Chapter 107 - The Story of How the Soviet Style Is More Efficient
Yuko and Rei, who had been abducted by other survivors, were placed in a car and were being transported somewhere. Because they were blindfolded, they didn't know the situation outside. However, they could tell somehow that they hadn't traveled a very long distance. Toward the end, the car body was shaking up and down frequently, perhaps because they were driving on an unpaved road.
"Get out."
The car stopped abruptly, and Yuko, whose blindfold was removed, was told so and led outside the car. In an open area surrounded by forest, several camper vans and large passenger cars were parked. A woman who was hanging laundry next to a camper van widened her eyes when she saw Yuko and Rei.
"Where is this?"
"I'll talk about that later, follow me."
The man who was the leader, wearing a coat, said so and started walking toward a camper van. It wasn't like a light vehicle with the rear seats removed, which is popular with the retired generation, but a full-scale large vehicle where one could live by remodeling the rear of a van.
Poked from behind by a man with a gun, Yuko reluctantly followed after the leader. She noticed that this was likely a campground because she saw a small stream and a washing area nearby. Children were scooping water with buckets at the stream, and women were washing clothes at the washing area where a simple sink and faucet were installed. The small prefabricated shack visible further back was likely a toilet.
Yuko was unable to hide her surprise that there were small children. Not just one or two, but there might be more than ten. She had thought that small children wouldn't be able to survive at all given the disastrous state of the outside world, but in this campground, there was family life no different from before the collapse of civilization.
"Now, please enter."
Following the man, Yuko and Rei boarded the camper van. The man who came along seemed to be waiting outside. The inside of the car was unexpectedly spacious, with a sofa that could also be a bed, a table, and even a television installed on the wall. The door visible at the very back of the car would be for the shower room. To Yuko, who had never been in a camper van, the house-like equipment was a fresh surprise.
Perhaps they were being watched to prevent escape, as Yuko and the other were told to sit on the sofa on the opposite side of the door. When they complied quietly, the man sat in a chair across the table. And he took off his coat and bowed his head, saying, "I'm sorry for using rough measures."
"If you know they were rough measures, you shouldn't have done such a thing from the start."
Rei said coldly. She might be holding a grudge for being hit when she was caught.
"Certainly, I didn't want to do this kind of thing either. But there's no other way anymore. You saw the children outside just now, didn't you? We have those to protect, and their number is large."
"Just because of that, do you think it's permitted to attack other people, steal weapons and food, and on top of that take them hostage and threaten them?"
"I know, that what we're doing is an unforgivable thing. Even so, I have no choice but to do it, to keep the children alive. Are you married?"
She had no obligation to answer, but Yuko shook her head. For a moment, the man seemed to have an envious face.
"You too will understand someday when you marry and have children. How precious they are. I intend to do anything to keep my children alive. I don't care how much you criticize me. I'm even prepared to be judged as a criminal after this turmoil subsides."
"I'm also technically a minor and a child, though. And we're also struggling to survive."
Rei said, but the man directed a pitying gaze at her.
"I too would like to get along with everyone living now and live together cooperatively if possible. But that's impossible. We don't have that kind of power or leeway. All we can do is protect ourselves and the families of our companions; we have no choice but to put other people second."
Yuko felt as if the man in front of her and the boy overlapped. The resolve to do anything for oneself or one's companions. The difference from the man was that the boy's family no longer existed in this world, and he had already lost his companions. And the man in front of her had likely never killed a person until now.
He too hadn't been able to be thoroughly heartless to that extent. If the man were the kind of person who didn't care what happened to anyone other than his family or companions, the two would have been killed the moment they spat out the location of the academy. Without taking such a roundabout measure as hostages, he would have launched an attack on the academy from the start.
Surely the man in front of her must have been a good person before the world changed completely. If the pandemic hadn't occurred, he would have continued to be a good father and husband at home, and a good boss at the company.
Thinking so, she also had feelings of sympathy for him, but on the other hand, being taken hostage was unbearable. Moreover, from his way of speaking and the method of the girl who induced Yuko and the other, it was certain they had done the same thing before.
"Even though you've been doing the same thing until now. What happened to those people? Did you kill them?"
"I didn't kill them, I wouldn't do such a thing. I released them properly."
"If they were thrown out after having their weapons and food taken away, it's the same as being killed."
"We do not commit murder. We don't want to use violence either, if possible."
"I was hit on the head by your companion, though? That guy seemed quite motivated."
As Rei said, Yuko remembered there was a guy who was quite bellicose. That man was not here because he had headed to catch Aoi and the boy along with that girl.
"Everyone is under stress from the long-term evacuation life. If I weren't the leader, you would have been killed or made to suffer terribly by now. The hot-blooded young people are insisting that we should obtain supplies even if we have to kill others."
They were suffering enough now, but apparently, the man in front of her was preventing this group of survivors from becoming even more radical. The man said that the reason children could live together was because he was persuading his companions. Apparently, the young single people were insisting that children, pregnant women, and the elderly were just useless mouths to feed and should be thrown away quickly.
If one thought purely about surviving, certainly children and the elderly were obstacles. They couldn't fight and couldn't live unless protected. They were just existences that wasted food and stamina. However, if one cut them off, it would be the end of being human.
