Chapter 142 - My Body is Falling Apart
"You're going to die at this rate."
The one who said that while wrapping bandages around the boy's arm was Sato, who had been acting separately until now. The boy sat on the floor of the music room, which was stained red with blood and littered with three corpses, silently receiving treatment.
"How did you know I was in the music room?"
"Well, because you guys were polite enough to leave a trail of corpses behind like breadcrumbs. It took some time to eliminate all the infected that were gathering, though."
It seemed Sato had rushed to the classroom wing where the boy was after hearing the gunshot fired by the brown-haired man from the Brotherhood. There, he followed the trail of infected corpses created by the cooperation of the boy and the Brotherhood, eventually reaching the music room.
As expected, there were still infected remaining in this school, and they had apparently been swarming around the music room where the boy and the others had fled. Sato had finished them all off with a suppressed firearm and a knife; by the time he opened the door to the music room, the boy had already killed the three Brotherhood members who were the cause of this commotion.
"Did you do all of that yourself?"
In response to Sato's question, the boy nodded silently. The strange sense of elation he had felt until moments ago had vanished somewhere, replaced by an intense pain as if his entire body were being shredded, filling his consciousness.
"Impressive. To take on three opponents without even using a gun and win."
"I was just lucky."
The boy truly believed that. If Mozart's portrait hadn't been nearby. If the magazine he threw had missed its mark. If the giant man hadn't remained calm and had been shaken by his comrade's death. If the last remaining man had fired his gun immediately after the giant died.
Thinking about it that way, it could be said that the boy's survival against the Brotherhood was due to luck rather than skill. And it could be said that he was still alive now precisely because he had been lucky until now. When the Reaper swung his scythe, he just happened to be crouching, so he was saved.
"Well, they say luck is a part of skill."
Once Sato finished stopping the boy's bleeding, he began rummaging through the Boston bag the Brotherhood guys had left behind. Inside the bag were assault rifles and handguns along with ammunition, which they had apparently found at the high school.
"I peeked into the staff room before coming to this music room, and there were several corpses of JSDF members inside. Their weapons and ammo were gone, so they probably took them from there."
Sato said this while pulling the bolt handle of an assault rifle to check if it moved smoothly. The staff room was where the Brotherhood guys had jumped out from. He didn't say whether the Brotherhood had defeated them or if they had been defeated long ago, but it didn't seem like there was a major weapons and ammunition depot in this high school.
Furthermore, the weapons obtained were minimal: three assault rifles, and a few handguns and submachine guns combined. The boy and Sato had already acquired such weapons. What the two of them wanted were more powerful weapons, and they felt little gratitude other than the fact that their ammunition had increased.
"Well then, shall we scavenge the bodies?"
"Right. You take that brown-haired bastard."
Sato said this and flipped over the corpse of the giant man who had collapsed on the floor. Following Sato's lead, the boy turned the body of the brown-haired man, whose throat he had just slit, onto its back. The brown-haired man's corpse still had warmth, but it would soon cool and stiffen with rigor mortis. Blood that had soaked into the brown-haired man's clothes dripped from the hem, splashing onto the boy's boots.
As for things that seemed useful: spare ammunition for the handgun. A lighter and a folding knife. And just one pack of cigarettes. He searched the corpse's pockets to see if there was a map with information about the Brotherhood members written on it, but found nothing.
"A bust, huh..."
"Not so much over here."
Saying that, Sato waved an A4-sized piece of paper he had apparently found on the giant's corpse. The paper, stained with blood in places, appeared to be a map, with circles, crosses, and letters drawn all over it. There were several symbols marked, but the boy had no idea what they meant.
"What is this?"
"It's probably a map left behind by the JSDF members who were here. It's of the town near here. The unit's deployment status is drawn... it looks like most of them were taken out by the infected and communication was cut off."
He wondered if the crosses drawn on the map represented that. The boy didn't understand at all what the symbols represented, but they were likely familiar to Sato, who was a JSDF member. Sato traced the symbols marked on the map with his finger, pointing to dots where letters like "HQ" and "Dep" were written. The location where those were drawn was a prefectural civic sports park.
"It seems the headquarters and supply depot were in this park. Medical units were also deployed. Most likely, the headquarters responsible for evacuation and infected countermeasures for this entire region was placed in this sports park."
"But there's a cross mark."
The symbol indicating the headquarters had a large cross drawn over it, along with the words for the civic sports park.
"Whether they moved or were wiped out... either way, it seems no one is there anymore."
"But the fact that a supply depot was placed there means weapons and ammo might still be left."
"Maybe. Let's pray they didn't use them all up or burn them when they retreated."
If the Brotherhood guys had brought this map back, it would have been troublesome. Even if they didn't immediately understand the meaning of the symbols upon seeing the map, they would have likely tried to go to the sports park where the JSDF had deployed. And if powerful weapons, ammunition, and equipment were left in the sports park, the Brotherhood would become even more unmanageable. Sato had combat capabilities far beyond the Brotherhood, who were originally civilians, but if he was outnumbered by the number of muzzles, that advantage would vanish.
"I want to secure weapons as soon as possible. I'd like to head to the sports park within today, but can you move?"
"I'll move."
"Then good."
His body was exhausted after running at full speed and engaging in a fight, and on top of that, he had been cut in various places and lost a fair amount of blood, but he could still move. However, running around while carrying luggage would be painful, so he decided to have Sato carry the firearms the defeated Brotherhood members had and the backpack the boy had originally been carrying. The boy was astonished by Sato, who moved as lightly as usual even while wearing equipment and luggage that must have weighed dozens of kilograms in total.
"Am I... really crazy after all?"
