XG 104 - Masan Street survivors

The researchers were still designing a method on how to gauge the amount of genes needed to succeed in the 'Awakening'. The best choice was to make a machine, with the purpose of measuring how much a person would need to completely activate their dormant gene. Until the machine was successfully designed, they would be needing Miu's help to act as a scaling tool.

Grandpa Song's good luck was hard to use so he mostly just needed to pick between choices as if he was doing MCQ questions, his action served as confirmation for the researcher's choice. It did help lighten a tiny bit of Miu's workload. Other than that, he was also helpful in fixing mechanics so the scouting groups could always go out to hunt with decent cars with barely enough petrol.

"Beom Seok, where is the nearest electronic store?" Kang Xunsu asked after their car passed the electric gate and headed to the town. L.L. was once again their designated driver.

"There is one beside a clothing store, but I don't think it has VR equipment. I had only fixed my cellphone there twice and its device was pretty outdated." Beom Seok was one of the few English-speaking in the patrolling team. Seeing that he could work well with Kang Xunsu's team, he would always request to join their group whenever he wanted to go out and grab some supplies.

"We will check there first. What other shops do you know?"

"I only went to the largest store inside the shopping mall if I ever want to purchase electronics," Beom Seok said regretfully.

"No problem. We can ask others later."

"Once we reach the shop, I will help find it!" Ash volunteered happily. It was one of the rare moments where he could be useful. He had a VR device before, a gift from his mother from her previous business trip that forced her to miss his birthday.

The researchers had already started planning what to do if the beta testing succeeded and the volunteers awakened an ability. With the help of several brainstorming sessions that included the Wong couple's suggestions, they finally decided to use a VR device to see what the volunteer's abilities were.

This method was used in the other future timeline, but Suzie Yap said that they had only discovered how to activate the gene and learned how to figure out a person's ability way too late. It was more than seven years into the apocalypse and many VR devices were either destroyed or no longer working.

The VR device will project a stimulation of a fake environment to see if it could trigger their ability. Before the stimulation test begins, they would be placed inside a secure room that can withstand heavy damage, such as bombing. That room was already there before the zombie apocalypse happened and Wong Xue Guo does wonder what kind of experiment they were doing that needed this kind of room.

As for the safety of the ability's owner? Sorry, their lives would be in their own hands.

No one paid more attention than necessary to Kang Xunsu's car as they knew who it belonged to. But when they stopped in front of an electronic store, there would still be people eying them, wondering what they wanted to do. They were looking at them with cautiousness coated over their forced display of hospitality to Kang Xunsu's group, for even if they disliked it, it was a disputable fact that they were one of the few that actively cleaned the street they were living in.

They have the right to grab what they want because they were strong.

But their body was honest and their hands clutched tightly on whatever they were holding. Their gesture implied they were wary that the group might be here to rob their goods and they would be powerless against it.

A strong-looking aunt wearing a pink checkered blouse and garden pants walked towards them, with a group of people following behind her a distance away. There were few strong-looking men surrounding her in a protective stance.

Beom Seok stepped out from the group and gave the middle-aged woman a friendly smile. "Aunt Jihyo, you are looking good as the leader."

"Only looking good? Aren't I doing well?" Jihyo scolded, but in a friendly manner.

"Haish, I already praised you for doing good last time I saw you. I can't possibly use the same praise again, right? You will surely point it out if I do," Beom Seok teased.

"Aigoo, I won't point it out! I prefer knowing how well I am doing instead of my appearance. No one looks good anyway nowadays!" Jihyo may be saying that to represent the group of survivors, but that was not the case for the children in Beom Seok's group.

They were all clean-looking, just like those well-bred children before the end of the world.

Before the zombie outbreak, Jihyo sold fish and everyone in this town knows her for her fresh and affordable fish. Charmed by her friendliness, her shop was often visited and her fish always sold out before the end of the day. When the chaos started, her husband sacrificed himself to make sure his wife and some survivors were able to get to safety. Their group had hidden out in a factory quite far away from the busy area, so not many zombies roamed around that place.

Fortunately, the group of survivors that was saved by Jihyo's husband knew how to repay their gratitude and looked out for her as a way to repay her dead husband's gratitude. They continue hiding in the factory, only going out at a safe distance to look for food, and happened to encounter some group of people from Musihada Laboratory coming out to kill the zombies every day.

Repeatedly seeing the courageous people killing the zombies, Jihyo finally stood up and told everyone that they could not always count on people to save them. They need to stop living in fear and learn how to kill those monsters too, in order to protect themselves and their family. Even if the zombies in this town were completely killed, there would always be a new batch of zombies coming from other areas.

Thus, aside from Musihada Laboratory groups, there would also be some group of survivors who slowly came out of their hiding place and joined the cleaning. Starting timidly, they slowly get used to killing zombies, but they always move in a group for their own safety. With Jihyo's early encouragement that raised everyone's fighting spirit, she was unceremoniously elected as their leader by everyone.

"Yep, yep, you are doing good! Everyone looks better than before under your leadership!" Beom Seok generously praised, and a smile bloomed on Jihyo's face. Even the men surrounding Jihyo had their expressions warmed up.

"Are you looking for something?" Someone finally asked.

"We need some VR headset and those parts coming along with it." Beom Seok pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the electronic store. Among the other shops along the street, the electronic store was not as badly run over.

During the start of the apocalypse days, there would be people robbing power banks and stuff when power failures happen. With everyone running for their lives, no one thought of getting more mobile phones with the communication line broken, other than using the ringtone as zombie bait and flashlight.

"Why do you want that?" Everyone was puzzled by that request.

As Charles Wong did not restrict them to avoid mentioning the details of their research to the survivors, Kang Xunsu allowed Beom Seok to reveal some relevant information. Just as leaking out information would bring harm to them once it reached the mastermind's camp, the survivors that learned that information might be willing to help them if they wanted the apocalypse to end.

"We will gain ability? What kind of ability are you talking about?"

"It's like Mr Vihaan. Has anyone seen him before? His ability is awesome," Beom Seok reminded.

"That white-haired and dark-skinned man!" A young man recalled. "He collapsed a building before! So that's an ability?"

"Yup, that's the one."

"There's a cure? We can turn those monsters back to normal?"

"No, no, there's no cure yet. The scientist only found a way to help kill the zombies easier. We still need to proceed with trial testing, so it's not a hundred percent sure," Beom Seok rushed to clear the misunderstanding.

"Can we join the testing?"

"Nope. We will only open to our guards first. If successful, we will then open it to the people in Musihada Lab next. After that... we will see how the directors go from there. We are lacking food and gaining an ability needs a lot of food consumption, so it's limited space!"

"Do you need food from us?" A worried voice asked.

"No, we will go out to look at other places for more food," Beom Seok assured the worried lady's concern.

"We are indebted to Musihada. If you need food, we will provide a part of it," Jihyo said solemnly.

"We are not that desperate to take it from our own people."

Beom Seok's admittance of them being on the same side warmed the survivor's hearts. It was good that the Musihada base consisted of nice people. There were many survivors that accused it was them that created the virus and hated them, but Musihada was not what they were accused of.

Their act was not to fix their mistake but to help stop this disaster. Most of the survivors believed it was the doctors from Sinnyeom hospital that spread this virus after Musihada released the truth, but there was still noise about them shifting the blame onto others. But they were only a minority and did not pose much threat to Musihada.

Even so, Jihyo had every protester get out of Masan street. "Masan Street survivors are working together with Musihada. If you distrust them, why would you still reap the benefits of their hard work?"

That silenced the protestors. Their personal opinion holds no weight when it comes to their safety.