Chapter 117: Someday, Alive

Vrrrrrr!

The low-noise diesel generator roared to life, feeding power into the DC fast charger.

The charger converted AC into high-voltage DC and sent power into the electric vehicles and batteries.

'So that’s how they’d been using electricity.'

Junho nodded.

He had been wondering how Major Lee Seokjin had managed to keep electric equipment like the EVs and drones running.

They had simply been hauling a small diesel generator and fuel around in the trucks, then running it every night to recharge everything.

“Do you have enough fuel?”

When Junho asked casually, the staff sergeant who said he had been with the transport maintenance unit wiped at the tip of his nose and answered.

“Not enough, exactly, but enough to keep using it for maybe another couple weeks. And if we come across diesel vehicles on the way, we can strip those too. Plus, anything sitting in gas stations or fuel tankers should still be fine until this summer.”

Unless it was stored the way it was in their shelter—in a warehouse packed with every additive imaginable, sealed airtight, and kept at constant temperature and humidity—fuel had a hard time lasting beyond a year.

“Then tomorrow let’s collect some from the abandoned cars around here.”

“Oh, should we? A drum or so ought to hold us over for a while. Though I don’t know if the major will approve...”

The staff sergeant glanced toward Major Lee Seokjin, who was off in the distance talking with the officers, and Junho said,

“What’s the problem? We’d just be siphoning a little fuel from a few ownerless cars. Major, that’s fine, right?”

“...What?”

“Fuel. Fuel. The maintenance guy here says they need some, so tomorrow let’s pull some out of the cars in town.”

“...Fine. Maintenance chief, get it done first thing in the morning.”

“Yes, sir! Uh, thank you for looking out for us.”

Maybe it was because he was maintenance, but the staff sergeant looked genuinely grateful at Junho’s words.

“It’s nothing. Anyway, keep up the good work.”

“Yes, sir. Yes.”

Junho walked over to Major Lee Seokjin and the officers.

“So, have you reached a decision?”

At Junho’s question, Major Lee Seokjin smacked his lips and made an awkward face.

Then the two lieutenants and a master sergeant who looked to be about fifty started arguing again.

“No, I get what you’re saying. But we have to think about our guys too. How are you supposed to throw clerks, medics, and cooks into combat?”

“But splitting up in a situation like this makes no sense.”

“Master Sergeant Park. It’s not one or two men. It’s over ten.”

“No, listen, I said I’d take responsibility, didn’t I? I said I’d stay behind and look after them. Christ, you’re making this harder than it has to be.”

The two lieutenants and the master sergeant had already been arguing for over thirty minutes about what to do with the noncombat personnel.

Someone could have said Major Lee Seokjin should have just settled it by throwing his rank around and imposing order.

The problem was that Master Sergeant Park had more time in service than the major did, and on top of that, he belonged to a completely different unit.

More importantly, his argument was not logically wrong.

“You all saw it earlier. Some of those kids couldn’t even fire their rifles right. They were shaking like leaves. Two of them got their glasses busted in the chaos, so past twenty meters they can barely tell whether they’re looking at a zombie or a person. And you want men like that fighting?”

Master Sergeant Park turned toward Major Lee Seokjin.

“Sir, no matter how bad things are, you know as well as I do that forcing noncombat personnel into a fight can backfire. This isn’t peacetime anymore. What happens if they screw up and cause an accident?”

“......”

“Just leave them here. I said I’d take responsibility. Fuck, I don’t even know whether my wife and kids are dead or alive, so at least let’s take care of the boys. All right?!”

“Master Sergeant Park, that’s enough. I understand your situation, but you’re not the only one here who doesn’t know what happened to his family.”

“...That was my mistake. Sorry.”

Master Sergeant Park, who had shouted without realizing it, let out a sigh and looked away.

Everyone here had family.

And most of them had no idea whether those people were alive or dead.

Even so, the fact that they were still following Major Lee Seokjin and carrying out orders meant they deserved to be called outstanding soldiers.

“......”

