Old Man Park (3)
The moment he opened the front door, Jeron could not believe his eyes.
He could not tell if this was a ruined Earth or an intelligence agency's situation room.
More than ten monitors streamed real-time data from the surrounding area without a single interruption, and a situation board was packed with meticulously organized schedules.
On one side hung a detailed map of Seosan, crisscrossed with red pushpins and connecting threads that resembled a police investigation board tracking a fugitive.
When he turned his gaze past the map, a weapon rack came into view.
It held not only rifles and pistols, but also hand grenades, C4 explosives, and even an RPG-7.
Rows of magazines were neatly slotted beside them.
Though the quantity was not massive, gathering this many weapons in post-apocalyptic Korea was a truly remarkable feat.
But the true centerpiece sat proudly in front of the weapon rack.
It was a drone.
"Elder, is that by any chance a reconnaissance drone?"
"Indeed. A military-grade drone. It's equipped with an infrared thermal sensor, so it can track mutants. As you know, those mutant bastards are still living organisms."
"Incredible."
"They say heaven helps those who help themselves. After parting ways with Kang, I entered the city believing my granddaughter was here, but investigating wasn't easy. As I gathered and set up equipment piece by piece, it ended up like this."
Nothing inside the shelter was ordinary.
Next to the drone, a massive stack of calorie bars was piled high, looking as though they had been looted wholesale from a supermarket.
The seeds Old Man Park had mentioned were neatly organized where the foodstuffs were stored.
"Do you see this?"
Old Man Park zoomed in on CCTV feed number seven.
The backyard was densely planted with crops.
Napa cabbage and chili peppers were growing, along with various other vegetables and corn.
The garden plot was about fifty pyeong—not particularly large, but it must have been a significant help for survival.
On outdoor drying racks, the harvested crops were being dried.
It seemed he dried them before placing them in cold storage to maximize their shelf life.
Old Man Park pulled back the carpet covering the floor and opened a hatch leading to the basement.
A basement storage room was revealed.
It was equipped with ventilation fans, and a faint chill drifted out. He had evidently set up a proper refrigeration system.
Before entering the house, Jeron had noticed the solar panels installed on the roof.
Without electricity, running such facilities would have been unthinkable.
The basement storage held a substantial amount of dried food.
What caught his eye most was a stash of red pepper powder that looked to weigh at least dozens of kilograms.
"I never thought I'd see this much red pepper powder again."
"It's indispensable to Korean food."
There was also a decent amount of rice and flour.
Looking at the evidence, the truth became clear.
Old Man Park had not grown thin because he lacked food.
He had withered from the stress of losing sleep every night worrying about his granddaughter. He had likely rarely eaten proper meals.
"Can you take everything here in one go?"
"Even the solar power equipment?"
"We should."
Jeron nodded slowly.
In the past, he would not have dared to try.
But as Jeron's level rose and he hunted mutants more frequently, the Golden Key had developed significantly.
He could now transport about 200 kilograms at a time, and since he could cross over to Earth once a day, he estimated he could move everything in about two weeks.
Looking around the food storage, Jeron could see that Old Man Park had prepared for the future.
It was an amount that could sustain his granddaughter for several years even after the old man passed away.
Such devotion was truly profound.
"Elder, could we launch the drone?"
"Do you have a destination in mind?"
"Yujin Industries. It's a logistics company. They mainly exported grain, including wheat."
"I know it well."
"You do?"
"Downtown Seosan is in the palm of my hand."
For years, Old Man Park had tracked his granddaughter.
Park Ji-eun had been kidnapped by scavengers and treated like a slave for years, nearly ending up as food before he finally rescued her through relentless pursuit.
Though he had used maps for convenience during that process, most of the information was stored in his head.
"Since Yujin Industries is a logistics company, they had quite a few external warehouses. However, those external warehouses were all looted in the early days. The only thing left would be the underground bunker. Even so, because of their solar facilities, their cold storage should be in quite good shape."
"That's correct."
"Until now, no one could open it because they lacked the key. The underground bunker is practically on par with a bank vault."
"I have the key."
"Is that true?"
Jeron pulled the key from his pocket.
It was a highly complex key, accompanied by a small card.
It was designed to require unlocking both an analog lock and an electronic lock simultaneously.
It was because of this tight security that Yujin Industries' underground bunker had remained unlooted until now.
"Haha, where on earth did you find that?"
"I found it at the farm. A man who seemed to be an employee there was carrying it."
"A stroke of luck. If we play our cards right, we might be able to secure a massive amount of seeds from there."
Since the place was linked to the Ofrin Wheat Farm, other seeds besides wheat would be stored there as well.
The farm had not only planted wheat.
They had planted various experimental crops alongside it, which was essentially for crop improvement research.
