Chapter 27: Volk

“Yoon Youngsu? The AI expert?”

“Yeah. Here’s how it happened...”

Junho explained to Junhyeok about Yoon Youngsu, whom he had met during the apocalypse, and why he absolutely had to have him in the shelter.

“...And I told you once before, right? That there was a survivor who used drones and RC cars to do all kinds of crazy stuff. That guy was Yoon Youngsu.”

Before the regression, Yoon Youngsu had taken over a single apartment building on the outskirts of Songpa and turned a personal workstation into an AI computing system, using drones, RC cars, the apartment’s CCTV, and all kinds of miscellaneous electronics to build a tiny fortress that was almost impossible to crack.

He powered it with solar panels on the roof and batteries pulled from electric cars, and together with around ten residents, he even farmed in a few of the vacant units.

“Damn.... He’s a legit genius. But if it was an apartment building, how’d he handle water?”

“At night, he flew a drone he’d modified over to Seokchon Lake and hauled it back. He had so much water the rooftop tank was always filled to the brim.”

“That’s fucking insane....”

Just as Junhyeok said, Yoon Youngsu had abilities that were insane in the best possible way.

If one of the residents hadn’t betrayed him, Yoon Youngsu and the survivors in that apartment building probably could have lived there for a very long time.

Junho himself might even have settled there.

But when someone among the apartment survivors betrayed them, Yoon Youngsu’s little fortress collapsed in an instant, and he was captured by raiders.

His abilities were so exceptional that they probably hadn’t killed him, but that didn’t mean he would have been in a good situation.

“Wow, are all KAIST grads like that? He must’ve majored in something computer-related, right?”

“Yeah. He was originally supposed to go to med school, but ended up at KAIST instead. Anyway, once he gets assigned out from Dawoo Computing to our shelter, that’s when I start working on getting him attached to us.”

First, Junho would give him the authority to use the shelter AI computing system—which Yoon Youngsu would build himself—so long as it didn’t create any strain on the system.

He also planned to prepare a top-of-the-line personal workstation for him.

And on top of that, from the money that would come in after cashing out the NVIDIA stock in March or April 2024, Junho intended to give him full decision-making authority over around two billion won to spend however he wanted on upgrades to the shelter AI computing system.

For Yoon Youngsu, whose head was full of nothing but the AI Akina from Eternal Galaxy and an AI computing system modeled after her, the shelter would probably feel like heaven.

And Junho, the owner of that shelter, would basically be a fairy godfather in human form.

“So altogether that’s like five billion won. Does AI really cost that much?”

“If you’re only thinking one or two years ahead, it might be overkill. But we have to think in terms of ten years, twenty years, by default. So we might end up spending more than five billion. We can’t think of it as a waste.”

Of course, once the apocalypse broke out, they could always go out and “farm” places like IDC centers run by research institutes or companies.

But the best-case scenario was to finish the upgrades beforehand and already have spare parts and backup equipment ready.

And for that, Junho’s conclusion was that five billion won was the baseline.

“...Anyway, if we get Yoon Youngsu and prep that much? Game over.”

“That’s badass.... But bro, what about his family?”

At Junhyeok’s question, Junho answered with a slightly stiff expression.

“He has one. And the whole family’s doctors. His parents, his older brother, his older sister, all of them.”

“Holy shit... sounds like a crazy smart family. But then why didn’t he go to med school? Wouldn’t he have done even better if he became a doctor too?”

Junhyeok tilted his head.

Junho hadn’t heard this directly from Yoon Youngsu at the time, but he decided to tell him what he had roughly inferred.

“Yoon Youngsu’s family is seriously rich.”

“Well, sure. They’re a family of doctors.”

“Yeah. But Yoon Youngsu... doesn’t live with them. He moved out and lives alone. From what I can tell, either they kicked him out or he left on his own.”

“Huh? Seriously?”

“Yeah. Right now it looks like he’s living upstairs from Dawoo Computing’s technical research institute, but during the apocalypse he was living on a jeonse lease with a loan. Meaning he wasn’t getting any help from his parents at all.”

