Chapter 221 - A Story of 'Stealing My Eye'
The boy leveled the rifle in his hand and aimed at the infected approaching within a distance of dozens of meters. The swarm of infected was forming several small groups of five to ten, and the boy aimed at the lead group.
Overlapping the red dot of the optical sight he had attached onto the infected's head, he pulled the trigger. At this close range, it was conversely harder to miss. Normally he might have fallen into a slight panic, but for some reason, he was able to approach the shooting with a strange calmness now.
After shooting down four infected, the boy checked the intersection behind him. To ensure the infected didn't head toward Sato, Aki, and the others who were heading toward the bridge, he had to flee only after drawing them in to the limit. After shooting about three more infected, the boy started running toward the intersection. The infected followed after him while letting out roars.
When the boy turned the intersection, the infected also followed after him. With this, for the time being, the target had moved from Sato and the others to the boy. The boy shot several more approaching infected and took a pipe bomb from his pouch. It was a handmade bomb, only one of its kind and far inferior in power to a hand grenade, but it would make a flashy sound. It was an ideal tool for attracting the attention of the infected.
Once the swarm of infected showed themselves by crossing the intersection in a line, the boy lit the fuse extending from the tip of the iron pipe with the lighter he had kept in his pocket. And then he threw the pipe bomb with all his might and started running in the exact opposite direction of where he threw it. The pipe bomb the boy threw fell into the middle of the swarm of infected and exploded after a few seconds.
In addition to iron fragments, nails and bolts that had been packed to improve lethality were scattered, tearing through the bodies of the infected. The infected at the center of the explosion fell one after another, but that was all. A handmade bomb using black powder doesn't have that much lethality. Some of the infected who took fragments had limbs nearly severed, but they were still moving.
However, the large explosion sound thundered throughout the Reclaimed Land. With this, this time for sure, the infected would head toward the boy.
In the gap while the infected's movements were dulled by the explosion, the boy exchanged the empty magazine of his rifle. It was the last one he had received from Sato. He inserted the magazine and pulled the bolt handle to chamber the first round in the chamber. Once he shot this up, all that would remain were a few handgun rounds, a knife, an axe, and a dagger.
The boy started running again. Sato and the others were no longer visible, and as a time-saver, it was sufficient. The objective was to draw the infected away from Sato and the others, but that said, it would be a problem to be left behind. He needed to aim for the bridge at the timing when Sato and the others reached it.
He was chased by the groans and roars heard from behind, turning at every intersection he encountered, gradually approaching the bridge. But while running, the roars of the infected began to be heard not just from behind, but also from the sides. It seemed the infected who had remained inside the luxury liner that had run aground on the coast were reaching the boy's location.
Rough breathing, countless footsteps, and roars were heard from behind, but he tried not to look back. He didn't want to think about how many dozens of infected he was currently drawing with him. There might even be hundreds. He didn't have the weapons or strength left to defeat that many infected.
The boy ran past the front of the warehouses standing on the coast. The warehouses here were used by the survivors of the Reclaimed Land as intermediate storage facilities for supplies brought from the land side. Inside, in addition to machinery and resources such as timber, fuel and gas were also stockpiled.
Most of the gasoline found on land had progressed in deterioration and was unsuitable for moving cars. Even so, it could still be used to move generators with simple structures, and propane gas was indispensable for hot water and cooking. That was how the fuels were gathered, but they were stockpiled in the coastal warehouses away from the living base in anticipation of a potential accident.
The boy tried to remember if there was anything useful inside while looking at the stockpile warehouses, but at most there would be logs. He wasn't a person from a manga world who could swing such things around. He also considered setting fire to the infected, but being eaten while preparing was the likely outcome. Since weapons and ammunition were stored collectively in the shopping mall, no weapons that seemed useful remained in this warehouse.
In a movie, a hero or the cavalry would come to help at a time like this, but unfortunately, there was no existence that seemed like it would help the boy anywhere. That's why the boy had no choice but to flee. But because he had been running and fighting all this time, his body had already reached its limit. Every single joint pained, constant rough breaths leaked from his open mouth, and every cell in his body was making his heart pulse as if it would burst to get more oxygen. He was in a state more like fast walking than running, but even so, the boy did not stop his feet.
He looked back and pulled the trigger of his rifle toward a small group of approaching infected. After counting seven shots, the bolt handle protruding on the left side remained retracted and stopped moving. Finally, the rifle was out of ammunition.
