RE: Survival - Chapter 63

Yohan exhaled lightly, crossing out the first agenda item with his pen.

“Hold a contest for each camp if you want. Don’t discuss it among yourselves, just bring all the candidates, and I’ll decide and let you know. As a reward, this time we’ll give away some of the wine the search team brought from the brewery. It seems to have been aging for a while.”

At the mention of wine, the older men’s faces lit up with curiosity. Since such luxury items weren’t part of the basic supply list, those who liked them would surely participate eagerly.

The fact that such trivial matters were still being brought up three weeks in a row was incredibly stressful.

“Next, we have the search team hopefuls. There are three of them, right? The hopefuls will be tested during the daily patrol as usual. Sweeper, pick the best one of the three and bring them up.”

“Roger.”

“Next…”

Yohan checked the next agenda item and frowned. The issue was about “expanding free activity space for each camp and making inter-camp movement more flexible.”

Since the border was established, zombie appearances had become almost nonexistent inside. As a result, some camps had started to allow more freedom within a 5–10 meter radius.

Staying confined to camp all the time wasn’t good for anyone’s mental health.

However, allowing free movement between camps was a different matter.

Doing so would defeat the purpose of establishing multiple camps and splitting people to control them.

“I’ll reject this proposal. There’s no room for reconsideration.”

“But Yohan, the area inside the border is now relatively safe, right? Wouldn’t it be fine for people to live a bit more freely now?”

Gap-soo countered Yohan’s statement. Yohan responded quickly, though his tone was smooth, his words held a sharp edge.

“Have you forgotten the warning about the zombie waves?”

“I haven’t forgotten, but… as long as too many people don’t gather in one place, shouldn’t it be okay?”

“Once you lose control over the people, there’s no turning back. You never know what kind of danger untrained people can cause if they wander around inside the border. You need to know exactly where everyone is to prevent disasters in advance.”

Yohan’s face hardened slightly, and Gap-so, sensing the shift in tone, nodded awkwardly. His hesitant nod made Yohan’s expression tighten. He decided to speak again, even though he could’ve let it slide.

“You seem to have more to say. Go ahead.”

“… About this zombie wave issue, the number of people or the radius is still unclear. I don’t even know where the figure of twenty came from. Yohan, how do you know any of these details?”

Yohan made a deliberate effort to remain calm. He was speaking with someone who had never experienced a zombie wave. For someone who didn’t know the fear of it, these were understandable questions.

“The standards aren’t exact. It’s not like a mathematical formula. Based on my experience, I’ve never encountered a wave with fewer than twenty people in a camp, so I’m acting based on what I’ve seen.”

“So, there’s no guarantee it will happen.”

“And when the zombie wave hits, will you be the one to stop it? Is a slightly better life for people more important than their lives?”

At Yohan’s sharp retort, Gap-so fell silent.

“That’s enough of this agenda. If you bring up the same issue again, I’ll replace the camp leader.”

At the mention of replacing the camp leader, the administrators flinched simultaneously. Especially Marco, the leader of the Park Town camp, whose eyes clearly betrayed his unease.

He was the only one to have been replaced as camp leader. Yohan hadn’t intended for it to happen, but the previous leader of Park Town had been expelled after a confrontation with Yohan.

The former leader had secretly taken camp survivors outside the border to steal supplies, and the survivors had been taken hostage by nearby raiders. This led to his expulsion from the camp.

What happened to him afterward, and how Yohan had handled it, was a secret no one knew.

Seeing the man subdued left Marco with plenty of reason to fear Yohan.

“I don’t want any personnel rotation in the camps… Who brought this agenda up?”

“That would be me.”

It was Lieutenant Ahn.

Yohan’s mood began to plummet.

Most of the camp rules were directly tied to survival or designed for smooth camp operation, and personnel rotation was no exception.

If the same people stayed in one space all the time, factions would inevitably form, and people would start claiming things as their own.

The alliance wouldn’t be a single community but several disconnected groups, just scavenging the food brought by the search teams.

This wasn’t an agenda put forth by the camp survivors. It was likely a personal opinion from Lieutenant Ahn, or a consensus among the administrators. If people were rotated often, it would be harder to create the concept of ‘my people,’ and it would be more tedious to retrain newcomers.

It was clear they were getting comfortable.

Yohan summed up the situation in one line.

“I reject it. Now, we finally have a real agenda. The request to increase the supply of water and expand capacity. Are the hospital and teacher camps running low on water?”

“Yes. We can manage drinking water with the current supplies, but the water for daily use is running out.”

“The hospital camp is the same.”

“If we hold on a bit longer, we’ll have the road to Gulpocheon open. We’ll send a water truck to resupply, so just conserve for now.”

The next agenda was a request to decentralize the basic supply warehouses. Yohan couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

Rather than centralizing the supplies at the Mart, the request was to divide them into smaller portions for each camp to distribute autonomously.

The reason for this request was written as:

“If supplies are gathered in one camp, it’s hard to confirm if they’re being distributed fairly. Also, if the Mart camp is attacked, it could be problematic.”

On the surface, it sounded reasonable.

But the truth behind it was something else.

They were trying to solidify their positions within the camp.

From the alliance’s perspective, the supply system was efficient and rational.

Supply distribution was strictly managed. It might seem like the Mart Camp was doing it, but in reality, Yohan personally checked and managed everything.

