Whiiiiing!

The electric trucks climbed the hill one after another and passed through the corridor.

“Hurry! Hurry!”

Once even Junho’s bulletproof vehicle entered last, the people who had been waiting tensely rushed outside the corridor and put the barricades and obstacles back into their original positions.

“Move quickly!”

The zombies had failed to catch up to the electric trucks and the bulletproof vehicle, but that did not mean they had given up the chase.

Worse, they were not ordinary zombies that would quit once they lost sight of their target. They were zombies under an Alpha’s control.

Because of that, on the hill separating Gahyeon-ri and Moku-ri, every member of the search-and-kill team had come out and was preparing to fire from the positions built on top of the container wall and along the ridges on both sides of the road.

On the road in front of the container wall, after lights had been set up along the roadside, an obstacle zone stretched for more than a hundred meters, made from abandoned cars, furniture, concertina wire, and construction-site barricades.

“Are you ready? Mortar angles?”

“Perfect!”

At Junho’s question as he quickly got out of the bulletproof vehicle, a man who had served in a mortar company during his active-duty days answered with a confident expression.

Behind the container wall, 60mm and 81mm mortars obtained from the reserve-force unit’s supply stores had been laid and aimed.

Akina had already perfectly finished calculating the distance and angle so that the impact group would form in front of the obstacle zone. All they had to do was fire from the designated positions.

“Good. Now! Everyone, make sure you follow our operator’s instructions! We’re seeing everything through drones, so it’ll be far more accurate than what you judge with your own eyes!”

“Yes...!”

The search-and-kill team members near the container wall answered.

“Are Positions A and B ready too?”

—Yes.

—Fully ready.

In the trenches built with sandbags along the ridges on both sides of the hill road, team members waited with modified air guns connected to air tanks capable of firing around two hundred shots at a time.

It was already night, when the zombies’ vision was limited, and broad stretches of concertina wire had been installed below the trenches on the steep slopes. There was no chance of them climbing up.

“How far out are they?”

—About four hundred meters? Maybe they’re saving stamina, because they’re walking right now. They’ll turn the curve within thirty seconds. You’ll see them then.

Clank!

Listening to Yoon Youngsu’s transmission, Junho detached the K4 high-speed grenade machine gun from the bulletproof vehicle.

“Holy...”

The people stared in dismay as he easily lifted the heavy weapon, which weighed more than sixty kilograms, but Junho paid them no attention and carried the K4 up to the highest point of the container wall using the temporary steel stairs.

Then he fixed the tripod in place with the sandbags prepared in advance and lay prone behind it.

—They’re about to take the curve!

Listening to Yoon Youngsu’s voice, Junho examined the tablet that had been propped up for easy viewing with cold eyes.

The drone was filming from high altitude with a thermal camera, so the tablet screen showed dark bluish silhouettes, moving like waves because of the zombies’ characteristic low body temperature.

A massive horde mixed in deep navy and purple.

When the drone’s sensor automatically corrected the thermal difference, the screen inverted again.

Only then did the outline of the zombie army filling the road like a gigantic shadow in the darkness become visible.

—Inside three hundred meters! Looks like they’re about to start running. How the hell do these bastards know when they shouldn’t even be able to see?

“A few zombies have been wandering around the hill road during the day now and then. The DGV or Sector 3 Alpha bastard must’ve sent them out to scout.”

—Wow. That thing is disgustingly smart.

Click!

Junho lowered his night-vision goggles, aimed the K4, and said,

“Only to a point. It’s never fought the military before, so it’s bound to have limits.”

After muttering quietly, Junho confirmed that the zombie army had fully rounded the curve, then opened the wireless channel shared by everyone and said,

“Begin mortar fire. Launch drones.”

Pong! Pong! Kiiiiiiing!

As the sound of shells launching from the mortars and the noise of drones rising into the air rang out, Junho pulled the K4’s trigger.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Kooong...! Kooong...!

About 1.2 seconds after the gunfire, the head of the zombie army was engulfed in explosions.

And that was not all.

Kwaaaang...! Kwaang...!

The 60mm and 81mm mortar shells, guided by the AI’s perfect calculations, struck the middle section precisely.

Kiiiiiiing...!

The prefabricated modular drones quickly flew to the rear of the zombie army, opened their claw-shaped devices, and dropped grenades over the bastards’ heads.

Kwakwang...! Bang...! Kukukukung...!

Explosions and roars burst in chain succession far in the distance.

And because three hundred meters was a fairly long distance, especially at night, the zombies had no way to know what was attacking them.

The same went for the two Alphas that had sent them.

Gwooooooooar...! 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Some ordinary zombies heard the explosions and began gathering there, but it made no difference.

Soon, perhaps because the Alphas had given orders, the zombies that survived the explosions rushed up the hill road at high speed.

But the hill road was at a fairly steep angle, and all kinds of obstacles had been installed over a distance of more than a hundred meters, so the bastards could not climb quickly.

“Everyone, open fire.”

At Junho’s command, the search-and-kill team members and the G1 drones newly sent from the shelter poured tungsten rounds from their modified air guns.

Though they were semiautomatic and fired one shot at a time, the combined firepower of more than twenty people and six attack drones firing at once was considerable.

Worse for the zombies, Yoon Seolhee and the KJM brothers were here too.

Tak! Tatatak! Tak! Tak!

As the copied KP9s, with an effective range of around one hundred meters, spat out subsonic rounds without pause, the number of falling zombies kept rising.

On top of that, lights had been installed in the obstacle zone, so this side could see the bastards accurately, while the bastards could not see the allies at all.

