“What are you talking about? Outside? Outside the complex? Are you saying you’re going to kill yourself right now? Absolutely not.”
“Mr. Lee Junho. I know how skilled you are too, but....”
“Both of you, hear me out first.”
To Lee Seokjin, who was strongly opposing him, and Park Cheolwoo, who was looking at him with concern, Junho calmly explained his plan.
As he did, the expressions of the two men, who had been staring at him as if they were looking at a lunatic, slowly began to change.
“...In other words, there’s a high probability that the current situation was caused by a starving Alpha overreaching.”
“......!”
“In the end, if we want to save ammunition and resolve this as quickly and reliably as possible, this is the best method. You both confirmed that once the Alpha is eliminated, the slave zombies become defenseless for roughly five to ten seconds, didn’t you?”
Junho’s plan was to exploit that window and concentrate fire on the slave zombies.
And in reality, this method had been highly effective when the military, police, and other survivor groups with firearms defended a specific area from zombies.
Just as offense and defense were completely different in wars between humans, anti-zombie combat was the same.
The biggest reason the Republic of Korea Army had been so brutally mauled so far was because they had tried to recklessly retake cities ruled by dozens or hundreds of Alphas.
“Even so, no. It doesn’t have to be you alone doing something that dangerous.”
To Lee Seokjin, who still opposed him, Junho spoke evenly.
“Major. It’s not that it doesn’t have to be me alone. It’s that no one but me can do it.”
“......!”
Lee Seokjin, who had heard what Junho had done alone today and how he had fought at Paldang Station, flinched and froze.
“Manager Park, you’ve seen how I fight with your own eyes. Do you still think my plan is impossible? It’s night, on top of that. Those zombie bastards already have poor eyesight, and they won’t even be able to see me properly.”
“.......”
After Lee Seokjin, Park Cheolwoo also fell silent.
When he added the environmental condition of night to the battle that had taken place in the plaza at Paldang Station a few days ago—a battle that still felt hard to believe even now—it did not seem impossible.
“We don’t have time. As long as Deokcheol is assigned as my dedicated operator, this will absolutely work.”
“...If it gets dangerous at all, you run straight for the rear gate, understood?”
At Park Cheolwoo’s words, who had already once witnessed Junho’s sprinting ability, enough to believe he was a short-distance track athlete, Junho nodded.
“Of course. I don’t want to die either. Major?”
“...I’m still not sure. But if Manager Park is saying this much, then I suppose I have no choice. Do as you see fit.”
“Yes. Just time your fire properly. Then.”
Without waiting for an answer, Junho immediately ran out at speed.
“Hoo. It feels like we’re relying too much on Mr. Lee Junho.”
“We’ve done that several times ourselves. Still, don’t worry too much. He’s not the type to act like that unless he’s certain. And every time, the results have been good.”
At Park Cheolwoo’s words, Lee Seokjin adjusted his ballistic helmet and stepped outside with him, speaking bitterly.
“It’s the same for us. If it were anyone else, this would be absurd, but when Mr. Lee Junho does it, I can’t say anything.”
“That’s that guy’s charm and his strength.”
His actions were fast and bold, but underneath them lay meticulous calculation.
Because the former Special Forces master sergeant and the active-duty ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) Army major now knew, through repeated experience, that this was who Junho was, they could at least feel somewhat reassured even in this urgent situation.
***
“Distance?”
— About six hundred meters. They’re still moving through the mountain, so they’re a little slow. But they’ll reach the road soon, so I think they’ll be here within three or four minutes, boss.
Listening to Park Deokcheol’s report as he moved with the soldiers to the rooftop of the building closest to the complex’s main gate, Junho ran through the darkness.
On the tablet linked to the controller and display, countless points of light were moving toward Golden Heights at high speed.
Even within the same Namyangju, the situation was clearly different from Gahyeon-ri, where much of the elderly population was middle-aged or older.
Most of the zombies pouring in had been young when they were alive, and even their running speed was different.
“The resort combat team and the military unit have drones up too, right?”
— Yes, sir. But their flight time is short, so they say the limit is about fifteen minutes from now.
