Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 412



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Hiding a House in the Apocalypse Episode 412

166. Nemesis (3)

“Put any team in here. We’re good at everything except assault.”

“As you can see, I have a problem with my legs. I can walk fast, but I can’t run. And even if I can walk fast, I can’t walk very far.”

Ha Tae-hoon and Bang Jae-hyuk are said to have come in a US military Humvee that was in the garage.

I apologize for coming without permission, but in a dangerous situation like this, you have to use whatever you can.

There are many things I want to say and ask.

These are the residents of the bunker, which is also where I will return.

But now it’s a battlefield.

We don’t know when the next monster attack will come, and various discontented forces are still venting their discontent within the city.

Now that Woo Min-hee has let go and Gong Gyeong-min has become a figurehead, the one who actually serves as the leader of this city is Kim Byeong-cheol.

When Kim Byeong-cheol saw me, he sighed and began to complain.

“When King Injo was being chased by the Manchus and surrounded by Namhansanseong Fortress, the Manchus were attacking right in front of him and his soldiers were dying, but in front of King Injo, his subjects were fighting each other, claiming to be right. It’s no different than that time. Everyone was going to die right away, but these damned bastards were still fighting so as not to suffer even the slightest loss.”

I looked at Kim Byeong-cheol’s face quietly.

I’ve aged a lot in just a few days.

In particular, his gray hair spoke of his true agony.

It may be a bit premature to say such things when everyone is facing death, but the shadow of death was cast over Kim Byeong-cheol’s face.

This does not mean that the patient is clearly ill or that his lifespan has ended.

His face was filled with the kind of resignation that would make him feel like he would never regret dying.

This is a scene I often saw when Seoul was still in good health.

The person I saw in passing and didn’t know well was gone as if it were natural when I next visited that place.

I felt a similar energy from Kim Byeong-cheol.

“Phew.”

He took out a cigarette and lit it silently, as if he didn’t have the energy to speak.

As expected, my hunch was right.

The pupils are unprecedentedly empty.

He is now a man living by inertia, without any will or hope to live.

If there is even the slightest obstacle or disability, I will choose death without hesitation.

“······.”

I thought about it for a moment.

If you honestly evaluate the relationship between the two of us, it’s strangers.

He is a soldier and I am a hunter.

Although they ultimately do similar things, eating meat does not mean that all carnivores are brothers.

To begin with, the culture, thoughts, and positions are different.

The only connection between him and me was probably the Internet message board Viva! Apocalypse!, but even there we were not close.

He is a thorough lurker who uses the Internet only when necessary, a light user who uses the Internet in a textbook-like manner, whereas I am a heavy user who accepts the Internet itself as a part of my life and lifestyle.

In short, we are not that close, neither in reality nor on the Internet.

But when I saw him, someone I had known for a long time, who was suffering the most in this city, I couldn’t help but feel like helping him.

But what can I do to help?

I absentmindedly recalled a complaint that Kim Byeong-cheol had once uttered.

“How is your daughter?”

Before the full-scale battle began, Kim Byeong-cheol expressed his concerns about his daughter, Kim Ye-rim.

Maybe it was a gender issue.

It’s not a big deal for a man and a woman in their prime to fall in love, but as far as I remember, Kim Ye-rim is known to date men who aren’t so good at heart.

“I’m doing well.”

Kim Byeong-cheol let out a deep sigh.

“I can’t do that.”

A deeper darkness fell over Kim Byeong-cheol’s face, who was already prepared for death.

“I raised you all by myself and went through all that hardship, so how could you do this to me······?”

In that expression, which showed nothing but sorrow, I was reminded of the withered grass standing helplessly in a dead-end alley.

You said he was a man in crisis.

I have to take responsibility for everything, but I have no more means, no tricks, and no energy to take responsibility, so I just wait helplessly for fate to come.

“······.”

He is not a man of principle who interferes with other people’s affairs, especially their family affairs.

It’s not that the scope is that wide, and I also have the caveat that personal problems should be dealt with by the individual.

