Chapter 229: I Want to Shoot It. I Really Want to Shoot It
Humans are beings that learn and develop.
And if they wanted to live through this kind of global apocalypse, they had to be even more so.
If they settled down just because they were safe for the moment, just because they had enough to eat and live, their survival would be threatened before long.
Before his regression, Junho had seen cases like that more than once.
Food and fuel abundant enough to last one or two years.
A stable residence, with a certain degree of self-sufficiency possible.
A survivor group with a suitable number of members, and with each individual’s talents and abilities not concentrated too heavily in one direction, but instead appropriately balanced.
Even top-tier survivor groups of the apocalypse like that had a hard time lasting long if they simply grew complacent with reality.
That was why they had to learn, develop, and evolve.
Because that was what humanity’s strongest enemy in the present world, the Alpha, did.
And because raiders, too, learned through experience and became even crueler and more vicious in hunting their fellow humans.
So even though Junho had the powerful advantage of being a “regressor,” he too had to learn and develop.
He could not become too buried in the information he had obtained before his regression or the plans he had established while building the shelter.
Through the previous Bucheon expedition and this Nami Island expedition, Junho had realized that fact all over again.
***
“Some of you are probably wondering this. Aren’t the zombies in Moku-ri a kind of living defensive wall, or guard force, protecting Gahyeon-ri?”
“.......”
At those words, several people nodded.
As long as they properly blocked the mountain path leading to The First and Riverview, the two apartment complexes, and this national road on the hill, it was almost impossible for the zombies in Moku-ri, or even raiders, to enter Gahyeon-ri.
There was still plenty of prey scattered throughout Moku-ri.
“That is true. The zombies in Moku-ri will continue to serve as guards for us in the future. But... we didn’t actually hire those bastards, did we? We’re just regarding them that way and using them, aren’t we?”
“......!”
Looking around at the people who flinched, Junho continued speaking.
“Now, that is where the problem arises. Even at this very moment, the survivors in Moku-ri are probably either becoming food for the zombies, or turning into their own kind and joining them. Every month, it’s probably in the hundreds.”
“Mm....”
When an uncomfortable truth they had wanted to avoid facing was mentioned, people’s expressions darkened.
“But as all of you know, originally, organized gangsters were occupying one building in Moku-ri and living there. They were complete pieces of shit. They dragged people away and killed them. But.”
After even mentioning the gangsters of Cheongsan Building, whom he had personally destroyed, Junho brought up a story that even people like the Gahyeon-ri search-and-kill team in front of him—people who had adapted to the apocalypse and had abundant experience—did not know well.
“Even those pieces of trash had a role in Moku-ri. Their role was to suppress the expansion of the Alpha’s territory to a certain degree.”
“......!?”
“...Ah.”
Most of them frowned or tilted their heads as if wondering what the hell that meant, but a few, including Yoon Seolhee, seemed to understand something.
“The Moku-ri gangsters had firearms. On top of that, there were a lot of them, so at the time, it was hard for any ordinary Alpha to attack Cheongsan Building on its own. There were plenty of other survivors in Moku-ri too, so there was no reason for it to go out of its way to strike that place. Yes. I’m saying those pieces of trash were balancing the power structure at the time.”
Of course, that balance would not last forever.
The reason Junho, before his regression, had been dragged to Moku-ri by the gangsters and then ended up going to central Namyangju was because one of the Alphas there had grown so powerful that even the gangsters had no choice but to flee.
“Those bastards are gone now. In other words, Moku-ri has now become a complete mess where zombies... especially several major Alphas, are running wild. And given the characteristics of Alphas, within this year, one or two of them will kill or drive out the other Alphas and take all of Moku-ri.”
Originally, that was something that should have happened the year after next.
But unlike before his regression, Junho had destroyed the gangsters, so the deadline had been moved forward.
...That was Junho’s prediction, and AI Akina had affirmed it with a probability of over eighty percent.
“Once an Alpha has taken over Moku-ri like that, where do you think it will pay attention to first, or covet first?”
“Don’t tell me... u-us?”
At one person’s tension-filled question, Junho nodded.
“Correct. An Alpha commanding several thousand... perhaps even tens of thousands of slaves could invade Gahyeon-ri.”
