Chapter 10: Money Solves Everything

Beep.

After passing the vaccine pass checkpoint, Junho listened to the gym manager’s explanation, changed in the locker room, and stepped onto the gym floor.

Because of the quarantine rules, the place opened at dawn and could only stay open until 9 p.m., so even this early there were already a couple of people working out.

“Hellooo! Great to meet ya! Mister Junho!”

The trainer, who looked about the same age as Junho, was overflowing with energy.

“Yes, nice to meet you.”

Meeting strangers was starting to feel normal again, so Junho greeted him casually.

“So, because of COVID, we open at this hour, right? But honestly, not that many members actually come work out this early, y’know? So for you to show up on day one like this, that is seriously impressive. When it comes to working out, determination is the most important thing, and in that respect, you’re already starting at like a ninety.”

The trainer was not just energetic. He was almost excessively friendly.

Which made sense. Thanks to the pandemic, this industry had basically been getting executed in stages for nearly two years.

Even though the quarantine rules had eased a little, there was still no sign of a real recovery. So of course a new member walking in felt like a blessing.

“Alright, Mister Junho, let’s start you off with a light run!”

“Oh, I don’t need that. I ran here from home.”

“Oh, really? Still, maybe just an easy kilometer or so—”

“My house is near Chunui Station.”

“...Huh?”

The trainer looked genuinely shocked.

That had to be at least two or three kilometers, and he’d run all the way here?

“That is seriously impressive! Then, Mister Junho, let’s do some light stretching and warm-up first, and then we’ll start with bench.”

His way of talking was a little weird, but he seemed like a decent trainer, and a kind one.

“See, the human body is kinda like a car or a machine, right? So first you gotta oil up the joints. If you don’t get properly warmed up, that’s when you get hurt.”

Junho rotated his arms, bent his elbows, and moved his shoulders the way the trainer instructed.

“Gooood! Nice! You’re doing great, Mister Junho!”

Was this really something you could be good at?

Anyway, after about five minutes of stretching, Junho was guided under the barbell.

“You’ve got a solid build, so let’s start light with twenty kilos. Alright, your form should look like this. Grip it like this. Don’t lift with your arms—lock it in with your back, then think of pressing slowly with your chest. Gooood. Breathe in on the way down, breathe out on the way up. That’s it, that’s it.”

Maybe the trainer was just that good, but Junho didn’t have much trouble lowering and pressing the bar.

“Eleven, twelve. That’s one set! Whew, Mister Junho, you’re seriously doing great. Alright, let’s add another ten kilos and try it again.”

Junho silently lifted the bar the way he was told.

As he did, the trainer—who’d been counting reps and shouting, “Come on! You got this!”—started looking at him a little differently as time went on.

“Mister Junho, are you really sure you’ve barely worked out before?”

After finishing four sets, during a short break, the trainer asked that question. Junho nodded.

“Yeah. I messed around for a few months near the end of my military service, but this is my first time really doing it seriously.”

“Wow, then you’re the real deal. Natural talent.”

The way the trainer’s eyes swept over him gave Junho a faint chill.

It wasn’t that same PTSD-type tension he’d felt on the first day of his regression. That had faded a lot now, after meeting all the different technicians who’d come to the house.

No, this was something else.

The trainer’s look was almost exactly like the look older guys used to get in the military whenever a new recruit came in and it turned out he’d played soccer all through high school.

“Alright, alright, then let’s hammer out a superset with push-ups and dumbbell flyes. Watch me first.”

To the trainer’s surprise, Junho copied it on the first try.

“You’re seriously amazing, Mister Junho. You memorized the form right away.”

Just like that, Junho had already become our Mister Junho, and under the trainer’s sticky, gleaming gaze, he spent more than ten minutes doing the two exercises back-to-back without rest.

When he still didn’t look especially tired afterward, the trainer’s eyes sparkled even more as he moved on and worked Junho’s back with lat pulldowns before finally loosening him up again with stretching.

“Great work, Mister Junho. Seriously, you’re nothing like the other new members.”

“Thank you.”

“Anyway, your muscles are probably gonna start hurting tonight, but don’t worry—that’s the sign it’s working. You’ll be here again at this time tomorrow, right? We open at five, so you can even come earlier if you want.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Let’s go, let’s go!”

“...Let’s go, let’s go.”

He was a little over-the-top with the energy, but he seemed like a good trainer—hardworking, attentive, and thorough.

And thanks to working out with him today, Junho was now completely certain.

'My body changed. My physical ability has improved by a ridiculous amount...'

With that conviction, Junho finished his first workout, took a shower, changed into the clean underwear and gym clothes he’d packed in his backpack, and ran home again.

***

“What? You ran eight kilometers going there and eight kilometers coming back?”

Still half-asleep, his hair sticking up like a bird’s nest, Junhyeok stared at him wide-eyed.

“Yeah.”

“For real? You’re bullshitting me right now, aren’t you?”

“What would I even gain from bullshitting you?”

When Junho answered calmly, Junhyeok sat there with his spoon in hand, mouth hanging open.

“That’s insane... No, seriously, that makes no damn sense...”

“What does?”

“No, seriously, man. Even if you don’t know much about exercise, come on. Does it make sense for a normal person to run sixteen kilometers and then go tear through an hour-long workout at the gym? That’s the kind of shit athletes do. People who’ve been properly trained.”

“I see. I’m just satisfied knowing I’m not going to turn into a zombie.”

Since it still seemed better not to tell his brother yet, Junho answered placidly while frying up an entire large can of Spam from breakfast and wrapping it in greens before eating it.

