Chapter 210 - Castaway-ish Story
Men holding JSDF automatic rifles or police submachine guns went up the stairs of the apartment without making a sound. The boy standing at the front also held his rifle without negligence and prepared for a surprise attack from the shadows.
Eventually, the group that reached the top floor stopped in front of one of the rooms whose front door was left open. When the boy raised his right hand, the group clung to the walls on the left and right of the entrance and held the rifles in their hands.
After confirming that the preparations of those following behind were complete, the boy swung his right hand and broke into the room holding his rifle. Several people followed after that, and the person at the very end stepped into the entrance while being on guard behind.
Different from when they were going up the stairs, the boys, whose footsteps were also rough, checked all the rooms in the apartment unit. The boy broke into the room closest to the entrance. He kicked open the closed wooden door and stepped inside. In the center of the children's room where a study desk, bed, and chest of drawers were placed, a single figure was standing.
The moment he saw it, the boy pulled the trigger of the rifle he held without hesitation. What echoed instead of a gunshot was a motor sound and the sound of a small amount of compressed air leaking, and what jumped out of the muzzle was a small BB bullet.
The fired BB bullet opened small holes in the head and chest of the human-shaped target paper placed in the center of the room. Along with the small sound of the BB bullet hitting the wall and falling to the ground, voices of "Clear!" were heard from all over the apartment.
What the boys were doing was building suppression training. The purpose of this training is to break into and suppress buildings where infected or hostile survivors are thought to be and secure safety.
However, they couldn't train using live ammunition. Ammunition is only what is currently on hand. Also, it's not good to make gunshots echo recklessly. The training was using an apartment in the Reclaimed Land that was vacant because the owner had evacuated, and although safety around the Reclaimed Land is secured, it was dangerous to make gunshots thunder.
Therefore, the boys were using airsoft guns they found at a hobby shop outside the Reclaimed Land to conduct close-quarters combat training day and night. According to Sato, airsoft guns are also used in training in the JSDF. It's easy to manage because they don't use live ammunition or blanks, and it doesn't hurt even if the bullet hits. If it were a real gun, even a rubber bullet for training could cause a fracture or at worst death if it hit a bad spot.
BB bullets have different bullet speeds and trajectories from live ammunition, but there was no problem using them for training at close range. The defense force of the Reclaimed Land used airsoft guns procured from outside to repeat training assuming infected or rioters day and night.
The situation lately could be said to be extremely smooth. Not a single intrusion of infected into the Reclaimed Land has been reported, and not a single person has died. They are also proceeding with the exploration of the city area based at the forward base, which was a remodeled police station, and the collection of supplies is also being carried out without problems.
After the training ended, the boys who returned the airsoft guns they used to the designated place scattered to perform their assigned jobs. Those who have monitoring or sentry duty after this go to the bridge leading to the outside of the Reclaimed Land, and those who don't have a job go to the shopping mall, which is the residential area. The boy has the job of remodeling vehicles that will be the means of transport from the Reclaimed Land, so he went to the bridge with those who perform monitoring.
Originally, there weren't many bridges connecting the Reclaimed Land under development and the land, and those bridges were also blown up by Sato's hand except for one to prevent the intrusion of infected. A barricade was built on the remaining one to prevent intrusion from the outside.
However, that would make movement with the land inconvenient, so another one that was built was a drawbridge. The bridge made of materials from a construction site was one where winches were installed on the land and the Reclaimed Land respectively, and the bridge was connected by extending wires. With this, intrusion can be prevented if the bridge girder on either the land or the Reclaimed Land is raised, and in the unlikely event that infected enter the Reclaimed Land and they escape to the land side, pursuit can be prevented if the bridge girder on the land side is raised.
On the land side, armored buses for escape were also prepared assuming a worst-case scenario. The city buses, whose window glass was blocked with iron plates or wire mesh and whose seats were removed to create a living space, are prepared in a number that all the survivors of the Reclaimed Land can ride.
Everything was going well. Including the fact that supplies are only decreasing, everything was proceeding as planned. So far, no one has died of illness or starvation. Combat training has been effective, and no one has been killed by the infected. Because food and the like are secured for now, there is no stress accumulating due to lack of supplies and no quarrels between survivors.
Everything is going well. But the boy always felt an anxiety that something terrible might happen in the future. If something is going well, something bad will happen after that. It's a common thing.
Speaking of anxiety, there was no sign of rescue or aid coming from anywhere as usual. Occasionally there was an opportunity to communicate with those surviving in various parts of Japan by amateur radio, but he has never communicated with a unit of the police or JSDF. There were police officers and JSDF members whose units were destroyed and scattered, but everyone was in a situation where they were desperate to survive themselves and had no leeway to rescue others. Even in a group, it was about 5 people, and it couldn't be called a well-regulated unit at all.
Strangely, communication is possible only in the range from Kanto to the west, and communication with survivors in the Tohoku region or Hokkaido has not been possible at all. Since it was reported that infected had appeared in urban areas in the Tohoku region and Hokkaido, they might have suffered great damage, but it's unlikely that there isn't a single survivor. Yet no one responds even if we call out from here, which was very eerie. It's as if someone is intentionally blocking the radio waves.
But whether there are survivors in the Tohoku region or not, the current boys cannot go that far. Major arterial roads were either blocked by the JSDF or the like or almost blocked by accidents caused by panic at the time of evacuation, and it's not realistic to aim for hundreds of kilometers away without knowing a safe route. There is also a high possibility of being attacked by infected or rioters.
