An Acquaintance (2)
“Huh?”
Yubin asked again, startled.
“Who is that guy? Why do you say it’s someone we know?”
He couldn’t see anything himself. Jinwoo was the only one peering through the massive telescope-like scope, body rigid with tension. From Yubin’s perspective, it was pure frustration. What on earth had he seen to make him this wound up?
“You know him too. He’s that 707 Special Mission Group major who came with Lieutenant General Shin before.”
Jinwoo answered without lifting his eye from the scope.
“The 707 major?”
Yubin searched his memory for a moment, then dragged a finger vertically down his own face as it clicked.
“Oh, the one with the vertical scar across his face?”
The soldier who radiated killing intent almost as strongly as Mingu. After the negotiation with Lieutenant General Shin had ended, the man had taken off his sunglasses to ask something. Yubin remembered being slightly startled by the empty left eye socket.
“That’s him.”
Jinwoo’s reply was curt. Beyond the scope, the troops had already finished clearing out the zombies that had swarmed in and were now dragging the corpses deeper into the reed bed to hide them.
“Hmm. That guy. Looked like he could put up a real fight,” Mingu added, recognizing the description. On the day of the negotiations at the welfare center, Mingu had kept his eyes locked on that sunglass-wearing soldier the entire time. He had been the most concerning opponent.
The cold bastard who had stayed perfectly composed even when the idiots around him were screaming for a fight. He was on an entirely different level from the Taeyang Group bodyguards who had charged in without any grasp of the power gap.
“His unit members are… pretty strong too,” Jinwoo said.
The image of the 707 Special Mission Group maintaining formation in Samcheok and calmly suppressing zombies was burned deeply into his mind. Unlike the common infantry who panicked and flailed in fear, the major’s men were skilled in tactical combat, and each individual’s ability was outstanding.
Of course, if you looked only at marksmanship, they were weaker than him. In close-quarters combat they would lose to Mingu or the Sheriff. But their combat capabilities were well-balanced, their overall stats high. And they specialized in team-based fighting. If they ever had to clash with the 707 Special Mission Group, it would be a massive headache in many ways.
Just from the brief look he had taken through the scope, their force numbered at least ten. There might be even more waiting at the spot where the boat had launched from. Jinwoo’s mind grew complicated.
The fact that they were waiting here, risking this much danger, meant their goal was clearly to kidnap them. And these people… were not the type to give up easily. They would become a troublesome variable later when the group moved to Costco to wait for Grandpa Paul’s helicopter.
Should he… just pull the trigger now?
A cold, inhuman temptation flashed through Jinwoo’s mind. Even at 1.7 kilometers, the PGM338 could send them to the next world with a single shot each. With his skill, he could kill the commander and at least two more soldiers before they could react, then destroy the rubber boat to cut off their retreat. After that, it would be nothing but a one-sided slaughter. Their weapons were MP5s and K-2s with suppressors. They wouldn’t be able to send bullets this far with those.
No. No… What am I thinking? Why would I kill them?
Jinwoo squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the devil’s voice echoing in his brain. They hadn’t done anything wrong yet. They had never pointed their guns at him or his friends, never uttered any threats.
The conclusion that they would try to kidnap them was only speculation. Even if the guess was correct, they could avoid conflict in advance. Sneaking shots at people with whom they had no grudge, for such a ridiculous reason, was out of the question.
They were just… soldiers following orders. Just like his own squad members had been. On top of that, they were highly competent. Competent enough to play a major role in the fight against the zombies. So pulling the trigger could wait until they actually made a threatening move.
“Hold on. So you’re saying these are troops sent by Lieutenant General Shin… Does that mean they’ve really been lying in ambush around here this whole time?”
Meanwhile, Yubin, having reached some logical conclusion, muttered quietly. The reason they had gone through the hassle of choosing a different location for every negotiation was the fear that the military faction they had just traded with might suddenly attack their previous position. Yubin had dismissed it as the excessive worry of a natural fretter, but today that concern had proven to be anything but groundless.
“Wait, but they’re quite far from the last trading spot. What is this? Why are they at that location instead of Taereung?”
Yubin quickly noticed the oddity and tilted his head. The bridge where they stood was nearly four kilometers away from Taereung in a straight line. If they had taken the road detour or followed the walking path, the distance would be even greater. Why would troops who should be guarding the welfare center in Taereung have advanced this far? And in the dead of night, no less.
“They’re… doing some kind of work. Inside Jungnang Stream…”
Jinwoo relayed the information he had gathered through the scope. Yubin narrowed his eyes.
“Work inside Jungnang Stream? What does that mean?”
