In March 2024, with about half a year left before the apocalypse, Junho spent that whole time living at Our Pension and focusing only on the things he could do here.
First, he signed a lease with Namyangju City Hall for the rights to the back mountain for 100 million won a year, cleared up the mountain trail, and then built five guard posts disguised as shelters.
They were matched as closely as possible to the height of the trees and painted in camouflage colors, making them hard to spot not just from the ground, but even in aerial drone footage.
The guard post by the hidden passage connected to the industrial road near Gahyeon-ri had been built with especially painstaking care, to the point that even when Junho personally checked from the road with binoculars, he still was not completely sure where it was.
And each guard post had a repeater installed so that wireless communication based on Our Pension’s local network would function normally throughout the pension grounds, the entire back mountain, and even out to two or three kilometers beyond the mountain.
Of course, for now it still relied on Korea’s telecommunications networks, but once the apocalypse hit, it could be switched over to the local network with a relatively simple setup.
Because when communications and internet service went down during the apocalypse, it was almost always a power problem.
He had also installed high-performance cameras in the guard posts—externally identical to the ones he had put on the Bucheon house, but with improved performance.
With a total of ten cameras installed across the guard posts, each with a visible range of 900 meters by day and 500 meters by night, it would be impossible for anyone to approach the shelter without entering their surveillance coverage.
And Junho rented two additional places in Gahyeon-ri: one on the top floor of one of the two apartment complexes there, and one villa unit near the tunnel that had been closed for years but still lay close to the route leading into the village where Our Pension was located.
In each of these safe houses, he installed two high-performance Korean-made CCTV cameras.
The apartment’s surveillance angle covered the busy part of Gahyeon-ri and the roads leading toward Seoul and central Namyangju.
The villa’s surveillance angle covered the closed tunnel and the surrounding area.
They were not as capable as the cameras installed at the shelter and the guard posts, and their range was shorter, but at over one million won per unit, they still delivered a satisfyingly wide field of view and night surveillance.
Then, after thoroughly soundproofing both safe houses, he laid portable solar panels on the living-room floor under windows that got plenty of sunlight, though they could not be seen from outside, and out on the balconies.
He also installed low-noise household diesel generators to prepare for the blackout that would come with the apocalypse.
Baek Hail had modified the generators and connected custom eighty-liter fuel tanks, so by using solar power during the day and the generators at night, the CCTV systems could run around the clock for about a year.
That was because Junho expected to make contact with the Gahyeon-ri survivors within a year at the latest.
While preparing the safe houses in Gahyeon-ri, Junho also met Lee Dongcheol and Viktor Volk Choi several more times.
Through the Volcano Group’s Busan branch, Junho purchased not only alcohol, fuel, pharmaceuticals, medical oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, and huge quantities of syringes—
but also military-grade night-vision devices and thermal cameras.
He always paid cleanly and on time, and even when deliveries were slightly delayed over minor issues, he only asked calm, polite questions as a client rather than making unreasonable demands or raising hell.
As a result, Viktor Volk Choi’s trust and confidence in Junho only grew stronger.
And Junho sensed that the time had finally come to launch the “operation” he had kept delaying in order to hit the timing perfectly.
So at the end of March, Junho finally sold off all of his NVIDIA stock after it had risen to 90 dollars a share.
Then, with the final deposited amount—20.3 billion won after taxes and various fees had been deducted, including even the late purchases Baek Hail had made—he decided to buy all the shelter’s supplies he had been holding himself back from, including food and every kind of vehicle.
And that included real guns.
***
“Brat, long time no see.”
“Yeah, it has been. You’ve been well, Volk?”
Nearly a year of business had built such deep trust between Junho and Viktor Volk Choi that their relationship had become more than just customer and seller.
Of course, that was not simply because their transactions had been clean.
“Who is it today?”
When Junho casually asked, Viktor Volk Choi shook his head with a bitter expression.
“There’s nobody left now. Every one of my guys got wrecked by you.”
“Ah... right. I guess so.”
With an awkward look, Junho glanced over the Volcano Group Busan branch men who had come with Viktor Volk Choi.
The big, heavily hairy Russian mobsters all avoided Junho’s gaze like they were embarrassed.