“I see. But couldn’t it just be that his family was strict? You know how some rich families do that stuff to build their kids’ independence.”

“He didn’t have a single family photo.”

“Ah. Oh....”

A sympathetic sigh slipped out of Junhyeok’s mouth.

“From what I could tell, his parents probably gave up on him after he gave up med school and went into engineering. And on top of that, he didn’t quit halfway—he graduated and got hired by an IT company. Feels like they probably half cut ties with him.”

“That sucks. But bro, don’t we need a doctor in our shelter too? Wouldn’t it work if we got him to reconcile with his family?”

Junhyeok’s suggestion was sharp and plausible enough, but Junho shook his head.

“No. I know Yoon Youngsu to some extent, but I know absolutely nothing about what his family’s like. And just because they’re doctors, we’re supposed to let them into the shelter? When their relationship is bad enough to be basically estranged? They’d only bring trouble. For Yoon Youngsu, and for us.”

“Ah....”

“And doctors are absolutely necessary, but we have to bring one in carefully.”

“Really?”

“Obviously. Bring in the wrong person, and what happens if that person starts thinking differently from us? Anybody can get sick or injured, right?”

“...W-we’d be fucked.”

“Exactly. Under the excuse of treatment or surgery, they could take someone out anytime they wanted. I’m not saying Yoon Youngsu’s family would do that, but let’s say, worst-case, they started thinking sideways because of their issues with their son. What if they held your health, or mine, or another shelter member’s health hostage and threatened us? What if every family member except Yoon Youngsu got on the same page?”

As Junho kept talking, Junhyeok’s face grew darker and darker.

“You get it now? The risk is way too high. So no.”

“Yeah, I get it completely. Damn... we seriously can’t just let in anybody.”

“Exactly. Shelter members need to be people I’ve personally vetted, or at most a few people you or big brother Hail can vouch for. Of course, the most important thing is whether they’re useful.”

“Useful....”

Muttering that under his breath, Junhyeok slowly nodded before he knew it.

Ever since hearing about the apocalypse from his brother, Junhyeok had spent the past several months trying in his own way to become someone useful in the apocalypse.

More than anything, he had watched clearly as his brother Junho wasted not a single day and ran around working like a maniac.

So he understood.

It was a cruel thing to say, but in a world with destruction already scheduled, people who weren’t useful had extremely low odds of surviving.

And especially in the shelter his brother was planning, every member would have to carry their own weight.

Even the “owner” who had planned and built the shelter from the ground up never stopped working, so for anyone else—people who, in a way, would be no different from lucky late arrivals—to fail to prove their usefulness would be shameless.

“Anyway, I’ll handle Yoon Youngsu, so you don’t need to worry about it. Oh, and don’t forget your Krav Maga class this weekend. The hunting license exam is next month. There are only a few weeks left now.”

“Don’t worry. I’m passing that test in one shot no matter what! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Woof! Woof!

As if responding to Junhyeok pumping himself up, Purdy barked.

“Orolololololo~ Are you cheering your big brother on? You cute little bastard!”

Woof!

Watching the one-man, one-dog chaos break out all over again, Junho shook his head and headed down to the basement.

***

The moment he got downstairs, Junho checked the security camera monitor out of habit, then pulled up the solar generation monitoring program.

Today’s output was 12.4 kilowatts.

All through the winter, days when daily generation topped 10 kilowatts had been rare enough to count on one hand, but now, as long as the weather was clear, hitting around 12 kilowatts came easily.

“These aren’t even bifacial panels, and I didn’t install reflective concentrating ground material either. Just ordinary panels, and it still came out this high....”

The number wasn’t far off what he had expected before installing the solar panels, but what mattered was that he had now gained certainty through real-world verification.

Because in the end, this experience would directly inform the design of the shelter’s power supply system.

“Hoo....”

Junho opened a small notebook.

