The Apocalypse Regressor's All-Purpose Shelter

'No matter how I think about it, this sounds like bullshit...'.

Just before sunrise, while moving together with the others along the foothills of Maebong Mountain, thirty-two-year-old reservist Han Seongmin glanced toward Junho walking at the front.

'A pastor offering sacrifices to zombies? Calling Alpha zombies apostles sent by God? And the followers just watch that happen without saying anything?'

According to Junho, the Alphas in this area regularly received “human sacrifices” and, in return, left the church alone.

Han Seongmin simply could not believe it.

'I’m grateful for the combat rations, but come on. At least say something believable.'

Unlike the other reservists traveling with them, Han Seongmin was from Jeju Island.

That was why he had experienced last year’s worldwide infection outbreak while visiting his parents’ home on vacation in Jeju.

And his hometown had not even been in Seogwipo or Jeju City, but a tiny seaside village in Seongsan-eup.

The kind of stereotypical quiet countryside Jeju town with a few month-stay pensions and guesthouses that had become trendy over the last few years.

The population was under two hundred people, so the infection never even started there.

Most residents only learned about the disaster through the news.

It was only after the government fled to Jeju a little over a week after the outbreak began that he finally accepted everything was real.

In other words, Han Seongmin had never truly experienced the apocalypse firsthand.

'Something about this feels seriously wrong....'

Of course, he had seen countless videos of zombies overrunning cities and attacking people.

He had been forcibly conscripted into the Capital Recapture Force, received training, successfully survived the airborne drop through sheer luck, wandered the mountains, reunited with other survivors, and made it all the way here.

Yesterday, he had even spoken by radio with the UDT operators stationed at World Cup Park and seen with his own eyes that many people were indeed living inside Saekkeut Grace Church.

But none of that proved everything Lee Junho said was true.

'What if he’s just trying to use us to take over that place...?'

Now that he thought about it, Junho disappearing alone for several hours last night had also seemed strange.

The reservists who came with him said he had gone scouting the mountain and preparing something.

But honestly, how would anyone know?

For all they knew, maybe he had been preparing to push them into a trap.

'Fuck, this is making me nervous....'

His lack of real apocalypse experience, vague suspicion toward Junho, fear that he might soon have to shoot other people—

And the certainty that this operation would draw every zombie in the surrounding area toward them.

All of it was beginning to cloud Han Seongmin’s judgment.

Then—

“They’re coming out. Everyone, watch.”

Startled by Junho’s voice, Han Seongmin reflexively moved closer and looked down at the tablet screen together with the others.

In the dim light before sunrise, six cult followers dressed in matching uniforms were carrying something on a stretcher down the broad parking-lot road connected to the church entrance.

As the drone camera zoomed in, the identity of what lay on the stretcher became clear.

“...!”

It was a person.

Not a corpse, either.

The two men and women lying weakly on the stretcher, sluggishly moving their limbs as though half-asleep or heavily drugged, were very clearly alive.

Two cultists carrying air rifles walked in front while the other four carried the stretcher through the parking lot.

When they reached the main gate, where barriers made from piled-up junk blocked the inside of the walls, the guards opened the gate for them.

The group exited onto the road, walked toward the tourist buses blocking the route toward Oryu-dong, climbed a makeshift staircase, and stepped onto the roof of one of the buses.

And then—

“Huh?”

“What the fuck...?”

They threw the two people directly off the bus roof.

The man apparently struck his head during the fall and lay motionless on the pavement.

The middle-aged woman, however, seemed to regain consciousness from the agony of broken bones and began crawling across the ground screaming.

No sound reached them from this distance, but the twisted expression on her face, the tears, and her mouth stretched wide open were enough for Han Seongmin to almost physically feel her terror and pain.

But the truly horrifying part had only just begun.

“T-Those...”

Far down the eight-lane road leading toward Oryu-dong, more than a hundred zombies were sprinting toward them at insane speed.

Even more shocking—

Two of the cultists who had thrown the victims down did not flee.

They simply remained standing atop the bus, watching.

But that was not the end of it.