Maybe thoughts of family had gotten to them, because silence fell and a bleak mood spread through the group.

That was when Junho stepped in.

“Excuse me, would you hear me out for a second?”

“...What?”

With all four soldiers looking at him, Junho spoke calmly.

“From where I’m standing, the master sergeant makes sense. And so do the lieutenants.”

“Come on...”

Ignoring Lieutenant Jung’s expression—which plainly said What kind of obvious bullshit is that?—Junho went on quickly.

“Why not just treat this place as a supply depot?”

“......!?”

“This warehouse alone has around forty tons of rice in it. Add the other two and it’s over a hundred tons. And Major, you said you were taking what, three or four tons?”

“That’s true, but...”

The two trucks were already packed with supplies and could not carry more than four tons anyway, and even that much would feed over two hundred people for more than a month.

“You never know what’s going to happen, right? So do what Master Sergeant Park said. Leave the noncombat personnel here, along with the soldiers who look like today’s fight might push them into PTSD. And make the rice in this warehouse theirs.”

“What?”

“If it weren’t for you guys, the people in this town probably wouldn’t even know there was rice in here. And even if they did, they’d never have been able to get inside. So if you claim ownership of it, no one can really say anything.”

“But...”

“I know. How can the Republic of Korea Army do something like that? Right?”

Junho drove the point in while Major Lee Seokjin still visibly struggled with it.

“That’s why I’m saying give the other two warehouses to the townspeople and only claim this one for yourselves. Who’s going to object? And besides...”

He chose that moment to hammer in the last spike.

“If the noncombat personnel stay here, get close with the locals, and help each other out, wouldn’t that still be the army doing its duty? Civilian support. Something like that. From where I stand, it sounds like you’d be killing two birds with one stone.”

“......”

Major Lee Seokjin lifted his eyes slightly.

The three other soldiers swallowed hard and looked back and forth between him and Junho.

“Anyway, sorry if I overstepped. It’s your decision to make. I’m going to step outside and get some air.”

After dipping his head, Junho walked out through the back door of the warehouse.

He passed the soldiers in the rear who were busily cooking rice from the warehouse stock, then headed to the front gate, where all the zombie corpses had already been cleared away.

“I got Major Lee Seokjin’s permission. I’m just stepping out for some air.”

“Yes, sir. Go ahead.”

The soldiers on guard duty let him through without question.

No, they even saluted him like he was an officer.

They had all seen exactly what Junho, the reserve soldier survivor they had picked up that day, had done.

“I’ll be back within thirty minutes. Hang in there, guys.”

“Yes, sir. Stay safe.”

“Will do.”

After waving to the young soldiers, who were about Baek Suho’s age, Junho started walking toward Yeongho 2-ri.

Then, the moment he turned the corner and confirmed no one was around, he retraced the route he had taken earlier at full speed.

Tap-tap... tap-tap-tap...! Papapapapap!

Junho tore down the empty road, where there were neither zombies nor people in sight, and in under ten minutes he reached the place where he had first encountered the force led by Major Lee Seokjin.

During the day it had taken a little over an hour because he had been walking at the soldiers’ marching pace, but alone, running flat out, he made the distance quickly.

“There.”

Returning to the marked location, Junho dug fast and pulled out the vacuum-sealed tarp bundle and the things hidden inside it.

Beep.

“Testing. You hearing me?”

—Master Lee Junho. Confirmed.

It had only been a little over half a day, but hearing AI Akina’s voice made him feel strangely glad, as if several days had passed.

“Get Junhyeok to prepare the following items...”

Junho listed the support supplies meant for the brave soldiers of the Republic of Korea Army—and for the people who would become another defensive barrier and allied force protecting both their shelter and the surrounding safe zone.

***

Maybe Junho’s persuasion had worked, because Major Lee Seokjin decided to leave the noncombat personnel in Yeongho 2-ri, along with the soldiers who showed signs that today’s battle might push them into PTSD.

Sixteen men total, including Master Sergeant Park.

Not a small number.

The soldiers who had been left behind looked miserable.

