Chapter 120: Gunshot!?

Vrrrrr....

The utility electric cart carrying Junho and Park Deokcheol moved along the exact same route the Daeseong syndicate gangsters had used before.

Now that the weather was warming up, zombies that had spent the winter hidden inside rural homes had started coming back outside on instinct, but they posed no real threat.

To begin with, the road itself wound around the mountain, and the houses occasionally visible along the roadside were all isolated.

And the people who lived in places like that were, nine times out of ten, very old.

Pow!

“But seriously, doesn’t it feel strange? That house we saw earlier too—how did old people living way out here end up as zombies?”

After killing an elderly zombie that looked to be over eighty with the air rifle, Park Deokcheol tilted his head.

“...I think I know why.”

“Huh?”

Looking through his digital monocular at the old zombie lying in the yard of a weathered old house with a slate roof, the nearest neighbor almost a full kilometer away, Junho spoke coldly.

“In cases like this, you have to assume somebody turned them into zombies on purpose.”

“What? Seriously? But why the hell would anyone...?”

“Why do you think? So people won’t come near the place.”

“......?”

“In a world like this, what do you think is safer to travel on? Regular roads, or some remote path deep in the mountains like this?”

“Ah... yeah, I guess that’s true. Wait. Then... maybe...?”

“Right. Those gangsters probably did it.”

“Jesus....”

Park Deokcheol made a sickened face, but Junho—who, before regression, had seen countless cases of people deliberately releasing zombies around their homes as a kind of safety device and burglar alarm—answered calmly.

“It’s insane. But outside Gahyeon-ri and the surrounding area, this is how most places work now. There’s no law anymore, no order.”

Our shelter, Gahyeon-ri, and a few nearby areas were exceptionally rare spaces in the apocalypse.

There was no law, but there was order. And the fact that thousands of survivors were living while maintaining that order on their own was practically a miracle.

And it was only possible because of an anomalous presence like Junho.

“...Yes, sir.”

Knowing that better than anyone, Park Deokcheol swallowed dryly and nodded.

“Let’s go bury the body.”

Like every infected they had dealt with while moving along this route, Junho and Park Deokcheol buried the old zombie they had just killed out of sight.

It was less about respect for the dead than about making sure the Daeseong syndicate gangsters wouldn’t see the body if they ever came back down this road.

After burying the corpse in the small vegetable patch behind the house and observing a brief moment of silence, the two men climbed back onto the utility cart and moved on.

***

From the outside, the leisure sports dock looked like a business that had shut down ages ago, but the interior was surprisingly clean and comfortable.

Thanks to the solar panels installed on the roof, the lights and other electronic devices were all functioning normally.

“Boss, come look at this.”

Park Deokcheol, who had been searching the office farther inside, called Junho over, unable to hide his surprise.

When Junho went in, he saw twenty 5-kilowatt power tanks sitting there—clearly left behind by the Daeseong syndicate gangsters.

It looked like they had been storing a full 100 kilowatts of electricity using solar generation, then using it whenever they stopped here to recharge utility carts and other electric gear.

“Bunch of brainless thugs. They should’ve just left one or two ESS batteries instead.”

Even while saying that, Junho connected the drone they had used on the way here to one of the power tanks and started charging it.

If Major Lee Seokjin’s unit wiped out the gangsters, every one of these power tanks would become property of our shelter.

“Deokcheol. Everything outside’s clear too, so let’s unload and get to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

After unloading the gear they had brought on the utility cart, the two of them went to the spot Junho had marked the last time he came here while tracking the gangsters and installed a relay there.

Of course, even with a relay installed here, it still wouldn’t allow wireless communication with the shelter.

That was because it was nearly ten kilometers from our shelter, and still more than six kilometers in a straight line even from the relay installed on Jaeseong Building in Moku-ri.

But once it was in place, they would at least be able to fly drones within a radius of four to five kilometers centered on this point, and wireless communication inside that range would be smooth.

And more importantly—

“Later, we’re going to connect a wireless relay chain all the way from our shelter to here. Once that happens, almost half of Namyangju will fall inside our wireless coverage.”

After spending nearly an hour confirming that the installed relay and amplifier were functioning properly, Junho launched several drones they had brought from the shelter one after another.

Just as expected, every drone was able to fly and transmit footage within a five-kilometer range.