The zombies rushed all the way to the tourist bus almost instantly.

Yet instead of attacking the cultists standing on the roof, they merely grabbed the terrified woman and the limp man by the limbs and dragged them away.

“...Ah.”

Watching the scene while trembling violently, Han Seongmin finally understood.

That was a transaction.

A transaction between humans and zombies.

And at the same time, it was undeniable proof that Junho had been telling the truth.

“Fuck....”

“Goddammit...!”

“Fucking animals... those bastards deserve to die....”

As curses and rage exploded around him, Han Seongmin finally began seeing these men not merely as fellow survivors, but as comrades fighting the same enemy.

***

“......”

While silently staring at the tablet screen, Junho’s hand unconsciously began trembling.

Tension? Fear?

Of course not.

At this very moment, Junho had just realized a truth he had failed to notice before the regression.

Baek Suho, who had suffered from pancreatic cancer before the regression, might not have died simply because this cult had stopped his life-support treatment.

No.

Looking at the situation now, the answer was obvious.

Would lunatics who worshiped Alpha zombies as apostles of God and offered living humans as sacrifices really spend resources caring for terminally ill patients?

No matter how much they coveted Baek Hail’s skills and abilities, that made no sense.

And Baek Suho had not been the only patient kept inside the nursing facility on church grounds.

There had been others too.

Most of them had been seriously ill like Baek Suho, so while Junho stayed there before the regression, he had not thought much of it when some of them died.

But now he understood.

They had not died from illness.

Those monsters who abandoned their humanity had thrown them to zombies as sacrifices.

Meaning that before the regression, Baek Suho probably also—

“Seongtaek. Send the transmission. Tell them we’re starting now.”

Suppressing the nausea rising in his throat, Junho spoke in a chilling voice.

“Yes, sir!”

After hearing Park Seongtaek’s response over the PRC-999K from the highest point on Maebong Mountain where he remained on standby, Junho turned around.

“Everyone move to your assigned positions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Understood.”

After witnessing fellow humans thrown to zombies as feed, murderous fury now burned in the reservists’ eyes.

***

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud...!

“Haaa...”

Inside the Super Lynx helicopter from Daegu-class frigate XX, Ensign Kim Hojun, aide officer from the ship’s CIC (Combat Information Center), let out a long sigh.

They were sending this precious helicopter all the way to Bucheon even though the fleet only had enough aviation fuel left for one more full refuel afterward.

Of course, the round trip from the waters off Incheon to Bucheon was under sixty kilometers, and even hovering overhead for observation would not consume that much fuel.

'Still, a waste is a waste.'

Even so, Kim Hojun never doubted Captain Choi Gilheon’s decision.

Because if Lieutenant Colonel Choi Gilheon had not acted quickly and decisively last summer when the outbreak first began, a significant portion of the ship’s crew would have died or become zombies.

Their frigate itself might have become a ghost ship.

“Jesus...”

Looking down at the city below from the helicopter, Kim Hojun bit his lip.

He had often seen footage of ruined cities, but witnessing one directly with his own eyes was beyond words.

No matter how long humanity had abandoned these places, it still felt impossible that civilization itself could decay this thoroughly.

Mountains and parks that had reverted into something resembling the untouched forests of the DMZ he once visited during his academy years.

Fires and black smoke rising from scattered locations throughout the city.

Roads packed solid with abandoned vehicles left behind by refugees.

Groups of zombies wandering here and there.

'This really is the apocalypse....'

For a moment, Kim Hojun even thought it might have been fortunate that his parents—who had almost certainly died during the first week of the outbreak—never had to witness this nightmare.

Still chewing nervously on his lip, he watched as the Super Lynx passed above Gwanghak Mountain and Geoma Mountain near Incheon before crossing Seongju Mountain near Sosaeul Station.

“Hojun, we’re approaching Cheonwang Mountain.”

“Yes, sir. Confirming now.”

Responding to the warrant officer piloting the helicopter, Kim Hojun raised a digital monocular.

