The Apocalypse Regressor's All-Purpose Shelter

Jeju City, Republic of Korea Marine Corps 9th Brigade, temporary government building.

“So... Lee Junho? Who the hell is that? What unit is he with?”

“That’s... we don’t know.”

“What?”

The Minister of National Defense, a former four-star general, frowned before speaking in disbelief.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Does that even make sense? Don’t tell me you launched missiles and naval artillery into a civilian residential area based on the word of some bastard whose affiliation you don’t even know?”

“That’s correct. However, according to the Navy UDT report—”

Bang!

The Minister of National Defense threw an ashtray and shouted.

“You little bastard! Why the hell am I only hearing this now? Who was it? Which son of a bitch pulled something like that without reporting it to me first?!”

“The Vice Chief of Naval Operations....”

The operation devised and carried out by Lieutenant Colonel Choi Gilheon, captain of Daegu-class frigate XX, became credited as the work of the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.

Naturally, it was not because he was trying to steal the credit.

As the Minister had just learned, it was because the navy had originally decided and executed the operation independently without reporting it to the Jeju government or military leadership in the first place.

“The Vice Chief? Son Byeokhyeok? Has that man lost his mind? Fuck.... So what’s the reaction from above?”

“...This is the first report being delivered to you, Minister.”

“You little....”

The Minister of National Defense, who had grabbed something else from the desk to throw again, trembled before putting it back down.

“Fine. I’ll speak to the VIP myself, so get out. And what was the result? Around forty thousand? Make that look prettier. Raise it by thirty percent—no, just double it....”

Nobody knew exactly how many citizens had survived on the mainland anyway, nor how many infected there were.

This was a rare major achievement, so inflating the results twofold would not cause much trouble.

“Anyway, make it so we received the initial report and planned and executed it, not the navy and Son Byeokhyeok.”

“Ah, about that....”

“What now?”

“They only failed to report it upward. I heard a report was also submitted together with it to the Emergency National Defense Committee of the temporary National Assembly.”

Baaang!

“You little bastard! Why the hell would they report it there too?!”

Unable to hold back, the Minister of National Defense threw something again and fumed.

No matter how many “mistakes” had been made, the temporary National Assembly Emergency Defense Committee—which constantly interfered with military operations during this grave national crisis—was a thorn in the side of both the Minister of Defense and the Jeju temporary government.

Although procedures had been violated, this was the military’s first perfect achievement in a long time—no, their first ever—and he had intended to put his own name on it and package it as the government’s accomplishment.

But the moment the Emergency Committee received the same report, that plan went up in smoke.

“Haaah!”

Click.

The Minister of National Defense, his face burning red, let out a sigh and placed a cigarette in his mouth. The aide delivering the report quickly approached and lit it for him.

“Fuuu....”

After exhaling smoke for a long moment, the Minister spoke after thinking briefly with bloodshot eyes.

“You. Go bring the Deputy Director of the Second Bureau, the Intelligence Director, and the Chief of Staff.”

“The company” referred to the National Intelligence Service, and the Deputy Director of the Second Bureau, one of its key senior officials, had deep ties with the Minister.

Meanwhile, the Intelligence Director and Chief of Staff were not from the Joint Chiefs but from Army Headquarters, effectively his direct juniors.

In other words, the Minister of National Defense was now planning to throw around some unofficial authority through a private meeting.

But even before the world became like this, behavior like this from the Minister was nothing new, so the aide did not object.

He too was part of the line connected to the Minister, a graduate of the Korea Military Academy.

“And summarize the report verbally for the Deputy Director and the Intelligence Director. What did you say this guy’s name was?”

“Lee Junho.”

“Right, Lee Junho. Tell the Deputy Director and Intelligence Director to find out who this bastard is. What unit he belongs to, whose orders he follows. If his chain of command has completely collapsed, who we need to talk to in order to move him. No, forget that. Tell them to find out everything about him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Given that all they knew at the moment was his name and approximate age, the aide doubted whether such a thing was even possible.

But when the military tells you to do something, you do it.

