Trouble
The woman who was treated as a child’s toy stood firm with her mouth open as she looked up at Ha Yeon-woo.
If a person is too frightened, he may die of a heart attack.
In a good state of body and consciousness, relaxation hormones come out, but on the contrary, when stress is extreme, stress hormones that cause contraction rigidity are excessively secreted.
It’s not just staring blankly at them, it’s the contraction of blood vessels and the resulting pressure that stiffens the muscles and prevents the body from moving as it pleases.
What was needed in this case was waiting until the brain recognized the situation and responded.
“Huh… Heo-eok… .”
As expected, the woman’s breathing, which had been blocked, became thick and loose after a while, and a rough breath came out.
English flowed from her mouth, which had not relaxed her guard for a while, catching her breath.
“Where are you from… who are you… ?”
Even in the middle of the hectic, English came out of her mouth, not the pan-continental language or Chinese.
Since I talked to myself in Korean the entire time I was dealing with the two young variants, I chose a language that allowed me to communicate.
It meant that he had figured out his own situation even when his life was at stake.
‘It must have been either a high-ranking son or an intellectual.’
This kind of notice and the ability to use English fluently spoke of her former status.
“Oh, no. First of all thank you. really… .”
She uttered gibberish, erased the previous words, and thanked her first.
As if the tension had been relieved, she fell on the floor halfway and shed tears.
Molgol, where the soup is flowing.
Her hair was scattered and scattered, and she was as thin as starvation because she couldn’t even take care of the minimum amount of nutrients for days and days.
‘I might die soon.’
It’s not an exaggeration, but it didn’t seem strange when he died.
Assuming that a normal human does not consume any food at all, the shortest thing that can be endured is two weeks. 4 weeks at most
That’s the dictionary meaning of asa. It means that the nutrients in the body are not burned and the internal organs are decomposed and lead to death.
However, it is very rare that a horse starves or starves to death in that way.
I knew it because I had been in several great famines and watched hundreds of thousands of cases of starvation by my side.
Asa is truly terrifying.
‘Because there are already countless ways to reach death before that happens.’
In the cold winter, fat burns and can’t regulate body temperature, so it freezes to death. It is possible to die of shock from the terrible pain of slowly damaging organs, and dying from illness due to reduced immunity is the basic of the basics.
Most of the starvation deaths do not really starve to death, but rather die much earlier due to these additional factors.
According to the dead man, the woman could have continued such a life for more than a month, so it was better for her body to be intact.
Of course, it’s not like he didn’t eat anything at all.
Even if it’s junk food, nutrients are nutrients.
Right now, there are things that look like food waste all over the alley here, so life is prolonging life.
“Do you usually eat proper food?”
It was a light question thrown to figure out what was going on.
“That, just… I pick up food that I usually eat and throw away, or sometimes I throw away bread… .”
“I wish I could tell you a little bit. Where these bastards lived, there would be enough water and food.”
* * *
There is no way to know who lived in the past. A run-down three-story villa.
The sense of incongruity given by two corpses in a dark alley. Anxiety about not knowing when other variants might come. The expectation of being able to consume water and food made her accept Ha Yeon-woo’s offer.
The fact that he is the only person who can protect him right now must have played a big part too.
Compared to the built buildings and remaining infrastructure, the population has decreased drastically, and the surplus of buildings and land was the current reality here.
It will be the same wherever you go. That’s how many people die or leave.
One of the boys Ha Yeon-woo killed was also using the entire villa alone, which had no owner.
The woman guided Ha Yeon-woo there.
parents or family? There couldn’t have been anything like that.
“So this is the best situation?”
“… yes. Probably. Because it’s so much better than where I was… .”
The woman whose eyes met her looked very tired, perhaps because of a bruise on her neck or lack of energy from malnutrition, but she nodded her head and answered without hesitation.
Focusing on the food on the table, to be precise.
As expected, their staple food was the food waste left behind by the variants.
What Ha Yeon-woo was curious about was not the treatment the variants received, internal conflicts, or detailed rankings.
It was obvious that it was a place where strong people would gather, and it wasn’t that important to know the names of those who would die anyway.
However, since the rest of the process was intended to be left to the awakened people while expanding their sphere of influence, it was necessary to learn the basics.
If you deliver the collected information to Jang Won-woo or Lee Il-hwan, based on that, you will lay the foundation for your battle plan. Just like having a meeting before hunting a monster.
And usually, people at the bottom know better than the upper classes who are full and warm.
The two were sitting at a table across from each other, and the woman who introduced herself as Mei Lin was answering questions one by one, eating small portions of bread she had stored at home.
To put it to shame that she had almost died at the hands of a monster in the form of a child just a few tens of minutes ago, following her words, the situation here in Beijing was much better than in other mutant cities.
Having experienced the city of Shenyang, Ha Yeon-woo also guessed.
“therefore. There are two types of ‘normal’ people who come here: Awoken and normal people.”
“yes… It’s obvious, though.”
Meirin, who was kidnapped and abused by a mutant, and Ha Yeon-woo, who hated such existence, did not regard them as human beings.
So, the ‘people’ who come here are awakened people and ordinary people. The two divisions were over.
“Awakeners are usually rolled in their playground, and when it’s time to scrap them, they are sent somewhere according to their class, and ordinary people are literally slaves?”
Merlin nodded and added.
