The Apocalypse Regressor's All-Purpose Shelter

Boom!!!

A combat-sports heavy bag weighing over a hundred kilograms exploded with a thunderous blast and went flying.

“Jesus Christ...!”

“What the....”

Junhyeok and Park Deokcheol both stared with their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open at the sight.

Beep.

A machine fitted with a camera and sensors let out a tone, and when Junhyeok hurriedly checked it, his eyes widened even more.

“Thirteen hundred kilograms of force? No way this is real.”

Junhyeok could not believe it.

He had already known that his older brother Junho’s physical abilities had long since reached the level of an elite athlete.

But he had never imagined that even his kicks could hit with the force of a heavyweight taekwondo champion.

And that was not even the end of it.

“What was his grip strength again?”

“It came out to one hundred twelve kilograms. Sixteen kilos higher than yesterday.”

That alone put him at the level of a professional strongman competitor.

On top of that, his punching power had clocked in at eight hundred kilograms of force on a straight, and his instantaneous speed was seventy kilometers per hour.

The numbers were so absurd they were on par with an active heavyweight world boxing champion or a UFC champion.

“How is this even possible?”

“No way. It makes no sense.”

The two of them looked back and forth between Junho, wiping the sweat off himself, and the tablet screen displaying his physical metrics, both wearing expressions of utter disbelief.

Considering Junho’s height and weight, these physical abilities were downright unreal.

No—if you separated them out one by one, maybe they were possible.

There certainly were people who could total over seven hundred kilograms across the big three lifts, and while rare, it was not as if no boxer or fighter existed who could punch as hard as Junho.

A heavyweight taekwondo athlete might conceivably generate that kind of kicking force too, and his grip strength was around the average level of a professional strongman competitor.

But for one person to be at the top—or champion level—across multiple sports?

That made no sense.

On top of that, Junho had run one hundred meters in 9.2 seconds while wearing Gore-Tex work clothes and outdoor shoes.

When the AI Akina converted that into a track-and-field scenario with proper sprinting gear on a real track, it came out to an absurd 8.6 to 8.8 seconds for the hundred meters—but only Junho and Akina knew that.

Anyway.

“So a guy who can run a hundred meters in the ten-second range can also run ten kilometers in the twenty-seven-minute range....”

“And on top of that, he can throw punches and kicks comparable to a UFC heavyweight champion.”

It was not just a stock phrase.

The expression fit literally: a human weapon.

“What are you two muttering about? Ah, I guess that thing has to go. Have Jo Yuna use the outer shell to make armor or something.”

“Huh? Ah, okay, I’ll tell her. B-But, hyung...?”

“Yeah?”

Looking at Junho, white steam rising off him from working out outdoors, Junhyeok swallowed dryly and spoke.

“About you. If you wore knuckles and combat boots with spikes on them... couldn’t you kill zombies barehanded too?”

“What? No way....”

“No, seriously. I think you probably could. You used to say that when we watched UFC. That if a heavyweight world boxing champ or UFC champ really meant it and threw a punch or kick at an ordinary person, that person would just die. Especially if it landed on the face or temple—you said a skull fracture would be guaranteed, and the brain tissue would be damaged too.”

“...I did.”

“See? Then couldn’t you do it too?”

“Hm....”

Other than firearms, the best way to put down zombies for sure was stabbing them with an awl or a knife.

Since he had never even considered fighting zombies barehanded, Junho only tilted his head and stayed silent.

“Uh... what if we asked the AI?”

At Park Deokcheol’s voice, the brothers looked at him, then exchanged glances.

And then—

“Youngsu hyung, could you ask Akina what would happen if my brother fought zombies barehanded based on the results of his physical tests? Ah, assuming he’s wearing knuckle gloves on his hands and combat boots with metal studs on them.”

“Huh? What the hell is that? This is gonna be hilarious. Hold on. Drumroll, please....”

Yoon Youngsu’s cheerful voice rang out, and a moment later—

To the oddly expectant-looking Junhyeok and Park Deokcheol, Akina’s electronic voice spoke.

“Based on Master Lee Junho’s physical-performance results, I will explain what happens when Master Lee Junho attacks Subject B while wearing knuckle gloves and combat boots fitted with metal.”

“If a straight or hook lands on Subject B’s face or temple, there is a 95 percent probability of eyeball rupture and fractures of the cheekbone and skull, with bone fragments piercing the brain.”

“If a kick with rotational force added lands on Subject B’s head, there is a 99 percent probability of the skull being penetrated, exposing brain tissue, or the cervical vertebrae being completely destroyed.”

“In both cases, brain function ceases completely, resulting in instant death.”

“Whoaaa!”

“Holy crap!”

Junhyeok and Park Deokcheol lost their minds.

Even Junho himself was fairly surprised.

But after thinking for a moment, he spoke into the headset again.

“How long am I estimated to be able to keep fighting if I’m wearing the shelter combat suit? Assume both winter and summer conditions. Also assume I’m armed with a ballistic vest, a machete, and a dagger.”

The shelter combat suit, which had reinforced-plastic armor attached over each part of the body, showed excellent defensive performance not only against zombies,

but even against people wielding blades if it was worn together with a ballistic vest or stab-resistant vest.

