Chapter 24: I Realized the Difference in Strength

After finally shoving Junhyeok away with a smack on the back because he kept clinging to him and acting cute in a way that absolutely did not suit him, Junho laughed to himself.

The reason he had gotten Junhyeok a credit card was simple.

At his older brother’s word, he had even quit the part-time job he had been steadily working, and Junho had noticed that he seemed to be worrying a little about money.

Holding a fortune as large as eighteen billion won in his hands, Junho had to seriously reflect on the fact that he had been too inattentive to his one and only younger brother until now.

Being busy and overwhelmed with shelter construction and everything else was no excuse.

So he had decided to get him a credit card of his own.

Wasn’t a luxury VIP card with a limit of one hundred million won way too much for a twenty-three-year-old college student?

Yes. It was excessive.

But Junho was sure of one thing.

If it was his younger brother Junhyeok, the most extravagant thing he would do was probably swipe a few hundred thousand won once in a while to treat his friends and feel good about it.

That was the kind of kid Junhyeok was.

If he had been greedy about money to begin with, he would have set his sights on the insurance payout and compensation money their father had left behind after he died.

But Junhyeok hadn’t complained about his brother’s decision even once, let alone argued over it. He had just worked part-time and earned his own spending money himself.

Well, sure, there was always the chance he could lose his mind for a second and blow through something in the thousands.

But Junho was willing to allow even that once or twice.

This peaceful world only had two years left now anyway.

Rather than regret not doing things he never got to do once the world had gone to hell, Junho thought it was better to just go all out at least once while he still could.

At least, that was how he saw it.

“Anyway, nothing happened while I was gone, right?”

“Huh? Oh, nah, same as always. But at the gym, the owner and Coach kept telling me to try and talk you into coming back.”

After putting the card into his wallet as carefully as if it were some sacred relic, Junhyeok shrugged and answered.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I just said I’d ask you with a smile, but honestly, it’s kind of a pain in the ass... and a little awkward too.”

Since Junho wasn’t going to the gym much anymore like he used to, it looked like they had shifted their target to Junhyeok instead.

After thinking for a moment, Junho made a decision.

“You should start cutting back on the gym too.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best, right? Listening to you, I keep thinking, even if I train hard at this, what good is it really gonna do in the apocalypse?”

For Junhyeok, mixed martial arts had only ever been a hobby that got more serious than usual.

He had never dreamed of going pro, and after hearing his brother out, it felt like hand-to-hand fighting should only be treated as a foundation—the basics, nothing more.

“Exactly. I’ve told you this over and over, but nobody walks around barehanded.”

“Mm.”

At Junho’s words, Junhyeok swallowed dryly.

Because he trained in MMA, he actually understood better than most how dangerous someone with a weapon really was.

How do you deal with someone holding a knife?

You run.

And if there’s nowhere to run, you hit them once by surprise, make yourself an opening, and run like hell.

That was what everyone said—coaches, gym owners, even people who had gone pro.

They had even done drills where a new member, short and light, was handed a rubber knife and told to attack, but neither the coach nor the owner had ever been able to subdue the attacker without taking at least one “stab.”

“So then, bro, are you starting that thing now?”

“Yeah. Krav Maga. I’ve got to go all the way into Seoul, but it’s only twice a week, so it should be fine.”

Places in Korea that properly taught practical military fighting systems like Systema or Krav Maga were rare, but not nonexistent.

“I signed up for trial classes at the two gyms with the best reviews. I’ll try both and pick the better one. Oh, and did all the workout equipment arrive? My package too?”

“The workout stuff came! I put your package in your room. But what even is that package? It was international shipping. They don’t sell it in Korea?”

“...Some things are like that. Not that I wanted to buy it, either...”

What kind of expression would Junhyeok make if he knew that one little box had cost over ten million won?

And if he saw what was inside...

Without realizing it, Junho gave a shiver, and Junhyeok tilted his head.

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? Anyway, come look at the equipment!”

Following the excited Junhyeok downstairs, Junho nodded as he looked over the workout equipment lined up along one wall of the basement.

A lat pulldown machine, a barbell and dumbbell set, an adjustable bench, a power rack, a Smith-machine combo, even a cable machine.

With this much, they would be able to do just about every basic workout there was.

“How’s the mat?”

“They installed it pretty well. Honestly feels better than the mats at our gym. But bro, did something happen at the fitness center? I mean, I like it since I can work out at home too.”

Junhyeok asked while stomping on the rubber mat with his foot.

“Not really. It’s just kind of weird to cut back on the gym while still showing up at the fitness center all the time.”

