Chapter 60
We loaded all the bedding and belongings from the cart onto the train.
While I was sitting in Car 3 and loosely securing the luggage, the gaze of the tattooed woman, who had been leaning by the window and looking outside, settled on something.
I also turned my gaze out the window.
"Aaaagh! P-please, save me—!"
"You scammer bastard! How dare you trick us?!"
"Beat him up!"
The parking lot in front of the supermarket was pure chaos.
Realizing the truth of the miracle and flying into a rage, the believers were venting their betrayal through violence.
They had the cult leader, whom they had just worshiped like a god, laid out on the ground and were mercilessly pummeling him with fists and kicks.
And then, they soon stopped.
It seemed like they were taking a short break.
Sharing water with one another made them look pretty close.
Watching that scene, the tattooed woman casually asked me,
"What do you think will happen to those people from now on?"
I was a little startled that she, who had stayed quiet the whole time unlike her talkative self in the Gallery, was suddenly speaking to me.
Her use of casual speech suited her image so well that, instead, it felt natural.
I, too, looked out the window for a moment like she did, stroked my chin, and then nodded.
"They'll probably survive just fine."
"..."
"Even if the beginning was probably that cult leader's selfish desire to live comfortably and gather as many people as possible, that greed ended up bringing together quite a crowd."
They looked to be several dozen.
And I recalled the state of the barricade I'd just seen in front of the supermarket and the condition of the roads outside.
"They cleared roads blocked by wrecked cars, knew how to repair and drive vehicles, and even had equipment. On top of that, without any skills, they had used this huge supermarket as a base and had held out against monster attacks all this time."
By achievements alone, they were in pretty good shape—probably better than most other safe zones, aside from the Yeouido Safe Zone.
Even the man who had been standing apart from us nodded and listened carefully.
"Now that they'll turn on their smartphones and gain information and skills, Awakened with combat-related skills hidden among all those people will start popping up, and they'll actively use the Gallery and Exchange systems too."
I was worried about them losing their center, but they had far more to gain than that.
"Maybe they'll even create a much stronger safe zone than the others."
They'd lost their religion, but they'd gained a public enemy, so maybe some other kind of tight bond would form.
When that many people gather together, strange factions are bound to form, but for a while I didn't think they'd have to worry about that.
The tattooed woman slowly nodded as if agreeing with me.
Her gaze never left the chaos outside the window, and in an even heavier voice she asked me another question.
"Do you think a real fanatic might show up later on?"
"A real fanatic?"
When I asked back, she casually glanced at her phone with a chilly look.
"Like following an evil Constellation..."
"Ah..."
"There have even been posts recently telling people to attack other races."
At her words, I imagined it.
That ordinary middle-aged man, with no abilities whatsoever, had won over dozens of people with nowhere else to trust simply by trading items in the Gallery.
What if it were an evil-aligned Constellation?
A Constellation that handled requests, handed out ridiculous rewards, and might really be close to a god.
"It really might show up."
As I sighed, the train began moving even faster along the tracks.
The supermarket scenery receded outside the window.
The fanatics were tossing off their robes.
At this point, I can't even call them fanatics anymore.
"I only hope a religion like that never appears."
When I broke the heavy silence and replied, the tattooed woman also nodded with a bitter expression.
The train slid along the tracks again, heading for the bank.
We arrived in front of the bank and unloaded the luggage.
The people waiting inside ran out to greet us as soon as we came back.
They asked what had happened when they saw our hair was a little disheveled, but I said I'd tell them later.
More than that, I showed them the bedding piled high on the cart, along with the tape and hoses we'd gone to fetch.
The survivors praised us and applauded.
"Wow! You really did bring everything back!"
"Whoa, this is practically hotel bedding, isn't it?"
"I'll put the tape over here."
"You really worked hard."
While the survivors were checking the bedding, we slowly looked around the bank.
By then, the inside of the bank had been tidied up pretty convincingly.
Spacious consultation rooms, staff break rooms, and pantry rooms had been cleaned and sorted according to their use.
The beds were set up too, though they were only mattresses.
When we laid out the bedding we brought and arranged furniture here and there, several of the bank's rooms instantly took on the cozy feel of a studio apartment.
In the widest main lobby, there was still a bank counter standing prominently in the center and an ATM in the corner, so it still felt like a bank.
Every time I looked at it, I couldn't help wanting to take a number ticket.
Apparently there were even safes and bundles of cash, so I vaguely felt like we were illegally occupying the bank.
"Thank you for your hard work. This is the compensation we promised."
"That's quite a lot...?"
"We put in the effort."
One of them handed me a heavy backpack.
They said it was made up of magic stones and monster byproducts they'd collected while clearing the monsters inside and around the bank, along with loot from a small dungeon.
There was quite a lot of it.
On top of that, they even tried to pull food out of the storeroom and add it as a bonus for me.
"Food is fine."
There would be no shortage of food.
