Chapter 134 - Chapter 117: A True Fighter's Tale
"So, have you been living alone all this time?"
At the boy's question, Sato shook his head.
"No, at first I was with others. I joined a group of refugees, and because I was a JSDF member, I was inevitably made the leader. We managed to get along well until around the end of last year, but then they came."
"They?"
"The group you said attacked you yesterday."
It was then the boy realized he hadn't heard detailed information about the group that attacked him. Judging from Sato's tone, he seemed to have detailed information about that group.
"Come to think of it, what are they? I didn't do anything, but they suddenly tried to kill me. I thought they were just punks, but they seemed somewhat disciplined for that."
"That's right, they act with discipline. They aren't just stupid punks who got guns and are acting tough. They're people acting for the purpose of survival."
"I don't think they need to kill me, a passerby, to survive."
Who am I to talk, having committed mass murder to protect myself? the boy mocked himself in his heart.
"They apparently call themselves 'The Brotherhood.' They say that while many other humans were killed by the infected or became infected themselves, they who survived are brothers who must help each other live to create a future."
"Isn't that a noble ideology? Why did people like that suddenly attack me instead of helping each other?"
"To them, 'brother' only means those who are useful to their group and don't pose a threat. People who aren't useful, or people who look like they'll become enemies, aren't their brothers; they're considered existences to be eliminated. Most likely, they judged that you would be a threat. So they tried to eliminate you first and were counterattacked."
Then how did this Brotherhood manage to detect the boy's location? When he voiced that doubt, Sato answered, "Well, that's because they use this city as their base."
"When you came to this city, most of the major roads were blocked, weren't they? Most of those were done by the police or JSDF to restrict the movement of refugees, but some were blocked later by The Brotherhood to restrict entry routes into the city. And on the remaining passable roads, they've placed wired surveillance cameras and sentries to watch people entering the city."
The trap the boy got caught in was also apparently set by them. They set traps all over the city to catch people who carelessly step into the city. Some of the traps are apparently made so that the prey dies instantly upon activation. The boy felt from the bottom of his heart that it was good he didn't get caught in one of those.
"In other words, I was being watched from the moment I entered the city?"
"That's right. Also, they never make allies out of survivors acting alone. The targets they invite to become allies are always those acting in groups. They approach them, invite them to join their brotherhood, and incite conflict within the group to make them feel that The Brotherhood is more reliable than their previous comrades. Then they make them believe that the comrades they've acted with until now are useless existences or hostile to them, and make them think the probability of survival is higher if they join The Brotherhood. A person acting alone has no comrades to be turned against."
There are no old people in The Brotherhood, Sato said. No children or sick people either. Because those people are "useless" and "useless eaters."
The people necessary for The Brotherhood are those who have skills for survival and can fight against the infected or other groups of survivors. Only such people can continue to survive in this world from now on. Unlike the peaceful times of the past, now you can't survive unless you fight.
But the elderly, children, and the sick are people who cannot do that. They can't gather supplies from cities where the infected or rioters with ill will toward others roam, nor can they fight to protect other people when attacked by them. It's difficult for them to even survive unless someone protects them, and they only consume supplies that others have procured. They must require someone's help just to lead their daily lives.
"The people of The Brotherhood seek efficiency. They think about and execute what is most efficient for them to survive even a minute or second longer. And they cut off the elderly, children, and the sick as inefficient existences, mere burdens that only waste supplies and manpower."
"Efficiency, huh..."
Normally, one would think it was a terrible story. However, the boy could not condemn the actions of this Brotherhood. Because he himself had held similar thoughts before.
When he was acting with the girl, he was frustrated many times by the fact that she was an existence that couldn't fight. He was risking his life to gather supplies, while she just consumed them in a safe place. When attacked by the infected, he was the only one who fought, and the girl was protected. Above all, because he always had to pay attention to that girl, he was being pushed to the limit both mentally and physically.
In that situation, he felt many times that the girl was a hindrance. Of course, he didn't put it into words, nor did he act on it. However, in today's world, if there are people acting in a group, they would think the same thing once or twice. Just because someone can't do what you can do, anyone would get frustrated. To make matters worse, because that could cause one to lose their own life, anyone would have a harsh eye toward people who can't work.
If you want to survive, the best thing is to eliminate such people who can't work and form a group only with people who can. If all members of the group are people who can fight, they can protect themselves, so they won't trouble anyone else. There would be no accumulation of dissatisfaction from being the only ones made to work while there are people living easily while being protected by someone in a safe place. Above all, having people who can't fight or can't keep up with everyone's movements is fatal when attacked by the infected or rioters.
A group composed of members who can all fight, or have some skill like medicine or engineering, will undoubtedly live longer than a group composed of people of varying ages and health conditions. But is it right to cut off or eliminate people who can't fight or don't have special skills for that reason? Do you value everyone currently present even if you carry the risk of the group being wiped out, or do you choose the option where a selected few can certainly survive rather than many dying? The boy didn't know which was right.
If it were the world before the infected appeared, the boy would have certainly condemned The Brotherhood's policy as wrong. That it's unthinkable to abandon weak people just so they can survive. But now, after tasting hell for nearly a year, there was a part of him that thought that choice was unavoidable and right.
