Free Web NovelListening to the sound of something like a sick cat leaking through the slightly open door, Jeon Yohan, a director of the <Daeseong syndicate>, put a cigarette in his mouth.
After lighting it, he went to the kitchen, drew a glass of water from the purifier, and drank.
In Seoul, even a bottle of expired bottled water would probably be hard to find, but not here.
Here, in Golden Heights, there was water, food, infrastructure, and even healthy “medicine” and women.
It was an apocalypse paradise overflowing with everything.
And the one who ruled this paradise was Jeon Yohan, the right-hand man of the <Daeseong syndicate> chairman.
The door swung open.
“Huh? Di-Director Jeon? What’re you doin’ here...?”
An old man staggered out through the bedroom door and grinned foolishly when he saw Jeon Yohan.
The man’s mouth gleamed with drool, and the sagging belly spilling over the line of his briefs was hideous.
Jeon Yohan gestured to him expressionlessly.
“I’m just having a glass of water. Go back in and enjoy yourself some more, Chairman Yong.”
“Okaay, if our Director Jeon says so, then I should. But me, I’m curious about the other rooms too. Hehe.”
The man staggered across the living room like he was drunk and entered a room down the hallway.
Soon, the laughter of several men and women followed from inside.
Click.
The automatically closing door cut Jeon Yohan off from that place again.
“...I should start cleaning up those morons too.”
Jeon Yohan muttered as he blew out cigarette smoke.
Right now, on the top floor of this apartment building, a so-called “VIP party” was being held.
Since the world had turned into this, morality had been thrown away, and the party was hotter and filthier than it had ever been before.
And all the men there had once been influential figures in Guri and Namyangju, involved in nearly every part of Golden Heights’s land acquisition, zoning changes, architectural review, permits, and even supervision.
That was not all. After the world turned into this, with the positions and power they still had at the time, they had played a decisive role in helping Jeon Yohan and the <Daeseong syndicate> members settle here easily.
They had even privately mobilized civil servants, including police officers and firefighters.
In return, Jeon Yohan protected them and provided them with a lifestyle similar to the past, or far better than it.
“Just like right now....”
Jeon Yohan smirked as he looked at the liquor bottles and devices scattered messily across the living room table.
It had been perfect mutual benefit, but now they were useless.
They were nothing but old vermin wasting food and every other kind of resource.
The door swung open.
Just then, from the master bedroom whose door had deliberately been left slightly open, another old man came out with bloodshot eyes.
“What is it, Senior Superintendent?”
At Jeon Yohan’s question, the man smiled awkwardly and answered.
“Well... I think I used another one up.”
“Again? Hah. Seriously.”
Jeon Yohan sighed and entered the master bedroom.
“Senior Superintendent, how many times did I tell you to handle them carefully?”
Looking back and forth between the corpse of a woman who had been a fairly famous female streamer and social media influencer before the world ended and the senior superintendent, Jeon Yohan clicked his tongue.
“Sorry. I got a little excited. But there are still plenty of girls like this, aren’t there?”
“Even so. A lot of people were looking for this one... damn it.”
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll have our boys send the body to the culture center... huh?”
“What is it?”
When the man called Senior Superintendent narrowed his eyes slightly, Jeon Yohan tilted his head.
But soon, he realized the man was looking not at him, but outside the window.
Jeon Yohan turned his head.
“......!?”
Outside the soundproofed window, in the sky even higher than this twentieth floor, a thin beam of light was shooting upward.
For a moment, he doubted his eyes, but the light gradually grew brighter, and a few seconds later, a bright flash spread, letting green light seep all the way into the apartment.
“A signal flare...?”
He was muttering as he watched the ominous green light of the flare ripple as if it were alive.
Beep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep....
Someone hurriedly pressed the front door lock, then flung the door open and rushed in.
“D-Director! Vice Chairman!”
“What? Manager Baek, what’s going on?”
Seeing one of the direct executives of the <Daeseong syndicate> run inside without even taking off his shoes, Jeon Yohan asked urgently.
The executive, his face deathly pale, shouted.
“W-we’re under attack! I don’t know who they are, but bastards with guns came in through Rear Gate Three and they’re attacking us right now!”
“What!? How the fuck does that make any sense!?”
Since the place had perfect soundproofing, Jeon Yohan had not heard the gunfire, and he shouted.
“I-I don’t know!”
The executive was just as shaken as Jeon Yohan, who was yelling at him.
