Marauder of the Apocalypse
Chapter 152: Winter

Walking through the bleached white world sometimes gave me the illusion that I was the last person on earth.

The snow-covered roads showed only animal tracks—dogs, cats, or pigeons—while abandoned cars, billboards, and streetlights had become nothing but rusting scrap metal, deteriorating in lonely silence.

It felt like I was the only human alive, the last of humanity leaving footprints across the snowy path.

Just a feeling, of course.

"Die! How dare a zombie wear such nice clothes!"

"I'm human!"

"Human? ...Die anyway!"

Suddenly survivors appeared, intent on killing me. Even when I told them I was human, they swung their metal pipes without hesitation.

Only after I pointed my pistol—the great enforcer of conversation etiquette—at them did they start acting like proper people.

"Wait... We thought you were a zombie. You're not even wearing a mask."

A few survivors raised their hands, smiling awkwardly. They genuinely seemed to have mistaken me for a lone zombie, realizing too late I was an equal survivor.

I joked with them.

"But I am a zombie. Why would you think zombies can't speak human language?"

Though the virus damaged brain function, the vocal cord structure remained human. They could mimic human speech, parrot-like.

For a moment, the survivors' eyes flashed with shock and terror. Ordinary survivors or zombies weren't frightening anymore—they were familiar entities.

But if zombies regained human intelligence, that was an entirely different matter.

It would mean the zombies we'd been killing to survive were merely sick, and with time, they could recover.

"What? What?"

More shocked than when I'd drawn my pistol, the survivors stared at me with terrified eyes.

I grinned. Without a mask, my smile would be fully visible. The survivors repeated death-rattle-like noises, their brains seemingly paralyzed.

"I'm joking. It hasn't been three weeks yet. Here, take this."

They were clumsy but had potential as marauders. They deserved to receive the raiding fundamentals.

The survivors stood stupidly holding the papers I'd handed them, then started flipping through them. After instinctively skimming the content, they suddenly shuddered and backed away.

"You're that crazy terrorist!"

"You know me?"

I tilted my head.

I'd written about using fire as bait and weapon, with examples I'd actually applied, so naturally they'd recognize that. But they connected it to me too quickly.

"You're wanted!"

Ah. The alliance. They must be depicting me as a vicious external enemy to strengthen their unity and reassure other survivors.

One survivor actually pulled out a paper with a crude sketch of my face.

Since I usually wore a baseball cap, rider helmet, or ballistic helmet, the drawing showed me with headgear, revealing frightening lifeless eyes, with a mask covering below the eyes.

I felt momentarily puzzled.

'Can they identify me with this?'

Now that I wasn't wearing a mask or hat, my appearance was completely different. Besides, the drawing would be meaningless if I'd already escaped the city.

It seemed purely for propaganda. Though it was definitely effective now that I was actually wandering the city.

I gestured with my pistol.

"I was actually looking for them... Where are they now?"

"That's..."

The survivors hesitated. I smiled in a friendly manner, saying I understood, then pressed the button that would extract an answer. The trigger.

Bang—a bullet lodged in one man's thigh. Only then did I get a hurried response.

"I know! They've returned to the survival zone!"

"Their evacuation shelter?"

"It's far, no, I'll show you on the map!"

The survivor pulled out a map—an essential item in this era—and pointed to a location. It was definitely outside the range of my previous arson attempt. Looked like a shelter built using the mobility of motorcycles.

I stared quietly at the map, then asked casually:

"Do you happen to have any drones?"

"No. If we did, we'd have already sold them to the alliance."

I needed drones to cut off the alliance's lifeline.

'Electricity is the alliance's foundation, after all.'

With electricity from solar panels, they could substitute almost everything. They could grow crops indoors, heat with radiators, and cook with induction.

In other words, destroying those solar panels would cripple the alliance.

Lost in my malicious fantasies, I glanced at these potential marauders.

"Now leave. Before I kill you."

