Chapter 114: Using One Enemy Against Another

“...”

Junho studied the military unit carefully.

It was not a mechanized infantry unit.

There were vehicles, but no armored personnel carriers, and none of the small tactical vehicles soldiers casually called military Tonas, either.

'Those are regular electric cars and electric trucks. Did they requisition them?'

Watching the several electric cars and trucks slowly coming down the mountain road at marching speed with the infantry, Junho narrowed his eyes.

That meant the commander was someone who had accepted the reality of the apocalypse.

In the apocalypse, continuing to use loud military vehicles was basically the same as broadcasting to every zombie around, We’re right here.

And besides—

“There is an aircraft in sight. Estimated to be a drone.”

“What’s its altitude and speed?”

“Altitude 120 meters. Speed twenty kilometers per hour, cruising. Estimated to be conducting reconnaissance.”

“Pull back for now without letting it spot us. Keep watching that side.”

There was little chance of our shelter’s drone being noticed since it was flying much higher, but after giving the order, Junho lifted his head.

Park Sunhee was looking at him with eyes full of tension.

“You head back to the vehicle with Purdy.”

“Yes.”

Junho was a little surprised by how quickly she nodded without hesitation, so he asked,

“You sure you can find your way back? Even with Purdy there.”

“I’m good at finding my way. And if I stay here, I’ll just get in the way, right? I’ll go back with Purdy and wait.”

“......”

Junho looked at Park Sunhee with fresh eyes.

She was tense, but she did not seem badly frightened. More than that, her judgment was extremely fast.

It was not easy for a young woman to show this kind of composure in the apocalypse.

“Be careful, boss.”

“Yeah. Here, take this.”

“......!?”

When Junho handed her the Glock 17, Park Sunhee’s already large eyes widened even more.

“You know how to use it, right?”

“Uh, yes. A Glock 17—I learned from my grandfather, and I used to shoot it a lot with Ducky. But... is it really okay for you to give this to me?”

“It’s only for a little while. Anyway, go now. It’ll take them at least a couple of hours to get this far, so don’t rush. Just take it slow.”

“Yes, boss.”

Once Park Sunhee carefully took the Glock 17, Junho stroked Purdy’s head and said,

“Go back with her and wait. I’m counting on you.”

Woof.

“Akina. Put one drone on them.”

“Confirmed.”

Soon, Park Sunhee and Purdy hurried back the way they had come.

***

After Park Sunhee and Purdy left, Junho continued watching the military unit’s movements.

After scouting the surrounding area with a drone, they resumed moving.

'The drone’s operating radius is about 1.5 kilometers.'

It could probably go farther than that, but judging by its available flight time, that seemed to be the distance they were limiting themselves to.

And after they finished one drone reconnaissance sweep, they would move 1.5 kilometers, then send the drone up again.

Whoever the commander was, he was both very cautious and highly capable.

'If that’s the case...'

Around the time he had been building the shelter, Junho had already laid out several response plans for what to do if he encountered military units after the apocalypse began.

Of course, the basic policy was never to make contact first unless the military unit entered the shelter’s safe zone.

But this time, the situation was a little different.

'This might work... no, there’s a high chance it will.'

After organizing his thoughts at high speed, Junho switched channels and called Yoon Youngsu.

“Youngsu. Are you in the workshop?”

“No. I was in the power room. I’m heading up to the control room right now. But I heard you spotted soldiers?”

Yoon Youngsu, who had been too busy to breathe properly as he ran nonstop between the server room, workshop, and power room because of the reorganization work, spoke in a worried voice.

“Yeah. I don’t think they’re heading toward our shelter, but we still need to be careful. Anyway, send me one delivery drone right now. Load it with...”

“Yes. Yeah, okay... got it.”

After telling Yoon Youngsu what he needed, Junho went back to work, checking the military feed at intervals as he did.

Whiiir...!

About ten minutes later, the cargo drone sent from the shelter arrived.

Junho removed the items from the cargo bay, then took off the clothes and gear he had been wearing and loaded them into it.

“Delivery confirmed. Now do your part.”

“Understood. But are you really going to be okay? This seems pretty dangerous.”

“I’ll be fine. Stop worrying about me and pay attention to the shelter and the community. You halted all outside work, right?”

“Yes. I passed the word to Mr. Song Gijun too. Only a few search-and-elimination teams are staying on standby in certain spots, and everyone who was working outside is being brought in.”

“Good. Tell them to stay careful for the next few hours. Keep Junhyeok on standby so he can come this way at any time.”

“Understood.”

“Okay.”

Ending the call, Junho quickly resumed installing the relay.

He could not install the solar panel, but the battery he had brought would be enough to last through tomorrow.

Before long, he finished setting up the relay, confirmed that the drone footage was now transmitting cleanly to the tablet without cutting out, and said in a low voice,

“I’m moving now. Make sure the drones keep their altitude and distance so the soldiers don’t spot them.”

“Yes, sir. Please be careful.”

***

Junho ran quickly down the mountain trail.

He had sent even his bike suit with the reinforced plastic plates back to the shelter, along with his tactical vest, and was now dressed only in ordinary work clothes with an old backpack slung over one shoulder.

Not only that, the only weapons he had were an unmodified air rifle and a hunting knife at his waist.

He had disassembled the AR-15 and sent it back to the shelter by cargo drone.

“Sir. Seven hundred meters left in a straight line. You’ll run into them in about twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

At Yoon Youngsu’s words, Junho stopped running.

Then he deliberately threw himself to the ground and rolled around several times.

As if that were not enough, he smeared a little dirt onto his hair and face, then pulled his cap low and spoke while a mini drone camera filmed him.

“How do I look?”

“Just like Rural Survivor Number One.”

