CHAPTER IV  

 

                        It is a quite tedious journey during the ride. Seongwoo has been carefully driving on the road, passing by a few hordes on the far right and left side, and concentrating to the main point which is to be arrived by the outskirt. He has heard of the flying helicopters with speakers on loud, alerting everyone in the whole city of Seoul and voted for the third option as well. They knew it won't be safe to stay inside their house, locked and hide. Those doors would have been broken down anytime soon. Food and drink supplies could be lessen as days gone by. People might be dying from starvation and dehydration.   In the meanwhile, Daniel can be seen resting with his back sinking into the seat much nicer and head tilting slightly bit to the side. Following the other two where Felix leans his head against Chris' shoulder and the older does not flinch as he settle the back of his head on the headrest. Woojin, the most silent, keep himself inactive by having his crown resting against the transparent windows.   Two hours later, the vehicle has made a slow pause. Seongwoo push up the break and stop stepping on the engine to lay it low as his eyebrows started to furrow in wonder. He could not believe what he has been seeing. He leans forward to take a clearer look of the outside condition. It seems to be containing lots of unforeseen stuffs.    Barely know any idea of what he should be doing, he decides to hold Daniel's shoulder and shake him a bit to disturb the younger.   “Hey, wake up. We are here,”   Daniel had his eyebrows twitching a little, motioning the expression of him being alarmed by the sudden movement and eventually peeling open his eyes to be surprised by the front event as he adjust his sitting position to straighten up after stretching his arms. ‘We are here’ does not make it sound better at all.   Because all they see is another nightmarish scenery. A solid piece of a hard substance, such as the woods, bricks, protective blockers, and more barricades to separate the outsiders with the outskirts town, are in disorderly arrangement. They could assume some things pushed through that and attacked the soldiers since if they zoom closer, there are real military trucks— Unlike Seongwoo's casual black one— left their doors flung disclosed. He can spot red drops on the grounds and destroyed firearms. Despite those chaos in sight, but they could not see anyone else beyond the blockers. Not even a strand of hair.   “Are you sure this is the outskirt they were informing about?” asked Chris, awakened after the car stopped vibrating.   “I dare to swear this is the correct place but I think we are kinda late?” answered Seongwoo.   “No, I don't think we should be here much earlier. It will be worst. From what I can guess, those civillians wanted to enter the safe zone and they were panicking so bad that they causes the barriers to be moved away crazily," says Daniel, examining the surroundings just in case if he can detect any strange action.   “Yeah... It seems like half of the civillians were bitten or fell sick, so they pounced on the soldiers..,” Seongwoo added, agreeing to the guy sitting on the passenger cushion then continues, “Shall we check out? I don't think we can pass through that much of obstruction with this truck,” he recommended a second plan.   “In additional, this is not my car, so I won't be too sad to leave this here,”    It encourages Daniel to think farther and check on his two basketball folks, “What do you guys think?”   “Well, that's better than doing nothing and got stuck here,” said Chris, referring to a yes.   “Then we should move out now. Maybe we can find a house or at least a shelter nearby the forest we are approaching,” Daniel spoke and once everyone confirmed to no protest, they eventually hops off the vehicle to forget it behind.   To remind himself that Felix has no weapon, so Daniel offer him his axe and the younger approves that to protect himself during an emergency. Chris brought Felix to his back afterward and would consider the younger to be a precious treasure that cannot be broken by anyone, not even himself. The same happens to Seongwoo with his speech disabled cousin, Woojin. They firmly clenches their own choices; the college student has a baseball bat under his name while the latter has a golf club in his grip.   Daniel begins to saunter forward, thanks to the disarrayed barricades they could make it through there and invade the place without a problem, except one or two may have been watching their footsteps.   The brunet goes to pick up some machine guns but once tested, none of them worked well. No sound, no functional systems, no bullets left. The soldiers might have been so shocked that they wasted on the bullets and ended up surrendering to the living corpses. He need to explore more and survey their things inside the truck, so he went to climb up the driver seat and ramble his hands through every parts of the truck until he felt a heavy metal underneath the passenger seat. He pulls it out with all strength.   It is an assault rifle.   Suddenly, he got startled by Woojin popping up out of nowhere with his iPad and jumped a bit from the instant coming up like a total ghost. “Woojin, what are you doing here?”   The lad seems to be busy typing on his iPad then he press a button to let Daniel listen the mild computer application voice speaking since the lad already tone down the volume, not wanting to attract the monsters.   “The name is bullpup multirole combat rifle, the one you're holding. It is fully ambidextrous and possesses flexibility for assault. The BMCR's barrel is coated with a proprietary dry lubricant which repels sand, dust, and gunpowder soot for reduced maintenance. The rifle is also designed to be over the beach (OTB) capable, enabling the operator to safely fire after submerging the rifle in water.”   It surprises him since he wouldn't know such application exists for non-verbal to communicate but what is more surprising when Woojin masters at remembering the factors of firearms, including the one he is currently saving in his hands.   “Oh, wow... Okay. Thank you, Woojin-ah. That was pretty helpful,” he said, thanking th