However, as someone responsible for a part of the same city, or as a user of the same bulletin board, I thought that I could not just sit by and watch the man I knew best, a senior in life who had carried the heaviest burden, crumble at the end of a dead end, not knowing what to do.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I may have fewer subordinates than Kim Byeong-cheol, but I have an extraordinary friend named Defender.

Although he is a member of the Hunter headquarters with the title of Hunter, he actually leads a group of avengers who are closer to private soldiers. He is still busy searching the lower parts of the city to identify and hunt down fanatics.

Hunter, if you are an organization closer to a state-sanctioned gang than a military one, wouldn’t you be able to deal with these problems better than Nana or Kim Byeong-cheol?

Anyway, it was a question that I asked a bit too hastily, and I was tempted to dismiss it as empty words even the moment I brought it up.

But even these empty words seem to be a salvation to some people.

Kim Byeong-cheol, who had been withered like dried seaweed, suddenly smiled brightly as if he had come back to life.

“Really?!”

I’m not weak-hearted, but my heart isn’t cold-hearted enough to refuse a request from a man who’s at a dead end.

Above all, this man is someone the city absolutely needs.

*

The Defender is back.

It was just 48 hours after the case was referred.

To conclude, it is a very common romance.

A girl of mysterious age fell in love.

However, the story included a situation that parents may not be happy about: running away from home and living together.

The fact that the other person wasn’t a very good man must have been a big concern for Kim Byeong-cheol.

“I’m talking about a boy. I heard that before the war, they were a group of kids who hung out together. They weren’t like the ones in the webtoon who beat up kids or anything, they just ignored and teased kids who were uglier and less attractive than them, and they would sneak into expensive bars and take pictures with similar friends to brag about. That’s the kind of person they were.”

After hearing his personal details, it seems that he came from a fairly wealthy family before the war and lived a comfortable life.

As is the case with that type of people, my grades were pretty good, but since the war broke out before I could take the CSAT, I didn’t have a chance to verify my academic ability.

Perhaps, if he had taken the CSAT first and gotten a university degree, wouldn’t Kim Byeong-cheol’s personality have made him react a little more friendly than he does now?

“Anyway, if you look at it objectively, he’s not a bad guy. He doesn’t do drugs, and he’s not in a gang. He doesn’t seem to have killed anyone. He didn’t receive any military training, so the adults didn’t give him a gun. But from Kim Byung-chul’s perspective, he’s not a very good guy.”

I still pride myself on my immortal achievement of bringing about the new world of Valentine and Necropolis, but as always, there is light and darkness in what people do.

The background to Kim Byeong-cheol’s daughter meeting the man in question was Valentine’s sacrifice.

They say we’re not friends on the internet.

Originally, Kim Ye-rim only did Viva! Apocalypse!, but the influx of Necropolis came and she met some of them, had conversations with them, and met them in real life, which led to running away from home and living together.

If you look at it up to that point, it might have been a romantic love story, but things in this world are not that easy.

“It seems like he knew from the beginning that Kim Ye-rim was Kim Byeong-cheol’s daughter and approached her. He was already meeting three women, and among them, there was one woman he met in exchange for supplies.”

“Your skills are good too.”

“Since I started dating Kim Byeong-cheol’s daughter, I haven’t done any forced labor. Whenever Kim Byeong-cheol’s subordinates come to crack down, Kim Byeong-cheol’s daughter blocks them and threatens them.”

Of course, it is difficult to view Defender’s words as 100% true.

Defender is a cynical man.

Especially in the human world, he looks at things with a perspective twice as cold as mine.

Well, in that respect, Defender’s younger brother would go one step further, but it’s probably the same.

The solution presented by the Defender was very Defender-like.

“If you catch a boy and educate him for an hour or so, he will behave wisely.”

It means that they will beat you to a pulp for an hour without letting you die.

The effect will be certain, but the aftereffects will be significant.

The main purpose of this matter is Kim Byeong-cheol’s mental care.

Extreme measures may even break Kim Byeong-cheol’s remaining will.

“Education is good, but wouldn’t it be better to persuade the man well and send Kim Byeong-cheol’s daughter back?”

