NOVEL WEB Chapter 27
“Is the preparation ready?”
He tightened the screw against the rifle barrel with force.
-click, click…
Carefully moving forward and back to avoid hurting his hands, the iron rod began to be slowly filed.
Once the process gained momentum, a loud noise soon reverberated throughout the room.
-click, schick, schick, thud.
After inserting the bullet, he applied a simple safety catch that prevented the trigger from being pulled.
The rifle with the shortened barrel, crafted in a triple-barrel style, was for Ms. Dieterich for self-defense.
The triple-barrel with the longer barrel and wooden stock was for Mr. James.
The short double-barrel with a bit more effort put into the stock and a rudimentary pattern carved into the rubber pad was a special shotgun for Ms. Sarah who would be leading the front.
Lastly, he prepared a double-barrel with only the pistol grip and no stock, made for close-quarter combat rather than long-range engagements.
— Clearly, with such rudimentary shotguns, they would be at a disadvantage.
— Also, the paper-made shell casings clearly had their limitations.
At such times, one would need to look for the bunker’s blueprint or a server room that could connect to the intranet.
Because by acquiring the information from there, one wouldn’t have to rely on luck to find military territories.
If lucky, I wouldn’t even need to make the bullets, and if the bullet materials were disassembled, all I had to do was reassemble them.
Most importantly, once I started obtaining the ‘shell casings,’ they could be reused indefinitely.
Surely we would need to add the shell-catcher eventually, but that could be made too.
Regardless of what the American Omen family thought about the shell-catcher.
“You may enter.”
“We’ve been waiting for an hour since you said we’d depart… wow.”
He immediately handed over the shotgun to Ms. Sarah who had become unusually fussy.
“Take it. It’s a custom-made shotgun.”
He pointed his finger to the stock to show her something written there.
“SARAOMEN.”
With the ‘H’ missing.
“Huh?”
“Typically, when saying ‘Sarah,’ it’s pronounced with ‘ah’ rather than ‘a.'”
The difference might not be obvious in pronunciation, but apparently, it was wrong.
“Let me have it, then. I’ll re-engrave it for you.”
“No.”
A broad smile appeared as she hugged the weapon with a chuckle.
…No matter what, in the end,
A good present was still a good present.
“By the way, are all these rifles intended…”
“No. Obviously, this one is for Mr. James.”
“JAMES… yes, the name is written accurately. Though, my dad liked to write a really big red ‘1.’”
“Big ‘one,’ you say?”
“Yes, the number one. Both grandpa and dad were from the First Infantry Division. Their division’s emblem was a big, red 1.”
“I can add that easily. Although, Ms. Sarah…”
“No, don’t bother. It will be fun to laugh about it later.”
…Is that so?
I sighed, picked up the spray can on the desk.
After putting the gas mask back on, I wrote the number ‘1’ boldly on a piece of paper and cut it out. Placing it on the stock and spraying thickly once…
“This will be fun if we paint it again later.”
“We will need more materials, but…”
“Can we do the painting ourselves?”
“Are you able to?”
“In the game, the rifles are painted in different colors all the time. I’ve always wanted to try it.”
A game character talking about a game. What exactly is that?
After removing the gas mask, I held up my shotgun in front of Ms. Sarah.
“I’ll tell you how it works.”
“I already know. This is the safety, you pull the hammer back before shooting, and press the trigger. Pulling both shoots both barrels at once.”
Huh.
But this is a makeshift shotgun…
“Didn’t we make one before? The one that only shoots one round. Remember?”
“…Ah.”
While making the ammunition, I had experimentally prepared a ‘One-Shot’ makeshift shotgun…
“Before going to get it, I had scoured the workshop once. That’s where I retrieved the shotgun and the ammo.”
“Then wasn’t that lost?”
“No, I neatly stored it all in the warehouse. And I was going to bring the shotgun along as well… Here you go.”
Then at least one definitely didn’t need to be made, but…
It would have been good if you said it earlier.
“Um, the bullets… did you make them as well?”
I kicked the ammunition crates under the desk with my foot.
…Why exactly did I stay up all night?
I should’ve searched the warehouse more carefully beforehand.
This is a mistake I wouldn’t have made in a game—where I could check resource quantities with a mere mouse click… Or at least, I should’ve asked before starting work.
“Alright, let’s do it this way.”
While rubbing my tired eyes, Ms. Sarah sat on the edge of the crafting table in front of me.
She gently lifted my chin with her fingers and looked me in the eyes.
“From now on, use me as your assistant.”
An assistant?
Of course, if I had one, work efficiency would increase.
If they became professional assistants, they could acquire the ability to craft most items similarly to me, except for a few special ones.
But this isn’t a game world where things happen like that.
Could they really accept me pulling tools out of thin air or making injections with unknown chemicals?
“Because of safety concerns…”
“I’ve handled gunpowder in tough conditions for so long without a single explosion.”
“You’ve been careful, I know. But…”
“Look at the dark circles under your eyes.”
“I haven’t had any accidents so far…”
“What will you do if your body gets even worse while you’re here?”
