Removing the Limiters
“A riot? How many are there?” asked Gu Jeong-mok, the most senior member among the combat personnel who had arrived with Yoon Seol-hee. His eyes, along with those of the other two, were sharp and focused.
“Twenty-two. Two are armed with crossbows, and the rest have knives or steel pipes. They reportedly have Molotov cocktails, too.”
They had likely been made by mixing whiskey, thinner, and engine oil hidden away in their homes. Jun-ho looked at Yoon Seol-hee and the three combatants as he spoke.
“If they were only carrying knives or clubs, it might be different, but the fact that they manufactured Molotov cocktails means this was planned and prepared long ago.”
“That’s certainly true. To what extent should we handle this?”
At Gu Jeong-mok’s question, as he checked his rifle and pistol, Jun-ho answered firmly.
“They’ve already severely injured several people who tried to stop them. Their own neighbors in the same apartment complex. Therefore, the ringleaders are to be executed on the spot. As for the rest, kill them or let them live—do as you see fit. I leave it to your judgment.”
“……!”
Everyone flinched in surprise. But soon, the three men hardened their expressions and nodded.
“Understood.”
Even though this was just a temporary assignment, they were burning with motivation, seeing it as an opportunity to score points with a new employer.
‘In this fucked-up world, you’re swinging knives at the neighbors you lived with? You bastards.’
‘We gave them safe shelter and food despite them being criminals, and they still have complaints. And on top of that, they start a riot.’
‘Are zombies any different? Those guys are the real zombies. Parasites who act like bugs, whittling away at other people’s lives.’
Gu Jeong-mok, Kim Jae-mun, and Kim Ji-min. The three employees, who had worked in the security office and CAPS for over three years, were, like Yoon Seol-hee, exhausted and filled with resentment toward the various troublemakers and villains at the resort.
For the first couple of months, everyone had been grateful to the security and CAPS staff who had cleared the zombies from the resort and protected them from the thugs on the golf course. Moreover, because they had to kill zombies that were, in any case, people—or at least looked like people—the staff’s expressions had grown increasingly savage. Even if only two or three of them walked together, few dared to complain, let alone speak to them easily.
But as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. Having lived together for nearly half a year, people began to emerge who, leaning on their “past” status, engaged in power trips and troublemaking disguised as legitimate grievances. It was absurd, but in a place where nearly a thousand people gathered from all over were rubbing shoulders, it would have been stranger if such people didn’t exist.
Of course, whenever such incidents occurred, Kang Baek-ho stepped in and resolved them well enough, but the stress on the staff, who faced at least one troublemaker every week, was immense. While Kang Baek-ho certainly treated his hardworking staff well, there were those who felt that dealing with troublemakers within their own group was harder than dealing with zombies or raiders.
And Gu Jeong-mok, Kim Jae-mun, and Kim Ji-min—the three who had most strongly requested the transfer to Our Shelter—were exactly those kinds of people. Coincidentally, their names all shared the initials KJM.
“I won’t step in; I’ll control the other residents. You handle the ones who started the riot.”
“Understood. Everyone ready?”
At Jun-ho’s words, Yoon Seol-hee, who had even pulled up her ballistic mask, turned her body, her cold gaze shining from behind her ballistic goggles.
“Yes. Manager, we need to save ammunition, so I’ll use the air rifle.”
“Right. Then, Deputy Gu, you handle the ones with bows and Molotov cocktails. Jae-mun and Ji-min, you act with me.”
“Understood.”
Except for Gu Jeong-mok, the three carried only pistols, leaving their submachine guns and rifles in the multi-purpose electric vehicle, armed only with combat knives and batons.
“Manager, I’ll take the lead.”
Kim Ji-min, holding a one-meter-long baton similar in length to a wooden sword, stood at the front. It went without saying that Kang Baek-ho’s bodyguards, and most of the CAPS staff, were martial arts experts with a combined total of 5th-dan or higher. In particular, Kim Ji-min was a 5th-dan master of Kendo, a rarity among civilians, having trained for over ten years. From the moment he held a wooden sword or a baton, even Park Cheol-woo and Yoon Seol-hee would yield to him.
“Deok-cheol, you stay here and protect the Blossom members. The drone will keep hovering, but don’t let your guard down, just in case.”
“Yes, sir.”
While the four Blossom members looked on anxiously, Jun-ho walked down the mountain path with his combat personnel, led by Yoon Seol-hee.
Bang! Bang, bang!
“You assholes! Open up! Open it!”
“I’m throwing it!? Huh? I’m really throwing it! Fuck! You think I can’t?”
About twenty men in shabby, unshaven clothes shouted in front of the obstacle wall built to isolate them from the other buildings. Their hands held knives, fire axes, and steel pipes, and some of the weapons were stained with vivid red blood. Nearby, some of the people they had attacked lay on the ground, looking as if they were dead.
It was a common enough incident in the apocalypse—the attacker and the attacked were all neighbors living in the same apartment. However, the problem was that this place was a “safe zone,” which was never common in the apocalypse, and the person who made it that way would never tolerate such things. The people who had acted out of spite had either forgotten that or were stubbornly refusing to remember.
“Hey! Room 401! Just throw the Molotov! Fuck.”
“Are you sure it’s okay? What if that thing shoots at us…?”
The young man, who looked like a college student and was called Room 401, said, glancing at the turret on the roof. Then, a large man in his early 40s scowled.
“Don’t give me that bullshit. Room 401, are you a coward? Don’t you know that thing is just for decoration? Have you ever seen it actually work? You haven’t, right? So…”
Pew…! Pew…! Thwack! Thwack!
