The Apocalypse Regressor's All-Purpose Shelter

A drone.

The soldiers hiding in the Maebong Mountain junkyard stared slack-jawed at the machine hovering overhead with the buzzing sound of a swarm of hornets—a device that looked like the very symbol of advanced technology and human civilization itself.

Wheeeeeeeeng...!

Then another drone rapidly descended behind them.

And from this second drone—which looked significantly different from the first model—

—came the deep, calm voice of a man.

- Are you the Capital Recapture Force from Jeju Island?

“Huh!?”

The soldiers nearly panicked at the sudden voice.

- If confirmed, please hold up your IDs or dog tags.

“...!?”

Still dazed, but finally encountering something that felt like civilization again after so long, the soldiers hurriedly pulled out their identification cards and dog tags and held them toward the drone.

- Confirmed. Friendly forces will make contact shortly, so remain where you are. Do not fire under any circumstances.

Everyone nodded.

And that was how Junho’s group and the stranded soldiers of Maebong Mountain finally met.

***

Munch munch.

“Ghk...!”

“Slow down, slow down. Drink some water too.”

“T-Thank you.”

The stranded soldiers, who had practically gone a day and a half without food, devoured the combat rations like starving beasts.

While several reservists who had come with Junho maintained security outside, Junho spoke to Oh Hyunsu, the oldest among them and their temporary leader.

“You said you’ve been wandering around this area for three days. I take it there was basically no food?”

“We searched every empty house we could find and came up with nothing. Seriously... I kept thinking there should at least be one can or instant rice pack somewhere.”

“It’s been over ten months. Everything’s been looted already.”

Around the junkyard where they currently were, there were only a few abandoned houses, warehouses, and vinyl greenhouses.

But if someone followed the road down roughly three hundred meters, a residential neighborhood appeared.

In other words, while it was technically an outer edge of Seoul, people definitely used to live here.

There was no way not a single survivor had passed through the area during the ten months since the outbreak began.

“By the way, what route did you use to get here?”

At Junho’s question, Oh Hyunsu answered with an awkward expression.

“Ah, well... about that.”

Contrary to Junho’s expectations, Oh Hyunsu’s group had not been part of the force wiped out near Incheon.

Their mission had been to retake Gimpo Airport.

“But the weather was completely fucked that day. And besides, except for one guy, none of us had ever done airborne training before, let alone an actual jump. Me? Back in the Marine Recon unit I did some rappelling and soft duck training, that’s about it.”

In other words, there was no way troops who had received only rushed basic airborne instruction in Jeju could successfully perform a combat jump under terrible weather conditions.

“Normally they should’ve canceled the drop, but you think those government bastards would ever do that? Those sons of bitches just ordered us to jump anyway. So fuck... I bet a lot of people died during the drop before they even got the chance to fight zombies.”

Grinding his teeth, Oh Hyunsu let out a sigh and continued.

“Anyway, me and these guys met around Beombawi Mountain and Jayang Mountain. That mountain over in Sinwol-dong.”

Originally they should have pushed toward Gimpo Airport for the operation.

But with only around two hundred rounds of ammunition and two grenades, crossing several kilometers of residential districts to reach Gimpo Airport would’ve been suicide.

So instead, Oh Hyunsu wandered through the mountains looking for other troops in similar situations—and hopefully an active-duty officer or NCO capable of taking command.

“That’s how I found all these guys. The last one to join us was him, Park Seongtaek over there. Only active-duty Marine among us.”

“Oh really?”

At the mention of an active-duty Marine, Shin Hocheol and Kang Juyoung, who had been listening nearby, looked over with renewed interest.

Seeing the two staring at Park Seongtaek shoveling fried rice into his mouth with grease around his lips, Oh Hyunsu added:

“But he’s an admin clerk from a Jeju training camp. Communications specialty.”

“Ah....”

Well, ninety percent of the Capital Recapture Force had been reservists or civil-defense personnel anyway.

Only one or two out of every ten were active-duty soldiers, and even those weren’t elite troops.

The elite forces had been needed to protect the high-ranking officials in Jeju.

In the end, the Capital Recapture Force had been doomed from the beginning.

