Marauder of the Apocalypse
Chapter 136: Flames

True to his character as the first to escape from the townhouse, the fly quickly responded.

"I can definitely do that. I'll do whatever you want if you just let me live. All I have to do is deceive the riders, right?"

"Are you serious?"

I stared at the fly without blinking. His eyes rolled around cunningly. It was obvious that there wasn't an ounce of sincerity in his words.

'Survivors will do anything to stay alive.'

That was why I thought I could persuade the townhouse survivors, but it was also why they might deceive me.

He might pretend to follow my orders, then betray us the moment he made contact with the alliance.

I smiled faintly while swinging my hammer—the same hammer that had shattered one of his knees. The fly's eyes trembled.

"I'm sorry, but your job is a bit different. To be precise, it's to help us prepare to deceive the alliance."

"Then tell me. Your companions, the people who escaped from the townhouse. Where are they?"

Telling him to betray others because we needed to capture more flies to properly deceive the alliance. The fly swallowed hard. The trembling in his eyes intensified.

A faint voice came out.

"That, I don't know. No, put the hammer down. Listen to me. I really don't know. I was driven out by you guys. I've been moving around day by day for meals and shelter."

"Haha."

Nonsense. Being driven out meant the fly's range of activity had to be limited.

No matter how much the alliance provided supplies, they couldn't supply all the water these people needed. The flies would have needed to establish a base near a water source, and such places were limited in this area.

Furthermore, any decent shelters would already be occupied by local survivors or zombies, making their options even more limited.

I crouched in front of the survivor and placed my hammer on his knee—the good one.

"You might be able to survive somehow with one damaged leg. But if you're not helpful to me, why should I keep you alive?"

I felt trembling through the hammer. When I shined the flashlight on the fly's face, I could see cold sweat running down his haggard features.

"But I really don't know. We couldn't find a place to live. From the beginning, we were just wandering around, thinking we'd reclaim the townhouse from you guys."

Is that true? Really? If so, there wasn't much useful information to get from him.

Should I kill him? My hand was unconsciously tightening around the hammer when Sa Gi-hyeok spoke from behind me with a confident voice.

"Where did you get water? There must be a place you regularly visited for water?"

"Ah, water. There's a stream a bit far from here. It's quite dried up, but still usable."

I pressed down on the fly's knee with my hammer.

"When and where. You need to tell me the time you go to the stream for water and its location."

"In the evening! I'll show you the location if you give me a map!"

That was enough information to set up an ambush. I slowly stood up and went beside Sa Gi-hyeok, opening my notebook.

The ink had smudged from rainwater long ago. But I could still faintly make out the words written by the paranoid old man—what to investigate about people, how suspicious one should be.

"Good. Now I'll ask you a few more questions."

So Sa Gi-hyeok and I took turns asking various questions, and the fly answered diligently.

Resources provided by the riders, the number and profiles of townhouse survivors, missions assigned by the alliance, rough information about nearby survivors, conversations with alliance people, rewards they promised, and so on.

After completing the interrogation, Sa Gi-hyeok looked down at the fly with a dark expression and sighed.

"So the alliance is really keeping us in check. Giving guns to survivors who have a grudge against us and telling them to provoke us."

"It's a no-loss tactic for them."

The alliance's thinking was similar to what I had expected.

They planned to provide the displaced townhouse survivors with weapons, food, and a chance to reclaim their homes, slowly making us waste our resources.

If we couldn't withstand the provocations and spent our bullets, wouldn't that benefit the alliance? Moreover, it would deplete our energy to scavenge or raid for food.

The fly looked at his broken knee with a tired face, then suddenly raised his head as if something had occurred to him.

"That's right. The rider said something strange."

"What did they say?"

"They asked if I knew any zombie habitats. When I asked why they wanted to know, they said they were trying to test methods of luring zombies with drones."

I blinked. Luring zombies with drones? They were preparing a zombie wave too? I couldn't help but laugh hollowly.

"That's vicious."

That's the alliance for you. They'd use any means necessary.

I'd felt it before, but they were quite insane people. The doctor who used poison, the corrupt police, and now electrical experts trying to use drones as zombie-guiding weapons.

