Chapter 137 - Chapter 121: The Law of the Jungle
Beside the boy, Sato took out a portable radio and turned it on. As he turned the volume knob, the voice of a man, somewhat crackly with noise, began to flow from the radio's speaker.
"One of the people over there has a radio."
"Is it a collaborator of yours, Sato-san?"
"Sort of. More like a neutral party than a collaborator."
Peering through the binoculars at the bridge, he saw four of Sato's comrades there. Although he couldn't see their faces, he could somehow get a sense of them. The four were a middle-aged man, a middle-aged woman, a bald elderly man, and a man who appeared to be in his late twenties.
He was surprised that there was a young man who hadn't betrayed Sato and joined The Brotherhood, but the reason was immediately clear. Whether he had a broken leg or it was naturally disabled, the young man was standing with a cane. The Brotherhood, which seeks efficiency and gathers only people who can fight, would never accept someone who requires the help of others.
"Who is the collaborator?"
"I can't say. It's not that I doubt you, but I want to eliminate risks."
"I understand. Do all of Sato-san's comrades know that you're alive out here?"
"No, they don't. The only one who knows I'm alive and where I am is my collaborator. So if it becomes known to the others that he's in contact with me, my comrades would probably sell me out to The Brotherhood."
It seems The Brotherhood also knows about Sato, who was a JSDF member, through the young people who betrayed him, and they are quite wary of his existence. Even though they are overwhelming in numbers with guns, they probably understand that there is an absolute difference in combat ability. That's why The Brotherhood is wary of Sato and continues to search for him, and the traps the boy got caught in in the city and the surveillance cameras installed in various places are also for searching for Sato.
"Unfortunately, there are people among my comrades who want The Brotherhood to accept them somehow. Since those people can't fight and have no skills, The Brotherhood is also refusing their participation, but they think that if they sell me out, The Brotherhood might welcome them. So it's very bad if it's leaked through the collaborator that I'm alive."
Sato's comrades don't seem to be a monolith either. It might be unavoidable since the young people they relied on left, and they are being refused as comrades and threatened by The Brotherhood. Even so, the boy felt it was a terrible story that they were trying to sell out Sato, who had been helping them so much until now, for self-preservation.
"...The [supplies] are properly gathered, I assume?"
From the radio speaker, a cold male voice could be heard. From the boy's position, it was difficult to identify who was speaking even with binoculars, but it was the same no matter who was talking. The men of The Brotherhood who got out of the cars each held a rifle in their hands, and although they weren't pointing the muzzles, they were clearly intimidating Sato's comrades.
"Yes, right here."
"Bring them over."
Within the field of vision of the binoculars, he saw the middle-aged man and woman push the carts piled with cardboard boxes toward the men. There wasn't just one or two carts, and when the two approached within three meters, the men readied their guns, intimidating them not to come any closer. The two backed away from the men in terror and pushed another cart over.
One of the men stepped forward and inspected the contents of the carts placed there. He opened a cardboard box with a knife and peered inside. There was also a cart piled with plastic jerry cans, perhaps containing gasoline or kerosene.
"It's quite a lot."
"Yeah, but for The Brotherhood, even this isn't enough."
It was an amount of supplies that one or two people could easily live on for a month, but for The Brotherhood, which has dozens of members, it's an amount they would use up in less than a week. How much danger did they have to risk to gather that amount of supplies? The boy felt sympathy for Sato's comrades and at the same time felt anger toward the people of The Brotherhood who were taking them away.
They don't risk danger themselves, but extort supplies that others have brought while risking their lives. But there is no reward. The Brotherhood is doing whatever they want in a world where there is no longer police or law, simply because they have weapons. The boy felt he couldn't forgive that, even if he might not be one to talk.
"It seems you properly gathered them this time. It helps us too, since we don't have to waste bullets and stamina."
"Um, there are no more supplies around here. To gather more supplies than this, we have to go toward the more dangerous Tokyo area. It takes time, and the danger of being attacked by the infected goes up significantly. Could we have a bit more of a grace period?"
Judging from the voice, the one who said that was the young man with the cane. Did he say that while trembling with fear under the pointed muzzles, summoning his courage? His voice is somewhat high-pitched.
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"We will properly gather the supplies, just a bit more time..."
"You, do you want to join the ranks of those hanging over there?"
Saying so, the man pointed to something with the muzzle of his rifle. Seeing what was at the end of that muzzle, the boy felt sick to his stomach.
At the end of the man's muzzle were several corpses hanging from streetlights. The corpses, with ropes wound around their necks and hanging from streetlights, were being pecked by birds and were swaying in the wind in a gruesome state with bones exposed here and there. Seeing those corpses, the boy remembered the shelter he found before meeting Sato.
He had seen many corpses until now, and had even created many himself, but seeing corpses made into a public display was another story. Not satisfied with just killing, they hang them as an example. It's beyond bad taste.
"Those corpses are..."
"People who resisted The Brotherhood. I couldn't save them."
In that voice of Sato, it sounded like there was regret for not being able to save his comrades and anger toward The Brotherhood. Surely those people were killed by The Brotherhood right before Sato's eyes.