Of course, the [N O V E L I G H T] incompetent government and military leadership that shoved barely-trained troops into the Seoul metropolitan area less than two weeks after conscripting them either failed to realize that—or refused to admit it.

“Anyway, after finding him, we couldn’t locate anybody else while coming here. Then today we met all of you.”

“Man, we had it rough too, but sounds like you guys suffered a lot.”

“Come on, hyung, nothing compared to you guys.”

At Shin Hocheol’s words of sympathy, Oh Hyunsu looked at him and the others with genuine admiration.

Compared to these men—who had fought through zombies and carved their way through the middle of Bucheon—his own group had only wandered around mountains without even seeing real combat yet.

And that wasn’t all.

“Plus you even gave us combat rations... you people can’t exactly have plenty yourselves, so honestly this feels almost too generous.”

Even if they had all been conscripted from Jeju together, handing over precious food to complete strangers so readily was something beyond simple kindness.

“Aah, those? They’re not ours.”

“...Huh? Then....”

“Mr. Lee Junho prepared them.”

“What?”

“We got this far without starving because of Mr. Junho too. Those drones are his, and he supplied our ammunition as well.”

“...!”

Oh Hyunsu’s eyes widened.

Their uniforms and weapons were different, but he had assumed they were in similar circumstances.

But maybe this guy was far more incredible than he thought.

‘No... maybe...?’

If he could supply food and ammunition, then maybe there was a safe base or military force nearby.

Maybe these people had come from there.

“S-So are there more troops somewhere? Is there another unit?”

“No. There isn’t.”

“Ah....”

At Junho’s calm answer, the hope sparkling in Oh Hyunsu’s eyes instantly faded.

At least starvation had been solved for now, but apparently these people were no closer to salvation than they were.

Well, if they actually had answers, they wouldn’t be wandering mountains in the middle of the night.

“But that thing there... does it work?”

At Junho’s question, Oh Hyunsu—still visibly disappointed—turned his head slightly.

Park Seongtaek, the active-duty Marine communications specialist, was nearby finishing his fried rice and gulping down water beside a PRC-999K VHF tactical radio.

“It works, technically. But the battery’s almost dead. We still have the charging equipment, but we lost the spare batteries.”

“Really? Then just charge it.”

“...What? No, how exactly are we supposed to charge it here?”

Already frustrated and disappointed, Oh Hyunsu’s tone became noticeably sharper.

If that had been possible, they would’ve fully charged it and been transmitting all day already. It wasn’t funny.

“This should work, right?”

Junho pulled something out of a backpack one of the reservists had brought.

And Oh Hyunsu, who had been staring at him like the idea was absurd—

“What the hell is th— holy shit!?”

—could only widen his eyes in shock at the sight of the 300-watt portable solar panel and controller.

***

“We’re back.”

“Good work. What’s the situation?”

At Moon Younghoon’s question, Park Sangsik—who had returned from reconnaissance with several survivors from Nanji World Cup Park—removed his gear and answered.

“Looks like all the ones occupying the apartment complex across from the driving-test center moved toward Susaek Station.”

“...I see.”

The news that the nearby Alpha and its slave zombies had disappeared.

Yet neither Park Sangsik giving the report nor Moon Younghoon listening to it looked pleased.

Taking advantage of the night, Moon Younghoon and his team had infiltrated the driving-test center directly across from World Cup Park and secured various equipment, food from the cafeteria, and solar panels from the rooftop.

Furthermore, it offered a decent vantage point for observing Sangam-dong, which was surrounded by apartment complexes.

But now the Alpha occupying one of the nearby apartment complexes had left.

For the survivors hiding in World Cup Park, that was good news.

But an Alpha abandoning its territory also meant there was no more prey left there.

Which meant all the apartment survivors had either died or become zombies.

As Republic of Korea military personnel—especially UDT operators—they couldn’t help feeling furious.

“Vice Team Leader, still no response from above? They said to wait a little longer, but it’s already been days.”

“I’m frustrated too. But what can we do? If I heard the report we sent, I’d probably think we were insane too.”

“Haaah....”

A while ago, they had reported a certain group they encountered by chance.

