Chapter 88 - The Story of the Trial Run
Aki felt that the outside world, which she was seeing for the first time in nine months—given that opportunities to go out weren't many to begin with, and the area where the academy was located was already depopulated—was a desolate one. Abandoned farmland spread around the academy, but she felt it looked even more ravaged than when she saw it before. Withered silver grass covered the ground, and a brown landscape spread everywhere.
The speed of the car dropped likely because Yuko was also captivated by that scenery. Does it become this ravaged just by people disappearing? The asphalt of the road was also cracked in places, with weeds peeking their faces out from there. The roof of the bus stop that students used to go to town was crushed, perhaps unable to withstand the weight of the recent snow. The sight of a pile of rubble made of broken glass and metal supports, with a rusted bus stop sign sticking out as if asserting its own existence, was somehow surreal.
"What are you spacing out for? Hurry up and drive."
At the boy's words, Aki came to her senses and noticed the car had stopped. Unlike Aki and the others who were captivated by the outside scenery, the boy had the same face as usual, not letting anyone know what he was thinking. When he lightly pushed the back of the driver's seat with his foot, Yuko finally seemed to notice she had taken her foot off the accelerator pedal.
"The village we're going to, do you know what the population is?"
"It should have been around 700 people. More than half are elderly people engaged in agriculture."
"What about local knowledge? Is there anyone who has been to that village?"
Any student of the academy should have been to the village closest to the academy. As part of their activities, interaction with local residents was incorporated into the curriculum, and the content was helping with farm work in the nearby village. The theme of "harmonizing with nature and being grateful for nature's blessings" was grand, but it involved getting covered in mud and continuing to work while crouching, which hurt the back, so it was an unpopular activity among students. Aki also helped with farm work in the village in her first and second years, and she could declare that she had never experienced such physical exhaustion before or since.
"Then, you know the terrain of the village, right?"
"Even if I say I know it, it's only a little. We didn't go that far into the village for the agricultural experience."
Rather, everyone wanted to go home as soon as possible, so no student was particularly interested in the village. Even so, Aki still remembered the faces of the grandfathers and grandmothers of the farmhouses they helped.
Are they safe? Is it true that there are almost no living humans left outside, and everyone is infected and rampaging? Maybe the farmers are also dead or infected. Indeed, her father, her close friends from home—.
"It's better not to think about unnecessary things."
At the boy's words, Aki came to her senses. The boy, while directing his eyes, which didn't let anyone know what he was thinking, out the window as usual, continued.
"The infected are no longer human. Even if they look human, the inside is a hungry beast. No matter how much you try to persuade them, the concept of discussion itself doesn't exist for them. Even if it's an acquaintance, only the desire to eat living humans exists in that thing's head. If you don't do it without hesitation, you'll end up dead."
The reason those words were persuasive was likely because he had acted exactly like that. Aki also understood that, and she had no intention of raising an objection.
But Aki and the others had only ever seen infected through a screen. She didn't know if she could kill them without hesitation as the boy said upon actually seeing them.
"To review, when there's only one infected, sneak up from behind and take it down. When there are two or more, wait for each to be alone before taking them down. When there are three or more, turn around and look for another path. You remember that properly, right?"
Those were words they had been told repeatedly yesterday when they were told they would go scouting the village. The infected raise a roar and lure their kind when they see a human form. Therefore, when taking down infected, one must take them down one by one surely without being noticed, the boy had said many times.
"Aim for the back of the head. If you hit them there with all your might or stab them with a knife, you can take them down in one blow even if their sense of pain is dull. Even if you can't take them down, once you trip them to the ground, all that's left is to deliver the finishing blow. If you're not confident you can take them down surely, it's better to wait for the infected to go somewhere else or pass through another place to reduce the probability of dying."
If you can't finish them in one blow, you'll end up having to deal with their comrades if they're nearby. The infected's athletic ability is extraordinary, and they sprint toward you with all their might. If you have the stamina to keep running from such beings, that's one thing, but it's too disadvantageous to face them head-on. He said it would be safe to finish them from a distance if they had guns, but unfortunately, the boy wouldn't lend them guns.
"But you can't keep running or hiding forever. When necessary, you have to fight and take down the infected. Especially you, Sensei!"
The boy raised his voice, and Yuko's body, holding the steering wheel, momentarily trembled.
"Sensei, you're in the position of protecting the students, right? If you don't fight, you can't protect your own life, let alone the lives of your precious students."
"...I know that."
But they couldn't leave the combat to only Yuko and the boy. Someday, Aki and the other students would also have to fight with weapons in hand. To survive then, they had to accumulate as much combat experience as possible.
I'll do it, Aki thought, and took a deep breath in and out. The rules of the world had changed. Only those who could adapt to those rules would survive; those who couldn't would likely die. And those rules were to take down enemies to survive.
By the time they reached the village in question, the car hadn't passed anyone. The fields were ravaged, but that was all. There was nothing particularly unusual. Aki and the others, who had been prepared for corpses to be scattered everywhere or for cars that had caused accidents to be left behind, were underwhelmed that they had reached the village without anything happening.
Of course, the population of the village wasn't that large, and in the first place, other people rarely come to this area, so it could be said to be natural. The houses where the village residents lived were distributed in a way that extended east and west. On the south side of the road running east and west, rice fields and a river spread, and on the north side, mountains. Private houses were dotted in between.
If you go further into the village, you'll come to a residential area with shops and a cafeteria, but even that isn't very large in scale. After all, there is only one traffic light in this village.
