Return of the Apocalypse Knight

Chapter 26: Apartment complex (2)

I barely recovered from my mistake of speaking Korean.

“You were able to communicate thanks to the elf’s magic?”

“Yes.”

The middle-aged man asked, and I nodded with a straight face.

Luckily, Zahina and Hoffman were too far away to hear my Korean.

The middle-aged man was the only one who heard me, so I had to ask Zahina to make sure everyone understood.

It was out of order and untrue, but what the hell.

“Elves and knights, what’s next, zombies or fantasy novels…….”

The man was mesmerized by us anyway, so he didn’t care what I said.

“A fantasy novel or a fairy tale?”

Hoffman shook his head at the man’s words.

The translation skills were not universal.

Zahina’s translation skills weren’t perfect, either, as she would translate words that she didn’t know into something similar.

Still, it wasn’t a bad translation.

“You’re not wearing a costume, are those real ears?”

Maybe it’s because he’s a normal middle-aged man.

He wasn’t as easily fooled by our appearance as the soldier he’d seen yesterday.

“Yes, sir. I’m Jansen Eger, a free knight from the Kingdom of Sorvia.”

“And I’m Hoffman, a former soldier.”

“And I’m Zahina, the daughter of the World Tree.”

Eventually, we had to introduce ourselves.

“I’m from…….I mean, if you’re from the kingdom. If you’re from Europe or something…….Hah, that’s not possible.”

The man hesitated, then sighed.

“Anyway, you saved my life, so I suppose I should thank you.”

He thanked us and introduced himself.

“My name is Lee Joon-ho, I’m from the Pyeongnae base in Namyangju, and I met you guys while out on a morning reconnaissance.”

Pyeongnae Base…….As expected, there were enough people left in the city to create a base.

“Let’s talk about the details when we get back to the base. Everyone will be happy to see you…….”

It seemed difficult for them to be completely happy to see us but it didn’t matter.

If they weren’t happy, we’d be happy.

He wiped the metal pipe with the dead man’s clothes and led us away toward the small woods where the other man had run off earlier.

Beyond that forest, we could see an apartment complex.

It wasn’t a big forest, but because it was in the city center, there were zombies everywhere.

Lee Joon-ho tried to guide us on a path that avoided the zombies, but we just cut through the forest.

Naturally, the zombies in the woods lunged at us, but one after the other, the common undead were just obstacles in the way.

We made our way out of the woods, taking care of all of the charging zombies.

Unfortunately, the other man who had fled earlier hadn’t made it all the way.

He lunged at us from the edge of the forest, missing an arm.

-Kaaaang!

I swung my sword and laid him to rest, and looking at his zombified companion, Lee sighed.

“If I had run away alone, I would have survived till the end…….”

Surprisingly, he wasn’t angry at him for abandoning him and running away.

“Well, I’ve abandoned others and run away before, so who else but my family would stay to die?”

It hadn’t been much time since the undead swept through, and the mindset of the destroyed world seemed to have taken hold.

I can’t help it, but we’re not going to be able to fight the demon army if we’re playing separately…….

I was worried, but as a third party, I couldn’t say anything.

After exiting the forest, we followed Lee Joon-ho’s guide to the apartment complex.

There were no zombies around the apartment complex, as it had been cleaned up.

Once we were sure we were at the apartment complex, I asked him.

“So you set up a base in an apartment complex?”

“Not really. All the people who survived were in this apartment complex.”

It was a strange statement. Did he mean everyone else was dead?

“The people who lived in the malls and low-rise buildings were pretty much all killed that day when the zombie horde hit.”

I couldn’t believe it, but he was right.

“They were all over the streets, breaking windows and glass doors, going into buildings and killing people. Actually, it wasn’t just low-rise buildings. They were also pushing into apartments, killing all the people on the lower floors. Only those who lived on the middle floors and above were left alive.”

Apparently, an undead wave led by the Demon Army had passed through here.

If they can’t stop the undead wave, the town will die, let alone the city.

It was a wonder that there were still people alive.

“You mean the wave can’t even get that high?”

Hoffman stared at the high-rise apartment building in amazement.

There were no buildings that tall in his world, so he couldn’t see how being in a tall building could survive a wave.

In fact, they weren’t sure if they had escaped the wave because they were in a tall building.

It could have been because the doors to the houses were locked, or it could have been a combination of both.

In any case, what he was saying now meant that there must still be many survivors among the people who lived in the high-rise buildings.

‘If that’s the case, there could be a surprising number of people alive in the city.’

