Chapter 71: They Need to Disappear

“Why are Coach and Areum here...? No, wait. Before that, why are those two even together?”

Choi Hyunwoo was confused.

Han Areum and the MMA gym coach—whose name he could not quite remember—were complete strangers to each other.

Or at least, that was what it seemed like.

Not that he knew every detail of Han Areum’s social circle.

Still, no matter how he thought about it, it did not feel like the coach and Areum had known each other before this.

“Ah, what do I do? Seriously...”

Hyunwoo bit his lip.

Junho had not left any direct instructions about it, but Hyunwoo had a feeling the man he respected so much would not want anyone besides him and his family brought into this place.

And even putting Areum aside, he was not actually that close to the MMA coach, so he had no real idea what kind of person the man was.

In an apocalypse where perfectly normal people could suddenly snap, kill someone, and take everything they had,

letting in a former professional MMA coach instead of an ordinary civilian?

“Weight class or not, I’d get fucking destroyed...”

Even if he had followed the Junho brothers around and trained in Krav Maga, the idea that he could beat a former pro MMA fighter was absurd.

“God, this is driving me insane. Fuck...”

Looking at Han Areum—someone he had been fairly close to in school, someone he had worked out with a lot, someone who was maybe too blunt but loyal to the core—Hyunwoo felt his heart pounding.

Even though her family circumstances had not been great, Han Areum had studied hard and never stopped working part-time jobs. Hyunwoo had liked her not as a woman, but as a person.

Was he really supposed to just leave her out there?

“...I don’t have a choice, Areum. If Junho really— Huh?”

Hyunwoo’s eyes flew wide.

The coach and Han Areum had stopped right in front of the main gate to the yard of this house, as naturally as if it had all been arranged in advance.

Then they looked around several times.

And before long, they stared straight at the exact spot where the CCTV camera was hidden, hurriedly typed something on a phone, and held it up.

[Junho told us to come here! If anyone’s there, answer! He even gave us the basement code!]

“......!!!”

Without realizing it, Hyunwoo’s mouth fell open, and he shot up from his chair.

“Uaaaah...!”

Letting out a beastlike yell, he tore up the basement stairs.

***

“Hyung. Are you really sure you can do this alone? Wouldn’t it be better if I went in with you this time too?”

At Junhyeok’s worried words, Junho calmly shook his head.

“It’s fine. If two of us go in, we’ll actually be more vulnerable to surprises. There are too many of them, and they’re not fixed in set positions. When it’s time to pull out, the important thing is getting out as fast as possible. That’s why I’m much better off alone.”

“Yeah, I get it, but still...”

After tucking three Fling Throwing Knives into each side of his tactical belt, six in total, Junho

checked the Commando dagger and the machete blade, then slid them into the dedicated sheaths attached to his chest and thigh.

Then he placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Your role matters more than mine. Even with the AI-assisted fire control, it’s still a little over two hundred meters. You really need to make your shots count.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m shooting from a distance, so what’s the problem? And I’ve got Purdy.”

Woof!

Purdy—more reliable than any drone in the mountains or woods—barked once, as if telling them to leave it to him.

After giving Purdy a quick pat, Junho

pulled several dark-gray cylinders from the metal case they had just opened and slipped one into each pouch attached at his waist.

“Still, I didn’t think we’d be using those this soon.”

“No kidding. The sound was louder than expected, so I figured we wouldn’t be able to use them until next year at the earliest. But this works out. We’ve got plenty of test subjects.”

The objects, small enough to fit neatly in one hand, were flashbangs.

Not as bad as grenades, but flashbangs were weapons designed from the outset to temporarily cripple a person’s vision and hearing with intense light and sound.

There was no way they could be quiet, and in the apocalypse, noise meant drawing zombies.

But thankfully, the EoktenZ school-thug punks had rented a mansion in a slightly out-of-the-way area to begin with.

And on top of that, after the apocalypse began, they had steadily wiped out the survivors and zombies in the surrounding area.

In other words, even if flashbangs went off inside the building, the chances of a massive zombie swarm rushing in were low.

“And there’s this too.”

Junho pressed a button protruding from the palm side beneath the sleeve of his Gore-Tex shirt.

At once, the tactical flashlight mounted at the center of his vest—about half the size of a phone—blasted out a fierce 2,500-lumen flash.