“The younger men and women who are comparatively useful are used for maidservants, chores, and exploitation, while the older ones… .”
“You will literally be treated as disposable.”
“No, that’s right.”
When the Awakeners are discarded, the reason why they are sent somewhere according to their class is for the growth of the mutants.
Just as fighting power increases when an awakened person hunts monsters, they will become stronger in a similar way.
The only difference is that you can get stronger by dealing with the dying Awakeners while sitting down.
‘Is the system applied differently when variants hunt Awoken?’
if so. And if that was what the Adjusters intended, it was that their malice toward the Awoken was much stronger.
When hunting monsters, it was almost impossible to do that because of the unnecessarily realistic system.
In the first place, at the point where it is clear that the system, awakeners, and variants were all artificially created, they either disliked it or had to deal with it quickly. It means that there is obviously some intention behind it.
‘It must be closer to the latter.’
I listened to the information, organized it, and stored it in my head over and over again.
I looked at the poorly made bread on the table.
Bread made before the disaster, no matter how many chemical seasonings were added, could not be eaten until now.
It doesn’t make sense for it to look roughly straight like me.
‘It’s definitely because there are a lot of them, so they’re steadily developing even in the middle of chaos.’
For convenience, they are called mutants or monsters, but strictly speaking, their essence is human.
eat. Sleep. It should be cheap. Other physiological needs are probably similar to humans.
If bread is sometimes provided as food to ordinary people who treat slaves, it means that it has established itself as the most staple food.
Sara Autonomous District was also using bread, rice, and meat obtained from breeding mutant creatures as its staple food.
Industrial baking, reminiscent of a high-end bakery, is the perception of modern people on bread. In fact, bread is one of the first processed foods, and its history goes back to prehistoric times.
In the first place, there were quite a lot of gaps between modern confectionery and baking, and the bread being made now.
A few more questions were posed. Meirin answered with the utmost sincerity as far as she knew.
Through conversation, the level of civilization maintenance and life customs were also learned briefly.
The level of civilization in Beijing is, if you dare, the barbarian tribe in the northern part of the Pan continent.
Class, class, society, culture, etc., all revolve around power, and things related to food, clothing, shelter, and life are cultivated using slaves or kidnapped people from other tribes.
From what I’ve heard, it’s a very similar situation.
The moment of choice has come again.
Will you save ordinary people or awakened people who have been brought here like Meirin in front of you?
Or, as originally intended, will you quietly deal with only the strong enough to bother you and leave?
There was a tradeoff.
Choosing the former will definitely put your mind at ease.
His deceased wife Sarah also died at the same age as May Lin. because of someone’s desire.
There is nothing worse than not killing someone who should be killed.
However, if that happens, attention will be drawn to the Sara Autonomous District, which was inevitably covered up and out of interest.
If you make a fuss, there will definitely be people who recognize you, and it was impossible to kill all the mutants in this vast Beijing without leaving a single one behind.
Even if he only saved people who could be saved right away, it would take a lot longer than expected, and the treatment of those he saved was also a problem.
However, if only the head was dealt with neatly and left as originally intended, it was possible to slow down their evil deeds a little through that, and there was a high possibility that Sara Autonomous District could also cover it up until the time was right.
As a bonus, there would be conflicts, so I could have expected an infighting.
‘If it was like before, it wouldn’t have been something to worry about.’
Rather than sit quietly and listen to the circumstances of this place, I would have killed them immediately after witnessing the scene in the alley, and immediately caught and killed all the mutants in sight.
Kill the one who came to settle the situation, kill the one who tried to stop it, and kill the one who ran into it.
I would have tried to go to the place where the head was located and cut off the buds as much as I could.
At that time, he was a blood-single person, and was isolated and without a source.
There was power enough not to get hurt in a fight with any human or nation, and there was nothing to protect, and only killing someone to get rid of them was the purpose and direction of life itself.
However, it was different now.
My family was alive on this land, there were people I had to protect, and the purpose of life was no longer to kill or destroy something.
It has changed enough to weigh the profit and loss of killing something and saving someone.
“yesterday… I ate bread. Not food waste thrown on the street, but freshly baked warm bread.”
Meilin’s self-deprecating voice was heard in the middle of her thoughts.
The bread she was holding was crushed little by little, and the hand holding it trembled with strength.
“Men work all day and are always beaten to death and rummaging through food waste, but some women don’t have to.”
A shiver ran through her body.
“No matter how hard it is, I won’t do such a thing, I thought that the way I lived was not so easy… .”
I could well guess what he was talking about.
In a world like this, there was only one way for a slave-class woman to be different from a slave-class man.
“At some point, the wound didn’t heal well. Maybe I saw it and rationalized it. I have no choice but to live. It’s not about giving up, it’s about overcoming it.”
“… … .”
“But it wasn’t. In fact, what I wanted at that time was neither the will to escape this place nor the desire to kill the monsters. I want to be like the other women who live like their pet dogs… It was about.”
It seemed like he was cursing himself for conforming to reality and succumbing to it and becoming an untouchable on his own.
Knowing that there was nothing I could do about it, it was like resenting the reality where there was no other way.
‘I wonder if she did too.’
When faced with a reality that seemed irresistible, Sarah, the wife, chose to break rather than break.
How was she feeling at that time?
“… under.”
Creating a peaceful world for your wife and daughter to return to while abandoning even these things?
“There is no sick person.”