Chapter 104: Drawing Them In

In Korea, it was almost impossible for a civilian to possess military-grade firearms.

You either had to be bold enough to ignore the military and police, who were absolutely rabid about guns—or be operating under the protection of the very power above them.

Or both.

Only people who fell into one of those categories could get their hands on military firearms.

And the nationwide crime syndicate known as the Daeseong syndicate was one of the rare groups that fit both.

More than that, the Daeseong syndicate was a mob organization protected by the highest power in Korea—the very same power that controlled the military and police.

That was why they could get away with something as audacious as smuggling into the country the weapons used by the Chinese military and public security forces.

'So they’d already made it this far and folded the Kookje faction into themselves.'

Even before regression, Junho had known that the Moku-ri Kookje faction was a subordinate organization under the Daeseong syndicate. But he hadn’t known exactly when the two criminal groups had linked up in Namyangju after the apocalypse began.

He had figured it was sometime around 2026.

Today, he found out it had actually happened about a year earlier than that.

***

“You keep watch from this rooftop whenever you can, right?”

When Junho asked, Lee Wonoh nodded.

“Ah, yes. We take turns keeping lookout, and we {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} do overnight watch too.”

“The women as well?”

“Of course. The world’s turned into this—what does it matter whether someone’s a man or a woman? Me and the girls here have each killed a few zombies ourselves.”

At Jeong Seyeong’s comment, another woman stepped in with an exasperated look.

“Oh, come on. There she goes again, slyly acting like everybody’s older than her. But why are you asking?”

It was a woman in her mid-twenties, with features that clearly showed mixed white ancestry, who asked the question—but Junho answered Lee Wonoh instead.

“You know the Kookje faction has set up in Cheongsan Building?”

“Huh? Yeah, I do. But how do you—oh, right. You’ve got a drone.”

“Then you monitor Cheongsan Building too?”

“Yes. Once the weather got brutally cold, the zombies all started going back inside buildings, you know? So those gangster bastards started crawling out more often after that. Around sunset, or about an hour before sunrise. Around then.”

Just as he’d thought. They knew zombie behavior well.

Then again, idiots who didn’t know at least that much wouldn’t have been able to start quietly extending their territory all the way toward Gahyeon-ri.

“Those gangsters mostly raid buildings at night—the ones with hardly any zombies in them. They take people too.”

“They still haven’t targeted this place?”

“No. Buildings around here, including ours, are all pretty large, and they have a lot of entrances. Most of them also have underground parking. So a lot of zombies got into the first floor of our building too, and because of that, those gangster bastards still haven’t come around this area.”

“I see.”

At this stage, large commercial buildings like these were impossible for survivors to occupy.

Hundreds, even thousands of zombies were going inside and clustering together to preserve body heat.

So no matter how heavily armed those gangsters were, having to fight their way in against that many zombies would be a serious burden.

“Then they’ve mainly been targeting the smaller mixed-use buildings and one-room apartment buildings around Cheongsan Building.”

“Wow... how did you know? Cheongsan Building’s the tallest one over there, and everything else is more or less the same height. Most of them have businesses on the first and second floors, and people living above. Those gangster bastards only went after places like that.”

In most of those narrow little three- or four-story buildings, there weren’t many zombies—and there weren’t many survivors either.

Unlike large buildings like this one, with underground parking and lots of hallways and entrances, those smaller buildings usually had only one or two entrances, and on holiday mornings they were often locked or blocked off.

In other words, it was easy to get out from the inside, but fairly difficult to pick the lock and slip in silently from the outside.

But not impossible, if you had specialized tools.

And since most of those buildings had security systems that might as well not have existed, climbing up the walls or gas pipes often made getting in surprisingly easy.

There was no way criminals like the Kookje faction wouldn’t know that, which was probably why they’d been looting little commercial buildings like that night after night.

'They probably judged whether there were zombies inside by looking at the condition of the building.'

After combining the surveillance reports from Akina with the information he’d gotten from Lee Wonoh and the survivors in Jaeseong Building, Junho selected one of the simulations he had already prepared in advance.

“Mr. Lee Wonoh. All of you.”

“Yes?”

“What is it?”

Looking over the three men and six women—people who had been dropped into the apocalypse with no preparation whatsoever, yet had still survived stubbornly for over half a year under some of the best starting conditions imaginable—Junho continued.

“As I said before, I came here to wipe out the Kookje faction. So with that in mind, would you be interested in making a deal with me?”

***

Everyone except Lee Wonoh and Jeong Seyeong went down to the karaoke bar on the tenth floor.

