Buildings had been raised around Vimana.
There, the engineers finished a complicated installation.
"Going live."
A hand touched the button on the wall.
On the old fluorescent tube—
tak.
"Oooh...!"
The light came on.
"My god."
"This actually works?"
Watching that,
not just me, but the other soldiers looked amazed.
"So we don’t need to use torches anymore?"
Securing electricity was by no means an easy problem for our unit.
We were short on fuel even to run the tanks; there was no margin to spin generators.
Same with open flame.
We’d been making things like torches using oil rendered from monsters’ fat.
"Haha. It was a little complicated, but it looks like we managed."
As the soldiers and I stared wide-eyed,
the engineers’ lead,
Corporal Lee Gongu, grinned and said,
"Before the real cold settles in, we should be able to supply power to the city. From what the new hire who used to work at the plant says, it won’t be enough to waste with abandon, but still."
"Weren’t all the cables linking that island to the grid cut when the dungeonization happened? How did you handle that part...?"
When this city became [Dasmur],
a violent “waterfall” formed along the dungeon border that sliced through even steel.
Bridges to the other islands had literally been severed.
There was no way power lines survived that.
"Come on, we’re engineers."
"Heh. If you muscle it with enough grit, something gives."
They wiped the sweat beading on their foreheads as they spoke.
It struck me again:
these guys are... a ridiculous profession.
If we’re talking about growing the unit’s raw stats,
Grandpa Park or Lee Sanga, who can fabricate gear, are the top.
If we’re talking about triggering explosive stat spikes in a short window,
no one can match my cuisine.
And—
in terms of general-purpose fabrication... these guys really are the best of the production classes.
The engineer class seems to handle every sort of combat-related technology,
and the range of “combat-related” tech was broader than I’d thought.
Electric power and communications are combat necessities, too.
They bang-bang-bang a few times and a new device is born.
Even now, barricades and patrol posts were popping up across the city.
Even setting Vimana aside,
the city itself was steadily turning into a fortress.
There’s a saying—food, clothing, shelter.
In this world it translates to gear and food,
and housing.
If Lee Sanga and Grandpa Park handle our unit’s gear,
and I handle the food,
then for housing...
the facilities as a whole fall to Vimana,
and these engineers.
And now they can even string lines across the river.
What kind of class is this, really.
Of course,
just because we got power doesn’t mean the job was done.
"In the end, the point is—"
"a means to endure the cold."
In an environment absolutely short on fuel and firewood,
the reason we secured electricity was the same:
to shave the cold down however much we could.
In short, even with electricity,
without machines related to heat retention,
it would have meant nothing, but—
"The items you requested! We brought them!"
for that problem,
I already had something in mind.
The moment we decided to retake the plant, I went looking for this man.
After assigning a few soldiers as his escort,
I’d sent a man to other regions.
When he slid a hand into his small bag,
an item larger than the bag itself popped out.
"Radiators!"
His name was Lee Sanghyeop.
His class, [Lower-Grade Merchant].
"...This many?"
"Heh-heh. Thanks to the Legion soldiers guarding me. And—"
Since our trip to Myohyangsa last time,
Sanghyeop had been trading positively and steadily with our unit.
Mainly, when we needed something,
we asked him to source it from other regions.
Being a merchant, he has the trait [Information Gathering];
through deals with others, he somehow procured what was needed.
This time’s request wasn’t just for our unit’s use, either.
In Chuncheon, the city where our unit is based,
thanks to my combat rations, the humans around here barely worry about food.
The problem is, because the city spent a long time submerged while dungeonized,
a lot of trees are gone.
Oil and the like also went under, so even running boilers is hard.
Meanwhile—
"Elsewhere, survivors need food more desperately than junk like radiators."
In regions where power hasn’t been restored, these machines are practically trash.
Sanghyeop traded food to people in other regions and brought these back in return.
"What’s the plan now?"
"We’re going to sell these to the city’s Awakened. Heh-heh. We’ll be able to rake in a ton of combat rations. Then we’ll take those rations elsewhere and bring back more good goods...."
"...You look very pleased."
"Heh-heh. Hard not to smile thinking about hitting it big. Of course, since this was thanks to intel from the Legion, I’ll make sure to repay that properly later."
Seen one way, he looks like a profiteer who cares only for his own gain.
But by caravanning with our soldiers,
he’s getting a lot of people real help.
Different regions need different things.
Food where food is lacking.
Cold-weather gear where cold-weather gear is lacking.
One way or the other,
thanks to him, people in many regions can get what they need.
If we leave equipment distribution to this man, it’ll reach where it needs to, to a degree.
With this,
at the very least, no one in this city should freeze to death.
"Ah, that reminds me."
After seeing Sanghyeop off,
Corporal Lee Gongu looked at me and asked,
"I heard we’ll be holding authority over this electricity."
"Hm? For now, yes. Lieutenant Kim negotiated well."
