Chapter 236: This Side Has Four
“What the hell is this...?”
“Holy shit....”
The sergeant in charge of the troops at the Yeongho-ri National Agricultural Cooperative warehouse stood with his mouth hanging open.
The people from the Peach Valley Youth Association, who had arrived after receiving Junho’s request, were the same.
With disbelieving eyes, they stared into Cheondo Tunnel, whose interior was as bright as broad daylight thanks to the tactical flashlights.
“A-all of that was killed today?”
“Yes. We finished clearing them about an hour ago.”
“Huh. Hahaha....”
As they stared in shock at the number of zombies, too many to count, Junho spoke to them.
“You know Cheondo Reservoir on the other side, right?”
“Huh? Yeah. Of course I do.”
“We cleared everything around there too. It’ll be difficult for a while, but before too long, you should be able to go fishing there.”
“Huh!? Seriously?”
“Yes. And....”
As payment for moving the zombie corpses inside the tunnel outside and disposing of them, Junho promised to load them up with usable items still left in the factories and warehouses, along with equipment from the restaurants and cafés around the reservoir.
On top of that—
“As you can see on the map, the reservoir is a fairly important strategic point. The Yeondeok district, obviously, but you can also monitor toward Guri and even the direction of Uijeongbu in advance.”
At Junho’s words, the sergeant narrowed his eyes.
“Are you suggesting we send troops over here?”
As expected of someone seasoned in the military, the sergeant immediately grasped the point, and Junho nodded.
“Yes. Twenty to thirty people should be enough.”
“Mm. I understand what you’re saying, but as you know, Mr. Junho, we’re a little short on manpower. I’ll ask the battalion commander first, but....”
“Is there any need to draw from the Deokso unit?”
“Hm? Then?”
“There are quite a few people in Yeongho-ri who have nowhere to go, aren’t there?”
“Huh? Those people? No, still, someone has to protect them, don’t they?”
Even in this kind of world, sending civilians away as if driving them out was obviously problematic, so the sergeant frowned.
“There are the people from the reserve-force unit.”
“Ah...!”
That was true.
The troops at the reserve-force unit, from which Junho had stripped several military trucks’ worth of supplies, and the pension survivors who had joined them were still staying there.
But by now, it was about time for their supplies to be down to roughly half, and they could not stay there forever either.
Moreover, unlike Gahyeon-ri or Yeongho-ri, where only a single national road passed by, that place had many tourist sites around it and had normally seen quite a bit of foot traffic.
Compared to such a place, this area, with the reservoir beside it making water easy to obtain and now incorporated into the “territory” of their shelter, would be far better.
“That’s good. Very good.”
“Right?”
“So what you’re saying, Junho, is that we should make this place into something like a survivor village?”
“Yes. It has restaurants, cafés, pensions, and even small factories, so it has land and materials for greenhouse farming too... It has everything necessary.”
If they installed only twenty to thirty kilowatts’ worth of solar panels and restored power, then supported the place with air guns and the CCTV cameras they had farmed this time, several hundred people should be able to live there.
“Anyway, just ask them what they think. There’s no need to force anyone who doesn’t want to come.”
“Okay. I’ll bring it up.”
And so, what they would do with Cheondo Reservoir was decided.
While the people began working under drone reconnaissance and the combat team’s escort, Junho headed for Hanaareum Nursing Home.
***
“Um... thank you again.”
“Thank you so much, mister.”
Oh Seungmin and Oh Seunga, the brother-and-sister pair who had scrubbed off the old grime and changed into clean tracksuits, bowed deeply to Junho.
“It’s fine. Anyway, you look good now that you’re cleaned up. Where are the others?”
“Heejin relaxed all at once, I guess, so she’s come down with some body aches. The others are following Youngjun around and looking around the place. Should I call them?”
“No, it’s fine. One or two of you are enough anyway. Oh, and take this.”
After gesturing for the archer siblings to sit, Junho took out something he had prepared in advance from his backpack.
“Huh!?”
“......!”
The siblings’ eyes went wide when they saw what Junho had taken out.
It was a bundle of hunting arrows that could also be used with recurve bows.
“You seemed short on arrows. You can shoot these with your bows too, right?”
“O-of course! But how did you get something like this...?”
Seeing the siblings’ faces brighten instantly, Junho gave a faint snort of amusement.
“I have a few compound bows too. Tell me if you need them.”
He had excluded bows from the shelter’s “main weapons,” but that did not mean he had not prepared bows at all.
There might be someone whose specialty was archery, and excluding firearms, bows were still clearly the best ranged weapons.
“Really? Is it okay for you to give them to us?”
“Yeah. Just say the word if you need them. Anyway.”
The archer siblings looked as if they wanted to ask him to bring the bows right away, but Junho continued in a somewhat lowered voice.
“As you know, what I’m curious about is news from Yeondeok New Town.”
“......!”
“One Alpha grew its force tremendously there, right? That’s why you came toward the reservoir too?”
“Yes. That’s right. The zombie bastards in Yeondeok New Town... they’re seriously scary.”
“Zombies...? Ah, because there are too many of them?”
“Excuse me? No?”
“Hm?”
When the conversation seemed to have somehow missed the point, Junho narrowed his eyes, and Oh Seunga nudged her brother before speaking in his place.
“Oh, come on, move over. Mister doesn’t seem to know.”
“......?”
“The zombies in Yeondeok New Town. They aren’t controlled by one Alpha, mister.”
“...What?”
“There are three. Three. The three of them have joined together, and they drag around several thousand... no, actually, it’s probably way more than that. Anyway, they move around with an insane number of them, enough to fill several apartment complexes. We saw it.”
