Texas Number One
September 28, 2024, 10:40 AM. Gangho Resort, Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do.
"Representative, the representative for the guests in Building E has requested an interview."
"Why? Again? What for?" Kang Baek-ho scowled as hard as he could, but Yoon Seol-hee replied with her usual indifference.
"It seems to be about food rations. They're asking why we aren't providing three meals a day."
"Three meals a day? Have those bastards lost their minds? Tell them to go out and work. Clear out the corpses, clean up, go to the greenhouses and work. Why do they hate that so much?"
"Well, since they're people who had some money..."
"Ha! Damn it... Does anyone here have money? Manager Yoon, tell the Building E representative this: if they have less money than me, keep their mouths shut. If they want to eat three meals, tell them to provide ten or more able-bodied people between the ages of 16 and 60, regardless of gender. If they won't, tell them to get out. We'll give them three days' worth of food and water. Based on two meals a day!"
"Yes, understood, Representative."
Yoon Seol-hee bowed her head with a bitter smile and left Kang Baek-ho’s office. The office on the first floor, about 50 pyeong in size, which had originally been the central management office of Gangho Resort, was currently being used by the secretaries and bodyguards, including Yoon Seol-hee herself, the surviving resort staff, and 9 survivors from the KW Cops staff who had been there for a three-night, four-day retreat and training camp on 'that day'.
In addition, 15 people, including Kang Baek-ho's personal bodyguards and the KW Cops staff, were in charge of the armed force of the Gangho Resort survivor group, maintaining 'order'. It was rare for all 15 to move at once, but when a group of 4 or 5 moved, the resort survivors had no choice but to be nervous. This was because they were all armed with daggers, machetes, and firearms like air rifles. Of course, even without firearms, there wasn't a single person with the guts to act recklessly toward them, as they were all former Special Forces NCOs or officers. After all, they were the ones who had wiped out so many resort zombies with cold weapons, compound bows, and air rifles. Among them, the performance of Park Cheol-woo and Yoon Seol-hee was truly outstanding. In the early stages of the outbreak, the pair had killed over 100 zombies.
Ultimately, Kang Baek-ho, whom the secretarial staff led by those two served with such respect even in this world, was able to lead the Gangho Resort survivor group despite all sorts of adversity. Above all, since Kang Baek-ho was the owner of Gangho Resort from the beginning and every judgment and plan had come from his head, not only the bodyguards but also the resort staff and even the KW Cops staff sincerely followed him as their 'leader'.
'If it's the Representative...' Yoon Seol-hee believed. She believed that Kang Baek-ho would lead the resort survivors, including herself, well in this world. Even if a bleak future where one couldn't see an inch ahead awaited them, if they just gathered around Kang Baek-ho, they would surely...
"Manager! Manager Yoon!"
"What's going on?" Yoon Seol-hee narrowed her eyes as Deputy Kim Sang-woo, her junior from the Special Forces, ran over urgently.
"A crowd has gathered at the entrance to Parking Lot 7! They're all armed. It looks like those people from the golf course down there."
"The golf course? Myeongseong Golf Club?"
"Yes. It seems to be those people from there and some local residents."
"Why would those people..."
Yoon Seol-hee's expression turned cold at the 'adversity' that had struck again. Myeongseong Golf Club, located 2 kilometers from Gangho Resort, was a place that was a bit of a stretch to call a competitor. After all, it was only a 'group' in name; Myeongseong was just a local construction company from Gwangju that didn't even make it into the top 100 in the business world. Above all.
"Those gangster bastards... Wait a moment. I'll report to the Representative."
"Yes!"
Myeongseong Group was a company that had been expanded after a criminal organization acquired a construction company during the chaotic period after the IMF crisis. The chairman had been in prison for several years, so his children were running it. In particular, the golf course was run by the second son, whom even his gangster father had given up on, and they had always had a very poor relationship with Gangho Resort.
"...Those Myeongseong Golf Club gangster bastards? Ha! Now all sorts of people are acting up."
"What should we do? Deputy Kim Sang-woo says there are about twenty of them. Some have gas guns and air guns, and they're all armed."
"What do you mean, what should we do?" Kang Baek-ho said with a face that had turned as cold as ice. "They came here to die on their own, so we should send them off. Isn't that golf course good for farming? There's a lake right next to it, and they must have used a lot of water and herbicides to maintain the grass. They must have all that, right? That's perfect."
"Shall I receive them?"