"What will we be taking in exchange for distributing the power?"
Compensation.
We’re soldiers first.
If we thought purely as soldiers, we’d provide it for free.
Unfortunately every other military unit has been wiped out.
We’re scrambling to survive ourselves; we can’t adopt that model.
We don’t need to take a lot, but we can’t just give it away either.
Food, electricity—
each of these becomes a vector of our influence over the Awakened.
To keep exerting steady influence over the city’s Awakened,
we had to take some compensation.
"Not that we plan to take much."
"Materials aren’t exactly short on our end."
"Right. Let’s do it like the combat rations. Either useful goods, or monster corpses."
"...That’s reasonable. I’ll pass it to the others."
He nodded,
scratched his head, and was about to head back to the work site—
...Ah.
Come to think of it—
"Gongu."
"Yes?"
"Add one more thing."
If we’re going to accept even things we don’t particularly need,
we might as well take something with some use.
I told Corporal Lee Gongu the compensation that had just occurred to me.
"If they kill five or more zombies, count it as one monster’s worth."
"...Sir?"
****
Zombies.
According to survivors’ accounts,
the number of people topside killed by monsters is about the same as those killed by zombies.
If even Gangwon-do, where population density isn’t high, is like this...
if zombies appeared in Seoul, where a tremendous population was packed—
imagining the chaos of that tremendous number becoming zombies
made my skin crawl without thinking.
"The reason our unit could grow faster than others... probably had a lot to do with zombies not showing up."
Same for the people inside the dungeon, [Dasmur].
It was one less enemy to worry about.
We could increase Awakened a bit more comfortably.
But—
as for why zombies didn’t appear around our unit,
we still don’t know.
So now—
"we need to find out why."
From the Dasmurian chef’s memories I witnessed,
zombies might be a major threat.
On these things,
we need details.
"Sergeant Shin. We brought what you requested."
The soldiers who’d gone out on patrol
had brought, at my request—
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
[Primate — Human]
[Freshness — Lowest]
—kyaaaa—
a living—
No. Is it even right to call this “living”?
In any case,
an active zombie.
"Most zombies in the area have been dealt with... there weren’t many still moving."
"Well... the Dragon Fang Troopers have likely swept the area clean."
The Legion uses the meat of all kinds of monsters as ingredients now.
Even so,
zombies, which we’ve hunted in huge numbers—
we’ve never so much as glanced at their meat.
"First because they used to be human...."
That’s the biggest reason, of course.
But there is a second.
"As ingredients, their quality is abysmal."
Zombies.
They’re, at base, ordinary humans.
Ordinary humans with no mana.
Because so many films show cannibalism,
people talk like human flesh might taste good,
but as far as I know, human flesh is not a good ingredient.
On top of that, we’re in a time overflowing with high-end ingredients suffused with mana.
There’s no reason to bother with rotting materials like this.
So we’ve only hunted them to stabilize security;
we haven’t gone out of our way to cull zombies far afield.
Gangwon-do’s population density is very low,
yet even here, countless zombies still roam.
"Which is to say... we’re taking these things lightly."
In other words,
we’re complacent.
And that won’t do.
We already paid dearly for complacency recently.
I don’t intend to make the same mistake twice.
[Old-Pattern Sashimi Knife]
I drew the blade Grandpa Park had forged for me,
brought it to the zombie’s body,
and—
"I don’t know who you were...."
I murmured, low.
"Kaaargh...."
"I’m sorry."
However decayed a zombie may be,
at its core it was an ordinary person.
We call it a zombie,
but bringing a knife to a human body is the same thing.
Putting a blade to that body without consent doesn’t feel good.
I understand well that I’ve no right, either.
"If we meet in the afterlife, I’ll apologize then. Please allow it just this once."
And then,
I began processing the zombie.
srrrip.
krunch.
krrrrk...
Things that must be done.
How I feel, what right I have—
none of that matters at all.
The blade dug into the zombie’s body.
Of course,
I wasn’t just hacking it open thoughtlessly.
There are... types of zombies.
Zombies appear across many media.
Sometimes it’s a virus.
Sometimes a god’s curse.
The causes of the zombie phenomenon vary.
If it’s a virus or a curse,
there’s nothing I can learn by butchering this one.
In that case—well,
I’d need to consult with Private Shin Jungsoo, our priest,
or Private Sa Ijun, our healer.
But—
I was focusing the work in a different direction than those two.
If what I saw in the chef’s memory is right, then surely—
after “I” was bitten in half by the Sacred Beast’s zombie
and got sucked down into its stomach,
what I saw inside there—surely...
It should be in here, too.
And—
after who knows how long,
"Found it."
I knew my hunch had hit.
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
[Parasite Type B-36S Mutant (Primary Incubation Stage)]
[Freshness — Highest]
Clinging near the zombie’s spine,
something very small,
but ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) bearing clear mana—
a parasite.
The true nature of the zombie.
