1.
Drrrrrr!
A car which was blocking the road fell into the street gutter with a rough sound.
Bam!
The car’s front-end was busted with a loud crashing sound after hitting the ground. The car’s owner would have gasped at the scene.
“What kind of small country has this many cars. Damn!”
But the person who hit the car seemed more angry than apologetic. More surprising, it wasn’t the first car that he had pushed off the road.
Hundreds of cars were pushed from the road into the gutter leaving their tail end and front ends stuck in there. Some of the cars crashed into the midsections of others.
Bhang Hyunwook turned his head and surveyed the crash scene while wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Bam!
Jang Sunghoon, who had just put another car into the gutter spoke to him.
“Hyunwook, you got some strength.”
“It’s thanks to ‘Energy’ and ‘Strength’. I could hit 100 home runs if I made my pro league debut now.”
“Yeah, I hope you do make it. If the car owners recognize your face later with their dash cams and decide to sue you, you would have to declare bankruptcy or be a big deal in a major league.”
“I hope that world will come.”
“Agreed.”
Jang Sunghoon looked at the cars in the gutter again.
‘I tried every dirty little thing to get one of those cars…. Now it’s more like garbage.’
There were expensive cars that made Jang Sunghoon whistle as soon as he saw them.
Then…
“Uh? Boss? Boss!”
Jang Sunghoon called out to Kim Taehoon who was marking the cars to be pushed off the road.
“Boss, that’s a Cayenne. Porsche Cayenne!”
He saw Kim Taehoon start to put an X mark, with a permanent marker, on the back window of the Porsche SUV.
"It's over 100,000!"
For the information, the new Porsche Cayenne was 100,000 dollars without any options added.
It could be up to 200,000 after adding in various options.
That car could make a man's heart pound just with the fact that it's Porsche, it was a waste to put that car into the gutter.
But that was only for Jang Sunghoon.
Kim Taehoon didn't even give Jang Sunghoon a look, just put the X mark on it and pushed the car slightly. After seeing the car could be pushed, Kim Taehoon gave the car a gentle look.
And pictured an image inside his head.
That of an invisible wall pushing the car off the road. The picture that the car was gradually moving toward the gutter.
Kim Taehoon's imagination soon became reality, the car started to move by itself, eventually speeding up and then went down into the gutter.
The expensive car’s front end slammed into another car's tail end that was already in the gutter.
Bang!
If that was a person… Jang Sunghoon made a small groaning sound.
"We could drive that thing..."
"Taehoon Hyungnim[1]* knocks down orcs with Mercedes. That's nothing."
"Mercedes and Porsches are different!"
"Different? Don't they cost the same?"
"Not the price, the dreaming is different. The dream."
Kim Taehoon gave both of them a fierce look.
'gasp!'
'Oh, dear.....'
Jang Sunghoon and Bhang Hyunwook became silent. The look clearly said to them
Kim Taehoon's stare moved past them after they became silent.
He could see the dump truck and the other cars that were following the dump truck like little ducklings following its mother along the road they had just cleared from the car graveyard.
He was also able to see the soldiers who were walking alongside the cars.
"Hey Hey, be careful!"
"Sorry!"
"Move the dead bodies carefully. We can't give them funerals but at least we can pay them minimal respect."
"I see."
"It's somewhat happy to take care of the dead bodies. It means you're alive."
Some of the soldiers were carrying the dead bodies over next to the road and covering them with something, like jackets.
"Monster stone harvested."
"Met the quota of ten stones. May I smoke a cigarette?"
"Yes, I got 10 too. Let me join you in that."
Other soldiers were looking for monster bodies, removing the hearts and picking out the monster stones.
The cigarette smoke was seen between them.
Kim Taehoon spat out a short sigh.
'Fortunately, it's less noisy than I thought.'
January 2nd.
