Chapter 26
[26] Transverse musical instruments do not obscure people (1)
It took a total of a week to get down near Busan. If Jean were alone, she would have shortened her time, but even if Leona followed closely, she rested and adjusted her pace accordingly.
Leona literally gripped her teeth. On the way down, the monsters encounter you decide, in some cases, whether Gene will hunt.
I encountered several points and towns in the middle, but Jean and Leona couldn’t get in because they didn’t usually need hunters.
“Humility sucks.”
“The smaller Bondi is, the closer it gets. Ardpoint was kind of weird.”
“Do you think it could be a slater with something as small as me?”
“The more doubts, the better.”
Leona raises her middle finger at the villagers watching Leona and Jean leave at the entrance to the village to see if she’s annoyed by the door slammed in the village she just passed.
“Bastards! Eat well and live well!”
Leona speaks cheerfully and spits. We ran out of food, so we had to eat monster meat again yesterday, but the villages still wouldn’t let them in.
“You’re a picky kid.”
“I’m not in the first place. But the things that you recommend are too… It’s too much.”
“What did you eat while floating around? You didn’t starve to death, did you?”
“You can eat grass roots… It was like that. Monsters didn’t hunt and didn’t want to eat.”
“Despite the taste, you should eat enough meat during your growing season. You’ve gained a little weight walking around with me. I haven’t eaten properly in a while.”
Leona’s arms and legs are tapered together. Gin was not a chewy character, and Leona ate enough protein and fat even though she didn’t want to eat the lump. That’s why Leona was getting better in real time.
“I’m definitely less tired than I used to be…”
It is natural for you to be healthy since you started eating grassroots well. Not only was it tasteless, I fed Leona meat that was not very harmful even after eating the gin.
“Whatever. I think I’m getting used to it.”
Leona said with a bright look on her face. It’s useless to be depressed, and you have to accept it positively. Leona firmly believed that mood and emotion had a profound effect on the human condition.
That said, Jin smiled and said.
“Then today we can eat the roasted rib eye roasted in grilled oil.”
“…… Are you really doing this on purpose?”
When Leona shut her mouth as if she was annoyed to hear it, Gene was naturally reinforced.
“An essential diet is adequate. You should be thankful.”
“I think he’ll come up if he hears me!”
“If yesterday’s meat comes up, it’ll be a fun experience.”
Leona grumbled, but eventually she was forced to eat as much as Gin gave her.
Gin really put out some roasted, poisonous dog ribs in grilled oil.
Leona chews the visual meat that seems to be boiled in the Devil’s Cauldron and says it’s quite edible, unlike what it looks like.
After a little early dinner, Leona and Jean walked again.
“Where is Carl?”
“Well, if it’s the same destination, we might meet.”
However, Gene was confident that Carl would be headed for BMCP. Carl may have arrived first, or Gene may have arrived first.
However, when we met, we did not know how Carl would appear.
“Hmm….”
Leona walks around.
The surrounding area, presumed to be an urban center, was not a beehive and a wasteland, but a municipality where the ruins of the building were scattered.
“Watch your step. There might be a sinkhole.”
The city is more dangerous than the wilderness. In particular, sinkholes were scattered because of the collapse of old underground facilities as the metropolitan area grew older, as well as when the place that had not yet collapsed fell on its feet.
Just like Crevasse, Leona and Jean have encountered the giant pits on their feet several times.
You could see the skeletons of the city unfamiliar, as if they were cut vertically.
“This is what it felt like in my hometown.”
“Is that so?”
“Well, some kids would go out and play, and the ground would collapse and die. So I know the sinkhole. You don’t have to worry.”
Gin and Leona put the sinkhole aside and walked a dangerous path in the middle. Just as Jean walked carefully, Leona walked carefully.
“Living far away from town…. Kids.”
It’s a hell of a way to die.
“It’s like playing with kids all the time, you know? Treasure hunting.”
“Treasure?”
Gene thought that this rubbish and rubbish and treasure hunt really didn’t go well.
“But if you look closely, there are treasures, things adults don’t take.”
“What’s that?”
“dolls, toys, hairpins, children’s clothes. Shoes. Adults don’t care, but there are important things for kids.”
Leona points to the cracks in the collapsed building, inside the broken windows of the collapsed building. Kids wander around looking for treasure.
I seek children’s treasure, not adults. There was quite a lot of children’s treasure left in the world because adults didn’t care.
“The rarest of them all is plastic robots, even when it transforms. The day you find something like that, it’s not like the kids are gonna start fighting amongst themselves. If you squeeze and squeeze and squeeze at each other, eventually you can’t even play with it and smash it. If I can’t play with it, I’ll break it. So everyone cried and went on a treasure hunt the next day like when… Isn’t it silly?”
Leona laughs at whether she imagines such times. Stupid, stupid kids. Gene told Leona that.
“You used to get along well with the kids.”
“…….”
Leona’s expression darkens for a moment. Before being banished, Leona used to have fun with her children. And I was delighted to imagine that moment.
“I’m a kid, too. At first, the kids were just playing… Well, it’s childish, isn’t it? That’s why I hit him so fast.”
Gene knew Leona was lying about pretending to be bright, but he didn’t point it out. Leona is still a child. It didn’t look good to see a child who didn’t have much past to chew.