The boy instructed to stop the car about 200 meters away from the village. Apparently, they couldn't drive directly into the village. No matter how much the noise during driving is suppressed in a hybrid car, anyone would notice if a large van was driving on the road.
"I'll take the lead. Sensei and the others, follow behind me. If I move, you move; if I stop, you stop. Don't make loud voices, be careful of noises. If you notice anything, report it immediately. Got it?"
Upon confirming that Aki and the others, holding weapons in their hands, nodded, the boy, carrying the submachine gun with the homemade plastic bottle suppressor, started walking in silence. Yuko followed immediately after him, and Aki and Rei walked side by side at the very end.
The car keys were held by the boy. He was likely wary that they might steal the car and run away, but if the boy died while holding the keys, Aki and the others wouldn't be able to escape from here. She threw away the convenient thought that there might be a working car somewhere. In the first place, even if there was a car, it would be meaningless if the keys weren't found.
Except for the weeds growing in the fields, it could be called a peaceful landscape. What could be heard was only the murmuring of the river and the chirping of birds. If you opened a campsite here, it would surely be very prosperous. She didn't know if there were customers who would come to such a remote countryside, though.
Behind the boy, who was holding the submachine gun at the hip so he could shoot at any time, Yuko, clutching a crowbar, had a pale face. It seemed her hand clutching the crowbar was trembling. Even Rei, who was usually aloof, had a stiff face now.
They walked on the road where asphalt was cracked everywhere and gravel was exposed. What first came into view was a single-story Japanese-style house. Its appearance was so old that one might think more than half a century had passed since it was built, and there were traces of repairs on the broken windows. That said, the tape closing the cracks looked quite yellowed, so the glass must have broken a long time ago.
As expected, there was no sign of people here either. A single light truck was parked at the eaves, but its white body and windows were thin and dirty with dust. Aki also understood that no one had ridden it for a long time. No sign of people living there could be felt at all.
However, when they reached a position where the entrance visible beyond the garden came into view, Aki had stopped in her tracks without thinking. The sliding door of the entrance was smashed, and glass fragments were scattered on the floor. The aluminum door frame had come off the rail and was leaning toward the inside in a crumpled state.
The shoes at the entrance were scattered everywhere as if they had been kicked around violently. A pair of boots fallen as if caught on the raised threshold indicated that an unusual situation had occurred in this house.
"We're entering that house."
As soon as the boy pointed the muzzle of the submachine gun toward the private house, three people's worth of gazes questioning his sanity pierced him all at once. There was no doubt something had happened in that house. She didn't understand his feeling of going out of his way to step into such a place.
"Wa-Wait a minute. No matter how you look at it, that house is dangerous, right? There are various means like taking a detour or skipping it."
"None. We need to check all the houses on the way. I'm not going to pass by without checking the inside and be attacked from behind. Besides, the door of that house is open; there might be an infected inside."
She had been taught by the boy in advance that the infected have no intelligence. They don't have the intelligence to open doors, nor the habit of going out of their way to close them. All they can do is destroy doors with brute force. The possibility of an infected being inside a house with the door closed is near zero. Conversely, there is a possibility of an infected being inside a house with the door left open.
Aki and the others also didn't want to be attacked from behind, but they didn't have the courage to step into the house either. Seeing Aki and the others like that, the boy clicked his tongue. He might have thought it would be faster to explore alone than to be unable to move inside the house by bringing them along by force.
"Fine. This time I'll go alone and check. But from the next house, I'll have you all cooperate in the exploration."
First, the boy threw a pebble he picked up on the spot toward the front of the entrance. The pebble fell on the stone pavement in front of the entrance, making a dry sound. If there was an infected inside the house, it would reportedly come outside lured by the noise.
He held the submachine gun and waited for a while. But even after a minute passed, nothing came out from inside the house. The probability of an infected being inside the house dropped significantly, but he still couldn't let his guard down. The boy, who hung the submachine gun at his side with a sling and pulled an axe from the holder at his waist, stepped into the entrance without hesitation. The inside of the house was dim, and his figure immediately became invisible.
However, the boy came outside immediately. He waved his hand significantly as if to say "it's safe" and beckoned Yuko and the others. Did he have something he wanted to show? Without particularly thinking about anything, Yuko and the others followed the boy's beckoning and stepped into the house. While being careful not to step on the scattered glass, they walked down the hallway with their shoes on. Every time they took a step, the wooden floor made a creaking sound under their shoes. She felt a foul smell was drifting.
"Look."
The boy stopped abruptly at the end of the hallway and pointed into the kitchen beyond. Yuko, who peeped into the kitchen without much thought, raised a scream with a pale face.
"What's wrong, Sensei!?"
"What is...!"
Aki and Rei, who hurriedly followed her and stepped into the kitchen, saw "that" leaning against the sink and, like Yuko, raised a scream. Rei somehow managed to suppress her scream by covering her mouth, but the emotion of fear Aki was seeing for the first time was clearly floating on her face.
"This is the world today."
The boy said something behind them, but they didn't have the leeway to listen to those words. Aki hurriedly retraced the path she came and, as soon as she went outside from the entrance, vomited grandly. The wet sound of vomit being splattered on the ground drowned out Yuko's crying.
What she just saw was stuck in her mind and wouldn't leave. Aki regretted stepping into this house without thinking. She truly thought she shouldn't have followed the boy.
After all, what was lying in the kitchen was a half-skeletonized human corpse—.
I await your opinions and impressions.