The Apocalypse Regressor's All-Purpose Shelter

TUTUTUTU...!

Listening to the sound of rain striking the tarp, Junho quietly stepped outside.

Literal pitch-black darkness greeted him.

RUMBLE...!

The distant sound of thunder, followed belatedly by a flash of lightning, briefly dyed the far sky with light.

At that moment, the slope of the mainland adjacent to the island shook faintly.

When the wide-angle night-vision goggles automatically focused, he saw a water deer darting away.

Junho gave a faint snort of laughter, smelled the fishy scent of water and wet earth, then walked along the water’s edge and checked the inflatable boat.

The inflatable boat was well hidden under the camouflage net.

The electric motor and dry battery were also intact inside their waterproof cases.

The water level would rise a little because of the rain, but there was no danger of it being swept away.

“Is it about to let up?”

Looking at the rain falling onto the surface of the Bukhan River, now clearly thinner than it had been an hour earlier, Junho murmured quietly.

Then, after circling the narrow island once, he lifted the perfectly concealed tarp and went back inside the campsite.

***

The time was 3:50 a.m.

The three of them were sound asleep on their cots.

“This guy. He’s not a kid...”

Unlike Yoon Seolhee and Park Deokcheol, who were tucked inside their sleeping bags like caterpillars, Choi Hyunwoo had half kicked his off and was snoring softly.

Junho clicked his tongue lightly and covered him properly with the sleeping bag.

After taking off his rain gear and hanging it beside the portable electric fan, Junho sat down in a Helinox Tactical field chair, the same brand as the cots where the three were sleeping.

He himself did not really know, but since Park Deokcheol had praised it so enthusiastically, practically spraying spit as he coveted it—so Junho had promised to give him one once they returned to the shelter—it somehow did feel comfortable.

The thermal-imaging cameras were still working properly.

As expected, waterproofing them in advance for bad weather like today, based on experience from the Bucheon expedition, had been the right choice.

After standing watch for about ten more minutes while frequently checking the laptop screen, Junho lightly tapped Yoon Seolhee, who had been assigned the last watch.

“Manager.”

“......!”

She seemed to open her eyes slightly, then immediately sat up and cracked her neck left and right.

“Already my turn, I guess? Whew, I slept well.”

“You must have slept comfortably.”

“Yes. Unlike during the Bucheon expedition... Ah, of course, I’m not saying that was uncomfortable. We were on an operation, so that was only natural. It’s just that this is too comfortable.”

Junho handed a cup of tea he had brewed in advance to Yoon Seolhee as she put on her tactical vest and checked her firearm and equipment.

“Here. Drink this.”

“Thank you. Anyway, that’s what I mean. This is too comfortable. This isn’t training, it’s the real thing, and in a world like this at that.”

After taking a sip of warm black tea, Yoon Seolhee looked around and gave a small shrug.

“Honestly, it’s comfortable to the point of being too comfortable. Enough that I wonder if it’s okay for us to be this relaxed. You know better than anyone, Mr. Junho, but we didn’t come out here to play.”

However, anyone looking at the current situation would think they had gone on a proper camping trip.

Even during peacetime, this level would have been excessive enough to call it “luxury camping.”

So if someone else had prepared it, Yoon Seolhee would definitely have said something.

Something like, “Do you think we came on a picnic?”

But Yoon Seolhee knew.

“You did it because of those two, didn’t you?”

“...Yes, well.”

Following Yoon Seolhee’s gaze toward Park Deokcheol and Choi Hyunwoo, Junho gave a bitter smile.

“I thought so. Killing people... It’s not something that becomes okay immediately afterward, not just while pulling the trigger.”

“......”

“Honestly, I noticed from the moment you deliberately grilled the meat we looted and created this camping atmosphere. Mr. Deokcheol and Mr. Hyunwoo haven’t built up enough experience to endure what comes after killing yet. If you push them hard all at once, the backlash will be just as strong.”

“Besides, our shelter isn’t a place where only people who fight with guns and knives live.”

“...That’s true.”

Yoon Seolhee nodded as though she had expected that answer.

In the end, even in the military, where killing was the purpose, if someone suffered from PTSD, the effects influenced the other members in ways both large and small.

But if it was a shelter with ordinary civilians, even young children, then there was no need to say more.

Looking at the two sleeping soundly, Junho continued in a low voice.

