Chapter 194 - Skyfall
The boy rested his rifle on the roof's handrail and continued firing at the infected on the ground from there. Every time he pulled the trigger, an infected would bleed and fall to the ground within the scope. Now that the distance was closing, it wasn't that difficult to hit the infected with bullets even if they were running.
Since the boy's role was to draw the infected to this building, he didn't need to take down every single one. However, if the building were surrounded by infected when he tried to escape from here, he wouldn't be able to get away. Therefore, it was necessary to reduce the number of infected trying to storm the building as much as possible beforehand.
"This is tough..."
Tossing an empty magazine into his pouch, the boy stared at the ground and muttered. With bloodshot eyes shining, dozens of infected were running toward the multi-tenant building to kill the boy.
Lowering the scope's magnification, the boy looked for the next target. He aimed at a girl infected wearing a tattered sailor uniform.
When he pulled the trigger, the fired bullet hit her upper arm. The thin arm, which took a direct hit from a powerful 7.62mm bullet, was torn off from the impact point and rolled onto the ground. However, the girl infected continued to run without even a sign of being in pain, while blood-mixed saliva dripped from the corner of her mouth.
The boy lowered his aim slightly and fired again. The leg extending from the edge of the torn skirt took a direct hit from the rifle bullet, and the flesh of the thigh burst away. Broken bone was visible from the wound, and the girl infected was still trying to run. However, there was nothing she could do with a broken leg; the fallen infected crawled on the ground with her one good arm, aiming for the apartment building where the boy was.
If it were a human, they would be screaming in agony and, far from being unable to move, would have lost consciousness from hemorrhagic shock. But the infected didn't have that. Unless you shot them through the head or pumped them with bullets until they became hamburger meat, they wouldn't stop moving.
The boy leaned over the railing and looked down. The infected that had reached the apartment entrance were being sucked one after another into the front entryway, whose door was broken. Several headed toward the direction of the emergency stairs, and immediately after, an explosion roared. They had tripped the hand grenade trap the boy had set.
However, there weren't many traps, and he hadn't set any inside the building. The door leading to the roof from inside the building was blocked, and on top of that, he had built a barricade with junk that had been on the roof, but how long would it hold against the monstrous strength of the infected?
Even the traps set on the emergency stairs would only serve as a way to buy time against infected who felt no fear. The infected would continue to move forward without their legs flinching, even if their comrades were blown away right in front of them. Booby traps are extremely effective at stopping humans with fear, but against mindless infected, they are only useful in terms of how many they can kill to reduce their numbers.
Still, the boy stayed on the roof and continued firing. Drawing them in until the last possible moment would also reduce the number of infected he would encounter when he descended to the ground. Perhaps because the infected remaining in this area had all rushed to the building after hearing the gunshots, the number of infected running on the surrounding roads had become quite small.
"It's about time."
It was the moment. The boy placed the assault rifle on the spot and tied one hand grenade in front of the emergency staircase entrance with a string. Then he took the rope he had tied to the handrail earlier and thrown outside. It would have been better if he had a harness, but since he obviously didn't, he used a carabiner through his belt as a substitute harness. Then, picking up the assault rifle, the boy leaned over the handrail and grabbed the rope.
It wasn't supposed to be a very tall building, but looking from above, it was quite a height. However, for the boy now, it was his only escape route. If the inside of the building was full of infected and the infected were coming up the emergency stairs, the only way to escape was outside.
Fortunately, there were no infected in the alley between the buildings. The infected who had come after hearing the gunshots would be desperately climbing the stairs right about now. They wouldn't even look at an empty alley.
Again, an explosion roared from the direction of the emergency stairs. The hand grenade set in the middle of the stairs had just exploded, so that was the last one. After that, only the one he had just set at the roof entrance remained.
The boy took a deep breath and gripped the rope. If he let go of the rope, he would fall straight to the ground at that moment. After pulling the rope hard to confirm there were no problems with its strength, the boy kicked off the edge of the roof and leaped into the air.
The rope swung like a pendulum, and the exterior wall approached before his eyes. The boy put strength into the hand he had loosened to descend and gripped the rope tightly. His gloves emitted heat from the friction. He made a large jump, and an impact like landing ran through his feet; the boy was standing vertically on the building's exterior wall.
The sky was visible before his eyes. His body swayed in the wind, but the boy, who held the rope firmly, managed to stay in place. He peeked inside the building through a window, but there were no infected within his visible range.
Immediately after he kicked the wall again and descended several meters, an explosion occurred overhead. It seemed the last hand grenade he had set before starting the descent with the rope had exploded, caught the swarming infected. A rain of blood fell from above, and from below, he could hear the dull sound of something heavy hitting the ground.
By now, the roof must be full of infected. Seeing that the boy who was certainly there just a moment ago was gone, what kind of faces would the infected be making?
Stopping such silly thoughts, the boy descended several more meters. If it were a human, they would surely think he had escaped below upon seeing the rope tied to the handrail, but the infected didn't have that much intelligence. They would be running around the roof with groans, continuing to search for the boy's figure.
He continued to slide down the wall, and finally, the boy landed on the ground. He immediately drew the suppressed handgun from his holster and kept watch on the surroundings. Since the homemade suppressor couldn't completely kill the gunshot, he didn't want to use the assault rifle if possible.
There were no infected in the alley, and although there were infected running on the street, none were paying attention to the alley. The boy moved while hiding in the shadows of haphazardly placed trash cans and bicycles and came out to the backstreet.
There were infected running in the backstreet too, but their destination was the building the boy had been in just a moment ago. Moreover, perhaps because most of the infected in the vicinity had gathered at that building earlier, there were only one or two infected running in the backstreet.
Hiding behind a car, the boy shot the leg of an infected that was about to pass in front of him from behind, and when it fell, he shot it in the head to finish it off. Holding the handgun as it was, he proceeded in the direction of the sports park set as the meeting point.
He intended to have memorized the surrounding terrain on the map before escaping the building, but even so, he had no sense of the land in a city he was visiting for the first time. He didn't have the leeway to take detours or hide in other buildings. If there were infected, he would take them down or pass them by as much as possible. He had no choice but to proceed that way.
This city, like the places he had seen so far, had traces of destruction left everywhere. However, the state of it was somehow different from being attacked by infected or destroyed in a panic. Cars were being burned in the middle of the road, and the shutters of jewelry stores were broken. These were traces of riots caused by humans before the infected attacked this city.
Even though it was said a pandemic had occurred, infected didn't appear all at once nationwide. Usually, the infection spread from cities with airports or large stations. In regional cities and the countryside, the infection spread much later.
This city likely had some leeway in time until the infected appeared. That's why people prioritized looting over escaping. Taking advantage of the fact that the police were busy dealing with the infected, they were acting lawlessly.
But the infected had spread to this city too—no, to all of Japan. Were the people who stole the jewels still alive now?
In front of a jewelry store, something was scattered, shining in the morning sun. When he cast his gaze to the ground while passing in front of the store, he saw that it was several jewels and rings set with diamonds.
They were likely items with prices equivalent to an ordinary salaryman's annual income. But for the boy now, jewels were nothing more than mere stones. A person strong in science might think of some useful way to use them in this situation, but what the boy needed now wasn't jewels that were just beautiful, but tools to take down even one more infected.
If this were a game, a suspicious merchant would appear and give me weapons in exchange for jewels. Thinking such a thing in a corner of his mind, the boy headed toward the sports park.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.