The President is Going to America! - Chapter 137



Only Noblemtl

137. The Cow and the Man

A friendly white Bongo truck.

Oh Hyun-seong got into the rumbling car, and although it wasn’t going very fast due to its age, it was shaking.

The mileage displayed on the dashboard was also an absurd number.

“Aren’t you going to change the car? This won’t work with maintenance.”

“Why change a car that’s running well?”

“It’s not like it’s going well, it’s just rolling along.”

Awesome ride.

Fortunately, I was relatively resistant to motion sickness.

As long as you don’t get seasick, that’s fine.

I, Oh Hyun-seong, can be proud of having the mental strength to not give in to any ordeal, but if nothing else, seasickness is a problem for me.

“At this point, it would be better to change it for safety reasons. I’ll look for a suitable used one for you…”

“Money is not the issue, you punk. How could you just throw away the guy you’ve been riding all this time?”

Heo Deok-su said, clicking his tongue.

Honestly, I don’t understand.

For him, a car was just a means of transportation.

But I know that it’s a waste of time to try to force something on someone who thinks differently.

“Then you take care of the car yourself. What’s going on all of a sudden?”

Oh Hyun-seong asked him.

When I questioned Heo Deok-su about his unusual behavior, he said that he wanted me to go somewhere with him.

I happily got into the car since I wasn’t busy at the time, but I should at least know what was going on.

“I’m going to the next town for a bit.”

“Why the neighboring village all of a sudden?”

“My friend lives there. I haven’t been able to contact him lately.”

“But why bring a gun when you’re going to see a friend?”

“Ah… that’s…”

He paused for a moment at Oh Hyeon-seong’s question.

On the poorly paved road, in the bumpy car, Heodeoksu managed to open his mouth.

“The village next door I was talking about was Sunyang-ri.”

“If it’s Sunyang-ri…”

Oh Hyeon-seong’s expression became strange at his words.

Although the phenomenon of urban migration is becoming increasingly severe, there are still many rural areas in Korea.

Just above the border, it is a battlefield overflowing with monsters and nests, but at least in Korea, gate management is carried out so thoroughly that no other place in the world can keep up.

However, that does not mean that all rural villages were as well off as Changyeong-ri.

“Wasn’t that a village that no longer exists?”

Oh Hyun-seong also knows that name.

A neighboring village located not too far from here.

But now it is a name that no longer exists.

“Yes, it was a village that had a lot of interaction with each other, but it was all in turmoil because of that guy named Takgi.”

Heo Deok-su said with a short sigh.

A town that was devastated simply by being in the indirect territory of an S-rank gate, not to mention being directly involved in the gate.

Although it was a rare case, there were bound to be gates that emitted particularly foul odors.

Although it was not at a level that could be designated as a restricted area, it was not good for humans if exposed for a long period of time.

The entire area, including the village, became a ‘recommended relocation zone’.

Of course, unlike the restricted areas, there was no legal enforcement, and people were reluctant to leave the towns where they were born and raised.

But the problem was the table.

Even though farming was done in the same place and in the same way, the crops were completely destroyed because of the thick turbid air.

Even without this, there was not much room for wild crops to grow due to the crops being produced in factories, and with the problem of turbidity added on, it was impossible to make a living.

So people gradually left the village, and it became an abandoned village.

“But you have a friend who lives there?”

“Yes, Kim Young-do. He’s the guy who held on until the end when everyone else had left.”

“Holding on… why?”

“It’s because of that guy’s stubbornness. Besides, he couldn’t leave, and there was no place that would take him.”

Oh Hyun-seong looks at her as if he still doesn’t understand.

Heo Deok-su continued speaking to him.

“That guy raises cows.”

*

Squeak.

The car that had been rattling stopped.

Oh Hyeon-seong and Heo Deok-su arrived at the next village, got out of the vehicle, and stood there blankly looking around.

A village abandoned without a trace of life.

The streets, which seemed to have been abandoned for a long time, were extremely desolate.

“How is it, isn’t it creepy?”

“Your friend lives well in a place like this.”

“What I’m saying is, at night, there’s no light, but the generator is running, so the lights are on in Zug’s house. I didn’t ask you to come with me for nothing. But you’re the most trustworthy person in our village.”

Heo Deok-su said, tapping Oh Hyeon-seong on the shoulder.

If another villager had offered to follow him, he would have refused.

However, he asked Oh Hyeon-seong, whom he met by chance, for a favor first.

Although he was not an Awakener or a Hunter, he worked as an employee of the management office in Seoul, so he was very trustworthy to the people in the countryside.

This is the response he showed when the erosion incident actually occurred in Changyeong-ri.

When everyone was confused by the word erosion, his few words put many people at ease.

“Well… then if I find my friend, everything will be solved?”

“okay.”