“Good. Then from here on out, comms are down. Keep watching through the drones only.”

“Yes. But seriously, be careful. If anything happens, I’m sending Junhyeok and all the workhorses out there.”

“Yeah. But it probably won’t come to that. Anyway, cut the line.”

“Roger that.”

After ending the communication, Junho carefully packed the radio, earpiece, and tablet into a waterproof sheet bundle and buried them under a suitable tree.

“Whew.”

Taking a light breath, Junho picked up the air rifle and started moving, recalling the military unit’s last confirmed position and route.

A drone would still be floating high overhead, watching him continuously, but stripped of all advanced equipment, he now looked like just one more ordinary survivor in the apocalypse.

No, with the air rifle, he probably still ranked in the top five percent.

“Five to eight minutes...”

Checking the time on his old digital watch, Junho kept walking toward the military unit.

Then, after five minutes had passed, he took the air rifle off his shoulder and crouched low.

A few minutes later, he was still moving slowly in a ready-fire posture, scanning the area around him, when—

“Don’t move! Move and I’ll shoot!”

The stock warning burst out from the slope.

“......!”

Acting as if badly startled, Junho slowly raised his hands while looking toward the source of the shout.

“Drop the gun!”

After pretending to hesitate for a moment, Junho slowly lowered the air rifle to the ground.

“Advance five steps with your hands up!”

When he did as ordered, three soldiers suddenly rose up about thirty meters away.

“Come this way. Slowly!”

As he walked toward them with his hands raised, one of the soldiers ran out quickly and picked up Junho’s air rifle.

Only then did the soldiers lower their muzzles and speak.

“Who are you? Why are you here? What are you doing out here?”

“What does it look like? I came up from the village down there to try to catch a water deer or something.”

“The village down there? There are people living here? Survivors? How many?”

“......”

At the question from the soldier wearing a sergeant’s stripes, Junho did not answer.

Instead, he lowered his hands, folded his arms, and said,

“Why? So if I tell you, you can go shake them down?”

“What? No, you old—”

“Sergeant Park Baem. The battalion commander says bring him in.”

At the words of the corporal holding the radio, Sergeant Park Baem clicked his tongue.

“Tch. Fine. Mister, come with us for now.”

Just like that, Junho deliberately got himself caught at exactly the point in their movement cycle when the military sent up a drone, and succeeded in making contact with them according to plan.

***

“You said your name was Lee Junho, right? Did you not receive the mobilization order?”

At the words of Major Lee Seokjin, who looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties, Junho—now stripped of everything, including his bag and hunting dagger—gave a faint, incredulous laugh.

“Major. If you were out at a valley with your friends when the zombie outbreak hit, and then you got a mobilization text, would you really have gone? Leaving your friends behind?”

Junho looked around at Major Lee Seokjin and the several officers with him as he continued.

“And with zombies crawling all over the place, how exactly was I supposed to do that? You’re telling me I should’ve just gone out to die? Do you actually think that makes sense?”

“......”

Maybe because even they knew it made no sense, Major Lee Seokjin and the two officers with lieutenant bars on their collars fell silent.

But their eyes never left Junho, and after quietly studying him for a moment, Major Lee Seokjin spoke again.

“I apologize for that.”

Junho had already realized it when he came to see these three officers.

Just as he had guessed when he first spotted them, Major Lee Seokjin—the acting battalion commander—was an unusually competent and proper commander by apocalypse standards.

Because the two lieutenants with him belonged to different units.

And not just them—over two hundred of the other soldiers and NCOs also came from different units.

In other words, roughly three or four units had gathered together under Major Lee Seokjin’s command.

In Junho’s experience, once the chain of command collapsed in the apocalypse, it was extremely rare for soldiers to follow an officer from another unit.

That alone showed how capable Major Lee Seokjin was.

“It’s fine. Anyway, that’s the situation. I had to survive too.”

Thinking that if he had met a soldier like this before regression, he might even have joined them, Junho shrugged.

“Good. Then, Mr. Lee Junho, what happened to your friends? How many are there?”

“There were five of us at first. Two got bitten by zombies—one turned, and one died. I killed the one who turned. He tried to attack me, and I was trying to stay alive too.”

“......!”

Major Lee Seokjin flinched for a moment, then nodded.

In the world as it was now, trying to charge someone with murder for killing a zombie that attacked them would have been completely idiotic.

“So that means three of you survived, including yourself, Mr. Lee Junho? And there are no other infected nearby?”

Junho called zombies zombies, but being military, he seemed to prefer calling them infected.

“There were a lot, but they’re all dead now. Not because I killed them, though.”

“Then...?”

“A little while ago, some fucking gangster bastards came through and killed all the zombies. And then... my two friends got taken by those bastards too. Those sons of bitches....”

As Junho ground his teeth, Major Lee Seokjin visibly stiffened, then quickly asked back,

“Gangsters? What kind of gangsters are you talking about? There are gangsters in this area too?”

“No. From what I heard while hiding, those bastards were from... Deokso? Deoksim? Something like that. Anyway, they came from over there. I only found out what organized crime even was from listening to them talk.”

“If it’s Deokso, you mean that apartment-heavy area in Namyangju? Are you sure?”

One of the lieutenants cut in urgently, and Junho nodded.

“Yes. I’m not from Namyangju, so I don’t know the area, but I definitely heard either Deokso or Deoksim. They said their shelter was there. They also said they had a ton of food and a lot of people they worked like slaves.”

The reason Junho had deliberately made contact with over two hundred soldiers—

part of it was to stop them from coming toward our shelter and Gahyeon-ri.

But his real objective was to tell them where the Daeseong syndicate’s base was and steer them in that direction.

In other words, it was using one enemy to crush another.