episode_0073

Our group walked along the path, guided by CEO Choi.

Though exhausted from the long march, they were squeezing out every last bit of strength.

The fact that their destination was close pulled the group forward.

While I had led them to the approximate location, CEO Choi was now providing the detailed guidance.

And we were walking down the narrow path we had entered a little while ago.

It was wide enough for one car.

The more we walked up the strangely well-paved road, the more I wondered if this was the right path.

Except for a few houses and a small building we had seen when entering the path, there was nothing else. Instead, street trees naturally lined the road.

‘…It’s like a secluded path.’

The paved road we were currently on could easily be mistaken for a secluded path in the middle of the city. We continued walking along this road, which must have been quiet even before the zombie outbreak.

The sun was setting after a short walk.

The sky was preparing for evening, and the tree branches swayed in the chilly autumn wind.

Whoosh—

Just as my attention was drawn to the refreshing sounds of nature, as if to announce autumn.

“This is it.”

At CEO Choi’s words, we stopped walking.

In front of us stood a moderately sized house.

“Is this the building CEO Choi mentioned?”

My first thought was, ‘I’ve been tricked.’

The sight beyond the wall made me feel like I’d been deceived.

It was a typical private residence.

All that was visible was a small house, a small yard, and a shed.

It seemed like “5,000 pyeong of forest” was a mistake for “5 pyeong of weed patch.”

‘…Is he already getting dementia?’

It felt like my blood, which should have been flowing calmly, rushed to my head.

Looking at the group’s expressions, they seemed to feel similarly, their faces grim.

…This was too different from what we had heard.

It felt like opening a snack bag filled with nitrogen.

It was even like picking a losing lottery ticket where the picture and the contents were completely different.

Whether he knew our thoughts or not, CEO Choi seemed slightly excited.

He opened the door and entered, paying no mind to the chilly atmosphere.

‘Was he really this oblivious…?’

“Alright, come this way.”

CEO Choi led the way, guiding us.

But where he was going was not the house, but a building next to it that looked like a shed.

A shed with a slightly high roof and an unnecessarily huge door.

My patience was slowly starting to wear thin.

“…What are you doing now?”

“Please trust me a little longer.”

Seeing CEO Choi, who was reluctant to speak, with a faint smile on his lips, I reluctantly decided to follow him a little longer.

‘Right. I can mess him up anytime, anywhere.’

CEO Choi would probably be horrified if he knew, but I decided to give him a slight reprieve anyway.

Together with everyone, we entered the dark shed.

Right now, I was covered in zombie blood and fluids.

In other words, I felt disgustingly filthy.

And an additional emotion was mixing in: the fact that I’d been tricked.

I wondered if CEO Choi would be able to handle my current mood.

Just as I was wondering how to unleash my fury.

Click!

Suddenly, the lights came on, illuminating the inside of the shed.

‘Is this not a shed?’

The building, which I thought was a shed, was empty inside.

The smooth, epoxy-coated floor was exactly like…

“A parking lot?”

“Hehe. Something similar.”

CEO Choi, who replied without even turning around, pulled something out from his pocket.

Then he fumbled with the wall for a bit and did something unexpected.

Beep! Rumble—

A short electronic beep sounded.

Then a heavy object moved, and a passageway appeared.

Out of a wall where there had been nothing.

“…Huh?”

“Haha~ It’s too early to be surprised. Come on! Hurry!”

Both I and the group were momentarily dumbfounded.

At this point, I became curious about what else he had hidden.

Following the passageway, which was the size of a normal door, a wide path continued. Immediately after a slight downward slope, what appeared was a tunnel.

A tunnel with a rounded ceiling, reminiscent of a cave.

It seemed to be about 5 meters high.

A path wide enough for two cars to pass stretched out.

Its neat appearance confirmed that it had been man-made.

Lights were installed at regular intervals on the ceiling of the tunnel.

At this point, I couldn’t help but say something.

“……Did you find a North Korean tunnel? What exactly is this place?”

“Junseong hyung. What exactly is this place?”

CEO Choi smiled broadly at my and Jihyeok hyung’s questions.

