Return of the Apocalypse Knight

Chapter 20: Military Division (1)

After leaving the burning rest stop behind, I walked for another hour before finding a place to sleep.

My new home was a building on the side of the road with a sign that said ‘apple farm’.

I recognized the building from my previous life, a street vendor selling fruit to passersby in a car.

At first glance, the flimsy building was strangely untouched.

Maybe it was because no one stayed there.

It was enough to get us through the night.

We decided to spend the night there, with no fire, just a blanket.

“So it was a trap,” Hoffman said in the darkness, “and the undead have been out here since long before the demon king fled…….”

I heard Hoffman’s words in the darkness.

It was well into the night, but Hoffman still didn’t seem to have fallen asleep.

Perhaps it was the ghost’s words at the rest stop.

Seeing as I couldn’t sleep either, I must be just as disturbed.

The elf breathing was steady, so she must have fallen asleep.

It didn’t matter, though, because she’d wake up faster than anyone else if anyone approached her.

It must have been a shock to Hoffman, who revered the hero, to realize that he had fallen into the demon king’s trap,

I could not sleep for reasons both similar and different from Hoffman’s.

‘A demon kingdom.’

The Demon King had already established his kingdom in North Korea, Manchuria, and parts of Siberia.

In fact, it was a similar situation when he first appeared on our continent.

By the time people learned of the Demon King’s arrival, some of the territories had already been transformed into Demon King lands.

Although the demon kingdoms were not established in the realm of humans like in this world, they were still called demon lands.

Even then, people knew that undead lairs had sprung up in the demon realm, but they didn’t care, and only adventurers were interested in the land.

After a few years of this, the undead suddenly poured into the world of humans.

That was the beginning of the Great War.

‘North Korea became a demon kingdom because a gate was opened here, right?’

It must have been fortunate for the Demon King to have found a home in North Korea, which was cut off from the outside world, rather than in a remote place like Africa, Siberia, or the Amazon.

Moreover, it was a military state with plenty of firearms instead of demons.

If the Demon King had eaten it properly, it would have created a Demon Kingdom of great firepower.

The Demon King’s army, which has the firepower to annihilate the hero party with a single undead unit.

If it’s any consolation, the Demon King’s hasty retreat means that his army may not yet be complete.

Or should I be terrified that the army of demons with the firepower to do so will cross the gate again.

In the end, like Hoffman, I didn’t fall asleep easily.

Nothing happened until the morning dawned.

Despite not sleeping as long as the night before, we were out of bed as soon as the sun came up.

Then, after a quick meal, we headed down the national highway toward Seoul.

The south was not safe, as the demon army headed south before us.

But I couldn’t go to North Korea, which had become the country of the demon king.

Besides, I had business in the south.

We continued walking toward Seoul.

Strangely, the undead became fewer and fewer as we walked.

There were still a few zombies wandering around among the stalled cars, but their numbers had dwindled.

Eventually, by lunchtime, there were no undead on the side of the road.

It was strange.

You’d expect the undead to increase in number the closer you get to the flatlands and the city, but the further you go into Seoul, the fewer they become.

In most cases, there was only one reason for this.

And after a while, we could see why.

The houses along the highway finally appeared. They were different from the ones I had seen in my previous life.

They were burnt to the ground.

Nothing was left intact. Certainly, no one was alive.

Instead, there were smashed and gouged walls, burned bodies, and ragged pieces of corpses strewn about.

There were crushed military vehicles and smashed weapons.

The signs of a war I had only seen in movies in my previous life, not on the battlefields of the continent.

A modern army battling the undead.

“So the armies of this world also fought the undead.”

Both Hoffman and the elf recognized the situation at a glance.

Hoffman looked at the wrecked military vehicles and gestured in the direction we were headed.

“From the looks of it, the army from this world was defending here and was pushed back.”

He shook his head at the scattered weapons and vehicles.

“If they were pushed back, all the dead soldiers would have become undead, so it makes sense that we don’t see any bodies. But from the looks of it, they were pushed back too easily.”

Being a ranger, he recognized at a glance how the situation played out.

“With such a great weapon, it’s hard to believe they were pushed back so easily…….I don’t understand. Are there no priests or knights in this world?”

And then, at once, he realized why.

He wasn’t just a potion-addicted soldier after all.

I answered his question in passing.

“Maybe they didn’t have knights, maybe they didn’t have anyone who could use mana…….”

“What? That can’t be right, I can definitely feel the mana.”

I could feel mana now, but apparently in my previous life, there was no such thing as mana.

“You said the soldiers retreated, didn’t you?”

“Yes. When they retreated, they moved in an organized manner. It seems that the army has not collapsed yet.”

“Then let’s go to the place where the soldiers retreated.”

If we go there, we might be able to get some more information.

At my words, Hoffman led the way.

The trail of battle continued for a long way along the highway.

After a while, we came upon a long wall.

A row of walls, barbed wire on top of them, and guard posts behind them.

I knew it as soon as I saw it.

This was a military compound.