He said it hypothetically, but Junho was almost certain that would happen.
Why?
“When we looted D-Mart, several Alphas recognized where we live. They saw us fleeing down this road. Even recently, zombies have been lurking around down there in small numbers, haven’t they?”
Everyone already knew those were reconnaissance groups sent by an Alpha.
They had only thought of it as a persistent bastard that still could not forget a grudge despite being a zombie, but the situation was far more dangerous than they had imagined.
“That’s why, during this summer’s monsoon season... when torrential rain falls and the Alphas go up to rooftops or higher floors, we need to eliminate them.”
That way, no matter which Alpha among the Moku-ri Alphas became the final victor, it would be easier for our shelter and Gahyeon-ri to suppress it.
Even if, by some chance, that bastard targeted Gahyeon-ri and invaded, or if some unforeseen worst-case scenario erupted and they had to flee into Moku-ri, they would be able to reduce the damage even a little.
“In other words, we need to control their numbers so they can’t crawl up.”
That was the lesson the Nami Island raiders had given Junho.
The raiders had blindly trusted the surrounding zombies without dealing with them at all, and after being caught by Junho’s surprise attack, they had become food for the very bastards they had thought of as guards.
***
With two drones in the air monitoring the surrounding area, work continued on the hill where the national road lay and in the surrounding mountains.
In preparation for an emergency, Junho had also placed six G1 attack drones on standby along the road, and two with each work group at their respective work sites.
On top of that, drones were also being deployed in Gahyeon-ri’s monsoon preparation work, continuing surveillance activity there.
One drone each was also carrying out missions near Yeongho-ri and the water leisure sports center, so more than twenty drones were moving simultaneously.
Ordinarily, it would have been a situation where he would have worried about overloading the AI computing system.
—Ah, we’re fine thanks to the gifts you brought us, boss. Heh heh heh.
Although Junho had already been told it would be fine, he asked just in case, and Yoon Youngsu replied over the comms while laughing like a villain.
—I’ve already moved all the management for our shelter buildings and facilities onto the GPUs and PlayTerminal5 units you brought us. Right now, Akina is only handling power, communications, drone control, workshop operations, and things like that.
“Yeah? What about servers and the like? We have enough?”
—The more the better, of course, but at present, we still have over twenty percent spare capacity. But this is kind of weird...?
“What is?”
—Ah, by my calculations, it should be around thirty percent, you see? Both in terms of computation capacity and all. It kind of feels like she’s doing something else? Is the optimization not finished yet?
“.......”
It was probably because of the “Ulsan simulation” he had assigned her, but Junho decided not to say anything for now.
Even if Yoon Youngsu knew, he would not tell anyone else, but still, one never knew.
“Anyway, there aren’t any other problems, right? Nothing wrong at the shelter?”
—Nope. Our Jeomrye and Dolsoe are all working hard too. The dogs, cows, and chickens are all doing well. The baby crow is doing well too... huh?
“Why?”
—Something just got picked up on PTZ Camera Five. That’s... huh? Is that a drone? I’ll turn the screen over right away, so check it yourself.
At Yoon Youngsu’s words, Junho stopped the work of hardening the position for the K4 high-speed automatic grenade launcher team and took out his tablet.
“Mm.”
Junho narrowed his eyes.
Just as Yoon Youngsu had said, a drone had been caught on the PTZ camera, slowly flying up over the mountain.
And PTZ Five was a camera installed at one of the guard posts built in our shelter’s safety zone, used to monitor the outside.
In other words, right now, someone outside our shelter’s territory was flying a drone toward the safety zone.
“Can you tell the approximate direction that thing came from?”
—One moment, please.
After about ten seconds, Akina’s businesslike voice, rather than Yoon Youngsu’s, came through his earphone.
—Approximately seventy-five percent probability that it is from the direction of Yeondeok District and Cheondo-eup. With lower probability, it may be from Saseok-ri or Daedong-ri in Ongwan-myeon.
Yeondeok District was something of a new-town area, the closest one to our shelter.
The industrial road that could be reached through the secret passage behind the shelter’s mountain led in that direction.
