Free Web NovelFor the first time in almost a month, Junho visited Gahyeon Elementary School after staying out of the Gahyeon-ri community’s affairs.
At news of his visit, Song Gijun, former village head Kim Seokhwan, and old man Go Jeongnam gathered in the principal’s office.
“How’s Edutown?”
He already had a rough idea of the situation from the PTZ camera feeds, but Junho asked Song Gijun directly.
“They’ve started turning on each other. Park Ilho’s family and the families of the people who wanted to attack our apartment complex keep clashing with the other residents. So...”
Just as expected, the Edutown survivors who had been crammed into Building 8 had started fighting among themselves.
It was not as if they were killing each other, of course. It was still at the level of fistfights. But the resentment between them ran so deep that, if left alone, it would not have been surprising if it eventually turned into murder.
“...What do you think we should do?”
After explaining the situation, Song Gijun looked to Junho.
At this point, he was treating Junho completely as the highest authority in the Gahyeon-ri community, and the others were no different.
Junho shrugged.
“Why are you asking me?”
“...What?”
“You handle it yourself, Mr. Song. Or talk it over with the village head here and with the elder.”
But Junho stuck to his principle of not involving himself in Gahyeon-ri’s day-to-day affairs unless it was something truly important.
“That was the agreement, wasn’t it? I’ve never even been class president once in my life. The three of you can figure it out.”
“...Understood. That is the right way to do it, yes. Sorry.”
He had not meant anything by it, but the situation had accidentally ended up sounding like he had been testing Junho a little, and Song Gijun apologized awkwardly.
“There haven’t been any problems in Middle Hamlet or at the nursing home either, right?”
He already knew the general mood there too from drone and PTZ camera scouting, but Junho asked as if he did not.
What he wanted was to hear directly from the people actually leading things.
“None at all. We’re doing fine too. Everyone’s working their asses off. Oh, right—we finished putting up all the greenhouses on the soccer field too. We’ve installed solar panels on the stands, and we pulled water in from the valley.”
“As soon as the weather warms up, we need to start the rice farming right away. The old folks on our side are practically itching to get into the fields.”
Go Jeongnam chimed in after Kim Seokhwan spoke.
But then the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) two old men’s expressions darkened a little.
“That said, I don’t know if we can make it through this summer. We’ve been going out hunting almost every day, but there are just so many mouths to feed...”
“Rice is the problem. Rice. If we want to last until harvest season, we’ll probably have to eat one meal of rice a day and make do with potatoes and sweet potatoes for the rest.”
At their words, Junho stepped in.
“That’s actually why I came.”
“Hm?”
“You can go to the Yeongho 2-ri National Agricultural Cooperative warehouse now.”
“What? Ah, right! I heard soldiers showed up over there. What happened? Did they maybe...?”
“Yes. The soldiers wiped out all the zombies in Yeongho 2-ri. Only about fifteen of them stayed behind there. The rest...”
Junho gave them a rough summary of what had happened yesterday, and the three men’s eyes widened.
“...So you can head to Yeongho 2-ri right now. Let’s bring back about forty tons.”
“Th-that much...?”
“Even forty tons would only last three or four months if the community is eating two meals a day.”
When Junho said that, old man Go Jeongnam shook his head and cut in.
“No, no. If we mix in beans and mixed grains, that doubles it. Forty tons will get us through the rest of the year. Besides, eating that way is healthier too.”
“He’s right. In the meantime, we can grow rice in the greenhouses and farm the paddies over there in Hadong too.”
The two old men brightened instantly, and Song Gijun, watching that with satisfaction, turned to Junho.
“Then should I get people ready right now?”
“Go ahead. Around twenty men should do it.”
“Yes.”
With the food problem solved just like that, Song Gijun rose from his seat and strode out energetically.
***
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“Easy, easy... perfect.”
A small electric forklift was moving sacks of public reserve rice without pause.
