Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 451



Only Noblemtl

451 179. Dots (2)

I feel sorry for my desperate bulletin board friends, but I can’t empathize with the feelings of North American users I don’t even know well about the Melon Mask Salvage incident.

While Melon Mask is the creator of our world and our friend who has continuously shown his face through Live! Apocalypse!, the user Ryan482 is, frankly speaking, a stranger who has no relation to me.

The reactions of North American users are not much different.

They, who have more users than Korea and therefore may be more indifferent, did not seem to feel much intimacy or empathy towards Ryan482.

Rather, as the exchange of stories increased, North American users began to think that Ryan482 was not a true Vivarian like us, but an outsider who had hijacked the network of true Vivarians.

It couldn’t be helped that Ryan482 was completely ignorant of the functions and systems that not only us but even the Necropolis influx knew about, and didn’t even know of the existence of the basic satellite equipment – the Obelisk.

To make matters worse, a North American user took aim at lion482.

DoodleDO: I know lion482. He’s a friend I used to hang out with on the Korean bulletin board when we played games made by Fox Games.

DoodleDO: He was a cheerful and hard-working friend. The only downside is that he rarely logs in. Even after the game server was shut down, we still kept in touch from time to time. I was also happy to see him on the Creeker bulletin board.

DoodleDO: But that guy suddenly changed completely in 10 minutes. Compare the two messages.

[ 10 minutes ago ]

DoodleDO: Hey! Dude! This is where I see you!

Message from lion482: Long time no see, buddy!

[ After lion482 uploaded a photo of the gray-white landscape ]

DoodleDO: Are you ok, buddy?

Message from lion482: Do you know me? Where am I? Can you help me?

Since our conversations are conducted through text, it seems difficult to judge a person just by looking at their text. However, when you become friendly with a user and build a relationship, you will see that the person’s personality and identity clearly appear even in that simple text.

Ryan482, pointed out by North American user Dududu, seems like a stranger to me, even to someone with a long history of internet experience.

Some more evidence emerged afterward.

The attitudes shown in Ryan482’s past posts and the help posts he is currently posting tell us the bitter truth that the two people are completely different.

It seems that Dongtan Mom, who is busy with election activities these days, also logged on to the Creek bulletin board as an old friend.

dongtanmom: Yum yum… It looks like things have been going on for 10 minutes. Yum yum… 10 minutes is enough time to shoot someone in the back of the head with a gun or a blunt object, clean up the body, and sit back down in front of the computer, right? Yum yum….

I’m seriously considering the Dongtan Mom campaign, but I agree with that opinion to some extent.

Internet users can change in a split second.

This means that Cheon Yeong-jae could lose his mind right now due to the stress he received from Woo Min-hee, suddenly shoot me to death, and then brazenly pretend to be a skeleton on the internet.

Anyway, due to these circumstances, the search for Ryan482 started at a lukewarm or cold temperature, completely different from the search for the Melon Mask.

Many users turned their attention to saving Ryan482 after seeing Dududu’s exposure post, but it is still the last event for orthodox users before the Viva! Apocalypse! Cataclysm.

One user perfectly summed up our feelings about this incident:

Kerensky3082: It is said that ancient Roman priests used to tell fortunes by looking at the internal organs of sacrificial animals.

Kerensky3082: We can also predict the future to some extent by watching Ryan482’s actions.

Kerensky3082: Especially since Ryan482 is a standard apocalyptic human.

No matter what the outcome, the temperature of the story was set from the beginning.

The temperature will probably be somewhere between cool and lukewarm.

*

Ryan482 – or maybe someone else – lives in Arkansas, United States.

To be honest, I don’t know much about this place.

When it comes to the US, most people only know New York, California, and Texas. Even among my friends who studied abroad in the US, there are probably only a handful who know all 51 states in the US.

The pre-war Korean wiki site left by John Nae-non and backed up by Foxgame – Ant Wiki’s search results show that Arkansas has a slightly larger area than South Korea and a population of about 3 million.

Local Americans may have heard the name once or twice at school, but they treat it as a place that they have no reason to visit while living there.

After the war began, many minor states met with similar endings.