People I knew from my previous life could still be alive.

We’d have to go further down to find them, but the thought that we might be able to see their faces now cheered me up.

We walked through the apartment’s front door, which was barricaded with junk, and made our way to the apartment in the center of the complex.

There were no people in front of the barricades or at the guardhouse. The grounds looked completely deserted.

Before we could ask about it, Lee Joon-ho spoke up.

“The people who survived were those who lived on the middle floors of the apartments, but that doesn’t mean that all the people who lived on the middle floors survived.”

“In fact, not many people survived, many people changed after the first day, many people never came home, and many people moved out of the apartment after that day.”

He gestured to the apartment we were heading to.

“In the end, there weren’t many people left, so we all decided to live together in front of the entrance to the complex, upstairs in building 106.”

It wasn’t a bad idea.

It’s easier to keep an eye on your neighbors when you’re in a group, and a larger group makes it easier to show off your power.

But it’s amazing how quickly they were able to bring together a group of already individualistic people in one apartment.

Whoever organized this group was very good at it.

The problem was that the apartment was on a high floor.

“Are we going to have to walk up this building?”

Even Hoffman looked up at the apartment with a frown.

“We don’t know when another wave of zombies is coming, but we have to if we want to live.”

Apparently, they were too frightened by the wave.

Undead waves are not a common occurrence.

But then again, they weren’t common, so I couldn’t tell them not to worry.

The demon army that went down to the south could come back up, or the one to the north could send the undead down again.

Eventually, we had to walk up to apartment 106.

“It’s a shame, it wouldn’t be this hard if we had electricity…….”

Lee Joon-ho said with an apologetic face, but I was the only one who understood him.

Besides, I couldn’t pretend to understand either.

He might as well have been talking to a wall.

Worse than that, there’s no electricity…….

In my previous life, in apocalyptic novels, the power was on for a long time.

I guess that’s for fiction.

So, what happened to the nuclear power plant?

Did they shut down, or did they explode?

Surely, the nuclear plants on the east coast of China didn’t blow up too?

This sudden thought worried me a bit.

I wondered if my mana would be enough to block the radiation, if holy water or potions would cure the radioactive contamination,

I shook my head to dismiss my anxiety.

There was no point in worrying about it.

There was nothing I could do about it, and I couldn’t pretend to know, so it was just a matter of luck.

As we climbed the fire escape instead of the elevator, Lee answered Hoffman’s questions.

He explains the layout of the first apartment he sees and answers the questions that follow.

“With all these apartments so close together, what do you do when people need to gather?” he asked.

“The floor we’re on now is the floor we use for that. It’s actually our headquarters.”

True to his word, when we reached the 30th floor, a different structure appeared.

It was an open floor with thick fire doors.

“It’s an evacuation safety zone, a fire escape floor. It’s a floor in the middle of the skyscraper, just in case there’s a fire.”

A large tent was erected in the center of the windowless floor.

Inside the wide-open tent, several people were gathered.

“Mr. Joon-ho, welcome…….Who’s behind you?”

One of the people inside the tent waved at him, and then screamed when he saw us.

Surprised people looked at us, and some of them immediately picked up the weapons they had laid down next to them.

Again, they were well-prepared for the general population.

Seeing people moving, we froze in place.

The people inside the tent came out, their faces puzzled at the sight of us.

It was similar to the way Lee Joon-ho looked at us.

In fact, many more looked like they’d seen a madman.

No wonder.

It was like the world had ended and we just showed up in cosplay.

I sheath my sword and raised my hands.

I looked at the man still inside the tent and opened my mouth.

“It’s strange that Mr. Joon-ho was surprised by our appearance, but not by the mana and magic, and I think I know why.”

Before coming here, I thought I had just given up on understanding, but that wasn’t the case.

At my words, Lee Joon-ho realized who I was looking at, and his face became surprised.

“Can you tell just by looking at it?”

He introduced the man I was looking at.

“He’s our captain. He’s the one who organized the base and gathered the people.”

I looked at the man in the tent and realized how he had gathered these people in one building and brought them together.

It’s not easy to change your home when the world is falling apart.

It’s not easy to do it with charisma or political power.

In a world like this, you need more than that.

It was a strange power and ability that I had never seen before.

“Like you, our captain has a strange ability. He’s incredibly strong, and when his hands glow, he can take down zombies with one blow.”

The man was now emitting light from his hands.

Hoffman let out a gasp of admiration.

“Oh, a natural awakener. A natural awakener has appeared here too.”