“...Looks like we arrived a little too late.”

“Yes.”

At Yoon Seolhee’s regretful remark, Junho nodded and continued.

“But depending on how you look at it, this may actually be fortunate. Those soldiers cooperated with Hyunwoo.”

And judging by the recorded footage, the soldiers were highly experienced veterans.

They had probably received prior training, but maintaining proper distance from zombies while executing accurate mobile fire in real combat wasn’t easy.

One mistake could result in being surrounded by hundreds of zombies in an instant, yet they still acted boldly and decisively despite knowing that.

That meant they were exceptionally capable troops.

And having people like that as allies could only be beneficial.

“Then do we move immediately?”

When Yoon Seolhee eagerly asked, Junho shook his head.

“No. We rest first. This is exactly when you can’t overpush yourselves. We’ll get proper sleep tonight and refine the plan a little more. Then we move tomorrow.”

“Understood. Anyway, that city control center? We should probably head there first, right? If we want to launch drones.”

“We do need to go there. But before that.”

Stopping midway through answering Kim Jimin’s question, Junho turned his head.

Staring coldly at the man in his early thirties sprawled pitifully on the ground with his limbs bound by cable ties, Junho continued.

“We deal with this bastard first.”

***

Smack! Smack!

“Ugh....”

The man lying helplessly on the ground with his hands and feet bound by cable ties barely opened his eyes.

His entire body throbbed painfully and he felt utterly drained as he struggled to focus his blurry vision on his surroundings.

“Ugh... huh!?”

The moment the man recognized Junho’s face, his eyes widened.

In a low, cold voice, Junho asked:

“What’s your name?”

“W-what...? Wh-who are... guh!”

Smack! Smack!

As Junho slapped him repeatedly across the face, the man’s head whipped violently from side to side.

“Urghhh....”

“Name.”

Even though Junho had held back his strength, the consecutive slaps carried enough force that an ordinary person would struggle to endure them.

The lesson in manners worked immediately.

“J-Ju Seongcheol!”

Fragments of memory resurfaced in Ju Seongcheol’s mind from before he lost consciousness.

The friends who climbed over the wall first had gone silent without any response, so he’d sensed something was wrong and tried to pull back.

Then suddenly someone grabbed him hard, and his body spun through the darkness—

“Right. Ju Seongcheol. So how did you end up here?”

“H-here? This place is....”

“The house you were trying to climb into.”

“Ah, r-right. I was trying to get over the wall. That’s because....”

Ju Seongcheol trailed off.

Then his eyes met Junho’s.

Those utterly indifferent eyes—devoid of even a gram of emotion—made Ju Seongcheol’s lower abdomen turn cold as goosebumps erupted across his body.

Then a low voice as frigid as that stare drilled into his ears.

“The guys who came with you are all dead. They probably didn’t feel any pain. One shot to the head each.”

“...!!!”

“Don’t ask something stupid like why I killed them. You came here to loot this house and do whatever the hell you wanted to the girl inside, didn’t you? If she resisted, you would’ve killed her too.”

“Ugh....”

Looking at the trembling Ju Seongcheol as if he’d caught a violent chill, Junho continued.

“That’s why I didn’t ask why you came here. It’s obvious. So talk. How did you find this place? How many more of you are there? Where are you living? And where are the other survivors?”

“T-then you’ll kill them all anyway. J-just like you killed my friends.”

Though tears pooled in his terrified eyes, Ju Seongcheol still clenched his teeth after hearing that all his friends were dead.

“Well, who knows? But if you don’t talk, you die. How? Ah, maybe with this?”

“...!?”

Junho suddenly held out a suppressed Glock 17, causing Ju Seongcheol’s eyes to shake violently.

But Junho lowered the pistol again.

“Not sure if you know this, but subsonic rounds for suppressed pistols are expensive and hard to get. No reason to waste them on you. So I’m not going to kill you with a gun or a knife.”

Junho pulled out the tablet linked to the house’s PTZ camera system and showed it to him.

“Huh...? Ghk!”

Ju Seongcheol’s trembling eyes suddenly widened as he stared at the screen.

The display showed an apartment complex he had seen several times while climbing Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain—

Or more precisely, the zombies wandering through that territory.

“Do you know how long it takes for someone bitten by a zombie to turn into one? Minimum thirty seconds. Maximum three minutes. About a seventy percent infection rate.”

As if deliberately stimulating the horrifying images forming naturally in Ju Seongcheol’s mind, Junho’s cold voice continued.

“You’ll be torn apart alive by those things. If you’re very lucky, you’ll only feel pain for about thirty seconds. If you’re less lucky, you’ll spend three minutes feeling your flesh and organs ripped apart and eaten. And if you’re really unlucky... for about ten minutes, you’ll think dying would’ve been the better option.”

“Ughhh....”

Junho propped the tablet upright in front of the violently trembling Ju Seongcheol.

Then he placed another object beside it.

An ordinary electronic watch.

“I set the timer for ten minutes. Think carefully during that time.”

He’d been given only ten minutes.

But depending on his choice, those ten minutes could become a period of suffering longer and more horrifying than death itself—spent together with the cannibal monsters on the tablet screen.

***

When Junho returned ten minutes later, Ju Seongcheol told him everything.

After silently listening to the entire story, Junho headed back down into the basement.

Kim Jimin sat eating frozen dumplings while alternately checking satellite maps of the surrounding area and the PTZ camera feeds.

