Chapter 41 - Chapter 39: A Deep and Dark Tale
The moment the young man stepped out of the forest, I began to move as well. I started walking toward the south side of the village, the exact opposite direction of where he had gone. According to the map, the bunker where I had been held until just now was on the north side of the village, diametrically opposed to the south side where the government office was located.
The village was surrounded on all four sides by mountains. Although the elevation of the mountains was low, the slopes appeared steep; for someone like me, who was neither a mountaineer nor a rock climber, they seemed impossible to cross. Besides, attempting a mountain crossing on foot without any preparation would be nothing short of suicide.
That said, any place where a human could pass would surely be watched by the guards. As for how to escape after meeting up with Naomi-san and the others, I would have to play it by ear.
The village in the basin was shaped like a distorted circle, and a road supposedly ran around the perimeter. However, the path in front of me was unpaved, with gravel exposed. It didn't seem like many people passed through this area, but negligence was forbidden.
Gripping the tomahawk in my right hand and with a hunting knife hanging from my waist, I pushed through the forest. The sun had already dipped quite low, and the interior of the densely wooded forest was dim. A flashlight had been included in the equipment the young man brought me, but I couldn't afford to use it now. If something were shining in a forest where no one was supposed to be, even if the guards' eyes were as useless as knotholes, they would realize I was here.
About ten-odd minutes after parting with the young man, I found something gleaming in the forest. Upon closer inspection, it was wire and barbed wire, strung between the trees as if to create a wall within the woods. If I had proceeded without noticing, I might have ended up with my entire body sliced to ribbons.
It was likely intended to prevent the infected from intruding. With a military tomahawk that could easily smash through doors or barricades, I could have cut it in a single stroke, but I stopped. There was a chance that sensor wires—the kind that trigger an alarm if cut—were mixed in, and the fact that anti-intrusion wires were strung meant there might be infected on the other side. It wouldn't be funny if the story ended with me being eaten by the infected before I could even escape.
That said, continuing along the wire like this was also difficult. Yamato would likely consider the possibility that I might try to escape the village this way. For Yamato, it wasn't desirable for the infected's fodder to run away, and as the young man had said, he would want to prevent me from telling the outside world about the reality of this village.
In other words, they would try to block my escape at all costs. If so, they would be watching the village boundaries. If I kept going like this, there was a possibility I would eventually run headlong into a patrolling guard.
Fortunately, there were bushes on the other side of the road as well. They were smaller in scale compared to the forest I was currently in, just enough for a single person to somehow hide their body. But since they grew to about the height of a person, I should be fine hiding there alone. I agonized over whether or not to cross the road, but I steeled my resolve and decided to move.
I poked my head slightly out of the forest and checked for any human figures to the left or right of the road. Confirming that nothing moving was in sight, I sprinted across and dove into the bushes on the opposite side of the road.
Beyond the bushes, which were a few meters wide, lay a wasteland that appeared to be abandoned farmland. And further south of that were houses. If I continued walking straight south, I would reach the government office soon, but if I walked across a wasteland with no obstacles, I would be spotted in an instant. Even if it took time, I had to proceed while staying hidden.
And I would soon learn that this was the correct choice. As I walked slowly through the annoying brush, trying not to make a sound, I heard the sound of a car engine from behind.
I hurriedly went prone on the spot and watched the road through the gaps in the trees. The engine sound grew louder, and then the area was brightly illuminated. It wasn't the red flame of a torch; it was a car's headlights.
The vehicle driving along the gravel road was a single light truck. Perhaps it had been used for farm work for many years, as red rust was blooming all over the body and the area around the tires was caked in mud. However, what was riding in the truck bed wasn't harvested vegetables or farm tools, but several men.
They were likely guards. It was very difficult to peek at them through the gaps in the brush, but even so, I could clearly see that they were holding rifles and shotguns in their hands. Apparently, they hadn't noticed me, as the truck carrying the guards drove off toward the south.
I couldn't afford to simply feel relieved that I hadn't been found. They were headed south, and I was also currently heading south. In other words, at this rate, we would definitely run into each other somewhere. It was only a matter of whether the encounter happened sooner or later. Yamato was likely convinced that I was still inside the village and intended to block my path in advance.
"Dammit..."
I cursed under my breath. This increased the possibility that I would have to fight the guards ahead. Although I had been prepared for combat from the start, as someone who wanted to avoid it as much as possible, the current situation was nothing but the worst.
But well, I only had one choice: to keep moving forward. Running away or surrendering was not an option. Whether it was a human or an infected standing in my way, I had decided to break through even if I had to kill them. Besides, I had already been nearly killed by Yamato and his people; it wouldn't be a crime for me to kill them back.
Hiding and moving was my specialty; even when playing hide-and-seek, there were many times I was left behind in the park because no one could find me. However, the current situation was different from hide-and-seek. If I were found, I would either be killed or, even if I didn't die on the spot, I would be taken to that bunker and turned into fodder for the infected. Furthermore, while it was just me hiding, there were many "seekers." It was extreme hide-and-seek where being found meant death.
As I walked through the brush again, two human figures appeared on the road ahead. I crouched down, took my binoculars out of my backpack, and observed the figures through the gaps in the thick branches and leaves. The surroundings were dim because the sun had set considerably, but the area around them alone was bright. This was because one of them was holding up a lit torch.
The visibility was terrible, but it was still clear that they were guards. Both were holding crossbows. They didn't seem to have firearms, but with no ranged weapons of my own, my chances of winning were slim.
However, I couldn't turn back now, nor could I jump back into the forest on the other side of the road or sprint across the wasteland to the south. The pair was watching the road and its surroundings; if I were to leap out of the bushes, I might be spotted instantly. It would probably be impossible to sneak past them by continuing through the bushes at the side of the road. No matter how you looked at it, their eyes couldn't be that useless. Realizing I didn't have the luxury of turning back to find a new route, I knew I was destined to fight them.
But fortunately, what they were carrying were crossbows. If they were guns, I would be turned into a honeycomb the moment I was spotted. However, with crossbows that required a bolt to be nocked after every shot, I still had a chance. Furthermore, crossbows had a shorter range than guns. Even if I were found, I shouldn't end up being shot at unilaterally from a long distance.
The distance was about 100 meters; even a crossbow could reach that range if fired in an arc ignoring aim, but it would almost certainly miss. A crossbow could only be aimed precisely up to about 50 meters.
I crouched and moved forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. I also paid attention to my feet, being careful not to step on fallen branches. If I were found, it would be over right then; they would call for reinforcements, I'd be surrounded, and it would be the end.
Thanks to living surrounded by the infected for a long time and being unable to light lamps even at night, my night vision had become quite sharp. Even without using a light, I could generally see the state of the ground at my feet. On the other hand, the pair of guards seemed to have lived a life relying on light until now, as they were looking around anxiously while holding up their torch. Because electricity could be used in this village, lights were lit even at night in important places like the government office, and bonfires were burning here and there. Because they were accustomed to such bright environments, they were afraid of this place without streetlights.
I couldn't help but smirk. I had no home-field advantage, and no ranged weapons. But I had the senses I had honed over these past few months and my close-quarters combat skills. If I used those, I might be able to take them down even if there were two of them armed with crossbows.
It took more than ten seconds to move a single meter, but thanks to that, I was able to close in to a distance of about 30 meters from the pair without making a sound. Now was the time to utilize the fighting style I had cultivated against the infected.
Whether the opponent was an infected or a human, when fighting, you take on only one person at a time. I didn't have a weapon powerful enough to be greedy and try to take down two people at once.
Therefore, first, I had to separate the pair. From what I could see, one of the two didn't seem to be a professional guard. Since the young man had said my crossbow had been requisitioned, perhaps they had distributed weapons to the residents and armed them to participate in the search for us escapees.
Of the pair, the younger one had been fidgety for a while. He was likely unaccustomed to such situations and must have had little experience carrying a weapon. Probably he was an amateur, and the other man in his mid-30s, who was relatively calm, was a professional guard. I had seen his face among the guards going out on patrol when I went to the government office to get rations.
The two seemed to have been tasked with blocking the road, as there was no sign of them leaving the spot. It was also impossible to sneak past them. Looking closely, the bushes seemed to thin out right around where the pair was standing, and I could see the scenery beyond clearly. If I kept going, I would walk right out of the bushes and be spotted by them.
As expected, a fight seemed unavoidable. I wouldn't be able to survive from here on just by running around. I had thought the day might come when I would take up arms against a human, but I hadn't expected it to be this soon.
But I would not hesitate. No matter if the opponent wasn't a professional combatant, if they were a member of a group trying to harm me, I would simply eliminate them.
Taking a pebble I had picked up on the way here out of my pocket, I threw it underhand from a crouching position. The pebble flew over the heads of the pair in a large arc and fell into the forest, making a noise.
In the forest, which was filled only with the chirping of cicadas and insects, the sound of the pebble falling echoed surprisingly loudly. The sound must have reached the pair as well; they simultaneously turned toward the forest on the opposite side of the bushes where I was.
"W-What was that?"
In this darkness, and since the pebble had flown over their heads and fallen into the forest, they didn't seem to know the source of the noise. The guard calmed the younger man, who was frantically swinging his crossbow toward the forest. Since a clearly artificial sound had rung out in this situation, they would surely think something was in the forest.
My plan seemed to have worked; the guard thrust the torch he was holding at the younger man and illuminated the forest with the flashlight he held. However, blocked by the trees, the light didn't reach deep, and I saw the circle of the flashlight's beam being pointed all over the place.
"What the hell was that sound just now!"
"Calm down. I'll go check it out, so you stay here and watch the road. If he comes, let me know with a loud voice."
"What if he attacks!"
"It's fine, he only has bladed weapons. It seems Old man Matsuda was killed earlier, but even if he took a weapon from him, it's just an axe at most. It's no match for a bowgun."
"Matsuda-san..."
Leaving the younger man speechless, the guard entered the forest with his flashlight and crossbow at the ready. So the old man the young man killed earlier was named Matsuda; it was a trivial matter now, though.
Leaving behind a line that would have made him a corpse in the next scene of a horror movie, the guard disappeared beyond the trees. However, that expression wasn't wrong; I was about to turn them into corpses.
The moment the guard disappeared, I took action. I threw another pebble I had picked up, this time so it would fall behind the man on the other side of the road. A few seconds later, a small, dry sound of stone hitting stone was heard, and the man turned that way, letting out a cry like a scream, "What was that!?"
Now his back was wide open. Without a moment's delay, I leaped out of the bushes with the tomahawk in hand and sprinted toward the man with all my might. The man was still looking around where the stone had fallen, but he must have noticed the footsteps approaching from behind. His eyes widened in shock as he turned back around.
By then, the distance between me and the man had closed to nearly 10 meters. The man was about to ready the crossbow he held, but I was faster in swinging back the tomahawk and throwing it at him.
The lightweight, compact tomahawk spun through the air and flew toward the man as if being sucked in. A moment later, a thudding sound like a slab of meat being slammed onto a cutting board echoed, the strength left the man's body, and he fell onto his back.
The tomahawk I threw had buried itself right in the center of the man's forehead. The thought that it looked like a bar of chocolate stuck in a cake bubbled up, but for some reason, neither regret nor pity surfaced in my heart. There was only a strange sense of accomplishment, the same as when I had defeated the infected, of having removed an obstacle in front of me.
It was surprising, as I had thought that if I killed a person, I would regret it and suffer from the memory later on. Was I perhaps a psychopath who felt nothing even after killing a human? Or had my heart already broken somewhere since that day I killed my mother with my own hands?
