Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 433



Only Noblemtl

433 172. The Savior (1)

After defeating the Nemesis type, the new leadership of Seoul naturally went to the people from Jeju.

It was a natural flow.

The city was exhausted from the long battle and was showing its limits in every way.

As their strength drained, their infiltration was necessary for survival.

From the beginning, Woo Min-hee, the head of our city, was also from Jeju, so integration was a given.

Booooooooo–

There are many cars on the road.

Most of them are construction vehicles.

Building materials stockpiled in the government asset warehouse beneath the collapsed De Hope are being used to build a new town to the west.

The people who will live in the new residence are none other than people from Jeju.

I was sick in bed for a long time, so I don’t know the specific details that were going around, but I overheard doctors, nurses, and hospital staff talking, and sometimes I heard about the outside world from friends who came to visit me.

“It feels like something is being pulled tight.”

Cheon Yeong-jae, who was unable to participate in the previous battle, has now recovered to the point where he can move with the help of crutches.

It’s not like I took it lightly, but this guy was also on the verge of death.

If Heo Jong-cheol had not found the bullet fragments floating around in his body, he would have suffered serious injuries that could have left him permanently disabled or rendered him a guest of no return.

Still, he regretted not having participated in the last battle.

It was also a consideration to bring him to this meeting.

Also to let you know that he is not an unimportant character.

The traffic is blocked.

I heard a noise outside the car window, and it seemed like another protest had broken out.

“If you look here, it looks like the old National Assembly building.”

Cheon Yeong-jae chuckled.

“They protest there 365 days a year, right?”

These are the gentlemen who protested even in the bitter cold of minus 20 degrees Celsius.

Warm weather like today, with temperatures of -2 to -3 degrees Celsius, would be perfect for protesting.

Although I have no interest in politics, I asked our government guide sitting in the passenger seat why they were protesting.

“It’s always the same. More rest and rations, political participation, guaranteeing the same freedoms and rights as before the war, punishing corrupt officials, opposing unification, etc.”

The driver clicked his tongue.

“People are really mean. They act like nothing happened even though we went through that mess just a month ago. They didn’t save it. Wasn’t it Skelton who saved this city?”

Cheon Yeong-jae looked at me.

I pretended not to see it.

“That guy named Skeleton disappeared like the wind, so why do these protesters keep appearing without dying?”

Surprisingly, not many people know that I am a skeleton.

It may be because I showed the situation only in the first-person view with only a body cam attached in the Baek Seung-hyun style, but the reception quality of Live! Apocalypse! using Necropolis was not very good, so noise and blurring occurred here and there in the video.

There was a lot of distortion, especially in the voice and sound, so some people even mute the sound when watching the video.

This is because the broadcast using the necropolis radio waves inevitably contains the voices of the dead – the radio waves from beyond the rift.

I have also seen my live videos, and indeed, I could feel the ominous soundtrack that was laid out like background music throughout the video.

Maybe it’s the sound the crack itself makes.

Woo Min-hee also showed consideration.

Even if it were known that I’m a skeleton, a bunch of annoying people would come flocking to me, just like before when guys would come to kill the professor.

Booooooo-

Finally the car pulls away.

In a little while, we will reach the “castle” where Kang Han-min is staying.

As I was watching the endless line of protesters with blank expressions on their faces, something strange caught my eye.

They are old people.

Elderly people are gathering in groups and protesting.

Before the war, it might have been different, but after the war, old people became very precious.

In the midst of the terrible war and chaos, the elderly were unwelcome and as a result quickly disappeared.

But how can so many elderly people act in a group?

I opened the window and listened to their voices.

An old man shouted.

“Release Woo Min-hee!”

“Where did Woo Min-hee go? Did you guys take her?”

“It’s been a month since I’ve seen Minhee!”

At that moment, the image of the nursing home that Woo Min-hee had been caring for flashed before my eyes.

Are those the elderly people from the nursing home where Woo Min-hee was?

The question has been answered.

At the same time, I also had concerns.

Those old people who were able to make a living thanks to Woo Min-hee also don’t know anything about him.

That means that something happened to Woo Min-hee, a possibility that has been vaguely raised for some time.

“······.”

Well, we’ll find out soon anyway.

Kang Han-min is in front of me.

In that half-collapsed building that stands alone in the distance.

