Chapter 51
"If you glare at him like that, you'll scare the kid."
"It's not me—it's because there are so many people here, you know..."
The two old men, whose sharpness had just been completely dulled, coughed a few times before quickly returning to their usual sharp expressions.
The two of them had looked somewhere between middle-aged and old, but from then on I decided to think of them in my head as just two old men.
That was the impression they gave once they started talking about their grandkids.
"Ahem, we're truly grateful for the support, but I must say this first."
The teacher who had once been a politician spoke gravely.
"Originally, now that we'd received this food, we should have left Suwon Safe Zone on the student's train. But the situation has changed a little..."
"Changed how?"
When I asked, they answered as if they were troubled too.
"Our original deal with the Yeouido folks was never simply to receive food and leave. The prerequisite was that even if we left, we'd set things up so the people left behind could keep living, and the Suwon Safe Zone could remain in normal condition for several months."
"So that was the food and daily necessities support."
"That's right."
At his words, I nodded.
So originally, it must have been able to stay stable with food and daily supplies alone.
"Does that mean it's in a state where Suwon can no longer stay normal with food alone?"
"Ashamed to say, yes... because lately some very troublesome bastards have taken root around here."
At the mention of that, I first thought of monsters.
"Troublesome bastards? Have monsters suddenly started appearing in large numbers around here? Or maybe a dungeon...?"
"Well, they're basically monsters. And they're similar to a dungeon, too."
As he said that, he glanced at Sua, who was curiously looking outside the train beside me.
Then he glanced back at me.
It meant this was a story he didn't want to talk about in front of a child.
I immediately patted Sua lightly on the shoulder.
"Sua, go inside and play. Big sis needs to talk with the adults about something important."
"Okay! Got it!"
As Sua pitter-pattered into the train and the door of Car 1 shut firmly, the man's demeanor changed a little.
"Please speak comfortably now. If they're not monsters, then what are they?"
"Criminals."
The man gritted his teeth as he answered.
Since the world went to hell, those bastards have been constantly threatening Suwon's supplies and people lately.
The politician teacher let out a heavy sigh.
"Until we completely smash their hideout and eliminate the threat, we can't just run off to Yeouido and say only we get to survive. If we leave those guys be, this place definitely won't last much longer."
"Damn... I just want to go see my grandchild..."
The chairman, who seemed to be a businessman, seemed to have a different thought, but he still leaned a little more toward dealing with it before leaving.
The two old men looked at the train behind me, especially the shredder making its presence known at the front.
"I'm embarrassed to ask, but I'd like the student and the student's train to help us a little."
"Wait. Before that, could I ask exactly what those bastards did?"
I fixed my gaze on the two old men.
Before helping them, I wanted to know exactly why they were calling those people a criminal group.
At my firm attitude, the politician old man nodded heavily.
"Right, we should tell you. But it might be a pretty unpleasant and gruesome story..."
"It's fine. Go ahead."
The chairman gritted his teeth and began telling the story of what the Suwon survivors had gone through.
"The first time I learned about those bastards was through the Survivor Gallery exchange board."
Apparently, the people in the Suwon Safe Zone had come to need credits in order to use the vending machines.
So they posted useful items on the Gallery Exchange, traded them for credits, and the nickname they'd been using ever since was 'Suwon Safe Zone'.
"Then one day, maybe someone noticed that nickname and sent a message. It was an urgent plea saying they were also stranded and hiding in the Suwon area, and asking if we could please rescue them."
"..."
A bad feeling came over me.
The chairman lowered his head bitterly.
"It wasn't the trade request we'd been expecting, but how could we ignore the voice of someone from so close by asking to be saved? We immediately organized five combat-capable Awakened as a rescue team and sent them out."
As he spoke, the chairman's fist started trembling.
"But the next dawn, only one came back. It was a single female Awakened, with bruises all over her body and her clothes torn to shreds."
I furrowed my brow hard.
"At first we thought she'd been attacked by monsters... but she had been attacked by humans who were worse than monsters."
The chairman frowned for a moment as if remembering the sight, then turned his head away.
The politician teacher took up the story.
"The moment they arrived at the meeting place, the ones who had asked for rescue suddenly changed and swung weapons at them. The rest of the ambushing group sprang out too and attacked the rescue team. The remaining four male Awakened were..."
The area fell silent.
Maybe it was already something everyone knew, because they said nothing and just looked at the floor or off into the distance.
It seemed they were trying to compose themselves.
"...The only one who came back..."
"They seem to have left the only woman alive for the time being because she was the only female, and then dealt with the other survivors first. During that opening, she escaped by breaking through the encirclement with everything she had."
"Hoo..."
A sigh escaped me before I knew it.
A group that exploited people's goodwill and stabbed them in the back, and that killed people without hesitation.
Now I understood why they called them criminal bastards.
"After that, through tracking them, we found the location where they had set up their hideout. They even built a fairly solid barrier and were pretending to be a safe zone, still fishing for victims through the Gallery."
The two old men weren't asking me to cut the criminals' throats for them.
"Back in the old days, why did people sweat blood building huge fortress walls..."
