Moving all the supplies that filled more than half the cargo bay ended up taking less ti than expected.
That was because Choi Hyunwoo, true to his size, had ridiculous strength and stamina.
“Man, how the hell am I supposed to organize all this?”
Staring at the boxes filling up his room, Choi Hyunwoo scratched his head hard.
“Let’s see. First...”
The boxes labeled bottled water, instant rice, and various canned goods he stacked neatly on the veranda next to the kitchen.
Since there was not enough room, the remaining boxes, combat rations, biscuits, and the like he piled into his father’s study-slash-private room, since his father was not ho right now.
That still left the other food items, and—
“dicine and electrical... electronics? Tactical...?”
If not for the words [For Hyunwoo] written on the front, Choi Hyunwoo never would have guessed what these four boxes were for just from the stickers. He carried them into his room.
Then, with a box cutter, he carefully sliced through the tape on the box labeled [Tactical].
“Holy shit....”
He really ant it.
Because the items were not just sitting loose inside the box—they had been packed again inside airtight plastic storage containers.
“No wonder it sounded weird when I was carrying it....”
Muttering to himself, Choi Hyunwoo opened one of the tightly sealed containers.
“......!?”
This was... literally a full survival-and-tactical package.
A folding survival knife, a hunting slingshot kit, bolt cutters, a fully folding tool set, and a hand axe.
A stun gun, a high-output tactical flashlight, a solar-powered electronic watch, and an analog compass.
Folding binoculars, digital night vision goggles, a compact ergency tent, a waterproof sleeping bag, a portable water filter, and dry fuel.
Windproof goggles, replacent-filter dust masks, and two full gas mask sets.
A portable radio with earphones, and on top of that, an expensive handheld transceiver.
He had thought it felt kind of heavy, but it really was packed with almost everything a person would need to survive in an extre situation.
“This is insane... but why send all this?”
While sorting through the items, Choi Hyunwoo suddenly rembered the ssage Junho had sent and searched the box more carefully.
He found a white envelope.
And inside it...
“...Under no circumstances, absolutely do not go outside before 8:00 tomorrow morning, and even if your family calls for you, stay in your room first... if you’re already outside, go to our place... if you move the black cabinet next to the kitchen, a door will appear....”
After reading the whole letter Junho had sent, Choi Hyunwoo just blinked, still unable to make sense of any of it.
But then—
“I don’t get a single damn thing, but... can’t I just go over there now? To the place where hyung and that punk Junhyeok used to live....”
Grinning, Choi Hyunwoo sent a ssage.
[Mother dearest! I’m sleeping over at a friend’s place tonight!]
Then he grabbed a pair of sunglass-style goggles that sohow looked cool, the electronic watch, a little flashlight that clipped onto the collar of a T-shirt, and the survival knife, then left the house on his bike.
***
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The mont the alarm started ringing, Junho’s eyes snapped open.
After showering with water only, without using soap, he went down to the first-floor dining room.
Choi Haneul and Baek Sua were just finishing up breakfast preparations.
“You’re up, Mr. Junho? You worked yourself to death all day yesterday—did you sleep okay?”
“Yes. I’m used to waking up at exactly this ti. What about you two? Did you sleep well?”
Baek Sua’s eyes were obviously swollen, but Junho asked anyway as if he had noticed nothing.
“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep much. Kept worrying about my part-ti kid and all that. But well... what can you do.”
At Choi Haneul’s sad smile, Junho only nodded and drank so water.
Soon the others, including Junhyeok, ca into the dining room.
“All right, then...”
Just as Junho was about to speak while looking around at everyone seated at the table—
♪♫♪♬♩♬
Soft music started playing.
“Good morning, everyone at our shelter. As of 6:40 a.m. on Saturday, August 17, 2024, the outside temperature is 25.3 degrees Celsius, humidity is 81 percent...”
AI Akina’s voice filled the room.
“What the hell’s that?”
“Oh my God? Who’s talking?”
Despite everyone’s startled reactions, the voice of the AI computing system Akina continued.
“Lastly, based on body-temperature detection, no abnormal signs are present in any mber. Let us all stay bright, healthy, and alive together.”
It sounded like that was the end of it, but then—
“Our shelter is open for business today as well.”
And just like that, the AI computing system Akina finished the first morning report that Junho and everyone in our shelter might end up hearing every day for many long years to co.
