Chapter 70 – Demon King’s Army (1)

Until yesterday, reconnaissance started from the marshalling yard station north of the safe zone.

The first reconnaissance from the marshalling yard headed east, and yesterday’s reconnaissance headed west.

Now only the south of the safe zone remained.

This time, instead of using the underground passage, we broke through the southern boundary of the safe zone where undead were wandering.

Dozens of zombies loitering on the four-lane road south of the university shambled toward us, but these passive zombies could be handled at Yerim’s level.

“No, that doesn’t mean I should fight already!”

Perhaps wary of holy power, the zombies approached hesitantly, but even with such zombies, Yerim pleaded for help with a terrified expression.

Unfortunately, no one helped her.

Instead, party members enthusiastically cheered her on.

“Don’t close your eyes! You’ve been fine passing through areas crawling with undead until now, why are you so scared now?”

“Back then I didn’t have to fight directly!”

Yerim, holding her sword, cried out at Hoffman’s advice.

“These corpses move slowly. Just watch carefully and cut their necks. Even if you make a mistake and get bitten, you can heal yourself so it’s fine.”

“Sister! You’re even worse!”

She burst out angrily at Zahina’s advice.

“I’ll help right away if it seems dangerous. But even as a cleric, you need to be able to protect yourself to travel with us.”

“Ugh… but…”

Still, she didn’t argue with my words.

The sword she was holding now was a thin, well-refined sword, a rapier.

This sword was a memento from a swordsman we fought alongside.

It was a sword I kept as a memorial after the swordsman died, never thinking it would be used like this.

Yerim had been very happy when receiving the sword from me earlier.

Of course, she gaped when told she had to handle undead with that sword.

“Eek! Go away! I’m not tasty!”

Though Yerim showed such disgust, when the undead approached right in front of her, she swung the sword boldly at the zombie.

Slash! Thud! Crack!

Though sounds that shouldn’t come from a rapier were heard, she still managed to handle the approaching zombie.

She succeeded in cutting off the arm reaching for her, stabbing the chest, and half-cutting the neck to bring down the zombie.

I finished cutting the neck of the zombie that was flailing on the ground.

When its neck was cut, the zombie returned to being a corpse.

“As I said before, just because you have a rapier doesn’t mean you should only stab. These undead aren’t easily neutralized by stabbing. You need to cut off limbs or behead them.”

That was also why bullets weren’t very effective.

Nodding at my words, Yerim clasped her hands and bowed to the beheaded corpse.

“I’m sorry. Rest in peace now.”

Unlike us whose emotions had dulled from years of fighting the Demon King’s army, Yerim still seemed to see zombies as people.

It would be troublesome if she did this during battle, but I left it alone for now.

Anyway, she’d soon stop showing such behavior after continuously fighting undead.

Still, it was fortunate she fought well.

I had worried she might refuse to fight. It was needless worry.

While beheading zombies, I said to Yerim.

“Well done. Just keep doing that.”

“What? I have to keep doing this?”

Yerim was startled at my words.

She seemed to think this was the end.

“During today’s reconnaissance, we’ll handle most approaching undead, but you’ll need to deal with any that slip through.”

Yerim tilted her head at my words.

“You’ve never let any slip through before.”

Of course. There was no reason to miss such stumbling zombies, let alone normal ones.

“I mean we’ll deliberately let some through.”

“What? No way!”

Yerim was horrified at my words and looked at other party members, but found no allies.

“If we’d trained sword techniques before coming out it would have been better, but we can’t help it this time. The knight will teach you sword techniques, and I’ll teach you grappling skills as we go.”

“I’ll teach you how to use mana while moving. Though it’s our race’s method, it shouldn’t be too difficult for Yerim to use.”

Instead, they volunteered to be teachers.

“Hiing, thank you.”

Yerim couldn’t even get angry and had to thank the two.

We easily broke through the safe zone boundary and headed south.

Zombies kept attacking as we went south, but the skeletons we saw when entering the safe zone were no longer visible.

Maybe only zombies remained in this city now.

“What’s today’s reconnaissance route?”

At Hoffman’s question, I pointed to twin buildings visible in the distance above other buildings.

“We’re going to those buildings over there. We’ll stop at other places along the way, but that’s our first destination.”

Looking at the buildings I pointed to, Yerim tilted her head.

“That’s near Daejeon Station…”

“Since there’s a station, it must be Daejeon Station. I heard those buildings belong to the railway company. I plan to climb up there and check the surroundings. From up there, even if we can’t see directly, we should be able to sense mana flows.”