Ignoring it as nonsense had been impossible considering the level of weapons and equipment those people possessed.

And above all, the impression left by the man named Lee Junho had been overwhelmingly strong.

Not only that—

If what he said was true, and it actually happened?

‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Nobody’s ever wiped out tens of thousands of zombies in a single operation before. And they probably never will again.’

And these weren’t ordinary zombies either.

They were the hordes controlled by city Alphas.

Moon Younghoon—and even the incompetent government and military leadership—now fully understood just how cunning those creatures were.

Even Jeju, which they had believed would be relatively safe due to its lower population density and lack of tall urban buildings compared to the Seoul metropolitan area, had suffered catastrophic losses.

And now someone was proposing to lure those creatures out and wipe them out not by the thousands, but by the tens of thousands?

It would be the greatest military achievement since the outbreak began.

And as Junho had said, if it helped establish a bridgehead in Gangnam and advance into the southern side of the Han River, there was absolutely no downside.

Of course, tens—no, hundreds—of millions of zombies still remained.

But even so, finally achieving a meaningful success mattered enormously.

“Anyway, we filed the report, so headquarters will decide something one way or another. Until then, we—”

Chkzzzt— chzzzt—

The PRC-999K tactical radio, which until now had produced nothing but RF static, suddenly emitted a sharp connection tone.

“...!?”

Moon Younghoon and Park Sangsik’s eyes widened as they instantly snapped their heads toward it.

Whenever they communicated with headquarters in the Yellow Sea, they used HF long-range shortwave radios.

Even though the PRC-999K had a long antenna attached, it was still intended for short-range communications.

Until now, it had never once picked up signals from the Korean Peninsula.

Because within the radio’s effective range of seven to eight kilometers, the only friendly forces around were Moon Younghoon’s own team.

But now—

Someone was attempting contact.

Chkzzzt—

- Longhorn Beetle, Longhorn Beetle, this is Mole Three... no wait, this is Reservist Sergeant Shin Hocheol of Capital Recapture Force 3rd Company. Anyone receiving, respond. Over.

- No, you can’t send it like that. Ahem. This is Halla Four, Halla Four. Any Halla units receiving, respond. Repeating. This is Halla Four, Halla Four....

Crash! Bang!

The moment they heard unmistakable call signs belonging to the Capital Recapture Force expedition from Jeju, Moon Younghoon practically threw himself at the radio.

***

“Yes. Then we’ll wait. Over. Yes, yes. Understood.”

After finishing the radio transmission with the UDT operators at World Cup Park in place of Park Seongtaek, Junho turned around.

Facing everyone’s expectant eyes, he grinned.

“It’s done. Staff Sergeant Moon Younghoon said he’ll personally handle it.”

“Uwaah!”

Although there was nobody within several hundred meters, making loud noise was still dangerous, so everyone merely clenched their fists and cheered quietly.

Especially the reservists from Maebong Mountain, including Oh Hyunsu.

Because if they completed their “deal” with Junho, they would be able to head to the location where active-duty UDT operators were stationed—people still maintaining contact with Navy vessels in the Yellow Sea.

Of course, it wouldn’t be completely safe there either.

But it had to be far better than remaining trapped in these mountains with no hope whatsoever of food or supplies.

“So are we heading there now?”

Once he calmed down a little, Oh Hyunsu asked the question.

Junho nodded with lowered eyes.

“Yes. The UDT operators at World Cup Park said they’ll report to the Navy and contact us immediately, but it’d still be better if we moved first and conducted reconnaissance ourselves.”

Before the regression, Junho had spent quite a long time in that area.

He knew the terrain like the back of his hand.

But with an operation approaching that might wipe out more looters and zombies than any event since the apocalypse began, everything needed to be prepared perfectly.

That was precisely why he had already eliminated several nearby Bucheon-region Alphas in advance—the ones most likely to converge here once the “event” began.

“Let’s move. To Oryu-dong....”

It was finally time to rain fire down upon the cultists of the apocalypse who had abandoned being human—

And the zombies that, in the near future, might sweep across the southern Seoul metropolitan region all the way to Gwangju and Namyangju.