Ch.9595. The Road to Ulsan (2)

# The Balhut Cult’s Route to Ulsan

The Balhut Cult, which had established its base in South Gyeongju, already had the route to Ulsan under its control.

This meant that areas under the cult’s influence were essentially safe zones, and unlike the Pohang operation, the advance team could move safely through the villages and towns they had already liberated.

The areas liberated by the Balhut Cult so far were quite extensive.

“We’ve also secured the route up the Donghae Expressway.”

Even the Donghae Expressway, which allowed quick access to Ulsan Metropolitan City while avoiding troublesome villages and towns, was already under the Balhut Cult’s influence.

To be frank, Jeong Dong-geon could choose to either advance by liberating the numerous villages and towns on the way to Ulsan or ignore them all and head straight for Ulsan.

“Honestly, if you want to avoid troublesome fights, the Donghae Expressway is the fastest route.”

“That’s right.”

Of course, both routes to Ulsan had their pros and cons.

The Donghae Expressway route had the advantage of fewer annoying zombie encounters. There might be monsters hiding in the mountains near the expressway or wild zombies that wandered onto the highway, but there was the clear benefit of not having to fight as many zombies as in populated villages or towns.

However, there was a disadvantage.

“The problem is that exits are limited, and if even one tunnel gets blocked, the entire advance team would be in danger.”

“Ugh. If even one tunnel collapses, anyone isolated beyond it would be annihilated. Completely annihilated.”

Unlike Pohang, there were too many tunnels along the Donghae Expressway.

To reach Ulsan via the Donghae Expressway, they would need to pass through eight tunnels. Unlike Pohang, where they only needed to pass through one tunnel, the Balhut Cult had too many tunnels to manage.

Especially unlike Pohang, no one could guarantee the safety of tunnels that hadn’t received proper maintenance for over half a year. If a tunnel were to collapse for any reason, cutting off the connection between Gyeongju and the main force, the isolated unit would risk complete annihilation.

There were eight such tunnels, and they’d have to risk their lives each time they passed through one, making it a route with clear disadvantages.

“Do we really need to take such a gamble?”

“Of course not!”

Frankly speaking, after securing Pohang and graduating the first class of Awakened, the military had gained some leeway, but the advance team led by Jeong Dong-geon was still the core and elite force of the military.

Even though they had more Awakened now, not all of them would be high-level, and if the elite force became isolated and annihilated, the Balhut Cult’s Awakened combat power would rapidly diminish.

In the current situation where the presence of elite Awakened was crucial, choosing a route that could lead to instant annihilation through isolation was a gamble, and the Balhut Cult wasn’t in a desperate enough situation to need such risky moves.

Unlike other Korean Peninsula factions, they had a proper government and were even in contact with the United States, so they could pursue safe victories without issues.

That’s why taking the Industrial Road might also be an attractive option.

“Even if we want to advance steadily via the Industrial Road…”

“Beyond our territory is unknown. Frankly, we’ve neglected expeditions to other areas to focus on the Pohang operation.”

While the Donghae Expressway had the risk of annihilation due to isolation, the Industrial Road route had issues with villages and towns beyond the Balhut Cult’s influence.

Because troops that should have been on expeditions were diverted to Gyeongju security or the Pohang operation, the cult had no information about the status of villages and towns outside their secured areas.

Even after the Pohang operation, they hadn’t paid attention to villages and towns outside their sphere of influence. They had only deployed forces to secure hydroelectric and nuclear power plants or the East Sea coastline to ensure Gyeongju’s safety, without conducting proper expeditions.

“Honestly, we probably won’t be welcomed.”

“That’s likely.”

Even if they tried to use the liberator narrative now to liberate villages and towns beyond their influence, they would face criticism for being too late.

From the perspective of these villages and towns, they could reasonably misunderstand why the cult, with all its power, had helped others but not them.

Moreover…

“We have no idea what state Ulsan is in.”

“Hmm…”

The problem was that they had no information about Ulsan.

If they had information about Ulsan, they could act accordingly, but strangely, Ulsan had been too quiet, with no internal news.

There were no sighting reports of anything appearing, no posts about suffering from zombies, no lamentations about the apocalypse—just normal community posts. For the military heading to Ulsan, this was frustratingly perplexing.

“Let’s move forward for now.”

“Yes. Open the steel gate.”

“Open the steel gate!”

In the end, Jeong Dong-geon decided he had no choice but to see, experience, and act directly.

The steel gate at the checkpoint was opened, and he led the elite advance team, including his adjutant Son Sang-hui, in military vehicles down the Industrial Road.

They had made thorough preparations, expecting numerous wild zombies and mutant zombies beyond the checkpoint, but…

“There’s nothing.”

“Nothing at all.”

The advance team felt only the cold winter wind; there were no zombies outside the checkpoint.

There were no wild zombies walking on the road, nor any sign of the mutant zombies they occasionally encountered.

There was nothing on the road, and the advance team’s vision and senses detected no presence or shadows.

Son Sang-hui, a detection-type Awakened who had joined the advance team specifically for this expedition, reported:

“I don’t sense anything in this area.”

“If that’s the case, there really is nothing. No zombies. No Awakened. This is truly strange.”

Son Sang-hui also reported to Jeong Dong-geon that she sensed nothing around the Industrial Road.