Heo Deok-su nodded at Oh Hyeon-seong’s words.

But there was still a hint of discomfort in his expression.

“He’s someone I often can’t contact, but this is the first time he hasn’t responded to my texts for several days.”

“Maybe he just had something to do.”

“That would be nice, but at our age, it wouldn’t be strange if someone suddenly collapsed at any time. That guy wasn’t in great shape either.”

Crunch.

Heo Deok-su took out a pistol from inside the car, loaded it, and held it firmly in both hands.

“Don’t stay far away from me. There may not be any monsters, but there may be plenty of aggressive wild animals.”

The thicker the turbidity, the more aggressive the animal becomes.

In such areas, even the most docile animals can become beasts.

That was why Heo Deok-su brought a gun.

When Oh Hyun-seong nodded, they started to move forward.

I crossed the fallen utility pole blocking the road and headed across the village towards Kim Young-do’s house.

No matter where I looked along the way, there were only empty buildings.

“Coolook! Coolook!”

“Sir, are you okay?”

“I just had a quick cough. The air is a bit thicker now than it was last time.”

Heo Deok-su’s face looks a little haggard.

It was no accident that he coughed.

Ordinary people were much more vulnerable to the effects of the Takki than the Awakened.

Of course, most of the problems related to the aftereffects of psychosis and other negative energy were experienced by the Awakened, but that was because the Awakened were exposed to a lot of negative energy.

Rather, since they have a stronger resistance to turbidity than ordinary people, they have to enter the gate directly to kill monsters and are continuously deployed to related sites, so problems are bound to arise.

Except for a few places in Changyeong-ri, there is no place in the world today where turbidity is not detected.

The level of exposure to pollutants in daily life is something that even the average person can withstand.

However, even if it was only a restricted area, it could cause fatal problems for the general public, so a legal system was created that absolutely prohibited entry.

‘But is this place… really a recommended immigration area?’

Oh Hyun-seong’s expression, which had been feeling a bit tense, slightly frowned.

By his standards, it may not be a great level of takgi, but by the standards of ordinary people, it is not a level.

The original local turbidity pollution gradually diminishes in concentration over time.

However, there were cases where the condition gradually worsened and reached a peak despite the absence of external factors.

This is the case when the turbidity concentration weakens only after reaching its peak, whether for several months or several years.

In this case, it was probably the latter case.

If the level of pollution was this high, it should have already been designated as a restricted area.

“Knock knock! Damn it, what a pain this is because of that kid. I’m going to have to give him a good scolding.”

“I don’t think this is something that can just end with nagging.”

Oh Hyun-seong said.

“When I see my friend, I feel like I should pick him up and run away right away.”

“Oh, really? I think the sting has gotten worse since I last saw it. But do you think he’ll try to leave? He’s the type of guy who won’t listen to anything I say, and he said he won’t leave even if he dies.”

“… If you really don’t want to die, you should let him out.”

Oh Hyun-seong said firmly.

This wasn’t simply a difference in mindset or a matter of choice.

If an ordinary person tries to live here and persists, he or she will surely die.

Without any exceptions.

‘But somehow… I have a bad feeling about this.’

As if they both felt the same thing, they both walked a little faster.

The sights you see while doing so.

I felt bad looking at the ruined village.

To be honest, I used to see ruins like this so often that I didn’t feel anything special about it.

In China in particular, there were times when it wasn’t just villages that were the problem, but cities were disappearing one by one.

But when I thought of it as a place where people once lived a life similar to Changyeong-ri, I felt different.

It could also be said that he has become accustomed to life in Changyeong-ri.

“It’s over there.”

An interior where nothing remains.

There was no Kim Young-do, no animal corpse, not even a trace of blood.

In this day and age, livestock farming is crazy.

Oh Hyeon-seong suddenly remembered the story that Heo Deok-su had told him while driving to the village.

His friend Kim Young-do was said to be a dairy farmer.

Now that livestock are more aggressive due to the turbidity.

Even in this day and age when everyone is giving up on raising livestock, he couldn’t give up the livestock farm he was running.

“What the hell! That’s why I told you to hurry up and throw all those pieces of shit out and leave!”

Heo Deok-su raised the pistol with his clenched hands.

It seemed as if he was going to kill anything that stood out.

But Oh Hyun-seong pressed his hand hard and lowered the gun.

“Just calm down. Nothing has come out yet.”

It’s still too early to jump to conclusions.

Just follow the traces and trace them.

He secretly summoned Melts from the ground and read the traces in the ground around him to figure out where he was headed.

Then, he was able to find the path along which Kim Young-do’s traces continued, and his head turned slightly.

‘… This might be a bit of a problem.’

The direction in which Kim Young-do’s traces continue.

It was pointing to the place where the Rank Gate was created, which devastated the village with only the indirect influence of the evil spirit.