Even if the improvements had not succeeded, 21st-century crops were fundamentally resilient to harsh conditions and yielded high harvests.
This meant that no matter what they brought back to plant, it would be better than what they had on the Karen Continent.
"Launching the drone is simple enough."
Old Man Park set the drone down in the yard and returned to the situation room.
With the press of a button on the joystick, the drone soared into the air.
It cut through the sky.
Mutants could not fly.
They might leap high to snatch at it, but flight was impossible, so observing from a height of about twenty meters was perfectly safe.
From here to Yujin Industries was about thirty kilometers in a straight line.
Traveling by bicycle would take about an hour and a half, but considering they had to navigate the city center, it would take much longer.
Flying through the sky rather than traveling on the ground, the drone entered the city center in an instant.
Jeron watched the state of the city through the drone's camera.
"It seems many of the mutants have drifted toward the outskirts of the city."
"That is because the scavengers did something crazy recently."
"The ones who died by your hand, Elder?"
"Yes. Thanks to those bastards, I was able to quickly find out where my granddaughter was being held."
The scavengers had lured the mutants out of the city center because they had run out of food.
Despite possessing that much strength, those bastards had never thought to farm.
Even though they could have easily gathered seeds and established a large-scale agricultural area with a little effort, they were only interested in plundering.
They were people who had reached the absolute end of the line.
In the end, they resorted to cannibalism, and when even that ran out, they planned to take over the entire city center.
They were wiped out after getting caught in the process, so they got exactly what they deserved.
Although many mutants had left, in some places, dozens of them still roamed around in tight groups.
"How strange. Didn't mutants usually travel in pairs at most?"
"That is a thing of the past."
"So their behavior has changed recently?"
"Lately, they travel in packs and hunt their own kind. Even those monsters have instinctively realized it. Since humans are almost entirely wiped out, they have no choice but to eat each other to survive."
"Astonishing."
The humans of Earth had long since been relegated to the status of prey.
When the survivor population was high, the mutants acted individually, but as the numbers dwindled significantly, they adapted to hunt their own kind in packs.
Those who survived the process of cannibalism grew progressively stronger, making the situation more dire by the day.
"I can't even begin to guess what will happen in the future."
"Unless we establish an absolute defensive line, farming resources will become difficult."
"It will eventually come to that."
Even as Jeron and Old Man Park conversed, the drone diligently flew through the sky.
Finally, it arrived above their destination.
Jeron closely observed the movements of the mutants.
The area around Yujin Industries looked peaceful on the surface, but when the drone switched to its thermal camera, it revealed that mutants were positioned throughout the buildings as if surrounding the warehouse.
"My word."
"Are you surprised?"
"Those are not the mutants I know."
"Just as humans evolved to survive, they evolved to hunt. It seems they are getting smarter too. Since Yujin Industries is a food warehouse, it's an area survivors constantly seek out. The mutants know this."
Jeron felt a chill run down his spine.
Because he had only stuck to the outskirts of the city until now, he had not realized the world had become this dangerous.
The mutants had evolved their hunting methods to root out humans. They were cooperating to lure in the few remaining survivors.
It was highly similar to humanity's traditional hunting method of setting a trap with bait.
"If I had just charged in, I would have walked right into a disaster."
"It must have been heaven's help. Every connection has its cause and effect. Is it not because you helped me that you avoided this danger?"
Jeron could not deny Old Man Park's words.
He was not religious, but he wondered if the concept of karma truly existed.
The drone displayed detailed information.
It showed exactly how many mutants were hiding and where.
"Three evolved speed-types, three muscle-types, and four standard mutants."
It was a daunting number.
Just getting to Yujin Industries was expected to be a grueling journey, and now mutants were waiting at the destination with a trap laid out.
If he had headed into the city alone, Jeron might have been a corpse by now.
Old Man Park stroked his chin.
"We have no choice but to defeat them one by one."
"I don't know if that's possible."
"It's impossible alone. I will help you."
"No. At this point, I wonder if we really need to raid the city center. There are plenty of things to salvage on the outskirts."
"But that place has various seeds. You need them for your territory to develop."
"That..."
Jeron could not argue.
Even with what they had now, the Farrow Territory would develop rapidly, but if they could bring in a wider variety of crops from Earth, the pace of development would be incomparably faster.
Old Man Park was determined to repay his debt of gratitude.
"I will help you just up to that point. We need a plan, so let's think this through carefully before we go in."
"Aren't we making this too big of an ordeal?"
"If you were an ordinary person, I wouldn't have suggested it either. But aren't you a mage?"
Jeron felt his heart swell.
With Old Man Park's help, it felt as though they could truly raid Yujin Industries and lay the foundation for agricultural development.