***
“What’s the situation?”
When Junho ca up to the control room after finishing his morning workout routine, Yoon Youngsu answered.
“The nursing ho’s unchanged. Seven are still wandering around in front of the main building and the front yard, and eight around the parking lot. No movent inside. And honestly, you can’t really see much anyway—they blocked things up with curtains and furniture from the start.”
“Hmm....”
The survivors in the nursing ho had probably been the ones who covered the windows with curtains and piled things up at the entrance.
“At least four or five....”
Aside from the elderly residents, there were probably at least that many survivors there between their twenties and fifties.
And two of them would be the doctor couple.
“What about the country-house neighborhood? Anything there?”
Yoon Youngsu tapped away at the keyboard, then pulled up the cara feed from the drone that had just flown in to rotate into duty.
“There are twenty houses total. Eleven are wrecked to hell. I think people are in the rest. Problem is, it’s the sa as the nursing ho. Curtains drawn everywhere, and nobody cos out... huh?”
“They’re coming out.”
Junho and Yoon Youngsu stared at the monitor.
At the very top of the upscale country-house complex built one after another up the slope along a paved road wide enough for a couple of cars to pass,
the door of the biggest and fanciest house opened, and several n cautiously stepped out into the yard.
“That’s them! Boss, right?”
“.......”
Junho silently nodded.
They had finally found the base of Hanchang Developnt. More precisely, it was probably Han Changsik’s house.
“Get their faces and features logged and add them to the category list, and... huh?”
“Holy shit? Are those guys... heading out sowhere?”
“Probably. Can you drop the altitude a little?”
“Yeah. At 120 ters they probably won’t hear it. It’s still noisy because of the zombies.”
Soon the drone slowly descended, and the zoom cara drew in as far as it could.
The n who had co out into the yard were all wearing jeans and long sleeves, but that was not all—they also had armor-like protection strapped to their forearms and shoulders, and were wearing motorcycle helts.
On top of that, every one of them was carrying either a knife, a hand axe, or a short spear with an awl attached to the end and wrapped all over with blue tape.
Fully ard like that, they carefully opened the yard gate and went out.
Then, like alley cats, they crossed the road and moved diagonally downhill to another country house, climbing over the walls one by one.
“That house?”
“One I judged probably has people in it. Those bastards aren’t trying to kill zombies...”
“They’re trying to kill people.”
Right as Junho muttered that, a vehicle slowly rolled out of the garage at Han Changsik’s country house.
“That’s the sa car from yesterday, right?”
“Yeah. Can you redirect the drone over at the nursing ho for a bit? If nothing’s happening over there, let’s use it for a minute.”
“Yep. I’ll put it on follow mode.”
The drone system the shelter operated could follow not just people or vehicles belonging to the shelter, but designated outside targets too.
A mont later, the drone that had been watching the nursing ho flew over at high speed and started tracking the electric SUV from above.
“Huh? Boss, right? They’re heading toward the nursing ho, aren’t they?”
“...Looks like it.”
They were.
The SUV that had co out of Han Changsik’s country-house garage was moving slowly in the direction of the nursing ho the drone had just left.
But it had not even gone two minutes before it stopped.
Because outside the rear gate at the end of the road that looped around behind the country-house neighborhood,
past the tightly shut iron-bar gate, was an area packed with small factories, old villas, and one-story houses.
And even from the drone footage, there looked to be well over fifty zombies wandering through it.
The SUV hurriedly backed up and hid near a corner, and then two n got out from the back seat.
“Han Changoh....”
Junho’s gaze sharpened.
Han Changoh, still wearing the sa white short-sleeved golf shirt as yesterday, ca out holding an air rifle and aid it at the zombies.
He fired several shots, and so of the zombies beyond the bars staggered—
but they did not go down.
Which made sense.
With the small-caliber pellet rounds used in a standard air rifle, even if you hit a zombie in the head from within fifty ters, it was not easy to kill one.
And since he was not even hitting their heads, only their torsos, there was no way he was going to kill them.
Apparently dissatisfied either with his own shooting or with the air rifle’s performance, Han Changoh made an irritated gesture, then got back into the car, and the SUV returned to the country-house garage.