Junho then conducted a detailed reconnaissance sweep of Yangpyeong County across the river, as well as Joan-myeon in Namyangju—the destination where he planned to install the next relay.

“Yangpyeong can wait. We’re not crossing over there yet.”

Using the drones, Junho gave Yangpyeong across the river a quick pass, but surveyed Joan-myeon in detail, since that was the area they would have to move south through along the Bukhan River.

It covered a fairly large area, but Joan-myeon was mostly mountainous, with a very small permanent population.

However, because it bordered Paldang Lake and the Bukhan River, a lot of people had come there to enjoy the holiday and early summer vacation when the apocalypse broke out.

Tourists staying in the pensions, guesthouses, and motels built along the river had become zombies, and many of them still wandered the area.

“We’re going through there?”

Watching the riverside section of Joan-myeon, where zombies were moving in packs of dozens, Park Deokcheol asked with a tense expression.

Junho gave a short grin.

“If we’re going to Gwangju, of course we have to pass through it. But we’re not going by road or trail.”

“Then how?”

Junho jerked his chin toward the items they had unloaded from the cargo bed of the utility cart along with the relay and amplifier.

“We’re using those.”

Where he pointed sat two boxes a little larger than clothing storage bins and a long gray motor.

***

“Huff, huff, huff.”

Before coming to our shelter, Park Deokcheol had been an idol doing intense choreography. More recently, he had trained as one of the shelter’s combat personnel, raising his stamina and strength well above average.

Now he pumped steadily, breathing in and out in rhythm.

“That’s enough.”

“Huff...? Don’t we need to fill it all the way in one shot?”

Sweat dripping down his face, Park Deokcheol looked up from pumping air into the inflatable boat with a manual pump.

“No. It just needs to hold its shape for now. We can do the rest after we put the floor in.”

Junho spread the floorboard inside the half-inflated boat and slid the aluminum reinforcement bars into their grooves.

He had done this several times already since ordering the product, so it wasn’t difficult at all.

“Huff, huff, huff.”

Park Deokcheol resumed pumping.

Once the inflatable boat had taken shape, Junho carefully installed the air floor as well, twisted the valve caps shut, and checked for leaks with soapy water.

“All right. That’s done. Now then...”

Junho mounted the electric motor onto the inflatable boat’s transom.

At low speed, the motor had a range of around seventy kilometers and could run for up to twelve hours.

It was also extremely easy to attach and remove from an eight- to ten-person inflatable boat, making it perfect for this operation.

After attaching the motor and checking the shaft length, Junho ran it very lightly for a moment.

Then he shifted various pieces of equipment around—including the battery and other gear tightly wrapped in waterproof vinyl—until the balance was right.

Maybe because he had tested and practiced with it so many times at the reservoir in the safe zone, Junho was able to complete all of it slowly but reliably.

Still, he knew for a fact that if he hadn’t done so much experimenting and practice even before the apocalypse, he probably wouldn’t have been able to install even a single electric motor on an inflatable boat properly.

“Anybody who says anyone can just hop in a boat and cruise across the Han River is full of shit...”

Junho muttered under his breath without realizing it.

Watching him work with obvious fascination, Park Deokcheol nodded in full agreement.

“Exactly. Even driving a boat is hard as hell. So... should we load the gear now?”

“No. We’re resting here today and leaving at dawn tomorrow. We need more reconnaissance, and we need to recover our strength.”

They were not going to be moving through the apocalypse for just one or two days, but for at least a full week—through a world where zombies or looters could threaten their lives at any moment, anywhere.

So they could not afford to get impatient.

“Tomorrow we’ll install two more—one near Sambong-ri and one near Ungilsan Station. The day after that, we’ll install another at a good point on Paldang Lake.”

Once that work was done, they would be able to fly drones all the way to the entrance of the Gyeongan Stream, where it flowed from Paldang Lake toward Gwangju.

And that meant not only securing Junho and Park Deokcheol’s safety and survival—

but eventually making smooth communications possible between our shelter, the Gahyeon-ri community, Lee Seokjin’s unit, and Kangho Resort as one connected alliance.

***

After spending the night at the leisure sports dock, Junho and Park Deokcheol ate as breakfast the last packed meal Choi Haneul and Park Sunhee had carefully made for them before they left yesterday.