When there was support from the federal government, they were able to somehow control the cracks and endure, but as the entire federation shook and support was cut off, the cracks spread, state governments collapsed, warlords and gangs ran rampant, and they faced total destruction.

It is a natural progression for the entire area to be eroded.

Ryan482 is left alone in such a place or with a few people we do not know.

lion482: So what do we do here?

Ryan482’s words were always interrogative.

As if desperate to reveal his current desperation to the outside world, he used only interrogative sentences to get the information he needed.

It doesn’t seem like they’re particularly interested in the bulletin board atmosphere or the posts.

There are already posts questioning his authenticity in the popular posts section, and the tone of the posts is clearly neutral-hostile, but Ryan482 continues to ask questions and seems to only read replies to those posts.

Guerrero’s: Did you contact the sheriff? From the photos, it looks like it’s under their jurisdiction.

Several users gave their opinions, but soon a dedicated person appeared.

Guerrero’s: How are you supposed to communicate with the sheriff when you can’t even make a phone call? You must have been trained in advance, like how to use a walkie-talkie or a satellite phone.

The user was named Guerrero.

He must have had the luxury of being on the internet all day long, so he was the first to reply to Ryan482’s posts.

Even at the time of his reply, his writing seemed to be of significant help to a third party.

It was a natural progression for Ryan482 to trust Guerrero.

Soon Ryan482 posed a question to the bulletin board in a different way.

lion482 : Guerrero. Tried the satellite phone. No connection. Tried unlocking the satellite phone and calling the sheriff’s number. No connection.

Ryan482, who used to ask questions to the entire forum, now started asking questions to just one user, Guerrero.

But my friend Guerrero didn’t actually approach me with such good intentions.

Anonymous811: Isn’t it so obvious that you had the sheriff connected to a government-issued emergency satellite phone?

KPGN: That’s right. What would the sheriff do if he got that call? Laughs out loud.

baker820309 : In a place as broken as Arkansas, it would be summary execution.

…

…

Environments similar to Ryan 482, where people live at least several miles apart in a wide-open space in the suburbs, vary from state to state, but it is said that sheriffs are given strong authority and are thoroughly managed.

The sheriff is said to have complete information and personal details about all the citizens under his jurisdiction, and he is also equipped with a combat unit of former military personnel who can exercise chilling powers such as summary execution and execution in the event of an emergency.

The story is that if Ryan482 had killed the original owner and sat down in his place as everyone expected, he could have been executed on the spot as a murderer the moment the sheriff showed up.

Although it was clearly an act of malicious intent, no one condemned it.

In their eyes, Ryan482 was a predator and just another one of those people who deserved to die.

As time passed, Guerrero’s malice became more and more blatant.

Guerrero’s: There’s nothing good about going outside. Stay there. You never know when the looters will come for you. Don’t you have any food or anything? Hold out as long as you can. Erosion is like snow. Erosion areas will disappear when the cause of the erosion is removed. Who knows? That place might become habitable again.

The first survival tip in eroded areas has always been one thing.

Get out of there right now.

This fundamental principle has never been modified, not even once, under any circumstances.

Some people survive in the eroded area for a long time, but most go mad or become strange and are erased from the world.

The dangers of erosion zones are obvious even if we look at our friend Kyledos alone.

However, anyone who has paid even a little attention to Ryan482 will know that he is not very educated and his knowledge is shallow.

This was evident when a user who suddenly appeared offered some heartfelt advice.

AYkopato: Go to Texas, you idiot. Take Route 30. There’s gonna be a car, right?

lion482: Route 30? What is that? Are you talking about the highway?

AYkopato: You can get there from North Little Rock.

lion482 : North Little Rock? Where is that?

AYkopato : ?

Ryan482 didn’t even know information that even locals couldn’t help but know.

In response, an anonymous user expressed a racist opinion, suggesting that Ryan482 might be a South American immigrant.

Anyway, it was clear that Ryan482 had no way of knowing or knowledge of Guerrero’s malice, and Guerrero’s malice became even more evident.

Guerrero’s: Where are you going? You can live well even in eroded areas. Looking at the pictures, there are a lot of crops, but they are a bit distorted, but you can still eat them. The Chinese live well in eroded areas, so why can’t you, as an American citizen? Right?