"I was planning to do that eventually. Since they crawled here on their own, we should treat them properly. First, try to treat them well as if we want to talk. After that, you know, right?"
"Yes. I'll prepare immediately."
As expected, Kang Baek-ho would be like this, so Yoon Seol-hee bowed her head. He was indeed a leader who knew how to turn a crisis into an opportunity.
***
"So, what do you want?"
"Aigoo, you're quite impatient. If you think about it, we're neighbors, isn't it polite to introduce ourselves first?" A man in his 40s with a scar on his face, who looked like he had 'I'm a gangster' written on his face the moment you saw him, sneered.
"Hut... I'm hearing the Jeolla-do Gwangju dialect in Gyeonggi-do Gwangju."
Park Cheol-woo, who was facing the gangster who introduced himself as a director of the golf course at a parasol table set up in the center of the parking lot, chuckled. He was like that, but the guys lined up a few meters behind him, acting like they were something special, were even more ridiculous. To think they were dressed in black suits and shirts and even wearing sunglasses in a world like this, cute bastards.
"Ome? Are you laughing? I am Gwangju..."
The moment the gangster sitting across from Park Cheol-woo fiercely squinted one eye at the clear mockery.
Whack!
Park Cheol-woo's pot-lid-sized palm slapped the gangster's face, and the guy couldn't even scream as he toppled over to the side.
"B, Boss...!"
"You fucking bastard!"
The moment the gangsters lined up in black suits tried to rush out.
Pop-pop-pop-pop!
Air rifle pellets fired by KW Cops staff hiding in the bushes of the parking lot hit their entire bodies, and—
"Aargh!"
"Gyaaa!"
The gangsters, with 5.5mm pellets embedded in their torsos and limbs, all collapsed.
"Ugh..."
"Gack! It hurts... It hurts, you fucker..."
"Ughhh..."
Since they were regular pellets and there was distance, they avoided instant death, but if they didn't remove the bullets in time, most would become crippled, or in severe cases, die.
"It's a gun!"
"Fuck! Everyone rush at once!"
Some of the remaining guys were flustered, but the real gangsters holding weapons like butcher knives and iron pipe spears still had 'guts', so they rushed in, and—
"You can kill them."
At the low command of Park Cheol-woo, a former Special Forces Sergeant Major.
Yoon Seol-hee and the bodyguards, wearing stab-proof vests and joint protectors over leather work clothes, stepped forward with machetes and Bowie knives.
"Where does a bitch..."
One gangster saw Yoon Seol-hee's face and physique under her baseball cap, sneered, and stabbed with a butcher knife.
Whack!
"Ugh!"
At the same time as she parried the butcher knife with the back of her leather-gloved hand, her machete was embedded in the gangster's side. As she pulled the knife inward as if cutting, the guy's arm went limp in an instant.
"Gyaaaaa..."
Thwack!
Because Yoon Seol-hee's machete split the guy's crown, the scream didn't last long.
Yoon Seol-hee and Kim Sang-woo stabbed and slashed the golf course gangsters with expressionless faces, like machines. If there had been a large number of them, it might have been different, but since they started with five or six people already collapsed after being hit by air rifles at the beginning, the Myeongseong Golf Club gangsters had no choice but to be helpless against the cold knife work of the former Special Forces members. Of course, a few of them landed attacks, but they couldn't easily penetrate the combination of leather work clothes and stab-proof vests. Whether it was because it was still hot during the day or because they were just trying to look cool, the guys who were all dressed in suits and shirts just kept spraying blood and falling down every time they were stabbed or slashed.
"F, fuck... Run!"
Eventually, five or six people who were flustered and didn't know what to do in the back attempted to flee. However.
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
In the meantime, they all fell to the floor and only groaned and screamed due to the air rifle fire from the Cops staff who had moved to the parking lot entrance where they had entered.
"You dog-like bastards... You think you'll be safe after doing this... Gack!"
The gangster, who was spitting out curses even while crawling on the floor, rolled his eyes back. Park Cheol-woo, who had stepped on the gangster's back with his combat boots, lowered his large hand and grabbed the guy's hair.
"Gack! Gack!"
Park Cheol-woo said to the ear of the gangster, whose neck was bent backward and who was choking.
"I was thinking of visiting within a few days anyway. Thank you for crawling here on your own."
"Ugh...!?"
