Apocalypse N-Student - Chapter 57



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Episode 57 Drone (3)

The black drone led us northwest like a zombie butler guiding guests to their master.

We passed the middle and high schools with zombies standing around in the playground, with Catholic University on our right, and stopped above the villa village.

The black drone, which had been floating for a moment and then descending mechanically, looked back with a start.

It seemed like he had noticed the tailing.

I was planning to hide and watch, but now that things have turned out this way, there’s no need to do that.

I quickly raised the drone high and looked down at the rooftop from above.

Someone was sitting in front of the railing, wearing VR goggles and manipulating a controller.

Looking closely, I saw that he wasn’t sitting on a chair.

I was in a wheelchair.

He was wearing a yellow hoodie, his legs wrapped in a checkered blanket, and his long hair was tied back, so he looked like a woman.

Perhaps because its hiding place had been discovered, the black drone was unable to rush in and hovered awkwardly before landing on one side of the rooftop as if surrendering.

The woman, who had placed the controller on her lap and taken off her goggles, looked up at the drone with a dumbfounded expression, blinking.

We were surprised too.

“What? Are you a high school student?”

Jong-seok frowned and Yeon-hee frowned.

Lee Seon-ae looked at me with a pitiful expression.

In my opinion, the girl was exactly that age.

Although his sharp jawline and deep-set eyes gave him a slightly mature look, his wrinkle-free, pale face made him look like a high school freshman no matter how many times he was photographed.

She felt like an ordinary high school girl, with hair rollers in her bangs, and wearing white socks and three-striped slippers.

The girl turned the wheels of her wheelchair and hurriedly escaped to the attic.

The wheelchair slid into the open door without any problems, as if the threshold had been removed.

I expected a bunch of voyeuristic, shady middle-aged perverts, drone otakus, or looters, but when I saw a disabled high school girl, everyone was speechless in front of the TV.

A little later, a girl came out holding a whiteboard.

On the whiteboard held up to the drone was written in thick, permanent marker the following:

‘Why don’t we make it a 1:1 draw?’

In contrast to the playful and carefree phrase, his expression was one of sheer terror.

As I was standing there awkwardly, not knowing what to do, someone came up the stairs at the back of the rooftop.

It was a man wearing oily black overalls.

He seemed far from being a pervert or an otaku, but when he saw the drone floating above his head, he quickly ran over and took care of the girl first.

After exchanging a few brief words with the girl, as if urging her to look at the whiteboard she was holding, I glared at the drone.

He was a middle-aged man with disheveled hair and graying face, but his face was naturally youthful with few wrinkles.

His hands and face were covered in black grease, as if he had been handling machinery.

uh?

At that moment, I pulled the drone’s zoom without realizing it.

Although it was much less venomous than in my memory, the man’s face in close-up was definitely familiar.

Team Leader Kim······

He was the work team leader at Haeundae Shelter.

He is a person who has earned the trust of the shelter director by taking charge of the repairs and maintenance of Haeundae Shelter with the skills he acquired while working at a steelworks and auto repair shop.

I had dealings with that human twice in my past life.

This was before Haeundae Shelter degenerated into a gang of marauders, a rare, clean deal in an apocalypse rife with fraud and betrayal.

Team Leader Kim may seem blunt and old-fashioned on the outside, but he actually hates being in debt and has a very picky personality, so he doesn’t try to get close to others.

However, he was a man who was bold and flexible enough to sneak supplies out of the shelter and trade them when necessary.

All that was known was that he lost his only daughter and became mentally unstable, but no other details were known about his past. Was he here at this time?

Then that girl must be my daughter.

After briefly recalling memories from my past life, I handed the controller over to Jong-seok.

“What are you doing?”

“Let’s start by talking.”

A radio was attached to the bottom of the drone and sent flying.

When another drone appeared, Team Leader Kim did not stay still.

I went into the attic and came out with something.

“A slingshot?”

Team Leader Kim pulled back the slingshot with a steel ball and aimed it at the drone.

It may look funny, but a proper slingshot has more power than an airsoft gun.

