Chapter 171 - A Story of the Sound of Thunder
"I wonder if Gunpou-dono and the others are okay..."
In the dark convenience store, Aoi muttered anxiously. The gunshots, which were sporadic when Aki and the others escaped from the base, were now thundering incessantly. In fact, mixed with the gunshots, explosion sounds could even be heard occasionally.
"They'll be okay, I think..."
Aki had no choice but to answer so. According to Sato's instructions, passing through the service gate on the north side of the base and hiding in the convenience store beyond it was good. But no matter how long they waited, there was no sign of the boy and Sato arriving. As far as she could hear the gunshots, there was no doubt that the combat was intensifying.
If they didn't come to the convenience store after waiting for a while, Sato had told them to leave them behind and escape to a safe place. But in this situation, they couldn't even move carelessly. It was difficult for Aki and the others now to judge where was safe.
Aki stared at the handgun in her hand. Fortunately or unfortunately, she had never had the experience of taking someone's life yet.
The boy seemed to be stubbornly refusing to let Aki accompany him. Certainly, they have almost no combat experience. But in the current situation, dealing with the Brotherhood with two people was reckless at best. Even if unreliable, she thought it would be better to have more hands, but the boy and the others didn't seem to think so.
Suddenly, mixed with the gunshots, the engine sound of a car was heard. It was the sound of a diesel engine with characteristic vibrations that she had heard many times at the Brotherhood's base.
"I'll go watch the state for a bit. Everyone stay here."
"Senpai, it's dangerous!"
"It'll be more dangerous if the enemy comes here. It's okay, I'm just going to hide and watch the state."
The possibility is low, but it's not certain that the members who noticed Aki and the others' escape didn't send a pursuit unit. Hiding in this convenience store, it's difficult to notice even if an enemy approaches from outside. Aki watched the state of the outside with the handgun in one hand, confirmed that no one was there, and jumped out from the convenience store.
That said, she still held fear in her heart. If she were attacked by members, if infected arrived, and the fear that she herself might be killed. But if she couldn't overcome that, she wouldn't be able to live on from now on either.
With the handgun ready to fire anytime, Aki headed toward the main street. Under the moonlight, the figures of infected staggering in the middle of the road can be seen. From beyond them, two large SUVs ran while slamming their car bodies into each other.
Several people seem to be on the leading vehicle, as muzzle flashes from inside the car are occasionally seen. In contrast, the following vehicle hardly responds and is just going to slam its car body again and again.
"That guy...!"
The following SUV fired several times, and that muzzle flash made the driver's face float in the darkness for an instant. The one driving the pursuing SUV is the boy who separated from Aki and the others to chase the Leader.
If so, are the ones in the car ahead the Leader and the others? The two cars passed in front of Aki in a flash, turned a corner, and became invisible. Eventually, a destruction sound of something hitting reached Aki's place too.
She hesitated on what to do, but Aki started running toward the direction the cars vanished. Secretly so as not to be found by infected, but still in a hurry.
When the boy regained consciousness, the first thing that attacked him was intense nausea.
His vision was swaying, and his body was unusually heavy. And the ground was towering on the left side like a wall, perpendicular to his vision.
There, the boy finally remembered that the Pajero he was driving had overturned. Although the Pajero had overturned with the passenger side down, the boy was somehow sound in all his limbs. The fact that he wasn't thrown out of the window with shattered glass seemed to be thanks to having fastened the seatbelt.
He vowed to fasten the seatbelt properly when driving a car from now on, and the boy unfastened the buckle of the seatbelt that was fixing his body to the driver's seat and hanging him in mid-air. Immediately, pulled by gravity, the boy's body falls to the ground. The boy, who fell from his shoulder onto the passenger seat door, groaned at that pain.
However, he didn't have time to be moaning in pain forever. The boy searched if there were any weapons anywhere, but the handgun and rifle seemed to have been blown out of the car when it overturned, as they were not seen around. There was only one Brotherhood-made short sword hung on his back.
His head was dizzy, but the boy crawled out to the exterior from the front window with shattered glass. The Pajero had overturned, but as expected of an off-road SUV, there was no such thing as the car body or roof being greatly crushed.
Far away, the figures of infected can be seen across the street. But they haven't headed this way yet. The boy pulled out the short sword from the scabbard on his back and looked around. He expected a gun might have fallen, but it was nowhere to be seen, perhaps pinned under the overturned car or blown into the shadows. He couldn't waste time searching for a gun whose location was unknown in the darkness, and the boy had no choice but to head toward the overturned Land Cruiser.
