Chapter 86: There Could Be No Such Thing

“The Edutown people. Normally... I mean, before the world turned into this, they never really mixed with our side much. Their apartments were bigger, more upscale, that kind of thing. There are only two apartment complexes here, but most of the stores are clustered over by Edutown across the road.”

There was just one exception: the medium-sized market both apartment complexes used was on The First Apartments side.

And lately, now that the Edutown survivors had cleared out a decent number of zombies inside their complex and secured routes leading outside, they had been eyeing the market here like starving dogs.

“Edutown has almost twice as many households as we do. So there are way more survivors over there too. Until recently, I saw them looting the convenience store and a few restaurants near their complex, but I guess that still wasn’t enough, because now they keep sniffing around over here.”

Junho already knew that from the safe-house CCTV and drone surveillance.

The Edutown apartments consisted of eight buildings and a little over five hundred units, divided into sections of two buildings each.

And the ones currently aiming at The First Market were the survivors from Buildings 1 and 2, the ones closest to the complex entrance and the road.

They had completely blocked off the apartment road leading to Buildings 3 through 8 and were using the entrance by themselves to loot the nearby stores.

“...Anyway, judging by the way those people are acting, I figure we’re going to have it out with them sooner or later. So we’re getting ready too, making preparations and—”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“Huh? What do you mean by that...?”

Song Gijun tilted his head at Junho’s words.

Junho pulled out the tablet again.

“Pull up the map for this place and Edutown.”

- Yep.

A moment later, the drone showed an overhead view of The First Apartments complex, the national highway between them, and the Edutown apartment complex beyond it.

Pointing to one spot on the tablet for the still-fascinated Song Gijun, Junho said,

“If you block just this point, the whole problem goes away. If they want to get from there to this market, this road is the only real route they have, right? Every other route either takes a long way around or has too many zombies.”

“Th-that’s true. But the Edutown people could come around this way killing zombies as they go, couldn’t they?”

“Then that’s even better.”

“Huh?”

“If they take care of the zombies in this area for us, what’s not to like?”

“Ah...”

This was how apocalypse survivors usually were.

Thoughts that would not have been especially hard in ordinary times became hard to reach once they were soaked in tension, fear, and the despair of a grim reality.

Once people got depressed, it was no different from looking at everything through the worst possible lens.

“And you can think about that situation when it actually happens. Even if Edutown really does fight its way over here by clearing zombies, it’ll take weeks to get this far. Doesn’t that just mean you use that time to prepare?”

“R-right. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“And another thing.”

Junho reattached the tablet to the center of his tactical vest and continued.

“I’m only saying this because I can actually talk sense with you, Mr. Song Gijun. If that situation comes, I might lend a hand.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah.”

That had been the point from the beginning.

Even while captured by the Hanchang Development gang, Song Gijun had not lost his courage or hope. He had earned the trust of others and taken on the role of a leader.

And though it had failed in the end because of a traitor, he had still shown the decisiveness and drive to rally the survivors groaning under the gang’s thumb and launch a rebellion.

“But... what do you get out of that, Mr. Lee Junho?”

“Gahyeon-ri.”

“......!?”

“I want to turn Gahyeon-ri into a community of shared fate, led by someone trustworthy. That way, my people and I stay safe too.”

In his place, Song Gijun would run Gahyeon-ri like a lordless domain—an autonomous community where people worked together and fought together.

***

“A community... of shared fate?”

Song Gijun looked a little dazed.

But Junho knew that expression. It was the face Song Gijun made when he was focusing or thinking deeply about something.

“Yeah. You’ve probably guessed as much already, but South Korea is finished. For the first two or three weeks after the world went to hell, you heard gunfire, artillery, fighter jets, things like that, right? But what about now?”

“......”

“The government failed to retake the capital region. Gahyeon-ri may be a bit rural, but it’s still right next to a light-rail line in the greater Seoul area. If they’d succeeded, do you think rescue still wouldn’t have come by now? At the very least, there should’ve been some kind of change in Moku-ri. But there’s been nothing.”

“How do you kno—ah.”

When Junho tapped the tablet, Song Gijun understood at once and nodded.

“As far as I know, the government, the politicians, the high-ranking officials—they all went to Jeju. A lot of the Marines and special operations units went there too.”