Even in daylight, their vision was limited to one hundred to one hundred fifty meters. Seeing allies at night, fully concealed and behind cover, was impossible.

'We were lucky.'

Inside an Alpha’s territory, humans were overwhelmingly disadvantaged, but once outside that territory, humans with firearms had the advantage.

By now, most competent commanders would have learned that fact and changed their tactics.

They would know that the only answer for dealing with zombies in the city was to lure them outside their territory like this, then patiently “shave them down” from the edges.

Kukukung...! Kwaang...! Kwakwang...! Kooong...!

Paang...! Papapang...! Pangpang...!

Explosions, roars, and gunfire continued in a chaotic barrage.

And a few minutes later.

“Cease fire. Cease fire.”

At Junho’s command, everyone stopped shooting.

As the acrid gunpowder smoke and dust settled to some degree, the sight of the hill road became clearly visible through the drone’s thermal camera.

“Holy fuck...”

“This is insane. Seriously...”

Everything shown on the screen looked like a sentence of destruction.

Across the asphalt, so ruined it was hard to believe it had once been a road, ownerless cars that had failed to withstand the explosions and shockwaves lay crushed or flipped over, while flames and smoke rose between them.

Inside the craters left by mortar shells, the lines carved out by K4 grenades, and the fireballs left by grenades dropped from the air,

most of the zombies that had filled the road had been torn apart or burned so badly their shapes were unrecognizable.

And among those traces of destruction, zombies that had not completely died yet were still crawling around.

“Send the drones and clean them up.”

—Confirmed.

After Akina’s businesslike voice sounded, the A1 and G1 drones approached to close range and drove tungsten rounds into their heads.

While the drones were finishing them off,

the people who had succeeded in annihilating thousands of zombies in only a few minutes of attack embraced one another or clenched their fists, expressing soundless joy.

Today, they had seen and experienced the essence of “anti-zombie combat” firsthand.

And whether or not one had that experience made an enormous difference.

Most Alphas that had grown up in large cities knew the strength of the military.

That was why, when dealing with a military force equipped with heavy weapons, they always fought inside their own territory and never came out to fight beyond it.

They knew that even with thousands of slaves, they would be ground down in an instant by a company-sized force that had completed full preparations for a defensive battle.

And there was only one situation where a smart city Alpha like that attacked a military unit outside its own territory.

When ordinary zombies, drawn by aggro toward the military unit, charged mindlessly, the Alpha would have its slaves strike the flank or rear.

But this hill road was different.

'The flanks are mountains, and they can’t hit the rear.'

The two Alphas that had sent their slaves here had never fought the military before, so they did not know that.

They had only thought of hunting the prey that had run wild inside their territory and then escaped.

That was why they had been able to wipe out the two Alphas’ slave zombies, numbering in the thousands.

And this would undoubtedly become an important asset that would let the Gahyeon-ri search-and-kill team act without panicking when they had to face a large-scale zombie force or when a “wave” occurred in the future.

In other words, all of them had “leveled up.”

***

“Everyone, good work.”

“No! This was all thanks to you, Mr. Junho!”

“Wow, when we were being chased earlier, I thought we were seriously fucked. This was insane. Absolutely insane.”

Because the drones were continuing high-altitude reconnaissance and surveillance, the people gathered in one place and celebrated without anyone holding back.

At that moment, Song Gijun, his tension finally released and relief showing on his face, approached Junho and said cautiously,

“You truly went through a lot, Mr. Junho. By the way, doesn’t this make Moku-ri safer now?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“What? Even after killing that many zombies?”

Not only Song Gijun, but the others as well looked at Junho with puzzled expressions.

Junho stared at the scene of slaughter spread out below the hill road and said,

“Because the Alpha probably isn’t there.”

“Ah...”

“Even if it had been there, it would’ve used its slaves as meat shields and escaped somehow. And it should still have some slaves left. There are still many survivors in Moku-ri too, so it’ll rebuild its force one way or another.”

“I... see.”

“And there’s a bigger problem.”

“......?”

Junho looked around at everyone and continued calmly with a story that was nothing short of chilling.

“Because of what happened today, the Moku-ri Alphas have learned how powerful humans with guns and heavy weapons are. This method won’t work anymore.”

“......!”

That was right.

Unlike the countless zombies in movies and dramas, the zombies of their reality—the Alphas—were things that could “think.”

That was why even armies armed with heavy weapons went through hell against them, and that remained true even after anti-zombie tactics had emerged.

Why?

Because the cunning, treacherous Alpha bastards created new traps in response to those tactics.

Thousands of slaves had been annihilated?

The thousands, tens of thousands of survivors living inside their territory were both their food and candidates for new slaves.

As long as they survived, they could rebuild their forces and create territory again at any time.

“In the end, the survivors in Moku-ri will have a harder time from now on. The Alpha’s attacks will increase. More cunningly and more viciously.”

“Haa...”

“Those fucking zombie bastards just never end...”

The people who had been so happy only moments ago let out depressed sighs or spat curses.

Looking at them, Junho swallowed the last words back down his throat.

'This won’t end for at least two or three years. Survival, and this war...'

Saying that would only harm them.

And more than anything,

“Come on, everyone. Let’s lighten up. Either way, didn’t we hit the jackpot today?”

Today was an incredibly happy day for all of them.

“Ah...!”

When Junho pointed behind them, everyone turned that way, and their faces instantly brightened as if the gloom had never been there at all.

The six electric trucks were packed full with food and all kinds of supplies, overloaded to the limit.

Just as Junho had said, it was a jackpot.

No, more than that.

It was the jackpot of jackpots.