Chapter 22 – Episode 21 – Quarantine Zone (3)

Episode 21 – Quarantine Zone (3)

Dragging around the grumbling Irian wasn’t as fun as I’d imagined. It wasn’t that I had a problem with Irian, but rather because of the miserable sight unfolding before my eyes.

Unlike me, who was focused on a straight path to our destination, Irian, who was looking around here and there, discovered a mansion that was blocked off on all sides. Not only the doors, but even the windows were boarded up with wooden planks. Seeing the mansion with all its connections to the outside world sealed off, he insisted on going inside, thinking there might be survivors. But all we found were corpses, dried up and dead.

“These people… they starved to death.”

Flies were buzzing around everywhere, and maggots were swarming over the corpses. The entrance of the mansion reeked of decaying flesh. There, one could see the traces of a desperate struggle to open the blocked door, as if they had held out until the very end, only to succumb to starvation.

Dried bloodstains marked the numerous lines etched into the wooden planks, which were firmly secured with nails. The blistered fingers had blunt or missing fingernails.

They probably couldn’t pry off the wood due to lack of strength and resorted to scratching with their fingernails. Knowing it was futile, it was probably the only thing they could do. Perhaps they held a glimmer of hope that someone would hear the scratching and come to their rescue.

Fingernails worn down and torn out, the rough wood grain digging into the flesh beneath, causing blood to flow and congeal on the floor. How much pain must they have endured? Was their desperate struggle driven by a yearning for life?

…Or was it a mother’s love for the child she held in her arms?

“None of these people were sick. All of them… they weren’t infected.”

The child was nestled in the arms of the woman with worn and missing fingernails.

Buried in the dried-up breast of its mother, it stared at her hand with empty eyes, half-eaten by maggots.

It’s impossible to know who died first.

Did the mother, who was scratching at the wooden planks despite the pain of her fingernails falling out and the wood digging into her fingers, die in despair at the sight of her dead child? Or did the child die after seeing its mother, who had been scratching at the wood for its sake, finally succumb?

Such things… never appeared in the game.

A few lines of text stating that many people had died unfairly and miserably were all that told of their end.

Irian sank to his knees in front of the mother and child’s corpses, his hand reaching out to the child.

His trembling hand closed the eyes of the child, who even in death was still staring at its mother’s bloodied hand.

“…If we… if we had come sooner. Couldn’t we have saved them? Huh? Yurian, say something.”

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

What could I possibly say?

That we could have saved this mother and child if we had hurried? Or that it was inevitable?

I don’t know either. Whether we could have saved these dried-up corpses, who had been dead for quite some time, if we had hurried, or if we couldn’t have.

“We should have hurried more. We knew there were signs of the devil… If we had been just a little faster.”

Irian is a good-natured guy.

A guy like me would just blame others, but even in this situation, he’s blaming himself.

Should I… shift all the blame onto the city people? Should I condemn the cruel people who drove innocent people into the quarantine zone?

Or the Apostle Church guys who slowed down the group by walking instead of riding horses? If they hadn’t joined us, the group’s speed would have been much faster. Maybe we could have prevented their miserable deaths.

It’s easy to shift blame.

Even I’m starting to feel resentment towards the city people and the Apostle Church people. But that’s just an act of finding someone to blame, a way to vent my emotions.

He’s different from a guy like me, as always.

I patted Irian’s shoulder, who was blaming himself. He wasn’t crying, but you don’t have to shed tears to be crying.

I hugged his trembling little body and comforted him for a long time.

Diana and Irian, why are the church guys so fragile? …I’m not in a position to talk. I’m also being comforted by Irian’s warmth.

“This is the devil’s doing, right?”

After a short time of being held and comforted, Irian’s voice was small but firm, as if he had regained his composure. It’s hard to call it the devil’s doing; even the devil would feel wronged. I’m worried about how he’ll react when he learns the truth.

“…Maybe.”

“Every time I read about the devil in the scriptures, I thought they were described too negatively. Even though it’s scripture, can there really be such a purely evil being? Even the devil is a creation of God, so how can it be purely evil… I guess the scriptures are right after all.”

I don’t remember well.

The creation of the world in the game, how God structured the world, blah blah blah. As an atheist in real life, what do I care about scriptures or theology in a game?

The creator of this world is ultimately the game developers, isn’t it? Of course, the ‘God’ here seems to exist separately, but I don’t care. That’s why, during theology class, I would look at the scriptures with my eyes while my mind wandered, so even though I’m a priest, I’m practically illiterate when it comes to the scriptures.

But I do know this.

There is no pure evil. A devil? There are even devil heroines, so what kind of pure evil is that? There’s no such thing. The origin of this tragedy was the ‘devil sickness,’ but the direct cause of their deaths was being trapped in the quarantine zone and starving to death.

“So, are you saying the city people are bad?”

“No. Wouldn’t it be great if the world was as simple as good and bad? It’s easy to distinguish between good and evil, but it’s difficult because everyone has both good and evil within them.”

“…It’s difficult.”

“It should be difficult. If it were easy, you’d be someone who’s blindly devoted to something.”

And if that’s a church person, they’d be a fanatic. I don’t want to see Diana and Irian like that.

“…I don’t know. I don’t get it. Just decide for me.”

His cute whining brought a wry smile to my face.

Decide for him? How dangerous is that? Should I explain in detail how dangerous it is to entrust the judgment of values, the judgment of good and evil, to someone else?

I realize it every time, but I’m such a bad guy.

As soon as I realized that I was secretly pleased with Irian’s reaction, a wry smile escaped my lips.

“Okay. I’ll decide for you.”

I gently stroked Irian’s red hair and said in a low voice.