The tunnel where Junho had once encountered the people of the Peach Valley Youth Association was also a route leading to Cheondo-eup, where Yeondeok District was located.
Of course, even if it was close, it was nearly six or seven kilometers away in a straight line, and as could be guessed from the existence of the tunnel and industrial road, it was blocked off by rough mountains.
And in those mountains, where there was not so much as a hiking trail, no one lived.
At least within a two-to-three-kilometer radius where precise drone reconnaissance was possible, that was true.
But.
“Could it be a drone launched by people who fled because of the Alpha that grew its power on the new-town side?”
—Affirmative. It is inferred to be highly probable.
—Ah, from what I can see, yeah. A lot of them had to run away, after all.
While Junho had been away on the Bucheon expedition, there had been a fairly major change on the new-town side, and that change was none other than the fact that one particular Alpha had taken over half of Yeondeok District.
Because of that, many of the survivors who had been living in the new town and its neighboring areas had headed toward Guri City along the subway tracks.
But some of the wiser ones had fled not toward the dangerous city, where it was also difficult to find food, but eastward, where there was a large reservoir.
And right beside that reservoir stretched the mountainous area dividing our shelter from the new town.
“That drone is an ordinary small model, right?”
—Yes. About a million won? It’s pretty usable, but it won’t be able to fly all the way to our shelter’s safety zone. In mountains like these, the controllable range is one kilometer at best.
In the apocalypse, almost all commercial drones could not exceed one to one and a half kilometers without relays and amplifiers.
Even in a wide-open plain with an unobstructed view, two kilometers was usually the limit.
In the end, the drone currently flying toward our shelter’s safety zone would have no choice but to turn back partway.
What if the person controlling it was hiding extremely close, and the drone approached within a few hundred meters?
“Get the turret ready so it can shoot that thing down at any time.”
—It’s already aimed.
The turret installed at the guard post no longer had an air gun mounted on it.
It had a K2 installed, obtained earlier after cleaning out Deokso.
Since the surrounding several kilometers were all mountains, it did not matter much even if gunfire spread outward.
And while an air gun could fire around two hundred continuous shots if connected to a large air tank, there was no comparison between an air gun and a rifle like the K2.
Furthermore, the effective range of the K2 rifle reached six hundred meters.
Of course, its maximum range was even longer than that, but the trajectory became unpredictable there, so AI control was not very helpful.
However, inside six hundred meters, with AI fire control, the hit rate reached ninety percent.
—Ah, that thing is annoying. I want to shoot it. I really want to shoot it. It’s far, but if we just fire a bunch, maybe one or two rounds will hit?
“No. If it got close enough to that distance, there’s a chance the person controlling it could hear the gunshots. For now, send one of our drones up too and just track its flight path. We need to know who they are.”
—Yep. I figured you’d say that, so I already sent one drone. Oh? It’s turning back now.
Just as Yoon Youngsu said, the drone that had approached to about one kilometer from the airspace above our shelter’s safety zone began turning back, perhaps because of wireless range.
However.
—Heh heh. It does not know there is a thing flying even higher above the flying thing.
The surveillance drone that had sortied from our shelter was tracking it while floating about two hundred meters higher than the small commercial drone.
And while the other side could not approach our shelter closely, this side could do it thanks to the wireless amplifier.
“.......”
Junho focused on the footage being sent by the reconnaissance drone following the unidentified drone from above.
The drone, whose flight time was surely only around thirty minutes at most, flew at cruising speed while inspecting various parts of the mountain.
A few minutes later, it descended toward the reservoir that appeared about three hundred meters after exiting “Yeondeok Tunnel.”
—Whoa? That thing is going down into the middle of the reservoir. No, why is it trying to crash into the water... huh?
Yoon Youngsu reacted in surprise.
Just like him, Junho was also rather surprised.
Because in the middle of the large reservoir, which seemed five or six times wider than the place where our shelter caught fish every month—
There were several floating platforms commonly called fishing pontoons, structures in the form of bungalows and small houses mainly used by anglers, connected together and floating there.
And the ones just collecting the drone that had landed there were—
—Whoa? They’re kids?
Teenagers who looked, at most, about high school age.