When the search team brought in additional supplies, the Mart would verify the items and create a distribution sheet accordingly.

Yohan personally stamped the distribution sheets and handed them out to each camp’s survivors. It was a bit tedious, but it was a neat way to track the daily inventory and supply amounts.

Supplies were power, and the camp’s survival depended on them. Yohan never planned on letting anyone else handle them.

The distribution sheets were handed out weekly, and before sunset each day, the search teams would collect the sheets from the camps. The next morning, they would supply the materials according to the sheet’s tally.

Like the supply management, the distribution was also handled directly by Yohan. Every week, he would assess each survivor’s contribution and decide the amount of supply based on whether they were combatants, non-combatants, or senior/junior level. Naturally, some people would feel shortchanged, and they would voice their dissatisfaction to the camp leaders.

While the criteria might be subjective, the policy was clear.

If you lacked skills, you had to train hard and join the search team. If you were useless, you would starve. That was the camp’s most important principle.

And these administrators were the ones receiving the most benefits. They weren’t there to engage in petty politics within the camp but were placed to ensure the camp’s survival.

Yohan didn’t distrust them individually. When they were with him one-on-one, they were his passionate followers and supporters.

But when the camp administrators gathered, they immediately started politicking for their camp’s interests or engaged in subtle power struggles within the alliance.

Blatant politicking.

“Everyone.”

Yohan spoke slowly with a wry smile. He needed to address this right from the start. As he always said, this wasn’t a democracy or a republic.

“You’re all living pretty comfortably now, aren’t you? You don’t have to do anything, the supplies come in, there’s no combat, no threats to your lives.”

His voice, almost growling, made the administrators shiver. Cold sweat began to form on their backs.

Yohan, seeing how comfortable they had gotten, reminded them of a crucial truth they had forgotten.

“Quit fighting over your meals before I knock them all over.”

He reminded them, subtly but firmly, that it was him who protected them, fed them, and controlled them.

* * *

“You look tired.”

“Yeah, I am.”

In Yohan’s room, he was organizing the meeting notes from today’s discussions while Sweeper, sitting beside him, chewed on beef jerky and flipped through a comic book.

Sweeper was laughing so hard he was clutching his stomach. Yohan frowned.

“Dude, smile. You’ll get wrinkles.”

“Must be nice, looking so relaxed.”

At Yohan’s self-deprecating comment, Sweeper shut the comic book with a snap and grinned.

“There’s an old saying: if you want to prevent enemies within, make enemies outside.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not saying your policy is wrong. It’s quite rational and ideal. Like something a seasoned politician would do. But, you know, things are getting stagnant here. If it goes on like this, it’ll start to rot. Once things stabilize too long, desires start to grow. Like the old saying goes: when the stomach is full and the back is warm, people want to hit the rice cake.”

“…Is that an actual saying?”

Sweeper tossed a nut from Yohan’s desk into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

“Take them out for a while. It’s not always a good idea to just keep them cooped up like children. If they get beaten up outside, they’ll become obedient like a good dog.”

There was some truth to his words. The camp itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was that there was no problem. As the situation stabilized, the search team, which had shared both hardships and joy, became stronger, while the technical and boundary teams guarding the camp grew increasingly lazy.

But forcing the role of the search team onto the camp members would be problematic too. The existence of the search team itself might be threatened, and the specialized personnel mustn’t be worn out.

As Yohan’s thoughts lingered, Sweeper, perhaps bored, turned on the radio. Though it was just the same repetitive broadcasts on a homemade frequency from various camps, Sweeper always listened regularly to stay informed.

– “Come to the Seoul Survivor Alliance. A shelter free from zombies and hunger awaits you. Please come to Yongsan Station Customer Center at 3 PM every day.”

The same broadcast from the Seoul Survivor Alliance continued. The most consistent broadcasts were from Seoul Survivor Alliance, recruiting new survivors, and another frequently heard one was from the Ilsan Deokyang District Shelter, looking for survivors. Those two were the most regular broadcasts.

Occasionally, survivors would send rescue requests, but they would only last for about three days. Most requests suddenly stopped after a while. It was a foolish act.

In this era, humans were scarier than zombies. One should never forget that, it should be engraved on your body.

Some survivors had asked if they should try broadcasting from their camp, but Yohan flatly refused. There was no benefit in broadcasting the camp’s location. Plus, with the current capacity limits, it was a risk.

At first, there had been many such broadcasts, but they gradually faded.

“Oh, there’s a new broadcast,” Sweeper said.

“Yeah, sure.”

Yohan answered indifferently, uninterested.

“This one’s from a nearby camp?”

Only then did Yohan show interest. If there was a survivor camp nearby, it was something worth checking. Sweeper, noticing Yohan’s change of interest, turned up the volume. The repeated broadcast came through again.

– “We are looking for female survivors in the Incheon area. Please stand at Bupyeong-gu Office Station, Women’s Family Foundation Annex, at noon every day with minimal armament and holding something white. Once again, we are looking for female survivors in the Incheon area. Please stand at Bupyeong-gu Office Station, Women’s Family Foundation Annex, at noon every day with minimal armament and holding something white.”

The voice was clear and refreshing. The content of the broadcast was interesting, but what caught Yohan’s attention was her voice. It was familiar, a voice he had heard before.