“Oh really? So the 8th Division isn’t in Pocheon anymore?”
“Oh, not for a long time, sir. It’s been over five years since they moved to Yangju.”
“Now, as for how you use this...”
“Yes, yes. Ah, right, got it.”
Meanwhile, men in their thirties and forties chatted with the young soldiers while threshing and repackaging rice, or showing them how to use various pieces of equipment.
“......”
Staff Sergeant Park Minyong stared at the scene with a dumbfounded look on his face.
He could hardly believe this was the same place where, just yesterday, they had fought a desperate battle against zombies.
It was even hard to believe those soldiers over there—the ones who had failed to adapt to that fight and chosen to fall behind—were really the same men from yesterday.
As he stood there, Junho walked over and spoke to him.
“The kids are sharp. They work hard too. People talk all this nonsense about the MZ generation, but frontline soldiers are different after all.”
“...You’re MZ too, if we’re being technical.”
“Yeah, fair point.”
The way Junho, who had only just turned thirty himself, talked like an old man made Staff Sergeant Park snort.
“By the way, these people came from Gahyeon-ri, right? Must be close to here.”
“Normally, yes. About twenty minutes by car. Right now it takes longer than that, though.”
“Still, you said a lot of people survived there?”
“Yes. A little over three thousand. It used to be a town of around nine thousand.”
“Jesus...”
Staff Sergeant Park was genuinely shocked.
“In the garrison area where we were stationed, not even a quarter of that made it.”
“You mean Ildong-myeon, right? That makes sense. It’s a pretty built-up area. Most of the residents live packed together near the bus terminal, don’t they?”
“That’s right.”
“Places like that usually got hit hard. Down below here, Moku-ri was the same. The area around the train station lost a lot of people. There are still so many zombies there that we can’t even think about going in. Gahyeon-ri just got lucky.”
“I see.”
Staff Sergeant Park slowly nodded as he watched the men from the Gahyeon-ri community bustle around with the soldiers, carrying rice and handling various jobs.
Then he looked at Junho again with a newly curious expression.
“But Mr. Lee Junho, what exactly are you?”
“Me? Just an ordinary local survivor.”
Junho shrugged.
Staff Sergeant Park could only stare in disbelief.
If Junho was ordinary, then what the hell did that make the rest of them?
More than anything, Park Minyong still could not understand what he was seeing.
When Junho came back after guiding Major Lee Seokjin’s force yesterday and said he wanted to take some rice, Park had figured maybe three or four people would show up to help.
Instead, more than twenty men had come rumbling in on several trucks, and they were even using an electric forklift to work.
And that was not all.
“But are you really sure it’s okay to give us the solar panels? Shouldn’t your side be using them?”
One of the most important things for people to live like human beings was electricity.
And in a world like this, solar power facilities were practically the only way survivors had to get it.
But Junho had offered to just hand the soldiers dozens of solar panels, batteries, and related power-generation equipment.
“Of course. Both I and Gahyeon-ri have more than enough solar equipment. Just use them.”
The solar panels and gear Junho had given them were things he had stripped out of Gahyeon-ri earlier and stored at the shelter.
Baek Hail had said they would find a use for them if they held onto them, and he had been right. They were turning out to be very useful.
Besides, he had only given the soldiers at the agricultural cooperative warehouse twenty panels, and there were still more than a hundred taken from Gahyeon-ri left at the shelter.
“And the generator and fuel, fine, maybe. But those emergency meds too? You said you have a lot of people over there. Won’t you run short?”
“Don’t worry about it. We looted enough pharmacies.”
The same went for basic medicine, including the emergency drugs. Most of it either expired this year anyway or had been made at the shelter by Baek Sua, so Junho did not begrudge any of it.
Still clicking his tongue in disbelief, Staff Sergeant Park’s gaze drifted to several soldiers struggling along while hauling supplies.
“But where the hell did those kids get glasses?”
“Optical shops are everywhere.”
