Chapter 96
It was an unstoppable force.
The vanguard liberated villages and towns in a relentless surge, advancing without hesitation.
However, there was one problem.
“They’re all empty villages and towns.”
The villages liberated by the vanguard were uninhabited zones devoid of people and zombies.
In other words, even though the villages were liberated, there were no residents, rendering the effort practically meaningless. Nevertheless, liberation was liberation.
The vanguard led by Jung Dong-gun meticulously searched and inspected the surroundings and interiors of the villages to ensure safety.
“…There’s no danger around here.”
It was lamentable that there was truly nothing.
There were no zombies around the villages, and the nearby reservoirs, farmland, and surrounding towns were carefully inspected just in case. Despite such thorough searches, the vanguard found no trace of zombies or survivors.
This repeated futile search was a waste of time, leaving Jung Dong-gun visibly displeased.
“Commander, we’ve conducted a thorough search, but no zombies or survivors were found.”
“I haven’t detected anything either.”
Reports of no survivors or zombies came through the communication channel from the soldiers, and even Son Sang-hui, who had prepared for such situations, had no results to show.
The only commonality was:
“There are no valuables or food here either. Everything unnecessary for survival has been discarded like garbage.”
“So, in short, only survival essentials were taken, and nothing else remains?”
“Yes. Just in case, we also checked reservoirs for water, but there are no survivors here either.”
One thing was clear: there were traces that people had once lived in these villages.
From the remnants left in the villages, they could infer when the survivors disappeared and deduce that their departure wasn’t sudden.
The traces left by survivors indicated that, at some point, they had a reason to leave the village and seek refuge elsewhere.
“Just like what Son Sang-hui mentioned earlier—evacuation, perhaps?”
“If that’s the case, there should be people heading to Gyeongju.”
Son Sang-hui’s earlier mention of evacuation came to mind.
However, this was contradicted by the lack of news from the Balhut Cult, situated north of these villages, where such news should have surfaced.
‘No matter how much the Balhut Cult is rumored to be a doomsday cult, if lives were at stake, even a cult’s protection would be better than nothing.’
Initially, they speculated that the cult’s poor reputation might deter refugees, but Jung Dong-gun maintained a skeptical stance toward that idea.
After all, when faced with life-threatening danger, people are unlikely to make rational decisions. Their priority would naturally be survival.
Whether it was a cult or not, people’s survival instinct would lead them to seek help wherever they could find it. Geographically, it made more sense for villagers near Gyeongju to flee northward rather than traverse multiple towns to reach Ulsan.
Moreover, during that period, the southern Gyeongju region had seen active expeditionary efforts to expand its influence. Anyone paying attention to external news would have been aware of these expeditions liberating villages.
“Have we searched the nearby mountains?”
“There are monsters, so we haven’t searched yet to avoid danger.”
“Just check for signs of anyone entering the mountain’s edge. There’s no need to climb to the mid-mountain areas where monsters might be. Oh, bring Son Sang-hui along as well.”
“Understood.”
Recognizing the lack of decisive evidence, Jung Dong-gun ordered a team, including Son Sang-hui, to search the nearby mountains.
With Son Sang-hui present, they could roughly determine whether there were people inside the mountain and assess the presence of monsters.
If no monsters were found in the mountains, Jung Dong-gun planned to consider this situation as abnormal and report back to Choi Yuna to suspend the expedition.
“There are monsters.”
“Understood.”
The report that came back was ambiguous.
There were no zombies or survivors, but monsters were confirmed to be present in the mountain, according to Son Sang-hui’s report.
Jung Dong-gun felt the situation becoming increasingly enigmatic.
If even the monsters had disappeared, he could confidently deem it an abnormal event and order a retreat. However, the fact that monsters remained complicated the decision to withdraw.
The possibility that this was a coincidence or a series of random events made him hesitate to call off the expedition.
“Sigh. Then, we’ll set up an outpost in this area and establish that it’s under Balhut Cult territory.”
“Understood. Shall I contact the main headquarters to request additional soldiers?”
“Yes. Make sure to ask for a team composed mainly of experienced soldiers.”
“Understood.”
Ultimately, Jung Dong-gun decided to prioritize securing the area using manpower.
To signify that the village had been liberated, the vanguard built a monitoring outpost outside the village and erected flags bearing the cult’s symbol in easily visible locations.
He also requested additional soldiers and construction materials from the main headquarters for building the monitoring outpost, and the cult promptly sent reinforcements and resources.
“The personnel deployed here will build the outpost, and we’ll continue advancing.”
“Yes, Commander!”
Since the reconnaissance confirmed the safety of the village, once the monitoring outpost construction began, Jung Dong-gun led the vanguard across the village bridge to investigate another village on the other side.
If refugees had fled to Ulsan, their traces should have remained in other villages. With that thought in mind, Jung Dong-gun and his vanguard arrived at a larger village than the previous one.
“It’s quiet, Commander.”
“I know.”
Once again, it was quiet.
If the villagers had actively reclaimed the village and prepared defensive positions, it would have been understandable.
However, at the entrance to the village that Jung Dong-gun and his vanguard arrived at, there was nothing to be seen.
There were no barricades for defense, nor any signs of efforts to control the road.
The road, which was crucial for transportation, should have been a priority for anyone defending the village. Yet, it was left unguarded.
Or perhaps….
“This village… there’s no one inside. I can’t sense anything.”
Perhaps there was no one to control it in the first place.
Son Sang-hui, seemingly having a foreboding thought, reported that there was no one inside the village.