It is natural that past events come to mind when facing Kang Han-min, who could be said to be fateful in a sense.

I recalled the past through the passing car window.

*

Our school’s dormitory has single rooms per person.

Considering that even prestigious universities have adopted a two-person per room system, this is an exceptionally good treatment.

Because it is a single room, the room is not that spacious.

I’ve never been inside, but people say it’s as big as a goshiwon.

As far as I remember, the room was only big enough for a bed and a small space where two people could sit facing each other.

However, I never felt like the space was cramped because I was a boy and didn’t have much luggage and the closet was quite spacious.

The single-person-one-room policy was criticized even in schools that received extensive government support, but my mentor, Jang Gi-yeong, steadfastly pushed for it.

“Students here are expected to move as one with their teammates until death when they go to the battlefield. This means that they must think and act as a team. Shouldn’t we at least guarantee these kids some privacy?”

There were plenty of students who didn’t like Jang Gi-yeong, but they all praised him for at least maintaining a single-person dormitory.

Everyone is going through puberty.

I am at an age where I am sensitive to privacy, especially my own space.

Although the space was cramped, students took comfort in the only personal space they were allowed, and some even decorated the dorms with great care.

In fact, Jang Gi-yeong did not touch the personal dormitory no matter how it was decorated.

“Everyone needs some shade to rest in. Just leave them alone.”

It was an incredible tolerance for a teacher who was so pushy that he forced every little gesture, action, and even pose to be cool.

Actually, I know a guy who had a nude picture hanging up in his room the size of a door like an American soldier from the Vietnam War, and I’ve never heard of him getting any warnings or cautions for that.

Indeed, Jang Gi-yeong respected autonomy only within the dormitory.

But people’s thoughts change from moment to moment.

At the time, I thought Jang Gi-yeong guaranteed such autonomy to provide shade for us who suffered from the blazing sun every day, as he said, but now it seems different.

I began to suspect that perhaps that autonomy was what Jang Ki-young was aiming for.

This, combined with words that were previously passed over without a second thought, has turned into a fairly sharp guess.

“I went to the hospital with enteritis and was told to rest, so I was going back to the dormitory. No, that’s where the officer suddenly popped out.”

“Come to think of it, I also saw an officer enter the dormitory when I went out for a moment during class.”

“There are rumors that he’s been hanging around in front of the girls’ dormitory too.”

“That would be the Songjo Bridge’s responsibility. Even if he’s an officer, he wouldn’t do something like that.”

Although it was treated as a rumor at the time, it appears that Jang Gi-yeong often visited students’ dormitories.

Of course, what my mentor wanted to see wasn’t something as trivial as my personal life.

He would have wanted to see how his peers expressed their thoughts and tastes within the few free canvases he allowed them.

Even the smallest traces revealed in the dormitory were to be checked to see if they matched his ideal hunter or not.

If that guess is true, then I have no choice but to become Jang Ki-young’s disciple.

There were no symbols, decorations, or personal items in my dorm.

There wasn’t even a single spoonful of rice that everyone had prepared.

All I have left in the dorm are my uniform, textbooks, and the tablet I got from school.

He did not keep the common diary, nor did he keep any symbols of his longing for his lost family.

There was only me there.

I was there, Park Gyu-man.

Jang Gi-yeong would have seen it.

In that empty space, he must have read my resolve.

The story is that it was not a coincidence that I became Jang Gi-yeong’s disciple, but fate.

But Kang Han-min was different.

He has an episode that even I, who doesn’t recall the past that much, can remember clearly.

One of them is about dormitories.

“Have you seen Kang Han-min’s room? Oh, really. I don’t know how he got into our school.”

“I think there might be a figure or two or a plastic model, but he had a whole room full of those.”

“Where did you get all that money?”

“He lost his family, but he seems to have bought a house. I heard he inherited over 1 billion won.”

“It’s going to be a real spectacle when we leave the room later.”

At that time, I didn’t pay much attention to Kang Han-min’s dormitory.

Kang Han-min was a friend who had many problems other than just the dormitory.

As I saw in a mart aquarium one day, if there is a weak or injured tropical fish, the other fish will not help or care for it.

Rather, they rush in in droves and peck at the dying ones, hastening their deaths.

I thought it was along similar lines.

Kang Han-min was clearly a poor student, but he didn’t have the popularity or fame to compensate for that.

