On the rooftop, the defense team was throwing paving blocks hard, and on the landing between the 1st and 2nd floors, the defense team was thrusting weapons, relying on barricades.

I briefly went down to take a look at the defense team.

The zombie's roars and people's shouts and screams. The flashlight light was swaying chaotically in the narrow hallway. Red blood was spraying, bodies were piling up, and weapons were swinging violently.

"Kill them!"

Long spears. Primitive weapons made by taping together sticks, awls, or nails, were popping up between chairs or table legs.

Zombies fell one by one in front of the tactical use of barricades as shields and spears as weapons, but I quickly found their weakness.

'It's too dark. The zombies are also learning.'

The brief flash of the flashlight. There was something squirming among the fallen zombie bodies in the area the defense team's vision couldn't reach. A zombie that had crawled up grabbed a chair leg.

Clunk, the shaking barricade.

I stood on the stairs and pointed at that zombie, shouting.

"Down there! It's grabbed the barricade! You, yes you! Come up here and assess the situation! Shine the flashlight well!"

"Ah, yes!"

That's when it happened.

Something swung across the air. Thud, a dull impact sound. A high school student in the midst of thrusting a spear staggered.

"Ack!"

"Bricks! They're throwing bricks!"

Zombies who couldn't get close started throwing the paving blocks they had picked up. The weapons we had thrown to kill the zombies were now being thrown back at us.

And the noise from the 1st floor was not good. Boom, boom, the sound of pounding on the locked doors. The zombies that had broken through the windows and invaded the 1st floor rooms seemed about to surge up at any moment.

'I'm really going crazy.'

This is a real wave. A wave of zombies. The human seawall is being swept away, eroded while facing the zombie tide.

If we fight back, we can only suffer losses, and in the worst case, we will all be submerged by the zombies.

'Let's get out of here.'

I gradually went back up to the 3rd floor.

The defense team used the stairs up to the landing, shining the flashlight from the railing and thrusting their long weapons, but the view was not bright.

Jeon Do-hyeong quietly followed me.

"How's the rooftop?"

"It's too dark to see well. More importantly, let's start preparing to find our way out."

"Huh?"

I gave him a quick look-over. A member of the looters, who had deliberately parked his car next to the church entrance. A malicious electric thief who had prepared a place for the bricks to fall and set up a wave-inducing alarm.

While I don't know much about the others, the assistant is remarkably excellent.

This operation was also achieved thanks to everyone's cooperation. Me suggesting to take the zombies, Do-hyeong setting up the trap, and the deacon thief triggering the trap.

'The looter member is not bad.'

With just the members here, won't we be able to ruin those guys pretty easily?

Do-hyeong spoke with a trembling voice, seeming flustered.

"How do we survive here? There's no way to escape. We have to block the zombies and kill them to live."

The surrounded church building. Even the first floor is packed with zombies. It's a last stand, in a way. That's why people are fighting for their lives.

But the looters are different.

"There are plenty of ways to survive."

I prepared a hiding space where we can wait until the zombies become less frequent. Some empty cabinets, a bathroom with a metal door. A safe place where I hid some water and chocolate bars.

And the deacon thief...

"Has Deacon Kwon come? Who's next to him?"

"This is a real comrade."

"Huh. This friend? I didn't see him that way."

"So that's where the gun came from..."

The looter comrades, having realized each other's identities, exchanged warm greetings, and we quietly walked up to the third floor.

The third floor is sparsely populated. Aside from the faint shouts from the stairwell landing, it's tranquil.

The deacon thief guided us somewhere. It was a room at the end of the hallway.

"Since this is a church, there's no gas pipe, so we can't climb down the wall bare-handed. The drainage pipe installed for the rooftop water is not sturdy enough. Instead, I've prepared something."

The deacon, after closing the door, shone the flashlight through the open window.

There was something like a rope installed near the window.

"We can escape by climbing down this. There's a drainage pipe next to it that might also be helpful. The problem is, yes, there are zombies outside too. It's difficult to go out directly."

I had to resist the urge to applaud. It's worthwhile having recruited the looter members. Much more satisfying than some strange community or wave preparation nonsense.

Do-hyeong spoke up.

"Can't we bring one more person? Just one more?"

I know who that one person is. Na-ye. Probably feeling some sense of responsibility, since we got her friend killed.

Fortunately, the deacon thief stopped it in time.