Meanwhile, Yoon Seolhee was talking with Han Areum.

“...Yeah, unni. Back then Junho oppa— Ah, oppa, you’re back?”

“Why are you suddenly talking about me?”

“It’s nothing. Oppa, have some of this. I’m not very good at cooking, so I boiled some dumplings.”

“You didn’t boil them. You just microwaved them. Say it properly. And dumplings are steamed, not boiled.”

“Yes, yes, sorry.”

As Han Areum pouted at Kim Jimin’s correction, Junho spoke.

“There’s still food left in the refrigerator and freezer, right? How’ve you been managing all this time?”

“Yep. Taeyoung oppa’s really good at cooking. He makes kimchi stew well, and his pasta’s seriously amazing too. We had pasta once a day because Taeyoung oppa said it was healthy.”

Just like at the shelter, Junho had stored huge quantities of fully sealed pasta here as well.

Pasta was nutritious, and if stored properly in airtight conditions, it lasted an extremely long time.

On top of that, olive oil was both healthy and one of the longest-lasting foods when preserved using the shelter’s methods.

“Coach handled things well. You didn’t run low on water?”

“Nope. There’s still more than half left. We reused the water from boiling pasta for kimchi stew and other cooking. And there’s still water left in the rooftop tank, so we washed every other day using that. We followed the notebook you left for Hyunwoo oppa exactly.”

“Good.”

Junho was satisfied.

Leaving detailed notes was one thing, but actually following them properly was another.

It seemed Choi Hyunwoo had obeyed Junho’s instructions thoroughly.

“So what did that guy confess? If he’s still refusing to talk, I can—”

“No. He told me everything.”

Stopping Yoon Seolhee, whose eyes flashed dangerously, Junho looked around at everyone and continued.

“They’re living in a villa near Wonmi Mountain, not Chunui Mountain. Apparently they’ve been running low on food recently, so they started crossing over into the Chunui Mountain area. And according to him, there’s one man and three women left back at their hideout.”

“Hmm. Doesn’t sound like something we need to worry about too much.”

“No. The people left behind don’t know this place exists. But the real problem is that they know this house exists.”

Eventually, if their companions never returned, the others would likely start moving too.

“And there’s a bigger problem.”

“...?”

“There are apparently a lot of survivors around Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain.”

Based on Ju Seongcheol’s information alone, there seemed to be at least five or six separate groups totaling over a hundred people.

And that was only what Ju Seongcheol and his group knew about.

In reality, there could be several times that many—possibly even thousands—living throughout the area.

“People roam Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain every night. There’s an old mineral spring there, even though it was declared unsafe ages ago. Plus there are wild animals and edible plants.”

Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain were typical low but sprawling neighborhood mountains.

The forests were deep, but there were many well-maintained walking trails and hiking paths, so residents from the countless surrounding homes used to climb them frequently.

That meant people starving and terrified of zombies would eventually force themselves up those mountains out of desperation.

Which also meant—

“This place could end up exposed too. Not because of the food. Because of the solar panels.”

Solar-powered homes were common in suburban places like Gahyeon-ri, but extremely rare in the city.

Detached houses and townhouses were one thing, but apartments and villas almost never had them.

And most of the residential neighborhoods surrounding Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain consisted of old villas and multi-family housing.

Any survivors living there would immediately notice a house that still had electricity.

“Ah....”

“Th-then what do we do? We need to stay here until we find Hyunwoo oppa and Taeyoung oppa....”

Even now, Han Areum worried about the other two before herself.

Smiling at her, Junho said:

“It’s okay. This house was only meant to last through this year anyway. At this point, it’s already fulfilled its purpose.”

“Huh?”

“Are you saying you’re abandoning this place?”

At Yoon Seolhee’s question, Junho nodded.

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Fine, maybe the house itself. But what about all this food?”

There were still huge amounts of canned food and freeze-dried combat rations in the basement.

Naturally so.

From the beginning, Junho had prepared this house not for Choi Hyunwoo alone, but under the assumption that everyone he had separately contacted and supported before the apocalypse might end up coming here.

And Junho had already made plans years ago for what to do if a situation like this ever occurred.

“We’ll take part of it with us. And we’ll distribute the rest.”

“D-distribute it? All this?”

“To who? Ah, wait... don’t tell me....”

Yoon Seolhee, the only one who seemed to realize what he meant, looked at him.

Junho nodded.

“Yes. We’re distributing it to the survivors around Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain.”

***

“W-wait, seriously? You’re really giving us food?”

“Yeah. In exchange, you guide us to places where you and your friends spotted survivors.”

Ju Seongcheol’s eyes widened in disbelief at Junho’s words before confusion quickly overtook him.

“B-but why?”

“What are you going to do with that information? Want me to pretend this never happened and throw you to the zombies instead?”

“N-no! Absolutely not! I-I’ll tell you!”

Faced with the choice between becoming zombie food or surviving while gaining supplies, Ju Seongcheol’s decision had already been made.

And so, while studying satellite maps, he pointed out the rough locations of the survivor groups he and his companions knew about, along with their hideouts.

Early the next morning, Junho climbed Chunui Mountain first with Ju Seongcheol leading the way.

Junho carried a modified air rifle and a Glock 17.

Both men wore backpacks stuffed with canned food and combat rations.

And using those supplies, Junho intended—as always—not to offer unconditional goodwill or cruel malice.

Only a trade.