"When I was at the 'company', one of my minor subjects was VIP kidnapping. But why would you kidnap someone? It's to find something out. So our work usually doesn't end well with just kidnapping. Nine times out of ten, we take the next step. We need to find something out, but there's no time to wait for a technician. Then what we'll do is obvious, right? You guys probably do it often, too. But ours is a bit more intense. Like this."
Park Cheol-woo's thick fingers grabbed the guy's ear, and—
Rip! Riiip!
"Ughhh-aaah...!"
The gangster whose ear was ripped off raw screamed loudly, but—
Crunch!
Park Cheol-woo shoved the ear he had just ripped off into the guy's mouth to block the scream.
"Gack! Gack..."
Park Cheol-woo, who turned the face of the gangster, who was shedding tears with his ear stuck in his mouth, to the side, said with the most gentle smile imaginable.
"Our Representative has a lot he wants to know. So let's talk quickly and finish this. That will be more comfortable for you, too."
That was how the first external move of Kang Baek-ho and Gangho Resort, which would become the largest survivor group in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do, in just one year, began. Also, Park Cheol-woo, Yoon Seol-hee, and Kang Baek-ho didn't know it yet, but if it weren't for the intervention of a 'regressor', they would have been destined to win the war against the Myeongseong Golf Club gangsters only after several people had died and been injured.
*
*
*
"Like this?"
"Yes, yes... Y, yes, like that. Thank you."
"It's nothing. Should I keep holding it?"
"Yes."
Choi Jung-woo continued the work of installing solar panels on the makeshift guard post built on a tree, feeling extremely nervous.
'Ah, I guess because they're idols, their bare faces are really pretty.'
Although he didn't know the group Psyche Flare, he knew from Jun-ho that the siblings helping him now were former idols. And the siblings were so handsome and pretty that you would gasp the moment you saw them. Especially the younger sister; even though she was wearing baggy, poop-colored work clothes, the body that was slightly revealed every time she moved was no joke. But what was even more surprising was that the idol, who was only twenty years old, was so good at her work. Honestly, this twenty-year-old idol had much more work sense and was more diligent than the junior who had just graduated from Polytechnic College and joined the company a few months before the world became like this.
"It's all done now. Please go down and..."
"Rest! Let's take a break!"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
At Jun-ho's voice, Choi Jung-woo and Park Seon-hui climbed down from the guard post. Watching Park Seon-hui, who climbed down the ladder on the 6 or 7-meter-high tree like a squirrel, Choi Jung-woo clicked his tongue once again.
"How is it, do you think we can finish it by today?"
Choi Jung-woo, who quenched his thirst with cold bottled water taken from the icebox Jun-ho brought, nodded.
"Yes. Sunny is so good at work and helps so well. I think we can finish within an hour."
"That's good. You worked hard too."
"Yes..."
Choi Jung-woo tilted his head at Park Seon-hui's reaction, which felt somehow modest(?) and different from when she worked with him. Then Park Seon-hui carefully said to Jun-ho.
"But Ducky, no, what about my brother?"
"He's catching fish, with a fishing rod."
"...Yes?"
"Deok-cheol said so? That he's not Dallas, but the Texas number one angler. He said he caught a lot of fish with a fishing rod in the river and lake near your farm? So I entrusted it to him."
"I, I see. Well, my brother likes fishing and hunting, so he often went with our grandfather."
"Yeah. So I told him to catch about 30 fish first."
"......"
Had her brother ever caught that many? She didn't know. So Park Seon-hui just kept her mouth shut. Even if her brother was quite skilled, if he was a braggart, it wouldn't be bad for him to come to his senses this time... Ughhh...!
At that moment, Park Deok-cheol's scream was heard from the reservoir side, and Jun-ho ran down holding his air rifle like lightning. And Park Seon-hui and Choi Jung-woo followed him breathlessly.
"What's wrong? Is it a zombie? Or an intruder?"
- No? Dolsoe was just fishing alone and suddenly fell backward?
"...What?"
At the voice of Yun Yeong-su, who was monitoring the area with a drone as always, Jun-ho stopped running. Then he pushed through the branches and looked at Park Deok-cheol, who was sitting on the bushes on the other side of the reservoir, through a digital monocular.
Next to Park Deok-cheol, who was trembling with his lower body submerged in the water, was a spotted snake, no, a fish with a length as long as a person's arm, flopping around.
"Wh, what is it? Did something happen to Ducky!?"
When Park Seon-hui, who arrived late, asked urgently, Jun-ho turned his head and said.
"Your brother is really good at fishing. He caught a snakehead on his first try. I acknowledge him as the Texas number one angler."