Magic on the Dead Chapter 42

Hajin was looking at the desolate rice paddies passing by beyond the window. He had fallen asleep sometime while talking with Eden, and when he opened his eyes, the sun had already risen. After raising his stiff body against the sunlight that hit his eyes, the group was once again shouldering their luggage and leaving the city.

Clunk…!

“Agh!”

Groans erupted from all over. The car was constantly acting up, as if its tires were repeatedly hitting speed bumps. Byeol, who had hit the crown of her head on the ceiling, threw a tantrum, yelling,”Ah! Go easy!”

“The road is a mess, so going easy won’t do any good.”

Eden sighed and reduced his speed for the time being. His words were no mere excuse. To be precise, from the moment they passed the roundabout, parts of the road’s foundation had collapsed and were crumbling in several places. This was even before they had reached the Namsangwon tollgate.

When he turned the steering wheel to avoid a small sinkhole, a puddle would appear out of nowhere, and the tires would get submerged in it repeatedly. The car crawled as slowly as a turtle. It was a speed so sluggish that it would be difficult to run away even if zombies were to swarm them.

“Why is the ground like this here? It is a mess, as if someone deliberately tore it up…?”

Next to a dumbfounded Miso, Park Chunbeom shouted.

“It seems the underground tunnels are probably flooded! As the water filled up, it must have washed away the soil underneath this road.”

“It has not even rained, so why would the road suddenly get flooded?”

At the question that showed a lack of understanding, Park Chunbeom pushed his broken glasses up the bridge of his nose, as if the time had finally come to boast of his long-held knowledge.

“It is likely because it is a city with a lot of subways. Water fills the tunnels every day, and to withstand that water pressure, you have to pump it out. Since the operation has stopped, it is ten to one that the underground is completely filled with water. And that probably affected the ground as well.”

Even though he had finished his logical reasoning, no one responded. The people’s faces had only grown more serious, and Hajin, enduring motion sickness in the shaking car, simply pressed a hand to his forehead.

“So what you are saying, Mr. Park Chunbeom, is that the road is collapsing… is that it?”

Eden, who had stopped the rattling car in the center lane, asked while gritting his teeth.

“Ah, yes. It might be different in the countryside, but that is how it is in the city. In fact, at this point, we should consider that the road has held up for a long time. It has already been nine days since this whole mess started, after all.”

“Why are you only saying that now.”

“What?”

“We went through all that trouble to get a car, and now you are saying it is difficult to travel by road?”

“Uh, it is not that… I just remembered it late….”

At Eden’s sudden pressing, the air inside the car grew cold and heavy. This happened just twenty minutes after they had boarded the car with the hope of being able to advance towards Yongun City. An ominous premonition was gradually casting a shadow over everyone’s heads. The atmosphere became bleak beyond comparison.

Just then, Byeol, with a sulky face, lifted her bottom and slapped Eden’s shoulder quite fiercely!

“Uncle! Why are you taking your anger out on Tune!!”

“Haaah— Jeong Byeol, are you really not going to fix that habit of hitting people?”

“Uh… Hey, Byeol… your uncle’s name is not Tune, it is Park Chunbeom….”

It was utter chaos. With a complicated expression, Hajin rubbed his dry face and looked beyond the road. Three or four zombies were sauntering over this way. If they were not planning on getting out of the car for a round of urban action, they needed to lower the decibels of their voices.

“Everyone, be quiet. The zombies are coming.”

Hajin warned in a reproachful voice. The lips that had been adding a word here and there snapped shut at the same time with a hup.

A zombie with an abnormally twisted shoulder, a zombie in a school uniform, and a zombie with its ribs exposed brushed past the side of the car.

“Grrrr… Click! Clack!”

The faces of the zombies, who passed by while clacking their teeth as if chewing the air, bore a strange resemblance to each other.

“I think they were a family.”

“Shhh.”

Miso, who had stopped Byeol’s whisper, lifted her lowered head and looked out the window. Except for the zombies that had just passed, no other ghouls were visible on the road.

Eden started the car again. Groans once again echoed inside the car, but he stubbornly kept the tires rolling.

“I do not think we can go any further now.”

However, even without the collapsed roads and flooding, the car could no longer move forward. This was because large vehicles, such as cargo trucks and express buses, were lined up horizontally in front of the tollgate like a giant barrier.