Guerrero’s: If there’s a girl next to you, take a picture and post it. You know what? If there’s a nice girl, one of us might come and help her with a car. Laughs out loud.

Guerrero’s: Can you post some pictures of your house? Okay? Ryan, how many people have you killed?

As Guerrero’s antics grew increasingly out of line, Ryan482 showed no reaction or backlash.

He responded appropriately to Guerrero’s antics, or, if he could, simply remained silent.

This endless prank was finally put to an end by the intervention of one user.

Kerensky3082: Hey Ryan. I don’t have time for the internet. Get out of there now.

Kerensky3082: Didn’t you learn that in the shelter? If there are signs of erosion around you, leave immediately and ask for help from other shelters or the military or police. You don’t know if they will shoot you or not, but you have a better chance of surviving than going crazy and dying there.

Kerensky.

This was the very same user who first likened Ryan482 to an animal that reads its guts.

He soon turned his blame on Guerrero as well.

Kerensky3082: Guerrero. Do it properly. No matter how evil the other person is, I think it is not permitted by God for people to play with each other.

Guerrero raised his hand surprisingly easily.

Guerrero’s: A hero appears. Laugh out loud. Hey. Ryan. A real hero has appeared, not me. Listen to him. I won’t interfere anymore.

Guerrero stepped back.

In this part, it is revealed that Ryan482 is a completely different being from us.

lion482: Kerensky? What should I do now? Get out of here? How should I get out? Where should I go after I get out of here?

Yes, that’s right.

I couldn’t find any internet sensitivity or empathy with Ryan482.

Even though the advisor he had blindly trusted until just a moment ago had disappeared, he remained unwavering and asked Kerensky another blind question.

The appearance was reminiscent of a crude machine or program.

lion482 : What should I do? Please tell me.

An anonymous user made a racist remark, but regardless, Ryan482 was a completely different “internet race” than the rest of us.

Kerensky3082: Tell me your location.

Now Kerensky, who has taken over the baton from Guerrero, gives advice to Ryan482.

Kerensky3082: If you can drive to Route 30 on your own, you can escape to Texas. Route 30 is available from North Little Rock, I’ll send you the detailed route.

Kerensky actively guided Ryan482 from the dead to the still-habitable land of Texas, providing him with information on how to temporarily repair and operate his broken-down electric car, how to get to a city called North Little Rock from his current location, and the latest updates on nearby gang and armed group control areas.

lion482: You mean Route 452? That’s the way to go, right?

This is Ryan482’s last post on the bulletin board.

It was not surprising that he left the bulletin board without even the slightest expression of gratitude to Kerensky.

As everyone guessed, Ryan482 was of a different race from us.

Kerensky himself probably didn’t expect this.

Kerensky3082: You’ve changed the horoscope from the worst to one that’s at least somewhat promising.

Just as Guerrero regarded Ryan482 as a joke, Kerensky also regarded Ryan482 as a fortune teller.

So, what I’m saying is that the goodwill he showed was only meaningful if it brought about good results, and he couldn’t just stand by and watch as the means to that end pointed in a bad direction, so he intervened.

Kerensky’s fortunes, however, will not be good.

After the action surrounding Ryan482 came to a close, one user calmly predicted the ending of the horoscope.

Sauber92: All roads leading to Texas are closed right now. No one is allowed in.

Sauber92: It’s not like they do security checks like before.

Sauber92: A beggar who shoots and kills on the road.

Sauber92: You know what? If you kill someone from 10 meters away, you feel guilty, but if you kill someone from 200 meters away, it’s no different from a game?

Sauber92: Guilt is like bloodstains or shards that splatter when the soul is broken. If it’s far away, it can’t be reached.

Sauber92: Well, if you’re quick-witted or lucky, you might be able to go somewhere else.

There is no way to know what the ending will be for our horoscope Ryan482.

It probably didn’t work out well.

Just like our future that is coming soon.

– Welcome to the Viva! Apocalypse! board for everyone.

Melon Mask opens Viva! Apocalypse! to everyone.

The good old days were coming to an end.