The soldiers who had broken or lost their glasses in the chaos were now wearing replacement glasses that did not perfectly match their old prescriptions, but were still far better than going without.
And naturally, they had actually been made using the lenses and equipment stored at our shelter, but there was no reason to tell the truth.
“Anyway, this should be enough for you and the boys here to survive. Ah, I’ll bring you underwear, tracksuits, sneakers, things like that tomorrow too. You need daily necessities too, right?”
“Well, yes, but...”
“If there’s anything you need, let me know. I’ll help however I can.”
Junho gave the still-stunned Staff Sergeant Park a generous smile.
And for good reason.
“You gave us guns and ammo. This much is nothing.”
With Major Lee Seokjin’s permission, Junho had gotten two spare K2C1 rifles, three hundred rounds of 5.56 ball ammunition, and a hundred rounds of 9mm Parabellum for them.
In other words, these men had run into Junho and gotten a two-for-one benefit.
But Junho, on the other hand, had not only planted a friendly force in Yeongho 2-ri and secured a huge amount of rice, he had also sent those men a potential armed group that might wipe out the Daeseong syndicate for him—and on top of that, he had acquired guns and ammunition too.
“I don’t know how long it’ll last, but let’s survive well together, Staff Sergeant.”
So lately, Junho had no choice but to feel more satisfied than ever.
***
All the work, including the shelter’s reorganization and detailed maintenance, was finished.
The Gahyeon-ri community had entered a stable phase.
Now they were fully focused on preparing for farming, while also sealing off routes where people or zombies could come in from outside, one by one, or setting up obstacles along them.
Peach Valley’s situation had improved a great deal too compared to before, and the Moku-ri survivors were also working hard, taking this and that support from Junho while scouting the surrounding area and identifying other survivors.
Of course, progress over there was slow, since there were just so many zombies and it was so dangerous.
But even just identifying survivor groups there and locating the Alphas was enough, so Junho kept in regular contact with the Welcome Karaoke Bar group and gave them the support they needed.
And in the meantime, Baek Suho and Park Deokcheol had finished their training as fighters.
They were still somewhat lacking compared to Junho, and even compared to Junhyeok, but even so, they were more than good enough to be called top tier among apocalypse survivors.
So at last, Junho was able to make up his mind.
“Brother, I think I need to head down along the Bukhan River now.”
“Jesus...”
Baek Hail let out a long sigh.
For the first time since the shelter had been built and the apocalypse had begun, Junho was about to leave the shelter and set out on an open-ended journey that might take days.
“If I’m going, I think I need to cross the river and push as far as Gwangju too.”
“Do you really have to go, Hoya? Can’t we just stay here and live among ourselves?”
As the owner of the shelter—and more or less its guardian spirit—Baek Hail’s reaction was only natural. He could not help worrying about Junho’s absence.
But Junho shook his head.
“If that were enough, I never would’ve gone out to Gahyeon-ri or Moku-ri in the first place. I never would’ve contacted the military either. We could just hide and live among ourselves. But listen, Brother. If we do that, we last a few years at best.”
Before regression, Junho had struggled through the apocalypse for less than three years before ultimately choosing death.
What he had seen in that time was a savage battlefield where countless groups sometimes cooperated and sometimes fought with their lives on the line.
The ones who lived only thinking about today and tomorrow died off so pointlessly that it made yesterday, when they had still been safe, feel like a lie. They were devoured by zombies or crushed by other groups.
And Junho did not want that path for our shelter. Not ever.
“I have to go to Gwangju and meet Baekho. Around now, things should be starting to get dangerous for him. I need to help him and make sure he becomes a friendly force.”
And there was one more thing Junho had not yet told Baek Hail.
If Major Lee Seokjin’s unit wiped out the Daeseong syndicate—or at least inflicted serious enough damage on it—
“Then later, whether it’s a large-scale looter group or hundreds of soldiers... no matter who comes, we’ll be able to stand against them.”