He wasn’t handsome, didn’t have great physique, and didn’t have a very good personality.

Due to the nature of the school, being in a group with a student who lacks ability is in itself reflected in one’s grades, so an inferior student like Kang Han-min would probably be the type that everyone wanted to kick out.

I have heard the exact scenery of that strong-minded person’s dormitory.

The speaker was Gong Gyeong-min.

Unlike me, he has a sociable personality and it is said that he approached Kang Min-gang by taking advantage of their shared hobbies.

Even now, one of Gong Kyung-min’s hobbies is looking at other people’s houses.

“Otaku. Maybe. I’m like that too. But you know. Something feels off.”

Gong Kyung-min described Kang Han-min’s dormitory as a strange space decorated with countless robots, figures, and bromides that seemed to be floating around in the world.

However, Gong Kyung-min has insight that is difficult to find in his peers.

Maybe it’s because he’s from a similar family.

“But you know. In my opinion, he’s not an otaku. How should I explain it? He doesn’t put things up because he likes them. I don’t feel any affection for them. I’ve seen an anime where he collects goods. It’s a typical story where a cool older brother appears and a boy who admires him follows in his older brother’s footsteps and destroys evil. There are also lots of cute and pretty girls. The heroine was especially cute.”

Gong Kyung-min seemed to have sensed the strange nature of Kang Han-min better than others.

“But the things he collected. They’re a mess. They’re not organized at all, and they’re not even minimally maintained. It’s common for one or two decorations to be broken, and the heads are turned backwards and not properly aligned. I looked under the bed, and there were shattered figures and robots lying there like abandoned corpses.”

Gong Kyung-min’s young and tired face is still vivid in a corner of my memory.

“The reason that room feels bad is not because he’s an otaku. It’s just that the whole room is filled with negative energy. When I look at it, along with the damp air that flows through the room, it feels like a dollhouse from a horror movie?”

Gong Kyung-min bit his thumb and muttered in a confident tone.

“Just wait and see. When he graduates or gets kicked out, he’ll throw all his stuff in the trash. He won’t hesitate a second. Why? Because he doesn’t like it.”

Jang Gi-yeong must have felt bad in Kang Min-ho’s room.

“You idiot! What are you thinking! Do you have a mind like that of a messy corner of a room?!”

One day, the words he shouted at Kang Han-min included a hint that he had been in Kang Han-min’s room.

During the Chinese era, there was no particular story about Kang Hanmin’s room.

He had a place to stay, but he didn’t sleep there.

He commuted to work.

Under the pretext of making friends with the local Chinese people, he arranged a place to stay close to his lodgings.

However, since he only slept there and always ate at his lodgings, there was no way to know what his lodgings were like.

Because he has never invited other colleagues to the place where he lives.

With one exception.

“Park Gyu!”

It was about a month after I teamed up with Kang Han-min.

Our relationship was a little strange.

Kang Min-gang tried to approach me with excessive friendliness, but I always built a wall and kept a certain distance from him.

While that relationship was going on, Kang Han-min spoke to me with a determined look on his face.

“If you don’t mind, would you like to have a drink at my house this evening?”

“Alcohol? I don’t drink. You know that, right? And it’s not a bar, it’s your house.”

“Oh, it’s nothing special. There’s a fun anime. You must have heard about it. I’ve been obsessed with it since my school days. When I watch it, I gain courage and strength without even realizing it.”

“so?”

“······Ah. You seem to be feeling down lately. What should I say? You always seem to have a sleepy expression on your face. At times like that, I think it would be good to show off something hot that really sets a man’s heart on fire. Ah, I make really delicious cocktails. If you can’t drink, I can make non-alcoholic drinks too.”

“Sorry, I don’t have time. I have a meeting with the Chinese.”

“Then next time······.”

“If the opportunity arises.”

Kang Han-min has never invited me since then.

That guy must have been a bit oblivious, so he must have read my mind.

No matter what he says, I know I won’t be hanging out with him.

More than ten years have passed since then.

A tall building can be seen in the distance.

This is Kang Hanmin’s house.

What does his room look like?

“Welcome.”

Gong Kyung-min, wearing a neat suit instead of combat fatigues, greeted me.

We made eye contact.

There’s no need for long words between us.

Gong Kyung-min told me.

“······.”

Be careful.