“I told you it’s too early to be surprised, didn’t I? I’ll explain as we walk.”

Beyond being simply bewildered, the utterly flabbergasted group and I slowly followed CEO Choi.

“First of all! The house you saw just now is a fake house.”

“A fake building?”

“On paper, it’s a normal house, but no one resides there.”

“What the…”

Was it like a paper company?

“From the path we came up earlier, all the way to here, it’s all private property.”

“…What kind of excessive spending is this?”

“Huh? Hahahahaha!”

CEO Choi laughed so hard his uvula was visible, then wiped the corner of his eye with his finger.

“Indeed. It is excessive spending.”

CEO Choi, who readily admitted it, gave a brief additional explanation.

“You’ve heard of Jincheon Group, haven’t you?”

“Hmm…”

“Ugh.”

At the mention of Jincheon Group, Jihyeok hyung and Shia swallowed their groans.

It was a reaction that gave off a very bad feeling.

As a bonus, Byeongsu-ssi and Young-cheol-ssi also had faces like they’d bitten into something foul.

When I looked at him with questioning eyes, CEO Choi spoke quietly.

“Well, we had some unpleasant dealings with them.”

CEO Choi smiled bitterly and shook his head from side to side.

“We resolved that issue and received this as compensation.”

“From Jincheon Group?”

“More precisely, from Chairman Bokseonggwan.”

“…Chairman Bok, you mean?”

“You know the Chairman?”

An astonishing name came up, one that was impossible not to know.

Jincheon Group is a major corporation ranked within the top 20 of business conglomerates.

A group that successfully operates major businesses based on construction and hotel ventures.

Though there’s much talk and many troubles, it remains an undisputed leading group.

In particular, Chairman Bokseonggwan is the very person who grew the group, which was once barely clinging to the edge of the top 90, into the current Jincheon Group.

In other words, he is one of the legendary figures in the industry.

Chairman Bok’s business acumen and tiger-like personality are well-known in the industry.

Although I had lived a bottom-tier life, I couldn’t help but know a little about Chairman Bok.

A long time ago, I worked twice for a year each at Jincheon Construction’s building sites.

Of course, I remained a low-level laborer, and even that was cut short, pushed out by connections.

They say even the king can be criticized in his absence [a proverb about how people will talk behind your back].

Chairman Bok’s legendary achievements were good conversation starters.

Along with that, his generous pay for workers and his abrasive personality were a bonus.

But I did see Chairman Bok at the last construction site.

Though I only saw the chairman, who stormed in for a site inspection, from a distance.

Just once among those times.

I, being one of the younger laborers, was once assigned to guide him around the site.

To me, being young, Chairman Bok was a giant I could barely dare to look at.

The impression he left then was powerful, like a great mountain.

It was also an experience that made me physically feel the truth of the saying, “We live in different worlds.”

After that, I only heard his name in the news, and now I was hearing it again.

What on earth had happened between CEO Choi and Jincheon?

“I had a deep entanglement with the eldest son of that house. In a bad way.”

“You mean that crazy, psychotic, good-for-nothing bastard.”

At my words, CEO Choi’s eyes widened, and he brightened.

“So Seonghan-ssi knows him too?”

“Well…I’ve heard a lot of rumors.”

Jincheon’s prince, no different from a criminal.

Jincheon’s heir, the epitome of rampant womanizing, abusive language, and power tripping.

He was a person who lived with drinking and assault controversies as a given.

In addition, there were countless ‘they say’ types of rumors.

Of course, it was 90% truth and 10% rumor.

He was one of the rare scoundrels who frequently made headlines.

On construction sites, rumors spread at nearly the speed of light.

If those rumors turned into news articles online, they would be deleted within hours.

Then, the rumor was true.

And the rumors were truly rampant.

I was curious about what kind of entanglement he had with that son of a bitch from Jincheon, but I held my tongue.

Somehow, I had a feeling I shouldn’t know.

But CEO Choi did not hold back.

Though he didn’t go into detail, they had been entangled in some incident.

He had delivered a blow to Jincheon’s eldest son.

And, having enraged Chairman Bok, he had negotiated with him and acquired this location.

