There is a saying.
Nothing in the world is more foolish than showing off your strength.
...In a peaceful world, that saying is absolutely right.
But in the apocalypse, things are a little different.
Whether zombies or humans, enemies targeting me are scattered everywhere, and in a world where violence and murder have become passive skills, you have to show off your strength.
Even when dealing with ordinary survivors, there are times when you have to show them the power you possess.
Because in the old world, money and status were the measures by which people judged and respected others.
In the apocalypse, the strength you had replaced those standards.
***
“No, no. That’s not it. That’s out of the question. I can’t authorize something like that under any circumstances.”
As expected, Park Cheolwoo strongly objected, and Junho asked him,
“Manager. When you retook the resort, you killed a lot of zombies, right?”
“I did. But back then, it wasn’t just me. Manager Yoon and the other employees were there too....”
“Did this thought ever occur to you back then?”
Junho cut Park Cheolwoo off and continued while looking at the drone controller screen, where zombies packed Paldang Station plaza and parking lot.
'Their biting strength is weaker than expected. If you wear thick clothes and fight with something like a shield, depending on the situation, it might be doable.'
“Something like that.”
“......!”
It was a thought Park Cheolwoo had had while in the middle of clearing the zombies inside the resort with Yoon Seolhee and the other bodyguards, so he flinched at once and closed his mouth.
“You thought about it, didn’t you? But Manager, I didn’t just think about it. I actually tried it.”
“You actually tried it? Against those things with a blade? And not just against a few of them?”
“Yes. Against a lot of them. And zombies, you see. They can’t bite through the Kevlar combat uniform I’m wearing. I’m even wearing something like this underneath.”
Junho took off a glove and slightly rolled up the inside of his combat-uniform sleeve.
When Park Cheolwoo saw the underlayer made of UHMWPE—ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, excellent at defending against bites and cuts—he nodded.
But his voice was still full of concern as he said,
“Fine. Let’s say you won’t get bitten easily. Even then, there are too many of them. Two hundred? No, it looks like there are three hundred. Alone? Reality isn’t a movie. Even if you shot all those things to death, your stamina might not hold out.”
“I did five three-minute rounds in mixed martial arts. My stamina is better now than it was then.”
“Huh...?”
Park Cheolwoo stared in surprise.
At that moment, Park Deokcheol quietly cut in.
“It’s true. Where we live, three or four of us take turns sparring with Junho. There was even a time he went for over thirty minutes without resting. We were taking turns resting, and after about ten minutes we were all dying, but he was the only one who was fine.”
“.......”
Park Cheolwoo had no choice but to close his mouth.
After staring silently at Junho for quite a while, Park Cheolwoo finally nodded.
“Fine. Then let’s do this. I’ll take position at a sniper point with this guy, and if it looks dangerous, we intervene at any time.”
“Let’s do that.”
“Whew. I really don’t know if this is right....”
“It’s really fine. If things go sideways, I’ll run, so don’t worry.”
After ending the conversation, they carefully climbed up to the low embankment above the bicycle path that ran along the riverside.
Across the six-lane road, Paldang Station and the plaza were visible.
It was roughly a hundred meters to the station building, and around sixty to eighty meters to the plaza and parking lot.
“.......”
The combat team lay prone on the embankment, thick with overgrown brush, barely raising their heads as they stared tensely at the zombies filling the plaza.
“Mr. Deokcheol, go over there. Crossfire. You know what that is, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
Park Cheolwoo and Park Deokcheol took positions at sniper points with their air guns.
Meanwhile, Junho took off all firearms except his backpack and Glock 17, then took a pouch of drawing knives out of the backpack.
Armed with the Glock 17, a machete, a commando dagger, an awl, and twenty-four drawing knives, Junho lightly warmed up at the bottom of the embankment.
“We’re ready.”
When Park Cheolwoo and Park Deokcheol reported that they had finished preparing to snipe, Junho put on his ballistic goggles and ballistic face mask.
