Chapter 42: Vaccine
The Yunbula National Granary was described as a large grain storage facility, but in reality, it was more accurately a large-scale strategic reserve base.
It was equipped not only with a surveillance center, but also with a full range of facilities, including docks for transporting grain and dedicated transport roads.
After the apocalypse began, the survivors inside the granary immediately sealed all entrances. Once they had eliminated every zombie within the facility, they activated the wartime contingency plan that had long been prepared, permanently sealing most entrances with reinforced concrete and welded steel plates.
They brought the generator station and pumping station online, closed off most sections of the granary, placed everyone under military-style management, concentrated all personnel within designated shelter zones, maintained scheduled daily attempts to contact the outside world, and carefully recorded all incoming data.
At first, everything proceeded smoothly.
The massive granary had originally been built as a safeguard against war and other national emergencies. A facility storing enough grain to feed 500 million people for an entire year was, in effect, a survival stronghold prepared by the nation itself.
If war—or a catastrophe like the apocalypse—were to strike, Yunbula could quickly take control of the granary, use it as a rallying point for survivors, and begin rebuilding society.
The staff who lived and worked there had all received this kind of emergency training. So when disaster finally came, after the initial panic, many of them couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of finality—it actually happened after all.
As a result, despite their fear, grief, and anxiety, they carried out every step of the established emergency procedures in an orderly manner.
After that, all they could do was remain inside the granary and wait for the government to send help.
The first month was the hardest.
People gathered together every day, discussing what kind of terrifying virus could have erupted across the world all at once; whether they should cremate the bodies of their deceased coworkers; what conditions were like outside; when the internet would be restored; and, above all, wondering how their families were faring.
They talked about what questions they would ask once the government finally arrived.
They would ask about the situation in the regions where their families lived. They would ask whether other countries had suffered the same catastrophe.
By the second month, those conversations gradually stopped.
The staff began to realize, with growing unease, that no one had come—and no one had even tried to contact them.
That wasn’t how things were supposed to happen.
They were stationed at the largest granary in Yunbula. When the apocalypse struck, whether it was the national government or a privately established survivor settlement, this place should have been one of the highest-priority targets.
All they could do was comfort themselves.
“All the weapons mysteriously stopped working. Maybe the outside world just needs more time to clear out those monsters.”
They had completely lost contact with the outside world. Through the surveillance cameras, all they could see were zombies wandering aimlessly beyond the walls.
At the very beginning of the disaster, the cameras had captured people and vehicles fleeing for their lives. But from the second day onward, every area within the granary’s surveillance range was occupied by nothing but zombies.
In the third month, the staff still gathered together and held a formal meeting to discuss an important question:
If the people who eventually came to open the granary were not government personnel, but survivors from a private settlement, should they let them in?
By the sixth month, no one cared about that question anymore.
No one had come.
The government never arrived.
No private survivor settlement appeared.
Not even a lone survivor ever wandered into view.
It was as if the entire world had died, leaving only the people inside the granary alive.
The feeling that their corner of the world had become a completely isolated island was unbearable.
The granary held enough food to last all of them for the rest of their lives.
But it had also become a prison that could confine them for the rest of their lives.
What had once been just a job no longer had any meaning in the apocalypse.
Money didn’t either.
Unable to obtain any information from the outside world and lacking the means to venture out and investigate, people could only let their imaginations run wild.
Was it only this region that had been affected?
Or had their entire area somehow been transported to another world?
Or perhaps it was simply a viral outbreak, and the government had deliberately cut off the communications network? While they sat quietly waiting inside the granary, was the outside world already holding emergency meetings, preparing to launch missiles at their location in order to completely eradicate the virus that turned people into monsters?
Only 187 people had survived.
At first glance, that seemed like a lot. But after more than half a year of living together, the 187 survivors had become so familiar with one another that everyone knew everyone else’s name, family background, and life story. Out of sheer boredom, they even gave names to the zombie monsters they watched on the surveillance cameras.
They played every game they could think of—
—and eventually concluded that none of them were fun anymore.
The people themselves hadn’t realized it, but many of them had, in fact, fallen into depression.
Some became withdrawn.
Some grew increasingly irritable.
Arguments broke out more and more frequently.
Some packed their bags and insisted on leaving, only to be stopped by everyone else.
The doors absolutely could not be opened.
If they were, what if the monsters outside rushed in?
Those who wanted to open the doors and those who wanted to keep them shut gradually became opposing factions.
Fortunately, the granary’s chief administrator, Theodore, had anticipated this possibility from the beginning. He had locked away anything that could be used as a weapon and secured the loyalty of the entire security department. That was the only reason he had been able to suppress the conflict before it escalated.
Looking back on it, the situation was almost absurd.
There were only 187 people in the entire granary.
Yet in just six months, they had split into five separate factions.