"..."

The survivors eyed me cautiously before stepping back one by one. They fidgeted with the raiding fundamentals papers as if wanting to throw them away, but ultimately left clutching them to their chests like treasure.

I smirked.

Malice and venom were my weapons. Guns, fire, hammers—all were merely expressions of that malice and venom.

So I spread malice and venom. I lit fires in people's hearts to burn the world. This was a conflagration that spread from mind to mind.

I moved my sinking feet again, crossing the silent city.

***

With each passing day, my transformation into a zombie grew closer. Occasionally, waves disturbed my calm mind. Am I really going to die like this? Was I truly infected? Do I really have less than a month to live?

At such times, I would pull out the suspicious man's notebook from my pocket and let my pen dance. I wrote down passing thoughts. In a way, this was my real will. The raiding fundamentals were merely a tool.

"I wrote all sorts of things."

Looking back at my self-written will, I let out a hollow laugh. It contained many ugly words.

Trust the government, the government will distribute a cure before I change. Chairman, you bastard. Words written carelessly under anxiety and impatience.

Sometimes I wrote with unmotivated malice. Just as people need no reason to like others, they need no reason to hate. Winter ends with spring waiting. And beyond spring, winter waits again. Everyone will die.

Examining this instinctively written will, I suddenly looked up at the window.

"It's burning well..."

The city outside resembled a factory. Several buildings had become chimneys, spewing smoke.

It was the scene of stupid—no, excellent—zombies burning down buildings, unable to properly control fire.

The zombies I had given lighters to had become living fires. They lit fires because they were cold, but couldn't control them and burned down buildings instead.

I even witnessed zombies running to fire sites to transfer embers. Sometimes I saw chilling scenes where the knowledge of using lighters seemed to spread among them.

I couldn't help but grin.

'This worked.'

My attempt to burn the city had failed, but zombies had become a second wave of fire, faithfully carrying on the embers. Moreover, neither the alliance nor other survivors could stop this, nor could the heavens intervene.

It was the spread of knowledge, the contagion of malice.

"Let's see. I've succeeded with more than half, I think."

I folded my fingers one by one, recalling my recent journey.

I gave lighters to zombies. I passed the raiding fundamentals to survivors with marauder potential. I infected relatively good people with the virus.

I recalled certain survivors. Those neither benevolent nor malicious. Pretending to be a virus-infected person preparing for death, I shared candies or food coated with my saliva.

I'd done almost everything I could.

Outside the window, I saw people moving busily. Voices filled with hatred. The sound of motorcycle engines.

"Find that lunatic quickly!"

"Don't give him time!"

Alliance members hunting me. Survivors I'd encountered must have reported me, and now the alliance's avengers were frantically searching.

Though finding one person in these vast ruins wouldn't be easy.

'If only I had a working drone, I could somehow cut off their electricity.'

I sighed with regret. Loading a drone with paint and dumping it on solar panels would be quite effective. That alone could cripple the alliance's growth engine.

Suddenly, a realization struck me. Knowledge from Professor Kim. Solar power generation is poor in winter. Why? Because accumulated snow freezes and blocks sunlight.

"I'm not the only one who failed!"

My city-burning plan wasn't the only thing that failed because of the weather. Solar power generation had also failed because of snow. Laughter erupted from deep within me.

This couldn't be helped. Sweeping with brooms would scratch the solar panel surfaces. Pouring hot water could crack them due to temperature differences.

Winter truly was the season of death. It brought failure indiscriminately. Without me doing anything, the alliance's foundation was crumbling. They too were rolling down the slope toward death.

I recalled words from my will.

Spring waits at winter's end. But beyond spring, winter waits again. Words full of malice suggesting that even if you survive winter, everyone will eventually die.

But in this apocalyptic world, which was far worse than I'd imagined, how many people would even survive the winter?

Tip: You can use left, right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.Tap the middle of the screen to reveal Reading Options.

If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.

Report