Golden Heights was a large complex, so other than the main gate, it had many passageways, but they had already closed all of them off, leaving only three actually usable entrances.
Even those three entrances were restricted for security. Normally, two were blocked off, and only one was used each week on rotation.
And now there were people who had found that entrance like ghosts and come in?
“Send all the boys! No, send the pigs first after giving them guns!”
“Yes, sir!”
“N-no, Director Jeon? I need to move my boys...”
The senior superintendent stepped forward.
Whack!
“Ugh!”
Jeon Yohan stared coldly at him after knocking him down with a punch and sending him sprawling across the living room floor.
“Senior Superintendent, just because I call you Senior Superintendent, you think you’re still a real cop? You vermin piece of shit.”
“Uuuh...?”
“Shut your mouth and hurry up and change. You crawl over there and at least pretend to command the pigs.”
***
Bang...! Ta-ta...! Bang...!
Listening to the continuing gunfire in the distance, Kim Sunwoo hurriedly changed clothes.
His face, covered in gauze and bandages, was still a mess of bruises.
Four days ago, after returning to Golden Heights with Sergeant Oh Yongmok, he had been beaten by the gangsters for the operation’s failure.
It had not been just any failure. They had lost nearly thirty people, and had lost every important piece of equipment, including guns and drones.
Of course, Kim Sunwoo had not been the one in command, but it was only natural that violence disguised as questioning and accountability would pour down on him and Oh Yongmok.
“Fucking gangster bastards... now you’re finished too.”
Lee Junho, who had seemed like he would arrive any moment, had given no news until now, burning Kim Sunwoo’s insides black with anxiety.
That was [N O V E L I G H T] over now.
“Mmm... Uncle?”
“U-Uncle. What is that sound? What’s happening?”
The blood left behind by his older brother and sister-in-law, who had died because of the infection outbreak.
Seeing his two nieces, proof that he was not alone in this hellish world, Kim Sunwoo hugged the two girls, now eight and ten years old, and said,
“It’s nothing. Uncle needs to go out for a bit, so Iseo, Jian, stay right here. After Uncle leaves, don’t open the door for anyone. Understand?”
“Mmm.”
“Uncle Sunwoo, I’m scared. Hng.”
Unlike the younger one, who was still half-asleep, his older niece, who was old enough to understand some things, burrowed into Kim Sunwoo’s arms while tearing up.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Uncle will be right back....”
Bang, bang!
- Kim Sunwoo! Hey, special-forces pig! Get your ass out here!
At the rough voice from outside the front door, the two nieces flinched and trembled.
Kim Sunwoo forced himself to separate the two children from him and said,
“Iseo, Jian. Remember exactly what Uncle said. Don’t open the door for anyone. Go to the master bedroom right now, lock the door, and hide under the blanket. I’ll be back soon. Promise.”
“Okay, okay. Hic!”
After hugging his nieces tightly one more time, Kim Sunwoo hurriedly opened the front door and went outside.
“Fuck, we’re dying from how urgent this is, you son of a bitch.”
“Hey, hurry up and run to the armory.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
When Kim Sunwoo pretended not to know after the gangsters cursed at him the moment they saw him, one of them grimaced and said,
“What’s going on? Fuck, can’t you hear it? Some bastards broke in and...”
“Why are you wasting time explaining? Just fucking go!”
As he moved with the two gangsters, Kim Sunwoo quietly slipped a hand into his pocket.
Feeling the vacuum-sealed plastic pack containing Lee Ujung’s finger, which had been in the freezer until just now, and the chopstick whose end he had sharpened carefully, he followed them with a cold face.
***
“I brought him! What about the others?”
“They’ll be here soon. Fuck, why the hell did this shit have to happen when I’m on guard duty? Goddamn it. Ptui!”
The gangster guarding the entrance to the complex library being used as an armory ground out his cigarette and spat.
Ta-tang...! Bang...! Ta-ta-tang...!
“Fuck, that’s intense.”
“Who the hell are they really? Isn’t this seriously bad?”
The guard and the four gangsters muttered anxiously while looking in the direction the gunfire was coming from.
At that moment.
Paaang....
A dull noise different from gunfire came from far away, and soon one side of the sky was brightly dyed green.
“What, what is that?”
“How would I know?”
The gangsters were startled, and so were Kim Sunwoo and the others who had come there to receive firearms.
But.
‘It really is Lee Junho!’