The chairman pointed toward the front of my train with his eyes.
"There's a huge barricade set up along the route into their hideout and over the subway tracks. We only want one thing from the student."
"You want me to use my train to break just that barricade?"
"That's right."
"And I don't have to fight?"
The chairman looked back and forth between my face and the spear, then frowned.
"Ahem... we do have some conscience. This is our own business, after all. We should be the ones to finish it."
"Right, if the student gets hurt, what would that little kid from earlier do... and of course we'll promise compensation."
"...Yes, I'll help."
The moment I said I'd accept, preparations began at an incredible speed under the two old men's lead, as if they'd been waiting for this.
The people checking weapons and gear moved without a shred of hesitation.
It was as if they'd been preparing for this moment for a long time.
They loaded the Suwon Awakened and the two men into the passenger car and started racing along the tracks.
They said the destination was just about two stations down the line from Suwon Safe Zone.
They said I'd know it as soon as I saw the barricade.
Before long, the enemy hideout came into view.
Just as they said, I didn't need to go to Car 3 and ask if that was the place; the barricade alone was enough to tell.
"...They really went all out."
I let out an absurd, dry laugh at the sight beyond the cockpit window.
The barricade those bastards had built over the underground tracks was stacked up from layers of wooden posts made by ripping out whole roadside tree trunks and crushed scrap cars.
What kind of brute strength or skill did they have to bring those heavy things down into these underground tracks and build a wall like that?
And from what I heard, the aboveground part was even worse.
"It should be fine, right?"
I was a little worried, but I decided to trust my train and keep going.
"Hold on tight. Take care of the kids."
I told Haseon in Car 1 to be careful, and at the same time asked the golem to hold the children tight.
In case they might fall over from the impact.
Seeing the golem position itself behind the two children and Haseon clutch the laptop carefully, I pulled the lever.
Kwaaang-! Gagagagak-!
The whole train jolted the moment the train and barricade collided head-on.
I could hear cries of surprise from far away in Car 3 as well.
The train's speed slowed, but the shredder spinning at its front didn't stop.
Kkakakak-!
The crudely stacked wooden posts and the scrap cars' steel panels were shredded like paper with a grinding sound.
"There!"
WHAM-!
Once the gears had ground everything to powder, the enemy wall finally shattered to pieces and the barricade came crashing down satisfyingly.
"Phew... scout drone, check the area around there."
When the dust cleared, the enemy hideout was far bigger than I'd expected.
When the scout drone checked outside the station, it seemed they'd fortified the entire area around this station into a fortress.
Ironically, that vast scale worked in our favor.
Even after the tremendous roar of the barricade being smashed rang out, only two or three of them came rushing toward the train, maybe because the distance was so far.
They hurried down beneath the station and looked at the train.
"W-what the hell! What is that train?!"
"Attack it!! Stop it!"
The startled bastards started unleashing attacks at the train.
Someone conjured a huge block of ice in midair and hurled it, while someone else threw several sharp dagger-like objects one after another.
Clang! Ting!
They seemed to be aiming for the windows, but unfortunately they couldn't even leave a scratch and bounced off.
I left Car 1's cockpit and headed for Car 3's passenger compartment.
"We're here—ah."
Before I could even finish speaking, the survivors of Suwon were already up, armed, and lined up in a row by the door.
Their gazes were fierce.
"Student. Open the door, please."
"Wait. The bastards outside are throwing ice blocks and knives..."
I warned them carefully, but the politician teacher and the military-disciplined man leading the way answered without the slightest hesitation.
"It's fine. Open it."
Hisss-!
The moment I opened the door of Car 3, the three men standing in front sprang out without delay.
They rolled behind the pillars around the tracks to take cover, then pulled out black weapons from inside their jackets.
'Huh? That's—
Bang-! Bang! Ratatatat-!!
A sharp burst echoed through the station.
What the men were holding wasn't an item or a skill, but real guns.
"Aaaagh!"
"Cough!"
Only a few seconds had passed since the three men calmly fired from behind cover.
The bastards who'd been throwing ice and knives at the men who'd come out were silenced with screams.
The chairman and the politician teacher snorted with laughter.
"Serves them right!"
"That's what bullets are for. Use 'em generously."
Those three are apparently the best shooters in this Suwon Safe Zone.
They weren't originally that good, but once they started using guns against monsters that flew and darted around, their shooting skills improved dramatically.
Led by those three, the Awakened began advancing quickly out of the station while shifting from cover to cover.
Now that gunfire could be heard too, more people would surely come rushing in, but everyone seemed confident.
"All right, let's join in too!"
That was when it happened.
The stubborn teachers took out weapons and tried to head outside themselves.
"Wait, you're going out?"
"Hey! I was in the White Bone Unit. I'm fine. I'm fine."
Though I shouted in panic, looking at their eyes, it seemed they had no intention of staying inside the train obediently just because I was trying to stop them.
Seeing the two of them head out before I could even stop them, I looked to the side.
"...Go protect the people in the safe zone."
I said to the drones and the golem.
At my call, the combat drone and the sniper drone that had been waiting took off, and the artillery golem walked out, pounding the ground.