Chapter 15: Chapter 15. Sharing and Killing
I wanted to borrow a bus. When he asked for the reason I told him about the group of people in the police station where I spent the night before. I wanted to bring them here.
The commander didn't have any reason to reject me. More so, it seemed he was reluctant to let me go but didn't have a reason to stop me. A bus was prepared for me with a couple of soldiers acting as driver and escort.
At the frontline, where the bodies of the purgers and our human casualties were being moved. I stopped the bus. I got off and moved toward the purgers. It was close to a thousands purgers here, some even yellow-eyed ones. The greedy me, how could I resist the temptation to harvest the marbles? I had a plan for these later. The soldiers didn't understand what I did when I picked up things from the chest of the purgers. After all, the marbles were tiny and translucent, not easily seen. I didn't pick them all since I didn't want to waste too much time. I put them in my backpack.
We moved again and arrived at the bridge where the defense were built. Here I saw another ocean of bodies. A path was cleared to let us pass while some soldiers were throwing the dead purgers into the water.
With the soldier driving I could sit relax while watching the scenery. When I said scenery I meant it in very sad way.
Seoul was a busy, lively and bustling city. Livelier than some of capital cities in the world. But now? It was torn and desolate. Marks of fire and smoke were everywhere. The buildings were left in destitute. We didn't even see any human corpses. The purgers took care of that neatly.
It was like a civilization on a brink of destruction.
We were mostly on highway so there was almost no obstacle there. When we got off the highway we met with some roaming purgers but it was easy to take care of them. We either hit it with the bus or the soldiers shot it.
When we arrived at the police station, I could see someone was peeking from inside. I disembarked the bus and hurriedly called them out.
The door was open and the first face I saw was Lt. Yoon. I didn't want to waste time to speak through Little Han's translation so I let the soldier do the talking. Immediately the face of Lt. Yoon lighted up. He called out to the others inside. One by one they emerged. Looking at me and the soldiers with happiness.
Four purgers appeared, attracted by the noises we made, coming from different directions.
While the soldiers were helping the civilians to get on the bus, I single-handedly took care of the incoming purgers. The people were afraid when they saw purgers coming our way and were about to run inside the police station again. But then they saw that I killed all of the purgers so everything went smooth again.
On the bus, one of the elderly took my hand and again said her thanks. I gave her a warm smile. Everytime I saw them elderlies I couldn't help myself from thinking about my grandparents. Little Han Wonseok came to me and while grinning gave me a thumb up, "Mister, you are a really strong man."
I laughed and rubbed his head.
We arrived at the bridge and after the registration were driven to the camp. It's already afternoon by the time they settled in.
I asked the commander whether he was planning to gather provisions and ammunitions because we seemed to be low on those. His eyes were wide and brighter than sun as I offered to accompany his troops on this trip. He immediately made the arrangement.
Less than half an hour later we were already moving in convoy. About a hundred of soldiers and near a hundred of civilian volunteers were in this group. Some of the civilians were the fighters I knew including Traikun and Davi.
During the convoy we met several obstacles like the purgers and damage cars. I took care of the purgers without creating unnecessary sounds like gunfire while the others would be working together to clear the road.
It didn't take long to arrive at our destination since there was simply no traffic.
We immediately loaded provisions from the goverment warehouse and a couple of supermarkets. Since close to two hundreds people were working, we immediately fill up the trucks. After that, we stopped by a military storage depot and gathered what we can to fill up the rest of the trucks.
In the last supermarket, we found something very unsettling inside. There wasn't any sign of purgers getting inside, however, we found bodies. Dead bodies. Most of us gathered to see the scaterring human corpses, some ended up puking.
"Who killed them?" someone asked.
Davi gave his opinion, "It seemed like they.. kill each other."
Several others agreed, including the soldiers. It didn't take a genius to see that. It's even easier for people like Davi and Traikun, who were constantly training in fight. There were evidences that these people fought with each other. Of course, having no trace of any purger inside helped this deduction too. Purgers wouldn't leave our corpses intact like this, they'd eat us.
Davi commented, "Why did they kill each other?"
I saw something more disturbing. On the wrists of all the bodies were faint thin lines. They're obviously improved men, like me. Why, then, were they dead? I was immediately reminded of what I had been afraid of. They're killing each other for the marbles.