"No, that can't be done. If that was possible, Deacon Kwon would have brought her already. One becomes two, two becomes four. In that moment, the frontline will collapse, and we'll all die."

"Right. We have to survive and carry on the hope of the hope community."

Just as I was diligently injecting such self-rationalization...

Suddenly, the lights came on. 30 minutes had passed in the midst of the chaotic fighting. The blackout was over.

At the same time, someone burst open the door on the 3rd floor and came running out, shouting. It was the joyful voice of the deacon who was in charge of communications.

"Everyone! The delivery squad has come to help! Just hold on a little longer! Let's do this!"

We looked at each other for a moment. If this happens, the situation will change again. I looked at the brightened street. The zombies trapped in the 1st floor rooms were slowly escaping through the windows.

There are quite a few zombies surrounding the church. If we escape now and go outside, we'll be surrounded by zombies.

On the other hand, the building was safe.

It was a moment when the waves stopped. There were no more zombies coming.

I raised my hammer.

"Wicked zombies! How dare you touch the hope left by the pastor!"

"Yeah! You can't touch the church!" The deacon thief pulled out a gun and ran with me towards the battlefield brightly lit by hope.

I briefly heard Dohyeong muttering behind us, "What the hell are these people doing..."

***

The situation is quite good.

The dead-end escape, the barricades set up on the narrow stairs, the spears thrusting through the gaps, the natural obstacles formed by piled zombie corpses, and the brightened view with the return of electricity.

This is the power of humanity and the power of hope.

Of course, the zombies were not easy either.

Fearless monsters. Monsters that ignore pain. No matter how many zombies die, the onslaught continues.

I encouraged from the stairs, deliberately shouting in a hoarse voice.

"It's almost over! Just hold on a little longer!"

Ugh, I'm so tired I could die. Is this the weight of a leader? I'm just tired.

I poked the zombies below the railing with a long pole. There were no sharp spearheads, but if I poked or caught the joints, they would fall.

The diminished zombies gradually retreated. It felt like a vague comparison of the number of barricades or human numbers and armaments. They growled, opened their mouths wide to reveal their teeth, but seemed to struggle to suppress their attack instinct.

Victory was just around the corner. The defense team joyfully waved their weapons.

"Get lost, you zombie bastards!"

"We won!"

Even the person whose head was bleeding from being hit by a brick was shouting in adrenaline.

I quietly watched the zombies. They weren't running away, nor were they attacking. It felt like they were about to make a final attack.

My intuition was right. Suddenly, a loud noise came from the 1st floor.

And a huge zombie with a hand axe came, leading a group of zombies. Tall, with muscles that could easily weigh three to five hundred pounds, and the hand axe that had ripped through the wooden door.

"Uh..."

The laughter of the defense team subsided. The lights were bright, and the bright view helped to acutely feel the oppressiveness of the enemy.

The administrative elder gulped and shouted, "They're all the same humans! Stabbing with knives, guns, ah. I gave them guns."

It was then that the words he had shouted to boost morale ended up making him feel more restrained.

The fitness zombie opened its mouth wide and let out a roar.

"Graaaah!"

At the same time, it fiercely threw an axe. Whoosh, it flew through the air. The defense team instinctively crouched down and retreated. The moment the axe was firmly embedded in the desk, it trembled.

The fitness zombie thudded up the stairs, grabbing and dragging the fallen zombie corpses. A meat shield.

Swish, the meat shield was thrust forward.

"Block it!"

The defense team instinctively thrust their spears, but they were blocked by the meat shield.

Creeak- Thud-

The fitness zombie behind had dragged the barricade away. The desks and chairs all came crashing down. Of course, the fitness zombie was also swept up in the wave of debris, but the stairwell was now wide open.

The fitness zombie was getting up, pushing through the debris. 

Most importantly, the zombies had learned. They groaned and hugged the corpses. Behind them were those holding paving blocks.

It was time to use firearms. I quietly drew the pistol that belonged to the security elder.

"Elder Jeon, Elder Bae, we really need to use the firearms now."

"Ah, it would be good if we could retreat with this."

Elder Jeon leaned on the railing and extended the firearm. Elder Bae also sneakily stuck his gun through the railing gap.

"That one, the fitness one. If we just kill that one, won't it be enough?"

"Yeah, what do I do? I don't have a gun."

"Elder Haeng, please go to the rooftop and bring the people down. Stop throwing bricks outside and throw them from here."