The trail of blood continued along the wall, eventually leading to the main gate of the compound.

In front of the gate was a sagging perimeter of broken steel barricades and military vehicles.

In front of the gate, burned and wrecked military vehicles were strewn about, and there were mangled barricades and burned bodies strewn about.

“If we look at the remaining traces, this is where the real resistance ends. When this place collapsed, most of them died, and some fled in all directions.”

The escape trail led inside the main gate.

“And there are tracks of the undead following them.”

Even without Hoffman’s words, judging by the traces of the undead, it seemed that no one had survived.

They came out of the unit to deal with the undead and were defeated.

After that, they ran back into the unit they had started from and it looks like they were annihilated.

It wasn’t strange, as we’d seen it many times on our side of the world.

“It’s a weapon that only works on people…….”

Hoffman still seemed to find it hard to admit.

I thought I knew why the military on this side of the world had been defeated.

“The soldiers here weren’t fighting ordinary undead, they were fighting a demon army.”

I jabbed the tip of my blade at the blackened bones lying on the ground.

I could see black smoke drifting from the stabbed bones.

“What? Are they skeletons?”

“I don’t think they’re Knights, but I think they’re elite.”

The mainstay of the Demon Army, the troops that can be destroyed and regenerate again unless it’s a mana-laden attack.

Most of the enemies I fought were these skeletons.

It was because of these skeletons that only human corpses remained.

These bones were also left in pieces due to the ignorant firepower of this army.

“Even if there were no knights, there must have been believers in God. Why didn’t they kill any of them?”

“…….”

Hoffman asked, and I couldn’t say anything.

It wasn’t that there weren’t people who believed in God on this side of the world.

It’s just that no one had the divine powers of the continent.

I couldn’t pretend to know, but I didn’t want to get into a religious debate.

“I don’t think anyone survived, but we’ll have to check. Maybe there are some skeletons left.”

With my words, we walked into the compound.

The driveway, similar to the one I’d seen on troop vacations in my previous life, was littered with blood and debris.

“This place is going to be hell to clean up.”

I muttered under my breath, remembering the cleanup from the division commander’s visit, and Hoffman gave me a strange look.

The barracks and troop buildings I’d seen up the driveway were just as bad.

Smashed windows and scattered bodies.

“Uh-uh-uh-uh.”

There were moving corpses all over the barracks, even zombies.

However, there were no skeletons in sight, and the number of moving corpses was small for the size of the army.

“They ran all the way here and ended up as undead.”

The corpses that remained in the barracks were ordinary zombies.

Ordinary corpses wearing military uniforms, but unable to shoot.

Hoffmann could easily handle such corpses.

-Puck. Puck.

They didn’t make it halfway to us before Hoffman’s arrow pierced their heads.

The bodies on the ground squirmed and tried to rise again even with the arrows in their heads.

Hoffman could have stopped these undead, but alas, he could not extinguish them.

Instead, I cut the throats of the undead as they struggled to get up.

“They’re not holding a weapon.”

Zahina looked at the decapitated corpses of the soldiers and gave me a rueful look.

As she had said, the decapitated corpses were not carrying guns.

Besides, few of the guns we’ve seen on the way here were still intact.

Too bad she couldn’t use her sniper rifle because she was out of ammo.

“We’ll get one soon enough.”

I reassured her.

Her weapon was the reason I’ve come in here.

After killing the corpses roaming the barracks and entering the building attached to the barracks, I realized why the body count from outside was low.

The bodies of soldiers were piled up in the building, in the hallways, and in the internal affairs office.

Bodies riddled with sword wounds and bullets.

“Soldiers turned undead, killed by their own comrades. I’ve seen it in units without knights or priests…….I didn’t expect to see it here.”

This was the method of attack the Demon Army had used when they first swept across the continent.

A fucking tactic that forces strong death energy within a unit, turning soldiers into living corpses and forcing them to fight each other.

This caused a huge initial blow, and from then on, every unit had a knight or priest who used mana, and soldiers carried holy water.

“With no priests, no knights, and no holy water, we couldn’t win.”

“It was a bad match.”

Past the corpses, I looked inside the inner circle, but alas, the guns that would have been mounted in the inner circle were barely visible.

Had they taken them with them when they left the unit?

As we circled the inner circle, Zahina eyed the few remaining guns.

“They’re a little different from the ones I have, and the arrowheads don’t seem to be here…….”

Seeing Zahina reach for a gun, I waved my hand.

“You don’t need to pack that.”

“What? Isn’t this the same weapon? The arrowheads embedded in the corpses and walls look like they were shot from this weapon…….Isn’t it easier to get those arrowheads?”

Is it because she’s an elf?

She had a really good eye.

That wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t seem necessary to take the guns that were rolling around in the barracks.

There were better guns in the rear echelon, in the mobilization division, in the internal affairs section.

I looked at the barracks and the Internal Affairs building, and I knew where I wanted to go.

I led the party out of the Internal Affairs building and started walking in the direction of the armory.

And then.

-BANG!

I heard gunfire coming from the direction of the armory.