As soon as the sun came up, Kim Taehoon and the gang, now named as the Maek Clan, left Base 1121 and started to march towards the Bucheon Sports Complex. It was after the day that felt like an eternity.
The distance wasn't that far.
It was about 5 km—about an hour by foot.
Even though they left the base at seven in the morning by the time the Maek Clan arrived at the Bucheon sports complex station, which was near the complex, it was around two in the afternoon. It was because they needed to clean up the road for the cars to get through, including the dump truck that was carrying weapons.
'There also wasn't many monster attacks.'
It was work that required a lot of time.
Moving the cars that were ownerless from the road and over to the gutter took a lot of time, but nobody except Kim Taehoon and Bhang Hyunwook could remove the cars that were tangled up with each other from car crashes.
But it had to be done.
'Anyway, we now have the road clear that connects the base and the sports complex.'
The dump truck was not simply a truck now, it was a mobile armory packed with weapons and it provides them have a higher position during battles with the monsters.
Clearing the way for the dump truck was the most important thing that the Maek Clan could do now.
On top of that, the road should be used as an evacuation route in times of emergency. So not clearing it up thoroughly was like not caring about your own life.
'It's dangerous to stay at apartments or in a building. If you had to choose somewhere to stay, a military base or somewhere like Bucheon Sports complex would be better.'
Plus, taking care of the dead bodies was also important. Where the dead bodies rest was called a graveyard, but it's called a hell when they are just laying around.
And the difference was huge. Corpses that are taken care of will be the sign of some sort of remaining order in this post-apocalyptic society.
"Uh? there, there!"
"What? What's happening? Ah!"
"Massive smoke coming out. Seems like a fire?"
"That would be a big fire! But it's an apartment complex over there!"
Everyone's eyes were fixed on the smoke that was coming out of the apartment complex like they were watching a signal fire in the distance.
Kim Taehoon was also looking at it.
'It's the beginning.'
The smoke they were seeing was the reason there was a need for that order.
The cause of the smoke was obvious, there wouldn't be smoke without fire. The fire's cause was also obvious.
"Why would there be a fire?"
The current temperature was below 10 degrees, even with the sun it didn't seem like it was going to increase and there was a severe wind blowing.
If there was no electricity, no gas heating, nothing in this weather they might have had no choice but to use the ancient way that humanity used during the cold days.
“They probably tried to make a bonfire to resist the cold. Otherwise, in this cold, they would have frozen to death.”
Of course, they would try to make a fire.
However, people with common sense would have gone outside of the house and found something like an oil barrel or a big cooking oil barrel, to make a fire.
But some people don’t have common sense so they would have used a portable camping stove and portable butane gas to make the fire. The world was out of common sense anyway.
“Would they be able to put out that fire?”
There’s no 911, nor any more firefighters to respond to the call.
“They might have to wait until it burns itself out. Unless it rains. But it’s not going to rain in this weather. It would be weirder if it does.”
“What if the fire spreads out to the surroundings?”
“Well……”
The society mankind built was more combustible than a box of matches.
“I don’t know what will happen, but there’s nothing we can do.”
“It gives me a chill.”
The same rule applied to not only the monsters but to the natural disasters such as a big earthquake.
Many experts say when there’s a natural disaster like a huge earthquake, there were more victims of secondary disasters such as fire due to broken infrastructure than from the initial natural disaster.
‘The real disaster starts now.’
The ones who will be leaping with joy in this chaos would be nobody else but the monsters.
‘Hm.’
Kim Taehoon’s head turned at that moment.
He could see a quiet but cluttered road filled with cars but his intuition was telling that the quietness was fake.
The intuition, the Hobgoblin’s intuition, was telling Kim Taehoon there’s a strong creature near him.
“Prepare for battle!”
Kim Taehoon yelled.
AAAWWOOOOOO!
After Kim Taehoon’s shout, a frightening howling resonated that made their bodies shiver.
[1] honorable term for hyung, a man's 'older brother'