I Was the One Who Didn't Know Reality
There is a saying: "There is nothing more foolish than showing off one's strength to the world." In a peaceful world, that is a hundred percent correct. But in the apocalypse, the situation is a little different. With zombies and humans alike lurking everywhere, looking to target me, in a world where violence and murder are the status quo, one had to show off their strength. Sometimes, you even have to demonstrate the power you possess to ordinary survivors. If money and status were the yardsticks of respect used to evaluate people in the old world, then in the apocalyptic world, the strength one possesses has replaced those standards.
“No, no. That’s not it. It’s an absurd thing to do. I can never authorize something like that.”
As expected, Park Cheol-woo strongly opposed the idea, and Jun-ho asked him, “Manager, you killed a lot of zombies when you retook the resort, didn’t you?”
“I did. But back then, besides me, there was Manager Yoon and the other staff…”
“Didn’t you have this thought back then?” Jun-ho cut him off, continuing to speak while gazing at the zombies filling the Paldang Station plaza and parking lot, reflected on the drone controller’s screen. “That the zombies’ biting force is weaker than you thought. That if you wore thick clothes and fought with something like a shield, it might be doable depending on the situation.”
“……!”
Since that was exactly the thought he had while clearing out the zombies inside the resort with Yoon Seol-hee and the other security guards, Park Cheol-woo flinched and shut his mouth immediately.
“You thought about it, didn’t you? But Manager, I didn’t just think about it—I actually did it.”
“You actually did it? With a knife against those things? And you didn’t just face a few of them?”
“Yes. A great many. And you see, Manager, the zombies… they can’t bite through the Kevlar combat suit I’m wearing. I’m even wearing something like this underneath.”
Jun-ho took off his glove and pulled up the sleeve of his combat suit slightly. Seeing the undergarment made of UHMWPE (Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight Polyethylene), a material excellent for preventing bites and cuts, Park Cheol-woo nodded. However, he still spoke with a voice filled with concern.
“Fine. Let’s assume you won’t get bitten easily. But the numbers are too high. 200? No, it looks like there are 300 of them, and you’re doing this alone? Reality isn’t a movie. You might run out of stamina even if you shoot them all to death with a gun.”
“I’ve competed in 3-minute, 5-round mixed martial arts matches. My stamina is even better now than it was then.”
“Huh…?” Park Cheol-woo was stunned. At that moment, Park Deok-cheol chimed in quietly.
“It’s true. Where we stay, three or four of us take turns sparring with Jun-ho hyung. We’ve even gone for over 30 minutes without a break. Even though we take turns resting, we’re all half-dead after 10 minutes, but hyung is the only one who’s perfectly fine.”
“…….” Park Cheol-woo had no choice but to keep his mouth shut. After staring at Jun-ho blankly for quite a while, Park Cheol-woo finally nodded.
“Alright. Let’s do this. This friend and I will take up positions at the sniper point and intervene whenever it looks dangerous.”
“Let’s do that.”
“Phew, I wonder if this is the right thing to do…”
“It’s really okay. I’ll run away if things get dicey, so don’t worry.”
After finishing the conversation, they carefully climbed up a low embankment along the bicycle path created by the riverside. Across the six-lane road, Paldang Station and the plaza were visible. It was about 100 meters to the station building, and 60 to 80 meters to the plaza and parking lot.
“…….” While the combat teams lay prone on the overgrown embankment, peeking out only their heads and watching the zombies filling the plaza with tense eyes,
“Deok-cheol, you go over there. You know about crossfire, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
Park Cheol-woo and Park Deok-cheol took their positions at the sniper point with their air rifles. In the meantime, Jun-ho took off all his firearms except for his backpack and Glock 17, and pulled out a pouch containing throwing knives from his backpack. Armed with a Glock 17, a machete, a commando dagger, an awl, and 24 throwing knives, Jun-ho warmed up his body lightly at the bottom of the embankment.
“We’re all set.”
