Chapter 24 - 22nd of November: The Smiling Shopping Mall
In the center of Shimoicho1 was a remarkably large facility.
Smiling and laughing children were drawn on the signboard, making everyone watching it smile as well.
It was the sole shopping mall in the area, and a place of relaxation and refreshment for the citizens.
There were cafés, bookstores, toy shops, grocery stores, and clothing stores.
Their catchphrase was “Let’s illuminate the city with a sunny smile!”.
There hadn’t been any shopping malls that were this integrated with the area before.
However, far from smiling, expressionless zombies were simply wandering around in the parking lot.
The zombies staggered forward, reaching their arms out as if to catch something, as they headed to the entrance.
Immediately following that, a bullet pierced a zombie’s face.
The zombie turned over, lying completely still and sprawled across the concrete.
“Captain! I’m getting tired!”
The woman shooting zombies from the rooftop of the shopping mall gave up.
She was a bit too young to be called a woman, her face strongly resembled the face she had had as a child.
She had a suitable character, but although she was outstanding, she was selfish.
The woman dressed in black unit clothing shook her head disapprovingly.
“Anyway, when is the support coming! I can’t even hear the sound of the helicopter that left this thing!”
The direction the woman was pointing with her finger was something like a box a helicopter passing by the shopping mall left in the middle of the chaos yesterday.
There was one sniper rifle and one machine gun. And the ammunition.
Without increasing the personnel, they told them to “defend here to the last”, the radio to the headquarters didn’t work, and there was no response.
And only two people forming a military unit were left on the rooftop.
If he would speak of their social status, then he would be her superior.
“Don’t be unreasonable. Focus on the mission.”
“Ughhh! Isn’t that the only thing we’ve done for a while already!”
He took out a book from his pocket, sat down on a chair, and started reading.
The chair and book were things he had stolen from this shopping mall.
The time they had come to this shopping mall under instructions, there were already no survivors left.
Although it hadn’t been a holiday, the time the infection had started, housewives with a lot of free time were bustling around here.
The shopping mall was like a can of zombies.
If it had been on display in the supermarket, the food packaging had been enough to make it be picked up without hesitation, but it was annihilated.
Right now, they were guarding it by closing the security shutter.
Nevertheless, the entrance was going to be used as the exit by the troops, so they hadn’t shut it.
That was why this woman was necessary.
She had become pretty famous among the troops.
Her sniping ability was extraordinary enough to be said to be a natural gift, and he remembered the veterans complaining that they were no match against her.
The information wasn’t false, instead, she was properly fulfilling the mission, but regrettably, she had no motivation.
“Please give me a reward! RE-WA-RD!”
This was the outcome.
While sighing, he took the bag of gummy candy that was under the chair and tossed it.
“Ohh! This is “Stupid Gummy Candy!”, it’s a rare product, you know!”
Since he didn’t care about the flavor of the gummy candy, he agreed.
However, the woman misunderstood that he had a sincere interest in the gummy candy and started to give a thorough explanation of everything from the basics like the taste and texture, to more advanced things like the balance of sweetness and sourness.
He heard a beeping sound.
The sensor they had placed as a trap in the parking lot seemed to have perceived a living being.
It was probably a zombie.
The woman assumed a shooting stance.
The book he was reading went like this:
“It’s useless no matter how many people you kill!”
The culprit was driven into a corner by the detective protagonist and said these words in desperation.
Why the heck would it be useless no matter how many people I kill?
The protagonist answered like this.
“Because people have the right to live!”
Rather than calling it a worthless answer, it didn’t even serve as one.
The right to live was nothing more than an illusion created by people who wanted to live, no matter how disgraceful.
If the perpetrator who had been murdering people for years would answer, they would say, “Who cares about that.”
Conscience didn’t exist.
What existed were swelling pride and self-satisfaction to some extent.
If that were to be called conscience, the world would be overfilled with virtuous people.
He heard a diminishing gunshot.
Approaching the handrailing to take a look, he saw a collapsed zombie.
If that zombie was a normal human, and the surrounding people would be virtuous people, they would say this,
“Why did you shoot!”
The answer was simple.
He vigorously threw the book off the rooftop.
The appearance of the pages in the book fluttering greatly as it fell down was like the fluttering wings of a bird, but as soon as he saw the leather cover, it was more like a stink bug, he thought grinning.
“Who cares, moron.”
At the same time as he muttered that, the book hit the face of the zombie.
- A district in Ibaraki, Osaka. ↑