“Jesus, that’s bright as hell. If you looked at that straight on at night, it’d blind you.”

Even though it had not been aimed directly at him, Junhyeok squeezed his eyes shut.

The light from the flashlight was powerful enough to be called a beam.

“If someone suddenly catches that head-on, they go blind for a few seconds. And if I use strobe mode too.”

As the flashlight started blinking rapidly like some nightclub light, Junhyeok clicked his tongue.

“If that goes off right in front of somebody, they’d go blind and lose their mind at the same time.”

“Yeah. They might not even know who’s who anymore and start attacking each other.”

The EoktenZ punks had almost certainly never been hit with that kind of assault before.

Even Junho had never thought of it until, before the regression, he saw a survivor from a special operations background use the method himself.

“Heh. At least now I’ll always know where you are. You’re basically Flashman.”

“Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, the beam carries over three hundred meters, so watch your eyes too. All right, let’s go.”

“Roger that.”

Junhyeok climbed onto the multipurpose electric cart armed only with the Glock 17 and the air rifle.

But the air rifle did not have an air tank attached.

That was because this operation would be using not the normal air canister for the rifle, but a connected ten-liter metal cylinder, along with the air rifle modified for turret use.

Whirrrr...

The electric cart carrying two men and one dog drove along the mountain trail behind the shelter, heading toward the pass road by the reservoir.

Tonight, the biggest old-boy faction of the Namyangju school-thug gangs—the Gado Union OB group known as EoktenZ—was scheduled to be erased from the world.

***

“Man, I’m exhausted. I’m literally gonna die, Sis.”

“Seriously? Like you worked that hard.”

“No, for real. I haven’t used my body like this in forever, and everything hurts.”

At the whining face Park Deokcheol made while rubbing his arms and legs, Park Sunhee glanced around and lowered her voice.

“Ducky, those men might still be watching us right now. Even if you’re tired, don’t show it. You want to get kicked out of here after one day?”

“Gah!”

Startled, Park Deokcheol quickly mimed zipping his lips shut.

Then Jo Yuna, who had been carefully brushing dirt and dust off her work clothes, spoke in a cautious voice.

“But... that scary man, and the other one we worked with today too... I don’t think they’re actually bad people.”

“That’s true. They just... kill people really well.”

As the bloodbath from just the day before flashed through her mind, Park Sunhee shivered without realizing it.

Just thinking about what had happened made the backs of her knees go weak and sent goosebumps crawling across her whole body.

“But then again, if that guy hadn’t taken care of those... yankii, we would’ve been in real trouble.”

“Hey, Yuna. There are two people from the States standing right here, so calling them yankees is a little awkward.”

“Ah. Sorry, Ducky. That’s what we call delinquents in Japan.”

“I know. I was just saying.”

With a faint grin, Park Deokcheol looked between the two girls and whispered,

“But seriously. That intelligent killing specialist—maybe he didn’t know me, but he definitely knew Psyche Flare.”

“Yeah, he did. It was kind of weird.”

“Right? You girls only debuted a few months ago. So here’s what I think...”

Lowering his voice even more, Park Deokcheol continued with a very serious expression.

“I think that intelligent killer is your fan.”

“What?”

“Shh! Calm down.”

Pressing a finger to his sister’s lips after she raised her voice without meaning to, Park Deokcheol spoke quickly.

“No, just think about it. If he wasn’t your fan, how would he know all that information? He even knew you and Yuna are best friends. Do you think some random person would know that?”

“That’s true. Ever since debuting, the only people who knew that much about us were the company staff and our fans.”

“Uh...”

Even Jo Yuna had nodded along, leaving Park Sunhee with no choice but to make a confused face.

‘C-could he really be our fan?’

Just as she started to waver, Park Deokcheol’s coaxing voice came again.

“If he’s your fan, this is huge. Sunny, next time you see him, act friendly and smile at him more. Then he’ll take better care of us, right? So—”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

“......!”

At the F-word from his younger sister—a phrase he had not heard from her in a very long time—Park Deokcheol’s eyes went wide.

Wearing the blank expression she only ever made when she was truly angry, Park Sunhee spoke one clipped word at a time.

“You want me to do something like that? Ducky, you’re my brother. What do you think Grandpa would say if he saw that? I’m sure he’d be real proud. Right?”