As Park Cheol-woo and Park Deok-cheol signaled that they were ready to snipe, Jun-ho put on his ballistic goggles and ballistic face mask.
“Phew… Phew…”
After steadying his breath, Jun-ho climbed up the embankment with a machete in his right hand and an awl in his left.
“……?”
“Huh?” The combat teams were bewildered by the sight of Jun-ho walking along the shoulder of the road with a light gait, as if he were out for a stroll. But their bewilderment turned into shock when he immediately sprinted across the six-lane road after walking for about 10 meters.
“Th-that…”
“Cr-crazy?”
Papapapap! Everyone’s jaws dropped at Jun-ho’s speed, which was as fast as a short-distance track athlete, let alone the fact that he was suddenly running.
Phak! At that moment, Jun-ho vaulted over the guardrail, and some of the zombies wandering around the parking lot and plaza finally saw him.
Kyaaak! Guuuu…! As soon as a few of them let out cries, countless zombies snapped their heads around. At the grotesque sight of hundreds of zombies acting in unison as if they were one body, the combat teams couldn’t help but lower their faces and shrink back. Yet, their gazes remained fixed on Jun-ho’s back.
“……!!!”
They were about to witness a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
When did it start? Yes, it must have been after killing the Convenience Store Alpha in the underground parking lot of the Riverview Apartments. A few days after completely pacifying Gahyeon-ri, Jun-ho sensed that his body had broken through some kind of ‘limit.’ And in several physical ability tests conducted with no one else watching, with only the AI Akina monitoring his condition via camera, Jun-ho was able to confirm some truly absurd results.
Of course, even before that, he had already stepped into the realm of a superhuman, with almost all physical abilities—strength, speed, endurance—at the level of a world champion in each field.
100 meters in 6.9 seconds. 10-kilometer run in the 17-minute range. His ‘Big Three’ (squat, bench press, deadlift) totaled 1.5 tons—this wasn’t just a realm; he was a superhuman himself. Furthermore, his punching and kicking power were 11,000 Newtons and 18,000 Newtons respectively, levels similar to when a bear, tiger, or gorilla strikes an opponent. Moreover, when Jun-ho fought with these physical abilities, he thought, ‘Maybe I can go full power for over 30 minutes?’ That was why Jun-ho was certain he could take on the hundreds of zombies in the Paldang Station plaza and parking lot using only cold weapons, without any firearms.
Kwooooer! Wooooer! Papapapap! Jun-ho dove into the zombies rushing toward him, letting out their monstrous cries, without a hint of fear.
Shik! As the machete slashed at a speed invisible to the eye, the heads of three zombies in front were sliced horizontally. The awl was driven into the temples and eyes of the ones reaching out from the left like lightning, then pulled out. At the same time, the machete drew several diagonal lines, separating the sides or necks of other zombies from their bodies entirely.
Swaaak! Phueok! Phupheok! Every time Jun-ho’s dedicated 3-kilogram machete moved, the zombies’ bodies were sliced and burst open by the sharp blade and the force behind it. His dynamic visual acuity—110 frames per second, approaching that of a bird of prey, surpassing even feline animals—designated five or six zombies as the next targets at once, and his body reacted almost simultaneously with his vision, turning Jun-ho’s will to attack into reality.
Phupheok! Phuphupheok! In the end, the zombies, who were already old before infection and had their physical abilities further degraded by long periods of starvation, couldn’t even touch Jun-ho and just died. In less than a minute, nearly 100 zombies had their necks sliced, their brains destroyed by being stabbed in the head, their skulls crushed entirely, or their upper bodies separated, rolling on the floor.
And the combat teams watching that scene in hiding…
“…….” They could only open their eyes and mouths wide, unable to react in any other way. It was like watching an action scene from a movie or drama. But this was strictly reality. Furthermore, the scene they were seeing now was completely different from the heroics of action movie protagonists. Jun-ho was ‘destroying’ the monsters that ate people with monotonous, simple movements that were completely devoid of flair—utterly without a single wasted motion.