“Boss, boss. But... do you really think this’ll work?”

“I don’t know either. But you saw him too, didn’t you? That guy’s not normal.”

Still wearing expressions full of anxiety and doubt, the two of them stole glances at Junho, who stood on the far side of the rooftop staring at the tablet screen and muttering to himself.

“You saw it earlier, right? When he threw that knife and hit my spear? I seriously thought my wrist was gonna blow out. It still aches.”

“Yeah, that was insanely badass. It felt like something out of a movie. You think he used to be special forces or something?”

“Hey, even special forces guys can’t do that. Normally you size up a stationary target a few times before throwing. Throwing it that fast and hitting in one shot like that—seriously, just anybody can’t do that.”

“Seriously? Wow...”

Seyeong stared at Junho with sparkling eyes full of admiration, awe, and something else she couldn’t quite name.

Continuing on, Lee Wonoh said,

“He said himself he can run a hundred meters in eleven seconds, so I guess I have to believe him. I mean, even among track athletes or pro soccer players, only the really fast ones can run like that.”

“But boss, I don’t know why, but I feel like he’s going to pull it off. And honestly, it’s not like we’re the ones in danger, right? He’s the one risking his life. Isn’t he?”

“Yeah. That’s why I agreed to try it. And listen—if he really sends what he said he would earlier, then I’m seriously gonna believe in him.”

“Right? If it’s real, that’d be amazing. Then I feel like I might actually end up sleeping with him.”

“You crazy bitch. I can hear Youngjae crying from here.”

“So what? They just hit it off and slept together once out of nowhere. In a world like this, what’s the big deal? Besides, boss, you sleep with Chani and with Yeonjin too.”

“Hey, that’s... ah, forget it.”

The two of them bickered like it was any ordinary day, then clicked their tongues and stared fixedly at a point in the sky.

Not far from them, Junho was communicating with AI Akina while looking at the tablet.

“...I’ve checked the route. This really has the highest chance of success?”

- Correct. When currently confirmed information is input into Simulation C, the success probability rises to 72 percent.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was over seventy percent.

Then there was nothing to hesitate over.

“Good. We’re doing it. The drones are coming in properly?”

- They are expected to arrive over Point B in approximately one minute and thirty seconds.

“Good.”

Junho turned toward Gahyeon-ri.

They were flying in at a cruising speed of forty-eight kilometers per hour, but the distance was still too great for the drones to be visible.

A short while later, four black dots came into Junho’s view.

“Huh? Aren’t those drones?”

“Where? Ah, yeah! They are! Drones!”

Not long after the excited voices of Lee Wonoh and Jeong Seyeong rang out, the four drones sent from the shelter lowered cables over the rooftop of Jaeseong Building.

Whiiiiiir...

What descended onto the rooftop of Jaeseong Building, hanging from the four cables, were reinforced plastic cargo containers.

It was the same cargo transport drone model that had resupplied Junho with ammunition during the battle at Gahyeon Elementary School—except this time, there were four of them.

“R-rice! It’s rice!”

“There’s a portable gas burner and butane gas in here too! Red pepper paste, kimchi, soy-braised beef! Yes! There’s even real mackerel!”

They had already stripped the karaoke bar, the fitness center, and even the refrigerators in the restaurants on the second floor where Junho had entered—but after more than half a year, the Welcome Karaoke Bar survivors’ food situation had become mildly dangerous.

On top of that, most of what had been in the karaoke bar’s refrigerators had been snack foods meant to go with drinks, and the restaurant on the second floor had been a noodle place, so while there had been plenty of noodles, there hadn’t been much rice.

In the end, even while only cooking rice once a day, they had run out of it in just a couple of months.

From last fall until now, they hadn’t seen a bowl of white rice once, getting through their meals by cooking up the dwindling ramen, noodles, side dishes, and bar snack ingredients they had left.

“Transport complete confirmed.”

After emptying the two containers that held the equipment he had requested and giving them a couple of pats, Junho turned his head.

Then he walked over to the two people digging through the containers packed solid with twenty kilograms each of rice, portable gas burners, and various other food supplies, grinning with joy.

“Everything’s there, right? As you can see, I kept my promise. Now it’s your turn to keep yours.”

“Of course! Thank you so much!”

Clutching a ten-kilogram vacuum-packed bag of rice as carefully as if it were treasure, Jeong Seyeong bowed her head with a bright grin.

