Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 103



Only Krnovel

55. 20 hours 30 minutes (4)

People just passed by when they saw an old man being lynched by boys.

I was just going to pass by.

It’s not a good business to stop a bunch of cold-blooded boys just to save an old woman, let alone a young woman.

But that old man is an old man I know.

It was the same old man who stood in front of Hunter Street and talked nonsense.

The boys didn’t seem to have any intention of killing the old man.

They kicked the old man, who was curled up like a shrimp, several times and then disappeared across the street.

“I never lied.”

The old man muttered as if he was reciting a Buddhist chant.

I checked the time.

I plan to stay here today.

20 hours and 30 minutes, to be exact.

I plan to stay here until the ship arrives in Jeju Island.

I wanted to check the ending.

Right here, where the ship set sail.

“That ship doesn’t go to Jeju Island. It won’t go. It’ll sink in the middle of the journey.”

The old man continued to mutter while crouching.

“Why do you think so?”

Just an hour ago, I would never have been the one to speak to this old man.

“That fleet. You said it was going to sink?”

The old man, who had been groaning in pain and humiliation, looked straight at me when he heard those words.

“I was one of the captains of the first Jeju evacuation fleet.”

“yes?”

He held something out to me.

It was something like an ID card that was crumpled and shriveled up while wet and then dried again, and the particles on the surface fell off, making it impossible to recognize the original.

“I made the first fleet go to China.”

*

“Before the war, I drove a container ship.”

His name on his ID was as worn and damaged as the rest of it, but even with a little care, you could tell that his last name was Kang.

“Is it true that you were on the first evacuation fleet?”

It was a question that I thought was 100% a lie, but Captain Kang nodded as if it was obvious.

If it were Baek Seung-hyun, he would have come out with a fist.

Or maybe I just grabbed him by the collar and threw him into the sea.

“All essential personnel, including the captain, were transferred to another ship last night and returned to Incheon.”

“Is that possible?”

“People on land are no different from babies on the water. If the boat rocks a little, they turn pale and start to get seasick. If the boat tilts a little, they start to howl as if the world is ending. We can rock a boat on a calm sea or tilt it at a very dangerous angle.”

“Really?”

“It’s called zig-zag. If you run it like that at high speed, even the biggest ship will sway as if it had encountered a big swell. No matter how many people are on the ship, we can drive them like a flock of sheep. It’s not like a car. The inertia doesn’t hit you immediately, but the waves gradually build up and hit you like waves, so even if we do this, it’s hard for the passengers to know.”

At this point I sat down next to the old man.

I didn’t find it convincing.

I thought he would just ramble on and on, but he spoke more logically than I expected.

I thought it might be okay to have a little conversation, even if it was just a pointless story.

After all, I have a mission to kill 20 hours and 30 minutes.

“The order we received was to scuttle. The order we received was to make it look like the fleet had been sunk by a Chinese submarine.”

Coincidentally, the street we settled on was not a good street.

Women and girls approached me and made demands for bargaining, making remarks that implied prostitution.

I waved my hand and moved the location, but the place I said I was moving to ended up being Hunter Street behind the research lab.

A few hunters and their families I didn’t know looked at the old man with displeasure, but since they knew my face, no trouble or trouble happened.

“Do you have any evidence?”

This time, I asked the question first.

Captain Kang shook his head.

“There was no contract or anything like that. It was all verbal. We went through the body search machine at the airport so we couldn’t record anything.”

He pointed to the laboratory.

“We made a contract there. Me and the other captains.”

“With who?”

“He didn’t tell me who it was.”

“Are you a woman?”

“I don’t know. The person in charge didn’t show up. But the last name······.”

“yes.”

“Mr. Yang? I think it was Mr. Yang.”

If this person chose that last name at random, he would be a very lucky person.

“I see. So you’re saying that you made a secret contract with the government, applied to be the captain of the first fleet, sent the ship to China, and then returned here?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“There is no evidence?”

“Yes. There is no evidence to leave behind.”

“What about the other captains?”

“I went to Incheon with the sailors. That was the condition.”

“Why did you go to China?”

It’s probably not just my imagination that my voice is getting shriller.

I spoke to the old man out of curiosity, but his consistent lies and testimony made me inexplicably annoyed.

There are topics you can brag about and topics you shouldn’t.

It is common social norm that the deaths of innocent people should not be treated as a lie or a joke.

“Tell me.”

I won’t do something like Baek Seung-hyun, but I’ve decided that I need to get this old man off the street.

“Well, there’s a story behind that.”

Captain Kang looked toward Hunter Street with shadowy eyes.

“······It’s karma that I got hit by those kids.”

Captain Kang let out a sigh as if the ground was collapsing and looked up at the sky.

“I abused my son and my wife severely. I thought my son was not mine. They said he was born in the water, but when I went to the hospital, I saw that he didn’t look like me at all. I only had sex with my wife a few times at the time.”

Why do older people always return to the topic of family when talking about anything?

“What does that son have to do with going to China?”

“When my son was about to go to college, he talked back to me. It was shocking, but I felt like it was coming. I got divorced. I cut ties with my son and my wife. I had no regrets. I had a lot of hidden assets and a new woman. But then, of all days, cancer came knocking.”

“······.”

“I lost my money and everything. I couldn’t even get on a boat. My life was ruined so badly that I started thinking about my son and wife.”

“So. Did you meet again?”

“No. That was the end of it. We never spoke again. All I had was a wedding photo my ex-wife sent me. Then the war broke out, people died, and I came to Incheon. I heard they were recruiting experienced captains.”

“That’s the evacuation fleet.”

“Yes. I thought it was okay whether other people died or not. I heard the real purpose of the fleet on board, and even then I wasn’t particularly surprised. But when I came out after preparing everything, I saw it on the deck.”