Above all, the boy himself had made that choice. He abandoned others to survive, and killed many people who hadn't directly attacked him just because they might become a threat in the future. What the boy had done was no different from the actions of The Brotherhood.
Therefore, the boy understood he was in no position to say whether their actions were right or wrong. The only thing he could say was that The Brotherhood judged the boy as hostile and attacked him. Therefore, to the boy, they were enemies.
"The group I was in was also ruined because of The Brotherhood. At first, they approached us with a friendly attitude. Thinking back, I should have judged them as suspicious at that point and turned them away, but it's no use saying that now."
"You're saying conflict broke out among your comrades because you were incited?"
"That's right, though about half of it was our own fault... In the group I was in, nearly half were elderly, and young men weren't even a fifth of the total."
The group Sato ended up leading by circumstance had elderly people with strong voices. They apparently said things like "You're young, so work" or "Respect your elders" even in an emergency, doing nothing but saying arrogant things and never moving themselves. While there were many women and children besides them, the young and physically fit men inevitably had to work a lot.
Perhaps normalcy bias was at work in that group, Sato said. The people Sato encountered had almost never witnessed the infected; they hadn't run away after being attacked by the infected, but had simply come to the designated place according to the government's evacuation order. The reason they started living together in a group was simply because the JSDF's rescue activities for refugees had been terminated.
If they stayed together somewhere, the JSDF, fire department, or police would eventually come to help, just like during an earthquake or typhoon. People vaguely waited for rescue while thinking such optimistic things, trying to continue their usual lives. Despite it being an emergency, almost no one thought to act on their own while considering the whole.
That became the cause of the young people's dissatisfaction. At first, food could be found anywhere by scavenging nearby supermarkets. However, for Sato's group, which had swollen into a large group of nearly 100 people, those amounts of supplies were only negligible, and soon the supplies in the stores and houses around the group's base were consumed. Inevitably, they had to go out to dangerous areas where the infected were to procure supplies, and those jobs naturally fell to the young men.
"I did as much as I could, but even then there's a limit. Even if you get guns from gun shops or dead cops, it's difficult for amateurs to fight against the infected. It was going well at first, but finally, someone died. After that, the atmosphere in the group only got worse."
Even if someone died, someone had to go outside to procure supplies. The young people's dissatisfaction grew because they were the only ones who had to go to dangerous jobs. By then, the elderly had recognized reality and started refraining from arrogant remarks, but that didn't mean they went outside with the young people.
Sending the elderly, women, or children to procure supplies would only increase the number of deaths, and the situation where the young people had to go remained unchanged. And the people who couldn't fight just consumed the supplies the young people procured at the risk of their lives, complaining that they were few or whatever. Sato's group collapsed when one member of The Brotherhood appeared before the young people who were going to supply procurement side-by-side with death and accumulating dissatisfaction.
"The people of The Brotherhood approached our group cleverly. They sent in one member in the form of someone separated from their comrades, approaching us under the guise of being protected. Then they interacted with the young people, became friends, and heard their dissatisfaction with the group. Once they understood that the young people felt they were the only ones carrying the danger, they skillfully invited them to join The Brotherhood."
The Brotherhood member who contacted the group invited the young people to leave the group and join The Brotherhood.
It's stupid to risk your life for burdens who just consume supplies without working and are only protected. In today's world, people who can do nothing have no choice but to die. But you have power. Today's world is the law of the jungle; the right to live is given only to the strong. Rather than a group that forces you to risk your life for people not worth protecting, it's for your sake to join The Brotherhood, which is composed only of those with the power for everyone to survive, and the probability of survival is higher there——.
"By the time I noticed, the young people were all in the mood to join The Brotherhood. The young people took all the weapons and food they could carry and went to The Brotherhood. Of course, not all the young men joined The Brotherhood. But what was left was only a little food, poor weapons, and people who couldn't fight. The elderly and the middle-aged men and women finally seemed to understand that the young people who had supported their lives until now had left because of them, but it was too late."
Apparently, the young people had some pangs of conscience, as they didn't use violence against other refugees or take people who were unwilling when they left. But the people of The Brotherhood were not like that. Immediately after the young people defected from Sato's group, The Brotherhood came to the group that had lost both fighting people and means and began threatening them.
"The people of The Brotherhood didn't kill us. But they made demands equivalent to telling us to die."
"What did they say?"
"They said, 'We'll protect the safety of this city; in exchange, hand over supplies periodically.' We had already scavenged all the supplies near where we lived, and it was obvious that the portion that wasn't taken away would be consumed soon. To offer supplies to The Brotherhood, we had no choice but to go on expeditions far away, but our group, which had no weapons taken and no people left who could fight properly, couldn't possibly go out for supply procurement."
The member who protested that was shot dead by the leader of The Brotherhood.
"'In today's world, only valuable people can survive. If you want to be kept alive, show us that you have value.' They thrust a choice upon us. Do as they say and be killed by the infected, or resist and be killed by The Brotherhood."