The faces and arms of zombies protruded from between the broken windows. They were living corpses, given another life while strapped in their seatbelts.

Hajin swallowed a bitter saliva in futility. Just as Jung Taegeon had said, they had gone through all that trouble to barely seize a vehicle, but it seemed it would all be for naught without even crossing the tollgate. Perhaps because of the cracked road, the tire had finally given out, as he could feel the car body tilting to one side.

“This is so unfair! How hard did we work to get this car!”

Miso cried out.

Now, there was truly no other way but to face it with their bare bodies. It seemed everyone was thinking the same thing; the group members, who had taken out their food supplies one by one, filled their stomachs with a grim look. Once they had finished their thorough preparations, Eden turned around and recited the scenario.

“According to the navigation, and of course this is just the shortest route, you can consider it to be a distance of 120km from here to Yongun City. It is a distance that requires walking for about 70 hours straight without rest.”

Of course, considering variables like crossing natural terrain rather than simple flat ground, the time could easily double at most.

“If we restrict night travel, it is a schedule that will take at least ten days, and we cannot ignore the special circumstance of zombie appearances. At the very least, it could take over 20 days just to reach the outskirts of Yongun City. And that is only if we do not get lost and are provided with adequate rest, food, and water.”

At the ever-increasing list of difficult conditions, people began to let out sighs one by one. Eden did not drag it on any longer and delivered the conclusion bluntly.

“Even assuming various hardships, it will take a good month to a month and a half for each of us to reach our targeted destination. Does everyone understand?”

Hajin’s face turned pale. He had expected it to be far, but he was not crossing a continent; he had not anticipated that moving from a southern province to the capital area would take this long.

A month and a half. It was an impossibly long and distant time to go see Junseok. He had been thinking two weeks at most, so his mind was in chaos.

“Can we not go any faster? If we just move quickly, would it not be possible in under three weeks?”

When Hajin asked as if pleading, Eden mercilessly shook his head.

“Safety comes first, even if it is slow. We will stop moving when night falls, and we will stop even if it rains. If the temperature rises, we will refrain from moving during the day as well. If we push ourselves unreasonably, we will only have a surge of injuries and be delayed even more. You would be wise to listen to me.”

“…….”

“You have to return alive and well to see your family, whoever they may be, right?”

Park Chunbeom and Miso, who wanted to see their families as soon as possible, could no longer add anything. Not only was there no other brilliant solution, but there were also no errors or blind spots in Eden’s scenario.

“…Alright. Then let me just check that navigation one more time.”

Hajin, who likewise could not offer any particular rebuttal to Eden’s words, touched the wide display. While his eyes scanned the various winding roads, terrains, and the locations of mountains, despair washed over his mind like a tidal wave.

Could Junseok really endure for that long?

While Hajin was memorizing the map, the others took out things like hats and fans that would help them endure the scorching midday heat.

“Let’s check the radio channels one last time, too.”

Kssshk— Ksshk— Eden adjusted the channel button. Unfortunately, the only sound that came through was the signal of radio waves that harshly grated on the ears.

The group, who passed through the Namsangwon tollgate on their own two feet and entered the highway, walked endlessly according to Eden’s signal.

Because the zombies that occasionally popped out from the cars parked on the highway were quite threatening, Eden led the people and repeatedly climbed the hills next to the highway.

Although they were low mountains, at the level of hills, it was not easy to make one’s way through an untrodden mountain path with just their bodies. Their stamina was being rapidly depleted as they crossed the bare, treeless hills.

The people, who had been moving their feet diligently without even a short break, began to fall behind one by one. With the added weight of their rather heavy luggage, their bodies felt as heavy as a thousand pounds. The hot sun beat down on the crowns of their heads.

It was only after Park Chunbeom finally collapsed onto the rough dirt ground that Eden suggested a break.

“Let’s take a short rest before we go.”

When they veered off to a side path of the hill, a desolate brown rice paddy was revealed. Across from the rice paddy was a small village with a mixture of blue, green, and red roofs.

The village was eerily quiet. The only sign of life was the flapping of summer migratory birds wandering aimlessly in the sky.

Hajin, who was looking for a place to escape the heat, discovered a single container building just above the stream, with ‘Beodeulsan Village Management Office’ written on it. He stood on his tiptoes and peered inside the window. The office was empty except for a steel desk, a mini-fridge, and scattered documents.