“You can stay here.”

“Y-yes...”

The women who had barely escaped the mart with their lives entered the apartment Gu Jeongmok had brought them to, terrified out of their minds.

Because of the flashbangs, two of them still could not hear properly, and the other three were not in good condition either.

But they had personally seen everyone they had been living with die, so the women only trembled and did as they were told, not daring to even think of resisting.

“Here. Water and food. The electricity works here, so put them in the refrigerator. Cook the rice in the electric rice cooker. Ah, and you know what this is, right? Anyone who needs it, use it.”

“Th-thank you.”

“Thank you.”

The women, who had received rice, simple side foods, painkillers, sanitary pads, and other women’s products, were deeply moved despite their fear.

They had thought these people were simply terrifying and cruel, killing people and zombies without blinking.

But at this first “humane” treatment they had encountered in this world, they felt as though they might cry.

“Excuse me.”

“What?”

Gu Jeongmok’s blunt response frightened her all over again, but the woman who had once been a Pilates instructor gathered her courage and continued.

“Um. What... what’s going to happen to us?”

“......!”

At her words, the other women flinched, and their complexions quickly worsened.

Contrary to Junho’s suspicion, all of them had been dragged into Lee Minjae’s group more or less by force.

They had smiled on the outside and pretended to be aroused when they did “that” so they would not offend the bastards—especially Lee Minjae—but in truth, they had only done it because they wanted to live, because they did not want to be thrown away.

They had barely survived, but if these terrifying men decided to, they might end up in the same situation, or perhaps an even worse one.

“Why? You think we’re going to eat you?”

When Gu Jeongmok asked expressionlessly, the women’s pupils shook violently, and they trembled even harder.

At that, Gu Jeongmok gave a small laugh.

“For a while, you’ll stay here by yourselves. After that, you’ll go somewhere else, but I can’t tell you where yet. And see that CCTV camera over there? There’s one in every room, so don’t try anything stupid. We’ll kick you straight out to Moku-ri. There won’t be a second warning.”

“W-we won’t.”

“We absolutely won’t do anything. Really.”

Told they would be sent to that place crawling with zombies, the women turned pale and nodded repeatedly.

“Good. Then behave yourselves.”

Gu Jeongmok left, and the front door closed.

***

It was an ordinary door lock, so they could go outside if they wanted, but the women did not even think of leaving. Only after checking two, three times that the door was locked did they finally collapse onto the sofa.

“Haa...”

“Should I put this in the fridge? Or are you hungry? Should I cook rice now?”

“Let’s cook rice first. And Youngju. Hey! Youngju!”

“Mm?”

The woman whose eardrums had been damaged by the flashbang finally turned around.

“Let’s clean! Clean!”

“Ah, clean? Okay.”

As the woman who could not hear well struggled to her feet, everyone looked at her with pity.

At least the man who was apparently the doctor here had said after examining her that she would still be able to hear to some extent after a few days.

She could have lost her hearing forever.

“They have a doctor, and they treated us for free... Maybe the people here are better than we thought?”

“Better? Didn’t you see Taesu get his neck cut in one stroke earlier? Ugh...”

“That’s...”

“That bastard deserved to die. I told him so many times not to do it inside. Fucking bastard...”

It was one thing to sell their bodies to survive, since there was nothing they could do about it, but if they got pregnant in this ruined world, it would be a disaster.

But neither Lee Minjae nor any of the mart group had cared about things like that. So the women had spent every day smiling against their will and satisfying the bastards’ demands while constantly worrying.

“But forget the guy just now. You know that big man?”

“Ah, the guy who seemed like the leader here? He was handsome once he took off the mask...”

“Right? He was really scary, but good-looking, wasn’t he? And he was ridiculously good at fighting.”

Junho was, by both his own and others’ admission, a man with an ordinary face.

But that was when the world had still been intact.

In a world like this, where men and women, young and old alike could not even wash properly, let alone dress themselves up, Junho’s neatly cut hair and daily showers and face-washing were enough to place him in the upper ranks.

Moreover, the sight of him executing the men from the mart, then commanding his other companions from the front and sweeping away a terrifying number of zombies, had been deeply imprinted into the women’s minds.

