“You can start from the second floor.”

—Understood!

After hearing Song Gijun’s energetic answer, Junho spoke to Yoon Seolhee, who was sitting on the floor and resting.

“Assistant Manager, you should rest more. It must hurt quite a bit.”

“I’m fine. It’s just a bruise. It only stings a little.”

“No. Rest. That’s an order.”

Junho stopped Yoon Seolhee as she tried to stand and spoke firmly.

“...Yes.”

Yoon Seolhee slowly sat back down.

Seeing that a woman as patient as her was still grimacing, the pain still seemed considerable.

Even if she had been wearing Level 3 body armor, she had taken a crossbow bolt dead-on at close range. It had probably hit with the impact of being struck hard by a hammer.

It was extremely fortunate that she had only ended up with bruising instead of a fracture.

“H-hey....”

At the dying voice that came from nearby, the two of them turned their heads.

The man, bleeding heavily from his side and thigh, pleaded weakly with a face as pale as paper.

“S-save me... I’m pretty useful... I know a place better than this... hhh....”

After exhaling his final breath into the air like hollow steam, the focus soon vanished from the man’s eyes, and he tipped over where he sat.

Junho watched the end of one of the countless trash villains of the apocalypse without much feeling and spoke low.

“Youngsu, anything strange outside?”

—No, sir. No movement at all. All drones are standing by in position.

“What about the DGV zone and Sector C?”

—Quiet as the grave.

The DGV zone referred to the most dangerous D-shaped area in Moku-ri, because the movie theater was located there, inside the building where an Alpha lived.

And Sector C was the territory of the second-most dangerous Alpha, one that occupied two roadside commercial buildings and controlled about seven to eight hundred slave zombies.

“I’d like it if they stayed quiet and let this pass... Anyway, don’t take your eyes off those places. Watch them carefully.”

—Ryokai.

After ending the communication with Yoon Youngsu, the KJM Brothers brought out the living people.

The group that had occupied D-Mart numbered twenty-seven in total, and over twenty of them were either dead or so badly wounded that, like the man in black work clothes, they would soon be pronounced dead if left as they were.

And the survivors were all women who had been with the leader in black work clothes.

“How are they?”

“Most of them still haven’t come to their senses, but their lives aren’t in danger. Though two or three of them probably won’t be able to hear properly for a few days.”

Kim Jimin answered while looking at the women whose bodies had been roughly covered with scraps of clothing.

Then Gu Jeongmok and Kim Jaemun, who had been tasked with gathering the corpses in one place, came over and said,

“We’re done.”

“But what are you planning to do with those women?”

Even if they had been sexually exploited by the men of this group, no one knew whether it had been voluntary or forced.

They might have assisted in murder, and there might even be women among them who had been part of the gang from the beginning.

So they could not be taken to his shelter, obviously, nor to Gahyeon-ri or Yeongho-ri.

“There’s a suitable place.”

“What? There’s a place like that? Ah, do you mean the resort?”

“No. That would be unfair to Baekho. Anyway, you won’t have to worry about where those women go.”

“Yes, well.”

—We’ve arrived. Should we begin?

While Gu Jeongmok shrugged, a transmission came in saying Song Gijun and the work team had entered the second floor.

“Yes. Start right away. We’ll help too.”

“Yes.”

Since every extra pair of hands was valuable, Junho left only Yoon Seolhee behind to watch the critically wounded and the women, then headed out to the center of the mart with the KJM Brothers.

“Mr. Jaemun, take tools and materials. Mr. Jimin, take kitchen and bathroom supplies. Assistant Manager Gu, take car supplies and lighting. For now, sweep them into carts.”

“Yes!”

As the three men began pulling carts through the third floor, Junho went up to the fourth floor through the emergency stairs.

Song Gijun and the work team would be hard at work stripping the second floor.

The first floor of this mart was the agricultural, livestock, seafood, refrigerated, and frozen food section. Not long after the apocalypse broke out, everything there had either been looted or had become inedible.

Starting from the second floor, although some sections were refrigerated, it was the real food section, and there were many foods with long shelf lives.

The survivors who had looted or occupied this place had lived mostly off what was there.

And because all kinds of food had been piled up across a floor that covered a full two thousand pyeong, many survivors had come and gone, but about a quarter of the food still remained.

Song Gijun and the work team had decided to strip that place first.

And on the fourth floor of the mart, there were appliances, all kinds of school supplies, and a stationery store that sold toys. Junho had decided to handle this place alone.

“All right, then. Let’s get started.”

The fourth floor was relatively intact.

In the apocalypse, almost no survivor took appliances, stationery, or toys.

But his shelter was different.

—Boss! Laptops and computers! Please, definitely!

—Our kids need school supplies and toys. The high schoolers at the nursing home need them too.

Remembering Yoon Youngsu’s and Baek Sua’s repeated requests, Junho began shopping for the first time in a while.

***

“Prepare Vehicle Three.”

When carts came down to the underground parking lot through the carpeted emergency stairs, the waiting personnel loaded the goods inside the carts by item type into the wooden boxes on the electric forklifts.

“Keep coming, keep coming.”

Once the boxes filled to a certain degree, the forklift moved toward the electric trucks lined up near the parking lot entrance and lifted the boxes into their cargo beds. In that manner, the goods from the mart were moved without rest.

“How much is left?”

“About half? But we’ve moved most of the important stuff.”

“Okay.”

The men in the work team were excited.

They had desperately needed daily necessities, so they had only hoped there would be some of those left.

But Moku-ri D-Mart was as big a jackpot as its scale suggested.

“Damn! I didn’t think there’d still be that much canned food left.”

On top of that, there was an enormous amount of rice, flour, sugar, salt, soy sauce, pepper, and other things.