They could not even lift their heads because of the guilt they felt toward the comrades who would be leaving without them.

But no one said a word against them.

Because no matter what, all of them had fought that day.

And though the degree differed from man to man, every one of them knew how terrifying and brutal it was to fight for your life against man-eating zombies.

So the remarkable thing was overcoming it.

Failing to overcome it was not something to condemn.

Not when the person in question was a comrade who had crossed the line of death with you.

***

“Careful. Load it carefully.”

“Hey! Bring over the ammo we’re splitting up!”

“What did I tell you? If you save those ration wrappers, they’ll come in handy someday. Keep saving them from now on too.”

Junho walked past the soldiers in the thick of it—loading divided-up rice onto the trucks, sorting ammunition, making rice balls from steaming-hot rice.

Then he raised a hand toward the maintenance staff sergeant and several soldiers waiting near the front gate.

“All right, everybody here?”

“Oh, you’re back!”

“Yep. Then let’s go.”

Together with the maintenance staff sergeant and six soldiers, Junho moved through the village siphoning fuel out of abandoned diesel vehicles.

Then they searched buildings that had been occupied by zombies until yesterday but now stood empty, collecting anything useful.

“Ptui. This one’s still good. Drain it all.”

“Yes, sir!”

At the staff sergeant’s order—he had tasted the fuel and spit it out—the soldiers stuck a hose into the diesel SUV’s fuel tank and drained the diesel into jerry cans.

While pretending to stand watch nearby with his air rifle, Junho spoke casually to the staff sergeant, who was inspecting another abandoned vehicle.

“Sergeant Choi. You see that hardware store over there?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, boss.”

The maintenance staff sergeant was two years younger than Junho, and after Junho had readily come along to help them, he had started calling him boss.

“I mean, we’ve already got all the equipment they’d have in a hardware store, so I don’t think we really need to check it...”

“I know that. But the old men back in my neighborhood told me the owner of that place had been running the shop here forever. Apparently he used to do quick-and-dirty repairs on local farm equipment and cars on the side.”

“Oh, really?”

The staff sergeant looked at him like he wanted to ask what that had to do with anything, and Junho clicked his tongue.

“You’re slow today. If that’s true, then he might have useful oil or additives stashed away too.”

“Oh!”

“I heard the warehouse next to the shop belongs to the place too, so let’s take a look. I checked it out while I was taking a walk last night, just in case, and there was nobody there.”

“Y-yeah, let’s do that. Hey, a few of you, over here!”

Before long, Junho headed to the small warehouse attached to the hardware store with several soldiers in tow.

Then he personally cut through the chain—far too new-looking for such an old warehouse—with a cutter he had brought, and went inside with the soldiers.

A little while later—

“Hey, hey. We hit the jackpot.”

“Huh?”

“Just carry all this out first. We got seriously lucky.”

The items Junho was excitedly pulling out, as though he had just stumbled across them by chance, were things Junhyeok and Park Deokcheol had left the day before at the place they usually used when meeting the Peach Valley Youth Association people.

Then, during the night, Junho had quietly slipped past the sentries, taken them out of the warehouse, and brought them here.

“Whoa! Aren’t these oxidation inhibitors and additives? There’s lubricant, engine oil, grease, even coolant!”

“See? Told you it was worth checking the place. Grab all this, then let’s hit some other spots too.”

“Yes, sir!”

Greatly encouraged by the first haul, the staff sergeant and the soldiers kept going after that—draining fuel from abandoned diesel vehicles while following Junho around from place to place and continuing the looting.

And they were astonishingly lucky, too.

They scored bandages, all kinds of emergency medicine, sugar, salt, and even huge quantities of homemade fermented pastes, perilla oil, salted seafood, and pickled vegetables made by elderly villagers.

***

After completing their preparations to depart early the next morning, Major Lee Seokjin and his men set out again, leaving sixteen comrades behind in the warehouse.

The decision had already been made the night before, and they had already said their goodbyes, so there was no melodramatic farewell scene.