She pressed her hand on my cheek with a sigh.
“No one has asked you to work this hard. No one has told you to create things nonstop.”
“It’s okay…if you’re worried…”
“Listen.”
Of course, insomnia reduces physical strength by about 20%, and increases stamina consumption—but the point isn’t that.
You wouldn’t notice in a game, but here, where things happen in a manner similar to reality, people would definitely suspect.
Like a blue robot cat pulling tools out of its pocket.
“It was about honor, wasn’t it?”
“…Yes.”
“Then at least as friends, I don’t want to see you not sleep every night. So, choose one. Either rest properly with us, or let me be your assistant to improve efficiency.”
I thought for a moment.
Indeed, I was hitting my physical limits, and if I don’t sleep, the efficiency of increasing strength and stamina would drop.
“The reason it takes so long is… processing and assembly.”
“Then the assembly can be done by me, right?”
“…Right.”
Most of the work at the crafting station is the processing part.
As for assembly, you only need a screwdriver and a hammer.
“Alright, then reconnaissance… we’ll go after lunch. Get some rest in the meantime.”
“The items…”
“Let’s make it my first task as your assistant. I’ll go fetch them.”
Before I could say anything, Sarah had already snatched all the weapons, looking thrilled.
As I turned to watch her walk out the door, she suddenly stopped.
“…Oh, and.”
She held something in her hand, twisting her foot slightly…
“There’s no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman, you know?”
She said that one sentence and sped off, disappearing in a flash.
No friendship?
Originally?
So, is she offering special treatment?
Then can I consider the gift strategy to have worked?
“…I don’t know. Ah… but at least I can get some sleep.”
Speaking of advantages of bunker living—if it’s an advantage, that is—
The place has no sunlight, no passing cars, and becomes eerily quiet every time you close the door.
“Haaam.”
I lay down on the blanket laid out in the workshop and closed my eyes.
***
“This is Dad’s shotgun.”
The sight of the impressive triple-barrel shotgun made James’s eyes widen.
At the same time, Curtis frowned.
“What? So those short shotguns are mine?”
“No, it seems… it says ‘Dieterich.'”
“Huh? Then mine is!?”
“You already have a double-barrel.”
“You gave away my trench gun to those Nazi bastards, and now you’re saying I don’t have one? What the hell—”
Smiling cheerfully while examining the weapons, James’s companion, Curtis, clicked his tongue.
In the midst of this, Sarah sighed deeply, unable to leave the room with the remaining shotgun.
“…Are you saying he only made one for me?”
“No, it’s not like that…”
“Probably just the stubborn jerk who only knows how to make things shredded my granddaughter’s heart again. Pf.”
As Sarah nodded, James smiled helplessly.
“Rather than just confessing, you say you like him?”
“Are you crazy? What if he rejects me?”
“Doesn’t seem like our lives, which we’ve saved each other’s numerous times, would end so easily.”
“…And it’s already almost a confession… something like that.”
“What did he say?”
“H-he said… that there’s no friendship between a man and a woman.”
Quiet for a moment, the laughter began seeping out of the room.
Then, it erupted.
“Hey, if he said that much, he should’ve understood, right?”
Sarah’s face turned red as she twisted her foot, and the two elders, forgetting their complaints about and reverence for the shotgun, kicked their legs about.
The room, gradually filling with laughter, was suddenly refreshed with a new breeze.
“Excuse me.”
Breathing heavily after bursting open the door, Angela Dieterich stood straight and addressed everyone.
“There are survivors.”
“Survivor groups? Or…”
“Heavily wounded. We need your help.”
***
Dammit.
I thought I could get a little rest.
“Shall we postpone today’s reconnaissance to tomorrow?”
“It’s fine, we can go today. We haven’t found proper medical supplies yet.”
“With what we currently have…”
“If we don’t, we might get injured again, which would be a big problem.”
After putting on the gloves, he covered his mouth with cloth.
“I’ll—”
“It’s dangerous to interfere. That’s part of treatment.”
“You said you were tired, Hyun Woo.”
“…”
Instead of answering, he took a sip of water.
“Please keep watch around. Ms. Dieterich, how are the patients?”
“Most of their injuries are cuts and bruises.”
“Any bites?”
“No teeth marks. Whatever happened, they’re not zombies.”
“Then either earth bats or dogfoots.”
“Dogfoots?”
“Have you ever seen a dog walk on two legs?”
“They do that when they’re playing around.”
“No, these are walking like humans but their legs haven’t fully transformed into hands yet.”
It won’t be as easy to imagine these as you might think.
Even I wasn’t sure what it looked like the first time I saw it.
“Let’s prioritize the patients.”
“Yes. Please guard outside carefully. And absolutely, do not enter until we say it’s safe!”
With those words, she went straight into the medical room.
The empty counters were especially noticeable because of the lack of sufficient medicine.
And then,
“…Damn.”
A pair of bloody men and women lay on the steel tables.
Given the amount of blood loss, it wasn’t good.
…Damn it.
I didn’t want to take in additional people this way.