They were many people and simply too limited number of those tiny darkish marbles. It's not like the marbles fell freely from trees. So, instead of sharing, people opted to fight for them.
I had been in corporate life for a long time and, thus, had subconsciously expected such outcome. It wasn't that apparent in small businesses, but became worse in larger companies. We are expected to compete. People would do literally anything to get ahead of the others. Even to the point of 'killing' the others by ending other's career. That was what happened before the doom, a 'peaceful' era. Now, however, was savage time, and I saw the proof in front of my eyes how people became crueler to each other.
Was the god right about us? Well, I wouldn't argue with the god about this. Greed, indeed, often drove our action, be it as main motive or subtlely hiding behind.
The moment some people knew that we could power up like this, they would start competing. They would fight, even kill, others for it. And once the news about these darkish marbles known to everyone, we didn't even need the purger to eliminate us. We'd be fighting amongst us to extinction. Currently we didn't have the mean to control and prevent this from happening.
I paid extra attention to those wrists. One of the corpses had longer status bars. Not too much ahead but obviously more than the others. This person could be me. He might be the first one among this group of people who knew about the tiny translucent marbles. After he naively told some people about this, one or a few of those people got greedy and started this incident. Multiple probable scenarios ran in my head, all ended up here.
Some people wouldn't mind sharing, but there'd be many people, like whoever managed to survive here, who would simply eliminate those good-natured folks.
The person who survived the fight here, he or she could've gone to any refugee camp in the city. Or, that same person could already be inside Incheon refugee camp, looking for the chance to cut me and any other competitor. Somehow, I was scared by this prospect. I had to be careful.
You see, I had greed too. I wanted all those marbles for myself. There's a limit of what I'd do to achieve that, though. I didn't think I could kill another person for those marbles. That said, I wasn't going to be a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. If targeted, I'd retaliate.
If god wanted to announce the existence of those tiny things, the god could do so without hassle. The all-powerful, all-knowing god didn't need a megaphone. I had no interest in becoming a self-proclaimed god's prophet.
The fact that god didn't blast this thing in some kind of mass memo showed how much the god understood us. I had suspected all along that the reason why god didn't announce the marbles was because the god believed we would end ourselves faster once everyone knew of the existence of the marbles. This had been something in my mind, if the god didn't want us gone, why allowed Doom to befall us in the first place?
Well, just as the god said, there's still good people in the world. This was the reason I'd still go with what I had decided to do later.
The sun was already set when we reach the bridge. Darkness reigned once more.
The ammunitions and weapons delivery were stopped here. The provision trucks moved further back to the camp. Seeing the arrival of trucks bringing provisions made many people happy. The lights were already turned on and I could see their expressions. It pained me to remember that the provisions were probably only enough for a few days. Feeding more than ten thousand of people were not easy.
I let the others do the unloading while I took Traikun and Davi to search for Seo Daho. When we met him I took the man with us. The three of them were wondering why I asked to meet them in private but I didn't say anything for the moment.
As I was bringing them to my room when we were stopped by someone on the way. It was Jeong Yewon.
"Going somewhere?" she asked.
"I ask them to join me for a drink," I said, trying to avoid her gaze.
I did not know whether she could see right through my lie or not but she softly said, "Can I join?"
I did not know what to say to her. However I did not want to include her in this so I said, "It's a guy thing."
She didn't let me finished, "Really?"
Now I knew why she was a top star. She had this unique aura around her. The way she looked at me, directly at my eyes, made me don't want to lie to her. She was such an enchanting fox. She didn't even force me and yet I succumbed and asked, "Would you like to join?"
Jeong Yewon smiled and then said, "Gladly. Let's go."
We walked to the building where my room was located. The room was pretty big. It had a small dining table in the middle. I asked them to sit comfortably around the table. There was no drinks there but the four of them didn't ask.
I put my backpack on the table and slowly poured what was inside, carefully so it wouldn't fall off the table. Tiny translucent darkish marbles filled the table.
The four of them were looking at the marbles I collected earlier. Their mind reeling, probably wondering what they were.
"What is this?" one of them asked.
"These are what make me strong."
"What are you talking about?" Jeong asked, full of curiousity. Her reaction was the mildest one, the others were looking at me even more ridiculous.
