1979, Manager Kim is Inheriting Dictatorship! - Chapter 114



Only Krnovel

Episode 114

The children began to eat the curry in the pot with great haste, as if they were possessed.

I heard that this is the only time in the week that they eat warm food and purified water.

The tent camp situation was perhaps even worse than we had expected.

“Eat slowly.”

“Yeah.”

Still, the older boy took care of his younger siblings with dignity and gave them his share.

No matter how difficult the situation was, he was better than adults in that he never lost his humanity.

The group watched them eat quietly, looking at the sight with pleasure.

After going through all kinds of hardships on my way here, that kind of scenery seemed even more special to me.

Dalgrak!

The curry porridge made with a whopping 4 packets of instant rice was empty in just 1 minute.

The children, who had eaten their food in an instant, nodded their heads as if they had only just come to their senses.

“Thank you, sir!”

“It was delicious!”

I don’t know who his parents are, but he was unusually polite and courteous for children these days.

My older sister smiled brightly as if she was amazed by the sight and helped me clear away the dishes and pots.

“……mister.”

“huh?”

At that moment, the oldest child noticed me and then slowly pulled on my collar.

“We actually don’t have anything. Can we pay you back later?”

Since there was leftover food anyway, if the children didn’t eat it, they would have buried it all in a hole.

But the child whispered with an anxious face, perhaps thinking that it was food for sale.

I shook my head at the sight, lowered my gaze, and whispered quietly.

“Then instead of paying me back, would you help me out a bit? Just teach me a few things you know.”

“Is that really okay?”

“Yeah, you guys are from there?”

“yes that’s right.”

“Can you tell me what it’s like there?”

When asked about the situation in the tent village, the child’s face darkened for a moment.

But surprisingly, the child gave me the information even though his eyes were filled with tears.

“There are a lot of bad adults.”

“Bad adult?”

“They just steal things and beat people up. One man even took my shoes without telling me.”

As expected, incidents such as robbery and violence were occurring frequently inside the tent village.

Of course, this is just the extent of the child’s expression, but violent crimes like murder would probably be common.

“Have you seen any military men?”

“I haven’t seen it, but I heard it’s in front of the port. A woman told me not to go there because she said they’d shoot you if you got close.”

Currently, in front of Daesan Port, a military unit was blocking access centered around the demarcation line.

Judging from the mention of shooting a gun, it seems they are responding strongly rather than simply stopping it.

In reality, it was clear that the military base was just a tent village and that the refugees were being left as they were.

At that moment, the child, who had been holding back tears for a long time, asked me while wiggling his fingers.

“Are you going there too, sir?”

“Yeah, I’m going to meet some military men.”

“It won’t work… … .”

“Are you afraid it might be dangerous? Don’t worry, soldiers. I know someone there.”

When told not to worry, the child shook his head as if to say no.

Then he put his wiggling fingers on his arm and moved them as if he was drawing a picture.

“The old men with the picture drawn here really hate going to the port. The lady who told me about it also got dragged away after saying she was going to get on a boat.”

Those guys with drawings on their arms? They’re probably not real drawings, they’re probably tattoos.

Also, judging by the fact that they were called uncles, it seemed like there were multiple people, not just one person.

When there are a lot of people, it is inevitable that groups or communities will naturally form.

But one thing that’s bothering me is that they’re trying to track down people who want to board the ship.

I don’t know what the purpose was, but it wasn’t good news for us who were planning to go on a cruise.

I guess I’ll have to take a look around the tent village myself and see what the atmosphere is like.

I patted the head of the child who had given me such important information and asked:

“Where are your parents?”

At that moment, the child who had been holding back tears eventually burst into tears and lowered his head.

The other children who had been quietly watching from behind also burst into tears.

It was obvious that children who had lost their parents or were missing were gathered in the tent village.

The inside of the tent village is dangerous, so they’ll probably be staying on the outskirts where there are fewer people.

I sighed quietly, wiped the child’s tears, and pointed to the bus right in front of us.

“If you’re hungry, come here.”

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah, the old men have a lot.”

The bus trunk was currently filled with potatoes and sweet potatoes received from Budeok-ri.

There was too much to take with me, so I was planning on leaving some of it here anyway.

If starving children eat it instead, it’s not a loss for us at all.

The little boy burst into tears again, as if he had never expected to receive such kindness.

“Thank you! Thank you so much, sir!”

I, who have turned my back on refugees, am doing this for the children.

It was extremely complicated to receive such gratitude, knowing that I was contradictory.

I had to hide my bitter feelings as I waved at the children leaving.

The quietly burning bonfire seemed to reflect my changing heart as time passed.

The night deepens.

For the first time in a long time, stars were visible in the night sky.

* * *

We got up as soon as the sun rose and quickly finished an early breakfast.

And after tidying up the area around the bus for a while, we started preparing to leave for the field trip to the tent village.

“I rescued it from the trash heap.”

“Ugh, it smells.”

The clothes we were wearing were all clean and good quality, so we didn’t look like refugees at all.

I had no choice but to salvage a few sets of dirty clothes, like rags, from a nearby garbage dump.

In addition, they deliberately applied charcoal black to their faces and heads to make their appearance look shabby.

“Wow, you can tell just by looking at him that he’s a beggar.”

“It feels natural.”

Then I looked in the mirror and saw two typical refugees looking at me.

Of course, he had a sword and a pistol hidden in his bosom, ready to be taken out at any time.

“I’ll be back before the sun sets.”

“Yes, brother.”