What kind of work could possibly be done in a narrow river? It wasn’t like they had come out for a leisurely night fishing trip…
“I’m not sure either. Someone from the boat went to the middle of the river and lowered something. That’s all I can tell you. The scope’s field of view is so narrow, and… it’s through night vision. It’s not as accurate or clear as seeing it in daylight.”
Jinwoo answered while touching the two oversized scopes with his hand. Of course, the combined price of these two high-performance scopes exceeded ten million won, but their narrow field of view was undeniable. Looking at the limited circle of green, black, and white that shifted only according to reflected light made it hard to guess the situation easily.
“A boat?”
The new information made Yubin’s eyes narrow further. The story was starting to feel increasingly suspicious. A boat? Did that mean their original purpose had been to search by water? No, more than that…
“Hey, Jinwoo. If those people have been there all this time, wouldn’t they have heard our car engine or the gunshots? The Zencoop’s engine was ridiculously loud earlier.”
Yubin looked worried. They had gone to great lengths to shake off the small force the helicopter’s enemies might have left on the Han River and hide their location, yet a much more elite unit was stationed less than two kilometers away. Two kilometers was close enough for at least some of the gunfire to carry, even with the rain and the surrounding concrete buildings.
“It doesn’t seem like it… That rubber boat…”
As Jinwoo gave a small shake of his head, the roof door burst open and the Sheriff came bounding out.
“Hey, what are you all doing up here without me? And why did you drag out that huge rifle? Did something happen?”
Right beside him, the Witch stood close, her eyes darting around with a mix of curiosity and fear.
“It’s nothing, nothing. We’re just keeping watch.”
Before Jinwoo or Mingu could answer, Yubin quickly stepped in front of the Sheriff and pushed the big man back toward the door.
“Go back down, Sheriff. We’ll be right there.”
He had already heard from Captain Mun that the Witch had friendly ties with the southern warlords. If she learned that Lieutenant General Shin’s subordinate—and one of his most combat-effective ones at that—was stationed nearby, there was no telling what kind of reckless stunt this crazy woman might pull. Yubin had zero intention of giving her that information and creating another dangerous variable.
“You guys are really weird… Keeping stuff from me like this…”
The Sheriff swallowed the rest of his complaint about being stuck with this annoying woman and grabbed Yubin as he was being pushed toward the stairs.
“You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”
“I told you, no. Come on, go down, Sheriff. You too, hurry!”
Yubin kept a perfectly straight face as he soothed the Sheriff, then gave the Witch an order as well. Still not grasping the situation, she held up her cigarette.
“I was just going to smoke a cig…”
“The zombies have been around, so no smoking right now! I’ll tell you when it’s okay later.”
Yubin used the zombie excuse to crush her will, then winked at the Sheriff where only he could see. Even in the dark night with nothing but faint moonlight, it was enough. They were best friends who had been through life and death together for years.
“Yeah, okay… Hey, let’s go down.”
The Sheriff, catching Yubin’s signal, dragged the Witch back down the stairs. Yubin hurriedly closed the roof door, afraid any flashlight beam might leak out.
“Whew…”
Having safely passed a crisis that was hardly a crisis at all, Yubin returned to Jinwoo’s side.
“What were you saying earlier? That they probably didn’t hear our gunfire? What about the rubber boat?”
“Oh, that… There is a rubber boat floating there, but it feels like it only just arrived.”
“How can you tell?”
“There are no signs of them having lived there at all. With that many people gathered, there should be at least dozens of water jugs, but there’s nothing like that. No barbed wire or camouflage netting either. No matter how I look at it, they don’t seem to have been stationed there.”
Jinwoo’s reasoning sounded plausible enough. Yubin was familiar with the Dongbu Expressway area along Jungnang Stream. No matter how strong a special forces unit’s firepower was, without laser wire or steel barriers, they would have a hard time holding out even a single day. Especially under a bridge where zombies constantly roamed and would leap down at the sight of a human.
“Then maybe they didn’t hear our helicopter either?”
Yubin muttered, rubbing his chin. This time, Jinwoo gave a positive answer.
“Probably not. If they had, they would have come looking toward Ttukseom Park that same day or the next. It’s already been four days since we got here… And just today the helicopter flew around like crazy. It doesn’t make sense that they would hear all that and only now start moving casually.”
The distance at which a new-model helicopter’s rotor noise could be heard in a city full of high-rises was roughly six to eight kilometers, depending on how many zombies were howling nearby. Beyond that, it wouldn’t carry.
Their current location at Gunja Station was about 3.5 kilometers from the north bank of the Han River. Those men were another 1.7 kilometers beyond that, and had apparently been far enough away to require a rubber boat before only just arriving.
If they had truly been hiding near the welfare center in Taereung, the chance of them hearing the helicopter would be even lower. Jinwoo judged there was no need to worry about that part.
“But about Jungnang Stream… I remember there was a ton of water backed up around Sangbong Station. How did the boat get all the way here? Did all the blocked water drain out and flow down?”
Yubin tilted his head again as he dug through his memories. This was new information to Jinwoo.
“What do you mean, water backed up?”
“The drainage pumps stopped because the power’s out, so all the debris that washed down piled up there. The water rose like a dam.”
Yubin spread both arms to describe the flooded water, but Jinwoo still had his eye glued to the scope and didn’t see the gesture. Still, he understood the explanation perfectly. And he could roughly guess what the special forces soldiers were doing on the boat right now.
“Ah… So that’s why we heard that explosion earlier but didn’t see any flames?”
One question resolved, Jinwoo gave a slight nod. Meanwhile, the rubber boat crew inside the scope was rowing hard, moving upstream along Jungnang Stream. And a moment later—
Thud—! Splash—!
The underwater explosion sent a column of water shooting high into the air, scattering spray and debris in every direction.
Whoosh—! Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—!
Once the waterway opened, the faster current roared as it was sucked into the gap. The force of the water widened the opening even further.
Crunch—! Crunch—! Boom—!
The obstacles that had withstood even the second explosion finally lost to the flowing water and slid downstream. The lake-like body of trapped water dropped several dozen centimeters in an instant.
“…It’s open.”
Cho Cheol-woong, who had pulled back to a safe distance and was watching Jungnang Stream with bated breath, spoke with his single remaining eye gleaming.
“Of course it opened. Who do you think did it? Or were you seriously worried I couldn’t even adjust the explosives properly, Major Cho?”
The man standing beside him, a master sergeant, grinned and joked. Cho Cheol-woong answered shortly, his face still completely devoid of humor.
“If you want to brag that much, you should have succeeded on the first try, Master Sergeant Hong.”
“Aigoo, if that mountain of trash wasn’t tangled up underwater, I would have succeeded on the first try. I had to work by eye in this pitch-black night with no lights, and you’re the one who ordered me to suppress the explosion noise as much as possible, Major Cho.”
Master Sergeant Hong showed no sign of shrinking from Cho Cheol-woong’s rebuke and continued boasting. He already knew very well that his commander was stingy with praise. He also knew that the man’s strictness was rooted in trust.
“It doesn’t look like it rained that heavily here, yet the flooding was that bad.”
Cho Cheol-woong completely ignored Hong’s protest and looked around. Just five kilometers upstream near Taereung, torrential rain had caused the already full stream to overflow completely, yet the ground in this area wasn’t even that soaked.
“We cleared two blockages, so the area upstream should be fine now too.”
At Hong’s words, Cho Cheol-woong’s expression turned serious.
“‘Should be fine’ isn’t good enough. It needs to be definitely fine.”
The flooding around Taereung had swept away the hideouts and anti-aircraft batteries they had painstakingly built over several weeks, turning them into nothing but muddy filth. It was damage on a scale he never wanted to experience again.
“We’ll have to watch the water drain a little longer to be sure. There might be more blockages downstream. That’s why I suggested we do the work during the day.”
Hong pointed south with his hand and grumbled lightly. If they had cleared these obstacles when the rain first started, the work would have been much easier and they wouldn’t have had to move their hideout.
“Daytime is impossible. If we can see clearly, so can the enemy.”
Cho Cheol-woong shook his head firmly. Even if it meant fighting uncomfortably while relying on night vision, he could not give up concealment. They had no idea where General Kim’s people were hiding. That was why he insisted on subsonic ammunition and had limited the amount of explosives to the minimum. All to move in secret.
“We’re pulling out!”
After ordering the men to withdraw, Cho Cheol-woong turned to Hong and commanded.
“Take four men and stay here on watch. Confirm the waterway doesn’t get blocked again, then return at midnight.”
“I have to stand guard duty too?”
Hong scratched the side of his head as if annoyed, then cracked another joke.
“Aren’t you treating the hero who saved the Earth a little too roughly, Major Cho?”
“Saved the Earth?”
“I’m talking about Miss Terra. If I hadn’t held back my fear that day, gone to the next building, and rescued her, we never would have known about the Final Level Evolution immunizer. Then there would be no serum or anything, right?”
Hong answered proudly, then pulled his jungle hat down firmly and added one more line.
“So if you look at the big picture, I basically saved the Earth.”