I Picked Up the Fallen Earth

Chapter 15. Lucky Day (2)

Crunch! Crunch!

Crunch! Crunch!

Jeron was making his way up the back mountain of the village. He believed this place, being at a higher altitude, would allow easier scouting of the surroundings from the summit.

As something fell on his face, he looked up to see white snow fluttering down. Climbing the snow-sprinkled mountain path, Jeron vividly felt the onset of winter in Korea. It was a strangely nostalgic emotion, contrasting with memories from his past life.

Ever since the guardian dragon of his family forcefully surfaced those memories, he couldn’t help but recall the faces of his family members from time to time. This time, it was his childhood.

Up until just before the late ’90s IMF crisis, Jeron had lived in a harmonious family. He considered his childhood fairly decent – they often went camping outside the city every autumn.

Even in winter, his emotionally rich Earthly parents would occasionally seek out campsites. Lighting a fire and grilling BBQ on a snowy day felt blissful beyond words.

These were the happy memories Jeron had with his parents. Walking a mountain path devoid of any animal tracks, he reminisced about the past and smiled.

He couldn’t fathom why he became so sentimental every time he was on Earth, simply savoring the memories as they came.

‘Is it even possible for there to be not a single animal on the mountain?’

There wasn’t a trace of the common squirrels or chipmunks on the trail. Not even the droppings of a roe deer to be seen. Not a single bird was in sight; it was a scene completely devoid of animals, where only plants existed.

Jeron had never witnessed such a sight in his life. The landscape of Earth, barren even on the back mountain, wasn’t entirely bad.

With the animals gone, various medicinal herbs sprawled everywhere, indicating that at least some insects still thrived. If he could collect a herbal manual, he might be able to transplant useful plants to the Karen Continent and propagate them there.

Swoosh!

As a gust of wind blew, shaking the surrounding branches, Jeron crouched lower, becoming more cautious of his surroundings. Though he hadn’t directly encountered any mutants yet, overlaid memories from his past life instinctively made him more careful.

Once the wind subsided, he continued his climb. Thankfully, the mountain path was well maintained as a hiking trail, with springs and rest areas at intervals.

But he couldn’t afford to rest. If he had ample time to move leisurely, it might have been a different story, but indulging in sentimentality as if on a leisurely hike would only be to Jeron’s detriment.

After all, his purpose was reconnaissance. Shaking his head, Jeron thought about the camcorder he found in the master bedroom earlier.

“The spare battery surely had one bar left. Maybe I could find some useful information in it.”

Survivors sometimes left traces of their existence on this Earth, some through diaries, others through recorded videos – though handwritten notes were more common because of battery issues.

In that sense, today was a lucky day. Reaching the summit, Jeron quickly surveyed the surroundings.

Around the pull-up bars, parallel bars, and unidentified workout equipment, weeds had grown and died, making the area look desolate. On one side, a broken vending machine lay eerily.

It seemed to be a well-facilitated neighborhood once, complete with a toilet and an open space. A spacious rock sat at the edge of the open space.

Though his view was limited by the sleet, the weather miraculously cleared, allowing sunlight to filter through as Jeron approached the rock.

“Truly a lucky day.”

Peering through a sniper’s scope, he saw the middle school that was his first target. The sight of it through the scope was utterly dismal.

Classroom windows were shattered or smeared with blood, and mummified bodies in school uniforms littered everywhere. Corpses were strewn all around, not just on the playground but also hanging from classroom windows or half-torn, dangling from the school gates.

It was a scene truly befitting an apocalypse. Strictly speaking, Jeron’s actual goal wasn’t the middle school itself but the stationery or fancy shop that might be in front of it.

Even though schools would have various objects including writing instruments, making them viable for scavenging, this option would only be considered if the stationery store were ruined.

“It looks okay.”

This was a not-so-bad sign. Compared to the gruesome scene around the school, the stationery store seemed intact. Windows appeared shattered, but where would that not be the case?

The scope was redirected towards the school gates. There, familiar poultry trucks were spotted.

“The SWAT bus?”

There were as many as three SWAT buses. In front of the school gates, desiccated mummies lay dead, dressed in riot gear Frowning, Jeron was about to move the scope away but then refocused on that area.

Although Jeron hadn’t served in the riot police, he knew enough from casual stories shared by friends. The shields used by riot police were made of polycarbonate.

Lightweight and sturdy, this material was widely used in various industrial materials, but also for riot control shields Possessing strong durability and heat resistance, it was even used in fighter jets, aircraft, and even the windows of high-speed trains.

Being a plastic material, it was light yet very robust. The shields were large enough to cover an entire person and were curved, making it easier to deflect swords or arrows.

Having carbon shields would have been better, but even so, these were more than satisfactory. If it’s a SWAT bus, then it would naturally have riot gear and portable fire extinguishers inside.

Riot gear was essentially equipped with stab and flame-resistant features. Three SWAT buses meant there could be about a hundred sets of riot gear and shields in total.

What if these were used in a war?

“Today is really a lucky day.”

