Do You Really Have to Go?
Jun-ho, who hadn't intervened in the Gahyeon-ri community for nearly a month, visited Gahyeon Elementary School for the first time in a while. At his arrival, Song Ki-jun, the former village head Kim Seok-hwan, and the elderly Go Seok-jin gathered in the principal's office.
"How is Edu Town doing?"
Although he already knew the general situation from watching through the PTZ cameras, Jun-ho asked Song Ki-jun directly.
"There's been infighting among them. The families of Park Il-ho and those who had insisted on raiding our apartment complex are constantly clashing with the other residents. So..."
The Edu Town survivors, who had been herded into Building 8, were fighting among themselves just as expected. Of course, it wasn't a matter of killing each other yet, but it was at the level of fistfights. However, the emotional rift had grown so deep that it wouldn't be strange if a murder occurred if left unattended.
"...What should we do?"
Song Ki-jun, who had explained the situation, asked Jun-ho. He now treated Jun-ho as the supreme decision-maker of the Gahyeon-ri community, and the others felt the same way.
Jun-ho shrugged his shoulders.
"Why are you asking me that?"
"Pardon?"
"You handle it, Song Ki-jun. Discuss it with the village head and the elders here."
Jun-ho strictly adhered to the principle of not interfering in the trivial matters of Gahyeon-ri unless it was something truly important. "We agreed on that from the start, didn't we? I've never even been a class president in my life. You three figure it out."
"...Understood. That is the right way to do things, of course. My apologies."
Song Ki-jun awkwardly apologized, as he had unintentionally ended up testing Jun-ho, even though he had no such intention.
"The Jung-dong and nursing home areas don't have any problems either, right?"
Jun-ho asked, pretending not to know, even though he was well aware of the atmosphere through drone and PTZ camera reconnaissance. He wanted to hear directly from the people leading them.
"Of course. We don't have any problems either. Everyone is working really hard. Oh, and we've set up all the vinyl greenhouses on the soccer field. We've also laid out solar panels on the stands and channeled water from the valley."
"Once the weather warms up, we'll start rice farming right away. Our elders are itching to get moving."
Go Seok-jin chimed in at Kim Seok-hwan's words. However, the expressions of the two elders soon darkened slightly.
"By the way, I'm not sure if we can last until this summer. We go out hunting almost every day, but since there are so many people..."
"Sigh. Rice is the problem, rice. To last until the harvest, I think we'll have to eat rice only once a day and get by on potatoes and sweet potatoes for the rest."
Jun-ho stepped in at the two elders' words.
"Actually, that's why I came here today."
"Oh?"
"You can go to the Nonghyup warehouse in Yeongho 2-ri now."
"What? Oh, right! I heard soldiers appeared in that village? What happened? Perhaps..."
"Yes. The soldiers took care of all the zombies in Yeongho 2-ri. Only about a dozen of them are left there. The rest..."
Jun-ho roughly explained what happened yesterday, and the three men's eyes widened at his story.
"...So you can go to Yeongho 2-ri right now. Let's go grab about 40 tons."
"Th-that much...?"
"Even at 40 tons, if the community members eat two meals a day, it will only last about three or four months."
As Jun-ho said that, the elderly Go Seok-jin shook his head and stepped forward.
"No, no. If you mix it with beans and mixed grains, it doubles. 40 tons is enough to last us until this year. Besides, eating like that is healthier, too."
"My brother is right. In the meantime, we can grow rice in the vinyl greenhouses and farm the rice paddies in Hadong."
The two elders' expressions brightened in an instant, and Song Ki-jun, watching them with a satisfied smile, said to Jun-ho.
"Then shall I get the people ready now?"
"Please do. About twenty people should be enough."
"Yes."
With the food problem solved in an instant, Song Ki-jun stood up and walked away energetically.
Whirrr.
"Slowly, slowly... That's perfect."
A small electric forklift was moving bags of government-reserved rice without a break.
"Oh, really? Then the 8th Division isn't in Pocheon anymore?"
"Oh, that was a long time ago, sir."
"Now, here is how you use this..."
"Yes, yes. Ah, yes."
Meanwhile, men in their 30s and 40s were chatting with the young soldiers, threshing and sorting rice, or learning how to use various pieces of equipment.
"......"
Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong watched the scene with an incredulous expression. It was hard to believe that this was the place where fierce battles against zombies had taken place just yesterday, or that those soldiers were the ones who had failed to adapt to the combat and ended up as stragglers.
Jun-ho approached Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong and spoke to him.
"The kids are bright and work well. Even if people call them the MZ generation, they're different because they've served on the front lines."
"...Aren't you an MZ yourself, Jun-ho?"
"Ah, that's true."
Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong chuckled at Jun-ho, who spoke like an old man despite being barely over 30 himself.
"By the way, you said these people came from Gahyeon-ri? It must be close to here?"
"Yes. Originally, it's close. It takes about 20 minutes by car. It takes longer than that now, though."
"Anyway, a lot of people survived there?"
"Yes. A little over 3,000. It was a neighborhood where about 9,000 people used to live."
"Whoa..."
Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong was genuinely surprised.
"Less than a quarter of the people in the area where our base was stationed survived..."
"You mean Ildong-myeon? That's a fairly busy place, so that's probably why. Don't most of the residents live clustered around the bus terminal?"
"That's true."
"Places like that are usually like that. Here, too, a lot of people died in Mokuri down there, where the subway station is. There are still tons of zombies, so we can't even think about going in. Only Gahyeon-ri was lucky."
"I see."
Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong, who had been nodding quietly while watching the men from the Gahyeon-ri community moving rice and working busily with the soldiers, looked at Jun-ho with a fresh expression.
"But Lee Jun-ho, what is your real identity?"
"Me? I'm just an ordinary neighborhood survivor."
Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong was dumbfounded by Jun-ho's shrug. If Jun-ho was ordinary, what did that make them? Above all, Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong couldn't understand this sight. When Jun-ho, who had returned after guiding the troops led by Major Lee Seok-jin yesterday, said he would take some rice today, he had expected three or four people to come and work. But what was this? He never dreamed he would see over 20 men arrive in several trucks, mobilizing an electric forklift to get the job done.
And that wasn't the end of it.
"But are you really okay with giving us the solar panels? Don't you need them over there?"
Electricity was one of the most important things for people to live like humans, and solar power equipment was almost the only means for survivors to obtain electricity in this world. Yet, Jun-ho was giving the soldiers dozens of solar panels and power equipment, including batteries, for free.
"Of course. I have enough solar power equipment, and so does Gahyeon-ri. Just use them."
The solar panels and equipment Jun-ho provided were the ones they had stripped from Gahyeon-ri and stored in the shelter. Baek Ha-il had said that if they kept them, they would find a use for them, and they were certainly proving useful. Moreover, he had only provided 20 panels to the Nonghyup warehouse soldiers, and there were still over 100 panels left in the shelter that they had stripped from Gahyeon-ri.
"Generators and fuel are one thing, but these emergency medicines, too? You said there are a lot of people there, right? Won't you run out?"
"Don't worry. I raided a pharmacy, so I have plenty."
Since most of the basic medicines, including emergency supplies, were either expiring this year or had been manufactured by Baek Su-ah in the shelter, Jun-ho didn't feel a shred of regret. Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong, who was clicking his tongue at Jun-ho, suddenly fixed his gaze on a few soldiers who were struggling to move items.
"But where on earth did they get those glasses?"
"Optical shops are everywhere, you know."
The soldiers who had broken or lost their glasses in the chaos were wearing new ones that, while not the exact prescription they used to have, were much better than wearing nothing at all. And naturally, those were made with lenses and equipment from our shelter, but there was absolutely no reason to tell the truth.
"Anyway, this should be enough for you and those guys to survive here. Oh, I'll bring you underwear, training clothes, and sneakers tomorrow. You need daily necessities, too, right?"
"W-well, that's true, but..."
"If you need anything else, just let me know. I'll help as much as I can."
Jun-ho gave a generous smile to the still-bewildered Staff Sergeant Park Min-yong. And with good reason...
"You even gave us guns and ammunition, so this much is fine."
With Major Lee Seok-jin's permission, Jun-ho had managed to obtain two spare K2C1 rifles, 300 rounds of 5.56mm standard ammunition, and 100 rounds of 9mm Parabellum ammunition from them. In other words, while they had achieved a "two birds with one stone" effect by meeting Jun-ho, Jun-ho had planted a friendly force in Yeongho 2-ri, obtained a large amount of rice, sent a "military force" that might even take care of the threats for him, and even secured firearms and ammunition.
"I don't know how long it will last, but let's live well together, Sergeant."
So, Jun-ho couldn't help but feel the most satisfied and happy he had felt in a long time.
All work, including the shelter's reorganization and precision repairs, was finished. The Gahyeon-ri community had entered a stable trajectory. Now, they were in the midst of full-scale farming preparations and were busy blocking passages or installing obstacles to prevent people or zombies from coming and going from the outside.
The situation in Boksagol was also much better than before, and the Mokuri survivors were also busy scouting the surroundings and identifying other survivors while receiving various support from Jun-ho. Of course, that side was sluggish because it was dangerous with so many zombies. Since just knowing the survivor groups and the location information of the Alphas in that area was enough, Jun-ho kept in touch with the Mokuri karaoke family and provided the necessary support.
And in the meantime, Baek Su-ho and Park Deok-cheol had finished their training as "combatants." Although they were still somewhat lacking compared to Jun-ho and Jun-hyeok, they were more than qualified to be called Tier 1 among apocalypse survivors. Jun-ho was finally able to make up his mind.
"Brother, I think I need to go down along the North Han River now."
"Oh my..."
Baek Ha-il let out a long sigh. For the first time since the shelter was built and the apocalypse broke out, Jun-ho was about to leave the shelter on a journey that might take days, with no promise of when he would return.
"If possible, I think I should cross the river and go into Gwangju and come back."
"Ho-ya, do you really have to go? Can't we just live here among ourselves?"
It was a natural reaction for Baek Ha-il, who was worried about the absence of Jun-ho, the owner and guardian of the shelter itself. However, Jun-ho shook his head.
"If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't have gone out to Gahyeon-ri and Mokuri in the first place. I wouldn't have made contact with the military units either. We could have just hidden and lived among ourselves. But, Brother. If we do that, we can only last a few years at most."
Before the regression, Jun-ho had chosen death after struggling through the apocalypse for less than three years. In that process, what he saw was a scene of endless strife where countless groups sometimes cooperated and sometimes fought for their lives. Those who lived thinking only of today were trampled by other groups or fell to zombies in such a futile way that yesterday's safety felt like a lie. And Jun-ho didn't want to make our shelter walk that path.
"I have to go to Gwangju and meet Brother Baek-ho. It's going to get dangerous soon, so I have to help him and make him a friendly force."
And although he hadn't told Baek Ha-il yet, even if Major Lee Seok-jin's unit dealt with the threats or at least dealt some damage...
"That's the only way we can stand against any group, whether it's a large group of looters or hundreds of soldiers, if they come later."