“So, just trust me. Okay?”

“…Okay.”

The world is indeed a more comfortable place for bad guys.

…By the way, Irian. Could you please stop talking to my little guy?

He’s already small, and when I hug him while he’s kneeling, it seems like his face is right at my crotch. Even though I’m wearing a long priest’s robe, I feel his breath on my groin every time he speaks, which is a bit awkward.

* * *

“Governor.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.”

Cha Hyewon suddenly came to her senses and noticed her subordinate waiting for her. Where am I? That’s right. The quarantine zone.

It had already been half a day since she entered the quarantine zone. How could she be having such random thoughts while monsters were swarming everywhere? It’s all because she’s too good.

‘Too easy. It’s so convenient to have maxed-out stats from the beginning.’

She had installed the game on her neighbor’s recommendation, but she hadn’t really enjoyed it, so she had forgotten about it for a long time.

The game that her first love, her neighbor, had always played. It had already been four years since that game-obsessed guy had gone missing. She hadn’t even confessed her first love, which she had cherished since childhood, and he had just disappeared. Is he even alive?

While reminiscing about old memories, she suddenly remembered this game. She had installed it because it was the game her brother liked so much, but she had never actually played it.

‘…One last time. Let’s try this one last time.’

She had decided to forget him now. The end of her long first love, which had lasted for over ten years, was like this. She had expected to be rejected… but she had never imagined that she wouldn’t even get to hear the words of rejection. It would have been better to be rejected.

She would try it for the first and last time… and then forget about it.

The game was surprisingly easy. Her brother had emphasized how difficult it was… why is it so easy?

She played about half of the game and then started over. It was too easy and boring. Moreover, when she played as a male character, the female NPCs were all over her.

She had only chosen normal and logical options, but for some reason, the female NPCs’ favorability ratings quickly reached their maximum, and they wouldn’t leave her alone.

It was bad enough that she was single, but seeing those lovey-dovey scenes in the game, especially when she was a male character, was just annoying.

So, she started a new game.

Even if it was boring because it was too easy, you still had to start with the best specs. Cha Hyewon, who had grown up in a wealthy family without worrying about money, always invested generously in things that could be solved with money. She bought all the special perks and poured them into her newly created character.

She easily chose things like stats, traits, and jobs, but the thing that took the most time was creating the character’s appearance. It was called customization, and she even studied it by watching YouTube videos.

The game was so unpopular that she couldn’t find any results even when she searched online. So, she had no choice but to study by watching YouTube videos of popular games with similar customization features, and it took her four hours just to create the appearance, but she was quite satisfied with the result.

‘I want to be like this too~ …Well, it’s useless now.’

Was this the type her neighbor had said was his ideal?

She smiled contentedly as she looked at the character, which was a combination of his ideal type and her own wishes. Then she started the game… but…

“Governor. We’ve reached a fork in the road.”

“Ah. Here… let’s just split up.”

“If you split up the group again… you’ll be left alone, Governor.”

“It’s okay. You guys should be more careful.”

“That’s true, but… please be careful.”

Huh? When did they get so few?

She had brought a lot of subordinates, but after splitting them up repeatedly, she was now left alone. Well, does it matter? It’s not like there’s any danger.

The problem is looking at those ugly, disgusting monsters, but there’s nothing particularly dangerous.

What did the game designers eat to make them like this? They’re so disgusting.

Ugh, annoying. What about my eye health? …But that guy, he did a pretty good job creating the character’s appearance. Yurian, was it?

‘Ha! I was thinking about that guy again. Focus, Cha Hyewon.’

She kicked away the ugly monsters that kept popping up and searched everywhere, but she couldn’t find the secret place.

‘Damn it. Why isn’t it there? It was definitely that way the first time. Is my memory wrong?’

She thought about it carefully.

It was definitely the place she had gone to the first time. She still vividly remembered discovering the secret place there during her first playthrough.

‘Did I not look closely enough? Or did I skip a quest sequence?’

Should she start over from the beginning? Ugh, annoying. Other quests were fine, but why is this one like this?

She’s been having doubts about her memory lately.

She clearly remembers it, but something is subtly different. The quest content, the NPCs, the dialogue. The quests that should have appeared according to her memory are missing, and new quests that she’s never seen before keep popping up.

Until now, she had assumed that the details had changed because she had entered the game world, but now she’s wondering if her memory is wrong. …No, that can’t be. I have a great memory.

‘Annoying. I’ll just check up to there and go back to the first place. If it’s not there either, do I really have to do every single quest? Ugh, annoying~~’

Come to think of it, what is that guy doing? He definitely entered the quarantine zone. She had met his group from time to time.

Even though they had ignored each other as if they were strangers, her eyes couldn’t have been blind, so she had gathered some information.

It seems like they were also searching separately, as she only saw small groups of his party, but not him.

Also, the church’s forces are stronger than she thought. At least much stronger than her current subordinates.

Well, they’re the church’s elite forces, so they should be stronger than the subordinates she had gathered to fill the ranks. It’s amazing that he’s leading the church guys in Hespold.

Especially Jacob and Diana. She knows them well because she used them as party members in the game.

‘…But why does the Saintess look at people so annoyingly? That’s not her character.’

She was a very kind, pure, and cute character, so what did she do wrong to be glared at like that?

Ah. Could it be because of that time? When she was greeting that playboy, did she have a battle of nerves? It wasn’t a big deal, but could it really be because of that?

If she’s being hated by that innocent and kind, cute Saintess, did she go too far? No, it wasn’t a big deal. If it’s really because of that, it’s so unfair.

‘It’s that frivolous guy’s fault.’

A memory from a while ago came to mind.