For the time being, they would have to live on combat rations and high-calorie emergency food, so the two men finished every last grain of rice, then gave the boat and all the equipment going on it one final inspection.

“All set.”

“You’re clear too, boss.”

After checking each other’s life vests, the two climbed into the inflatable boat floating beside the dock as the mist on the water slowly began to thin.

Vrrrr.

With a low electrical hum, the motor spun strongly and pushed the boat forward.

It was slow—only about five or six kilometers an hour—but the motor was so quiet that there was no way anyone on the riverbank could hear it.

“Put the camouflage tarp over us, and keep watch ahead.”

“Yes, sir.”

The mottled waterproof camouflage tarp had been further concealed with branches and brush.

The Bukhan River might be narrower than the Han, but it was still four to five hundred meters across, so even if someone on the bank looked this way, they would have trouble telling whether it was a boat or just a clump of brush floating downstream.

“......”

Junho sat low in the back of the boat, keeping his body down as much as possible while scanning front, back, left, and right with the safety off on his AR-15.

There was still some mist on the water, but visibility was clear enough out to around thirty meters, so steering the boat at this speed posed no problem at all.

About thirty minutes later, as they continued down the Bukhan River—

“B-boss. Th-that... look at that.”

Park Deokcheol stammered in a voice tight with tension.

Junho turned and narrowed his eyes slightly.

Just after they passed beneath a bridge, around a small island near the mouth of a stream flowing into the Bukhan River, hundreds of corpses were piled up.

Bloated from the water, with bone and skull exposed, the bodies looked horrifying enough to make someone sick even from a distance.

And on that tiny island, dozens of zombies were tearing into the few corpses that were still relatively intact.

The moment Junho saw the scene—which was no different from a vision of hell—memories of what he had seen and lived through before regression rose naturally to mind.

That was the real apocalypse world Junho knew.

Our shelter safe zone, the Gahyeon-ri community, and the few areas touched by Junho’s influence still had no idea that reality existed.

“......”

Staring coldly at the horrific scene unfolding on the small island, Junho raised his AR-15 toward it.

“B-boss?”

Without answering Park Deokcheol’s whisper, Junho aimed through the scope at the zombies.

And the moment he spotted the only one among the thirty-some zombies that actually had an expression on its face—

he accounted for the rise and drop caused by the motion of the boat moving forward over the water, then pulled the trigger.

Paang!

The subsonic round punched straight through the head of the Alpha nesting on the little island.

The creature collapsed backward, still wearing the satisfied smile it had been showing as it looked over its slave zombies.

“......!”

Park Deokcheol’s mouth dropped open at the sight of Junho successfully sniping an Alpha over two hundred meters away from a moving boat with a single shot.

“Keep watching ahead. If you spot anything like that, tell me immediately.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Nodding quickly, Park Deokcheol became even more alert, scanning the banks of the Bukhan River with greater care.

But even in all that tension, he felt relieved and reassured.

'Cherry. Please be alive. If I’m with Big Brother Junho, nothing will go wrong.'

***

Using the leisure sports dock as their base for two days, Junho and Park Deokcheol succeeded in installing three more relays by traveling up and down the Bukhan River in the inflatable boat.

One in the wooded hills of Sambong-ri in Joan-myeon.

One on the railway bridge carrying the Gyeongui-Jungang Line.

And the last one in an ecological park along Paldang Lake.

After finishing all of that work, the two spent the night camping at a suitable spot by the river in the ecological park.

Then, after scouting as far as the drones could fly, they finally entered the Gyeongan Stream leading toward Gwangju.

“From here on out, we need to be really careful.”

“Yes, sir.”

After hiding the boat at a suitable point in the Gyeongan Stream Wetland Ecological Park—the last place the drones had checked—the two men started walking down the riverside road lined with nothing but plastic greenhouses.

About two hours later, after following the Gyeongan Stream on foot—

Tatang...! Taang...!

The sound of gunfire from far away greeted them.

Knowing the shots were not aimed at them, both men still threw themselves into the water channel and took cover at the same time.

“Gunshot!? Boss!”

“I heard it too.”

Junho looked sharply in the direction the shots had come from.

Tatata...! Taang...! Tatang...!

The gunfire kept coming from the same direction. It was still quite far away, and several mountain ridges stood in the way—

but it was southeast.

The same direction where Kangho Resort, Junho’s final destination, was located.