Theodore could have forcibly crushed the factions and prevented them from forming at all.
But he chose not to.
He realized that everyone was angry because they were afraid.
As long as they were arguing, it was better than sinking into numbness and despair.
But now…
Every faction had stopped fighting.
“There are the Exploration Faction, the Status Quo Faction, the Separate Living Faction, the Communal Living Faction, and then there’s us—the Management Faction.”
Before the alarm sounded, Theodore had been speaking with the head of the Security Department, wearing a wry smile as they analyzed the current situation.
“All the factions have quieted down. Everyone’s united again. I honestly don’t know whether I should be happy about that.”
The security chief rubbed his face, the exhaustion plainly visible.
“At this point, all we can do is keep reinforcing every entrance.”
The reason the people inside the granary had stopped fighting each other was actually very simple.
Earlier that month, while on patrol, a member of the Security Department had discovered that one of the doors—already sealed shut with welded steel plates—had somehow developed an irregular hole.
That steel plate had been welded into place and backed by a wall of reinforced concrete nearly half a meter thick. Even gunfire couldn’t penetrate it.
So how could there possibly be a hole?
The management immediately reviewed the surveillance footage and stationed guards at the site.
Only then did they discover that the hole had been clawed out by an unusually large monster.
Its claws had evidently undergone some kind of mutation.
Not only were they much longer than those of ordinary monsters, but they were also far harder and sharper. They could slice through steel plating and punch straight through ordinary doors.
After repeated comparisons, the management was forced to accept a terrifying conclusion.
The worst-case scenario had come true.
The monsters could evolve.
The creatures wandering outside the granary had all looked like ordinary zombies during the first few months. But over the last two months, they had apparently undergone further mutations.
Some had become much faster.
Some had learned to climb.
Others, like the first mutated monster they had discovered, had developed claws capable of tearing through doors.
Fortunately, the granary’s main gates had been built from specially engineered materials, while the ordinary doors had all been reinforced with steel bars and sealed behind concrete.
Even so, that mutated monster had silently spent an entire day digging before managing to create a small opening.
But that alone was enough to send chills down everyone’s spine.
After all, terrifying as the monsters were, they had one consistent trait:
The moment they saw a living person—or even caught the scent of one—they would let out a loud, shrill roar, summoning every nearby monster to converge and attack together.
This behavior had allowed the granary staff to identify weak points in their defenses immediately and respond before the monsters could break through.
But the monster that had been digging through the door didn’t behave that way.
If Theodore hadn’t insisted on sending out daily patrols, everyone inside the granary might have been caught completely off guard. On what appeared to be an ordinary, peaceful day, the zombies could have suddenly burst in.
Fortunately, although that monster’s claws were much tougher than those of ordinary zombies, its skull wasn’t.
The management and the Security Department quietly set up an ambush, killed it just outside the door, and then reinforced every entrance once again.
But everyone knew that couldn’t have been the only one.
What if, next time, there were ten of them?
Or a hundred?
Or even a thousand monsters clawing at the doors together?
If that happened, the fall of the granary would only be a matter of time.
“I honestly don’t know what else we can do anymore.” Theodore irritably ran a hand through the few strands of hair he had left.
“Our original contingency plan was that, if things became impossible to hold here, we’d all move onto the grain transport ships and live at sea. If nobody remained inside the granary, then those monsters that can break through doors probably wouldn’t have any reason to come.”
He sighed heavily.
“But yesterday we found another new type—a monster that can swim. It came ashore at the dock in the middle of the night. Thankfully, the dock had already been sealed off, and we’d even locked the doors as an extra precaution. Otherwise, it would have gotten inside.”
The head of Security, Damon, listened quietly while Theodore vented his frustration. Only after he had finished did Damon speak.
“No matter what decision you make, I’ll support it.”
It hadn’t always been that way.
Especially after the apocalypse began, Damon had commanded the entire Security Department, while Theodore possessed little more than the title of chief administrator.
The only reason Damon had followed Theodore’s orders at first was because he still believed Yunbula would eventually send troops to take over the facility.
Later, when it became clear that no military force was ever coming, Damon gradually came to admire Theodore’s meticulous planning—his careful management of the granary, his ability to keep the various factions in balance, and the way he enabled everyone else to continue living as normally as possible under impossible circumstances.
He was always composed, always calm. Whenever everyone else was panicking, Theodore became the person they instinctively relied on.
Especially now that increasingly evolved monsters were appearing outside, many of Theodore’s earlier precautions—such as sealing the docks and closing off entire warehouse sections—had proven invaluable. Damon had become completely convinced of his judgment.
Theodore still wore the same calm expression.
“I’m sorry, Damon. I’ve thought of countless plans, but every one of them requires us to take risks. Right now, all we can do is stay barricaded inside the granary and hope that another monster capable of opening doors doesn’t appear.”
