zombie game.

“Was it the Daejeon Government Complex? It said it was where national administrators worked.”

Zahina said while looking at the buildings.

I don’t know when she studied it, but Zahina knew what that building was.

“So there are people there…”

I narrowed my eyes and looked at the government building.

The Daejeon Complex buildings were right next to the arboretum we were heading to, separated by just one road.

It was too close to our intended destination to ignore.

If they shouted at us or came rushing over, it would surely ruin our plan for a safe hideout.

After brief consideration, I decided to visit the government complex.

“We should check it out.”

“Of course! We need to save those people!”

Yerim nodded vigorously at my words.

Though my reason for going was different from Yerim’s, I nodded at her words.

Actually, service-minded and self-sacrificing Yerim didn’t really match well with me, a rotten excuse for a knight.

It would be troublesome if she tried to save people every time like now.

But I wasn’t too worried.

In my long life as a free knight, I had experience traveling with even more tiresome clerics than her.

That cleric needed prayer time every morning, always shared what they had, and had to heal every injured refugee they met.

Compared to them, Yerim was barely worth mentioning.

I had managed to corrupt even that cleric by the time we parted ways.

Given time together, I was confident I could do the same with Yerim.

After crossing the bridge, the arboretum was located above the long, wide street stretching west, while small apartment complexes and the government complex were below.

The government complex also occupied considerable space.

Besides the four central buildings, there were large parking lots, small buildings, soccer fields, and parks.

If not for the arboretum*, this might have been our choice for a hideout.

T/Note- Arboretums are botanical gardens for trees.

But according to Yerim, people had already claimed this place.

We headed west before turning south toward the government complex.

The government complex area looked as quiet as the arboretum.

No undead were visible in the park or parking lot.

There weren’t many abandoned cars either.

When things happened, the civil servants must have all evacuated from this building.

We passed through the parking lot and approached the four buildings.

Hoffman nodded after scanning the buildings.

“They’ve fortified it better than expected.”

Hoffman was right.

The former Daejeon Government Complex buildings had been transformed into a somewhat crude fortress.

People had built barricades around the four central buildings using furniture and various household items.

They had scattered broken glass pieces in front of the barricades, and deliberately broken all the lower floor windows.

It seemed to be for shooting arrows or spears from above.

As we stopped in front of the barricade, shouts came from above.

“Stop! Who are you!”

People stood in front of broken third-floor windows.

They were aiming spears, arrows, and catapults at us.

One of them was shouting at us.

“A man in armor, women with strange ears, what are you!”

Their shouting voice contained traces of fear.

As they continued speaking, the fear grew, and the hands holding weapons tightened.

I needed to stop this before an accident occurred, but I was distracted watching one of them.

That’s when the person I was watching stepped forward and stopped the shouting person.

“Wait a moment. We should give them time to speak. Everyone calm down and lower your weapons.”

At his words, everyone took deep breaths and lowered their weapons.

From this, I could tell he was their leader.

It made sense.

If it was the him I knew, it was entirely possible.

He was my closest friend in my previous life and a man I respected.