“Whew... hoo....”
Then, after lightly steadying his breathing, Junho climbed the embankment with the machete in his right hand and the awl in his left.
“......?”
“Huh?”
The combat team grew flustered at the sight of Junho walking along the shoulder with light steps, as if he had simply gone out for a stroll.
But after walking like that for about ten meters, he immediately sprinted across the six-lane road, and their confusion turned into shock.
“Th-that....”
“Is he crazy?”
Papapapapak!
Even setting aside the fact that he had suddenly started running, Junho’s speed was like that of a short-distance sprinter, and everyone’s mouths fell open.
Pak!
At that moment, Junho leaped straight over the guardrail, and some of the zombies wandering around the parking lot and plaza finally saw him.
Kyaaaak!
Grrrraaaaaah...!
The instant a few of them let out cries, countless zombies whipped their heads around.
At the grotesque sight of hundreds of zombies moving in the same way at the same time, almost as if they were one body, the combat team instinctively lowered their faces and hunched down.
But their eyes still remained fixed on Junho’s back.
“......!!!”
And soon, they saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
***
When had it started?
Yes, it was probably after he dealt with the “convenience-store Alpha” in the underground parking lot of Riverview Apartments.
A few days after he had completely secured Gahyeon-ri, Junho had sensed that his body had broken through some kind of “limit.”
And in various physical-ability measurements he conducted without any observers, with only AI Akina watching his condition through cameras,
Junho had confirmed results that were truly absurd.
Of course, even before that, almost all of his physical abilities—strength, speed, stamina, and more—had already stepped into the superhuman realm, at the level of world champions in their respective fields.
But a 100-meter dash in 6.9 seconds. A 10-kilometer run in the 17-minute range.
A combined squat, bench press, and deadlift total reaching 1.5 tons was not merely in the realm of the extraordinary. It was superhuman itself.
His punching and kicking power were also 11,000 newtons and 18,000 newtons respectively, comparable to the force of a bear, tiger, or gorilla striking an opponent.
And when Junho fought with those physical abilities,
'Maybe I can go over thirty minutes even at full power?'
That was why Junho had been certain he could face the hundreds of zombies in Paldang Station plaza and parking lot without guns, using only cold weapons.
Kwaaaaaagh! Woooogh!
Papapapapak!
Junho drove forward without fear toward the zombies charging at him with grotesque screams.
Swish!
When the machete swept out at a speed impossible to see, the heads of three zombies in front were sliced horizontally.
The awl flashed into the temples and eyes of the ones reaching out from the left, then came back out.
At the same time, the machete drew several diagonal lines, separating other zombies’ flanks or necks from their bodies entirely.
Shwaaak! Puuk! Pu-puk!
Every time Junho’s custom machete, weighing over three kilograms, moved, the sharp blade and the power loaded into it cut and burst apart the zombies’ bodies.
His dynamic visual acuity, at 110 frames per second, surpassing felines and approaching birds of prey, designated five or six zombies at once as the next targets.
His body reacted almost simultaneously with his sight, turning Junho’s will to attack into reality.
Pu-puk! Pu-pu-puk!
In the end, the zombies, who had already been old even before infection and whose physical abilities had declined further from a long period of starvation, died without even managing to touch Junho.
Before even a minute had passed, nearly a hundred zombies had been decapitated, had their brains destroyed ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ by piercing wounds to the head, had their skulls smashed apart entirely,
or had their upper bodies separated and sent rolling across the ground.
And the combat team watching that sight from concealment—
“.......”
could only open their eyes and mouths wide, unable to react in any other way.
It was like watching an action scene from a movie or drama.
But this was unmistakably reality.
And the sight they were watching now was completely different from the exploits of action-movie protagonists.
Junho had nothing flashy about him. With movements that were truly plain and without the slightest waste, he was “destroying” the monsters that ate people.
One strike, one kill.
