Free Web Novel“B-Boss....”
“Hyunwoo, you got thinner. There was plenty of food at the house, so you should’ve eaten more.”
Junho lightly patted the shoulder of Choi Hyunwoo, who still looked dependable but had slimmed down slightly in a good way.
At Junho’s smiling face—which looked exactly the same as if they had parted only a few days ago—Hyunwoo suddenly felt all the strength drain out of him.
It really was Boss Junho.
The “real adult” he had admired since his immature younger days, the big brother figure in his heart.
Starting with the golden-rule notebook, he had survived until now because of everything Boss had prepared for him.
And today, that same Boss had even saved him.
Feeling his eyes suddenly grow hot, Choi Hyunwoo forced himself to smile.
“I ate well thanks to you too, Boss. Still, all the extra fat’s completely gone. But you look exactly the same... no, actually even better.”
“Really? Good, then.”
It was because his body had continued growing stronger and evolving as he killed Alphas, but Junho merely brushed it off vaguely and held out his hand.
“Let’s shake hands. Why the hell are you wiping your hand, you idiot? Did you lose your mind while we weren’t seeing each other? Just do it.”
“Y-Yes, sir.”
Hurriedly wiping his hand on his pants, Choi Hyunwoo soon grinned sheepishly and shook Junho’s hand.
“Junho.”
At the voice that suddenly spoke, Junho turned his head.
Kim Taeyoung—the MMA gym coach and one of the extremely few people who had left preparations behind for the apocalypse—was staring directly at him with his thick lips pressed tightly shut.
“Coach, it’s been a while. I’m really glad you look healthy.”
“......!”
At Junho’s attitude, unchanged from before the world had become like this, Kim Taeyoung’s shoulders flinched slightly.
But only for a moment.
For some reason, Kim Taeyoung’s face suddenly stiffened as if he were angry. He strode forward and immediately pulled Junho into a hug.
“Thank you. Seriously, thank you, Junho....”
Slightly startled, Junho soon grinned.
“There’s nothing to thank me for. It’s only natural.”
He wanted to spend more time enjoying the reunion, but the situation was still urgent, so Junho stepped away from Kim Taeyoung and looked around at everyone.
“I heard the rough details from Areum about how you all got back here. You’re the people who came from Jeju Island, right?”
“Ah, yes. That’s right.”
Representing the reservists standing there awkwardly, Shin Hocheol stepped forward.
“I’m Shin Hocheol. Like you probably already know, we’re attached to the Capital Region Recapture Unit. These guys are the same. As for our military specialties...”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Cutting him off immediately, Junho continued.
“Anyway, what exactly is your objective? Are you planning to follow the orders the government gave you when they sent you here? Or do you have your own plans?”
At the blunt question, Shin Hocheol and the reservists flinched.
But soon Shin Hocheol answered with a somewhat dark expression.
“What exactly can we even do on our own? We already forgot about the orders from those incompetent bastards sitting safely on Jeju Island. Surviving comes first. That’s why we were trying to head to Hyunwoo’s house.”
The objective of Shin Hocheol and the reservists was simple.
To head for the apartment in Jung-dong where Choi Hyunwoo’s family home was located, since his mother was alone there and there should supposedly still be overflowing supplies, including food.
Of course, they were not idiots naive enough to trust the words of someone they had just met.
But because they had personally seen and spent several days consuming the canned food, combat rations, and numerous supplies Choi Hyunwoo and Kim Taeyoung had brought from Junho’s house—
They had decided to trust Hyunwoo’s claim that there was enough food, daily necessities, and equipment there to last at least half a year and possibly more than a year.
And in the end, they had chosen to help him.
“I understand. So your top priority right now is stable survival first. Then afterward, you’ll decide whether or not to act according to orders as Republic of Korea soldiers.”
“Yeah, that’s roughly right. But why are you asking—”
“As you may already know, I’m the one who prepared the food and supplies Hyunwoo and Coach were carrying. Same goes for the things at Hyunwoo’s house.”
“Ah, yes.”
“As promised, once we rescue Hyunwoo’s mother, all of it will be handed over to you. But personally, I don’t think you’ll be able to stay there permanently. You know how many survivors and zombies are around that area, right? Besides, you’re already short on ammunition as it is.”
“Mmm....”
The reservists’ expressions immediately darkened, unable to answer.
Junho continued without pause.
“I have an idea. It aligns with your immediate objective and also fits your future plans to a certain extent.”
“R-Really?”
“Yes. But the explanation will probably take a while. So for now, how about moving according to my instructions?”
“...Fine. Nobody objects, right?”
“Yep.”
“Of course not.”
He was a man who had single-handedly wiped out hundreds of zombies on the subway tracks.
And that still wasn’t all.