Kim Sunwoo immediately exchanged a quick glance with Oh Yongmok, who had arrived first.
Then he swiftly pulled the chopstick from his pocket and began stabbing the nearest gangster’s neck from behind like a madman.
Thuk! Thuk-thuk!
“Gghrk!”
It was smaller than an ordinary chopstick, the kind made for children, but it was more than enough to punch holes in a thin, fragile human neck.
“Huh? Kgh!”
The other gangsters turned at the same time in shock, but they could not deal with the ambush by Kim Sunwoo, an active-duty police tactical officer, and Oh Yongmok, a violent-crimes detective.
“Uhuuuh.”
“Krrk... kh.”
After glancing at the gangsters who had collapsed to the floor in an instant, blood gushing from them, Kim Sunwoo shouted at the men who did not know what to do.
“It’s the army! That’s a military signal flare! The army came to rescue us! Everyone, grab guns and let’s kill these gangster bastards! Sergeant!”
“Yes, sir!”
Oh Yongmok caught Lee Ujung’s finger after Kim Sunwoo threw it to him, then quickly opened the library door lock.
“Wh-what?”
“Is that true? The army really...”
“Let’s go! That really is a military signal flare! The gunfire is K2-series too! You’ve all done your military service, haven’t you?”
Kim Sunwoo raised his voice again.
Then the expressions of the men, most of whom had been here for a considerable time and knew what kind of person Kim Sunwoo was, changed in an instant.
“Fuck it, let’s do this!”
“Yeah. Let’s kill all those goddamn gangster bastards and save our families!”
The rage of men who were someone’s fathers, sons, brothers, younger brothers, and husbands boiled up like wildfire.
Kim Sunwoo entered the armory with them at speed.
The men grabbed whatever guns and magazines they could see at random.
But Kim Sunwoo scanned the armory with careful eyes, soon spotted one place, and ran over to it.
“Stingy bastards. If you had something like this, you should’ve given it to us sooner.”
The firearm Kim Sunwoo picked up with a deeply moved expression was an HK416, used by the Republic of Korea’s police tactical unit.
***
“Fire in bursts! Save ammo!”
At Lee Seokjin’s shout after they entered through Golden Heights’s rear gate, the soldiers calmed their excitement and continued controlled fire.
Crackle.
- We’ve completed rooftop occupation, Battalion Commander!
At the report from Lieutenant Jeong, who had led about twenty men into the predetermined apartment building, Lee Seokjin answered.
“Good! The K15s fire once the bastards are fully inside the kill zone!”
- Yes, sir! Understood!
Lee Seokjin had assigned four K15 light machine guns to the platoon that would occupy the rooftop with Lieutenant Jeong.
Golden Heights was a luxury apartment complex, so the distance between buildings was fairly wide, but it was still within the effective range of rifles. If the gangsters fired down at them from rooftops, they would be helplessly exposed.
So, to prepare for that and strike the enemies who would flood toward the rear gate, occupying the rooftop of the nearest building and pouring fire from there was the obvious choice. ƒrēewebnovel.com
‘Keep every operation as simple as possible....’
Complex military operations had a high chance of failure.
Especially in combat that unfolded in an environment like this, “timing”—each person carrying out the action assigned to them at the assigned time—was far more important than a delicate and detailed operational plan.
But if that were as easy as it sounded, there would be no failed military operations in the world.
Even so, Lee Seokjin was certain this operation would succeed. In particular, he was certain Lieutenant Jeong’s force could reach “the assigned rooftop at the assigned time” and complete preparations.
Because—
Tatata-tak!
Seeing the person running toward them at unbelievable speed while faintly blinking a flashlight, Lee Seokjin shouted,
“I received the radio message!”
“Yes! Manager Park Cheolwoo’s side has gone toward the main gate too! I’ll go check as well!”
“Yes! Mr. Lee Junho! Don’t get hurt!”
Junho, who had played the biggest role in helping Lieutenant Jeong’s force occupy the apartment rooftop in just over ten minutes, silently raised a hand once and then ran off.
In the sky roughly one hundred meters above his head, a drone monitored every situation with him at the center.
- Boss! There’s someone thirty meters ahead, around the corner of the walking path!
Park Deokcheol, who was not used to this kind of chaotic, large-scale battle and had taken on the role of operator, relayed the situation without pause.
“Roger.”
Junho drew his drawing knife.
A reddish killing intent glowed in his eyes.
It was time for slaughter again.