Then Lee Wonoh, who had dipped his pinky into the red pepper paste and shivered from the taste, hurriedly slapped the lid back onto the container and bowed too.

“Now I really, truly believe y—i-is that actually an M16?”

“It’s called an AR-15. And yes, it’s a real gun.”

Having finished assembling the AR-15 that had been delivered in pieces and attaching the suppressor, Junho checked the chamber and pulled back the charging handle before letting it go.

Clack!

“Whoa—!”

“So cool...”

Unlike Lee Wonoh, who recoiled on instinct like a man who had been through military service, Jeong Seyeong, who was apparently seeing a real assault rifle for the first time, could only study Junho with eyes full of naked curiosity.

At the moment, compared to how he’d looked before the cargo transport drones arrived, Junho had simply added an AR-15 and a few magazines.

But that alone was enough to make Lee Wonoh feel heavily pressured and Jeong Seyeong think he looked incredible, enough that neither of them noticed the other object lowered from another cargo transport drone’s cargo box—something so heavy the drone’s maximum takeoff weight had been spared by only a few hundred grams.

It was something that no one in the shelter except Junho could have worn and done more than walk in for ten minutes, let alone run in.

A full-body Level 4 Dragon Scale ballistic suit.

“For now, let’s move the delivered supplies first. Then we’ll start in about twenty minutes.”

“Yes!”

The two of them happily carried the food supplies down to the karaoke bar.

In the meantime, Junho checked his clothing, equipment, and the Dragon Scale one more time while waiting for the Welcome Karaoke Bar people to come back up to the roof.

A little over ten minutes later, the people who had gone to do what he’d instructed had finished and gathered on the rooftop.

Apparently they had confirmed the food supplies Lee Wonoh and Jeong Seyeong had brought down to the karaoke bar, because there was now a slightly excited atmosphere among them.

Looking over the group, Junho spoke.

“To go over it one more time—all you have to do is stay exactly where you’re supposed to be, at exactly the right time. That’s the most important part. Mr. Lee Wonoh.”

“Yes.”

“Do not under any circumstances take off the radio or the headset. Just do exactly what my teammate tells you to do. It won’t last more than five minutes, so I trust you can handle it.”

“Leave it to me.”

“Good.”

Nodding once at Lee Wonoh, who clenched his fist, Junho shifted his gaze to the two male employees.

“Was the installation done properly?”

“Yes, sir! No problems at all. During the fire safety inspection last year, it held up to 120 kilos.”

“Understood. Then let’s begin.”

Loaded down with all kinds of gear, including the Dragon Scale, Junho strode forward.

“Whoa...”

“Hey, hurry up.”

Even while staring in shock at Junho’s monstrous strength, the survivors hurried after him.

***

- No threat targets observed from the current position.

- No threat targets observed on the road along the route.

- Multiple B-class targets positioned inside Buildings 1-1 through 1-4 on Route 1. Threat level B.

- Route 2...

Listening to Akina’s cold voice as the reports continued one after another, Junho, now back down on the second floor, checked his outfit one last time.

He had taken off his helmet and the upper part of the bike suit, leaving him in only a long-sleeved shirt and pants. The only weapons he still carried were the Glock 17 and a little over ten drawing knives on his tactical belt; everything else had been removed.

“Hoo...”

Tap.

After steadying his breath lightly, Junho moved with extraordinary speed and almost no sound, leaping over the second-floor railing, catching it, and letting his body hang long beneath it.

“...Starting.”

- Confirmed.

The instant Akina’s voice sounded, Junho loosened his grip on the railing and landed lightly on the ground.

Then—

Papapapapapapapak...!

At the fastest speed he could possibly produce, he sprinted toward the center of Moku-ri.

- Multiple B-class targets emerging from Buildings 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4 on Route 1.

- Exact number of entities cannot be confirmed.

The moment Akina’s report came through, Junho—already running past Building 6—threw the drawing knife he had been holding in his hand with all his strength.

Craaaash! Shatter!

The huge display window of a well-known chain bakery exploded apart, breaking the silence that had blanketed the street.

At that instant, countless zombies who had taken shelter inside nearby buildings to escape the brutal cold all lifted their heads at once.

A mad act that directly violated one of the apocalypse’s most essential rules: move as quietly as possible.

But right now, Junho had a reason he needed to do that mad thing.

- Distance to final destination: 480 meters.

In a straight line, it was only about 220 meters away—but the point was to run nearly 500 meters along the route he’d chosen,

drawing along the zombies from every building on that route,

and concentrating all of them on the final destination:

Cheongsan Building.