We had already stockpiled plenty to begin with, and although the number of passengers on our train had increased compared to before,
it was only Ha-seon, the little brother and sister, and the golem that had been added, so the rate of food consumption hadn't changed much from before.
Once everything had been sorted out and I was about to leave, the tattooed woman came over and spoke to me.
"...My name is Choi Haneul."
"I'm Cha Sowon."
After we introduced ourselves, she suddenly asked me,
"Where are you going now?"
"Uh... I think I found a way to talk to the elf, so I'm going to give it a try."
At my answer, she let out an ah and took something out of her pocket, handing it to me.
A feather.
It was the feather of the giant bird monster the elf had once given her.
"Isn't this the feather the elf gave you? Why are you giving it to me..."
"...Because when it touches my arm, the tattoo gets erased..."
"What? It gets erased?"
Thinking about it, it was something the elf had given her after rubbing at the tattoo on her wrist and failing to remove it.
Did the elf really dislike that tattoo that much?
Still, it was a pretty good item.
To erase a tattoo all at once, without any pain.
Wouldn't there have been demand for that in the world before the apocalypse?
"...Why did you get a tattoo?"
"Just... because it was cute..."
"...Ah, I see..."
I wanted to ask what exactly was cute about the tattoos here and there from her neck to her wrists, but I decided to quietly keep my mouth shut.
You have to be able to respect other people's peculiar tastes.
In the end, I tucked the feather I'd received from Haneul into my chest and headed for the elf's dwelling.
It was finally time to try out the elf-language skill I'd gotten from the liquor store.
After arriving near the destination building, I carefully launched a reconnaissance drone to check on the elf's movements.
"Hm?"
Peering into the feed the drone was transmitting, I was taken aback.
In front of the leaf house where the elf was staying.
Rechecking the items neatly lined up on the rooftop floor with the reconnaissance drone, I tilted my head.
"Why are those there?"
An old wristwatch, a character keychain, an empty drink can, and even a smartphone with a shattered screen.
They were human belongings, as if they'd been found in the ruins where humans once lived.
Why had she arranged them like this?
Was it some kind of collection?
"...Right, let's go ask."
The fact that the Constellation had even provided an other-race language skill book was probably meant to tell me to communicate directly with the elf.
What on earth was she thinking?
I took one deep breath and headed for the building, accompanied by the drones and the golem.
Before long I arrived near the building, and with every step I took on the stairs leading up to the roof, my heart beat a little faster.
Tap.
"Huh? Footsteps—"
When I looked up, someone was there.
Before I had even reached the roof door, the elf was looking down at us from above the stairs, her hair whipping around.
'Should I go up?'
I hesitated for a moment and stopped, but she looked at me and soon gave a faint, strange smile.
I didn't sense any hostility.
Taking that smile as a kind of permission, I carefully stepped up onto the rooftop.
Whoosh-!
The moment I set foot on the roof, a pale, slender hand shot out like a flash.
"Ah!"
The reconnaissance drone escorting me at my side was snatched in her hand.
The elf pulled the reconnaissance drone close before her eyes and began carefully studying its lens and wings, her pupils darting back and forth.
Her curiosity didn't end there.
The rest of the combat drones and sniper drones floating around me couldn't escape her quick hands either.
To her eyes, these drones seemed like some sort of fascinating living creatures.
She even occasionally stroked their bodies with her fingers.
As if petting a bird.
She even approached the hefty golem, and though she couldn't bring herself to lift it, she tapped the hard steel shell on its back with her palm, tap, tap.
The golem stood there blankly, its feet clattering, and the elf's eyes sparkled as if that sound were amusing.
"Hmm, hmm."
I cleared my throat once and desperately ran the unfamiliar pronunciation I'd practiced for a moment through my head.
The information infused through the skill book swirled around in my mind.
"Ar... Arna..."
I couldn't tell whether my pronunciation was correct or an utter mess.
At any rate, I tried my best to greet her.
The moment my voice reached her, the elf, who had been touching the drone, froze.
She widened those already huge eyes even further and snapped her head toward me in disbelief.
'...Did she understand? I hadn't made some slip of the tongue, had I?'
Then she strode toward me, radiating delight, and opened her mouth.
"#!$@%^ &*!"
Beautiful, fluent Elvish poured out of her mouth like a waterfall.
Thanks to the skill, I could tell that what she was saying was Elvish.
"...Huh?"
I gaped.
I'd managed to speak somehow thanks to all that practice, but the problem was that I hadn't practiced listening at all.
If nothing else, maybe I could have understood if she'd spoken slowly.
She was talking at a dizzying speed as if she'd met a friend she'd known for ten years.
"Wait! Stop!"
I panicked and held out a hand, but whether the elf found my reaction amusing or was excited because it seemed like we could actually communicate...
She grabbed my arm with an even livelier expression and kept pouring out words without stopping.
"#!$@%^ &*!"
"This is verbal abuse! Stop!"
"#!%^$#$$!"
Even the stop signal that was supposed to stop school bullying didn't work on the elf.
Instead, I was dragged by the arm and led into the elf's leaf house.