The city has drilled holes in and around the city to efficiently use the confined space, creating no space. The city was created to make the most of the minimum space.
After the destruction, the city collapsed, collapsed, revealing its naked flesh as it grew old. I had to tread carefully, even when the ground was going to die. Mountains and fields, fields and wilderness are as safe as the ground.
A city provides as much shelter as a hidden space, and sometimes people hide there, but monsters lurk there for their prey.
The ruined city has the best conditions for a monster to hide in. It’s the same for humans.
The wilderness can be viewed from northeast to southwest, but it is added up and down in the city.
“I don’t think there’s anything in this fucking town… ‘
Gene is walking and looking around closely. As the sun was about to set, they too had to leave at night, settling in a gap in the abandoned building.
Leona and Jean walked the ruins until the sun was completely down.
The creature is invisible, and some cats are crying out in low tears as they move back and forth the building. And suddenly,
Leona spits out her resilience.
“Er…”
“What’s the matter?”
“No… Here’s something…”
Leona bites her lip as she looks around.
“I’m used to it…”
Leona pointed at a statue that collapsed. It was unclear whose statue it was, but Leona was saying it was a milestone. Gene guesses what that means.
“Is this your hometown?”
“I’ve known you for a long time, but I was wondering if you saw something wrong because the cities are all similar… But now that I see this…”
On the statue’s body, it was engraved with an iron pen and said, “Neck bone.”
“Hmm, you said you didn’t want to come home, right?”
“No, that’s not it. I didn’t mean that….”
Leona looks carefully at the dim surroundings.
“Seeing this means you’re already in the middle of town…”
However, the surrounding area was dark without a single lamp on. I entered the center of the town, but I couldn’t feel any popularity anywhere except the sound of a cat crying. Gene didn’t even cross the trash wall on the way over.
Leona’s hometown was empty of rubbish walls. Leona glances at the statue and smiles.
“Looks like they’re all dead.”
Leona shrugged her shoulders, but there was no such thing as grief, anger or refinement.
I arrived at Leona’s hometown, and it had already returned to its original ruins.
“It’s common.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a dead body.”
It is unknown whether it is caused by a monster or by a slater. But anything worth robbing would have been stolen.
“I know a place, but it’s late. Why don’t you rest here?” ”
“It was time to rest…”
Leona, who told me to rest and go to her ruined hometown, was not as brave as everyone else. Others would leave in a hurry because of sadness, grief or fear, but Leona never gave up that feeling.
There was another drink there.
“If it’s a monster wiped out, not a slater, I know a place that’s hairy.”
Jean nods happily as Leona smiles.
“Good.”
Leona and Jean have nothing in common, but they are both Scavengers whenever they are needed.
Leona chose the place to stay was the fourth floor of the building that used to be a large market.
“The other buildings don’t know when they’ll collapse, so this is the tallest place to rest. Some of them actually seem to have collapsed.”
Despite the fact that the windows are all broken, Leona is always aware that it is better to have a higher vantage point than others. Leona’s survival instincts have stunned Jean in quite a number of ways.
Leona, who knows the geography, is in charge of the search, and Jean decides to monitor the heights for monsters and slatters.
Gene was watching Leona cut out to the first floor from the four levels of the market and wander around somewhere.
Leona must have wandered the wilderness for years. And Gene seemed to have collapsed quite a long time ago.
Something as hairy would have been robbed, and the food would have rotted.
Although not that high, Gene’s field of view was quite wide as the large buildings were almost collapsed. Even in the darkness, Gene had a much more advanced view than others, though not as much as a night vision. A little better than a normal guy with good eyes.
It makes a huge difference sometimes.
‘Looks like the cats have taken this place.’
In Gene’s eyes, he saw some cats going back and forth through the ruins of the night and slowly nodded. The dogs are nowhere to be seen. Wild dogs don’t bark to fear humans unless they stimulate them. Of course, when the hounds swarm, they hunt, but there are no swarms of wild dogs here.
You may eat cat meat today, but Gene decided to watch Leona bring it first.
‘Catching cats in a place like this is no good.’
Cats have weak but spiritual powers, and in fact, some meaningful spells use cats. It’s not uncomfortable to hunt a beast with the power of a spirit in a place of death.
Above all, it is even more dangerous in the town of invisible cats.
Although there is a good chance nothing will happen, Gene does not choose the path to uncleanness on purpose.
Since the advent of monsters in the world, the boundary between superstition and reality has been broken. Some superstitions become truth, and some reality becomes falsehood.
Science is now reverting to a single religion, not the end of the world.
Progress eventually doesn’t know what to believe. Gene, however, has seen the disasters that superstitions actually bring. Know what to avoid
And there was a sharp sound in Jean’s ears.
Kuaaang!
Though the sound is heard from a distance, Gene looks directly at the direction of the sound.
Gyahhhh!
It was the sound of a cat crying with a lot of vigilance. I took out my binoculars and looked at the place. It was dark, but the moon was bright, which did not require night vision.
Jin’s eyes saw a cat with an arrow to the side climb up the building wall and fall back.
The men with the five bows shot the cats at will. They each carry a sack, and there they pull the arrow out of the dead cat and shove it into the ground.