And furthermore, from the perspective of the aide, who had spent a long time in Special Warfare Command, the figure known as “Lee Junho,” whose story had reached them from the World Cup Park UDT through the navy, was no joke.

He even thought that if someone like this had existed back when he served in Special Forces, they would have done everything possible to make him reenlist permanently.

“He’s a useful bastard still on the mainland, so tell them to drag him onto our side by whatever means necessary. We absolutely have to move faster than the National Assembly Emergency Committee. Dismissed.”

“Yes! Understood!”

After saluting sharply, the aide quickly left the Minister’s office.

His steps were incredibly hurried, pressured by the need to secure this “piece” as quickly as possible—a piece that might allow “their side,” not the navy, to achieve major accomplishments in the future.

Especially because nobody knew exactly who Lee Junho was or where he currently was.

But the same was true for other organizations and figures within the Jeju temporary government who had reviewed reports covering the enormous results achieved by the Daegu-class frigate.

***

Wheeeeeeeeng...!

After replacing the battery, the drone rose high above the Han River between Jamsil Railway Bridge and Olympic Bridge.

The distance between the two bridge piers exceeded six hundred meters, and the river width here reached nearly one kilometer, making it impossible for zombies or looters to see or hear them properly.

“There are some around Gangbyeon Station and Dong Seoul Terminal... and quite a lot around the apartment complex right next to Techno Mart.”

At Choi Hyunwoo’s words while lying beside him controlling the drone, Junho checked the screen and guided the boat toward the riverside.

“But are we really okay doing this, Boss?”

At Choi Hyunwoo’s worried question, Junho stared at the approaching riverside and answered.

“We need to recharge the electric motor batteries anyway.”

Just like when they traveled toward Bucheon, they continued suffering surveillance and pursuit from survivors and looters while moving upstream along the Han River.

Especially because of their bad luck, they got caught again by the drone of the survivors around Seoul Forest near Jungnang Stream—or maybe they were looters.

No matter how much camouflage they put on the boat, a fairly large object moving upstream could not escape a drone’s eyes.

Whether because the drone’s camera quality was poor or because they underestimated them, the drone boldly approached at low altitude.

But that became their mistake.

Because unlike when Junho left the shelter and traveled toward Bucheon, he no longer had any need to secretly travel down the Han River.

So the moment they passed Seongsu Bridge, he pulled out the Benelli M4—which he had not used even once during this operation—and blasted the drone out of the sky with birdshot.

The drone had not done anything openly hostile, but he could not tolerate bastards blatantly flying low and trying to inspect them.

Anyway, perhaps because their precious drone got blown straight into the river with just two birdshot shells, the surveillance and provocation(?) from the Seoul Forest survivor group did not continue.

And that also produced another effect.

“Areum. Watch the bastards across the river carefully.”

“Okay.”

It was good that the Han River water level had risen enough for them to move upstream by boat even past the weirs around Jamsil Bridge.

But that also meant the looters occupying the walking trails near Tancheon could do the same thing.

So the moment they saw Junho’s inflatable boat moving upstream, they pursued them again using motorboats and even jet skis.

But the instant they saw the universally acknowledged greatest communication tool—the shotgun—spitting fire, they fled back where they came from with their tails tucked between their legs.

However, because Junho knew better than anyone that looters in the apocalypse did not give up easily, he did not let his guard down.

The boat eventually reached the riverside around one hundred meters before Jamsil Railway Bridge.

“Then Ms. Jimin, if it’s zombies or those bastards across the river, just shoot everything that enters range.”

After patiently waiting until the sun began to set, Junho checked his equipment together with Yoon Seolhee before speaking to Kim Jimin.

“Yes. Don’t worry.”

It would soon be night anyway, and since they had docked the boat at a heavily wooded riverside while continuing surveillance with two drones, there was little risk of being discovered.

And even if something happened, Junho had no reason to worry about Kim Jimin’s abilities.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes.”

Activating their wide-angle night vision goggles, Junho and Yoon Seolhee left the overgrown riverside and climbed onto Gangbyeonbuk-ro.

Vehicles and ordinary zombies stood motionless everywhere like mannequins.

