Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 23



Only Noblemtl

Apocalypse in Water Episode 23

Episode 23

I looked at the portrait for a moment.

Is that the boy in the tuxedo who jumped into the Han River?

I had seen it in the case materials, but I couldn’t remember it.

But where did father go?

Oh! That’s right. You said you got divorced.

Unlike his mother, who had thin lips and fierce-looking eyes, the son was a gentle-looking boy with slightly droopy eyes.

Has her son’s death changed her personality?

People said that with her cruel personality, she would survive even if the world was to end.

Looking at that, it seemed like that was his original personality.

I went inside cautiously.

Oh my! There’s someone there.

Are you a survivor? Your outfit is a bit too revealing for that to be true.

A woman in a flowing dress and her hair upturned, as in a portrait, turned her head.

Our eyes met and, without saying who would go first, we both shouted at the same time.

“No, you!”

“How did you do that!”

She was a tenant representative.

She and I were quite surprised.

Ah! Now that I think about it, this is her house, so it would be strange if her clothes were strange… No, no. No.

It’s so weird.

So far, there have been no survivors other than Bomi and Hoyoung.

And there’s a powerful monster here called a water zombie.

But how could there be any survivors, especially in those clothes and with such calm demeanor?

Although she was surprised to see me, she didn’t show any of the fear, dread, or despair that Bomi and Hoyoung had shown.

Rather, it was an expression of the chronic discontent and resentment he had shown in the previous world being released.

She thought for a moment, then realized something and muttered briefly, “Aha! So it came down.”

Of course I walked down the stairs here, so I wondered why there was anything new to say.

Is that woman out of her mind from the shock of being submerged in water?

Then, I could understand the clothing, hairstyle, and attitude.

But how on earth did you survive?

She had no weapons, and the door to her house was wide open.

Do water zombies have any characteristics that are like a game bug?

In the case of limbs, if they don’t move, I don’t pay attention to them.

Thanks to that trait, Nana Bomi was able to survive completely.

Could it be that the tenant representative survived by coincidentally taking advantage of the water zombie’s characteristics like ours?

I took a step forward to ask her how she survived.

At that moment, something behind her caught my eye.

I pulled out my nail gun and shouted.

“Avoid! Quickly!”

Behind her was a water zombie.

As I aimed my nail gun at the water zombie, she spread her arms and blocked my way.

“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot!”

“What are you doing? There’s a zombie behind you. You could die. Get out of here quickly.”

I motioned for her to come over, but she was unmoved.

The nail gun couldn’t fire because she was in front.

I pulled out my chainsaw and tried to attack the water zombie while avoiding her.

Then this time she blocked my way and shouted.

“Stop it! Why are you attacking my good son?”

Looking at the water zombie, my good son? Is this woman really crazy?

I looked at the water zombie behind her, dumbfounded.

Oh my! You really look like the son in the portrait.

But with stitches all over his face and his high nose glued on with something like glue, he looked like he had just gotten surgery at a plastic surgery clinic.

And in the portrait, he was shorter than his mother, but now he seemed to be a head taller and his shoulders were broader.

That’s a total Frankenstein water zombie.

What on earth is going on?

I tried to solve the mystery like a former detective.

The water zombies are probably drowned people whose bodies were not found around the Han River.

When the world was submerged in water, they were revived by some magical power from under the rocks they were stuck under, from the deep sea, from the sewers, and flocked here.

That magical power controlled the water zombies to take over Building 108 and attack us.

So where is the being that uses that magical power?

It’s probably a high-dimensional water monster like a mutant water zombie or siren.

“My son doesn’t bite anyone. Don’t worry!”

I offered a counterargument to her words.

“That sounds like the same thing as saying my dog ​​never bites. Everyone says that until their dog bites.”

“Hey, police officer. Starting with the management of the apartment complex, why do you always break my orders? Do you know how much the housing prices have dropped because of the things you objected to and failed to do? That’s why I say irresponsible rentals are not allowed.”

She crossed her arms and looked at me with contempt.

Even though the world is underwater, they are still talking about house prices. Aside from the absurdity, I started to wonder if they were really crazy.

“Because they are so wild, Elder Kim said to keep a closer eye on them.”

Elder Kim?

I felt a chill behind my back, and a realization hit me in the head.

no way!

I looked at her with a askance look and asked her.

“Elder Kim? Where is Elder Kim? Are you Elder Pil-seong Kim of the Bangju Church?”

“Elder Kim Pil-seong? Who is that?”