That was because the survivors who had occupied this place had mainly eaten retort pouches and ready-made meals.

Since there had been plenty of things they could eat easily, they had not consumed much of things like rice, which had to be cooked.

“Hey, are we even going to fit all this in the trucks?”

“Let’s not get greedy. Ten tons is already an insane amount.”

One might ask what he was talking about when they had six one-ton trucks.

But for this truck, the most widely sold model in Korea, overloading was routine.

If anything, loading only exactly one ton would be rude to this guy, who had been overloaded for decades.

In any case, the work team continued transporting goods, sweating buckets but still thrilled.

In the end, they accomplished the feat of filling every truck’s cargo bed to the brim with overloads in only about forty minutes, rather than the one-hour limit.

“But will it be okay?”

Song Gijun seemed worried that they had loaded too much and asked.

Junho looked with satisfaction at the shelter’s electric trucks, two of which would be driven by members of the KJM Brothers, and answered,

“It should be fine. We’ll be going slow anyway.”

Junho was in a good mood.

His shelter had gained even more than expected, just like the Gahyeon-ri survivors.

'I didn’t think the fifth floor would be the real treasure warehouse.'

The mart guide board only said that the fifth floor had the culture center, customer service center, and employee offices.

But because the mart itself had such an enormous floor area, Junho had thought it was somewhat strange that one entire floor would be used only for things like that.

So in the end, he had picked the lock himself and gone up, and there, he found the inventory warehouse of this giant mart.

Of course, not every type of product was there, but a considerable number of things were stacked by the box.

Junho had moved only the goods the shelter needed with the combat team and loaded them onto the electric trucks.

This place was truly a golden goblin.

***

“This is the last load!”

At the shout that the final carts were coming down, Song Gijun quickly yelled toward the electric trucks.

“Vehicles One through Three, pull out! Line up behind Junho’s trucks!”

The shelter’s electric trucks would be driven by the KJM Brothers wearing night-vision goggles, so they could lead the way without turning on their lights.

And the bulletproof vehicle, which had led on the way here, would take the rear this time.

If an unexpected situation broke out, it would have to fight from the very back.

Whiiing.

While the electric forklifts, whose batteries were already running low, moved with the last of their strength, Junho briefly stared at the women seated in the back of the electric trucks and the bulletproof vehicle, then sent a transmission.

“Can you hear me?”

—Ah, yes! Are we starting now?

“No. Keep standing by for that. I’m going to bring a few people there, so have them stay with you.”

—P-people?

The owner of Welcome Karaoke Bar, Lee Wonoh, asked back in confusion.

That was right. Junho planned to send the women who had survived today to the Jaeseong Building members.

There were many women around the same age there, so these women would probably be more comfortable.

More than anything, in Junho’s view, these women could never beat the hostesses there, who were the very definition of “scary older sisters.”

“Yes. Five women in their twenties. That’s the only place I can put them right now. You’ll be moving soon anyway, so you can take them with you then, or handle it however you want. I’ll send some extra supplies your way.”

—Oh, if you’re doing that, I’m grateful. Bring them over. You said the place we’re moving to is huge anyway, right?

“Yes. Like I told you before, it’ll be much better to live there than where you are now. I guarantee it.”

Lee Wonoh and the karaoke bar workers had decided to leave Jaeseong Building soon.

There were too many risk factors to keep living there, but the biggest reason they had decided to relocate was that Junho had arranged a “new base” for them.

And that new base was the water leisure sports center dock on the Bukhan River.

That place, now one of the shelter’s forward bases, had a relay, PTZ cameras, several CCTVs, and even four turrets installed.

If Lee Wonoh and the karaoke bar family went there, Junho intended to build two or three small vinyl greenhouses and give them around twenty laying hens.

On top of that, if he shared the excess rice he had steadily farmed up until now, including what he had obtained today, they would be able to live for years without worrying about anything.

'Besides, Lee Seokjin’s unit will be going in and out of that place often....'

If someone clicked with someone else, they could go to Deokso, or if a few soldiers who should already have been discharged settled there completely, that would be even better.

Major Lee Seokjin would not object either if his subordinates said they wanted to live at the dock, an important connecting point to the forces in Yeongho-ri, because of love.

“Anyway, thank you very much. For now, I’ll—”

—Boss, emergenciiiies!

At that moment, Yoon Youngsu arbitrarily switched channels and shouted, and Junho narrowed his eyes.

—A huge swarm of zombies just came out of the DGV zone! They’re heading to the mart right now! They’re crazy fast! They’ll be there in three minutes, no, two! Get out fast!

He had thought things were going too smoothly.

“...Yeah, of course. Damn it!”

Junho spat out the curse and snapped his head around.

“Everyone mount up! Zombies incoming!”

“Gasp!?”

“Ah, fuck!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and ran to the vehicles.

“The forklifts! What about the forklifts!”

Even after getting into the electric truck he was going to drive, Song Gijun worried about the electric forklifts, and Junho shouted,

“Just leave them! We have plenty of those!”

Since there were more than ten of the same model at the shelter, Junho boldly chose to abandon them.

But to Song Gijun and the work team, Junho’s attitude clearly showed that he valued people more than those precious electric forklifts, and they were deeply moved.

“Go, go!”

Whiiing!

Starting with the vehicle driven by Gu Jeongmok, the electric trucks left the parking lot one after another.

At the very rear, the bulletproof vehicle carrying Junho and Yoon Seolhee guarded the back as they moved.

They had gone about a hundred meters.

Gwoooooooooh...!!!

The enormous roar of thousands of monsters carried all the way into the bulletproof vehicle.

And from every alley around the three-way intersection the bulletproof vehicle had just passed, zombies began pouring out in a frenzy.