Yuko remembered the boy. He too was trying to cut off everything other than himself. He had no intention of making companions and was just utilizing everything to survive himself. Even Yuko and the others who had lived together for these few weeks might be just meat shields or something to him. Or simply to utilize the academy's facilities.
"Soon my companions who captured your companion should return. After that, I'll take you to that academy. If your companions share supplies and weapons and ammunition, I'll release you there."
Saying so, the man went outside. Since it wasn't originally something to lock someone in, the car door lock could be opened from the inside, but she could see from the window that several guards with guns were standing outside. The idea of escaping from here with the car also crossed her mind for a moment, but without the key, the engine wouldn't start. If she tried to escape by force, she would be made to suffer even more terribly this time.
"Teacher, do you think he'll come to help? Assuming he hasn't been caught by these guys, that is."
Rei said while looking up at the ceiling. "He" would be the boy.
"I don't know... It would be good if he came to help, but the possibility might be low."
"Right... With that boy's personality, he'd probably easily abandon us."
Going to help is a waste of effort. If Yuko and Rei were taken hostage, he might ignore the demand for the handover of supplies, or at worst, he might think of killing everyone who went to attack the academy along with the hostages, like the Russian special forces.
Yuko cursed her own carelessness once again. She felt like she understood a little bit of the meaning of the words the boy had been saying.
At that time, the boy and the girl who had tried to attack him only to be counterattacked were heading to the campground on the outskirts of the village in a wagon. Next to the boy who was gripping the steering wheel in the driver's seat, the girl, who was tied behind her back and made to bite a foreign object, was tied to the seat.
"It's right at this road, isn't it?"
Saying so, the boy stopped the car at a crossroad and the girl nodded at the map he thrust out. She couldn't afford to teach him a nonsensical route or location. If she did such a thing, she had been made to know with her own body at the musical instrument store what would happen. When she thought about what would happen if the boy found out he had come to the wrong place, the girl couldn't stop trembling.
The boy next to her looked like a devil. The boy calmly killed the girl's companion and smiled while torturing. He must be crazy. Otherwise, there's no way he could do such a thing.
The girl also had guilt for deceiving and attacking people who had done nothing wrong and stealing supplies. However, it was something that couldn't be helped for them to survive. But no guilt could be felt from this boy. He was killing and hurting people as if performing a task. He seemed like a completely different creature from them.
If possible, she wanted to jump out of this car right now and run away, but that wasn't possible in a state where she was tied to the seat. Furthermore, the moment she tried to escape, the boy would shoot her. The girl prayed that her companions would come to help. Otherwise, she hoped this boy would go to a place far away from her.
After driving the car for a while, the boy stopped the car in the forest near the campground. And he declared "Get out" and untied the rope that was tying the girl to the seat. And he led the girl, who got out of the car, to a nearby tree and tied her to the trunk of that tree again.
"I'll go scout if your companions are still at the campground."
Saying so, the boy headed into the forest. Deep in this forest was the campground. However, the direction the boy headed was the opposite. The forest spread north and south along the road running east and west, and the campground was deep in the north forest. However, the boy walked toward the south side, which was the exact opposite.
One minute passed, two minutes passed, but there was no sign of the boy returning. Maybe he has no sense of direction. Such a thought came to the girl's head. He was frequently checking the map on the way to the campground, and even though it was a remote countryside with few roads, he seemed to have mistaken the way at times.
In the girl's heart, a spirit of rebellion against the boy began to peek out again. Now the boy was not here. The fact that he hadn't returned yet meant he had gone quite far and hadn't noticed his mistake. Or he had gotten lost in the forest while trying to return, but there was no sign of the boy trying to show himself from the forest right now.
The girl tried to untie the rope by shaking her body somehow. When she shook her body back and forth several times, she felt the rope had loosened. When she moved her body back and forth and left and right further, the rope that was tying the girl to the tree trunk fell to the ground with a light impact. Whether it had deteriorated, the rope had snapped in the middle.
Fool, the girl mocked the boy. She had to return to the campground immediately, tell her companions that two had died, and tell them to be wary of the boy. The girl truly wanted to kill the boy. She wanted to make the boy, who had killed her companion, hurt her, and made her feel the fear of death, suffer the same fate.
Weapons and ammunition were loaded in the car, but the door was locked and she had confirmed when boarding the car that the guns were connected with chains. Ammunition couldn't be seen, but it would be inside the safe loaded in the rear seat. Furthermore, alarm devices were attached to the windows, and if she broke them, a loud alarm would sound and the boy would return relying on that sound. It was a mountain of treasure, but she had to give up for now. Later she could kill the boy, snatch the key, and make them theirs.
The girl started running toward the north. Since she had come here several times for patrols while being wary of infected, she had some knowledge of the land. If she advanced three hundred meters through the forest, it was already the campground.
Because her hands were tied behind her back, it was difficult to move, but even so, the girl ran. Of course, she frequently looked back to confirm if the boy was following. When she returned to the campground, she would first have this annoying gag removed. Because she was forced to bite a fist-sized object, her jaw was exhausted.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.