Free Web NovelMaybe because the apartment complex had been built not far from the Han River, the wind was cold.
That cold air calmly cooled his lungs, which had warmed up just enough from running up and down the stairs of a twenty-story apartment building.
If someone else heard that, they might tell him to stop spouting bullshit and ask what part of running up and down twenty floors was “just enough.”
But it was neither a joke nor bullshit. Junho was in the perfect state right now.
All the more so because he had quickly eaten a 1,200-kilocalorie energy bar on his way down the stairs.
- Boss, there are a lot of people near you! Twenty yards ahead? No, twenty meters ahead!
- Left side! Nine o’clock! Someone’s coming out! Four guys, they’re holding something!
Park Deokcheol’s radio reports, far more tense and excited than when Junho had sniped the gangsters before, were full of English mixed in at random.
Back then, their numbers had been relatively small, Junho had already dealt with some of them, and it had been daytime, when he had every situation under control as clearly as if it were in the palm of his hand.
Now, it was nighttime, with hundreds of people moving chaotically all over the place.
On top of that, Deokcheol had to look through the drone’s thermal-imaging camera, so it would be less intuitive and look even more chaotic.
“Deokcheol, raise the drone to three hundred meters and send it toward Manager Park Cheolwoo.”
Since it felt more like a hindrance, Junho said that.
- What? Boss, that’s...
“Do as I say. Monitor and report to Manager Park Cheolwoo with his side as the center. They’ll need it more than I do. Got it?”
- ...Yes, sir.
“Good. The gangsters will probably launch drones too, so you shoot those down.”
- Understood!
With Park Deokcheol’s answer, slightly regretful but still spirited, as the last thing in his ear, Junho sharpened all six senses, including his sight and hearing, and ran.
He could see people coming out and running around everywhere.
The people living like slaves here would be locked in their residences, so most of those running around were probably gangsters or collaborators.
Where is it!? Where do we go? Is it the rear gate!?
It’s us! It’s us!
Fuck! So which building is it!?
Streetlights were on here and there, but the complex was extremely dark overall.
Junho could see the others, but they could not see Junho.
“It’s here!”
“Fuck, turn on a flashlight! It’s too dark to see!”
As Junho moved while choosing the darkness, several men suddenly appeared about ten meters ahead of him.
Junho drew his drawing knives in an instant and threw them at them.
Thud! Thud-thud!
The daggers, carrying superhuman strength, flew silently and lodged in their foreheads, necks, and lower abdomens.
“Augh!”
Unlike the others, who had died instantly or were slowly dying, the gangster with a knife buried in his stomach fell on his ass. Junho ran over and seized him by the collar.
“Kgh!”
“Where’s Director Jeon?”
“Khk!?”
Junho covered the man’s mouth and drove the drawing knife buried in his abdomen even deeper.
“Hrrrmmph...!!!”
At the hideous pain, the man’s eyes rolled back, and he tried to thrash.
But he could not overcome Junho’s grip, so his body only jerked a few times.
“I asked which building that bastard Jeon Yohan and the other higher-ups are in.”
“Mmph! Khmph!”
Then the man, tears streaming down his face, kept glancing in one direction.
Only then did Junho loosen the hand covering his mouth.
“Building 501... the penthouse there...”
Crack!
Junho struck the man’s jaw, making sure he would never be able to chew anything properly again, then moved toward Building 501.
The interior geography of Golden Heights had already been perfectly entered into his head through drone reconnaissance.
So Junho ran along the walking path built like a park inside the complex, without the slightest delay, as if he were a resident who had lived here.
That was when—
“Hurry, hurry! Run to the armory!”
“Wasn’t that place already cleaned out?”
“Idiot, do you know how many guns are in there? No way they took all of them. Just go!”
A group of men came rushing along the walking path and soon ran into Junho.
“Ah, fuck, you scared me!”
“What, what the hell?”