Like a flipped coin, they were madmen using skills meant to help people and society to instead kill people.

Sa Gi-hyeok thought for a moment before speaking rationally.

"Zombie-luring drones... they really seem to be planning to use them. Looks like they've just created something and want to test it."

That makes sense. Don't zombies learn? If they tested it on zombies in the alliance's survival zone and the zombies learned, it wouldn't work anymore, so they'd conveniently test it on us.

I nodded at the fly.

"That's useful information. Is there any food you'd like? We'll provide a special meal."

"I don't care about food. Can't you just remove this rope from my neck? I can't sleep properly because of it."

The fly pointed to his neck with his bound hands. The noose—a psychological restraint that tightened if he moved too far away.

I shook my head.

"That's not possible. We haven't verified if your information is true. Your stream could be a trap prepared by the alliance."

I couldn't naively believe everything just like that. That paranoid old man had suspected and suspected until he noticed my true nature. There was no harm in being suspicious.

The fly weakly dropped his arms and made another request.

"Then alcohol. I need a drink to forget the pain in my leg."

"No alcohol. It's a valuable resource."

Alcohol and cigarettes were resources used almost like currency. We couldn't give them away as special meals. The fly looked up at me with an incredulous expression, and I simply turned away.

"We'll see you next time."

***

The alliance people weren't fools. If they saw one of the flies they believed we'd captured, they'd immediately sense something suspicious.

That's why we needed to handle the flies all at once. No one should escape—kill those who needed to be killed, capture those who needed to be captured. Then use them to deceive the alliance.

After warning about the zombie wave, I went to the stream with my criminal companions. We naturally used bicycles for transportation.

As we carefully rode along the messy roads, Jeon Do-hyung, who was leading, said:

"Now I see why there are so few survivors in this area. The stream is farther than I expected. Without bicycles, how many hours would you have to walk just for water?"

"But there are mountains instead."

The survivors here were people who had chosen the mountains over the stream.

It might be because they didn't have the strength to claim the stream, or conversely, they might have chosen the mountains since water could still be fetched from the stream. Or perhaps there were few competitors around here, making it good for scavenging.

"There's actually plenty to eat in the mountains. If you know what to look for."

As we rode, Park Yang-gun shared stories about his childhood in the countryside, and Sa Gi-hyeok fell off his bike.

"Argh! I fell! No, wait! Why are you leaving me behind?!"

"...The road is relatively decent here. How did you even fall? We weren't riding that fast."

We stopped briefly to scold Sa Gi-hyeok. The road here was actually quite clean. Even with obstacles, we were riding slowly, so there was nothing to trip over.

"I think I'm hurt. It hurts."

Sa Gi-hyeok, who had fallen onto a pile of garbage, complained dramatically while righting his fallen bicycle.

I looked him up and down.

"Did you get pierced by a nail or something?"

Even riding slowly with durable clothes, a bad fall could lead to dangerous injuries. If he got pierced by a rusty nail, it would be hopeless. He might as well leave his last words.

"Huh? Was I pierced?"

"How would I know if you're asking me..."

"Sorry. It doesn't hurt that much anyway."

Eventually, we circled around Sa Gi-hyeok, and Jeon Do-hyung returned to his bicycle with a disgusted expression.

"Stop exaggerating. You're not even hurt."

"Hey, maybe we should just go back? I don't think I'll be much help."

When Park Yang-gun spoke bluntly, Sa Gi-hyeok shook the rifle slung over his body.

"How can you go without your marksman? Didn't you see me get that headshot last time?"

I waved my hand casually, taking Sa Gi-hyeok's side. It wasn't because I truly believed in his shooting skills.

"Let's just go together. If you fall and die on your way back, there won't be anyone to take care of it."

So we pedaled our bicycles more slowly than before and arrived at the stream the fly had mentioned. A stream with dried, overgrown vegetation. Paths had formed, suggesting frequent visits by local survivors or zombies.

"He said they come before sunset, so they should be here within a few hours. Let's spread out and set up an ambush to surround them."

"What are you planning to do when they arrive? You said we need to capture them, right?"

"There should be about four of them still alive, so we can just threaten them with our rifles."