Chapter 30: Others.

I am a scout.

One of the few survivors in this ruined world, a pawn spending each day aimlessly, never knowing when I might die.

My role is simple.

To enter the zombie-infested city center, assess the density, distribution, and overall movement of the zombies in advance, and return to the main force to report the current situation.

Based on what I have seen and heard, the main force launches a city center recapture operation.

City center recapture operation, the name sounds grand, but in reality, it’s nothing special.

Selecting areas with fewer zombies, performing a kind of ‘cleaning,’ and collecting supplies from the vicinity.

Unfortunately, there are too many zombies overall to conduct what you might call looting, and large movements of zombie groups don’t occur often, so places worth looting have already been looted.

That means that in order for the main force to safely conduct looting, scouts like me have to delve deeper into the city center.

As I said earlier, scouts are more or less expendable.

It’s just a matter of pushing manpower into unexplored areas of the city center.

Zombies may be slow and weak, so-called trash mobs.

In fact, if you give a healthy young man a baseball bat, he can easily take on four or five of them alone.

Their true terror comes from their overwhelming numbers.

If you take care of one, two appear, and by the time you take care of two, there are four, and in that endless repetition, death is all that awaits humans.

Guns? The military? Nukes? How could things have fallen so far with such overwhelming modern weaponry?

Zombies weren’t around from the beginning; they suddenly popped up out of nowhere.

Half the total population died without time to prepare for these beings, and the governments of each country collapsed like dominoes.

Frankly, I can’t believe that just a year ago, I was hanging out with friends and enjoying a peaceful school life as if it were natural.

High school student? In this situation that has turned into a true hellscape, the label of minor disappeared long ago.

The survival supplies needed by the barely surviving survivors are woefully inadequate, and the current situation is that you have to do anything to get those supplies.

I’ve been talking too much nonsense. Back to the point, as a minor with no skills, lacking strength, and without even the common connections, the only thing I can do in this worst-case scenario is to volunteer for the task of a scout, entering the pit of hell.

Those with even one of the things mentioned above were given the opportunity to enter the main force.

A 40% survival rate, always understaffed, an unpopular job that anyone would naturally avoid. I wasn’t given a choice of whether or not to do it.

If I didn’t do this job, I would be kicked out as a mere food-wasting burden.

Feeling envious of the students from vocational high schools, on the day I went on my first mission as a scout,

The person who called himself my senior, trying to reassure me that nothing would happen, was surrounded by a horde of zombies and died.

In the main force, ‘A dog died?’ That was the end of the reaction.

Usually, scouts are organized in teams of two, but due to manpower shortages, I’ve been wandering the city alone ever since.

Commonly, military scouts are described as special forces armed with matching camouflage uniforms and shiny, state-of-the-art equipment,

But we, who never know when we’ll die and whose bodies are almost impossible to recover, aren’t even given a gun.

To them, we were beings who would be nice to have back alive, and whose food costs would be saved if we died.

Even if we successfully carry out the mission and return, there are no additional rewards or hazard pay.

Rather, we are ostracized as parasites who cling on without any special abilities.

Rather than receiving such inhumane treatment, there is a way to survive alone independently.

But those with that kind of ability are already affiliated with the main force or have left early on.

Me? If I had enough ability to do that, I would have done it a long time ago.

No matter how bad the treatment is, surviving outside alone would be hard to explain without associating it with death.

They subtly overlap the areas explored by each scout, anticipating possible betrayal by the scouts, so that even if one of them deserts, the overall scale isn’t greatly affected.

Moreover, once you leave, you’re branded as a traitor, and it’s impossible to return, and you can no longer dream of safe shelter and medical support.

The only joy in this job is that as long as it’s items I’ve directly secured and brought back, they don’t touch them.

If they even try to touch that, I’ll leave here without any regrets.

It’s been six months since the zombie outbreak, and roughly four months since I started working as a solo scout.

Although I’m young, four months in the scout force, where the survival rate is only 40%, is considered veteran status.

The main force still acknowledges that I’m useless in other areas but recognizes me for this job, and said they would assign me a junior when a new recruit comes in,

But I refused.

I’ve been alone since the first day except and have become used to it and will continue to be so in the future.

Other scout teams consider me a weirdo, but they never ignore my skills.