The men, armed with knives, baseball bats, steel pipes, and the like, flinched violently when they saw Junho.
But when they saw his outfit, completely different from theirs, they realized he was one of the enemies attacking Golden Heights.
“It’s a soldier!”
“You fucking soldier bastard!”
The gangster at the front, holding a steel pipe, had taken only two or three steps when he collapsed sideways.
“B-Boss...?”
The men behind him had no time to realize why he had suddenly fallen.
Thud-thud-thud!
Drawing knives loaded with strength on the level of a large feline predator or a gorilla flew at a speed that was almost impossible to see and struck the gangsters in the head or heart.
And they did not merely lodge in them.
They smashed and destroyed them.
“......!!!”
When the men in front died and toppled without even screaming, the gangsters behind them were horrified.
And they did not know that that brief instant had been the last chance to flee they would ever be given.
Junho threw drawing knives in succession and, at the same time, ran at terrifying speed, closing a distance of over ten meters in barely one second.
Swish, swish!
The machete and commando knife drew invisible lines.
He had never formally learned swordsmanship, but his strength and speed beyond human limits overwhelmed everything.
Thud-thud-thud!
Human arms, legs, and heads were sliced off and fell like soft tofu.
“Aaaagh! Aaaagh!”
“Kyaaa! Ghk—”
After splitting the head of a gangster who screamed like a woman, Junho—
“R-run away!”
“Fuuuck!”
—surged toward the men who had only just grasped the situation and turned to flee.
***
Ta-tang!
After shooting down the last gangster guarding the main gate with his K2C1, Park Cheolwoo turned back and shouted,
“Everyone, take positions! Assistant Manager Oh and Youngsik, follow me!”
“Yes, sir!”
The combat team quickly climbed onto the guard post built at the apartment complex’s main gate.
Some of them followed Park Cheolwoo into the management office.
Like most complexes, Golden Heights also had a management office near the main gate. As expected of a luxury apartment, the equipment was modern and the scale was large.
But Park Cheolwoo had already obtained internal information about the management office from Kim Sunwoo and the former and current police officers and memorized it thoroughly, so he headed for the central control center without hesitation.
The people there were not gangsters, but the apartment security guards who had originally worked there, so they greeted Park Cheolwoo with both hands raised high.
“D-don’t shoot! We’re just security guards!”
“P-please spare us!”
“Restrain them.”
At Park Cheolwoo’s glance, two staff members quickly bound the guards’ arms and legs with zip ties.
Park Cheolwoo brought over the one who looked oldest among them and said,
“Do you manage the apartment complex’s power from here too?”
“What? Ah, the, the electrical room is separate...”
“I heard you can turn the lights on and off from here, so stop with the bullshit.”
“We can, we can!”
The head security guard, dressed almost like a police officer in a uniform with green shoulder straps and even a rank insignia resembling a rose of Sharon, hurriedly nodded.
“Cut power to the building where the gangster bosses and those chairman types are staying. Try anything funny and you die.”
“Yes, yes.”
Between Park Cheolwoo’s brutal expression, his unique pressure, and above all the fear created by the live-round-loaded rifle, the head guard operated the panel with trembling hands.
“I-it’s done. I cut all power to Building 501.”
“Good job. Go rest over there.”
After sending the head guard back to where the other security guards were, Park Cheolwoo examined the dozens of CCTV screens.
More than thirty monitors showed the situation across Golden Heights in real time.
But Park Cheolwoo’s gaze fixed on four monitors showing the area in front of the main gate and near the management office.
Gangsters who did not even know what tactical action was, who had merely threatened weak civilians or rural villagers with guns and shot them dead, were not opponents.
Every one of the men they had /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ encountered on the way here had been like that. No matter how much they had been caught by surprise, the response from the <Daeseong syndicate> gangsters had been pathetic.
The reason Yoon Seolhee and the staff had struggled somewhat in the mountains before was that they had been using unfamiliar guns and lacked firepower.
