Chapter 155
It was nearly six hours of forced marching. By the time the sweat-stained clothes were lined with white salt streaks, the search team finally arrived at their target.
Hajin was the first to set foot on the land they’d aimed for. Inside the wide fence stretched an endless pasture.
And scattered all around were herds of sheep and cattle, wandering as if the apocalypse meant nothing.
Hajin and Noah took the lead in searching the main ranch. There were no survivors inside. Instead, they found an elderly couple of zombies tangled in the fence outside the pasture—likely the ranch owners.
“Hajin, there’s another one here.”
Noah found one more zombie near a wooden building on the ranch. Its head had already been smashed, rotting away.
“Looks like the farm couple killed this one.”
“Yeah. Probably got turned into zombies fighting this thing.”
The zombie was too decomposed to identify. Judging by the clothes, it was probably younger than the elderly couple, but that was all they could tell.
“Lucky for us.”
Hajin remarked as he finished searching around the ranch. The ranch was in great condition, and there was a reason.
First, it was in a very remote spot. Probably chosen for its wide-open space for grazing sheep, it was deep enough that even coming from a major city nearby, you had to go far to find it.
Plus, mutants lived along the off-road way in. Even if other survivors had known of this place and tried to reach it, they would most likely have become prey to the mutants.
The survivors here had been infected early, so the livestock survived untouched, and thanks to the green pasture and a small lake inside the fence, the animals were in great health.
The sheep’s wool was quite thick, but for having been left in the wild for so long, they looked to be in good condition.
“All clear. Everyone come in and rest.”
Hajin called in the search team members who had been keeping watch outside the ranch. Tired, they each found a spot to catch their breath.
Hajin and Noah leaned against the fence, regaining their strength. Just by looking, there seemed to be hundreds of sheep and cattle. It was a satisfying sight.
“We’ll get to eat beef when we get back.”
“Or maybe, if we get permission, we could just take one here before we leave.”
“Forget it. We’ll just get a lecture.”
“Haha, maybe there’s someone here dying for meat.”
As Noah laughed, two section leaders approached.
“Squad leader, the security teams are organized.”
“Oh, Ong. Soo-hyun. Good work. Come sit down.”
Ong, with his 120cm-long Barrett M82A1 anti-materiel sniper rifle, set it down like a post. For a personal weapon, it was almost unbelievable firepower—his sixth collection piece.
Sniper rifle collecting was a pretty classy hobby. Hajin looked away from Ong’s “sixth lover.” Ong stared at the livestock and spoke up.
“Wow, moving all these to where we left the vehicles is going to kill us.”
“Request backup, or find a chainsaw somewhere and clear a path. There’s no way we’re walking these animals all the way back.”
A team member searching the storage area came up to report they’d found something. It was a stroke of luck.
Hajin lay down flat, then jumped up and struggled to take off his suit. After wriggling around, he called out to two new recruits passing by.
“You two, give me a hand.”
The two, who had been tending the sheep, came running. It was their first search operation, and their military discipline was tight.
Understandable—Elder Yong, who oversaw basic military training, was notoriously strict with the newbies.
With their help, Hajin started removing his suit. Watching this, Noah, chewing on jerky, laughed and joked,
“Careful, guys. If you grab the wrong part of his arm, something’s bound to get sliced off.”
“Seriously, squad leader’s basically a human weapon.”
The two recruits gasped. Hajin looked at them as if to ask what they were talking about. Noah popped up and pressed the button on Hajin’s prosthetic arm. With a ping, a sharp blade shot out.
The two new recruits jumped and fell on their butts in shock.
“You’re scared now? This is just the beginning. That arm can even shoot laser beams, you know?”
“Huh?!”
“Really?!”
“Of course. I’ll show you.”
Noah pointed Hajin’s arm at Ong and mimed pressing an imaginary button.
“Pew!”
“Argh!”
Ong suddenly clutched his arm and rolled on the ground, pretending to be hit.
“Aaaah!”
The two recruits’ expressions twisted in confusion, unsure how to take the situation.
Noah gave an awkward laugh.
“Newbies just aren’t much fun.”
“They need to learn more about social life.”
“Yeah. Ong knows how to play along—he’s a real soldier.”
“Come on, squad leader, what do you mean real soldier? If I’d stayed in the army, I’d have been discharged ages ago!”
“Still talk like a soldier. If you’ve got complaints, bring your discharge certificate.”
“I just use that tone to show discipline, that’s all! Who even talks like that in the army these days? Look, I speak perfect Seoul dialect!”
“Ong, you’re hopeless.”
“At least promote me to sergeant!”
“Fine, Sergeant Ong.”
Without a word, Hajin hooked both men under his arms and dragged them away. They flailed for a while.
Only when the two, dizzy from the smell of sweat, regained their senses did the meeting begin.
The main topics: how to move the livestock and how to deal with mutants.
“Let’s split into four groups. Hajin and I will each take a group to search for mutants while Sergeant Ong clears a path. There’s a pickup truck in the garage, and a chainsaw in the storage room. Soo-hyun, take the rest and stand guard here.”
