The road to Kangho Resort was fairly rough.
In a straight line, it was only a little over six kiloters, but the terrain was mountainous.
Still, thanks to shortcuts they had found after going back and forth several tis, it took only a little over three hours in practice.
“It’d be a bit much to go back and forth on foot.”
“Yes. That’s why we were even considering moving so of our people to that village altogether.”
“The ones who don’t listen and complain a lot?”
“...Yes. How did you know?”
“I just figured. But you can’t do that.”
“...?”
At Yoon Seolhee’s questioning look, Junho answered calmly.
“Even if those people want to split off, you can’t send them to that village. You said you’re planning to farm in that greenhouse complex, right? There’ll definitely be trouble.”
“Ah...”
“If the farming goes well, they’ll use that as leverage and start throwing their weight around. If it goes badly, they’ll resent you for dumping them sowhere even harder to survive. Either way, it’ll turn into a problem for the resort. It’d be better to station trustworthy people there full-ti and have the manager commute back and forth.”
“That makes perfect sense. I should suggest it to the boss... no, it’d probably be better if you told him directly, Mr. Lee Junho.”
Yoon Seolhee smiled faintly.
“Yeah, well...”
Junho was a little surprised by that smile.
He couldn’t say he had seen her all that often, but even so, in all the years he had known her, this was the first ti he had ever seen Yoon Seolhee smile like that.
And perhaps she realized he had noticed, because Yoon Seolhee suddenly went stiff and whipped her face away.
“Ugh.”
But she had twisted too sharply when it already hurt just to walk, and the pain in her shoulder flared at once, making her wince with a groan.
Even if it had only been a ricochet, a bullet had still gone into her. Just walking around like this was honestly pushing it.
“Give that.”
“...What?”
“Your gun.”
“No, it’s fine. I can carry it.”
“Just give it to .”
Junho took the firearm from Yoon Seolhee and laid it on top of his backpack.
Honestly, it wouldn’t have been difficult for him even if he had needed to carry her on his back.
“You know this better than I do, but the painkiller’s the only reason you’re managing right now. Don’t overdo it.”
“...Understood. Thank you for looking out for , Mr. Lee Junho.”
“It’s nothing. Between us.”
Junho grinned.
Considering the help Yoon Seolhee had given him while he was building the shelter in full swing, this was really nothing at all.
Because of her, he had been able to learn parkour from a professional crew, and he had been able to get into private military academies in Korea and overseas without much trouble.
More than anything, Junho had a reason to make a good impression on Yoon Seolhee.
“By the way, Manager, do you have a doctor at the resort?”
“What? Ah—yes. We do.”
Caught off guard and flustered by the phrase between us she had just heard from him, Yoon Seolhee answered in a hurry.
At the sa ti, her face had grown oddly hot, so she forced her expression stiff again.
But seeing her like that only made Junho’s face turn serious.
“Does it hurt that much? Should I change the gauze and bandage for you? Take another painkiller.”
He thought her injury had gotten worse.
“No, no. It’s not that. I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.”
At first, she had been too startled and rattled, and treating the injury had been too urgent for her to think about anything else.
But now that she thought about it, she had received ergency treatnt from Junho while wearing nothing but a sports bra after taking off her top.
And now she was supposed to go through that again—this ti with the employees who had been sneaking glances at her and Junho since earlier standing right there?
“I’m really fine.”
With a quick bow of her head, Yoon Seolhee hurried ahead.
“Hm...?”
Having no idea what that was about, Junho could only tilt his head.
“Huh?”
Just then, Park Deokcheol, who had been walking while checking the reconnaissance feed from the drone flying out ahead, hurried over to Junho.
“Boss, there are people coming over the mountain pass up ahead. More than ten of them, and they’re all carrying guns and weapons.”
“What?”
Junho’s face hardened instantly as he looked down at the tablet.
Sure enough, a dozen or so ard people were coming over the pass in full battle gear.
But then—
“Hm? There’s a drone?”
Seeing a drone flying at a lower altitude than the shelter drone he had brought, Junho tilted his head.
Then he zood in the wide-angle cara on the drone that was on auto-follow and took a closer look at the ard group that had just co fully over the pass.