The boy suddenly muttered this when he had finished checking every single room in the school with Sato, down to the last one. Inside the school buildings, several bodies of people who seemed to have failed to escape during the evacuation and were killed by the infected remained, and the infected themselves were still wandering about.
In place of the injured boy, Sato eliminated all the remaining infected with suppressed firearms. The ammunition could be said to be plentiful since they had what the Brotherhood had and what they had taken from the infected JSDF members. And after checking the last room and confirming there were no infected in the school building, the boy finally tried venting his feelings to Sato.
"I... I was laughing earlier when I was fighting those Brotherhood guys. Even though I was cut all over and it hurt, and if things went wrong... even if they didn't, I was in a situation where I might have died, yet I was laughing as if to say it was fun. No, maybe I just didn't feel it that way, and I was actually enjoying it. The fighting and the killing."
"And so, you're wondering if you're a crazy person?"
In response to Sato's question, the boy nodded silently.
Until now, the boy had taken many lives. Some were unavoidable for self-defense, while others were people he killed for completely selfish reasons. But he didn't intend to kill anyone for fun, and he had never felt that it was fun in the midst of a life-or-death struggle.
But at that time, the boy's face reflected in the eyes of the corpse was certainly laughing. Was he really a sane person? Was he actually someone who couldn't help but want to kill someone, using excuses like protecting himself? Had he finally become such a madman? Such questions and fears swirled inside the boy's head.
The boy believed he was still a sane person with reason. But what if he was actually a mad person and just hadn't realized it? The boy felt fear toward his own unknown true nature—the possibility that he might be a person harboring madness.
That was precisely why he wanted Sato to say, "No." Sato, who must have overcome numerous hardships and had various experiences, would likely be knowledgeable about human nature. He wanted Sato to give him a seal of approval that he was a sane person. However...
"If you think of yourself that way, then maybe you are."
"So I really am a crazy person?"
"In the first place, your premise is wrong. In today's world, who decides what is right and what is wrong?"
Sato pointed his gun muzzle at a corpse rolled in a corner of the hallway, so decomposed that its gender could no longer be determined.
"In the old days, everyone would certainly think someone who kills people while laughing is a madman. But now, the logic of the world has gone crazy. A world where you could live in peace as long as you followed the three rules of don't steal, don't kill, and don't rape was overturned just by throwing in the element of the infected. Even if you don't intend to hurt anyone, someone might attack you. And the police who should prevent and crack down on those things are already gone, and the institutions that should enact and enforce laws have ceased to function. The rules of the world have changed. In such a situation, do you think the common sense and ways of thinking from before will still apply as they used to?"
With just a glance at the corpse, Sato began walking again.
"Nowadays, even if you kill someone, the police won't arrest you for murder, nor will a court decide a punishment and send you to prison. Laws that no one follows are useless, and the world that was protected by those laws returned to nothingness when the laws stopped functioning. Even if you take things from people or kill them, no one will blame you now. When the world itself is crazy, who can decide whether you are crazy?"
"..."
"If this situation continues, the law of the jungle will probably pass as the new logic of the world. Even if you kill someone and take their things, the one who is killed is at fault. The idea might be born that the one with power is justice, and a person who can kill people while laughing is a sane person. No, maybe it's already become like that."
As Sato said, the police were already devastated and not functioning, and it was unknown if there were even any police officers to begin with. Far from self-defense, even if one used violence for selfish desires and killed someone, no one would crack down on it. That's why there were many people who resorted to such acts, and the boy had actually fought against such people.
"A person who can kill people is justice, and among them, a person who can kill people without any hesitation—or rather, while enjoying it—is a good person. The world might be becoming like that. If that happens, even if you were a person who finds pleasure in murder, no one would think you're strange. Rather, a person who can't kill people, or a person who is attacked by guilt or thinks about various things even if they can kill, might be thought of as the crazy one."
A world where someone who can kill people while laughing is a good person, and that is considered natural. The boy shuddered imagining such a world. At the same time, he thought that the fact that he felt fear toward such a world might mean that he still had some sense of taboo regarding murder.
"There's no way I can know your true nature. Whether you're really a person who finds pleasure in murder and combat, or if brain chemicals were just flooding out during combat and your emotions were temporarily heightened. There are many people of the latter type, so you shouldn't think so much about whether your head is crazy. However..."
"However, what?"
"Unless you have a firm way of thinking and a view toward the world, you won't be able to wipe away the thought that you might be a crazy person from now on. If you can derive your own way of thinking, like "I want to be like this" or "The world should be like this," and carry it through, you shouldn't have to worry about your actions or appearance in the future."
Having a firm way of thinking. Was such a thing possible? The boy thought so as he followed Sato out through the school entrance.
He didn't want to admit it, but he thought he was a person who had been swept along by situations until now. While wanting to act like a righteous hero when the infected appeared, he easily abandoned many people and drove them to their deaths to protect himself. While thinking that killing was wrong, he could easily kill someone if it was to protect his companions. And while vowing not to kill except for self-defense, he was driven by the fear that he might be attacked and lined up various excuses to launch preemptive strikes.
He wondered if Sato ever worried or had doubts. He was about to ask, but stopped. To the boy, Sato was truly a superhuman, an adult who appeared to act with a firm conviction even in this ruined world. If that Sato was nothing more than an ordinary person like himself who worried and pondered, he felt as if the thing he could cling to and rely on would disappear this time for sure.
He knew it was an escape. But for now, the boy wanted Sato to remain a reliable superhuman. Without saying anything, the boy climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV they had arrived in. Sato, who had tossed the Boston bag full of guns into the back seat, sat in the driver's seat, and the two headed toward the civic sports park mentioned on the map.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.