“You two are splitting up?”
“With just two of us, we’d never finish searching if we stuck together. Don’t worry, we’ll call for help if there’s trouble.”
Sergeant Ong gave a bitter smile. The confidence of the two squad leaders was one thing, but their willingness to take on the hardest and most dangerous jobs was truly impressive.
“Why are you smiling?”
“It’s just… The higher your rank, the more you two seem to suffer.”
“That’s right. We fell for Yohan’s sweet talk. It was all part of a grand plan to work us like dogs.”
His grumbling drew laughter from the others.
“Still, you’re impressive.”
“Flattery won’t get you out of any work. If you’re just scared to clear the path, it won’t work.”
“N-no, sir…”
At Hajin’s words, Noah joined in, laughing and teasing.
Sending Sergeant Ong as the person in charge might have seemed risky, but he was the right man for the job. In squads 2 and 3, aside from the squad leaders, he was the top ace. He’d even taken down a level 4 mutant solo.
“Let’s rest for today and start tomorrow.”
With a couple of claps from Noah, the team members sprawled out around the area started moving in unison.
—
Tap, tap.
Hajin was pushing through the mountain, searching. All around were traces of wild animals—and not just traces; animals darted above and below his feet as he moved.
He swatted away the bugs sticking to him with every step.
“What’s that?”
Something scurried above his head. It was a mammal—looked like a rat, or maybe a squirrel. Its dense, gray fur and round face made it look quite cute.
He’d seen one of these in Auckland once. If he remembered right, they were surprisingly fierce animals.
The creature scrambled through the trees, scattering leaves like spring cherry blossoms.
Below his feet, a lizard scurried by. Hajin wondered if he could eat it if he caught it, but shook his head.
Sweat beaded on his whole body. The weather was cool, but the suit was the problem. Wearing it, even a little movement made his body heat up fast.
“Nothing here.”
He’d searched for hours, but there was nothing to show for it. He looked up at the sky—he’d come quite far from the base.
Maybe a break.
Hajin dropped onto a stump to sit. He felt something crush and burst beneath him, but ignored it.
“This is Hajin, anything unusual at the base?”
A moment later, a response came through the long-range radio.
—All clear. Are you alright, squad leader?
“Feels like I’m out sightseeing. Or catching reptiles, maybe.”
Hajin kicked away a lizard, grumbling.
Technically he was looking for mutants, but he wasn’t expecting to actually find any. Like they say, when you need dog poop for medicine, there’s none to be found—same for mutants. They always showed up when you were resting at home, but when you went looking to beat them up, they never appeared.
Searching for mutants was a routine task. Really, the job now was more about finding their traces than the mutants themselves.
It could be a mutant that traveled long distances, or one that lived nearby. The search was for any signs.
In short, it was just grunt work.
He was 30km from the initial discovery site. Even if it was a roaming mutant, the chances of overlap were slim, and if it was territorial, it’d be near the original site.
“How’s Ong?”
—Yes, squad leader! I’m clearing brush.
“Deforestation, right. Be careful.”
—Yes, sir!
His voice was bright and lively. Hajin wasn’t worried about Ong.
Armed with an anti-materiel rifle and mutant grenades, with top shooting skills at Camp Yohan—he was called a sharpshooter who could even shoot down birds.
He’d always been good, but after settling in New Zealand, his skills had gotten even better.
It made sense. He was talented, and an extreme gun enthusiast who never let go of his gun.
Even on days off, he’d spend over ten hours practicing—an absolute bullet sponge.
Thankfully, Yohan had ordered that Ong’s training always be fully supplied with ammo; otherwise, he would have eaten through the camp’s reserves.
“Hm.”
Hajin stopped, pushing aside some brush. Footprints. Not mutant, but human. There were survivors. Hajin radioed immediately.
“This is Hajin, found signs of survivors. Firing a flare. Respond if backup needed.”
He launched a yellow flare into the sky. With a ping, a yellow cloud pierced the white sky.
After sending the signal, Hajin moved slowly, turning in a broad counterclockwise arc from his original position, carefully searching the area.
If there were survivors, they’d have seen the flare and heard the sound.
‘There were no signs of people living near the ranch.’
This was well within traveling distance of the ranch. It was suspicious.
Hajin slowly narrowed his search in a spiral pattern. As he swung his arm, the sharp blade popped out from his prosthetic, and he took a shoulder-mounted Winchester pump-action shotgun from his back, locking it onto his shoulder.
It was a custom weapon, with a strap between the end of the barrel and the trigger guard, allowing for one-handed firing—though only accurate at very close range.
After all, according to Sweeper, his role was a meat shield.
After covering about a radius’s distance, what appeared before Hajin was a wooden building.
It looked like a hut, or maybe a cabin.
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(T/N: i apologize for the super delayed chapters, baby time was so rough. baby is currently on a sleep regression phase. good news though, i should be back to our regular release rate (or even faster) by the end of this month. we’ve got everything arranged, so we’re all set. )