A strong, cold wind had begun to blow. Far away, thunder that vibrated the air was thundering. Looking up at the sky, black clouds were blocking the moonlight. It would be a thunderstorm soon.
The Land Cruiser had rotated once after crossing the hole during road construction and was slammed onto the road surface from the roof, lying upside down. The Land Cruiser also seemed to have little damage to the vehicle despite overturning, but even so, motionless human figures can be seen around the car.
Approaching, he understood that they were the Brotherhood executives who were escaping in the Land Cruiser. They, unlike the boy, seemed to have not fastened their seatbelts, as they were apparently thrown outside when the vehicle overturned. The man fallen in a 'dai' shape on the road was covered in blood all over, and on top of that, his neck was twisted in a strange direction. Another member, pinned under the overturned Land Cruiser's body, had his head crushed between the asphalt and the car roof in a prone state.
"Didn't you learn that seatbelts are important..."
The body of the member whose head was crushed was still slightly convulsing, but he probably wasn't alive anymore. The boy looked at the holster hanging from that corpse's hip. He seemed to have been the driver, and the handgun remained in the holster.
The boy took the handgun from that still-warm corpse. The member with the crushed head wore a tactical vest, and spare magazines seemed likely to be in its pouches, but it seemed impossible to flip over the corpse whose upper body was crushed by the car while prone. Giving up and taking only the handgun, the boy confirmed that a bullet was loaded by lightly pulling the slide.
Readying the handgun, he peeked into the interior of the overturned Land Cruiser. On the roof, which had now become the bottom side, countless glass fragments and empty shells were scattered, and inside were two human figures that didn't move even a bit. He strained his eyes thinking it might be the Leader, but they were also the executives who accompanied the Leader. They must have been thrown from their seats when the car overturned and had their necks snapped or something; they had also become corpses. But the Leader's corpse is not inside the car.
Suddenly, another corpse raised a scream. The member the boy thought was a corpse seemed to be still alive. That member, who seemed to have been sitting in the passenger seat based on the position, had apparently just been unconscious until now. But since he was raising screams and groans, he seemed to be injured.
The boy went around to the passenger side and pointed the muzzle at the groaning member. A rifle was fallen very near the member, but he didn't even seem to have the leeway to reach out for it. The boy immediately picked up the rifle and subsequently pointed the muzzle at the member's head.
"P-Please help me!"
"Even if you ask me to help after trying to kill me so much."
Just as he was about to pull the trigger of the handgun, the boy noticed that the member was injured. Apparently, the broken shift lever had stuck into his leg or something. Seeing the member who was desperately seeking help while shedding tears and snot, the boy wondered if it was okay to kill him just like this.
He seems to have completely lost his will to fight due to the intense pain. Otherwise, he wouldn't seek help from the boy, who is an enemy. He wondered if he intended to trick him, but from the member's desperation, it was conveyed that he didn't have the leeway for such a clever trick.
"Please, don't kill me. I beg you..."
If he killed him who was showing both hands and begging for his life, he himself would become the same as the Brotherhood crowd. Even if he was an enemy before, would that alone be a reason to take the life of a human who has already lost the will to fight, is injured, and is begging for his life?
If he had resisted with a gun in hand even in this state, the boy intended to fire. But the member didn't even have the leeway to pick up the gun fallen nearby and was cornered to the point of having to seek help from the boy, who is an enemy.
If it were the former boy, he would have killed the member without hesitation. But the current boy was different. When he forcibly opened the distorted passenger door, while readying the handgun in one hand and taking a stance where he could fire anytime, he reached out his arm and grabbed the member's shoulder.
"I'm pulling. You know what happens if you do something strange, right?"
Saying so, he pulled the member out from the overturned car. And he quickly performed a body check on him to see if he had any other weapons.
"Thank you... thank you..."
The member was looking at the boy with eyes as if he couldn't believe it. The reason he didn't kill him was also because he had the thought of wanting to hear the Leader's whereabouts, but it couldn't be explained by that alone.
Even if he helped him, there was a fear that he might be attacked in a gap when he showed his back. But the result of being trapped in that fear and killing people who were even slightly hostile one after another was the figure of the former boy, and also the figure of the current Brotherhood crowd.
To deny the existence of the Brotherhood, one must not do the same things as them. That's why the boy resorted to the action of "helping," which the Brotherhood crowd would not do.
The broken shift lever was stuck deeply into the member's thigh, and it seemed difficult for him to walk on his own. But the amount of bleeding wasn't that much. If he applied hemostatic treatment, he would be okay for a while.