A moment later—

“Based on the data, in winter conditions, without any water or energy replenishment, 80 to 100 minutes. With water and energy replenishment, continuous anti-human and anti-zombie combat can be maintained for 140 to 160 minutes.”

“In summer conditions with an average temperature above 20 degrees Celsius, that is expected to be shortened by roughly 20 minutes compared to winter.”

“Jesus Christ....”

Junhyeok, who had learned combat sports with his brother, gaped.

One round of boxing was three minutes, and MMA rounds were five.

It took a professional boxer or pro fighter just {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} to keep moving on their feet and throwing punches past fifteen or twenty minutes.

As for ordinary people, even average amateur fighters lost strength in their legs and slowed down noticeably by the third or fourth round.

There was a reason amateur boxing matches were three rounds of three minutes.

And yet Junho could apparently go from a minimum of one hour to more than two.

Most people would be gasping for breath even if you only told them to jog lightly for that long, but Junho was being told he could keep fighting.

“W-Wait a second. Then even if Junho hyung only puts down exactly ten guys per minute... One hour for six hundred!?” freewebnoveℓ.com

Why he was counting on his fingers for such simple math was anybody’s guess, but Park Deokcheol was standing there with his mouth hanging open too.

As the two of them stared at him like they were looking at some kind of monster, Junho let out a snort and shrugged.

“I was just curious, that’s all. It’s not like I’m actually going to go around beating zombies to death barehanded. How am I supposed to pop only their heads one by one, and if I actually got surrounded by hundreds of them or knocked down and pinned, I’d just die.”

“......”

“......”

But Junhyeok and Park Deokcheol did not agree with him.

Then, as if by prior arrangement, their eyes slowly shifted toward the heavy bag Junho had just blown apart.

Even if zombies did not take a hit directly to the head, would they really come through kicks and punches like that unharmed?

If it were a person, bones would break or internal organs would rupture and they would go flying. Zombies probably would not be any different.

“Hyung... honestly, you probably wouldn’t even have to crack their skulls. Feels like you could just smash their mouths in. If all their teeth are gone, they can’t bite, right?”

“......”

Junho was left speechless by that, in its own way, astonishingly inventive zombie-suppression method.

***

December 29, 2024, 07:20, Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province.

“Hup...! Hah...! Hup...! Hah...!”

Han Areum kept breathing in a rhythm of dragging as much oxygen in through her nose as possible and then forcefully blowing it back out.

‘210, 215, 220....’

Roughly gauging the distance she had run in her head, Han Areum raised the upper body she had been bent almost double by about fifteen degrees and consciously tried to lower her shoulders, which had crept up.

At the same time, she relaxed the tension packed into her arms and shifted into a rhythmic swing.

Grrrraaaah...!

The chilling roars of the zombies were still coming from behind them,

but Han Areum, showing superhuman patience, did not look back and kept running while watching only the direction she was heading.

And that was not only for her own survival.

“Huk! Huhk! Huk...!”

Listening to the ragged breathing of the two men a few meters behind her—both of them just as fast as she was, a former track athlete through high school, and both running for their lives—

“Left turn up ahead!”

She had to be the one in front, spotting threats first and acting as a human navigation system.

Tatatatatatatat!

Even in the vicious cold, all three of them had come out wearing nothing but bike suits plated over with reinforced plastic, specifically for moments like this.

Moving in a line, they peeled off to the left side of the road at a speed of about twenty-seven kilometers per hour.

“Hup! Safe concealment point spotted!”

At Han Areum’s shout, Choi Hyunwoo and Kim Taeyoung, who had been running in a panic, caught sight of a wall marked with blue tape.

Tatata... leap! Thud!

After running another ten meters or so, the three of them almost simultaneously vaulted over a parking-lot wall that had originally been about a meter high but now had various obstacles piled on top of it.

“Haa... haa... haa....”

Then, as if they had rehearsed it, the three of them lay flat on the ground looking up at the sky and spent about ten seconds catching their breath.

Grrrraaah...! Gyaaaah...!

Once the zombies’ shrieks came close enough, they stopped breathing.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!!

Only a few seconds later, the sound of hundreds of feet running at once exploded from the direction they had just come from.

Judging by the noise, the ones in front and the middle had turned into the alley where the three of them had run and hidden,

but the zombies farther back clearly had not peeled into the alley and had kept running down the road.

And that meant only one thing.

‘An Alpha...!’

‘Fuck. Knew it—an Alpha.’

Lying flat, the three of them turned only their heads and exchanged looks.

Over the past few months, the three of them had been chased and forced to run for their lives several times by zombies under an Alpha’s control.

The situations had all been different.

One time they had gone out at night, accidentally made a noise, and an Alpha in a nearby building had come charging out with its “pine-grove NOBIs.”

Another time, not realizing a building’s windows were heavily tinted one-way glass, they had simply passed by it, only for the Alpha and zombies inside that had been watching them to come bursting out, sending them into a panicked retreat.

And every time, after escaping alive like the athletes they were, all three of them had always thought the same thing.