Would someone look like that if they had spent their entire life studying how to kill zombies in the most efficient way possible?
With those cold, simple movements, the zombies—made even more grotesque and terrifying by torn clothing and wild, disheveled hair—were cut, stabbed, burst apart, and killed.
At first, the combat team was shocked by the sight, so unbelievable even as they watched it.
Then they were awed.
And without anyone needing to go first, they all tightened their fists.
Park Cheolwoo was no exception.
***
“.......”
Without realizing it, Park Cheolwoo lifted his eye from the scope, and even more strength entered his tightly clenched fist.
As a man, and as someone who had made fighting and combat his profession for his entire life, he felt as if his blood were boiling.
Junho’s battle, which continued past one minute and then beyond two, gave rise to something beyond awe now.
It became reverence.
'He isn’t the same kind of person....'
When he had heard statements and eyewitness accounts about Junho from Yoon Seolhee and the other employees who had fought the Daeseong syndicate gangsters, Park Cheolwoo had assumed there must be some exaggeration.
During a life-or-death battle, it was extremely common for adrenaline to spike, excitement to take over, and cool judgment to fail.
That was why, while Park Cheolwoo felt deeply grateful to Junho and acknowledged him, part of him had thought he needed to guide Junho properly.
He never wanted a reliable, dependable ally like Junho to go wrong because of a momentary misjudgment.
That was why, even just a little while ago, when Junho had stepped forward saying he would deal with the zombies in the plaza alone, Park Cheolwoo had thought he did not understand reality.
But his protective equipment, including the Kevlar combat uniform that covered his entire body, was excellent, and with Junho’s skill combined with Park Cheolwoo’s sniping, he had judged there would be no great danger.
Besides, if things went badly, the entire combat team could step in and open fire.
They were a little short on ammunition, but since they had nearly two thousand rounds for now, two or three hundred would be fine.
But....
“Turns out I was the one who didn’t understand reality.”
Muttering quietly, Park Cheolwoo put his eye back to the scope.
There was still no telling what might happen, and if he could not properly support Junho while Junho was putting on such an insane performance, that would be truly embarrassing.
And at that moment—
“......!?”
Park Cheolwoo narrowed his eyes as he examined the parking lot where the tour buses were gathered.
One zombie was slowly stepping out through the door of a tour bus.
The moment he saw nearby zombies surround it as the thing got off slowly, not running, almost like a human,
“Alpha....”
Park Cheolwoo realized what it was and quickly radioed Junho.
“Mr. Lee Junho, an Alpha just came out of the red bus in the parking lot. Yeongil Tourism. I’m going to fire in that direction now.”
- Yes. I’m on my way.
Even while engaged in such intense combat, Junho answered without his breathing breaking, and Park Cheolwoo saw him cut down zombies with his machete as he ran toward the parking lot.
“Deokcheol!”
“Yes, sir!”
Park Deokcheol opened fire, and Park Cheolwoo also fired at the ones near the individual that was definitely an Alpha.
When the slave zombies suddenly dropped one after another, the Alpha panicked and whipped its head around, looking at its surroundings.
And in that instant—
Thung!
Junho, who had sprinted into the parking lot only about thirty meters from the plaza in an instant, jumped onto a passenger car and then launched himself upward with incredible leaping power, rising nearly three meters into the air.
The drawing knife he had pulled at some point flew toward the Alpha ten meters away, drawing a streak of light.
Puuk!
The Alpha, its eyes wide open, trembled with a drawing knife buried between its brows, then collapsed where it stood.
Immediately, the nearby zombies that had been under its control twisted their bodies grotesquely.
Junho, knowing that this was when zombies were at their most vulnerable, mercilessly cut them down.
And so, several dozen seconds later,
except for a few dozen individuals that were already badly injured or far too old and slow,
the unprecedented situation in which more than three hundred zombies in Paldang Station plaza and parking lot were killed by a single person came to an end.