“Dr. Choi says Junhyeok still suddenly bolts upright in his sleep these days. He acts like nothing is wrong in front of me and the others, but do you think that’s easy?”

His younger brother Junhyeok was still tormented by nightmares of the people he had personally killed, starting with EoktenZ.

That was only natural.

Humans were not machines.

No matter how long one spent preparing in advance, killing someone left traces deep in the heart.

And in a world where cannibal monsters that ate people alive, and psychopaths who did even worse things to fellow humans, were running rampant, after crossing back and forth beyond the boundary and exchanging life and death, to be completely fine?

If such a person existed, they would be the one who needed to be watched even more carefully.

“My own brother, who prepared thoroughly with me for a long time, is like this. These guys must have it worse. Mr. Jimin, Mr. Jaemun, Mr. Jeongmok... and I think you’re probably the same, Manager.”

“...Hard to deny.”

Yoon Seolhee, who had already participated in “operations that had not been declassified” before the apocalypse broke out, nodded heavily.

“Did you know? I still sometimes dream about my first real operation.”

“......”

“The time that day, the weather, the situation... even the color of the cars belonging to the people I shot and the expressions on their faces. Everything gets reproduced. Now I just think, ah, it’s that dream again, and let it pass. But the first few months were pretty hard. That’s why I received psychological counseling too.”

“You’ve accepted it now.”

“Yes. You know it well.”

Yoon Seolhee looked surprised.

Because that was something no one could know unless they had experienced it directly.

But she soon understood.

Because the person in this place with more experience killing than anyone else—more even than anyone she knew—was Junho.

But Yoon Seolhee still had to ask this man, who wore a calm expression even now, as always.

“...Mr. Junho, you’re all right, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m all right.”

An answer that came without even one second of hesitation.

Without realizing it, Yoon Seolhee smiled faintly.

“I thought you would be. If you weren’t all right, you wouldn’t be able to look after those guys like this.”

Because she knew people who had suffered from PTSD and eventually collapsed, she could be certain.

Even in a world gone this insane, if someone could still care for the people around him, then he truly was all right.

A person whose heart was broken and who was barely holding himself together could never act the way Junho did now.

“Please get some sleep. I think I took up too much of your time.”

“No. I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“......?”

Leaving Yoon Seolhee looking puzzled, Junho lifted the tarp slightly and looked out at the drizzle, now even thinner than it had been when he circled the island.

Then he said quietly,

“Because it looks like the rain is going to stop at exactly the right time.”

***

“Haah...”

The man standing dawn watch in the CCTV room set up inside the Nami Island Hotel yawned long and wide.

In front of him were several ordinary CCTV monitors.

Each monitor was split into dozens of feeds, showing footage from the CCTVs surrounding the island and footage from inside the food court where people lived.

But unlike our shelter’s control room, the screens were placed haphazardly, with no consideration for viewing angle or concentration, so it was difficult to focus and watch them properly.

Moreover, it was dawn, with about an hour still remaining before sunrise.

At this hour, when the attitude of night-watch personnel became the loosest, there was no way a member of a looter group—not a military unit—would carefully check the outside of the island, where everything seemed much the same.

That was why he completely failed to notice something emerging from the water and landing on the island, slightly disturbing the tall brush.

No, even if he had seen that screen, he would certainly have assumed the brush and reeds had simply shaken a little more strongly in the river wind that was still blowing fiercely, unlike the rain that was gradually letting up.

***

“Landing complete.”

- Confirmed.

Listening to Choi Hyunwoo’s tense voice, Junho took off the wetsuit he had been wearing.

After that, he opened the large waterproof bag he had brought, took out everything inside it, folded the wetsuit, and put it inside.

Then he also put away the high-performance underwater scooter—Diver Propulsion Vehicle—that had made it possible for him to “dive” here from the mainland forest roughly one hundred and fifty meters from the edge of the island.

A scooter not even quite one meter long cost over ten million won, but since it was designed for long-distance expeditions and underwater cave exploration, its performance was certain.

Because of the rain, the flow volume had increased and the current was extremely strong, yet the underwater scooter had transported him through the water with no issue whatsoever, even with a waterproof bag weighing nearly fifty kilograms.

- No movement in the residential area centered around the food court.

- The two-hundred-meter radius around your current position is also secure.

Reports continued through drone surveillance.

This, too, was thanks to advanced technology and Junho’s thorough preparation.

In an environment with wind this strong, small drones could not fly at high altitude.