Which made sense. Once word spread that at their first meeting in the Jamsil café, two of their men had been taken down before they could even do anything, one or two Busan branch members had politely challenged Junho every time they met for a deal after that.
And Junho had literally dropped them in seconds.
Now that it had happened several times, it seemed they had finally run out of challengers altogether.
“Anyway, you’re incredible. If you weren’t rich, I’d recruit you into our group. At your level, you’d be one of the best in our branch—hell, in the whole organization.”
The Wolf of the Russian Far East had come to fully recognize and like Junho not as a customer, but as one man recognizing another.
“Nice joke. Anyway, here’s the payment for today.”
Because they preferred cash transactions, being mafia and all, Junho handed him an aluminum hard case stuffed with crisp 50,000-won bills.
“Thanks, as always.”
Without even checking inside, Viktor Volk Choi handed the case to one of his men.
After finishing the deal on the deserted breakwater, Junho parked the box truck in a parking lot managed by the Volcano Group.
Then he traveled with Viktor Volk Choi to a tourist hotel on the Gangwon coast.
Now that their relationship had grown closer, they had recently begun spending a little time together over drinks or tea after finishing their deals.
“But, Brat. There’s someone I want to introduce you to today. That’s all right, yeah?”
“That’s fine. But who is it?”
“One of our middle managers. My this.”
Grinning, Viktor Volk Choi held up his pinky.
He held up his pinky and grinned.
“Oh, really? Then should I call her my sister-in-law?”
He answered as if it were nothing, but Junho’s heart was pounding violently.
It was not a scenario he had specifically mapped out beforehand, but it felt like the time had finally come.
“Lizka (Лизка), say hello. This is my Brat, Lee Junho.”
A classic blonde Slavic beauty with a curvy figure and a height well over 170 centimeters approached with a bright smile.
“Hello. I’ve heard a lot about you. My name is Elizaveta. You can just call me Lisa.”
Elizaveta Valbashina (Елизавета Валбашина).
One of the executives in the Volcano Group’s Busan branch, she oversaw the Russian singers and dancers they supplied to Busan nightlife venues, along with the women who provided “special services.”
And when the apocalypse broke out, she was the very traitor who had tried to kill Viktor Volk Choi alongside one of the branch’s other executives.
“Ah, nice to meet you. I’m Lee Junho. You’re really beautiful. And your Korean is excellent.”
“I’ve lived in Korea for more than ten years already. But I heard you’re supposed to be really strong, Mr. Junho?”
At the pressure of her gaze, Junho gave a wry smile and shook his head.
“I’m just ordinary. I got lucky, that’s all.”
“I don’t think so....”
“Lizka. I still have a few things to talk over with him, so you and Brat can hang out later.”
“All right. If I’d known, I would’ve brought some of the girls from Busan. See you later.”
Leaving behind a suggestive smile, she departed under the escort of two branch members.
The few guests in the hotel lobby café could not take their eyes off her.
Viktor Volk Choi watched the scene with a deeply pleased expression.
At last, when she got into the elevator and disappeared, he spoke.
“So, Brat, what do you think? Lizka may look like that, but she graduated from Saint Petersburg State University. Smart, good at her job....”
“Volk, can you hear me out without taking this the wrong way?”
“Hm?”
“Normally, I’d just pretend not to notice. But this really doesn’t seem right, so I’m saying something.”
At Junho’s serious attitude—the kind Viktor Volk Choi had never once seen from him in nearly a year of dealing with him—his brow tightened.
“You know this too, Volk. I’ve got an insanely good memory.”
“Yeah. I know it’s as good as your fighting skills. But why?”
“I’ve seen your girlfriend before. At a hotel in Haeundae.”
“...What?”
A cold force instantly rolled off him—the aura of the branch’s strongest enforcer—and Junho spoke quickly.
“When I go to Busan, I usually stay at the KH Hotel. You know that, too. The owner’s an older friend of mine.”
“......”
“But sometime last fall, I think, the person I was meeting was staying at another hotel nearby, so I just agreed to meet him in that hotel lounge....”
Junho said he had seen Elizaveta Valbashina at that hotel.
Up to that point, there was not really a problem.