After watching the whole sequence, Yoon Youngsu said in disbelief,
“So they’re trying to seize the other country houses and open up an outside route at the sa ti, huh? That’s what this is, right?”
Junho nodded.
There was a side road from the front gate of the country-house neighborhood leading toward Cheonghak Mountain where the relay station was located, but the situation near the front gate was even worse than at the rear, and that side road led only into the mountains.
Of course, they could have gone down by the route Junho had taken up in the armored vehicle—
but those bastards did not have the guts to push it that far.
Because for Han Changsik, who had lived in Gahyeon-ri for over ten years as the head of the real-estate developnt company Hanchang Developnt, it was not exactly impossible to know that the communications relay station normally had no staff stationed there.
So for soone as sharp and opportunistic as Han Changsik, looting the relay station full of “essential goods” like solar panels and generators was the obvious choice.
But heading out toward the national highway, where there were bound to be lots of vehicles and lots of unpredictable zombies, was not an option soone as cowardly as him—though he would have dressed it up as being coolheaded—would ever choose.
That left only one thing.
“So you were trying to punch through the easier rear gate. While stripping the country houses one by one too....”
Han Changsik—just as expected—was fast at assessing a situation, and smart as hell.
That was probably how a guy who had originally been driven out of Moku-ri by actual organized gangsters, after playing half-thug there, had managed to take over this whole area within a few years.
But then—
“......!”
Things Junho had heard and experienced in Gahyeon-ri before the regression flashed through his mind,
and one assumption—no, one pattern that now looked almost certain from the circumstances—locked into place in his head like puzzle pieces fitting together.
“Hoo.”
After taking a quiet breath, Junho said to Yoon Youngsu,
“Youngsu. It’s a little less hot outside right now, isn’t it?”
“Yep. It’ll hit 29 soon, but since it’s morning, it’s way better than midday. Why?”
“Those bastards probably aren’t moving during the day. Looks like they’re only going to move in the morning and evening.”
“Ah...!”
Trying to fight either zombies or people in broad daylight while loaded down with that much gear would be incredibly hard.
Yesterday they had moved in broad daylight because looting the relay station had been urgent, but when it ca to actual combat, it was clear they ant to do it early in the morning or around sunset.
And the reason they were trying to force a route through the rear gate even while prepared to fight zombies to so extent was—
The nursing ho. It was those Hanchang Developnt gangster bastards who set fire to Hanaareum Nursing Ho and killed the doctor couple.
—Doctors? I heard there used to be so, yeah. There’s a nursing ho over across that hill, and I heard a doctor couple used to volunteer there.
—But whether it was those NOBIs controlled by an Alpha or so looter bastards, there was a huge fight there, and I heard both of them died in it.
—Why would looters go to a nursing ho? Are you stupid? Places like that usually stock like two weeks, maybe a month’s worth of food. Enough for dozens of people. And it’s not a hospital, but they’ve got a decent amount of dicine too.
The consideration target had told him that before the regression, so it had to be reliable information.
And in Junho’s judgnt, the only people who would try sothing like that less than a month after the apocalypse began were—
Han Changsik. Han Changoh....
Those two.
“Youngsu, keep watching for now and let know if anything changes.”
“Yep.”
Leaving the control room in a hurry, Junho brought Junhyeok—who had just co back from checking the chicken coop and greenhouse with Kkamsoonie—to his room.
“What? Sothing happen, hyung?”
To his younger brother, who tilted his head in confusion, Junho said as calmly as he could,
“Do you think you can kill soone today?”
“......!!!”
Junhyeok’s eyes went wide.
But then—
“You an... those bastards from yesterday?”
Junhyeok recovered his composure so quickly that it surprised both Junho and Junhyeok himself.
“Yeah. Maybe not Han Changsik and Han Changoh, but I think it’d be best to take out so of those gangster bastards around them.”
That was the only way to stop them from heading toward the nursing ho.
If unnad enemies—whether zombie or human—started taking out his n, Han Changsik was neither brave enough nor stupid enough to keep forcing that route.
“We’re excluding the AR-15. We may end up using blades too. Let’s do so practice at the range this afternoon. Oh, right—we’ll need to get the night vision ready too.”
“...Got it, hyung.”
Junhyeok clenched and unclenched his lightly trembling fist.
But for our shelter, and for the older brother who had done everything he could for him—
he was sure he would never let him down.
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