A gun that can't shoot is just an iron stick, and he didn't have the physical strength left to run while holding a 3.5-kilogram weight. The boy placed the empty rifle on the spot and instead pulled a dagger from the sheath hung on his back. It was a masterpiece made from the leaf spring of a broken truck, an item that could easily slice through human limbs if swung with momentum.
But the reach was too different between a gun and a dagger. Now that almost no physical strength remained, facing a grappling battle with the infected was as good as a suicidal act.
The boy swung the dagger horizontally toward a single approaching infected. The tip of the blade sliced through the infected's throat, and bright red blood sprayed out like a fountain. From the gash sliced wide open, a hose-like organ and the cross-sections of several blood vessels could be seen. Whether they were shouting, the infected, while opening and closing their mouth which was no longer connected to the lungs, still tried to approach the boy. Kicking that body away, the boy started running toward the bridge again.
I wonder if Aki and the others were able to cross the bridge safely. I wonder if the state of Sato's injury is okay. I wonder if the other residents who evacuated earlier were able to reach the safe house safely. I wonder what will happen to us from now on...
For just an instant, he thought of unnecessary things. In the instant the boy's attention slackened as he thought of his comrades' whereabouts, as if having gauged that gap, something jumped out from the side of the intersection the boy was just about to cross. Before he could react to the sudden event, the boy's body was forcefully blown away in the next moment.
What had conducted a charge from the side into the boy's body, which was wide open due to lack of attention, was an infected girl about the same age as the boy. Apparently an infected who had been on the passenger ship, the infected girl with slightly brownish Southeast Asian skin sat astride the boy's body after he fell from the surprise attack.
Pinned down by both shoulders while fallen, the infected with its mouth wide open brought its face close. I'm going to be bitten. Realizing that, the boy desperately grabbed the infected's throat from below and tried to push it away. Just as the boy tried to push the infected's face away, half of his vision suddenly went pitch black.
What attacked next was a fierce, intense pain. At the same time, a disgusting sensation of something wriggling inside his left eye, which had become blind. He realized the infected's finger had been thrust into his eye socket because he felt the sensation of a thick, hot, viscous fluid—instead of tears—trailing down his cheek.
"Aaaaaagh!" the boy let out a weak scream. He couldn't see out of his left eye. His eye hurt. He was about to fall into a panic, and the strength of his hands grabbing the infected's neck was about to loosen. But he caught the infected who had brought its face close in the vision remaining only on the right, and mobilizing the calmness pushed to the back of his mind, he put strength into both hands again.
I can't flinch here. The boy, who rebuked himself with the slight reason remaining, let go of his right hand pinning the girl infected and reached toward his own thigh. Because the pinning strength was halved, the infected sitting astride him brought its face even closer to the boy's neck, but in that instant's gap, the boy had pulled a knife from the sheath wrapped around his thigh.
And then he thrust the knife into the head of the infected before him from the side. The knife, which could easily pierce even a thin iron plate, easily penetrated the skull, and the infected sitting astride the boy gave its body a single large convulsion. Strength left the body that had been pinning the boy to the ground, and the boy pushed away the infected girl who had a knife handle growing from her head.
At the same time the infected collapsed powerlessly to the ground, the fingertip that had been thrust into the boy's left eye was also pulled out with it. Intense pain running again, and the left vision that didn't recover even after the finger was pulled out. Apparently the eyeball itself had been crushed. The boy was about to despair at his vision, which had become half. When he somehow stood up, he could see with his right eye blood and a thick, translucent viscous fluid mixing and dripping onto the ground from his left eye, trailing down his cheek.
But the footsteps of the approaching infected brought the boy back to reality. Because he had taken time in the fight with the infected girl, the distance with the swarm had shortened again. He had lost sight in his left eye, but the right eye remained and his limbs moved. He hadn't been bitten yet either.
If that's the case, there's no reason to stand still here. I have to go to everyone's place quickly. I have to leave this Reclaimed Land quickly. I have to flee quickly. Pressing one hand against his left eye, which throbbed with pain and from which blood flowed and which could no longer see, the boy staggered toward the bridge. Mobilizing the physical strength that almost no longer remained and the willpower that was about to wither due to losing his left eye, he simply continued to move his feet.
Waiting for your opinions and impressions.