"Listen, if you don't want to die, stay quiet. I helped you, but I don't intend to die with you. If you can't listen, I'll leave you on this spot."
Saying so, the boy pointed to the infected visible far away. The distance with the infected is still separated, but the sound of the car overturning earlier must have been considerable. He couldn't stay on this spot forever, and if the man were raising screams or groans at that time, he would immediately be found by infected.
When he illuminated the ground with a light, bloodstains were lined up here and there on the asphalt. The bloodstains continued from the overturned Land Cruiser, suggesting that someone had escaped from inside the vehicle. The members who were in the Land Cruiser were all dead except for two. One is the member the boy just helped, and the other is the Leader. The Leader's figure was not inside the Land Cruiser. He probably regained consciousness a step ahead of the boy and the others and escaped.
But since he has an injury accompanied by bleeding, he shouldn't have been able to escape that far. For the time being, he'll hide this member who is nothing but a hindrance, and then chase the Leader. It was possible to throw the member out on this spot, but if he did that, he would immediately be found by infected.
"Why did you help me...?"
The member who was walking while borrowing the boy's shoulder said so in a squeezed-out voice.
"If you had resisted with a weapon in hand, I didn't intend to help. But I'm different from you guys. No, I want to be a different existence. I don't want to do things like killing a human who is injured and seeking help anymore."
"Anymore...? I see, were you the same as us too..."
It might be said that he became soft. But is it really correct to kill even a human who has lost the will to fight and is seeking help? Can helping such a person be called a soft thing?
Rather, is it correct and cool to kill even the injured just because they are an enemy?
Are you intending to atone for your sins now? Even if you help one enemy, the fact that you killed many people for your own sake won't vanish.
He heard a voice in his head. Before he knew it, a blood-covered girl was walking next to the boy. The girl walking while dripping blood from a bullet hole pierced in her head had the figure of the comrade the boy once killed with his own hands.
You help the enemy, but you didn't help me, did you?
He understood that the hallucination of the girl was a hallucination. That's why the boy tried to ignore the words she spat out. But her words gouged the boy's heart deeply.
You can't help anyone. You can only kill.
To drown out the words of the hallucination girl, the boy opened his mouth.
"For now, I'll chase the Leader. You hide somewhere around there."
Even though he lost the will to fight and has no intention of resisting, there was no change in the fact that he is still a member of the enemy Brotherhood. The boy had no intention at all of trusting such a person and leaving his back to him, and on top of that, he couldn't catch up to the escaping Leader while taking a man with an injured leg. After treatment, he intended to have him hide inside a building around there.
It had begun to rain. Thunder that vibrated the air was thundering nearby. Before the bloodstains of the Leader remaining on the ground vanish due to the rain, he had to catch up to him.
"Hey, are you leaving me behind?"
"Of course. If I take you, I can't catch up to the Leader no matter how much time passes. Don't worry, I'll properly make it so you won't be found by infected—"
At that moment, the sky became bright for an instant, and a purple lightning bolt ran through the gray clouds. Right after, a roar-like thunder vibrated the air, and at the same time, the boy certainly heard the thundering of a handgun's firing sound.
Sparks from an impact scattered on the streetlight pillar right next to the boy and the others, and the boy noticed that they were being shot. The gunshot thundered twice, three times, and each time something burst around the boy and the others.
"Run! Run!"
The boy shouted so and started running while halfway dragging the member. The goal is a nearby cover. If he is aiming with a handgun, the shooter should be nearby. The boy looked around while running and saw muzzle flashes blinking in the shadow of an abandoned car about twenty meters away.
"Gueh."
At that time, raising a strange scream, the member the boy was lending his shoulder to fell to the ground. Just as the boy was about to make him stand up, he noticed that blood was overflowing from his neck just like a faucet was twisted.
The member had been shot in the neck. The member was positioned between the boy and the attacker and had taken the bullets in a form that became the boy's shield. If he had been on the opposite side of the boy, the one who would have been showered with bullets was definitely the boy.
See, you can't help a single person.
The hallucination girl sneered at the boy. Even though he thought he saved him, that life vanished easily before his eyes.
The boy raised a war cry. It was a cry mixed with anger, sadness, regret, and various emotions.
Lightning again tore the darkness and illuminated the figure of the shooter. The one readying a handgun from the shadow of the abandoned car was the Leader of the Brotherhood, the boy's enemy.
"You bastard, I'll kill you!"
The boy shouted and fired the rifle in his hand. The Leader also pulled the trigger of the handgun, and gunshots that didn't lose to the thunder thundered in the night city.
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