“.......”

After watching Ju Seongcheol enter the villa while repeatedly glancing around nervously with the backpack slung over his shoulder, Junho remained hidden in the forest observing the area for another two or three minutes.

It was a little past six in the evening.

There was still more than an hour before sunset, yet figures were already appearing here and there among the villas and multi-family homes built along the mountainside.

There were only around twenty buildings here, yet this many people were still alive.

Expand that across all of Bucheon, and there were probably tens of thousands left alive.

Maybe even a hundred thousand.

Climbing back up the mountain quickly and silently, Junho opened a radio channel once he reached a suitable position.

“It’s me. Everything ready?”

— Yes. We finished preparations a while ago and have been monitoring each point with drones for the past hour.

Yoon Seolhee’s low voice sounded as dependable as ever.

“How’s the situation?”

— It hasn’t fully erupted yet. But I think you were right, Junho. C6 and W4 are getting busy.

C stood for Chunui Mountain, W for Wonmi Mountain.

And the numbers referred to the order of the survivor groups Junho had visited and supplied today.

“The arboretum and the library.”

— Yeah. Honestly... I don’t get it. Those are the groups already living relatively well.

“They saw the condition of the other survivor groups with their own eyes.”

— Hoo... Anyway, aside from those two, everybody else is quiet. Ah, W2 sent someone to the overpass.

“Really?”

That surprised Junho slightly.

The overpass wasn’t near the house.

It referred to the wildlife bridge crossing Gilju-ro, the eight-lane road cutting through Wonmi Mountain.

He had told them to leave a mark at a specific spot there if they decided to cooperate with his side.

And the second survivor group they had contacted on Wonmi Mountain was the first to show intent.

— Yeah. So far W2’s the only one. But honestly... I think they’ll probably be the only ones.

“...I think so too.”

While handing out food and supplies, Junho had asked for only two or three people from each group to assist him.

They were manpower needed to secure a place where the survivors of Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain could live together.

He hadn’t told them where it was, but Junho had already chosen the location himself.

“Anyway, I’ll reestablish contact with W2 personally. Keep monitoring the other survivors. It’ll probably be dark by the time I get back, so we’ll start moving immediately.”

— Understood.

After ending the transmission with Yoon Seolhee, Junho sprinted through the forest like a wild animal.

Since he had already traveled this route once, and because there were no zombies on Wonmi Mountain, he moved quickly.

In less than thirty minutes, he reached the wildlife bridge crossing Gilju-ro.

A strange oversized sculpture stood at the center of the bridge—something between a white dog and a polar bear.

That was where Junho had told them to leave a sign if they accepted his proposal.

“As expected....”

Seeing the words “Saint O” written behind the sculpture in marker, Junho muttered quietly.

“So the nuns really are different.”

The W2 group—which had traveled nearly four kilometers round trip through rough mountain terrain to leave the mark—was a survivor group centered around several Catholic university students and nuns from a nearby convent.

Of course, they weren’t living inside the university itself.

They had settled deep in Wonmi Mountain at an old farm together with around ten teenagers and younger children.

The conditions were poor.

They grew potatoes and sweet potatoes in fields and vinyl greenhouses, and filtered and boiled creek water for drinking.

But thanks to the dedication of the nuns and students, they had somehow managed to survive.

“This is better.”

Compared to survivor groups like C6 and W4 that Yoon Seolhee had mentioned earlier, these people were far preferable.

No matter what, human life wasn’t equal in Junho’s eyes.

Rather than greed-filled bastards like Jo Seongho and the people of C6, Junho would much rather see people like W2 survive—the kind of people whose students had sacrificed themselves to protect children.

“They’ll probably start tonight.”

Still only speculation.

But Junho was highly confident his prediction would become reality as he once again ran through the mountains.

***

While Junho guided Ju Seongcheol around the Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain area, Yoon Seolhee, Kim Jimin, and Han Areum finished preparing for the “move.”

Even after distributing nearly half the basement’s food and supplies to survivor groups, there was still an enormous amount left.

There were over thirty sealed storage boxes alone filled with canned food, combat rations, freeze-dried foods, and fermented sauces.

There were also multiple boxes of water filters, purification tablets, medicine, and emergency medical kits.

Additional boxes were stacked with hygiene supplies like soap, solid shampoo bars, detergent, towels, and masks.

On top of that, they also had to move the emergency low-noise diesel generator, fuel containers, power tanks, and PTZ cameras from the basement.

“Let’s start.”

After finishing a simple dinner, the four of them began transporting supplies to the city integrated control center.

Unlike at the shelter or Gahyeon-ri, they couldn’t use vehicles this time.

Everything had to be carried by hand.

“Oppa, me too. I can carry more.”

“That’s enough. This load’s already fine for you. Just keep checking the tablet carefully instead.”

“But still....”

Han Areum looked guilty seeing that her carrier frame held only half the weight everyone else carried.

Junho answered firmly:

“Even with night vision, the drone matters most. It’ll follow us in follow mode, but you need to monitor it constantly. Understood?”

“Yes, oppa.”

Han Areum had an athletic background, but her strength and stamina still couldn’t compare to Junho, Kim Jimin, or Yoon Seolhee.

So she carried lighter loads while handling live drone monitoring instead.

After the sun fully set, the four repeatedly traveled the kilometer-plus route carrying supplies on their backs.

They took short breaks in between, but after four hours everyone was completely exhausted.

Well.

Everyone except Junho, who had been hauling nearly a hundred kilograms at a time without issue.

“This is the last trip, right?”

“Yes. One more run and we’re done.”