Instead of explaining, I gave one marble each to Traikun, Davi and Seo Daho. Jeong Yewon extended her hand in front of me, asking for her part. I was very reluctant but the other three were not moving either and they were looking at me and waiting for my response to her so I finally gave one to her too.
"When the monsters died, everyone of them will produce one of this," I told them.
"This came from the dead bodies?" asked Seo Daho. They all looked at the tiny darkish translucent marble on their hands with some repulse.
"How could you become strong from this tiny thing?" asked Davi.
"Swallow it," I told them.
"What?" all four of them had astonished look. Seo Daho even had a frowning look. These were, after all, came from the dead body of the monsters.
"Are you sure?" Davi slowly asked. He wanted to make sure. I nodded.
After my nod, the first to swallow was Jeong Yewon. Without the slightest doubt she put the tiny marble in her mouth and swallowed it.
The others looked at her with amazement. And they became more amazed when she suddenly slightly floating in the air with her eyes closed.
"Whoa! What happened?" the three guys shocked to see the floating Jeong Yewon.
"She is transforming. Becoming strong and receiving some information," I told them to calm down.
Jeong Yewon was currently in the same state I was when I first introduced to the marvelous marbles. This was my first time seeing this as a third party, so I, honestly, as amazed as Davi and the rest. I was only acting cool.
It was a while when Jeong Yewon finally landed on the floor again. Her beautiful face was radiantly shining now. She was smiling widely and lifted up to see her wrist. Everyone paid focused attention and could see three very faint white transparent lines.
"Amazing. Thank you," Jeong Yewon looked at me with happiness.
Seeing her reaction, the other three guys immediately swallowed the marbles on their hands. This time it was Jeong Yewon who watched with amazement as the three men slightly floated off the floor.
"I was floating like this too?" she asked me.
"Yup," was my answer.
"Cool," she smiled. We waited for the three guys for a while. I accidentally caught Jeong Yewon glancing at me meaningfully. What was the meaning? I didn't know.
The three of them landed down at almost the same time. When they exhaled and opened their eyes, they had different reaction. Traikun was cupping his palms together and put them in front of his forehead. Davi was making a cross sign. I guessed they believed it was really god who talked to them.
All of them were looking at their wrists. Now they understood why I was so strong. Their faces were full of smiles. I extended my arm and show them my wrist.
"Yellow?" Traikun said while wondering.
"Yes. Once you ate enough of these marbles and have all the three bars raised to full you will have a change of color too," I told them. "How you divide the power raising is absolutely your decision."
I then divided the hundreds marbles on the table into four equal parts. Well, as equal as I could be without actually counting. I put the group of marbles in front each of them.
"Go ahead," I nodded to them. They looked at me with gratitude as a response. Then they focused their attention to the marbles with apparent glee. Some glints swiftly seen and disappeared from the guys' eyes when they glanced at the marbles in front of the others. Jeong Yewon, the one I originally didn't plan to share the marbles with, was the only one without such gaze.
My heart skipped a beat. Was I seeing things? I hoped I didn't make the wrong decision. I didn't want this sharing to end up with killing.
Each of them solemnly looked at the tiny marbles in front of them and then started to swallow the marbles one by one. Slowly but sure the white bars on their wrist were raising. Their expressions were gleaming with confidence and gladness. When all the marbles were gone, everyone has raised their white status lines to about three-quarter.
"So much power," Davi tried to throw a punch in the air. He was laughing.
"Phineas, thank you," Traikun said in full gratitude. I knew the sincerity of his thank. Now, he thought that he had a chance to go back to his family.
"Yes, Phineas, thank you very much," Davi and Seo Daho both said in solemn expressions. They understood that my sharing this to them had given them a bigger chance to survive. A lot bigger.
They looked at the empty table with longing expressions. I knew they wanted more.
I smiled and then warned them, "Don't be hasty and don't put your guard down. You're not that much stronger than ordinary purgers and definitely weaker than those yellow-eyed ones."
"Now I understand how you get to know their name, purger," Jeong Yewon said.
An intelligent woman like her would have guessed, I knew.
"Take some exercise to familiar yourself with this power," I reminded them. The change in their bodies would need them to adjust their power output so that they wouldn't accidentally hurt anyone or themselves.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone