1.5 Times Faster
"Got it. I'll be there soon."
- Understood. But for now, we're keeping this between you and me, right, boss?
"Yes."
- Understood.
As soon as Jun-ho ended the transmission, Baek Ha-il spoke up casually.
"Why? What's going on?"
"It's nothing major. I'll tell you later."
"Is that so?"
Baek Ha-il looked skeptical at Jun-ho's response, but he soon nodded and turned his gaze away.
"Anyway, there are a lot of young ladies here. Ah, is that lady the Manager Yoon you mentioned? The Special Forces one?"
"Yes. Her skills are no joke. She helped me out significantly a few years ago. Oh, and she's a real firearms expert, not an amateur like me, so she'll be a big help to you, Hyung-nim."
Just then, Yoon Seol-hee, sensing their gaze, approached them.
"Greetings, Sir. It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Yoon Seol-hee. I've been dispatched here under the orders of Representative Kang Baek-ho of Kangho Resort."
At her incredibly polite greeting, Baek Ha-il's expression brightened.
"Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Baek Ha-il. I fix machines and do manual labor here at the shelter. Just a guy like that."
"Ha-il Hyung-nim is our shelter's mechanic and engineer. He made the air rifles I use, as well as all the ones we're sending to the resort. Most of the equipment and the KP9 replicas you'll be using, Manager, are also his handiwork."
"Ah, I see. That's truly impressive. I look forward to working with you, Sir."
"'Sir' is too much. Never mind that. If you need any equipment or weapons, just say the word. I can handle just about anything."
"Understood, Sir."
"Anyway, you must have had a hard time getting all the way here."
While Baek Ha-il sent a satisfied smile toward Yoon Seol-hee, who maintained her composure and politeness to the end, Jun-ho instructed Park Deok-cheol to look after the Blossom members until dinner, then boarded an electric cart alone.
After completing a full-body disinfection of his clothes and gear at the shelter entrance, Jun-ho took a quick shower and headed to the control room.
"You're here, boss?"
"Yes."
Given the gravity of the situation, Jun-ho skipped the pleasantries with Yun Yeong-su and sat down in front of the main monitor.
"The government uploaded a video? Which site? Is it based in the U.S.?"
He had heard that even after the apocalypse, a few internet sites would remain operational for quite some time, but they were all sites with headquarters or servers in the U.S. or Europe. However, since Jun-ho had never accessed the internet once three or four months had passed after the apocalypse in his previous life, he didn't know the specifics.
"Actually, it's the National Library of Korea Archive."
When Yun Yeong-su said this while opening a new bag of potato chips, Jun-ho squinted one eye.
"What? You mean our country's National Library of Korea?"
"Yes. It's the only place in Korea that's currently running stably. There are a few other sites, but they're all hit-or-miss."
"...Well, let's assume that's the case. Was anyone using that library archive regularly? Is there a bulletin board or something?"
"Yes. Take a look."
As Yun Yeong-su manipulated the keyboard, dozens of post titles appeared under a crudely placed, large banner that simply read 'Bulletin Board'.
"About one or two posts a day? I think there are only about 50 users. They're all Earthlink users like us."
Very few people in Korea had subscribed to Earthlink, the low-orbit satellite internet service, so it was somewhat surprising that about 50 of them were still alive and accessing the internet. However, in a country as small as Korea, where high-speed internet networks were already laid out nationwide, subscribing to Earthlink meant that most subscribers were either quite wealthy or living in remote areas where internet lines didn't reach. Perhaps it was only natural that their survival rate was higher than others.
"Usually, it's just people venting, spouting nonsense, or talking trash. Even if it's hit-or-miss, the DC or Wiki boards have more users. Or people just go to the U.S. Wiki. But this post appeared this morning."
Yun Yeong-su clicked on the top post. The author was 'Patriot', and the time of writing was just past 9:00 AM.
"I thought some crazy guy posted trash again when I saw the author's name, but that wasn't the case."