At Yoon Seolhee’s reply, Junho glanced over the pile of supplies stacked on the first floor.

“Then I’ll move these upstairs myself. You two just bring the last remaining items and rest.”

“Mm... are you sure you’re okay alone?”

Even at night, when zombie visibility was reduced, the group still had to move carefully to avoid stepping on debris and making noise.

And they constantly had to stay alert for other survivors who might appear at any moment.

But compared to carrying all these supplies up the stairs to the top of the nearly twenty-story control center, that difficulty was nothing.

“I’m fine. We’re not moving everything upstairs anyway. Some of it’ll stay in the second-floor storage room.”

Most of the food and supplies were intended for the survivor groups anyway, so there was no reason to haul everything to the top.

Besides, Choi Hyunwoo and Kim Taeyoung had already sealed every entrance to the control center.

The only remaining route had alarm devices installed as well.

Meaning they would immediately detect any intrusion.

“Everyone! You need to see this. I think it’s started.”

“......!?”

At Kim Jimin’s voice, the other three hurried over.

One of the two drones rotating every fifty minutes between observation points on Chunui Mountain and Wonmi Mountain had detected over ten human heat signatures through its thermal camera.

“This is....”

“Point C6. The arboretum survivors.”

The arboretum group led by the greed-filled Jo Seongho was moving somewhere late at night after ten o’clock.

The same people who, according to Ju Seongcheol, had barely ever left their territory around the arboretum before now.

“How’s the drone battery?”

“Still over half. But where are these people going?”

“Not sure. Let’s keep watching. Ah, is there anything important still left at the house?”

“We already moved everything important. Just bottled water, purification tablets, and boxes of freeze-dried food left.”

“Then leave it. Areum, you secured the house properly, right?”

“Yes. Perfectly. But are we really just leaving all that there? Feels wasteful....”

“It’s fine. Anyway....”

At the moment, W2 was overwhelmingly likely to receive all the remaining food and supplies here.

And unlike the other groups, W2 didn’t seem to have serious water issues.

Besides, the place they would relocate to also had nearby streams and groundwater.

“Huh? Another group’s moving too.”

Including the drones they brought with them and the ones stored in the basement, Junho’s team had six surveillance and reconnaissance drones total.

So they flew them in three shifts of two drones each—one monitoring Chunui Mountain and another monitoring Wonmi Mountain.

This time, a drone camera patrolling Wonmi Mountain detected heat signatures.

And everyone immediately recognized the point.

“W5? Ha! Look at this motherfucker.”

Kim Jimin muttered incredulously.

That’s right.

W5 was the villa where Ju Seongcheol’s group lived.

“The bastard’s heading straight for W2.”

W2—the only group that had shown willingness to cooperate—consisted mostly of nuns, young male and female students, and children.

In other words, the weakest survivor group.

Even after receiving enough food to survive nearly a month if rationed carefully, Ju Seongcheol apparently still wasn’t satisfied and had decided to target the weakest group first.

“What do you want to do?”

At Yoon Seolhee’s low question, Kim Jimin and Han Areum also looked toward Junho.

Junho set down the carrier frame and picked up his KP9.

“What else can we do? They made their choice. Time to pay the price.”

It wasn’t some sense of justice about saving weak nuns, students, and children in the apocalypse.

Helping his only collaborators was simply the obvious thing to do.

***

“Hey, seriously, this is okay, right? Didn’t you say that guy killed your friends? And he’s flying drones around and shit. What if he’s watching us?”

“Idiot. I already told you. Those people are moving somewhere else today. Said they’d start at night, right? They’re probably busy hauling supplies around right now. This is our chance.”

Having indulged both his appetite and lust to his heart’s content for the first time in ages, Ju Seongcheol grinned as he looked back at the men and women who had spent the last thirty minutes with him.

“They gave the convent a lot of food because there are kids there. More than I got. And most of them are women and children anyway. The only guys are a pair of pathetic nerds. Easy as hell.”

“Jesus, you filthy whore. You’re after the college girls, aren’t you? See any hot ones?”

Despite being a woman herself, her language was crude and filthy.

Ju Seongcheol waved his hands dismissively.

“No, no. You’re the only one for me, Jooyoung. Heh.”

“You slut. Still, you’re definitely better than dead-ass Youngjin and the others.”

“Right?”

Even as he said that, entirely different women filled Ju Seongcheol’s thoughts.

Han Areum and Yoon Seolhee.

'Fuck... both those bitches were seriously gorgeous. Bodies too. And they didn’t smell at all.'

One of the shelter’s iron rules was:

No soap during outside operations.

In the post-apocalypse world, the scent of soap was both luxury and danger.

The smell could carry dozens of meters.

So shelter members washed with water only whenever outside.

Even so, they didn’t smell bad.

In fact, compared to other survivors who constantly carried foul body odor, that complete lack of scent almost felt fragrant.

After spending the entire day repeatedly standing close to Yoon Seolhee and Han Areum, Ju Seongcheol had noticed the difference intensely.

Which was exactly why the body odor of the villa women—something he had previously ignored—suddenly smelled revolting to him now.

“Anyway, you bastards better earn the food you ate today.”

“Fuck it. Just smash their heads in like zombies, right?”

“We already killed the old fucks in our building. Those losers won’t be a problem.”

Maybe they had once been ordinary people.

But by now, the five men and women had transformed into model apocalypse raiders, walking beneath the moonlight with murder burning in their eyes.

Completely unaware that a far superior—

No.

A killer so far beyond comparison it wasn’t even funny—

Was already heading straight toward them.