Now that their bodies were safe and their minds had stabilized to some degree, it was, in a way, only natural for them to feel favor toward this place’s “leader.”

“I hope we get to see him sometimes...”

“Yeah.”

Seeing someone powerful in person, even occasionally.

Feeling the sociopsychological emotion commonly called vicarious or surrogate security—the sense that that person’s authority, ability, or position would protect them directly or indirectly—

the women prayed inwardly.

Please let them live like human beings here.

Even a few years would be good. No, even a few months.

Please let them settle in a peaceful place that was not hell like Moku-ri.

***

After putting the women into an empty unit in The First Apartments, the people who had participated in the D-Mart farming operation focused on unloading supplies from the electric trucks.

The front of the apartment complex was soon filled with dozens of different kinds of goods, and Song Gijun ran here and there, diligently making a list on his tablet.

About an hour passed like that.

“We’re done organizing the goods. Please check them.”

“Good work.”

Guided by Song Gijun, Junho looked over the neatly arranged supplies.

“The first floor was the agricultural, livestock, and seafood section, so there was almost nothing usable left. We were lucky we managed to salvage around eight hundred kilograms each of rice and flour. Ah, we also secured around eighty kilograms of potatoes and sweet potatoes.”

“The second floor is the main haul, right?”

“Yes.”

Song Gijun looked at the supplies secured from the mart’s second floor with eyes that seemed almost sweet and continued.

“There were about seventeen hundred packs of ramyeon, all kinds combined. Most of them are past the expiration date, but they’re still barely within the consumption period. We also secured around a thousand cans of canned food all together. Instant rice and instant dried foods come to a little under a thousand. There are a few boxes of powdered and solid curry and black bean sauce. And let’s see. We got a huge amount of sauces.”

“Not things like soy sauce?”

“Yes. More than thirty large cans of red pepper paste and soybean paste. We also got over fifty kilograms of salt and sugar. And this is the real jackpot.”

Song Gijun grinned and took a can out of a box.

It was a can of the world’s best-selling red cola.

“There were still around twelve hundred drinks, including cola, cider, and so on. We secured a similar number of various plastic bottles too. Everyone should be able to drink two or three cans each.”

Knowing better than anyone what kind of power the once-common carbonated drinks like cola and cider held over people in the apocalypse, Song Gijun could not help grinning from ear to ear.

Even people who had avoided sweet things in the past because of their health practically died for a single cola in the current world.

“The beer has gone bad, but we secured more than a thousand bottles total of soju, whiskey, and wine. I think it would be good to ration them out to people occasionally along with the drinks. Of course, without interfering with work.”

“Yes. It would be best to make sure no one drinks more than half a bottle.”

“Of course. Then next...”

Unable to hide his excitement, Song Gijun told Junho about the goods they had farmed this time.

More than sixty percent of the bathroom and hygiene products the Gahyeon-ri residents had wanted most desperately—shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and the like—were intact.

Naturally, if they did not use them lavishly like in the past and conserved them under rationing, there was enough for all the Gahyeon-ri survivors to use for around two years.

On top of that, as befitted a massive mart, D-Mart even had a pharmacy inside.

From there, they had obtained a significant quantity of general medications such as digestive medicine, painkillers, and fever reducers, as well as first-aid supplies like bandages, disinfectants, and ointments, all in mostly decent condition.

Most importantly, they had secured several boxes of health supplements, led by multivitamins. Even taking one pill every two or three days would be a great help to survivors whose nutrition was inevitably poor.

“We swept up clothes for all four seasons, shoes, blankets, things like that too. I’m planning to give those only to people who need them.”

“That’s for you and the village head to discuss and handle. What about tools and car supplies?”

“Oil, coolant, batteries, chargers, even air compressors. It’s a total jackpot. Haha. We also brought several boxes of tool sets.”

Car supplies and tool sets were valuable goods in the apocalypse.

Oils went without saying, but especially things like adhesives and insulating tape could be used in all kinds of places, so the more they had, the better.

“If we conserve them, I think they’ll last two or three years.”

“That’s good. By the way, we’ll take all the electronics, especially the PCs.”

“Of course you should.”

Most of the appliances used by survivors were things like refrigerators, microwaves, and air fryers.

