Chapter 64: Gyeyang Mountain Temporary Camp (4)

Yellow Detective POV:

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Now the vacant lot was completely enveloped in darkness. Under the starry night sky, a large campfire crackled and sparked.

Even from a distance, its heat reached us, warming our faces and making my yellow suit glisten in the firelight.

It was an overly large campfire, unsuited for the modest welcoming ceremony.

The warm golden glow from the burning logs cast flickering shadows, creating the unique atmosphere of a campfire.

Junior 1 was eating chicken skewers with a carefree expression.

With each bite, satisfied breaths and murmurs of delight could be heard.

The smoky aroma and the crunching sounds of the crisply grilled chicken skewers.

Junior 1 was fully enjoying the campfire.

"Senior? Would you like one?"

"No, you eat them yourself."

When I silently looked at her, Junior 1 with hamster-like puffed-out cheeks from eating offered me a chicken skewer.

Unlike the busy-eating Junior 1, Junior 2 had her own role - providing mental care by sticking close to the client.

Just in case, I had handed my revolver over to Junior 2.

While mindlessly devouring the skewers, Junior 1 suddenly seemed to remember something and asked,

"Oh right! Senior, why did you hand over the revolver?"

"I want to look around a bit. You'll come too, so get ready to go soon instead of eating more."

Junior 1 started scanning me from head to toe with a strange expression.

"Eheh, you're going to infiltrate in that bright yellow suit?"

"Why sneak around? We can just go openly."

We headed out from the camp, taking advantage of the darkness, away from the vacant lot.

Junior 1 came along, carrying an armful of chicken skewers.

Walking with clomping up the steep stairs, we looked around the inside of the camp.

The quiet camp with sparse streetlights felt strangely out of place compared to the brightly glowing campfire in the distance.

"Hello there."

"Here for sightseeing?"

"Yes, my group is over there."

"Enjoy your visit."

As we wandered around, we frequently encountered camp residents.

Their manner when I asked questions felt a bit off.

Was I being too serious, perhaps?

"Didn't you notice anything strange?"

"Not really...?"

"Well, maybe I'm just being oversensitive. Let's walk around some more."

Junior 1, carrying a bag full of chicken skewers and munching away, didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

"Hey mister, are you a tourist?"

"Oh my, a young tourist?"

"Are you tourists?"

Tourist, tourist, tourist.

The first greeting from everyone we met was a bit different, but had the same meaning.

'Are you tourists?'

Everyone was asking if we were tourists.

By this point, even Junior 1 felt that something was off.

"It's getting weirder and weirder."

"Is being a tourist important?"

"We could ask, but this isn't really a tourist spot, is it? It's strange that everyone is asking without fail."

In a remote part of the camp,

where the sky dyed by the campfire's flames was visible in the distance, we heard an odd sound.

It sounded like the dying whimpers of a small puppy.

"Shh."

Lowering our bodies, we slowly approached the source of the sound and saw a large group of children gathered in an open area.

Pook pook pook pook.

The village children were mercilessly stabbing a stray dog with forks.

The dog thrashed about, crying out in pain, before finally going limp and dying.

Then they tore at its corpse with the forks and brought pieces to their mouths.

"Hieek."

Junior 1 seemed startled and gasped.

The children devoured the stray dog, leaving no skin or bones behind.

And the camp residents slowly approaching, surrounding us.

Perhaps because of the gunshot, the camp that had hardly anyone walking around at this late hour was now filled with people.

"Where are you rushing off to?"

A man slowly approached, asking a question.

It seemed like he was trying to initiate a normal conversation, but not to me.

"Run!"

I grabbed Junior's hand and dashed right into the alley.

Once we fled into the alley, the camp residents revealed their true colors.

"Arrrggghh!"

They started charging at us mindlessly like zombies who had lost their minds.

"Huh? Why are these people suddenly acting like this?"

Relying on the alley, I fled with Junior, evading the zombies.

But the alley was complicated, and the number of pursuing camp residents was too many.

"Senior, Senior, Senior, Senior! What should we do?"

As we ran away from the people turned into zombies, Junior 1 asked me.

There were so many people in this small camp that it was gradually becoming difficult to escape.

"Ahh, what should we do? What should we do? What should we do?"

"What should we do? Just beat them up."

I swung Watson like a weapon and knocked down a man who jumped out from the alley.

"Just hit them!"

"Yes!"

With my permission, Junior 1 swung her sledgehammer at a person charging at us.

Bang.

When the person and hammer collided, it made a popping sound like a kernel being popped.

Wow, people can go flying like bowling pins even without a car accident.

We kept running through the maze-like alley.

The tangled alleys like spider webs, the shadows cast by the sparse streetlights made the passages look even narrower and more complicated.

We could knock away one or two zombies with Junior's force show, but if there were too many we had no choice but to detour.

Relying on sound, we zigzagged through the alleys, evading the zombies.

We need to get to the vacant lot where Junior 2 is quickly!

But we couldn't find a proper path at all.

Sharp curves and dead ends, shadows tricking the eyes!

Bang. Bang.

Two more gunshots rang out.

Three shots left.

Should I have given her some extra bullets?

Then a white cat appeared on top of the wall.

It was a cat identified as an Object by my monocle.

Its ability is <Ghostification>.

Meow.

For some reason, its gaze seemed to exude intelligence, a strange cat.

That cat looked down at me, meowed again, and then started running along the wall.

More instinctively than rationally, I started running after the cat.

"Junior! Follow me."

Winding and twisting.

A route so complex it was hard to predict.

The cat guided us as if it had grasped the entire maze-like alleyways and locations of the zombies.

It brought us all the way to the vacant lot, our destination, without encountering a single camp resident, as if the difficult escape was a lie.

Meow!

The cat stretched its neck out, making a self-satisfied expression.

"Wow, you guided us? Thank you!"

Junior 1 hugged the white cat and stroked it vigorously.

Looking at the vacant lot where the welcome party was held, its previous appearance had completely vanished.

The campfire, with the logs that formed its structure scattered all around, could no longer maintain its shape.

The grill for roasting all kinds of meats was overturned on the ground.

In front of the small three-story building, the camp residents turned into zombies were trying to open the closed door.

Looking up, I could see Junior 2 poking her head out from the rooftop of the three-story building.

Ah, thankfully we're not too late.