Chapter 76 - Chapter 74: A Story of Killing Even to Take Away
"This is bad..."
Six hours after it started snowing, the surroundings were already enveloped in darkness. On a road shrouded in darkness with no single light, the boy grips the steering wheel of the car while wearing night vision. However, the green-tinted vision through the night vision was now dyed pure white by the blowing snow.
The snow that started falling around noon increased in intensity as time passed. Along with that, the temperature also dropped sharply, and even though he has the heater running, the breath the boy exhales is white. Clumps of snow remain stuck to the side mirrors.
The wipers are moving incessantly to brush off the snow adhering to the windshield, but their movement is also becoming sluggish. Snow has accumulated under the window.
More than anything, the snow that started accumulating was making the movement of the car itself sluggish. Already the snow has accumulated to around the boy's ankles, dyeing the ground in a single color of white. Unfortunately, he couldn't find studless tires, and he has no time to change tires while the snow is blowing. He has been driving while wearing chains as a last resort, but situations where the tires spin in place because of the accumulated snow had also started to occur.
At this rate, maybe snow will accumulate up to around the knees. If that happens, he won't be able to move for several days. Now there is no administration that will remove snow if it accumulates, and there are no kind residents who will shovel snow. Once it snows, he must wait until it melts.
Even though he wore chains, if the snow accumulates enough to completely bury the tires, he can't drive anyway. Before that happens, the boy was driving the car toward the suburbs to find a safe place. But what spreads all around is a silver world. Even the road is now under the snow, and nothing can be seen on the left or right. Perhaps fields were spreading on the left and right of the road, as weeds growing thick are peeking their heads out from the snow.
If a building to take refuge in is not found, he will have to spend several days in this wagon while the snow is falling. If that happens, what awaits is freezing to death. If the muffler is covered with snow, he won't be able to start the engine, and if so, he won't be able to use the heater. With only blankets and heavy clothing, there was a limit to cold weather measures.
Before that happens, he wanted to find a building anywhere. But even if he spreads a map, all around is a rural area, and no private houses exist nearby. Even if they did, he would have to pass through narrow farm roads or paths between rice fields to get there, and the current boy didn't have the skill to drive a car in such a place. If he makes even a slight mistake in steering, he will fall into a rice field in an instant.
He thought for a moment whether he should have stayed in the city center, and immediately pushed that thought out of his head as a waste of time. Even if he regrets, the current situation won't change. Besides, even if he hides in some building in the city, there is a possibility that infected will enter buildings one after another to escape from the snow and they will bump into each other.
If he encounters an infected, it will be difficult to escape. Because he can't run, with his feet taken by the accumulated snow. The boy, who predicted that would happen at the point it started snowing and had left the city center, didn't know if that judgment was correct.
"Hm?"
While the snow was blowing, something like a hut was visible in the depths of his vision. Standing on the side of the road, it's a bus stop equipped with a roof and a bench, but the sign is rusted and tilted. In a place with only rice fields like this, were there any users?
But the fact that there is a bus stop means that at least there were people getting on and off. If so, there might be private houses or something nearby. The boy, who stopped the car on the side of the bus stop, covered the bulb part halfway with his hand so as not to leak light as much as possible, and illuminated the sign. No matter how much night vision he has, he can't read characters.
"Terminus: Sayuri Girls' Academy"
In the darkness, he could somehow read only those characters. But no building like a school is visible in the surroundings. Beyond the darkness, is that girls' academy in the forest spreading ahead whose outline he could somehow see?
When he spreads a map, in the forest at the end of the road, the map symbol for a high school, a '文' (T/N: Japanese map symbol for school) surrounded by a circle, is indeed drawn. It was so small he had overlooked it.
If the internet were available, he could have looked up that high school, but unfortunately, there is no information at all regarding that Sayuri Girls' Academy now. But if it's a school facility, at least a building should exist. Now he just wanted a place where he could avoid snow and wind. Furthermore, if it's in a forest, it's hard to be found by the infected.
There was no time to hesitate. There is no sign of the snow stopping, and it accumulates more and more even while standing still like this. Before the tires are buried and he becomes unable to move, he must take refuge somewhere.
The boy stepped on the accelerator and started driving the car again. The steering is becoming quite poor.