Even a person could suffer serious injuries if they were hit in the face the wrong way.

This confirms that it was Team Leader Kim who mounted the airsoft gun on the drone.

I don’t know what it was intended for, but my daughter was playing with it for fun and ended up like this.

Or maybe it was created to allow the disabled daughter to roam the skies freely.

Seeing as the girl’s drone piloting skills were top-notch, I thought it might be both.

If it weren’t for the auto-recovery mode that I turned on in a panic, I probably wouldn’t have caught the tail so easily.

I slowly moved to the corner of the rooftop, put the radio down, and moved the drone back.

Sergeant Kim put down the slingshot and quickly picked up the radio.

– I heard the story roughly. That your daughter was rude.

Hearing his low, husky voice, I remembered our last life, when we shared a drink together while making a deal.

It was said that children are raised by their parents, but in reality, the parents live by relying on their children······

I used to drink more than half a bottle of my whiskey alone, chewing on those similar words as if they were side dishes.

“It’s not just a slight inconvenience. Four drones were damaged.”

When I exaggerated the damage a little, Team Leader Kim looked at his daughter.

As the girl shrugged her shoulders with a tearful face, Sergeant Kim sighed and put the walkie-talkie to his mouth.

– I’m sorry. Do you want compensation?

“If you can.”

Team Leader Kim looked obviously troubled.

The best thing to do would be to shoot down the drone immediately and move the residence, but given my daughter’s condition, it would be difficult to run far away.

Even if you have a drivable car, you will be noticed right away if you drive it in broad daylight.

We couldn’t just run away or fight them off, not knowing how many more drones we had or how many people we had.

Only by compromising amicably or reassuring them can you buy them time to escape.

I thought he would just lie and try to fool me, but he made an unexpected suggestion.

– How about letting me into the shelter?

“Shelter?”

– It’s the largest shelter in Busan. It has warm meals and safe places to sleep.

“We can live to that extent too.”

– Seeing that they’ve flown several drones, it doesn’t seem to be an empty promise, but it’s not just about making a living there.

“What else is there?”

– future.

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Captain Kim expressed a fundamental hope that was completely inconsistent with his previous life.

– It will become a base for restoring Busan.

“If it’s such a nice place, you should go in first.”

– I was going to go in anyway.

“Where is it? Let me tell you the location.”

– Haeundae.

Are you serious······

It was true that Team Leader Kim entered the Haeundae Shelter.

The foreman was in a high position that could use enough strength to stay for a few days, even if he didn’t know how to move into a shelter.

If he was going to lie, he would have mentioned somewhere other than Haeundae.

“What do you believe in?”

It was a question that simultaneously contained the question of how we could trust you and the doubt of how we could trust and introduce ourselves.

Captain Kim’s answer was as clear as when I asked him in my last life if he could get a grenade.

– Believe it or not, this is the only way I can repay my debt. If you want to survive in Busan in the future, Haeundae is the answer. I don’t know how big a force you are, but if you stay here, you’ll just end up eating each other and dying one by one. If you want to dream of the future, come to Haeundae. My name is Kim Kang-seok. If you come to Haeundae Shelter in a month and tell me your name, I’ll make enough money to buy four drones and have some left over.”

“I don’t have any immediate plans.”

– Come anytime. We’ll stay there forever. Even if you come here and hack, there’s nothing to gain. There’s only one drone, and from the smoke rising, it looks like the circuitry is burnt out. It’s useless. We don’t have much supplies left. If you try to kill us, we’ll fight with all our might. Since no one was hurt, think of it as insurance and trust us for a moment.

“Do you promise?”

– I promise.

“In the name of the daughter next to you?”

Although it was a meaningless confirmation, Team Leader Kim nodded after looking at his daughter who was listening with her ears pricked up.

– I promise on my daughter’s behalf.

“Okay. Let me believe it once.”

– Good idea. See you later. In Haeundae.

That was the end of the radio conversation.

Team Leader Kim waved his hand holding the walkie-talkie.

After lowering the drone, a radio was attached to the hook.