Listening to Yun Yeong-su, Jun-ho read the post with sunken eyes. Since the body of the text wasn't long, he finished reading it quickly and played the low-quality 360p video.
"......"
After watching the two-minute video, Jun-ho, unlike his usual cheerful self, spoke to Yun Yeong-su, who was staring at him with a serious expression.
"It's true that the government uploaded this."
"Right? I knew it..."
"But it's all nonsense, garbage, and trash."
"Huh...?"
Jun-ho replayed the middle part of the video, where fully armed soldiers were marching at what appeared to be a naval base on Jeju Island.
"Look at the soldiers' faces."
"Their faces? Why... oh?"
Yun Yeong-su, having noticed something, opened his eyes wide.
"Do those people look like active-duty soldiers to you?"
"No. Looking closely, they look really weathered. Most of them are in their mid-30s or over 40? Whoa..."
Yun Yeong-su, pushing up his glasses, looked at the monitor screen in disbelief. And then.
"That's right. Nine out of ten aren't active duty. Ha, these government bastards. It was all a lie."
Jun-ho was also dumbfounded. He had learned the 'truth' today, something he hadn't known in his previous life.
"What?"
To Yun Yeong-su, who was tilting his head, Jun-ho said calmly.
"That recapture operation? It's guaranteed to fail. I told you once before, right? In the prophetic dream I had, the government was trying to recapture the metropolitan area..."
Jun-ho told Yun Yeong-su the story he had heard during this period in his previous life, and played the scene again where soldiers were boarding warships with the naval base in the background.
"...They said the main ROK military units and special forces went to Jeju Island. And rumors spread that they were going to reorganize those units and recapture the metropolitan area."
"Whoa. So that's a lie? In reality, they just rounded up military veterans from the people on Jeju Island and enlisted them?"
"Exactly. I thought it didn't make much sense."
In the early stages of the crisis, several main ROK military units had rushed in to retake Seoul, only to be brutally crushed. In the first place, the main ROK military units were all within a few dozen kilometers of the metropolitan area, and most of them were pulverized early on. Which main ROK military unit could have gone to Jeju Island with the government? Moreover, they said there were 100,000 combat troops alone, excluding the navy—did half of the 200,000+ active-duty army survive and go to Jeju Island? Even including the Marine Corps, he had thought even in his previous life that the numbers didn't add up.
But now, he had finally learned the full story.
"In reality, there probably aren't even a few tens of thousands. And most of them are likely reservists or civil defense."
"Isn't the Marine Corps on Jeju Island?"
"They are. But would you send the elite Marine Corps to the mainland in this situation? Those government bastards?"
"Absolutely not. They haven't even fully recaptured Jeju Island yet."
In such a situation, government officials who only cared about their own safety would never deploy the remaining active-duty Marines to a mainland recapture operation. Because they had to protect themselves, not the citizens.
"Bastards..."
Jun-ho spat out curses at the government officials who were likely already drinking toasts, confident of success from a safe place while filming that scene—a scene not captured in the video. Because he knew that most of those reservists and civil defense men boarding the warships with hardened expressions would end up dead or as zombies. And the bigger problem was that it wouldn't end with just their sacrifice.
"Yeong-su."
"Yes."
At Jun-ho's heavy, sunken voice, Yun Yeong-su sat up straight.
"Let's build as many turrets and attack drones as possible. And can't we mount rifles on the turrets instead of air rifles?"
"......!"
Yun Yeong-su, who had been startled, soon nodded.
"Yes. Since the turrets are stationary, it should be possible. But the recoil is much stronger than an air rifle, so Baek-sensei will have a hard time, not me. He might even have to redesign them from scratch. But how are you going to handle the noise problem? And we'll be short on bullets, too."
The main reason they had mounted modified air rifles on the turrets and attack drones built at the shelter was precisely because of the noise and ammunition. It was obvious that zombies would swarm if they fired regular rifles, which were many times louder than air rifles, and the 5.56mm ammunition was already tight for Jun-ho and Jun-hyeok to use.