She had lived in Busan a long time as part of the Russian mafia, and since she managed women working the nightlife trade, it would not have been strange for her to be meeting a client at a hotel.
But—
“She was wearing a hat and sunglasses, but she stood out so much I couldn’t help noticing her. And the deciding thing was the tattoo on the back of her neck. The same one. That sharp thing sticking out like a blade.”
Before the regression, Viktor Volk Choi had told him that his girlfriend—the woman who would betray him—had a long sword tattoo on her back.
And the woman Junho had met for the first time today had, fortunately for him, been wearing a dress cut low enough in the back for part of that tattoo to show.
“But the weird thing was, she got into the elevator with someone even more noticeable. A white guy with a scar running from below his ear all the way to his jaw.”
“......!!!”
Viktor Volk Choi’s eyes went wide.
Junho knew exactly who the man with the long scar was, but he continued as if he did not.
“Volk, I saw it with my own eyes. She hugged him right before the elevator doors closed.”
That part was, of course, a lie.
All he actually knew was that Elizaveta Valbashina had been deeply involved for years, even before the apocalypse, with a man named Musayev—a Busan branch executive who managed nightlife businesses.
Viktor Volk Choi had told him that before the regression.
So while the part about seeing them together was a lie, the truth was that the two of them had been sleeping together for a long time while deceiving Viktor Volk Choi.
It was also true that they had frequently used a luxury Haeundae hotel, one rarely visited by Russians in Busan, for their secret meetings.
He had even said that if someone thoroughly searched their phones, evidence of what they were to each other would come spilling out.
And that betrayal would eventually lead, right before the apocalypse, to them joining forces with another Russian mafia organization in Busan to kill the head of the Volcano Group’s Busan branch—and then to try to kill Viktor Volk Choi as well.
“......”
Viktor Volk Choi ground his teeth, his eyes still wide.
A suffocating silence hung for a moment, then he let out a long breath.
“Hoo....”
Regaining his usual cold expression in an instant, Viktor Volk Choi gave Junho a terribly awkward smile.
“Brat. I believe you. But no matter who you are, I need to verify this myself. You understand, right?”
“Of course, Volk. Go check. I’ll wait here.”
“Thank you. It’ll only take a minute.”
Rising from his seat, Viktor Volk Choi gave a look to two of his men and strode straight for the elevator.
Surrounded by the remaining branch members, who clearly had no idea what was going on, Junho drank his coffee with a calm face.
About ten minutes passed.
Then Viktor Volk Choi came walking out of the elevator.
He looked a little different from before—slightly disheveled.
And unlike when he had gone up, he was alone.
With a face hard enough to frighten anyone, he dropped heavily into the seat across from Junho.
Then he downed the coffee that had gone completely cold in one shot, looked straight at him, and finally spoke.
“Junho.”
“...?”
“From this moment on, you’re my bratishka (Братишка).”
“Bratishka...?”
“Yeah. It means a real brother by blood. You’ve basically saved my life. So I will never forget what happened today.”
When Viktor Volk Choi stood up, Junho rose too.
Looking around at the others nearby, he said,
“С этого момента Чжунхо мой братишка и спаситель нашей братвы. Я клянусь: эту клятву может нарушить только смерть.”
(From this moment on, Junho is my little brother and the savior of our brotherhood. I swear it: only death can break this oath.)
“......!”
Leaving the stunned branch members behind, Viktor Volk Choi stepped up to Junho and pulled him into a brief embrace.
“I just declared you my brother and my benefactor. I swore that only death can break it.”
When he released him, he finally smiled—a real smile this time—and continued.
“So ask for anything. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my bratishka.”
***
Half a month later, from his dear “Brat,” Junho was able to buy two full sets each of AR-15s, KP9s, and Glock 17s, complete with suppressors, red-dot sights, and scopes.
And before summer arrived, he was also promised more firearm accessories and another 5,000 rounds of subsonic ammunition in each caliber.
The total cost of buying all of it came to just 20 million won—practically at cost.
And so, having secured the most important item—guns—along with far more subsonic ammunition than he had expected....
With more than 20 billion won in hand, Junho began the final shopping spree—the last {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} wild burn of money before the world ended.
The time limit was five months.