Since the gym and the fitness center were right near each other, he kept running into people from there now and then.

If he was going to scale back the gym anyway, it seemed better to cut the fitness center down to once or twice a week too.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason.

“There’s also someone there who’s been getting kind of annoying...”

“Huh? What’d you say?”

“Nothing. Let’s eat dinner.”

“Wow, you just got home and already you wanna eat?”

“I brought back top-grade Korean beef. You don’t want any?”

“What? Me? As if that would ever happen, sir.”

His face instantly turning serious as he switched gears, Junhyeok trotted right after Junho.

Then, all of a sudden, he looked over Junho’s back with a strange expression.

“But bro. Did you get taller?”

“No idea. Probably just looks that way because I put on muscle.”

Junho flinched inside, but he acted like it was nothing and brushed it off.

“No way. I swear you got taller...”

Junhyeok was 181 centimeters tall, originally about seven centimeters taller than Junho.

But now, looking at him, he was still a little taller, sure, but the gap felt a lot smaller than before.

“Then maybe I did grow. Hey, hurry up and get the portable gas burner and the grill plate. Bring a few cans of beer too.”

“All right, all right.”

The brothers quickly moved in and out of the kitchen, and before long they had everything ready to grill meat on the wooden platform out in the yard.

This was exactly why houses with yards were so nice.

***

Sizzle.

The beef kept cooking on the grill, only to disappear into Junho and Junhyeok’s mouths over and over.

While the brothers grilled and ate, Purdy gnawed on the raw chicken that had been prepared separately for him on the platform.

Apparently some dogs refused raw feeding sometimes, but Purdy didn’t discriminate at all—dry food, wet food, raw food, it made no difference.

From the standpoint of surviving the apocalypse, that was another advantage.

“But anyway, did things go well in Busan? With the lawyer, and with that person you absolutely had to meet?”

At Junhyeok’s question, asked after he had filled his stomach to a decent degree, Junho nodded.

“Yeah. Actually, I was going to talk to you about that too.”

Junho briefly explained Baek Hail and Lee Dongcheol.

Of course, he didn’t mention what kind of people they had been in the apocalypse, or what kind of ends they had met.

Telling him that would just wreck his little brother’s mental state for no reason.

He only gave him a rough explanation of what kind of people they were and what sort of relationship they would have with them going forward.

“So then, only that Mr. Baek Hail and his family are coming into the shelter, and the lawyer only gets used up until before we go into the shelter?”

“Yeah. Big brother Hail is someone our shelter absolutely needs. I don’t know his kids that well, but for now, his oldest daughter is in pharmacy school.”

“Pharmacy school? Like, to become a pharmacist?”

“Yeah. She’ll still be a student by the time the apocalypse hits, but she’ll still be a huge help to us.”

Naturally, Junho was planning to have a medical room in the shelter too.

One of the classic sayings among people who liked zombie apocalypse stories was, You absolutely need a doctor!, and Junho agreed with that completely.

But he thought one more thing needed to be added to that.

You also absolutely needed a pharmacist—or someone good at chemistry.

Knowledge of over-the-counter drugs and prescription medication, or the ability to make simple emergency medicine, was almost as important as having a doctor.

Of course, Junho planned to keep dedicated refrigerators and freezers for medicine in the shelter, and preserve all kinds of drugs as long as possible through vacuum sealing, oxygen absorbers, desiccants, and airtight containers.

But even then, aside from some solid tablets, it would be nearly impossible for most medication to last more than ten years.

But if you had a pharmacist or someone who had majored in chemistry at that point?

And if the shelter was equipped with specialized equipment like a centrifuge, incubator, sterilizer, and heated stirrer?

And if, on top of that, you had the support of an AI computing system storing medical and pharmaceutical papers and data?

‘Then nobody’s going to die just because there’s no medicine, or because we couldn’t give them simple treatment.’

That was why, just like a doctor, a pharmacist or chemistry major was essential manpower for the shelter, and since pharmacy school was a six-year program, Baek Sua would still be a student by then but would still meet the requirements to some extent.

That was the reason she had been classified as “essential personnel” by the cult in the first place.

“That’s insane. But bro... is she pretty?”

“...Drink your beer, idiot.”

“So she is pretty? Well, if she’s pretty and nice, that’d be great.”

“I heard she’s got one hell of a temper. And if you saw big brother Hail even once, you wouldn’t say that. He’s a man who’s spent over twenty years handling all kinds of machinery and working construction sites. His forearms are thicker than Coach’s.”