“That’s enough. Anyway, once the zombies enter within three hundred meters of the main gate, hover and recon centered around me. Check the color and zoom in and out. Then identify the Alpha. You can do that, right?”
— Leave it to me, boss!
Listening to Park Deokcheol’s answer, filled with tension and resolve, Junho reached the location he had identified in advance.
It was the forest on a low hill about two hundred meters away from the Golden Heights apartment complex, which sat isolated like a lonely island thanks to every kind of expedient and corruption.
It was also about two hundred meters from the asphalt country road the thousands of zombies crossing the highway would soon enter.
It was outside the effective range of an AR-15 equipped with a suppressor and loaded with subsonic rounds.
Of course, with Junho’s shooting skill, it was not as if he could not hit them from this distance, but he had to kill the target with one shot, so the AR-15 was unsuitable.
Clack. Clack.
After setting down the AR-15, Junho assembled something with quick, practiced hands.
It was a modified air rifle he had taken out of his backpack.
The air rifle was powerful, but could only fire around ten shots with a normal air tank. Junho quickly finished assembling it.
Then he lowered his night-vision goggles and aimed at the asphalt road with an infrared laser sight.
— They’re almost here! They just came over the hill and are running down under the forest now!
Several dozen seconds after Park Deokcheol’s voice came through.
In the distance, from the gently sloping forest shown through night vision, countless lights began to flicker.
The wave of lights looked like hundreds or thousands of fireflies appearing in the forest all at once, but it was actually the phenomenon of the heat radiating from zombies being hidden and revealed by trees and brush.
And among them, in several places, there were points that shone differently from the others, almost white.
They were Alphas, whose brain temperatures were higher than ordinary zombies.
'You’re first.'
Inside the dizzying wave of lights, Junho focused on exactly one of them and fixed it in his sight.
— They’ve entered three hundred meters! They’ll pass in front of you soon, boss!
Guaaaaaaah...!!!
Kraaaagh...! Kyaaaaaah...!!!
Even from far away, the screams and roars of thousands of zombies battered his ears.
At a glance, the massive zombie horde running toward the Golden Heights apartment complex looked disorderly.
But before the regression, Junho had seen “waves” several times larger than this one, and he knew that was not true.
The ones at the very front, screaming as they led the other zombies, were slave zombies under an Alpha’s control.
Although there were slight differences between individuals, if zombies did not see prey—that is, a moving human—for several minutes, they stopped what they were doing and returned to their original position.
But when slaves under an Alpha’s control kept screaming as they moved, the others joined in as well, whether because of inertia or for some other reason.
Of course, it did not last forever and usually only continued for around ten minutes, but this was exactly how some Alphas made use of zombies outside the reach of their direct control.
And an Alpha capable of that—
'At minimum, four or five hundred. Maybe close to a thousand.'
In a region like this, with a population of only tens of thousands, it could be considered one of the strongest individuals around. Even in densely populated downtown areas, it would be an entity that required extreme caution.
— They’re completely passing your position now! Three hundred meters from the apartment main gate! Two ninety, two eighty, two seventy....
They had already entered the effective range of the light machine guns and rifles, but the soldiers waiting at the main gate and on the rooftop showed no reaction.
Also, the closer they got to the apartment complex, the more some zombies began moving around to the side instead of toward the main gate.
Several hundred that had been running at the very back even stopped running simultaneously and stood in place like stone statues.
And without exception, in the center of those stopped groups—sometimes several dozen, sometimes more than a hundred—there was a white luminous body, an Alpha.
They had reached the target location, so their behavior was to first observe the situation from the rear.
No, at that distance, they would not even be able to see the apartment side properly, so it would be more accurate to say they were listening and sensing.
Especially since it was night, even if the moonlight was fairly bright.
'Crafty bastards.'
But today, that craftiness would be what led them to their deaths.
— Two thirty, two twenty, two ten, two hundred...!
At that moment, Park Deokcheol’s continuous distance report ended.
Aiming at the white head of the Alpha he had been watching from the moment it appeared, Junho spoke low.
“Now.”
Paaang!
The tungsten round flew out and lodged in the back of the Alpha’s head, and the light that had been burning like an incandescent bulb inside the night vision flared larger.