He had entered the Bucheon Station underground shopping district alone and, within barely thirty minutes, completely “pacified” not only that place but even D-Mart itself.
“How exactly should we move?”
If they had only heard the story from someone else, they would have cursed them out for spewing bullshit.
But after seeing and experiencing it firsthand, the reservists nodded vigorously without hesitation.
*** ƒrēewebnovel.com
Leaving Kim Jimin and Han Areum behind on standby while only Yoon Seolhee joined them, Junho re-entered the Bucheon Station underground shopping district together with Choi Hyunwoo, Kim Taeyoung, and the reservists.
Then, after gathering Park Seeun, Kim Yukyung, and the survivors who had barely managed to stay alive, he ordered them to clean up and organize the underground shopping district.
The survivors, utterly terrified of Junho after he had wiped out not only the <MZ Family faction> but even the zombies themselves, obediently carried out the work using rechargeable flashlights and various tools from D-Mart.
Of course, a major reason for that obedience was the canned goods and preserved food from D-Mart that Junho offered as bait.
After working nonstop until dawn, they eventually gathered more than five hundred corpses.
Junho ordered all the bodies—zombies and raiders mixed together—to be moved into the subway train located between Bucheon Station and Sosa Station.
Then, after scattering flammable products and waste oil taken from D-Mart throughout the area—
He set the place on fire.
The zombies might gather after seeing the flames.
But Junho was certain they would not.
Most of the zombies in this region had been under the control of Alphas, and fortunately, two of the three Alphas Junho had killed were exactly those controllers.
And ordinary zombies could never leap over the massive stone walls four or five meters high combined with the tall soundproof barriers reinstalled above them.
Most importantly—
Even if the zombies did gather after seeing the fire, if they could not see human prey, they would eventually turn back within minutes anyway.
In any case, after finishing the cleanup of the Bucheon Station underground shopping district and D-Mart, Junho assembled the roughly twenty survivors.
“From now on, this place belongs to all of you.”
“......!?”
At the words of the terrifying man they had assumed would become their new “ruler,” the survivors’ eyes widened in shock.
“Do whatever you want here. Fight, argue, survive however you like. If you ration the food and water, you should last around half a year. But this isn’t free.”
“Ah....”
Turning his gaze toward the oldest-looking survivor, whose face had become filled with a figures that’s how it’d be expression, Junho spoke coldly.
“At the earliest, dawn the day after tomorrow. At the latest, within three or four days, we’ll pass through Bucheon Station again. At that time, all you have to do is avoid trying anything stupid. If even one person attempts to block the tracks or stab me in the back—”
Shrrng.
Drawing his machete and resting it on his shoulder, Junho slowly swept his chilling gaze across the survivors.
“All of you die.”
“...!!!”
The same words could carry completely different weight depending on who said them.
And because of that, the survivors—who had heard the <MZ Family faction> raiders constantly threaten to kill people—felt far greater terror from Junho’s single sentence and nodded frantically.
***
After resting thoroughly during the daytime and replenishing calories inside the rooftop parking lot of Bucheon Station D-Mart, Junho and the others departed Bucheon Station as soon as the sun set.
All electronic equipment, including drones and night-vision goggles, had finished charging.
Whiiiiiiing...!
Since they no longer needed to worry about noise on the rooftop of Bucheon Station itself, the group launched the drones and re-entered Line 1’s subway tracks.
“Ugh, the smell.”
“Fuck, I almost stepped on it.”
“Disgusting thug bastards. Couldn’t they at least bury their shit?”
Carefully walking across tracks littered everywhere with the raiders’ ten months’ worth of human waste like landmines on a battlefield, several people in the group cursed openly.
In a world collapsing into apocalypse, everything that had once been taken for granted during peaceful times became both scarce and problematic.
But from Junho’s experience as a regressor, alongside food and drinking water, the most severe issue had been dealing with bodily waste.
Because of exactly that, terrifying epidemics spread just as dangerously as zombies, killing a significant portion of urban survivors.
For reasons possibly related to the virus, zombie corpses themselves did not produce the kinds of bacteria that caused catastrophic disease.
But the bacteria originating from human corpses and excrement further devastated an already collapsing world, accelerating its march toward destruction.
There was a reason Junho had spent hundreds of millions of won solely on wastewater filtration systems while building the shelter and why one of the first things he focused on after pacifying Gahyeon-ri had been waste disposal.
“They were lazy bastards, so they probably only shit near the station area. Once we move a little farther, it should be fine.”
After passing through the section crawling with insects and swarms of rats, exactly as Junho said, the sea of excrement disappeared.
And then, far away in the darkness, an elevated overpass crossing the subway tracks came into view.
“Everyone stay quiet. No footsteps.”