Maybe because of habits he had picked up during the apocalypse, writing things down directly in a notebook felt more comfortable to him than using a tablet.

The notebook was packed with notes he had written whenever he had time ever since regressing.

When he flipped to the very last page, four names were written there.

Lee Junho, Lee Junhyeok, Baek Hail, Yoon Youngsu.

The core four he had considered the most important people from the very beginning, when he first conceived the shelter.

Aside from Junho himself, those three were people who absolutely had to be there with him.

“It’s finally complete....”

Muttering to himself, Junho drew a circle around Yoon Youngsu’s name.

Of course, there was still more manpower the shelter needed, but with this, the frame was finally in place.

No matter what, the “shelter” itself could now move into the construction phase.

From here on out, all he had to do was put flesh on the bones.

Scratch, scratch.

Under the four names, Junho wrote down two more.

First, Lee Dongcheol. And next to that—

“Viktor Volk Choi....”

A mafia man of mixed Russian and Koryo-saram descent.

He was the one who had given Junho the Glock 17 he used to end his own life just before the regression, and he was also a young executive in the mafia organization Volcano Group, based in Russia’s Far East.

And Lee Dongcheol, acting as legal counsel for front companies run by the Busan branch of the Volcano Group, had a quiet relationship with them.

Maybe it was just the result of being desperate enough for work that he couldn’t afford to choose his clients.

Either way, Junho hadn’t hired Lee Dongcheol for nothing.

Meaning it wasn’t just because he had once worked as a prosecutor in Namyangju, where the shelter was going to be built.

When it came to surviving the apocalypse, the most important factors, no matter what anyone said, were food and energy.

But from Junho’s perspective, having survived in the apocalypse for over two years, there was one more factor just as important as those two.

Force.

And in an apocalypse where law and order had become a joke, real force came from—

“Guns....”

No matter what anyone said, it came from guns.

And smuggling those guns was one of the Volcano Group’s main businesses.

“Well, not right now.”

They were still mafia, after all. There was no chance they would sell firearms to some young guy they had never seen before.

Especially in a country as sensitive about guns as Korea, even if someone was introduced through a secret network, they’d probably want to verify him two or three times first.

And on top of that, what Junho wanted wasn’t handgun-level hardware.

He wanted submachine guns and semiautomatic rifles, with suppressors as a baseline, and Picatinny rails that could take accessories like red-dot sights and scopes.

Honestly, for a civilian in Korea to get guns like that was almost impossible.

But Junho was certain he could get them through the Volcano Group—or more precisely, through Viktor Volk Choi.

Because not long after the apocalypse broke out, weapons exactly like that had started circulating.

And not just anywhere.

They had shown up in the southern provinces centered around Busan before making their way up to the Seoul metropolitan area—guns that were clearly different from what Korean special units used, the kind sold on civilian markets in the U.S., Europe, and Russia.

And the Busan branch of the Volcano Group, where Viktor Volk Choi belonged, was the strongest Russian mafia organization operating out of Busan.

Anyone could see where those guns had come from.

“Viktor....”

From the name Viktor Volk Choi, Junho circled Volk—the nickname he had asked people to use, and the one he had specifically told Junho to call him—several times.

If he went through Lee Dongcheol, he could probably arrange a meeting.

But the moment he mentioned the Volcano Group to Lee Dongcheol right now, the man would obviously drop every job related to Junho, fees or no fees, and vanish.

Which meant he needed to meet him as naturally as possible, under the guise of coincidence.

And if he started talking about guns on the very first meeting, he’d get his throat cut by the mafia before the apocalypse even began.

“I’ll have to buy other smuggled goods first and build trust....”

First, he had to become a customer they could trust.

Of course, someone might ask what possible reason Russian mafia would have to start trading with him over ordinary smuggled goods either.

But once again, Junho had a way.

The half-Russian, half-Koryo-saram wolf he had helped during the apocalypse.

The one fact only Junho knew right now was who had betrayed him...

Who the traitor was—the man who had slowly and carefully prepared a coup inside the organization over the course of years.