Junhyeok, sounding frustrated, raised his voice.

“No, that part is incredibly lucky, obviously! But even the guys at our gym don’t go that far. Sure, there are some guys who train harder all day long, but those guys are basically pro-fighter level. Freaks. Total monsters. And you’re telling me some office worker who only started working out a week ago can do that? No way. A normal person starts dying just from jogging three or four kilometers.”

“Really? Three or four kilometers didn’t even feel like much to me. That’s why I increased it to eight.”

“That’s what I’m saying is insane. Come on, man. Back when you were in the army, could you run morning drills like that right from the start?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Even when you were at your freshest, that’s how it usually was. Honestly, the way you are right now doesn’t seem normal. Someone who barely ever exercised before could never do that.”

“Hmm.”

As Junhyeok made a huge fuss, Junho took a big spoonful of rice piled with thick-cut Spam and thought to himself.

'Did some kind of Alpha ability get transferred to me?'

Just because it was an Alpha didn’t mean it had superhuman strength or anything like that.

As far as people knew, unlike normal zombies, its skin didn’t rot easily, it could think to some extent like a cunning predator, and it could give simple commands to other zombies.

Of course, that alone still made it dangerous as hell. But Junho had never heard any stories about an Alpha single-handedly wiping out an entire survivor group.

Still, not much had been known about Alphas even before his regression.

Which meant there could easily be truths about them that he had never known.

Anyway, one thing was certain.

'I need to accept the change and fully adapt to this body. And... I can’t let anyone find out.'

“Anyway, hurry up and get in shape so we can go work out together.”

“Yeah.”

Privately, Junho felt like he could probably start learning MMA right away.

But he figured he should spend at least another two weeks building up his body and adapting first.

Besides, he felt like he should at least get his total across the big three into the mid-three hundreds before he started learning how to fight.

***

“Ready?”

“Yeah! Let’s go, man.”

As soon as it passed 9 a.m., the brothers left the house.

Today was going to be busy from start to finish.

They took a taxi to the used-car dealership they’d made an appointment with.

Once there, they immediately bought the domestic diesel SUV they’d already picked out.

It was used, but because it was certified by the dealership itself, the condition was excellent.

And the mileage was only sixty thousand kilometers.

It wasn’t just healthy. It was overflowing with life.

“Nice car. Hey, once I get my license, can I drive it?”

“Of course. You need to know how to drive too. Get plenty of practice.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. But why’d you buy it on installments? People always say you’re not supposed to finance used cars.”

The SUV came out to just under thirty million won total, including registration costs.

Junho put down five million as a down payment, then signed up for the longest installment term available—seventy-two months.

“Because after two years, it’ll basically be ours anyway. There’s no reason to pay the full thirty million up front. We just need to pay four hundred thousand a month until the apocalypse hits. Even including the down payment, that means it won’t even cost us fifteen million.”

“Oh...”

Junhyeok nodded slowly and muttered,

“Then from now on, if we buy anything expensive, we should put all of it on installments.”

“Yeah. If the financing term is under twenty-four months, just buy it outright. If it can go longer than that, then finance it no matter what. But for things that cost a few hundred thousand, they usually let you do thirty-six months or more anyway, so it won’t be a problem.”

Junho planned to buy things like that whenever possible—not just the items he needed right away for rehearsal runs and experiments at the house, but also equipment and facilities for the shelter later on.

That way, the money spent on equipment and infrastructure could be cut by at least twenty to thirty percent, and in some cases by more than half.

Of course, the monthly payments might eventually end up in the thousands—maybe even the hundreds of millions.

But that didn’t matter.

If Selene coin exploded soon like he expected, it wouldn’t be a burden at all.

If anything, it would let him use his capital more flexibly and more efficiently.

“Oh, right, but that drone thing—is it really enough just to get the Class 3 license?”

“Yeah. I looked into it, and Class 3 should be enough.”

Junho was planning to prepare two kinds of drones for the shelter.

An industrial drone, with a base weight over three kilograms and a maximum takeoff weight close to ten.

And a regular drone of the kind people commonly used, under two kilograms.

Technically, industrial drones required a Class 2 certification.

But in practice, actually flying them wasn’t a big issue as long as you had a Class 3 license.

What mattered more than the class of license was understanding the specific drone you were operating and getting plenty of flight practice.

Besides, drones with a maximum takeoff weight of two kilograms or less could be operated without any license at all.

So getting Class 3 first, then adding Class 2 later if necessary after logging more flight time, would be more than enough.

“And...”

Junho added meaningfully,

“At our shelter, there probably won’t be that many times when a person has to pilot a drone directly.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because AI will handle it.”

“Man... you’ve been watching too many movies.”

Junho could understand the baffled look on his brother’s face.

If he hadn’t seen survivor groups operating drones during the apocalypse, he probably would’ve reacted the same way.

The technology for autonomous drone flight had already been perfectly implemented.

Takeoff on schedule, patrol along a fixed route, then return automatically on its own.

The only thing a person really had to do was swap the battery.

It wasn’t even necessary to stare at the screen the whole time.

An AI computing system could analyze the camera feed, automatically distinguish between humans, zombies, animals, and vehicles, assess the threat level, and even issue warnings.

Of course, there was one important condition behind all that.

“Money. If you’ve got a whole lot of money, anything’s possible.”

“So in the end, it all comes down to money.”

Hearing himself say it again while talking to his brother, Junho made up his mind.

The moment the funds were ready, he needed to go meet the two people he’d already marked as future shelter members.

The sooner those two joined, the sooner the shelter he’d planned could start becoming a reality.

By then, the SUV had arrived at the drone training center.