Sato should have had the power to stop it if he wanted to, but he couldn't. If Sato killed the members of The Brotherhood who were trying to kill his comrades, it would become clear that Sato was still alive. If that happened, The Brotherhood might take Sato's comrades hostage and threaten him to surrender. Or they might kill all of Sato's comrades. Since that would defeat the purpose, Sato must have endured it.
"No! Surely such a thing..."
"From next time, the quota is 1.5 times. Gather it properly."
"1.5 times!?"
"What, you can't do it? If you can't, you'll just have to die. In today's world, only those with power can survive. Are you guys still living with a guest mentality? People with no ability should have been killed a long time ago. We're going out of our way to protect you, you know? You can't fight, you can't fix anything. Then be useful in other ways. Useless people should die."
It's a strange argument. To say "we're protecting you" while threatening them with guns and actually killing several people. It's the same as the yakuza collecting protection money. Despite not actually being useful at all, they push through a one-sided argument simply because they have power. Even if Sato's comrades were actually harmed from the outside, The Brotherhood would surely never protect them.
"No way..."
"Gather it properly by the next time we come, otherwise another corpse will be added to those hanging there. You don't want that, right?"
The men of The Brotherhood said so, loaded the large amount of supplies Sato's comrades had gathered into the cars they came in, and went back the way they came. Left behind were only the four men and women standing in a daze.
"'Quota'... that's a way of speaking like a salaryman."
"Maybe the leader was one in the past. Now you understand what kind of people they are, right? They only think about themselves. They think other people can die as much as they want as long as they survive, and they only treat them as disposable pawns to be threatened and made to do dangerous things."
Within the binoculars, Sato's comrades were looking at each other and saying something. The radio one of them had must have already been turned off, as what they were saying couldn't be heard at all from the boy's position. But it's certain that the content of the conversation is not a bright one.
Going out to the city where the infected could be anywhere and scraping together the few remaining supplies. The supplies gathered while risking danger are also mostly snatched away for The Brotherhood's ease rather than to fill their own bellies. Is there hope in such a daily life? Of course not.
"What do you think of them? Of course, no matter what thoughts you have, as long as you don't become our enemy, I won't do anything. Do you want to oppress others with the law of the jungle, snatch away hope and everything else, take away a human-like life and just treat them like slaves to make yourself easy? Or do you choose the path of not being easy, but fighting and living together with others, not just yourself?"
He has no right to condemn what The Brotherhood is doing. The boy thinks so. Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her—the boy has accumulated too many sins to throw a stone at anyone.
Even so, what The Brotherhood is doing is unforgivable, and he could understand the anger Sato harbors. And as for Sato's comrades who are being threatened and facing danger, he thinks they are pitiful.
And above all, The Brotherhood attacked the boy without question. The Brotherhood is a hostile existence to the boy. Even if the boy sympathized with The Brotherhood's way and went to them saying "Please let me join," the answer would come back in bullets. The boy killed several members of The Brotherhood. From their perspective too, the boy is already nothing but a threat to them.
He should leave this city quickly so as not to get involved in trouble. That thought was there, but for some reason, the boy didn't take that option. The boy made a choice he wouldn't have even considered a little while ago: "with someone" and "fighting."
"...I'll do it, me too. They are enemies to me too."
"I see, I'm glad."
Saying so, Sato offers his right hand. Wondering what the act was, he looked back and forth between Sato's face and his right hand, and finally realized he was asking for a handshake. The boy shook the right hand Sato offered, and then—
"Do you really think that will make up for your sins?"
A human figure swaying behind Sato whispered in a voice that made his blood run cold. The boy had not forgotten the face of the girl whose face was dyed bright red with blood constantly flowing from a hole in her forehead. The girl who had once acted with him, and who had become infected due to the boy's error in judgment. The girl the boy himself had shot dead was standing behind Sato.
"You just want to help people to erase your own guilt, don't you? You want to help someone to escape from the consciousness of the sins you've committed, don't you? Your action of trying to help this person's comrades isn't an action out of goodwill; it's nothing more than a result of calculation and selfishness being intertwined."
Just like when you killed me. The blood-stained girl said so and pointed to the hole in her forehead. Sato, noticing that the boy had a stern face, said "What's wrong?" and turned around, following the boy's gaze.
"Did you see something?"
Sato sees nothing. Naturally, because this is a phantom that only the boy can see. It's nothing more than a hallucination, a daydream, that has been haunting him since he faced his own mistakes at the shelter where the gymnasium burned down. The girl talking to the boy like this was killed by the boy's hand a long time ago.
The boy himself understood well that the girl was a hallucination. Even so, the boy hasn't been able to take his eyes off the girl's hallucination. Not even to look away.
"Your sins will never disappear. How many people do you think you've killed until now? Even if you help someone now, do you think those sins will be canceled out?"
The phantom of the girl said so as if mocking him.
I know. The boy mutters in his mouth. That even if he helps Sato's comrades, the fact that he has done what he has done will never be forgiven. Even if he saves several or dozens of people now, the fact that the boy has killed many people remains unchanged.
But the boy didn't know any other way that seemed capable of atoning for his sins than doing that.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.