“Y-you’re sure?”

“Yeah. I heard it from someone reliable.”

And since that “reliable person” was a regressor who had experienced it firsthand, he really should believe it.

“The government bastards must’ve looked at Jeju being an island and thought that made it easy. But do you know how many tourists are in Jeju in August, especially during a holiday stretch? Jeju’s population is around seven hundred thousand, but during peak season the tourists number in the hundreds of thousands. On the day the world turned like this, there were at least a million people there.”

“A-a million...”

“Yeah. Anyway, if you ask me, the government and the military that went with them are too busy just trying to sort out Jeju. They can’t have more than a few tens of thousands of combat troops capable of real command and coordination. How long do you think it would take to pacify the whole island?”

By now, half the main units near the capital region had probably collapsed because of zombies.

Or they were paralyzed by supply failures, or their command structures had fallen apart.

Which meant they had broken into isolated units wandering on their own, and some had probably already started turning into warlord factions.

“So don’t trust military units too easily either. People from other towns? You know now that not every one of the people who attacked here today was a gangster, right?”

“...Yeah.”

Song Gijun, who had learned by interrogating the captured gang members that some of the intruders were residents of the country houses and townhouses, nodded grimly.

“If people from the same town are like that, then give up on the idea that people from some other town might be friendly. The best thing you can do is survive by joining forces with people in Gahyeon-ri you actually trust.”

“So what, Mr. Lee Junho? Are you trying to become king of Gahyeon-ri or something? A medieval lord?”

Junho smiled inwardly at how very Song Gijun that sounded.

That was exactly why he had picked Song Gijun as the future leader of the Gahyeon-ri “community.”

“I don’t want anything out of this place. If the survivors here band together, farm, do whatever, and manage to survive on their own, that’s what I want.”

“What does that even—”

“All right. Let’s say every zombie in Gahyeon-ri gets cleared out, and the survivors here band together and form a community.”

“......”

“If someone from outside comes to attack, are you not going to fight? Are you just going to sit there dazed?”

“Of course not. We’d have to fight.”

“Right. Fighting back is the normal response. And that right there is what I want.”

“Ah!”

Like someone smart and quick on the uptake, Song Gijun immediately grasped Junho’s meaning.

“If Gahyeon-ri bands together, eats well, lives well, and fights well, then me and my people stay safe too. That’s why I want Gahyeon-ri stabilized as soon as possible. You think I killed those punk bastards in Jung-dong because I had nothing better to do?”

“Ah! Then today too...”

“Yeah. If those delinquent punks were trash that couldn’t even be sorted, then those gangster bastards are garbage that needs to be sorted out sooner or later. And today was sorting day.”

Only then did Song Gijun fully understand him, and he nodded.

“So in the end, if the Gahyeon-ri survivors unite and live well, that connects directly to the safety of you and your people too. That’s what you’re saying.”

“Not exactly, but close enough. So.”

Junho looked over the apartment residents, who kept glancing his way while still working hard, and went on.

“I want you to do that, Mr. Song Gijun. I’m not confident I could comfort those people and lead them, and I don’t want to. But you’re different, aren’t you?”

“......”

“I’ll help. For the record, one of my people is a doctor, and another is a pharmacist. I can also provide a few hundred liters of diesel, a few generators, and batteries to use at night. If you run them about an hour per liter, you could probably keep three or four standard refrigerators going all day.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. Really. And if you’re going to start farming on the apartment rooftops or in the park here, I can bring you potatoes and sweet potatoes too.”

“Then... could you maybe get rice too...?”

As Korean as ever, Song Gijun asked first about rice, the most important staple food of all. Junho nodded.

“I know where the National Agricultural Cooperative warehouse built this year is.”

“Ah!”

“I heard it from someone in Peach Valley, the neighborhood near the warehouse. You’re not short on food right this second, are you?”

“Ah, no. We can make it through this winter. When we looted the apartments of people from our own buildings who died... or turned into zombies, we found quite a lot of food.”

“Then make it through this winter. I’m planning to clear out those gangster bastards by February—no, by January. We’ll talk again then. I’ll bring the fuel, generators, and batteries tomorrow.”

“Th-thank you. Mr. Lee Junho, thank you so much.”