"It's fine now. Even if we fire from the guard post, they won't be able to hear the gunshots from more than a kilometer away. And there's no one left within that radius who can threaten us."
"Ah! That's right! You've already secured the area around here, boss!"
That was exactly why Jun-ho had gone to such lengths to pacify the area within a 3-4 kilometer radius of our shelter and the safe zone. At the very least, there was no longer any risk of zombies or raider groups swarming in if they fired regular rifles near our shelter.
"We'll have to raid the reserve forces' units for ammunition."
There were no combat units in Namyangju that could be called 'main forces', but there were reserve mobilization divisions. And Jun-ho had already identified the locations and sizes of the mobilization divisions when he was building the shelter. Of course, since it was in the metropolitan area, it was possible that most of the supplies had been exhausted after the apocalypse broke out.
'If that were the case, the Daeseonghoe bastards wouldn't have thought of raiding that place before I regressed.'
There was no way a nationwide organized crime syndicate that held high-ranking officials and influential figures in Guri and Namyangju would have planned such a thing without any information. They must have done so because there were definitely supplies left there.
"Well, I'll leave that to you, boss. But why are you suddenly trying to build more turrets and drones and mount rifles?"
Yun Yeong-su tilted his head. They had already cleared almost all the zombies around the shelter, and even if a raider group came, they could easily repel them with their current state. But the regressor who knew the future stared at the monitor with a hardened face and said in a low voice.
"Those soldiers are heading toward Incheon, Busan, and Ulsan. And most of them will die or be scattered to the winds. And..."
"......!?"
"The weapons the soldiers used will flow into the hands of the survivors."
Starting around this summer, firearms used by the ROK military would begin to circulate among the survivors. Moreover.
"Weapons will be especially abundant in Incheon and Busan, and they'll spread quickly. And from the north, the military units that were at the barbed-wire fences will be coming down."
It wasn't that North Korean troops or people from the north were crossing the fences. It was that the military units whose duty it was to guard those areas would eventually leave their posts due to food shortages and come down this year, even amidst the chaos. Of course, unlike before he regressed, no one had lived here until Jun-ho discovered the shelter site, which had been a pension. But since the territory had expanded compared to before he regressed, he couldn't rule out the possibility that they would pass through here. Crucially.
"We might be okay, but military units will pass through Yeongho-ri and the North Han River area. So, we have to be prepared."
Until now, he hadn't known the exact timing, but now that he could roughly infer it, Jun-ho had to 'upgrade' our shelter's combat power without fail. That was also why he had brought along combat personnel led by Yoon Seol-hee.
"We have to upgrade... to be stronger and more complete than we are now."
Yun Yeong-su, who had been nodding at Jun-ho's words, suddenly seemed to remember something and said hurriedly.
"Oh, but! Boss!"
"......?"
"While we're at it, why don't we upgrade Akina too?"
"The AI?"
"Yes! I did it roughly while you were away, but the computational resources are on the verge of saturation. Just the drone control process handles sensor feeds and trajectory calculations simultaneously, and if we add more turrets on top of that... phew! Plus, there's the power issue. At the very least, we need an acceleration module like an inference-dedicated NPU..."
"Enough. So what do I need to do? And don't we have spare equipment and parts?"
"We have to save those for when there's a real problem with our servers and systems. It's impossible to get new equipment and parts now, isn't it?"
"...So?"
"You said you opened a route to Gwangju this time, right? There's a data center I know of there. Originally, it was supposed to be set up and opened in the second half of 2024. I know all the equipment and facilities are already in place. So, could you raid that place? Then we can definitely upgrade. I'll take responsibility and make our Akina's performance 1.5 times faster. It's not red, so 3 times is impossible."
Yun Yeong-su's eyes sparkled. It seemed he would have to upgrade not just our shelter's offensive power, but the entire system without fail.