After pretending to return, he sent two drones far out of sight, then made a detour and hid them on the roof of a nearby building to keep watch over Chief Kim and his daughter.

“Can I send it like this?”

Yeonhee looked at me and Jongseok with a suspicious expression.

“Is there any other better way?”

The black drone was removed.

Although it barely made it back, looking at its condition, it seemed like it would be scrapped.

We have identified the person who flew the drone and have confirmed that there is very little chance of it causing us any harm.

One drone was destroyed and three were damaged, but there was nothing to be gained by running over there and raiding them.

“I’m glad it ended like this.”

When Lee Seon-ae, who did not like seeing blood, smiled in relief, Yeon-hee did not mention the issue any more.

“It’s true that there is a shelter in Haeundae.”

Yeonhee showed interest when Jongseok remembered what he had heard from me.

“really?”

“Probably the biggest in Busan.”

“Is that person a member there?”

“I don’t know about that.”

Jongseok looked at me and shook his head.

It seems that he guessed our past relationship after seeing me readily accept Team Leader Kim’s outrageous proposal.

I don’t plan on going to Haeundae Shelter, but there is a chance.

In the worst case scenario where everything was lost, a few drones would not have been a waste if they could have stayed at the Haeundae Shelter for even a short while.

As expected, as soon as the drone disappeared, Team Leader Kim carried his daughter on his back and disappeared down the stairs.

I came back up a little later and grabbed the wheelchair and a few bags.

Even though they had reached a rough agreement, there was no telling when unidentified assailants who had flown drones might storm in.

If I were you, I would run away from there with my daughter right now.

We moved the drone and searched the area silently, but Sergeant Kim did not come out of the building.

As the sun set and the surroundings became completely dark, a truck pulled out of the building without even turning on its headlights.

The truck slowly entered the road as if groping through the darkness and headed south.

I followed the drone’s maximum flight distance and it went through Dongrae and headed to Seomyeon along the road that the golden carriage had made.

The destination will probably be Haeundae.

I spread out the map and looked for the location of the Haeundae Shelter.

What Team Leader Kim said continued to linger in my ears.

future······

What possible future is there other than eating and living like humans in the apocalypse?

Looking back, Haeundae Shelter was extremely closed off and strangely prosperous, unlike Seomyeon or other places.

It was also suspicious that something that had been going so well suddenly turned into a group of looters.

The gaze naturally moved east along the coastline and stopped at the Gori Nuclear Power Plant.

I turned on the satellite communication device and connected to the surveillance camera installed in an apartment near the Gori nuclear power plant.

Just like a few days ago, it just shows a blue screen.

The Geiger counter readings were not updated either.

It’s because the battery is dead.

It’s been two months since the zombie outbreak, so we’ve held out for quite some time.

We checked the GPS tracking device attached to the golden carriage.

The golden carriage that entered Ulsan did not go to Pohang but continued south.

I expected to see the Hopo logistics base, but unexpectedly, I entered Gijang-gun 5 hours earlier.

When I enlarged the screen, I was now in front of the Gori Nuclear Power Plant.

Why did he go there after wandering around Busan and Gyeongnam?

After staring at the red dot that had stopped at the Gori Nuclear Power Plant for a long time, I gave him a gold ring and took out the old Geiger counter that I had bought at the Golden Carriage.

Product: Geiger Counter

Purchase location: Onsenjang Serihan Sunset Luxury Park View

Lee Gwan-myeong, Room 201, Building 112.

Director Park Hong-sik told me to come whenever I needed.

What would change if I went to Serihan and met Lee Gwan-myeong?

Skeptical thoughts lingered in my mind, so I tapped the label with my finger and became lost in thought.

Then, suddenly, I was drawn to the strange sensation on my fingertips and looked closely at the label.

There was something down there.

I scraped the edge with my fingernail to avoid tearing it, and when I peeled off the label, I found a small, crudely engraved metal plate attached to it.

‘This item is the property of Gori Nuclear Power Plant. If taken out without permission, you may be punished according to relevant laws.’

Now there’s a reason to go to Serihan.

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