“Take care on your way, Uncle!”

After completing our disguises perfectly, Jin-kyung Kim and I left the forest while being seen off by our group.

And then we walked along the road leading down the hill towards the tent village.

“It’s a little windy.”

“It’s because there’s an ocean nearby.”

Perhaps because it was right in front of the sea, the wind was fierce and the air was thick with salt.

Usually, long-term camping would be difficult in this environment, but they’ve managed to hold out until now.

We quickly crossed the desolate road, being hit by a wind that was fiercer than we had expected.

“I see it over there.”

After some time had passed, the tent village we had discovered last night appeared.

Kim Jin-kyung, who saw the tent village, exclaimed in surprise, as if she had not expected it to be this bad.

“Wow, this is seriously not a joke.”

I didn’t realize it when I saw it from afar, but the tent village was much larger than I expected.

This was because there were more shelters built with things like planks and trash, rather than just tents.

It was hard to imagine the scale of the refugees living there, estimated at tens of thousands.

Jin-kyung Kim and I pretended to be refugees and slowly entered the tent village.

“Ugh.”

The first thing that greeted us as we entered the tent village was a stinging, foul smell.

Kim Jin-kyung, who was particularly sensitive to smells, hurriedly covered her nose with the handkerchief around her neck.

Meanwhile, I looked around the inside of the tent village and was able to figure out what was causing the stench.

‘This is a mess.’

On the already narrow floor, trash and all sorts of waste were rolling around.

It was an inevitable phenomenon in a tent village without a proper garbage dump or toilet.

If it had been a hot and humid summer, wouldn’t all kinds of diseases have run rampant?

We continued to walk forward, enduring the sticky floor and the terrible stench.

“… … .”

The tent village was quiet, without any movement, even though it was early in the morning.

The only indication that there were people here were the occasional cough or cry.

But I could tell.

In this silence, there are countless emotions that come and go, and also gloomily approaching gazes.

Giving up, despair, greed, and all sorts of ugly emotions dominated this vast space.

I thought I knew what had happened in the tent village without even having to hear it.

“It’s like a maze.”

“For now, let’s just focus on direction.”

Unlike the outside, the inside of the tent village was lined with things like sunshades to block the sun and planks to divide the space.

Naturally, the field of vision narrowed, and irregular patterns repeated without any visible paths or anything like that.

It was fortunate that he had good eyesight. If it had been someone else, he would have had a hard time.

I walked quickly toward the port, using the rising sun as my compass.

After walking about two-thirds of the way, the surrounding scenery suddenly began to change.

“The atmosphere here is a little different?”

“It’s probably a tent village built early on.”

There is no way a tent village of this scale could have been created in such a short period of time.

It probably gradually grew in size and area like a sedimentary layer of soil.

As if to prove this, the tent village near the port seemed to be in better shape than the one at the back.

“Mr. Daesu, do you see that?”

“Yes, I can see it.”

And as expected, in front of the tent village in the distance, there was a guard post that looked like a military base.

If we just get past here, we’ll probably be able to make contact with the soldiers guarding the port.

By the way, where on earth are those scary old men the child was talking about?

Jin-kyung Kim and I, who had almost finished our field trip, stopped for a moment and looked around.

Aaaah!

“… … !”

But at that moment, a desperate scream was heard from not far away.

We instinctively lowered our posture and turned our heads in the direction of the scream.

There was a man with a bruised face running desperately away from a group of people.

“개새끼가!”

“Ahhhh! Okay, I was wrong!”

But their escape was short-lived, as they were caught by another group that had run ahead.

They grabbed the man by the hair and shouted at him, saying that he had done something wrong.

“Damn! I almost missed it.”

“Where on earth did you crawl in here from?”

Jin-kyung Kim and I hid behind the tent and observed the group.

“What kind of people are they?”

“I don’t know.”

There were five or six of them, and they were all wearing the same black jumper.

Also, unlike ordinary refugees, their clothes were clean and their nutrition seemed quite good.

“Die! Die, you little shit!”

“Ahhhhh! Aah!”

The gang that had captured the man rushed in, swinging their fists and kicking him.

Faced with such overwhelming violence, the man screamed desperately and called for help from those around him.

“… … .”

But despite the untimely commotion, not a single person foresaw it.

As if it were familiar, as if what happened to that man was a given.

And I could find the cause of that silence not too far away.

‘It’s a gun.’

One of the group who was watching from a step back was carrying something on his back.

That something was none other than a K-2 automatic rifle with a magazine loaded.

“Mr. Daesu.”

At that moment, Jin-kyung Kim, who was watching the situation with me, pointed to one of the gang.

As I turned my gaze in that direction, a man who happened to be rolling up his sleeves came into view.

‘It’s a tattoo.’

The man’s right arm was crudely tattooed with what appeared to be a dragon.

It seemed like the same for other gangs, with tattoos occasionally visible through the gaps in their clothes.

Those are the guys the child was talking about.

Finally confirming the existence of the gang, I hardened my expression and quietly called out to Kim Jin-kyung.

“Let’s go back first.”

“yes.”

They are more ruthless than you might think and even have guns with live ammunition.

Now was the time to take a step back, assess the situation, and wait for word.

Beep!

“… … !”

But at that moment, a bell started ringing in my left back pocket.

Satellite phone?

Damn, the timing is incredible.

Startled, I quickly took out my satellite phone and repeatedly pressed the end call button.

“… … What are you guys?”

But, as luck would have it, the group of people who heard that sound all looked this way.