“N-no, I just...”

“That man kills people like it’s nothing, and yes, he still scares me. A lot. But he still saved our lives. He’s our lifesaver. And you want us to trick him and use him? Ducky, I’m seriously disappointed in you.”

“I, uh...”

Without even waiting for an answer, Park Sunhee turned sharply away from him.

Watching her, Park Deokcheol could only move his lips soundlessly.

“Even I think that last part was too much. I’m disappointed too, Ducky. Please apologize to Sunhee later. Well then.”

Even in the middle of all this, Jo Yuna did not forget her manners. She dipped her head politely, then hurried after Park Sunhee and linked arms with her friend.

“Haa...”

Watching the two girls with a burning, embarrassed face, Park Deokcheol finally raked a hand through his hair, looked up at the sky, and made the sign of the cross.

“Sorry, Grandpa. That was seriously pathetic.”

Letting out a long sigh, Park Deokcheol followed after them.

Completely unaware that someone had watched and listened to everything they just said and did through the CCTV cameras, laughed so hard they were clutching their stomach, then went, “Oho!” in admiration at Park Sunhee’s last line—

or that every bit of it had been recorded.

***

—Boss, boss. You absolutely have to make it back safe tonight. This is huge. Seriously huge.

“...What are you talking about?”

—Hehe. There’s a reason. Anyway, the reservoir to the lower slope of the pass is completely clear. You can proceed as planned.

“All right.”

Junhyeok had already gone with Purdy to the predetermined sniper position.

He would probably arrive within thirty minutes and call in.

After checking his personal gear one last time, Junho ran down the steep slope below the mountain pass.

“Hoo...! Hoo...!”

For a moment, he remembered running through downtown Bucheon with weighted belts strapped all over his body.

The total weight of those belts back then had probably been almost exactly this much.

It was because he had gone through those days that today existed at all.

He had trained, and trained, and trained some more so he could “put down” bastards like EoktenZ in the apocalypse.

Even if they had worked people like slaves, the half-thugs and gangsters of Hanchang Development had still taken people in.

But EoktenZ had abandoned being human entirely and did nothing but kill and steal wherever they went, purely to satisfy their instincts and desires.

Somewhere else, maybe it would not have mattered what they did.

‘But not here.’

Because they were of absolutely no use to his plan to turn Gahyeon-ri and the surrounding area into the shelter’s defensive buffer, early warning system, and tripwire zone.

Which meant EoktenZ did harm in every possible way.

‘So...’

Tonight, every last one of them needed to disappear.

***

“Yaaawn... I’m fucking exhausted.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have been screwing so hard, dumbass.”

“Aw, come on, man. What was I supposed to do when that bitch was acting all hot?”

On the roof of a nameless mansion with peeling paint, two punks snickered back and forth.

They were talking about what had happened today and the new members they had brought in earlier.

“Hey, but at this rate, aren’t we gonna run out of food fast? Those bastards we dragged in today were eating like pigs.”

“Top will handle it. Maybe we’re hitting Yeongsan 1-ri tomorrow or the day after.”

“Huh? That backwater dump? Why?”

“Because it’s mostly just old people there. Zombie or not, they’re easy as hell to deal with. Even the girls could kill them.”

“Ohhh. Since it’s mostly geezers, there’ll be tons of foo—”

Thunk.

With his mouth still half open mid-sentence, the bastard dropped backward, a hole punched clean through his forehead.

“Huh...?”

The other punk had not even fully registered what happened yet when he turned toward his friend on the ground.

Crunch!

The tungsten round that hit his face shattered his lower jaw.

Spraying teeth, blood, and fragments of flesh in every direction, he collapsed beside his friend.

“Ukhh... kkgh, krk...”

Blood poured out of him, forming a small puddle, and the two idiots who had supposedly been standing watch became corpses just like that.

—Rooftop clear. You can start, hyung.

—The surrounding area is all clear too.

“All right. Junhyeok, once I give the signal, blow away anyone you see.”

—Okay.

Carrying only a Glock 17 as a firearm, but armed with a machete, a Commando dagger, throwing knives, flashbangs, and a tactical flashlight, Junho

lowered his body like a predator and sprinted through the darkening alley just after sunset.

His destination was the EoktenZ punks’ mansion, thirty meters ahead.