What was spreading beyond the rice fields was a vast forest. Already all around is completely enveloped in snow, and only the guardrails barely showing their heads from the snow indicate where the road is. The tires spun several times, and the boy prepared himself to either push the car or, in the worst case, abandon the car and go to that girls' academy by himself. At this rate, it wouldn't be strange if the car stopped moving at any time.
One road passed through the forest. While clumps of snow falling from branches and leaves hit the car, he proceeded along the winding road, and after several minutes had passed, a vast space suddenly spread in front of him. A magnificent school gate, and beside it, a large monument with the characters 'Sayuri Girls' Academy' carved on it are lined up. What is visible in the back are several large buildings that seem to be school buildings.
Why did they build a school in a forest like this? As far as seen from the outside, this school also seems to have a dormitory. Was it a school to educate young ladies in a place with few people so that bad bugs wouldn't attach? A so-called secret garden.
But it was helpful that there was a dormitory. At least, it means there are facilities enough to live. The boy, who got out of the car with a submachine gun in one hand to open the closed gate, sensed the presence of people at that moment.
Someone is in this school. His sixth sense, sharpened by over half a year of survival life, was telling him so. In a forest where it's hard to be found by the infected, and moreover, there is a dormitory which is a facility where one can live. It wouldn't be strange if there were predecessors.
In this case, he would have no choice but to bow his head honestly and have them allow his stay. If possible, he wanted to avoid useless conflict.
Although the boy has imposed a rule on himself to annihilate enemies who attacked him, conversely, it means if they don't attack, he won't resort to force either. On top of that, this time he is the side stepping into the territory of survivors, and the position is the opposite of usual. It's natural for the survivors to be vigilant.
Even though he laid hands on women and children, the boy prided himself that he was not a murderer. Murder is only when it's unavoidable. Other than that, he avoids combat as much as possible. He doesn't have enough leeway in weapons or physical strength to continue fighting.
If he can avoid a fight by bowing his head, it's easy. If the survivors in this school don't allow the boy's stay, he has no choice but to resort to force then. The car won't move, and if he walks around looking for other buildings in this cold, he will eventually exhaust his physical strength and freeze to death. If the stay is refused, then it's the turn of the guns.
When something is demanded in exchange for the stay, it will also become a fight depending on the case. To survive, he can't have enough supplies, yet he has no leeway at all to share them with others. There is a poem saying "If we snatch from each other, it's not enough; if we share, there's a surplus," but now even if we share, supplies are not enough. If you want to survive, you must obtain supplies even by snatching from each other.
Especially guns cannot be handed over. It's fully conceivable that the moment they are handed over, the muzzle will be pointed here. If the opponent demands to hand over the guns, he intends to resort to force without question.
The boy, who also took a sawed-off shotgun and an M1A rifle, observed the building that seemed to be a student dormitory through the rifle scope. All the windows of the three-story building have their curtains closed, and the state inside cannot be gathered. However, the boy didn't miss that for just a moment, the curtain of a room on the top floor swayed. Apparently, the other side is also observing him.
The entrance of the building is dark and not well visible, but he could confirm that a barricade was built beyond the glass-walled entrance hall. In front of the entrance hall, footprints remain in the accumulated snow. It's certain that someone went in and out just a moment ago. Survivors are definitely inside the dormitory.
The rest depended on the other side's move. The survivors in the dormitory would surely have recognized the boy's existence. And even if the boy comes seeking a stay, they can't play dead.
Will they allow the stay, or will they launch a preemptive strike thinking they should do it before being done in? The boy was hoping deep in his heart that it would be the latter. If they launch a preemptive strike first, then he can annihilate the survivors categorized as "enemies" without reservation and secure safety. If he does so, he can continue to stay in this safe place without anxiety about having his throat slit while sleeping.
If the survivors were exclusive and had guns, he would have been shot by now. But they haven't fired yet. Do they not have guns, or are they withholding judgment even if they have them? Or are the survivors friendly?
But even if the survivors welcomed him friendly, the boy didn't have even a shred of intention to believe them. When he went to a certain village before, the survivors who welcomed him friendly were plotting behind the scenes and he almost became food for the infected. There is no one to rely on, no comrades to believe in. Not relying on anyone, not believing anyone, that was the reason the boy was able to survive even after losing his comrades.
It should be about time a conclusion was reached inside the dormitory on how to respond. Come if you're coming, the boy was floating a smile, with the corners of his mouth turning up without realizing it. His own survival is prioritized over anything else, even if it's the lives of others. That was the basic item of the rules the boy established.