Major Lee Seokjin simply told Master Sergeant Park to guard the place and take good care of the men.

Master Sergeant Park answered with a hard face that he would carry out the mission without fail, and the two exchanged salutes.

“Master Sergeant. I’ll come check in now and then, but you need to be hard. Hard enough to be ready to break one or two idiots from this town if that’s what it takes.”

“Don’t worry about it. I spent twenty years in uniform dealing with every kind of lunatic around military posts. And here, they’re not even people I know, so I can be even harsher.”

Master Sergeant Park grinned at Junho’s warning.

That was the end of it.

The ones staying stayed, and the ones leaving left.

Riding in the electric vehicle with Major Lee Seokjin, Junho guided them for about half a day along a route the shelter’s drones had checked for safety that dawn, pretending he already knew the way.

By around two in the afternoon, they finally reached the area near the highway that ran along the Bukhan River, after making a wide detour around the outskirts of Gahyeon-ri.

“From here on, I’m not completely sure. But if you keep following it, you should hit Ungilsan Station.”

“Hmm. And from that station, we can get to Paldang and then to Doshim Station?”

“Yes. I’ve come around here before by subway and bus. On weekends and holidays, the intervals are over thirty minutes. There probably won’t be any trains for at least three or four stops.”

It was almost certain that the Daeseong syndicate had moved by rail, so there probably would not be any trains running from Ungilsan Station at least as far as Doshim Station.

But Junho pretended not to know that and said it anyway.

“Understood. Then I suppose we’ll have to leave that to luck.”

Nodding, Major Lee Seokjin looked at Junho with new eyes.

His face plainly showed he wanted to say many things, so Junho flashed him a grin and spoke first.

“You’re grateful to me, right?”

“Hm? Ah, yes. I am. Thank you, Mr. Lee Junho. Truly, thank you.”

Because he had gained so much thanks to the Junho he had happened to meet, Major Lee Seokjin offered his gratitude sincerely.

And Junho decided to give this steadfast Republic of Korea Army officer one final gift—cruel in one sense, but in another the most important one of all.

“But Major, did you know something?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“When I led you to that warehouse yesterday—if I’d wanted to, I could’ve had a bunch of human trash waiting there in ambush. Then they attack. You first, and the two officers here right after you. Bang.”

“......!!!”

Major Lee Seokjin’s eyes snapped wide.

The two lieutenants who had come out to see Junho off gaped as well.

“Or when I went out for that walk last night, I could’ve come back with people and hit the warehouse. Or while you were fighting the zombies, I could’ve knocked one of your men out, taken his rifle, and run. Hell, I could’ve mixed something into the sugar and salt we found today and given you and the whole unit food poisoning. What do you think? Sound impossible to you?”

“M-Mr. Lee Junho, what are you...”

“I’m speaking hypothetically. Hypothetically. But—”

Junho’s face changed.

He was a regressor living through the apocalypse for the second time.

A slaughterer who had already put down countless zombies and human beings.

And as Junho regained that face, he spoke in a cold voice to Major Lee Seokjin and the two officers, who all flinched despite their shock.

“I didn’t do any of that. But the people you meet from now on might. No—they absolutely will. So from now on, never trust people easily. Not for your own sake. For theirs.”

“......!”

Following Junho’s gaze, Major Lee Seokjin and the officers slowly turned to look at their soldiers.

The young men who had happily eaten rice balls that morning, made with salt and pickles.

The same soldiers who had now seen real combat, who were real warriors now—but who, while eating, still wore the clumsy, youthful faces of boys their age.

Looking at them, all three officers felt goosebumps rise on their arms.

For the first time, they truly grasped the weight of the responsibility they carried.

“Remember what I said. And... I sincerely wish you and this unit good fortune in battle. Survive. I hope we meet again someday, alive.”

Without even waiting for an answer, Junho turned and sprinted back the way he had come.

“......”

But the three men, who had finally come to fully understand the brutal reality of the apocalypse, could not even think to call out after him.

They could only stand there in a daze, staring at his retreating back.