Even then, because of power issues, anything below energy efficiency grade three was eliminated whenever possible, and only grades one and two were used.

Once the weather started getting hotter, they would run fans and air conditioners, but when that time came, he intended to use force if necessary to allow only one air conditioner per ten people.

No matter how they could use electricity thanks to solar power, batteries had a lifespan too, and they had to conserve power however they could.

“Let’s split the dry feed half and half. We need to feed our chickens and cows too.”

“Understood. Though honestly, the cows we brought this time are doing fine grazing on their own at the ranch.”

They had also gotten a lot of filters, pumps, and dry fish feed from the aquarium section. Those could be used when catching fish in the reservoir or streams.

And from this mart farming run, they had obtained something precious that they had not expected.

“Seeds?”

“Yes. All kinds. We also brought quite a lot of fertilizer and potting soil. If we use them well, they’ll help a great deal with farming. Ah, and this too.”

Song Gijun opened the last pile of boxes with a grin.

“There are maps too. And we brought some books on agriculture, medicine, and so on. We need to learn skills.”

As expected of a massive mart, it truly had all sorts of things.

There were also several boxes of stationery that would be quite useful to have, and they had brought plenty of toys, stuffed animals, and children’s books for the emotional well-being of the younger kids.

Those were items that other survivor groups probably would not even have looked at, but in the Gahyeon-ri survivor group, where men and women of all ages lived together, they were fairly important.

In any case,

D-Mart was truly the treasure vault of a golden goblin.

And the men who had participated in the operation, feeling keenly like fishermen returning with a full catch or farmers welcoming a bumper harvest, hummed as they loaded the supplies neatly back onto the trucks.

***

“I’ll say this again. Don’t ever use flashlights carelessly. They’re visible from kilometers away. It may be fine inside the neighborhood, but tell anyone who moves around the mountains to be truly careful.” 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

At Junho’s words as he closed the door of the shelter truck, Song Gijun nodded firmly.

“Don’t worry. We’ll only issue flashlights to members of the search-and-kill team. And once the sun goes down, people don’t go outside at all. Well, there isn’t much to do at home anyway... People just go to sleep early.”

“Nothing to do...”

“......?”

When Junho suddenly sank into thought, Song Gijun tilted his head.

Junho soon raised his head and said,

“Do you think the residents would like it if we showed them movies or dramas?”

“What? Uh... Of course they would, wouldn’t they?”

If they could watch them at all, even something they had already seen before would naturally be welcome.

In fact, people whose computers were still intact were apparently watching things they had downloaded in the past.

But because the times had changed, most people had watched movies and dramas through OTT services, so the variety and number of available works were woefully lacking.

“Soon, I’ll transmit them every evening for maybe two or three hours. Movies, dramas, whatever.”

“What!?”

To the startled Song Gijun, Junho calmly explained the plan he had been thinking about for some time.

“Of course, not everywhere. Designate a few places. So people who want to watch can gather there.”

Some people might ask what the hell the point of such a useless thing was in the apocalypse.

But as a regressor going through the apocalypse for the second time, Junho knew very well what kind of psychological stability even a little enjoyment of cultural content could give people.

“N-no. You’re saying you have things like movies and dramas too? How many are we talking about...?”

It was good news, but Song Gijun asked while expecting, at most, dozens of works, or maybe twice that if there were many.

“For works before the 2000s, about a thousand? For works from the twenty-first century, we have fifty or sixty dramas per year, domestic and foreign, and a similar number of movies. Even if people watch two or three hours every day, they can enjoy it for about five years without reruns.”

“......!!!”

If it called itself an “all-purpose shelter” that could do everything, it naturally had to prepare at least that much cultural content.

***

May 9, 2025, 09:00. Vladivostok, Russia.

“Are we ready?”

“Yes, boss! We can set sail anytime!”

“Поехали. В Корею. (Then let’s go. To Korea.)”

Pulling up the collar of his coat against the still-cold sea wind of the Far East, Viktor Volk Choi, who had gone from being the “wolf” of Volcano Group to its “boss,” spoke quietly.

Not long after, two LR1-class tankers floating on the sea, each with a deadweight capacity of around 80,000 DWT, began to move slowly.