But now, the combat team was armed with stronger firearms, and a Republic of Korea Army combat unit with overwhelming firepower was moving under a proper operation and under the control of a field-grade commander.
Most of all, on this side, they had a “monster” with them, one Park Cheolwoo could no longer quite regard as the same kind of human being.
And that monster was not a zombie that ate people, but a reliable ally who possessed reason and actively cooperated with them.
“Now then... show me your skills one more time, Mr. Lee Junho.”
The nearest other apartment complex was more than eight hundred meters away.
Still, while focusing mainly on the main-gate CCTV out of concern that zombies might gather after hearing the gunshots, Park Cheolwoo kept glancing at the Building 501 monitor again and again.
***
“Hoo, hoo....”
After running up the emergency stairs to the twentieth floor of Building 501, Junho briefly caught his breath.
For an ordinary person, even an athlete, after running for more than ten minutes, it would have taken several minutes for their breathing to stabilize, but Junho needed only about one minute.
Whirrr.
Junho opened the emergency exit door slightly and flew a mini-drone out to check the hallway. freewēbnoveℓ.com
The twentieth floor was occupied by duplex penthouses, with only two households taking up the wide entire floor.
Once there was nothing unusual in the hallway, Junho drew the Glock 17 he had not used even once today, aimed above the hallway, and pulled the trigger.
Tak! Tak!
Two bullets silenced the CCTV cameras monitoring the hallway for the two homes.
Only then did Junho open the emergency exit door and step outside, pressing his ear close to each of the two front doors to listen.
But the soundproofing must have been excellent, because he heard nothing.
‘Would it work?’
Junho thought that with his current strength, he could probably break an apartment front door.
But he soon shook his head. Just in case, he opened the door-lock cover and entered the passcode.
Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep... click!
“Simple bastards.”
He had tried it just in case, and the penthouse code also began with “69,” the same as the armory passcode he had obtained from Lee Ujung.
Junho flew the mini-drone into the lightless interior, keeping it moving so close to the ceiling it almost touched.
As expected of a penthouse, the ceiling was fairly high, so there was no risk of the drone being discovered.
“...Found you. Hiding like rats.”
Junho discovered the men hiding under the island table in the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom of the penthouse, whose layout bent in a long L-shape from the entrance.
Three of them were holding pistols or rifles. Junho carefully examined those few younger men among the mostly unarmed old men in their sixties or older.
And when he saw a man among them with an extremely smooth face, a good build, and even a ballistic vest over a white shirt, Junho murmured softly,
“It’s you, isn’t it? The one they call Director Jeon...”
Killing intent flickered in Junho’s eyes as he looked at Director Jeon, Jeon Yohan, the vice chairman and practical boss of the <Daeseong syndicate>.
Junho moved the mini-drone and settled it on the stationary living-room ceiling fan so it could see both the living room and kitchen at once.
Then, without delay, he opened the front door and quickly passed through the hallway.
Junho did not care about the sound of his footsteps. He simply walked forward, step by step.
As his footsteps grew louder, the men taking crossfire positions in the living room and kitchen with pistols and rifles slightly extended their muzzles and faces, aiming down the hallway.
At that moment, Junho checked the controller screen and stopped walking just before they had a firing angle.
Then he tossed the flashbangs in both hands toward the kitchen and living room, pressed hard over his headset-covered ears, and jerked his head away.
Kwa-bang! ƒreewebɳovel.com
The sharp impact sound tearing at the eardrums and the pressure wave that followed turned the penthouse into a wreck in an instant.
“Aaagh!”
“Kgh! Uuugh!”
Into the men who had lost both sight and hearing from the shock delivered by a powerful flash of over roughly six million candelas and a 170-decibel roar—
Junho charged, holding a machete smeared thick with blood and pieces of flesh and a Glock 17 whose barrel had not yet cooled.