Only military drones, or large and heavy industrial drones like the ones operated by our shelter, could properly perform their role.

Junho quickly put on the equipment from the waterproof bag.

CLACK. CLUNK.

The weight was so heavy that normally someone would have had to help him put it on, but that did not apply to Junho.

Just like that, Junho rapidly attached each “part” to his body as though putting on ordinary clothing.

And in less than three minutes, Junho’s appearance transformed into a heavy figure that made one wonder whether fast movement was truly possible.

There were two Dragon Scale suits brought in through Redrock Academy.

One suit had first been worn during the Moku-ri “Kookje faction” raid, then repaired and maintained, but still preserved in its original form.

By contrast, the other suit had been painstakingly modified by Baek Hail over a long period of time based on the data acquired back then and Junho’s own experience.

That was the one Junho was wearing now.

Junho had hated it, but Yoon Youngsu, who had worked on the damn thing’s electronic equipment with Baek Hail, had stubbornly given it a name in the end.

The so-called “Dragon Scale Mk 2.”

After covering his entire body as though in armor with monstrous ballistic equipment capable of shrugging off 5.56mm or 7.62mm rounds across his whole body except for a few areas around the joints, Junho finally pulled on the dedicated ballistic helmet and spoke.

“Entering now.”

- Confirmed. Switching drone to follow mode.

Junho checked the drone camera feed appearing on the palm-sized LCD screen attached to the inside of his wrist, then lowered his body and moved.

It was absolutely impossible to believe he was wearing ballistic equipment with a massive weight of several dozen kilograms.

At a speed no different from a skilled special-forces operator armed while wearing ordinary body armor, Junho cut through the darkness of Nami Island.

***

- Nothing unusual at the hotel.

Listening to the continuing radio transmissions, Junho approached the hotel blind spot the man in the black cap had told him about.

Because the existing CCTVs had been repurposed for monitoring the island’s outer perimeter, there was supposedly no surveillance in places other than the main entrance.

But he could not just trust those words and charge in blindly.

So Junho thoroughly scanned the surroundings with his wide-angle night-vision goggles.

Only after personally confirming that the dead looter’s words were true—

CLACK.

He locked the bolt to the rear and entered through the unlocked rear door of the hotel kitchen.

This, too, was a place used as a doghole by the subordinates of Park Gyumin, the ruler of Nami Island, and the men who had once been staff here.

'What a shitshow.'

As expected of bastards who benefited from the special nature of an isolated island, and who had always been the ones killing and taking since the world collapsed, never once the opposite, the security and watch of their headquarters were not merely sloppy.

They were pathetic.

- ♩ ♫ ♪ ♬ ♫ ♩

Since this was a place still using electricity through solar power and generators, and they were playing music fairly loudly, finding the room used as the CCTV room was easy.

Thanks to that, even though Junho was wearing the heavy Dragon Scale, the noise he made while moving went unnoticed.

He was able to aim his muzzle far too easily at the back of the head of the man sprawled long in his chair, focused not on the CCTV monitors but on the screen of a handheld game console.

TAK.

A subsonic round lodged in the back of the man’s head, and his body slumped even farther down.

“CCTV room secured. Move if I signal within ten minutes.”

- Confirmed!

What was the very first thing to do after infiltrating an enemy headquarters one had never entered before?

There was no need to think.

Make sure the enemy could neither hear, see, nor communicate.

CRUNCH! TUTUK!

That was why Junho used his terrifying grip strength, which had risen almost to the level of a gorilla’s, to destroy every piece of equipment that would serve as the Nami Island looters’ eyes and ears.

Along with that—

'These idiots put the power room here?'

Each building scattered across the island had things like emergency generators, but there was no way such things would be functioning properly in the current world.

So Junho immediately went down to the basement and cut off the main solar-power generation system as well.

“Now, what can you do?”

After cutting the ESS battery power, Junho murmured quietly.

With this, the power had gone out, and there would be chaos in the food court where Park Gyumin and the other rulers, along with the people who had become their slaves, lived.

But although the bastards here were unusually rich in firearms, equipment, and supplies for an apocalypse looter group, they did not have night-vision goggles.

In other words, from now on, they had no choice but to use things like flashlights.

- Multiple light sources detected in the food court. They’re coming outside now.

“Yes. Let’s begin immediately.”

- Confirmed.

And that meant they had become excellent prey for the A2 drone controlled by Yoon Seolhee.