Song Gijun looked deeply moved.

Of course, he probably did not trust Junho one hundred percent yet.

But this much was enough for Junho.

And there was no reason to think the support he was giving Song Gijun was a waste.

Because—

This was why I bought and stockpiled all those generators and batteries in the first place.

The reason he had bought dozens of household emergency generators and batteries in the four-to-five-kilowatt range—units that did not really suit the shelter’s own needs.

And the reason he had purchased twenty thousand liters of diesel through the Volcano Group, added multiple stabilizers and inhibitors to it, sealed it in stainless airtight drums, and stored it in a separately built fuel warehouse.

This was exactly why.

Even before the apocalypse, the power of grain majors like Cargill and the oil supermajors represented by the Seven Sisters had been immense.

So in the apocalypse?

Whoever held the food and fuel was king.

People lived or died over a few cans of tuna, a few instant rice packs, a single twenty-liter jerry can of gasoline or diesel.

“If you know you’re grateful, make sure you tell those people too. As long as they don’t start acting like shit first, I’ve got no reason to act like shit either.”

“Ah, yes. I’ll definitely tell them. If they hear what you just said, they won’t try anything. They’ll be grateful.”

Song Gijun said it with certainty.

And Junho was certain too.

He had told them where there was food.

He was providing fuel and generators that could produce electricity.

More than that, it wasn’t just that the ridiculous nickname “Mansion Butcher” had gotten around.

Today, the people here had seen him fight with their own eyes.

And they had seen what he became when he got angry.

So dissatisfaction? Rebellion?

There could be no such thing.

He was not ruling them, not oppressing them—if anything, he was helping them.

But he was also someone who could show up any time and put a hole in their heads if the mood struck him.

***

“Ch-Changoh! Han Changoh!”

“Hy-hyung... ghk! Fuck, be gentle—ah, ahh...”

Han Changoh groaned as he lay face down, having the bolt pulled from his back and treated.

“What the hell happened? What happened to you?”

“It was that bastard.”

“That bastard? Which bastard are you talking about?”

“The punk who killed those little shits between Sang-dong and Jung-dong. That guy. The one they call some kind of butcher or massacre freak. Ugh.”

“The Mansion Butcher? Why the hell was he there?”

“I’m telling you, that bastard was at the market. Fuck... and he wasn’t alone either. There were at least three people with air rifles. They kept shooting at us all the way while we were running.”

“What? No, fuck that. An air rifle isn’t some kitchen knife. Even me, before the law changed, I barely managed to hide away a few...”

“I don’t know. Anyway, I only managed to recover one air rifle. I lost mine when I got hit with the knife and ran. Sorry, hyung.”

“You crazy little shit. Who cares about the damn gun if you made it back alive... no, wait, now that I think about it, it is kind of a waste.”

“Ah, fuck, hyung. Agh! Easy, easy...”

“All done. Don’t lie flat for a while. Sleep in this position. I’m leaving.”

The middle-aged woman, who said she had once worked as a nurse’s aide when she was younger, spoke bluntly and left.

“No, that fucking bitch...”

“Let it go, let it go. Without that woman, you couldn’t have gotten treated at all, you idiot.”

“Khh... anyway, hyung. That fucking bastard killed a bunch of our men. Myeongho and Huncheol got captured too. As soon as I’m healed...”

“Forget it.”

“...What?”

“You said there are three or four guys with guns, right? And what guarantee do we have that’s all of them? Besides.”

Han Changsik lit a cigarette—he had so few left now that he was only smoking two or three a day—and opened the window as he spoke into the cold air.

“Now that I think about it, that guy they call the Mansion Butcher... I think he’s the same bastard who killed our men before at the back gate of the country-house area.”

“......!”

“The best move is not to go up against a lunatic like that. Looks like The First Apartments and the market are his territory. So forget it. Once you’re healed, we move into Jung-dong. It’s all country bumpkins over there, so it’ll be a lot easier.”

“Fuck...”

At his brother’s words, Han Changoh, despite his usual vicious and hotheaded nature, did nothing but mutter the curse under his breath.

Because—

the “Mansion Butcher” he had faced in person for the first time today was so terrifying that just remembering him made even Han Changoh break out in gooseflesh all over.