In other words, there were no zombies or survivors in this village they just visited.
‘The village we liberated earlier was already quite large. But for an even larger village to have no survivors or zombies… that’s strange.’
It was strange.
If the survivors from that village had arrived here, there should have been some trace.
“There are no signs of battle either.”
“Really?”
There were no traces at all.
In an era where Awakened individuals hunt zombies and wield superhuman powers, battles involving Awakened naturally cause tremendous damage to the surroundings.
Buildings getting completely destroyed is commonplace, so if Awakened had clashed, there should be traces of that clash, but there were none.
“Instead, all necessities for survival have been taken. It’s the same as before.”
Of course, there were traces that village supplies had been taken for survival, but that’s something anyone would do.
Having witnessed the same phenomenon and the same situation as the previous village, Jung Dong-gun spoke up with a hint of uncertainty.
“Then let’s search the nearby towns and factories.”
“Understood.”
There was a possibility that the village community had moved elsewhere to evacuate.
In reality, there were places nearby that were geographically easier to defend than villages exposed on all sides.
If they had gathered at such a place to hold out, the mysteries so far could be sufficiently resolved.
It could be convincing under the logic that the two villages came together, empathized with the hardships of the apocalypse, and cooperated to fight against it.
‘But that’s not an easy thing to do.’
However, Jung Dong-gun knew well that such a thing wasn’t easy.
Starting with leadership issues, to distribution and supply problems.
In fact, the strategy of holding out in a defensible location also meant giving up the agricultural land, which is the advantage of a village as a source of food supply.
As someone who had faced many conflicts over food issues during his time as a leader of a survivor camp, Jung Dong-gun was convinced that they would never give up farmland that could supply food, even if there were risks.
“…Nothing, Commander.”
“I see.”
And the returning soldiers reported that they had found no one.
One by one, the soldiers who went out to search began to return, and they all reported that they had found no survivors or zombies.
If at least corpses or traces of zombies remained, they could have thought that survivors and zombies had destroyed each other and both perished, but there were no such traces.
All that the eyes of Jung Dong-gun and the vanguard saw were desolate, uninhabited buildings that looked like haunted houses.
“There are no traces of refugees, and the traces of residents who lived here have disappeared.”
“At least there seem to be monsters in the mountains.”
“Haha. Could the monsters in the mountains have kidnapped the residents?”
Having found no survivors or zombies, one of the soldiers suggested the possibility that the monsters in the mountains had kidnapped the residents.
In fact, there were hints from U.S. cases of monsters engaging in hellish urban warfare by taking residents hostage or enslaving them. Moreover, incidents of residents living around mountains disappearing had been reported on communities in the Korean Peninsula, making this a plausible guess.
“…I don’t think that’s it. If that were the case, there should be the unique magical energy of Awakened in the mountains. I don’t sense that.”
“Then is it possible that they all fled to Ulsan…”
“…Well, considering we have a visible outpost near the East Sea Highway, wouldn’t that be their first choice?”
However, as a detection-type, Son Sang-hui said that if they had been kidnapped, she would sense the presence of Awakened in the mountains, but she didn’t.
Then another soldier suggested that they might have all fled to Ulsan, but then why didn’t they turn their attention to the Balhut Cult, which had built conspicuous outposts?
There were sturdy, highly visible gates; why would they head to Ulsan instead of Gyeongju?
“Commander, while searching near the farmland, we found something suspicious that seemed half-buried in the soil.”
As the concerns deepened, a soldier reported via communication that they had found something suspicious half-buried near the farmland.
The members of the vanguard, who couldn’t come up with acceptable answers despite continued speculation, welcomed the report with expressions of relief. Jung Dong-gun brought the communicator to his mouth and spoke.
“Something suspicious?”
“There are corpses buried underground.”
“Corpses? No, wait, you’re saying there are corpses buried in the farmland? Not lying on the streets, and not in graves?”
It was not uncommon even in modern times for corpses to be buried somewhere. Illegally dumped graves had been found deep in national parks or local mountains.
Especially in this zombie apocalypse era, corpses lying on the streets were so common that there was no need to report them.
However, if corpses were buried underground, especially in farmland, that was a different story.
The fact that corpses were buried meant that someone had deliberately buried them in the farmland.
“And it’s not just one person; it seems multiple people are buried. We can’t accurately determine whether these are zombie corpses or survivor corpses. All the bodies buried in the farmland have decomposed to the point of being skeletal.”
Hearing that multiple skeletal corpses were buried in the farmland, Jung Dong-gun looked puzzled and asked those who were listening to the report.
“Is that so? But that’s strange. If they were thinking of farming next year, why would they dump corpses in the farmland instead of burying them in graves or cremating them?”
“Well… I’m not sure. Maybe they were in a hurry?”
He asked those around him why they had dumped the corpses in the farmland instead of properly burying them in graves or cremating them, but the answers were only voices filled with confusion.
For farmers, farmland is valuable property and essential for producing crops. Instead of dumping corpses there, wouldn’t it be normal to properly bury them in graves or cremation sites?
‘No, especially in the apocalypse, the value of farmland capable of producing food would only increase. They wouldn’t be unaware of that.’
Even though there was a possibility that they were in a hurry due to the apocalypse, Jung Dong-gun thought that they wouldn’t recklessly dump corpses in the farmland without considering the future.
“Let’s proceed under the assumption that there may be forces we don’t know about in Ulsan.”
“Understood.”
If it wasn’t the work of farmers who valued farmland, but forces that took the civilians residing here to another place, they might have buried the corpses in the farmland.
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