The Defender scoffed at my suggestion.

“If the world were one where everything could be solved with words, things like war would never have happened.”

I totally agree.

But I feel like this incident shouldn’t be handled so extremely.

We don’t have much time left.

We must not allow anything to break Kim Byeong-cheol during the short remaining time.

It is very unfortunate, but I cannot directly intervene in this matter.

I don’t have the position, time, or leisure to do that.

But sometimes miracles happen in this world.

*

A group of refugees who had previously left Seoul have returned.

Their numbers, which used to exceed 1,500, were reduced to less than half.

Mutations, cold, verbs, and infighting between people.

The common cause was passed around by word of mouth, but no one among the hundreds of citizens welcoming the refugees felt sorry for them.

Self-inflicted.

There is no other way to express it.

Kim Byeong-cheol came out to meet them.

Even if they are traitors, hundreds of manpower are currently a valuable resource for the city during fierce battles.

The number of refugees was halved, but the leader was the same.

He was the man who turned down Kim Byeong-cheol’s request and left the city when he left the new Seoul.

Kim Byeong-cheol looked at the man with tired eyes.

Like everyone else, he seemed to feel no sympathy for these refugees.

Until he lowered his gaze.

The leader of the refugees had a young daughter.

The leader of the refugees held his daughter’s hand tightly and they left the city together.

The little girl is nowhere to be seen.

Kim Byeong-cheol’s eyes shook for a moment.

He is also a father with a daughter.

Therefore, he must have had a deep understanding of the loss and fear that I would probably never have.

In a sense, he lost half of his daughter.

“What, what about my daughter······?”

He had initially resolved not to say a word, but he broke his resolve and opened his mouth.

A bitter cold wind tore between them.

The man, who had frostbite marks on his nose and some of his skin and was covered in bandages here and there, stared at Kim Byeong-cheol with tired eyes and slowly turned his head.

A small shadow appeared among the crowd of refugees.

A girl with her whole body wrapped tightly.

As the man gestured, the girl approached him with a precarious gait, as if she might fall over at any moment.

She almost slipped on the slippery ground in the middle, but the man supported his daughter in a timely manner.

The woman’s hands were connected.

The leader of the refugees saw Kim Byeong-cheol again.

There probably wasn’t much need for words between the two.

Kim Byeong-cheol was smiling.

It seemed as if tears had formed in the wrinkled corners of her eyes, but the bitter cold wind soon froze the tears into sparkling jewels.

*

152.

This number, which looks like someone’s kidney, is the number of newborns born in the city since the monster offensive began.

It is said that in stable cities, many men and women are getting married in real time.

In the face of despair that seems like it could collapse at any moment, people continue to live and form relationships.

Here is another connection that is about to be rekindled.

Kim Byeong-cheol went to see his daughter in person.

As the Defender and his murderous team watched, Kim Byung-chul bowed his head to his daughter and faced the man who had stolen her heart.

He took a quick look around the cramped, dirty room that showed signs of debauchery, then turned away without saying a word.

He didn’t bow his head.

She didn’t even beg her daughter to come back.

He only said a few words to his daughter.

“······Clean up your room and live.”

Perhaps that is the best expression a proud father like Kim Byeong-cheol could give.

The sentiment hidden in that crude expression certainly seemed to have reached the daughter.

When I see the bright smile on Kim Ye-rim’s face, who used to be ridiculed by others as a fool,

“let’s go.”

Kim Byeong-cheol’s expression as he returned with his subordinates looked relieved.

I feel relieved.

Our general, Kim Byung-chul, will hold out a little longer.

Meanwhile, Hong Da-jeong and other drone agents have been searching for traces of the guy we have been searching for for a long time.

It wasn’t marked as gray.

Instead, it appeared as an eerie shadow reflected in the fog-shrouded ruins across the river.

No one recognized the silhouette.

Even the staff at the research center that was in Jeju until recently were amazed, saying that it was the first time they had seen this type.

But I know who this guy is.

“······.”

General type.

He is my adversary.