Fuel shortages were directly tied to the fleet’s power shortages, which meant electronic equipment had to be used sparingly whenever possible.

But this mission was too important—or potentially important—not to bring it.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud...!

The Super Lynx rapidly crossed over the apartment complexes of Sosa-gu before moving along the Line 1 railway near Cheonwang Mountain in Oryu-dong and entering a high-altitude hover.

Kim Hojun intended to confirm the coordinates and compare them against the map one more time.

But he never got the chance.

“Ah...?”

Because black smoke and flames were already rising from inside the church compound belonging to the cult that supposedly sacrificed people to zombies.

“Pilot, that—”

“I see it too. I’m transmitting immediately—”

The shocked voice of the pilot came through the headset.

And then—

KWWWWOOOOOOOM—!!!

Even over the deafening roar of the helicopter rotors from nearly a kilometer away, an enormous explosion thundered across the city.

The black smoke billowing upward was swallowed instantly as towering flames erupted into the sky.

“M-Mother of God...!”

Kim Hojun stared blankly as fire blasted dozens of meters upward, engulfing what appeared to be the entire parking-lot area in a single explosion.

At that scale, not only the buildings around the church but even distant apartments and houses—

“Wait...”

Still thinking like a military officer even amid the terrifying explosion, Kim Hojun suddenly jerked in alarm and frantically swept the monocular across the city.

“Ghk...!?”

Thousands? Tens of thousands?

From every building within a one-kilometer radius around the coordinates, an uncountable number of zombies were pouring out like swarming ants.

“Pilot! Right now! Send it to the ship immediately! Tell the captain—!”

“I already am!”

Hearing the pilot’s response, Kim Hojun kept scanning the ground through the monocular.

All of those zombies were converging toward the towering flames.

His grip tightened unconsciously around the device.

The “unknown” intelligence obtained by the UDT was no longer unknown.

For the first time since this damned catastrophe began dragging the world toward extinction—

The Republic of Korea Navy, and specifically his ship, now had the opportunity to bring lightning down upon tens of thousands of cannibal monsters.

Lightning in the form of Haeryong tactical land-attack missiles and 127mm naval high-explosive and APHE shells.

***

“Target coordinates confirmed! Density at maximum!”

At the tactical team leader’s report, Choi Gilheon stared silently at the screen for a moment.

Then he pressed the microphone on his headset and opened his dry lips.

“Fire control. Haeryong warhead type two. Prepare launch tubes one, two, and three.”

“Haeryong launch tubes one and two loaded!”

“Target coordinates input confirmed! Launch preparation complete!”

At that moment, the atmosphere inside the bridge became deathly silent, as though submerged underwater.

“Three-second launch interval. Sequential firing.”

At Choi Gilheon’s short command, the bridge rumbled deeply.

KWAHHHHH—!

The Haeryong missiles erupted from the launch tubes near the stern trailing flames, and moments later, live tracking footage of the missiles racing toward the ground appeared on-screen.

Then shortly afterward—

“Warhead One impact in nine seconds! Warhead Two in twelve! One in five, four, three, two, one!”

The screen flashed white.

“Direct hit confirmed! Warhead Two... impact confirmed!”

“Coordinates updated from Super Lynx!”

“Naval gunfire preparations complete!”

Excited reports nearly turned into screams around him, but Choi Gilheon remained cold and composed.

“Sweep along the major concentration axis. Fire control. Burst-fire mode. Four-round interrupted volleys.”

“Fire!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The frigate thundered violently as high-explosive shells crossed the skies above Incheon roughly thirty seconds later, delivering a literal rain of fire across hundreds of meters around the target coordinates.

On that day—

The Republic of Korea Navy, no—the Republic of Korea Armed Forces—achieved their greatest victory against the zombies in nearly ten months.

And after this battle, where a single frigate annihilated tens of thousands of zombies, reports about a Capital Recapture Force unit operating under the callsign “Halla Four” began circulating among government and military leadership.

At the same time, thanks to reports from the UDT operators at World Cup Park—

The name of an unidentified survivor who played the single most decisive role in the operation also became known:

Lee Junho.