“Ah!”
Junho’s eyes widened.
Leading the ard group in front was none other than Park Cheolwoo, one of Kang Baekho’s bodyguards and Yoon Seolhee’s superior.
***
Standing atop the high slope that had once been used as a ski run but had since been turned into dozens of terraced fields and greenhouses through land reclamation, Junho let out a quiet note of admiration.
The view was impressive, but the real thing that struck him was just how enormous and sprawling Kangho Resort was in person.
“We’re growing potatoes and sweet potatoes on about half of it. Even so, it’s still nowhere near enough.”
A little thinner than the last ti Junho had seen him, but with eyes and an air about him that had only grown fiercer, Park Cheolwoo stepped over to his side.
He had co over the mountain to reinforce Yoon Seolhee and the KW Cops employees, and that was how they had run into each other.
The shock he had felt on first seeing Junho had mostly faded by now.
But he was deeply grateful to him—for saving the life of Yoon Seolhee, one of the subordinates he valued most, and for all but single-handedly wiping out the Daeseong syndicate gangsters.
“We originally planned to grow rice in the greenhouses here. But bringing in enough water turned out to be too difficult.”
“That’s why you were trying to take that village. The Gyeongan Stream runs right beside it.”
“Exactly. At first, we considered using the golf course, but they’d used so much herbicide and pesticide there that the soil was basically dead. And one of our guests is a professor from an agricultural college—he said that if we wanted to feed everyone at the resort with rice farming, we’d need at least a hundred thousand pyeong of farmland.”
“Then that village really is perfect.”
“It is. We did a rough survey with a drone, and it ca out to almost two hundred thousand pyeong.”
At Park Cheolwoo’s words, Junho nodded.
Before the regression, Kang Baekho and Kangho Resort had taken major losses in their clash with the Daeseong syndicate, but they must have driven them off sohow and taken control of that village in the end.
With food in short supply, Kang Baekho would never have been able to lead a survivor group so large that it beca known all across the greater Seoul area.
“Anyway, those gangsters had us worried sick, but thanks to you, Mr. Lee Junho, we can finally breathe easier.”
Junho shook his head at Park Cheolwoo’s renewed thanks.
“No. The timing was just good. Honestly, I ca all the way here because I wanted sothing too.”
“......”
He didn’t know exactly what it was, but if soone had crossed a river and co all the way here from Namyangju in a world like this, then it had to be sothing extrely important.
And whatever it was, he would hear about it once they were in front of Kang Baekho.
“Co on. The boss is probably going to be shocked when he sees you. He talks about you all the ti.”
“Really? As long as it’s not that he’s going to beat to death when he sees .”
Junho said it with a crooked little smile, but Park Cheolwoo went completely serious.
“No way. All he ever said was that he was going to spoil the hell out of you when he saw you.”
“Co on. With Brother Baekho’s personality?”
“No. I’m serious. I’m barely holding myself back from hugging you right now. The boss will be worse than , not better.”
“......”
After Park Cheolwoo’s rough face, the image of Kang Baekho’s trademark sly grin floated into Junho’s mind, and a chill ran down his spine without him realizing it.
And as always, bad feelings had a way of coming true.
***
“Juno, Juno! You son of a bitch!”
A bearded Kang Baekho charged at Junho like a bull.
Smack!
Then he wrapped him in a crushing hug and thumped him hard across the back.
“You little bastard! You rotten little shit! You ditched your big brother and went off living well all by yourself!”
“B-Brother?”
Caught completely off guard by the sudden hug, Junho froze.
“Let look at you, my little brother. You punk, in a world like this your face sohow got even better? While your big brother’s been busting his ass to death, huh?”
But the intense emotion in the rough hands gripping his face and in Kang Baekho’s eyes made Junho smile without aning to, and he nodded.
“I know. You, on the other hand, kind of look like hell, Brother. I’m pretty sure you were handso last year.”
“What? You little... Hahahahaha!”
Kang Baekho burst into loud, easy laughter, then quickly turned his gaze to Yoon Seolhee and the KW Cops employees standing behind him.
“Ah, look at , I’m losing it. Manager Seolhee, are you okay? I heard Kangwoo and Sajun got hurt pretty bad.”