I’m a weirdo who does the work of two people alone.

Today would have been an ordinary day, like any other.

Except that the number of ‘mutants’ being spotted has been increasing recently, I was planning to assess the streets and zombie status of the city I explored today and stop by a nearby bookstore to collect personal belongings.

I haven’t encountered the main force yet, but I heard news that several scout teams heading to unexplored areas were brutally murdered by mutants, and an order that wasn’t an order was issued for everyone to be careful for the time being.

It may be my prejudice, but the reason they were attacked by mutants is simply because they were rookies.

It’s not yet accurately tallied, but roughly four types of mutants have been identified: muscle monsters, vomiters, lickers, and aggro-pullers.

Muscle monsters are literally Hulk-like guys, but they’re safe as long as you don’t engage them directly.

Similarly, vomiters can be avoided in advance by their unique sound nearby, and aggro-pullers only attract other zombies and are no different from ordinary zombies themselves, so you just have to avoid being detected first.

Lickers are the most annoying, but in a 1:1 situation, they’re not unbeatable if you don’t let your guard down.

In fact, I’ve discovered five mutants so far, and I’ve even killed one of them, a licker, with my own hands.

I certainly wasn’t going to ignore the presence of mutants, which have been increasing recently, but I couldn’t be too passive either.

After checking the time until sunset, I was about to stop by the bookstore when I witnessed an unbelievable sight for the first time.

Mutant and mutant,

Of course, I think it’s not impossible for them to stick together.

But that guy is definitely something different from before.

A licker riding on a muscle monster? Or an aggro-puller? Or maybe… I have to keep in mind the possibility that it’s a new mutant controlling them.

It would be nice if it was just a simple coincidence, but if… if there’s really a guy who can dominate and control those countless zombies and mutants, then the survivors who have managed to survive so far will have even less hope.

No, I should have anticipated it in advance when the existence of mutants first appeared.

Sooner or later, the fall of mankind was destined after all…

All I can do in this situation is to observe him in as much detail as possible and inform the main force of the situation. That’s the best I can do.

Like a veteran who has survived for four months as a scout in the zombie-infested city center, I carefully stalked him, maintaining a reasonable distance where I could observe him and escape at any time.

Suddenly, he turned his head and faced exactly the direction I was in.

It was only for a few seconds, but my vision crossed with his, and at that moment, my body reacted before my head could.

He is the guy who controls the zombies. It’s right to run away now because I don’t know how he’ll come out.

He was riding on a muscle monster and had his hood pulled all the way over his head, so it was impossible to identify him accurately at a distance of nearly 100m, but it was enough to confirm the existence of him.

If I’m greedy beyond this, I’ll die.

I skillfully moved my body to the escape route I had seen in advance and widened the distance between him.

I don’t know how he noticed, but anyway, now that I’ve been discovered, it felt like he wasn’t going to let me go easily, so I felt him chasing after me.

After passing through maze-like alleys, climbing up a nearby building on a ladder, jumping down into an alley in the other direction, deliberately entering an alley that was blocked at the end, using the surrounding walls to run and jump over, and then heading towards the outskirts of the city where there were fewer zombies…

‘Kyaaaaak!!”

“Ah, sh*t!’

I definitely thought I had gotten away from him, but this time, a licker that had climbed over the wall rushed at me from the side.

Kyaak! Kyaak!!

!!!”

I was pushed aside by him and rolled sideways.

But I must never be bitten or scratched. If I get infected even with a minor wound…

“Krrurrr!…

“O!…

I’m lying on the floor, and the licker is pressing down on me with force from above. The moment I lose strength even for a moment, I’m done.

I can’t die like this…

Kyaak?!!!

At that moment, a shadow fell from behind, and at the same time, a crowbar was swung around and the licker stepped back.

What?!’

The moment I raised my head to check the protagonist who dealt with the licker who had jumped back,

‘Thwack!’

My vision went out.

Ugh… wh. where is this?..”

“Who.. who are you?!”

Answer me! Or I’ll kill y…”

‘Click!’

You!…

Are you going to point a knife at the person who saved you first?

Why don’t you put down that gun?”

Can’t you understand what I’m saying?

“You, do you know which group I belon…”

‘Thwack!’

Can’t you grasp the situation?