Finding a whole sack of seed potatoes was an incredible find already. To find these, he had searched an entire district but hadn’t found any potatoes or similar seeds.

But today?

He had found a camcorder, which may contain useful information, and even canned food and alcohol. This was a jackpot on its own, but discovering three SWAT buses was an extraordinary bounty.

It seemed it would take some time to move them, but perhaps it could all be done in a month. Lastly, he looked towards the apartments.

The view wasn’t particularly pleasant from the apartments either. While there weren’t many corpses, blood was splattered here and there.

It was like a fortress in its own right, suggesting people had held out for a long time. If there was enough food, blocking the balconies of apartments and holding out might be the best option.

When Jeron casually scoped the rooftop of an apartment, he almost dropped his sniper rifle.

“Screeeeech!”

“Ugh! Damn it!”

Thump! Thump!

As a familiar eerie screech echoed, he felt his heart pounding crazily. The shrieking noise as if metal was being scraped. It stood over 2 meters tall, its body seemed as if it could erupt in blood any moment.

The emaciated body was a bundle of perfect muscles, with vacant eye sockets and sharp claws visible. Despite shaking from the overwhelming visual and the high-pitched frequency, Jeron still managed to pinpoint the creature’s exact location.

“Whew!”

The creature looked straight at Jeron’s location.

‘What? How did it see me?’

Their eyes were supposed to be degenerated. Despite supposedly not being able to identify Jeron, it was exactly looking his way.

“Is… Is it a coincidence?”

He liked to think so. However, the mutant looked at Jeron’s location and let out a long eerie screech once more.A tingling yet incredibly sharp sensation spread out in all directions.

[“So you were there?”]

Jeron slumped to the ground. Though the creature hadn’t spoken, it almost seemed like it had. The monstrous cry felt almost like a roar of joy.

“Gasp! Gasp!”

It was as if the PTSD buried deep within his chest had vividly come back to life. Jeron, now, had been continuously training in actual combat, and had plenty of experience killing monsters and barbarians.

Therefore, he had thought that seeing a mutant in real life wouldn’t scare him much. But he was wrong.

Clench!

Jeron gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t head directly to the apartment due to the danger, but he also felt there was no need to tremble in fear excessively.

Even if the creature’s appearance was overwhelming, how fast could it really be, and how strong? Jeron had seen all kinds of monsters in the land of Karen. Thus, as long as he knew the location of the mutants, avoiding them would be enough.

With that thought, he felt a bit more at ease. Then, the golden key flashed. Jeron immediately opened a dimensional door and crossed over to the Karen Continent.

A warm energy could be felt spontaneously. After arriving, Jeron took a deep breath, having removed his winter clothes and closed the dimensional door.

“Phew, damn bastard.”

Fear of the unknown. And trauma. If the mutant operated around the time Jeron had died, he was confident he wouldn’t lose in a one-on-one battle.

He was almost sure he could blow its head off. The problem was he didn’t know how skilled these creatures were now.

“It was good to scout. There’s no need to confront it unnecessarily.”

Jeron thought there was no need to risk danger by fighting if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

“Ah! The camcorder!”

He dumped out the contents of his backpack. Scotch whisky, canned food, several types of snacks, and seed potatoes spilled out. Among them was one camcorder. Jeron replaced it with a spare battery and played the video from the beginning.

[“7 years and 10 months after the apocalypse. If someone sees this, I might not be of this world anymore. But I hope it helps someone, so I leave this observation journal. My name is Han Soohee. I hope you remember me.”]

The woman in the video appeared to be in her late twenties. While relatively attractive, like all who lived in the ruined world, she hadn’t washed properly, making her look grimy.

She was somewhat emaciated, and her skin was pale, hinting at illness. The camcorder footage then showed the mutants.

“It’s insane. To observe mutants this closely.”

Perhaps her mind became this way because the world had ended. She filmed the mutants from a very close distance, even capturing her capturing one with a net and slowly experimenting with it as it died.

[“Mutants are evolving. If their strength was twice that of humans and their agility was 1.5 times before, now it should be considered doubled. Their strength is four times that of an average person and their agility three times, making escape impossible.”]

The mutants were seen screaming and running, hunting down not only humans but also wild animals. The reason why there were no dogs around the neighborhood was because the mutants had eaten them all.

It was an unbelievably ferocious eating habit.

[“7 years and 11 months after the apocalypse. The mutants have become stronger and have started to emit a blue light. Once the blue light begins to bleed out, they ‘amplify’, becoming monsters that simply cannot be fought with strength. Escape is futile, so one must find another method. If you have a gun, shooting them in the head is obviously effective, and if not, the eyes, temples, and beneath the jaw are the only alternatives. Their vision has degenerated, but they can distinguish things by sound, wind, and smell, so maybe you can survive using this.”]

“Blue light, blue light…”

Jeron had also read about the blue light in a previous journal. He was speculating that it might not be mana, and now, the woman in the camcorder also mentioned this light.

Suddenly, Jeron remembered the intense sensation he felt when the mutant screamed earlier.

“Could it be?”