I glanced at the defense team. They were standing unsteadily. With the secure barricade gone, they were that much more frightened.

The exhaustion of their strength and fear seemed to be newly felt. The pressure of the corpses that couldn't be seen in the darkness also seemed to be weighing on them.

We needed courage, and the courage was in our hands. Bullets. Consumable courage.

I looked at the fitness zombie that had risen from the debris of the barricade. This time, it was wielding a chair like a weapon.

We had to seize the momentum now.

"Let's shoot. Be careful not to have any accidental discharges."

I pulled the trigger, carefully one shot at a time.

Bang! The first shot was a warning shot. The zombie whipped its head towards me. I fired at the fitness zombie again.

The second shot was a non-lethal round. The shot that was aimed at the fitness zombie missed widely and pierced the head of a zombie that had poked its head out.

Then, Tat-tat-tat, the elders' gunfire followed, and the bricks thrown by the zombies sliced through the air.

I'm not aiming for you.

The third shot was also a non-lethal round. Of course, even non-lethal rounds can kill people. But this time, it got stuck in the meat shield of another zombie.

The lethal rounds are too precious to waste.

Amidst the deafening sound of gunfire, I stopped shooting and calmly observed the zombies.

"Graaaah!"

They are using the corpse shield to throw bricks.

But the fitness zombie, holding a chair, let out a loud cry and turned to flee. The other zombies also seemed confused, stopped in their tracks, and quickly followed it.

The church building became quiet in an instant.

"Did we win?"

The administrative elder, who had belatedly returned with an armful of bricks, said in a perplexed manner. The people, looking at the stairs filled with corpses, jumped in shock.

The joy of returning to life from the brink of death.

People laughing, chattering, and sitting down.

I made a cold judgment.

'This is bad. This won't last long. It's really time to get out of here.'

The problem is not the fitness zombie's strength. The zombies that have learned siege tactics have simply retreated.

Of course, the people will also learn from this experience, but they have expended their ammunition and sustained injuries. There are not a few people who have had their heads split open by bricks, and there are even those who have died.

As the people looked at the zombie corpses, I looked down at the dead humans. Their pale faces stained red with the flowing blood from their torn heads. The not-so-distant future.

'Time to reap.'

I need to gradually siphon off the resources that the church has diligently stockpiled. It's time to leave with my fellow looters.

***

I went up to the rooftop and looked at the well-lit area. The retreating wave of zombies. And now, the support of the delivery police force has arrived.

Vroooom-!

A few motorcycles entered the church grounds, riding on the road. I examined their equipment.

Full-body rider suits. Helmets made for traffic accidents. Sufficient protection against most impacts or zombie bites. And they were wielding baseball bats made of steel, with fierce momentum.

"This is lance charging!"

Someone shouted loudly and swung the baseball bat. The speed of the motorcycle was added to the strike. Bam, the zombie was knocked down.

The motorcycles wobbled but maintained their balance, and sometimes they even rammed into the horde of zombies. Of course, the motorcycles also fell, but the sliding riders laughed cheerfully.

"It's lighter than getting hit by a car! Hey, why? Biting? Ask, you idiot!"

They openly offered their hands, and with the other hand, they pulled out a knife and stabbed the zombie's neck. They seemed almost invincible, but the problem was that these zombies had learned siege tactics.

The zombie raised its hand. The brick in its hand directly struck the helmet's face, causing cracks.

"Ugh! This is not right! Using bricks is cheating for the zombies!"

Meanwhile, the helmet zombie openly hits the rider on the motorcycle with a chair, causing an accident.

The more I see this scene, the more firmly I think about escaping.

'A fixed stronghold is not good.'

Defending something inevitably causes losses. No, the very act of doing something directly is excessively risky.

When the tide comes, isn't it best to retreat to where the tide doesn't reach? Why fight the tide?

I have established a principle. A principle for surviving the apocalypse.

I don't fight directly. If I fight, I target the weak. If I fight, I use dishonorable and cowardly means without exposing my body.

I reduce my actions. I hide quietly in a silent place like a non-existent person, and when resources run out, I target empty houses and the weak.

Zombies are like natural disasters, so I avoid them as much as possible. If I can't avoid them, I pass them on to others.

'Indeed, a small elite group of looters is right.'

I quietly took Elder Jeon Do-hyeong and the thief elder with me.