As I listened to his explanation, admiring him, a heavy piece of information was added.

“Originally, it was one of Chairman Bok’s slush fund hiding places.”

“Cough—!”

…I understood why this maddeningly scaled absurdity was possible.

As a bonus, I felt that CEO Choi Junseong was no ordinary human.

…Anyway.

To Chairman Bok, who tried to resolve it with money, CEO Choi demanded something else instead of money.

『A state-of-the-art, magnificent fallout shelter.』

“At that time, the zombie craze swept the world. He rode that wave.”

Although it was less than the amount Chairman Bok had intended to hand over, the story that an enormous cost had been incurred simply left me in awe.

CEO Choi explained that the negotiation with Chairman Bok was a kind of deal, stepping back from a fierce confrontation and promising silence about the slush fund.

It was a gesture of forgetting everything about the slush fund and simply being satisfied with a small (?) fallout shelter. This worked, and the current shelter was completed.

‘No wonder he laughed when I called it excessive spending.’

CEO Choi, whose gait had become a little more relaxed, also had a slightly softer expression.

“It’s true that he rode the wave of the ‘zombie special,’ but wealthy individuals usually have one or two secret locations.”

“…For a secret location, it’s too—”

“This much is just a bit of effort. Some people have built them to the scale of a small town.”

“……”

The scale was beyond common sense, making it difficult to grasp realistically.

The world of chaebols is hard to understand.

Moreover, to build such a facility in Korea, where even guns are illegal?

It was indeed excessive spending.

Unlike me, who was subtly feeling a sense of unreality, CEO Choi seemed accustomed to it. His demeanor gave the impression that he accepted it naturally.

“The deal almost fell through after checking the final cost, but it was successfully completed.”

“…That’s incredible.”

“The timing was good, and luck was on our side in many ways, allowing us to finish quietly.”

At that time, this neighborhood was apparently in an uproar due to the construction of the Yongma Tunnel. CEO Choi, who recounted how he cleverly utilized that commotion, seemed greatly exhilarated.

As we talked, we reached the end of the tunnel.

The path continued, and instead of a tunnel, trees formed walls.

“We’ve arrived. That’s the building.”

CEO Choi pointed to the distant building with a bright smile.

At the end of the direction he indicated, a modern, black building was visible.

As we approached, we saw a high wall erected in the middle.

Its height was approximately 6 meters.

There was a gate within the wall.

A large gate that opened left and right, and a smaller side door for people.

‘No way. Can cars come all the way here from the tunnel?’

Not only the gate, but the path leading here was also neatly maintained.

Passing through the wall and entering, a landscape that truly felt like a forest unfolded.

The surrounding area seemed to be indeed about 5,000 pyeong in size.

‘The Osan site was exactly this size, it’s similar.’

The air felt cold and fresh through my nostrils. The sun had set and it was dark, so I couldn’t see it in detail, but it felt like it was located in the mountains.

And this vicinity certainly seemed safe.

There were no scratching shrieks or moving entities.

Only the branches of the small forest gently swayed in the wind.

Within a few minutes of taking our final steps in such a landscape, we arrived in front of the building.

The three-story building was somewhat plain but had a neat exterior.

Other than that, I’d need to look around more, but this building seemed safe.

I didn’t know about it being a shelter, but it could certainly be called a safe house.

Everyone, including myself, was captivated by the seemingly safe building.

We had arrived here at the end of a long, heart-pounding march.

Everyone safe, with no stragglers.

‘This is it!’

As I felt assured of our safety, the tension eased.

Simultaneously, a deep sense of fatigue and relief washed over me.

It wasn’t just me; everyone felt the same.

Each member of the group let out exclamations laced with relief.

CEO Choi, in addition, could not hide his slight excitement.

It was a feeling similar to a child opening a wonderful gift box.

CEO Choi maintained that feeling as he stood in front of us.

“This is the shelter I told you about.”

CEO Choi straightened his posture with a deep smile.

Soon after, he spoke in a charming voice.

“Welcome, everyone.”

We, too, responded with smiles to the warm welcome.

And led by CEO Choi’s hand, we all entered the building together.

I inwardly canceled the fury I had planned to unleash….