But now wasn't the time to be thinking about such things. I pried the crossbow from the hand of the man, who was still convulsing, and realized it was the one that had been confiscated when I came to this village. This type of crossbow, with pulleys attached to both ends of the bow to make the string easier to pull, was originally ours, and the young man who brought the weapons had said it was requisitioned by the guards. I never thought I would hold it in my hands again in this manner, but this crossbow felt just as familiar in my grip as the tomahawk.
"I'm taking this back."
I said it, but the words likely wouldn't reach the ears of the man lying on the ground anymore. When I gripped the handle of the tomahawk stuck in his forehead and lifted it, the man's head came up with it, and after a while, it fell back to the ground, pulled by gravity. The pink, squishy thing on the blade was, almost certainly, a piece of brain.
I flicked the tomahawk to clear the blood and tucked it into the holder on my belt. Confirming that a bolt was still loaded in the crossbow, I followed the guard into the forest.
The guard was found easily. The guard, who was searching around where the noise had come from with a flashlight in one hand, didn't notice even when I stood behind him.
I silently aimed the crossbow at his wide-open back. Peering through the cylindrical dot sight mounted on top of the grip, I overlapped the red dot reflected in the lens with the man's left chest.
With just a little pressure from my fingertip, the bolt was launched effortlessly, and the man, his heart pierced from behind, fell without letting out a single sound. He probably died instantly. Even if he hadn't, he would die soon.
As before, not a shred of guilt surfaced. After all, he was a comrade of the people who tried to kill me. Christ supposedly said to turn the other cheek if struck on the right, but if I'm punched on the right cheek, I'll drive a right straight into the opponent's face. If they do it to me, I'll do it back—double the payback.
I searched the body of the guard, who had changed from a person to an object, to see if there was anything useful. I stripped the cylindrical holder bag containing several bolts from the guard's body, and since the crossbow the man held was also loaded with a bolt, I recovered that as well. I debated whether to take the weapon itself, but decided against it as carrying two of the same weapon would just be bulky and heavy.
"What's this?"
Tucked into the guard's belt was a cylindrical object about the size of a baton used in a track meet. I covered the bulb part with my hand so no extra light would leak and shone my flashlight on it; "Signal Flare" was written in large letters on the red cylinder.
It was likely an emergency signal flare equipped on boats to guide rescue teams when lost. I had seen one of these once before when I was acting alone. I happened to hide in a shop that handled fishing gear, and it was among the emergency supplies. If the police or JSDF were still functioning, I could have used it to call for rescue, but using it then would have only told the infected my location. It didn't seem to have a use and I didn't have room in my luggage, so in the end, I left the shop without firing the flare.
I hesitated, but decided to take the signal flare. Perhaps it could be used to signal my location when meeting up with Naomi-san and the others. I also found a flashlight and a lighter on the man's corpse and stuffed them into my pockets.
The guard was also carrying a transceiver, the kind that looked like it might be sold at a home center. With this, I might be able to contact the young man, and it might be useful for knowing the enemy's movements. Of course, I took it.
After transferring everything useful from the guard's corpse to my backpack and pockets, I left the corpse as it was and returned to the road. I recovered anything useful from the man's corpse left on the road as well, extinguished the fire of the torch that had fallen on the ground, and dragged the corpse into the bushes.
With this, no one would notice they were dead for a while. However, since they might be making regular reports via radio, or someone else might contact them, hiding the bodies might only buy a little time. Once they realize there's no response on the radio, the enemy will surely realize the two are dead.
How far I can penetrate into the village by then, and whether I can find Naomi-san and the others' location. From here on will be the truly difficult part. Although I've regained a ranged weapon by taking back the crossbow, there are still many enemies. Above all, there are swarms of people armed with guns.
But there's no turning back now. There's no place to run, and I can't leave Naomi-san and the others behind. Whether it's a human or an infected standing in my way, I'll break through even if I have to kill them—I should have already decided that. I had to keep moving forward.