This meant that her detection ability found neither mutant zombies nor Awakened.

In this apocalypse, mutant zombies were a common occurrence, and Awakened were born from hunting these zombies, but this situation completely ignored those preconditions.

“Captain, there’s a village ahead.”

“Let’s check it out.”

Not long after, the advance team led by Jeong Dong-geon discovered a village along the Industrial Road.

Since they had to pass through this village to reach Ulsan, Jeong Dong-geon couldn’t bypass it. Despite feeling ominous, he decided to enter the village to check it directly.

Inside the village, buildings had collapsed or were dilapidated due to the apocalypse.

This was a familiar sight to Jeong Dong-geon. Garbage rotting and emitting foul odors, or buildings destroyed by survivors searching for supplies, were common occurrences in the apocalypse, so he could overlook these.

“No signs of battle either. This is truly strange.”

The problem was that there was nothing in this village.

No zombies, no survivors, no Awakened. Nobody.

Everyone who had lived here had vanished without a trace.

If the village had been annihilated with only zombies remaining, or if only survivors were left, Jeong Dong-geon’s team could have understood, as they had experienced such situations before.

“It’s like a ghost town.”

“Did everyone evacuate? If so, couldn’t they have come to our territory?”

However, seeing a village empty of both zombies and Awakened was a first for them.

The soldiers following Jeong Dong-geon also seemed to feel the eerie atmosphere, looking around with fearful expressions and lamenting the situation.

“There seems to be nothing in this village.”

Jeong Dong-geon looked at Son Sang-hui, but she shook her head, indicating she couldn’t sense anything.

“There might be basic zombies, so let’s search the village interior.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Not wanting to let their guard down, he ordered the soldiers to search the village, and Jeong Dong-geon himself participated in the search along with his adjutant Son Sang-hui.

They broke down the loose doors of unattended houses, checking inside for survivors while also looking for any remaining supplies, but…

“No survivors, nothing at all.”

“Yes, there’s really nothing in these houses.”

They found nothing in the searched houses.

Electronic devices that would become worthless without electricity were still there, but essential supplies and food had long been taken.

Clothes and precious metals that could be used as currency substitutes were all gone, leaving only electronic devices like TVs and computers that would be useless in an apocalypse without electricity.

“Any supplies left in the village warehouse?”

“None, Captain.”

“Hmm.”

The village Jeong Dong-geon discovered was an agricultural community, and such villages typically had communal warehouses for storing agricultural products.

Naturally, some soldiers went to search the village warehouse, but the results weren’t good.

It seemed all supplies stored in the village warehouse had also disappeared.

“Perhaps they evacuated somewhere else?”

“Evacuation, huh.”

“We also evacuated to another region when we saw Pohang Airport collapsing. Though we got blocked on the way.”

Seeing this, Son Sang-hui suggested that the villagers might have evacuated.

In fact, Son Sang-hui herself had experienced evacuating with her followers when Pohang Airport collapsed.

Of course, they couldn’t escape far due to zombie hordes blocking the way and were isolated in a life-threatening situation.

But since Son Sang-hui, who had actual evacuation experience, suggested it, Jeong Dong-geon thought it was a plausible theory.

“Indeed, that’s possible. The question is where they evacuated to. If they evacuated, they would head to a safe place. The safest place on the Korean Peninsula is the territory controlled by the Balhut Cult.”

“Um… yeah.”

The problem was where they had evacuated to.

From the perspective of the village Jeong Dong-geon visited, the Balhut Cult’s territory was just a short distance north, while to the south were various towns and villages, with Ulsan at the end.

Unfortunately, the east and west were blocked by mountains.

“Crossing the mountains to another region would be suicidal. Everyone’s looking away from it, but monsters clearly exist in the mountains, just like in the American cases.”

Although there were ways to cross the mountains by hiking, information about monsters in the mountains was already known to all communities.

Going to the mountains meant becoming monster food, so it wasn’t a viable escape route. For evacuees, the only options were to flee to Gyeongju or to Ulsan.

Of course, the north was Balhut Cult territory, but…

“If they had evacuated to our side, they would have been caught at our outposts or checkpoints. There were no such reports.”

The problem was that the cult had not identified any evacuees.

The Balhut Cult was already exerting influence over the Industrial Road through surveillance outposts and checkpoints, and if people had evacuated northward, they would very likely have been caught by the cult’s surveillance.

However, there were no such reports at the outposts or checkpoints managed by the cult.

“There are cases of illegal entry, but in such cases, the liberated villages would have informed us about outsiders arriving.”

There was a possibility of illegal entry, but there had been no news of outsiders arriving in the villages or towns liberated by the cult.

From the perspective of villages plagued by zombies, unidentified outsiders were subjects to be wary of, so they would have promptly informed the Balhut Cult, which managed outsiders, about their arrival.

The absence of such news from liberated villages was evidence that the evacuees had not headed north.

“Then did they head to Ulsan?”

“We’ll find the answer in the villages we liberate next.”

The remaining option was evacuation to the south, but in response to Son Sang-hui’s question, Jeong Dong-geon simply closed his eyes and said they would find the answer in other villages.

‘This is the first expedition that has made me so uneasy.’

But the expedition had already begun. It couldn’t be canceled.

Setting aside the eerie feelings, the advance team led by Jeong Dong-geon began moving toward other villages and towns.