At that moment, tungsten pellets fired from the turret embedded themselves near the men.
“Ugh!?”
The men who had started the riot were greatly startled and hid behind benches and trees.
“It, it’s shooting. What do we do? What do we do?”
“Fuck, the accuracy is garbage anyway. Hey, Room 401! Throw that thing quickly, and the rest of us will just climb up! Carry your shields on your backs! Then the air rifle bullets can’t pierce them. I used to hunt with an air rifle back in the day, so I know.”
At the words of the large man in his 40s, the ringleader, the others began to move. But neither the ringleader nor those who followed him in the riot truly understood the power of Our Shelter’s modified air rifles and tungsten pellets. They could easily pierce the shields they had made of aluminum and plywood, but the turret was only firing warning shots and not hitting them.
“See! It doesn’t hit! Those bastards, where did they get such shitty, crude things to install… Ah, hurry up, light it and throw it! I heard there’s a hot chick in Building 102? We have to get over there to screw her, right?”
“Ah, fuck! Whatever!”
Twisted anger, resentment, and the desire to run wild in a world that had already ended made their reason disappear. The man from Room 401 lit the Molotov cocktail with a lighter and threw it long over the five-meter-high obstacle.
Fwoosh! Pop! Boom!
The Molotov cocktail, made by combining strong whiskey and thinner, began to fly long and explode. Red flames soon bloomed in various places outside the obstacle along with black smoke.
“Nice! Alright! Let’s go, everyone! Let’s gooooo!”
Waaaaah!
The wall built of obstacles wasn’t impossible to climb over. They hadn’t climbed it until now only because of the psychological fear that “that person” with the gun might appear if they did. But already having had a few drinks, they were emboldened by the fact that the turret’s shooting was pathetic, and the flames and smoke rising everywhere made them even more excited.
“W, what do we do?”
“I’m joining in. Fuck, I can’t live like this anymore, it’s dirty and pathetic.”
“I’m going to kill the bastard who made our Jae-young like that.”
Not a few residents joined the men and began to climb the obstacles. They were all people whose families had died while they were looting other residents in the complex or attacking The First Apartments when the Mokuri gangsters were supporting this place. Before the world became like this, they had lived thinking they were “upper class,” and after the apocalypse broke out, they were humans who naturally survived by taking things from others.
“What did our Jae-young do wrong? Is it a crime to take a little bit of other people’s stuff in a world like this? Even if it is a crime, do you kill people?”
To them, it was unbearable that their family or acquaintances had died while committing murder and robbery by attacking other places.
“Fuckers… you dog-like bastards… dare to make me work? Do you know who I am? If it were the old days, you beggar bastards wouldn’t even have been able to make eye contact with me…”
Others who did not acknowledge the authority and status they had enjoyed were nothing more than objects of anger and contempt, worse than bugs. If it had been another region, their anger and desire might have been justified in a world where law, order, and morality had collapsed. Since most people had been living like them for months.
However, here in Gahyeon-ri, there was a clear “line” set by one person who, while not ruling directly, considered this place his “territory.” And very unfortunately for them, it just so happened that he was passing by near here today. And he was with people he extremely loathed, having been stressed enough by troublemakers and villains like them (though the parties involved would never admit it).
“Look at this! There’s no one here! Everyone hurry!”
The man who had reached the top of the obstacle first and was about to cross after cutting the concertina wire with bolt cutters shouted to the people below.
“Hahaha! These bastards are all talk, they’re nothing after all! Once we get over, we’ll rob other houses or escape to the outside and…”
Thwack!
The ringleader, who had been shouting in high excitement, suddenly jerked his head back violently. Then his body tilted, and he fell straight down outside the obstacle wall he had been so eager to cross.
“…Huh?”
The young man from Room 401, who had been about to climb the wall after throwing over ten Molotov cocktails and packing the rest, widened his eyes.
Thwack!
“Ugh!”
Hit by a bullet in the shoulder, he rolled down.
“Wh, what?”
“Gu, guns! Who shot a gun!”
The moment someone shouted that, Yoon Seol-hee, Kim Ji-min, and Kim Jae-mun, who had descended from the ten-meter-plus retaining wall using ropes, walked toward them.
“Ah!?”
Someone spotted the three people, dressed in attire very similar to Jun-ho’s—wearing composite pattern combat uniforms, tactical vests, helmets, and goggles.
“You fuckers…”
Confirming that the three were carrying only knives and batons without guns, he made a choice he should never have made.
“It’s those bastards! Those bastards are the ones who killed Hyung-seok!”
He didn’t know where they had appeared from, but in any case, there were only three opponents. And there were more than ten times as many people who had started or joined the riot. In an apocalypse where aggression manifests because reason is lost or desire is encroached upon for trivial reasons, this was a perfectly excellent reason to beat those three to death.
“Fuck, kill them all!”
“You die, I die! You dog-like bastards!”
They lost their reason and rushed toward the three, weapons raised. Then, Kim Ji-min, who was at the front, closed the distance in an instant with a Kendo sliding step and brought his baton down like a painting.
Whoosh!
“You do…”
Thwack!
With the man who had been struck on the crown of his head by the steel-cored baton collapsing forward with his limbs stiffened, unable to even scream, as the signal.
The last troublemakers and misfits remaining in Gahyeon-ri began to pay the price for committing acts that might be daily life elsewhere but were never to be tolerated here. To Our Shelter’s new combat personnel, who had gladly accepted their new employer’s standards and released the limiters they had been suppressing all this time.