But the two of them, now highly experienced at moving at night, avoided them while minimizing noise and eventually passed beneath Jamsil Railway Bridge before arriving at the Techno Mart building.

'The basement’s a market, and the first floor’s a shopping mall, right?'

Although they had already conducted high-altitude drone reconnaissance during the day, the inside of the building was another matter entirely.

There was also a large supermarket in the basement, meaning it was safest to assume there were still survivors or Alphas inside.

Most importantly, the computer-related items and game consoles Junho wanted were located specifically on the seventh and eighth floors.

But Junho already had a plan.

The two secretly and quickly circled around the parking lot toward the back side of the Techno Mart building.

Because there was an external emergency staircase there.

Climbing onto the roof of a parked truck together with Yoon Seolhee, Junho—

Pahk!

Just like when he entered the Line 1 railway near Bucheon, jumped straight upward from a standing position, grabbed the over-two-meter second-floor overhang, and climbed up.

After that, he pulled Yoon Seolhee up with a rope, and the two easily entered the staircase exposed outside without walls or glass blocking it.

Since they had already confirmed by drone that the Techno Mart emergency exit was not blocked by obstacles, the two climbed the stairs without hesitation.

Eventually reaching the seventh floor, Junho carefully cracked open the emergency exit door.

Bzzzz....

And sent a mini drone inside.

The mini drone used infrared rather than thermal imaging, so it was difficult to immediately distinguish humans from zombies, but it was more than sufficient for identifying objects.

“There’s nobody here.”

After confirming that not a single person or zombie occupied the massive seventh floor, the two opened the door fully and entered.

Then they personally checked the area one section at a time using wide-angle night vision goggles, but not even a rat could be found on Techno Mart’s seventh floor.

Because—

“I heard it was bad, but seriously....”

“It was already bankrupt from the start, huh.”

Gangbyeon Techno Mart had already been such a failed place long before the apocalypse that empty stores vastly outnumbered operating ones.

***

Even though the vacancy rate was high, the seventh and eighth floors of Techno Mart, which dealt with computer devices and game consoles, still had some stores in business.

So Junho and Yoon Seolhee used the cutting tools and other equipment they brought to break into the stubborn shops that had somehow still been operating.

“We focus on grabbing graphics cards, power supplies, and SSDs.”

After spending a long time together with Yoon Youngsu, Junho had picked up at least some shallow knowledge about AI and computing.

- Workstations or rack-mounted servers are obviously better, you know?

But servers and storage equipment were too bulky to move in large quantities and load onto the boat.

In the end, the only things the two of them could sweep away in large quantities at once were small GPUs, power supplies, and SSDs.

And thanks to repeatedly being tormented by Yoon Youngsu, Junho knew extremely well which products were the newest.

“If it says RTX on the box and starts with 30 or 40, take all of them. We don’t need GTX or GT.”

“SSDs are the stick-like ones labeled NVME or M2.”

“1-terabyte and 2-terabyte hard disks are just heavy and useless.”

“Yes.”

Junho and Yoon Seolhee moved from shop to shop collecting parts almost as if they were shopping.

Then suddenly, a specialty game store caught Junho’s eye.

Even before the apocalypse, it had already become a world where people no longer bought gaming-related products offline.

But somehow, one store had managed to survive without shutting down.

And inside its storage room—

“.......”

Perhaps hoping to capitalize on the summer vacation “holiday rush,” dozens of boxes of game consoles, including Play Terminal 5s, were stacked by type.

In other words, it was a jackpot.

- Play Terminal 5s? Even just thirty or forty would be great. Back in the day the U.S. military made a supercomputer cluster out of around a thousand Terminal 3s.

- Well, they blocked that starting with 4, but they’re still good as support systems. They’re multicore, so you can run °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° greenhouse environmental controls on them too. Or warehouse management.

- Even if the GPU’s weak, once I optimize the models they’re still more than enough for support computation. They’re perfect for small-scale automation logic. I can do it.

It would probably not be enough for the massive upgrade to the AI computing system Yoon Youngsu wanted so badly.

Still, this much would at least be enough as a “return gift,” like a father buying a game console for his son on the way home from work.