“You said his name was Mr. Baek Hail, right? Please make sure to tell him I sincerely respect him and welcome him. Very sincerely.”

Still smiling, Junhyeok instantly turned serious and upgraded his way of addressing him from mister to teacher.

“So then what about the younger son who’s supposed to be getting surgery? What’s that kid’s personality like?”

“He’s probably normal. I don’t know him that well either. Anyway, big brother Hail isn’t the kind of man to raise his kids wrong.”

He had only seen Baek Suho in passing once or twice while waiting in front of Suho Tool Center, but he hadn’t looked like he had a bad personality or had gone crooked.

He had just looked like an ordinary college freshman you could see anywhere.

More than anything, given Baek Hail’s personality, there was no way he would just stand by and let one of his kids go off the rails.

“But still... if by some chance he pulls some trashy shit? I’ll personally take responsibility for turning him into a real human being.”

“Uh... bro, that’s all fine, but go a little easy, okay?”

As the person who knew better than anyone else what kind of man Junho was as an older brother, Junhyeok swallowed dryly.

And in his heart, he sincerely prayed that Baek Suho, whose face he had never even seen, would be nice—or at least just normal.

Because Junhyeok knew far too well what Junho turned into when a man who rarely got angry really, truly snapped.

And besides—

‘Jesus, just look at those arms. Are those even human forearms? I can’t beat him with strength anymore either. If someone gets on his wrong side, they’re seriously gonna get torn in half.’

Looking at Junho’s forearms, where veins bulged out over muscles twisted together like tree roots, Junhyeok shuddered.

“If you’re done eating, let’s clean up.”

“Huh? Oh! I-I’ll clean up. You go inside, bro.”

“Huh? What’s with you?”

“What do you mean, what’s with me? I’ve always been the greatest younger brother on earth. King-god-general-emperor little brother. Heh heh.”

“I don’t know about all that king-god whatever nonsense... but all right.”

Shrugging, Junho went inside with Purdy.

Watching his brother’s back as he walked away, somehow giving off this inexplicable aura just from walking, Junhyeok shivered and muttered,

“I have realized the difference in strength, human...”

***

The next day.

After taking Purdy around Chunui Mountain twice, Junho loosened up in the yard, then worked out for two hours on the equipment installed in the basement of the house.

Without even going to the gym, he finished most of his normal routine, then after breakfast came back out into the yard with a cup of coffee.

Thunk! Thunk!

On one side of the yard, Junhyeok was practicing with a slingshot.

Several metal balls were already embedded in the thick plywood target, about fifty centimeters square.

“You’re hitting it pretty well. You’ve practiced a lot.”

“With sights on it, ten meters is nothing. But bro, does this really work in a real situation?”

The slingshot in Junhyeok’s hand was a professional-grade model made of metal and reinforced plastic, capable of firing steel, chrome, or tungsten balls.

Junho himself had gotten through several dangerous situations early in the apocalypse thanks to a similar slingshot.

“It works. Against people, it’s pretty useful.”

“Really? But we’re... gonna use guns, aren’t we?”

Even though the yard held only the two of them, Junhyeok lowered his voice.

Junho nodded.

“We’ll use guns, knives, and this too. What matters first is getting it into your hands until it feels natural, so keep practicing regularly.”

“Okay. It’s actually pretty fun once you start shooting it. Anyway, didn’t you say you were going somewhere today? Pangyo?”

“Yeah. I’m going to make a call first, then probably head out this afternoon.”

Today was the day he planned to visit Dawoo Computing, the company where Yoon Youngsu might currently be working.

If Yoon Youngsu really was there, then while the company’s headquarters were in Pangyo, there was a good chance his actual workplace was the technical research institute in Songpa.

But he couldn’t exactly show up at the technical research institute out of nowhere, so first he needed to visit the Pangyo headquarters.

The problem was that even after searching all kinds of things online about the company called Dawoo Computing, he still couldn’t get a clear picture of its exact scale or performance.

If he searched keywords like AI, GPU servers, cloud hosting, or computing infrastructure, it came up as a related company, and even its website looked convincing enough.

‘But there’s nothing that really jumps out at you as an actual result or track record.’

Of course, for a startup, that could be perfectly normal.

But Junho saw it a little differently.

Right now, everyone was struggling because of the COVID pandemic.

There wasn’t much chance that Dawoo Computing, a company founded in 2019, was somehow doing great.

‘Then...’

If Yoon Youngsu really was there, Junho started to think recruiting him might not actually be as difficult as he had expected.