Hoffman cautiously asked at my words.

“Don’t we need to check the north?”

Hoffman seemed worried about the octopus we’d seen.

“Calculating the octopus’s movement speed and remaining distance, we should have at least a few more days.”

We couldn’t keep climbing up until it appeared, nor could we just wait around until it showed up.

It was better to do other things with the remaining time.

“Besides, while the octopus’s appearance is a certain event, we don’t know what will happen with the Demon King’s army. We need to check in advance before things get complicated.”

Getting suddenly attacked from behind by an unknown enemy was truly terrible.

And if it wasn’t people but undead doing it, the horror would multiply.

Seeing merchants and civilians in the rear turn into zombies and attack alongside undead – no hell could compare.

After breaking through the boundary, I led people into the commercial district south of the university.

Broken windows, dried bloodstains, shambling zombies visible in the distance.

The shopping street that would have bustled with college students was extremely desolate.

I stopped while passing through the street and looked around.

“First place we’re visiting should be… around here?”

I took out the paper and rechecked the street name at the top.

These addresses written on the paper were copied down after checking documents late into the night.

“XXX Street. This is right. But how do we find houses with these numbers?”

I thought it would be easy to find with just addresses, but it wasn’t as simple as expected.

As I was struggling, Yerim approached.

“Looking for an address? I’ll try finding it. Tell me the address.”

Yerim took out a smartphone from her front pocket. It was her father’s smartphone.

“Dad would prefer it being used well like this rather than just being carried around.”

Without being asked, Yerim explained why she took out the smartphone.

“There’s not much battery left even though I’ve kept it off since finding it. Still, we should be able to find addresses using the map app.”

Yerim checked the battery level and spoke to me with a regretful expression.

I took out a portable battery from my pocket and handed it to Yerim.

“So there’s such a method. If car navigation works, smartphone map apps work too?”

Yerim nodded at my words as she received the portable battery with wide eyes.

“The servers are dead, so we have to use offline apps, but the satellites are still alive.”

I thought she was just good at games, but she seemed to handle electronic devices well too.

She was turning out to be a much more useful cleric than expected.

Following the phone’s map app, we soon reached our destination.

In front of the building, Yerim tilted her head looking at the sign.

“…Archery cafe? Is this the place we were looking for?”

Our destination was a large indoor archery range taking up the first floor and semi-basement of the building.

“We need to procure weapons.”

I pointed inside the broken window. Bows and arrows were scattered across the indoor archery range floor.

“There were bows?”

Hoffman’s expression brightened seeing the bows.

“They’re not war bows, but seem to have been used for hunting.”

Though the archery range bows weren’t hunting bows, they could be sufficiently used in actual combat.

“What do you mean no bows. Our country is famous for bows.”

Leaving Yerim boasting behind, we entered the archery range through the broken window.

There were zombies inside the range too.

Zombies standing in front of the targets at the back of the range approached us.

Judging by their clothes, they were probably employees when alive, but now they were just zombies.

Plus, the approaching zombies had arrows deeply embedded in their heads.

Slash. Slash.

I cut off the heads of the approaching zombies.

“The bows look unusual. But they seem to perform well.”

Hoffman, who had already picked up a bow, stood beside me examining the severed zombie heads.

“Though surely shot by ordinary people, they’re embedded this deep. With practice, we might be able to hit the brain and immobilize them.”

“Can you use them?”

“They’re a bit unfamiliar, but I’ll get used to them after handling them a few times. Where else could we find suitable bows during war? Having any bow is a blessing.”

“Then pack them all.”

At my words, Hoffman excitedly gathered all the bows and arrows from the racks.

While Hoffman was gathering bows and arrows, Yerim and Zahina each grabbed a bow and shot arrows at the targets.

Though it was a short distance being indoors, Yerim missed every shot unlike an awakened one.

“Still, at least I can draw it. Before, I couldn’t even draw bows with this much draw weight.”

Despite missing, Yerim proudly boasted to me.

But when Zahina shot next, Yerim’s boasting quickly disappeared.

Because Zahina’s arrows didn’t miss the target’s center.

“Isn’t this your first time? Without even zeroing?”

Yerim gaped watching arrows clustering into a single point.

Even Hoffman, who had been excitedly gathering bows and arrows, darkened seeing Zahina’s archery skills.

‘This is why elves are…’

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

Anyway, after equipping Hoffman with his main weapon again, we headed south.

Our next destination was a place likely to have treasure, found after thoroughly searching documents yesterday.

It was Daejeon’s back alley with antique shops and pawnshops.

——-

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