***
“Fuck! Let go! I said let go!”
“P-please spare me! Please spare me!”
The syndicate members who had been caught by the search team while hiding, along with those who had cooperated with them, shouted or begged.
“Aaah! Aaaaah!”
“Huuuh... huuuuh!”
With their hands tied and their eyes covered, they screamed and struggled desperately to avoid being dragged away.
But there was no way they could resist the strength of three or four soldiers each grabbing and hauling them.
Thud! Thwack!
The men were beaten as they were dragged along, then soon thrown down all at once onto the cold ground.
“Aaagh!?”
If there was any consolation, it was that their blindfolds were removed just before they were kicked, and they frantically looked around as they got up.
“Hrk!?”
But it did not take long for them to realize that being able to see was no consolation at all.
Kraaaaaaaaaah...!!!
Past the road connected to the apartment complex, only a few hundred meters away, an impossible-to-count number of zombies were charging madly toward them.
“Uaaagh!? Aaaaagh!”
“Open it! Open the door!”
Some screamed and collapsed where they stood, while others shouted until their throats nearly burst and pounded on the already closed gate in the complex’s outer wall.
The men who, as members or collaborators of the Daeseong syndicate, had murdered, oppressed, and trampled countless people now wailed.
Meanwhile, the zombies, made even more terrifying by their hair hanging loose in wild tangles, rapidly drew closer.
Eventually, some of the men began fleeing along the apartment’s outer wall in a frenzy.
“Haaaaah! Hrk!”
“T-take me with you! Take me with you!”
Most followed their comrades and ran.
“Huhihi... ihihihihi!”
But a few, whether they had lost their minds or sensed that this was the end, only stared at the wave of zombies surging toward them like a massive tide while letting out grotesque laughter.
Then magic happened.
The lead zombies, who had approached to within several dozen meters of the main gate, changed direction the moment they saw “moving prey.”
It happened because zombies had poor eyesight.
Gaaaaaaaaagh...!!!
And at that same moment, simultaneous fire began from the apartment rooftop.
***
“He says now!”
Park Deokcheol’s scream-like shout rang out across the rooftop.
But the soldiers, their backs soaked with sweat from being so tense in front of thousands of zombies, could not tell what had changed.
Kwooooooooh...!!!
The zombies were still charging madly toward them, and in thirty or forty seconds, it looked like they would crash into the main gate.
Then—
“Three o’clock! Three o’clock!”
At the drone operator’s sudden shout—
“Th-three o’cloooock!”
Kwakwang! Kwakwakwakwang!
The K15 light machine gunner wearing one of the few night-vision devices shouted loudly and opened fire.
Following the trajectory of the tracer rounds flying to one side, the soldiers on the rooftop also fired in the same direction.
Tatatatang! Tatatang! Tatatang!
Thanks to the power supplied from Golden Heights, several streetlights were on, and moonlight was also shining down.
Though faint, they could clearly see something continuing to collapse.
“Twelve o’clock!”
At the next shout, the sniper and the K15 gunner fired tracers in that direction, and the soldiers shifted their line of fire in perfect order.
Tatatatang! Tatatang! Tatang! Tatatata!
The direction into which hundreds of rounds poured all at once was where the slave zombies controlled by the Alpha Junho had killed were located.
When an Alpha died, the slave zombies froze completely for around five to ten seconds, their bodies twisting grotesquely.
Junho had ordered Lee Seokjin’s unit to concentrate fire in that brief window.
Also, the zombies surging toward the apartment’s main gate from the front were lured by throwing out as bait the gangsters who deserved to die already for their past sins.
In the end, nearly half of the massive zombie horde pushing toward Golden Heights either changed attack targets several dozen meters in front of the main gate, or lost the master controlling them in the rear and were stalled in place and shot down.
“I’m moving.”
— Yes, sir!!!
Listening to Park Deokcheol’s reply, unable to hide his excitement as he was seized by shock and awe—
Junho, who had accurately killed four Alphas in only two minutes amid this chaotic situation and rendered more than a thousand zombies incapable of action, threw the modified air rifle down where he stood and picked up the AR-15 again.