One strike, one kill. Would a person who had spent their whole life researching how to kill zombies most efficiently move like that? In those cold, simple movements, the zombies—who looked even more bizarre and terrifying with their torn clothes and disheveled hair—were sliced, stabbed, and burst to death. The combat teams, who were first shocked and then awestruck by a sight that was hard to believe even while watching it, found their fists clenching without anyone saying a word. And Park Cheol-woo was no exception.
“…….” Park Cheol-woo, who had taken his eyes off the scope without realizing it, found his grip tightening even more on his already clenched fist. As a man, and as someone who had lived his whole life with fighting and combat as his profession, he felt his blood boiling. With Jun-ho’s fight, which had continued for over two minutes past the one-minute mark, a feeling of awe, beyond mere wonder, began to emerge.
‘He’s not the same kind of human…’
When he first heard the statements and eyewitness accounts about Jun-ho from Yoon Seol-hee and the staff who had fought the gangsters, he thought there might have been some slight exaggeration. It is very common for people to get excited as adrenaline surges during life-or-death battles, preventing them from making calm judgments. That was why, while Park Cheol-woo felt immensely grateful to Jun-ho and acknowledged him, he also thought he should guide him a bit better. He never wanted a reliable and dependable ally like Jun-ho to go wrong due to a momentary lapse in judgment.
That was why, when Jun-ho had stepped up to take out the zombies in the plaza alone just a moment ago, he had thought Jun-ho didn’t know reality. However, he had judged that there wouldn’t be any major danger since the defensive gear, including the full-body Kevlar combat suit, was so excellent, and Jun-ho’s skills combined with his own sniping would be enough. Moreover, if things went south, the entire combat team could step in and open fire. Their ammunition wasn’t exactly plentiful, but since they had nearly 2,000 rounds, using 200 or 300 rounds was fine.
But…
“I was the one who didn’t know reality.”
Park Cheol-woo muttered under his breath and brought his eyes back to the scope. Still, one never knew, and if he couldn’t properly support Jun-ho, who was performing such insane feats, it would be truly shameful. And at that moment.
“……!?”
Park Cheol-woo, who was scanning the parking lot where a large number of tour buses were gathered, narrowed his eyes. A single zombie was slowly stepping out of one of the tour buses. The moment he saw other zombies nearby surrounding the one that had stepped out slowly, not running, just like a human,
“Alpha…”
Realizing the creature’s identity, Park Cheol-woo quickly sent a radio message to Jun-ho. “Lee Jun-ho, an Alpha has appeared from the red bus in the parking lot. Yeongil Tour. I’m going to fire at that side now.”
- Understood. I’m going.
He could see Jun-ho, whose breathing hadn’t faltered even while engaged in such intense fighting, answering and running toward the parking lot while slashing at zombies with his machete.
“Deok-cheol!”
“Yes sir!”
Park Deok-cheol opened fire, and Park Cheol-woo also fired at the zombies near the creature that was definitely an Alpha. As the slave zombies suddenly began to drop one after another, the Alpha panicked and began to whip its head around. At that moment—
Thung! Jun-ho, who had rushed to the parking lot just 30 meters away from the plaza in an instant, leaped onto a passenger car and soared over 3 meters into the air with tremendous jumping power. The throwing knife he had drawn at some point flew toward the Alpha, which was 10 meters away, drawing a streak of light.
Phueok! The Alpha, with its eyes wide open, trembled as the throwing knife embedded itself in its glabella, and then it collapsed on the spot. As it did, the nearby zombies that had been controlled by it began to twist their bodies grotesquely. Knowing that that moment was when zombies were in their most vulnerable state, Jun-ho mercilessly finished them off.
And so, after a few dozen seconds had passed, the situation—an unprecedented one where over 300 zombies in the Paldang Station plaza and parking lot, excluding a few dozen that were already heavily injured or too old and slow, were killed by a single person—came to an end.