“......!!!”
Junho was more shocked than he had been only a handful of times since his regression.
Alphas forming an “alliance” was something even Junho, a regressor, had never heard of or seen before.
***
“Ah! So that’s why. Now I understand why the situation in the Yeondeok district was so strange.”
After hearing the information obtained from the archer siblings, Yoon Youngsu snapped his fingers.
“The number of slaves was definitely in the ten-thousands, but the way they all moved at the same time, like some actual trained army, was really strange, you know? That’s why I thought this wasn’t an ordinary bastard.”
Junho, who had checked the PTZ camera footage after receiving Yoon Youngsu’s report when he returned from Nami Island, had reached the same judgment.
But the truth was not that.
“If three Alphas have formed one group entirely, then that movement definitely makes sense. But, hoo....”
“You’re saying nothing like that happened in your dreams, Mr. Junho?”
At Yoon Seolhee’s words, Junho nodded.
“Yes. There are cases where Alphas briefly cooperate depending on the situation. But sharing slaves and forming one group entirely? Honestly, this is my first time seeing it too.”
Especially when facing the military.
But three Alphas staying together even normally?
If not for the testimony of high school students who had survived for a long time in the Yeondeok district, he would not have believed it.
“But, bro. Can’t we just ignore them? They’re not an immediate threat to us.”
“That might be true. But the zombies we killed in Cheondo Tunnel. Why do you think they came?”
“Ah.”
“Exactly. They were pushed out by those three Alphas who formed an alliance.”
For some reason, it had seemed a little strange.
An Alpha with a fairly significant level of influence, enough to command nearly a thousand slaves, had come all the way here along a quiet national road instead of staying in a downtown or residential area with many survivors to use as prey.
The bastard had fled.
And it had fled so thoroughly that it had been frightened enough to leave not only the Yeondeok district, where many survivors would likely remain, but even Cheondo-eup itself.
“The larger their force grows and the wider their territory becomes, the more the Alphas in that area will be pushed somewhere else. Naturally, survivors will also risk their lives trying to flee somewhere else.”
Then, eventually, they would come into the territory of their shelter too.
“......!”
The moment Junho’s thoughts reached that point, something suddenly flashed through his mind.
'When I went to Moku-ri before the regression...!'
No matter how strong and large the forces of the Moku-ri Alphas near D-Mart and the surrounding area had been, the gangsters who had held out there for nearly two years were not the sort who would abandon that place and run without even trying to fight.
'And right before I died, too.'
When he had been bitten by a zombie and had chosen to end his own life, the area in front of Namyangju City Hall and all the roads nearby had been black with zombies.
But was it easy for tens of thousands of zombies to suddenly gather in a place with a smaller population than Moku-ri and literally form a “tidal wave”?
A massive zombie wave on that scale happening without any warning signs?
'If that was the Yeondeok district Alphas... after growing their forces for more than another year...?'
Everything fit together.
Without realizing it, Junho felt a chill run down his spine.
The three Alphas that had swallowed Yeondeok New Town and their “colony” might, with high probability, be the most dangerous and threatening enemy to their shelter.
“Uh, boss?”
“Bro, are you okay?”
At Yoon Youngsu’s and Junhyeok’s voices, Junho abruptly lifted his head.
Looking around at the three people, including Yoon Seolhee, who were all watching him with puzzled expressions, Junho said,
“I need to meet Brother Baekho and Major Lee Seokjin.”
***
Because Deokso and Kangho Resort were connected by wireless communication, Junho, Kang Baekho, and Lee Seokjin were able to meet in one place within two days.
“I’m Kang Baekho. I’ve heard a lot about you, Major. Thank you very much for the weapons and gear you supported us with.”
“Not at all. On the contrary, as a representative of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, I should be thanking you, CEO Kang.”
Kang Baekho and Lee Seokjin were polite to each other.
Especially Lee Seokjin, a true soldier, held Kang Baekho in very high regard for accepting so many survivors into his resort.
After all, it was no different from a businessman—and a third-generation chaebol at that—doing what the government and military could not do.
“Hey, Junho, what’s going on that you called us together this urgently? You little punk, you know how busy your older brother is.”
Just as Junho was about to answer Kang Baekho’s playful words—
“I’m sorry, but may I speak first? There is a somewhat urgent matter.”
Lee Seokjin stepped forward with a rather stiff expression.
“Ah, yes. Go ahead.”
At the grave look on Lee Seokjin’s face, though they were meeting for the first time, Kang Baekho tilted his head.
Lee Seokjin looked at Junho, then let out a long sigh and said,
“Hoo, Mr. Junho.”
“......?”
“Early this morning, we made contact with troops moving under orders from our higher command—no, from the Jeju government.”
“Excuse me?”
“They were the Naval Special Warfare Flotilla. And... they seemed to know you, Mr. Lee Junho.”
“......!”
The faces of the UDT operators from World Cup Park naturally came to Junho’s mind.
“For now, I pretended not to know and said I would look into it. But they seemed quite urgent.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they were preparing to retake Yeouido. Naturally, our side agreed to cooperate once we were ready as well.”
For Lee Seokjin, a true soldier, an order from the Jeju government was not something he could refuse.
The fact that he had pretended not to know anything about Junho, even while knowing, was itself his way of keeping faith.
“Yeouido....”
Junho’s mind began turning quickly.
Then, after a moment, he formed one assumption and said to Lee Seokjin,
“Major, could you tell them I may be willing to hear them out if they can accept my conditions?”
Three Alphas had gathered?
This side might possibly become four.