Therefore, the survivors of the Reclaimed Land could not move from here. They no longer count on help and survive by somehow creating a safe zone themselves. That was the only way.
After finishing the combat training, the boy returned the airsoft gun he used and crossed the bridge to head for the land. Although the safe zone on the land side secured by the survivors of the Reclaimed Land is also gradually increasing its area, if the boundary line with the outside increases, the risk of being invaded also increases. Although they are responding by increasing patrols and barricades, further expansion of the safe zone is difficult.
The bridge built by combining crane winches and iron plates is not suitable for the passage of heavy objects, and maintenance and storage of vehicles are mostly carried out on the land side. In a corner of a building that was originally a warehouse, remodeling work on a new vehicle was currently in progress.
Men who used to have experience in automobile maintenance or metalworking are attached to an SUV and are stripping off the interior one after another. Until now, they had used passenger cars as they were when going out for supply procurement and the like, but since it was dangerous, it was decided to manufacture a new combat vehicle. This vehicle is also planned to be used as an escort vehicle for the survivors in the unlikely event of abandoning the Reclaimed Land, and remodeling work to apply armament and armor is being carried out.
The interior unrelated to the vehicle's function was removed leaving the minimum for weight reduction, and a roll cage to improve the strength of the vehicle body was bolted inside the car. This is to prevent the roof from being crushed even if the vehicle is overturned by infected or the like. Furthermore, after removing the sunroof of the roof, the strength of the opening was increased and a machine gun was installed.
The only JSDF armored vehicle is a precious fighting force that can even bounce off rifle bullets, but because it's for military use, the engine sound is bad and the fuel consumption is also bad, and furthermore, the riding comfort is the worst. Since it's also huge, it's unsuitable for driving around the town normally, and several such vehicles were manufactured under Sato's command and are already used as a means of transport between the Reclaimed Land and the forward base, the police station.
Today's job for the boy was the remodeling work of this vehicle. Under the instruction of a middle-aged man who said he used to be an automobile engineer, he bolts wire mesh for preventing the intrusion of infected to the car windows and installs a rack for loading luggage on the roof.
"I wonder if there's an opportunity to use this car."
Next to the boy who was bolting the rack to the holes previously opened in the roof and applying sealant so that rainwater wouldn't enter the car, the workers were exchanging words.
"Even now it's safe, why is there a need to go anywhere?"
"Well, certainly, lately I don't hear the groans of infected or gunshots..."
"If we continue living here like this, won't the infected eventually be wiped out first?"
"In the first place, we don't even know if there's a safer place than here elsewhere."
He understands what they are trying to say. It's natural to think of a worst-case scenario, but isn't the current preparation overkill?
There is already almost no threat around the Reclaimed Land. The Brotherhood that was threatening the lives of the survivors was destroyed long ago, and those who survived fled or surrendered. The elimination of infected around the Reclaimed Land is also mostly complete, and they are able to keep a distance from the infected to a level where they aren't noticed by the noise of living normally. With reports from monitoring posts set up in various places, even if a hostile group comes, it's possible to deal with them before they approach the Reclaimed Land.
Yet what more are they supposed to prepare for? As the worker said, currently this is the safest place the boy knows. Is a situation where they have to abandon it going to come?
No one can object under the pretext of preparing for a worst-case scenario, but there are people who are inwardly dissatisfied with Sato's current stance. In the Reclaimed Land, things are decided by a consensus system of survivors, but among them, Sato was the most influential person.
He is a member of a JSDF special forces unit, has the achievement of destroying the Brotherhood that was threatening the lives of survivors, and furthermore, he is also demonstrating his skill in collecting supplies and guarding the Reclaimed Land. If such a Sato proposes preparation for an emergency, no one can openly object, and preparations are proceeding as Sato planned.
But the opinion that those resources should be used for other things was also reasonable. Movable vehicles, fuel, and supplies cannot be used without limit. If they are going to make buses for escape, shouldn't those materials be used for maintaining the base? Such opinions are also raised by some. Evacuation drills are also being conducted, but that's also hard work physically for children and the elderly.
Preparation prevents sorrow. But even if you prepare too much, it means nothing if it's not used. Now is not an environment where people and things can be wasted.
"If you have time to move your mouth, move your hands!"
The engineer acting as supervisor shouted, and the workers closed their mouths and moved their hands silently. The boy also looked at them sideways and wondered if a situation where they had to discard this Reclaimed Land would come.
After finishing the vehicle remodeling work and crossing the bridge to return to the Reclaimed Land, several men were gathered at the quay and were peeking at the sea surface for some reason.
"Did something happen?"
"It's flotsam again."
"Again" was because something had been washing up on the coast of the Reclaimed Land lately. Previously, a large number of corpses were drifting, but now empty lifeboats, life jackets, clothes, and fragments thought to be part of a ship are being pounded against the quay by the waves. Even now, men were pulling up logs bundled with wire onto the quay using a rope with a hook.
"I wonder what this is."
"Isn't it part of a raft?"
Among the flotsam, there are some that seem usable, but most are useless trash. Even so, if they were left alone, they would get in the way of fishing for food procurement, so they are forced to remove them one by one like this.
"If anything, I wish food and the like would wash up in large quantities."
No doubt, the boy thought. At the same time, he also felt a slight anxiety that it would be good if nothing bad washed up.
I'm waiting for your opinions and impressions.