Chapter 29: An Oversight

So I decided to translate this chapter a little early because it’s short and because it has a nice cliffhanger to torture you guys with until I release the next chapter.

Enjoy.

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By the time he returned to the super market, it was dawn.  It was still dark, but there were traces of the sun light rising up over the horizon.

After making sure there were no zombies around, Yusuke opens the shutters to the loading entrance.  Once he was inside, he operated the switch box, closing the shutters again.

With no lights in the place, the ground sloped towards the back, shrouded in darkness.  There were emergency lights here and there along the way, but they were only bright enough to illuminate their immediate surroundings.  Yusuke turns on his flashlight, and proceeds underground.

He planned to prepare the car, then call Mizuki and her brothers and immediately set off.  Approaching the loading zone with his flashlight, Yusuke unlocks the truck parked there with the remote on his key chain.  He climbs in the drivers seat, and turning on the headlights, the concrete floor in front of him is lit up.  Confirming there is enough fuel remaining in the truck, Yusuke leaves the lights on, and exits the vehicle.

At that moment he stopped.  He had started to notice it earlier, but a strange smell was drifting from further down.

(…..What is it?  This smell…..)

The smell was caught in his nose.  It smelled like waste.

(Was there a sewage problem……?)

Following the smell with the help of the headlights, he comes across a slightly opened door.  It was the door he had closed when he took the wandering zombie back upstairs.  It was a door leading inside.

“……………”

Yusuke pulls out his handgun while remaining silent.

It didn’t feel like there was anyone nearby.

Stepping inside the door, he checks the surroundings.  There was a passageway in the front of the room, which extended to the right.  The fire door next to the staircase leading to the front floor was barricaded.

(Was it a zombie……?  There’s no way Mizuki would come here…..)

It could have been a zombie that was left inside the room leaving.  If that was the case, there was something he had to do before calling down the three from upstairs.

However, he wanted to know the source of the odor.  Since he entered the room, the smell had gotten stronger.  It appeared as if it was coming from a passageway nearby.

Yusuke wondered what it might be, while drawing closer, looking for the source.  The passage he was walking through shouldn’t be connected to the boiler room or the electrical room.  (TL: Idk of a better term for electrical room.)

Relying on the dim emergency lights on his left, he heads down the corridor.  He passed by several rooms, but they were all shut and locked.

At the very end of the corridor, he finds a set of double doors left slightly open.  The smell was coming from inside.

(This place…. was left open?)

With questions raised in his mind, he opens the doors to find a room full of trash.

Sticking down from the ceiling were trash shutes which were connected to the first floor.  Beneath them were giant piles of trash.  The numerous cargo bins were overflowing.  The trash was deteriorating into compost with countless bugs and bacteria growing from it, the smell of the fermenting waste filled the room.

Remembering something he read on the 3rd floor of the supermarket, Yusuke takes in the sight using the flashlight in his hand.  The hardly visible concrete floor was stained by the aging trash.  A bottle of detergent was lying on a rack nearby.

(It was the smell of trash?  No, something inside the trash……)

There was definitely the smell of rotten garbage coming from the pile, but he could still smell the distinct scent of sewage.

While keeping the floor in front of him lit up, he continues towards the back of the room.

Within his light appeared a compost bin.  With an outline of one meter high and two meters wide, it was made of stainless steel.  Thinking nothing of it, he flashes his light next to it and comes to a stop.

Lying up against the side of the bin was a dirty blanket.  There were pieces of cardboard holding the blanket up like walls.  It was a homeless hut.  (TL: If you can think of a better term…)

Hurrying over to it, Yusuke removes the blanket.  Even though it was cold, he could feel residual heat coming from the manure.  The compost had begun to give off heat while fermenting.

Bursting with frustration, he shines the light all around the room.

Scattered next to the hut were vegetable scraps.  It might have just been trash, but they were over eaten, only the skin and the sprouts remained.  If you looked closely, you could see other signs of scavenging through the heaps of garbage.  Debris had rolled to the floor and rotten juice was splattered here and there.

Turning his head, he could see a faucet with a rubber hose attached to it for a wash station.  Along the wall, a drainage ditch had been dug to catch the water, draining it into a container in one corner of the room.  The stench was coming from there.  Walking over to it, he removes the square lid and is assaulted by a foul odor.  The inside of the container was packed with feces.

It was evidence of human life.

(…………………)

Yusuke turns off his flashlight and perks his ears.

There were no signs of anyone nearby.

If this was an ambush, he would already have been attacked.  In the darkness, Yusuke’s light should have stood out like a beacon.

In that dark room, his thoughts spun.

(It’s not an intruder…….. it’s someone who has been here from the beginning.  Was it an employee who was late escaping?)

Zombies were prowling around outside, so it should be impossible for an intruder to get in.  That meant that he had been living here since before Yusuke had ever come.

(No….. if it was an employee, they would have gone to the 3rd floor.  They would have tried to make contact.  Normally, they wouldn’t think to live in a place like this…..)

He suddenly remembers Mizuki’s words.

When the zombie’s attacked, people all around the supermarket sought shelter inside.  With food becoming scarce, and frustration building, the people who went to check outside had increased.  And nobody had returned.

(Nobody had returned……)

He hadn’t confirmed that all of them had died.

Hearing about their faces, he could have searched for them using the security cameras in the monitor room.  The first and 2nd floor were riddled with zombies, so he should have known it would be impossible for anyone to escape through there.  If they had, they would have become a zombie.

That only left underground…..

When he had first come to the supermarket, there were no zombies below ground.  A person in the monitor room, looking at the underground cameras, would realize it was the best place to escape to.

However, there were zombies all around the parking garage.  It would be difficult to go outside through the drive way leading above ground.

In trying to, there would be no other choice but to go back indoors.  If it was this trash deposit area, it had food, water, and heat.  The zombies that had come downstairs were probably moving because of this person.  With zombies in the boiler room and the electrical room connecting to this place, this person had barricaded themselves in here for more that a month.

That was until the power outage.

The lights had gone out.  Starving in the cold without light or water; a normal person wouldn’t be able to bear it.

That’s when they went outside.

Thinking up to here, Yusuke cuts off his flashlight and hurries back to the platform.

Because he had the key for the shutters, they could not be opened by anyone else.  His destination was just ahead.

Looking at the elevator, he could see it was stopped on the 3rd floor.

(Shit)

It was still operating on emergency power.  Rapidly pressing the up button on the elevator, Yusuke impatiently calls it down.

Yusuke remembers the transceiver and retrieves it from the truck.  The range on it was short, and so he had left it in the drivers seat when he went out.

Taking it in his hand, he contacts Mizuki.

“Oi, can you hear me?  It’s Takemura.  There might be a survivor heading your way.  Stay quiet and wait for me.”

There was no reply.

Putting the transceiver on his waist, he waits for the slow moving elevator while thinking.

(Just because it’s a survivor doesn’t mean they will be hostile…. it should be okay as long as they share food with them.)

Gripping his flashlight in his hand, he looks around and his eyes fall on the truck on the loading platform.  One of the boxes had fallen on its side and the smoked meat was scattered.  The packaging had been ripped open, and a number of them had been eaten.  There were also empty water bottles.

“…………..”

With a ding, the elevator arrives.

Yusuke steps inside and punches the 3F button with his fist.

(TL: As one who hates Mizuki, allow me to be the first to say; all of you who like Mizuki, get shreked.)