She stopped counting, but her suspicions gradually turned into confirmation.

I thought there might be a cult member among the apartment residents who was watching me, and it turned out to be that woman.

So, was the graffiti that looked like a talisman also drawn by that woman?

If so, could it be that the graffiti saved the apartment from being flooded?

And is that woman also controlling the water zombies?

There were many things I wanted to ask her, but it was obvious she wouldn’t answer.

“You, you seem to be making fun of me. I know you’re going to get a big nose soon. Do you know why? That’s because… … .”

The woman continued to talk nonsense.

It was obvious that they were trying to waste time.

I guess you’re expecting a return of the water zombies.

But when I heard the sound coming from the stairs, it seemed like it would take quite a while to come down.

I thought it would be better to get rid of this woman before that.

As I pulled out the knife, she screamed.

“What the heck, you? Are you trying to get the police to kill innocent civilians?”

“I quit the police force. And what kind of police are you in a world underwater? Survival comes first.”

I frowned and gave off a menacing vibe, but I had no intention of killing her.

The idea was to just threaten them to get some information out of them and disarm the water zombies.

That’s why I was thankful she was afraid of me.

I approached her, raising the knife high as if to intimidate her.

Then she screamed and hid behind her son.

He blocked the way, telling her not to attack his son, but this time he used his son as a shield.

My son lunged at me to stop me, as if he had been given instructions by her.

I didn’t even need to pull out the chainsaw, I just lightly cut the guy’s wrist with a knife.

The hands had also been replaced, and the long, thin hands were sewn to the wrists with white thread.

As the knife cut the thread, her hand dangled like a bag with its strings cut off.

“You! You punk! You dared to hurt our Minseong.”

She was furious, but she didn’t rush at me.

Instead, he slowly backed away and ran away.

Even though there was only a room inside anyway, I thought I should capture her for interrogation.

As I was kicking my son and chasing him, she opened the door as if she had been waiting for him.

Then, water zombies filled the room.

They weren’t just any water zombies, they were Frankenstein water zombies.

These guys were more avant-garde than experimental.

Instead of adding an extra arm or an animal body, they put a shovel and a pickaxe on their shoulders and a drill on their head like horns.

There was also one that had iron plates attached to its torso.

Rather than the embarrassment of being trapped, I felt a sense of discomfort.

Even though it’s a corpse, they put this and that together as if they were playing a prank on the person.

Well, I beat them up without any sympathy, but it was a matter of survival, and I had no selfish intention to insult them.

“Tear that infidel to pieces, you great water warriors!”

Watching her son move, she seemed to be silent when controlling the water zombie, but she shouted as if declaring a declaration.

I guess you wanted to try it in front of an audience.

She has always had a tendency to be a servile person.

After hearing the son’s story from the manager, I looked into what had happened.

Without even having to look at the case files, the Internet was flooded with information under the name ‘Han River Extreme Mom.’

As expected, her son’s suicide was caused by her excessive sexual pressure and control.

People around the son, including his friend, posted anecdotes and facts they witnessed on the Internet.

I can’t trust the internet posts because they didn’t verify my real name, but it seemed true that she put a lot of pressure on her son to show it to her ex-husband.

This was a story I heard from Detective Jang, who was in charge of the case.

“My husband was so fed up that he ran away. That woman was no joke. She kept insisting that her son would never commit suicide, but even when I showed him the CCTV footage of him jumping into the Han River, he didn’t believe me. Then, out of the blue, she demanded that I hand over the body.”

“Hey! You couldn’t find the body?”

“Because the woman was late in reporting her missing, the confirmation was delayed, and only later was it confirmed that she had jumped into the Han River. So we don’t know where the body floated. The Han River rescue team and the police searched like crazy, but what can we do when they can’t find it? Even so, they filed a lawsuit against the one-man protest at the Blue House demanding that the body be handed over, and Team Leader Cho had a huge headache.”

Detective Jang continued his story, shaking his head.

“In particular, there was chaos for a while with comments flooding the internet and phone calls protesting that the police were trying to cover up their botched investigation by not finding the body.”

I read what she wrote on the Internet and the comments from countless Internet trolls who agreed with her.

Her writing seemed grammatically similar to that of a poisonous mushroom-like conspiracy theorist.

Rather than examining the general development of an event, it obsessively digs into very microscopic parts and latches on to the gaps and absurdities in those parts.

And then, because of the gaps and absurdities, they condemn the whole thing as unbelievable.