“I’m fine. I already sent the two of them to the infirmary. Thankfully the injuries aren’t fatal, so once they get treated and get so proper rest, they should be alright.”
“Haah! Thank God, thank God. Anyway, Manager Seolhee, you get treatnt too. Right now.”
“No, I’m—”
“Manager Cheolwoo.”
“Yes, sir. Co on, Manager Yoon.”
Park Cheolwoo strode over and stopped in front of Yoon Seolhee.
Having never once been able to defy Park Cheolwoo, her direct superior from her military days all the way up to now, she had no choice but to follow him reluctantly.
“Juno, Juno, let’s go too. Your big brother’s got a whole lot he wants to hear from you.”
Kang Baekho slung an arm around Junho’s shoulders.
Junho was a little taller, and their builds weren’t even comparable, so the sight was slightly ridiculous, but Kang Baekho couldn’t have cared less.
He was simply that glad to see Junho again for the first ti in nearly a year—glad enough that Junho had co looking for him in a world turned into hell and falling apart.
***
“So it really was the Daeseong syndicate. Those gangster bastards.”
The joy of the reunion lasted only a mont. After hearing the broad outline of things from Junho, Kang Baekho bared his teeth with a vicious expression.
But true to how sharp-minded he was, he imdiately thought of sothing no one else had yet considered and asked with a frown,
“But listen. You said those bastards are based around Guri and Deokso, right?”
“Yes. The guy I caught in Namyangju said so before, and the one I brought in this ti said the sa.”
The whole reason Junho had kept An Juntae alive after turning him half-crippled in Moku-ri instead of killing him was precisely because of this.
Later, when he caught a leader from the Daeseong syndicate or another executive, he intended to compare their information.
“Then tell this. Maybe Namyangju’s one thing, but why would those bastards bother crawling all the way down to Gwangju? You said they’re living high on the hog in so huge apartnt complex where they make their own electricity and food.”
“That’s right. They really have no reason to expand their territory.”
No matter how greedy an organized cri outfit was, they still valued their own lives.
If anything, n like that were exactly the sort who would do anything to stay alive in a world like this and avoid dangerous moves at all costs.
And yet the Daeseong syndicate had gone out of its way to cross the river and co down to Gwangju.
And now Junho knew the reason—sothing he hadn’t known even before the regression.
Because what he had heard earlier from An Juntae and what he had gotten today from Lee Ujung matched perfectly.
“Brother. Do you know about Alphas among zombies?”
“Alpha...? Oh, you an the ones that turned first?”
“Yes.”
“I know. I know all too well. The one in the village below the golf course was fucking ridiculous. A zombie, and it was sending its slaves out as bait while it ran away. Smiling while it did it, too.”
Rembering what had happened, Kang Baekho shuddered and shook his head.
“Yes. Unlike ordinary zombies, Alphas retain a certain level of intelligence and emotion. And when it cos to cunning, honestly, they’re worse than predators. If creatures like that are commanding hundreds or thousands of ordinary zombies like slaves, then of course the military can’t retake cities.”
“My point exactly. If they were just simple, brainless monsters like in movies or TV, maybe sothing could be done. Tch...”
“That’s right. But Brother—if that’s the case, can we really call those Alphas zombies?”
“Huh?”
“They have intelligence, emotion, and even basic dexterity. They’re completely different from the zombies we know—the kind that just charge at living people on sight. So if that’s true, then what are Alphas closer to: humans, or zombies?”
“......!”
“Couldn’t so people decide they’re closer to humans? Scientists especially—wouldn’t they want to study Alphas that won’t die as long as their brains aren’t destroyed?”
“What? W-wait, don’t tell ...!”
“Yes. Whether it’s the Daeseong syndicate gangsters themselves or soone else connected to them, I think they’re capturing Alphas alive to study them.”
That was it.
The reason the Daeseong syndicate sent its people into sparsely populated rural villages and other qualifying areas in the Seoul tro region—
was to capture Alphas whose strength was still weak, because there were fewer humans there for them to feed on than in cities.
And the purpose behind researching the Alphas they captured was simple:
evolution—or immortality.
User Comments
0 comments from readers