Looking down through the drone camera, several dozen zombies stood atop the overpass.
Most likely slaves belonging to an Alpha controlling nearby territory.
But because it was already deep night, as long as nobody made noise, it was manageable.
Keeping their bodies lowered, the group quietly and slowly passed beneath the overpass.
“We’re moving faster from here.”
Jung-dong Station was nearly a kilometer away, but because the route was a straight line bordered on both sides by tall soundproof walls, the group increased their pace exactly as Junho instructed.
Thanks to the drone reconnaissance spotting dangers in advance, they were able to respond immediately, and within barely twenty minutes, the group came within roughly one hundred meters of the Jung-dong Station platform.
***
“We cross over here.”
Jung-dong Station had already become packed with zombies because of the elevated roadway passing nearby.
For that reason, instead of entering the station platform itself, Junho decided they would cross over to a building whose rooftop stood directly beside the track’s soundproof wall.
There were no zombie or human heat signatures detected in that area.
The method for crossing over was simple.
Junho would climb first onto one of the tall steel structures resembling transmission towers positioned periodically along the tracks.
Then, after jumping over the soundproof wall onto the rooftop, he would tie down a climbing rope at an appropriate point.
That was all.
Except for Kim Taeyoung, everyone in the group was already familiar with rappelling.
And even Kim Taeyoung—the only civilian exempt from military service—possessed top-tier athletic ability, so there was no problem.
“Everyone keep low and stay concealed.”
At Junho’s words, everyone flattened themselves tightly against the rooftop.
WHIIIIIIIIING...!
The drone whose battery still held roughly fifty percent power landed near the tracks they had just crossed over from, while another drone waiting there immediately launched upward at high speed.
“.......”
Junho, Yoon Seolhee, and Shin Hocheol all watched the drone-controller screen carefully.
There were soundproof walls, and the two drones had been landed and launched extremely quickly, but nearby zombies could still gather after hearing the sound.
Fortunately, no movement appeared from nearby buildings.
But because Junho understood the cunning nature of Alphas better than anyone, he patiently waited several more minutes.
“You bastard....”
Roughly sixty meters away from the building the group occupied, on the rooftop of a four-story villa along the same line—
An Alpha appeared alongside its slave zombies while surveying the tracks.
Even though it should barely have been able to see anything in the dark night, the Alpha boldly leaned its head over the railing as if intoxicated by its own power.
Tatataak...!
Junho’s precise double-tap punched straight through its temple, sending it tumbling down toward the tracks below.
The slave zombies on the rooftop immediately twisted in a grotesque dance beneath the moonlight before reverting into ordinary infected.
'Holy shit. This is insane.'
'Is he some kind of NIS agent? Or maybe a black-ops operative? This is actually crazy.'
Sure, they could accept him leaping across the subway tracks like a cat despite that huge, solid build.
But the meticulousness with which he completely understood the Alphas’ behavior and habits as though he had climbed inside their heads—
And his unbelievably precise shooting ability—
Filled Shin Hocheol and the reservists with renewed awe toward Junho.
And that still was not all.
“Everyone switch to Channel 3. Come up one at a time and take your supplies.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
After adjusting the top-tier radios and integrated headset-microphone systems Junho had distributed earlier, the reservists each received sixty rounds of priceless 5.56mm subsonic ammunition and loaded them into empty magazines.
“As I already explained, I’ll take point, and Manager Yoon Seolhee will cover the rear. As you all know, absolutely no preemptive firing unless I give the order.”
“Understood.”
“Distance to the objective: approximately one kilometer. We need to arrive within ten minutes. Everyone ready?”
Moving at that speed in full combat gear would never be easy.
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
Even so, the reservists answered confidently.
An “existence beyond standards” named Lee Junho was with them.
They had been equipped with top-tier gear and supplies. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
And above them, thermal-imaging cameras from cutting-edge drones worth tens of millions of won provided aerial reconnaissance support.
Which was why, despite entering the largest residential zone in Bucheon—a city with one of the highest population densities in Korea—
Shin Hocheol and the reservists felt not anxiety but a strange sense of anticipation and excitement.
Junho felt similarly.
Even if they were only connected through a deal, the presence of the reservists—men with survival instincts as strong as their sense of responsibility—felt dependable.
But today, the truly important person was not them.
Turning his head, Junho spoke quietly.
“Hyunwoo.”
“...Yes?”
Choi Hyunwoo, who had been nervously scanning the surroundings, flinched and looked at Junho.
“Let’s go. Time to save your mother.”
“...!!!”
The son who was about to see his mother again for the first time in ten entire months felt his eyes tremble briefly like ripples spreading across a silent lake.
Then he quickly sharpened his gaze and nodded firmly.
“Yes, Junho.”