Damon was silent for a moment.
“So we’re placing our hopes in a miracle?”
Theodore nodded, his voice steady.
“Yes. A miracle.”
When people became powerless, they turned to miracles.
Just as Theodore had no idea whether his son, living in a country across the ocean, was safe or dead. So he comforted himself by imagining that perhaps the disaster had never reached that place, and that his son Leo was still alive.
Even Theodore knew it was self-deception.
But what else could he do?
As the conversation reached that point, an alarm suddenly blared.
Both men sprang to their feet, grabbed their weapons, and hurried toward the control room.
The other staff members also erupted into panic, scrambling to arm themselves.
In the past, Theodore had refused to distribute weapons. But after the incidents earlier that month, everyone had been issued iron rods and knives.
“Is that door-breaking monster back?!”
“Or did the climbing monster get inside?!”
“Damn it, what new kind of monster is it this time?!”
People cursed loudly, using anger to cover their fear.
The management staff had no time for that. They rushed into the surveillance room.
“What’s happened?”
Several additional people were already there, all staring rigidly at the monitors.
The sight made Theodore’s heart tighten.
Had an even more troublesome monster appeared outside?
“Vera, what happened?”
His colleague turned toward Theodore with tears in her eyes.
“Oh… my God, Theodore. I can’t believe it.”
From the look in her eyes, Theodore understood immediately.
This has something to do with me.
His heart began to race, his breathing quickened, and Vera’s voice seemed to drown out every other sound around him.
“Theodore… I’m so happy for you.”
“It’s Leo.”
“Leo has come back.”
Theodore froze.
“…Leo?”
He rushed to the surveillance monitor.
There, he saw his son.
Leo stood outside the main gate, waving vigorously at the camera as he shouted:
“Hello! Is anyone in there?! You probably still remember me—I’m your former coworker, Leo! The one who moved to Ming Nation!”
“Dad! Are you in there? Are you okay?”
“If anyone’s inside, could you please open the gate? Otherwise…”
“…the army behind me might end up opening it with a missile!”
He stepped aside so the camera could capture the troops assembled behind him—and the tanks, whose imposing presence was impossible to ignore.
But Theodore saw none of that.
All he could see was the only family he had left in the world.
His son.
“Open the gate.”
He gave the order.
Damon hesitated.
“Theodore… should we observe a little longer? Wasn’t Leo living in Ming Nation? Those monsters have been evolving. Maybe they’ve learned to disguise themselves as people’s loved ones.”
“No, Damon.”
“No father would mistake his own child.”
Theodore slowly steadied his breathing.
“And besides…”
“I know what a missile looks like.”
“Open the gate.”
“Unless we’d rather have the granary’s front gate blown open by one.”
The great doors of the granary, which had remained sealed shut ever since the apocalypse began…
…slowly swung open.
Standing off to one side, supported by his squad leader, Ming Hao was covered in blood from head to toe. Every muscle in his body ached.
“I still don’t understand…
“…how we actually managed to fight our way all the way here.
“And another thing—how did we end up fighting our way here like that?”
The whole journey had been nothing but killing, nonstop.
Ming Hao was exhausted to the point of collapse.
Yet every other member of the “Belt Squad” looked as energetic as ever.
The deputy captain comforted him.
“It’s okay. We can just carry you.”
Ming Hao pictured himself being carried around by the back of his clothes like a cat.
“…I think I’ll keep walking on my own.”
For once, however, the captain didn’t tease him.
His gaze settled on the granary’s outer walls, where several large breaches had been repaired and sealed up again. Beside them were long, unmistakable claw marks.
“Oh, Creator.”
His expression grew solemn.
“Now I understand why the granary mission was upgraded to an emergency priority.”
Claws capable of ripping through steel doors…
Even for the people of Blue Sea, fighting such monsters would be no easy task.
Following her believer’s line of sight, Cheng Qisheng also looked toward the damaged sections of the wall.
It was obvious.
Those holes hadn’t been made by humans.
Although she had expected as much, she still let out a quiet sigh.
The zombies were evolving.
Blue Sea could not afford to remain in this world much longer.
Once they secured the grain…
…and mined some mineral resources…
…it would be time to withdraw.
Her gaze shifted toward the virology research institute.
There, Dr. Yu stared at the newly extracted vaccine, her face lighting up with overwhelming excitement.
“We did it!”
Overjoyed, she pressed the tiny vial of vaccine against her chest, as though she were holding the hope of the entire world.
At that very moment, a notification appeared on the virtual screen before Cheng Qisheng.
[Detected: Blue Sea Safe City has assisted a native civilization in resisting a catastrophe.]
[Reward obtained: 3,000 mu of Floating Farmland.] (Approximately 200 hectares or 500 acres.)
<< _ >>