If they risked danger to gather supplies and offered them to them as The Brotherhood said, at least they wouldn't be killed immediately. But that was only at the whim of The Brotherhood, and in the end, the power over their life and death remained in their hands. If The Brotherhood judged the survivors as "unnecessary," it wouldn't be strange for them to be killed at any time.
"When The Brotherhood came, I happened to be out for supply procurement. When I came back, I was almost restrained by The Brotherhood's guys, but I managed to escape."
"So, that's why you're alone like this?"
"Yeah. Even if they were originally amateurs at fighting, since they have weapons and are many, there's no chance of winning in a head-on battle. On the other hand, my remaining comrades seemed to have lost their will to fight. No one is trying to fight. The people who couldn't become 'brothers' are just begging The Brotherhood for their lives and choosing the path of being kept alive by their mercy."
If they didn't gather the instructed amount of supplies, one person was killed as an example regardless of the reason. That corpse was hung near the survivors' residence and used as a specimen to make the survivors realize what would happen if they didn't follow The Brotherhood's orders. And the number of those corpses was only increasing.
"At this rate, either everyone will die because they can't offer supplies, or everyone will be killed eventually because The Brotherhood judges them as a hindrance."
"How many people are in this Brotherhood?"
"Probably sixty to seventy. Most are young people under thirty, and the majority of them are men. Firearms are abundant enough to be distributed to more than half of the members, and everyone can fight."
Most of the firearms The Brotherhood obtained are civilian hunting rifles, but on the other hand, they are also equipped with military firearms like the one the boy took from them. They apparently possess abundant firearms, but they didn't seem to have acquired full-fledged combat techniques.
"The Type 89 you took was probably obtained from a JSDF member who became infected or from their corpse. But if they continue to obtain firearms, the chances of winning will become even slimmer. Though the members probably won't increase further, as it would become difficult to maintain their food supply."
The Brotherhood seems to be trying to establish this city as their base and create a stable living foundation. And Sato's comrades, who are terrified of The Brotherhood's threat, must step into dangerous areas in place of The Brotherhood and obtain food to fill their bellies. Since the power relationship is clear, the survivors have no choice but to continue following The Brotherhood until they die.
"Sato-san, why don't you just hurry up and escape from this city? If you have the power to live alone, wouldn't the possibility of survival be higher if you abandoned the other people and lived alone? I'm not saying The Brotherhood's argument is right, but wouldn't it be better to be alone than to have someone dragging you down?"
The boy asked the question frankly. Why was Sato going so far as to risk danger to wage guerrilla warfare against The Brotherhood? Sato spoke in a tone as if he judged the survivors who created the cause for the young people's defection as "getting what they deserved" or felt a sense of disappointment in them for not even having the spirit to resist. If he was a special forces operative, his judgment and mental strength must be extraordinary. If he prioritized his own survival, it would be better not to have any dead weight. And Sato has the skills and experience to fight alone.
When the boy asked that, Sato replied with a laugh.
"Well, I've thought I wanted to do that many times. They're selfish and irresponsible, yet even in this situation, their sense of entitlement is strong. But once I've gotten involved, I can't just abandon them. If I were acting under orders, I'd abandon anyone if they interfered with the mission, no matter how much of a connection we had. But there's no longer any important person to give orders, and the orders I received failed a long time ago."
"Then..."
"I joined the JSDF because I wanted to protect weak people who can't fight and do the right thing. And before my eyes are people who can't fight, are being made to submit through violence, and are facing a crisis of their lives. The action policy The Brotherhood is advocating might be unavoidable in today's world. But even so, they threaten others with violence and force them to face danger so they themselves can survive. That is wrong, so I fight."
And Sato said further.
"If you feel my thoughts and actions are right, won't you fight with me? To be honest, it's quite tough to stand up to them alone. You know how to use weapons and seem accustomed to fighting. If you would help me, it would be a great help."
"What if I say no?"
"Of course, I won't force you; if I did, I'd be the same as the people of The Brotherhood. But I'll have you leave this city. It's not that I don't trust you, but it would be troublesome if you turned into an enemy later. Of course, if you leave, I'll return your belongings."
Sato said he could stay here until his injuries healed. But he also added that during that time, all weapons would be kept by him.
"I won't tell you to decide right now whether to fight with me or leave. After all, we're fighting against humans; you can't decide immediately, can you?"
Saying so, Sato left the room. Left alone, the boy looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
The boy didn't know which was right and which was wrong between Sato and The Brotherhood. There was no guarantee that Sato was telling the whole truth, and there was too little information about the people of The Brotherhood.
But he was envious of Sato, who clearly understood what he should do and was actually acting on it. Sato understands reality yet doesn't compromise with it, sticking to his ideals and thoughts. On the other hand, the boy was crushed by understanding reality, and has lived until today by compromising and turning his back on various things.
In movies and dramas, they often said that becoming an adult means living while giving up on something. But Sato, who is an adult, continues to follow the path he believes in without giving up on anything, while the boy, who is a child, lives while being swept along after giving up on everything. Between sticking to one's path without giving up, and accepting reality, compromising, and changing one's thoughts and actions according to the situation—which of those is right, the boy did not know.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.