Clear beads formed in Captain Kang’s wrinkled eyes.

“It’s his son. He was standing on the deck, holding a baby, with what appeared to be his daughter-in-law, under the lights, looking at the horizon. It was the middle of the night, so there shouldn’t be anything to see. I checked the passenger list right away.”

“Was it there?”

“No. I couldn’t find it. It was on paper and written in a mess. It seemed to be written correctly at first, but from the middle on, it was written in strange symbols like gagyaggyeok and gggyeokkkigyeok. But it was my son······.”

There are words that came out of my throat.

I wanted to ask you if you didn’t think of him as your son.

But is it really necessary to bring up such a story in front of someone you are sure is your son?

“It was time. The government people told us to sink the ship. At that time, I made a representative suggestion. Even if we detonated the explosives, there was a possibility that the ship would not sink, and if the ship went down, we would be in danger of being involved, so instead of sinking the ship, why don’t we send it to China for sure?”

“Is that why you went to China?”

“That will happen.”

The old man hesitated at an unexpected point.

“······If the current helps.”

To begin with, there wasn’t enough fuel.

The Jeju fleet was literally a direct route to death.

Yang Sang-gil.

I don’t know much about him.

He seemed like an ordinary person.

Ability, appearance, everything.

But usually it was ordinary people who committed great sins.

I understand why he did what he did.

Jeju Island doesn’t need people.

But Incheon must be maintained.

Awakening is necessary, but the Awakening tends to be produced in proportion to the population.

All policies after the war were like that.

From lottery tickets to M9’s apartment and the evacuation fleet.

It is a policy that leaves ordinary people stuck in the “human field” by giving them only one carrot called hope.

Now, the people’s labor and taxes are no longer needed, but Incheon, the last refuge, must remain in order to reap the fruits of the population.

Yang Sang-gil will probably be carrying a gun.

All he can do, since he has neither ability nor experience, is take responsibility.

Just like my classmate, Lee Sang Hoon.

“······The person who was here.”

This old man also had to take responsibility for his actions.

“He looks like my son. He looks exactly like him. He was even holding a baby, so I thought my son had returned to Korea instead of China. When I came to the research center to ask him about it, I happened to see him, and when I heard that he was going to the second fleet, I tried to stop him.”

He got up from his seat.

“But that person is gone too. Now I don’t know where to go.”

The old man’s eyes sparkled.

I guess I’ve just figured out where to go.

But he didn’t tell us his destination.

“Is this ship going to China too?”

“no.”

The old man shook his head.

“We’re going into the sea. Just like the original plan.”

“Are you saying that everyone dies?”

“Isn’t that what they want?”

The faces of Baek Seung-hyun and Pilkrum flashed before my eyes.

Is that how they die?

They have lived their lives doing all sorts of ugly and wrong things to survive, but is it their fate to sink in the middle of the ocean?

I thought that was a bit off.

Well, their deaths aren’t all that new, considering billions have already died.

“Thank you.”

The old man bowed his head to me.

“Thank you for listening to this old man’s story until the end.”

He walked towards the dock.

I didn’t say anything.

Instead, I went to Hunter Street and went into the house where Baek Seung-hyun lived and looked around his house.

There are character stickers stuck here and there on the shabby walls, looking like they came from somewhere.

On top of the desk, which was covered in dust, there was a spot that seemed as clean as a lie. Judging from the shape, it was where my laptop had been.

It hasn’t been 20 hours and 30 minutes yet.

I will see the ending here.

Captain Kang’s words are also just an opinion.

*

“Oh, I heard you live in a bunker.”

Bang Jae-hyuk came to see me.

I looked up and saw him lying comfortably half-lying on the bed, staring at me with eyes like blades.

“I wonder if we can live together.”

“What about your mother?”

“What, mother? She passed away.”

“Isn’t that Bang Jae-hyuk from the 15th class?”

“I am Cheon Yeong-jae of the 18th class.”

“······.”

This is one reason why Park Gyu-ga was resented by his juniors.

I don’t quite remember the name.

It remembers faces well, but sometimes makes mistakes when matching them.

It’s similar to how the more sophisticated a machine is, the more likely it is to have errors.

“My bunker is too big for me to live in alone.”

“I’m not asking you to come into your bunker.”

“then?”

“I feel like I want to form a relationship with someone as skilled as you?”

“Are you saying we should form a group?”

“That’s it!”

Bang Jae-hyuk, no, Cheon Young-jae clapped his hands.

“I refuse.”

“why?!”

“Because I’m a bit picky.”

“Wow······. For that reason alone······.”

I looked around.

“Isn’t it nice to live here?”

Cheon Yeong-jae smiled bitterly.

“How long do you think it will take?”

“A thousand years.”

“You know that, don’t you? This barely surviving city doesn’t have much time left. Why wouldn’t the Legion come? They know that if they leave it alone, it will fall apart, so they won’t come.”

“Do you have a K-walkie-talkie?”

“there is.”

“What is your personal identification code?”

“I don’t have anything that luxurious. Oh, I do! I got it from Baekga!”

Cheon Yeong-jae’s eyes sparkled.

“What was it? DARAM?”

“······”

I found myself laughing without realizing it.

So this is how it is.

The radio that my junior had passed through Baek Seung-hyun’s hands and then passed into the hands of my junior’s junior.

I’m not superstitious, but I felt my own destiny and told him about it.

“SKELTON.”

“Scalping?”

“Skeleton.”

Cheon Yeong-jae smiled confidently and spoke to me as if he was making a prophecy.

“I heard you live on the outskirts of Pyeongtaek. When will I come by and bring you a bottle of alcohol?”

“No alcohol, just cola.”

“Coke is good too.”

There were various things going on, but nothing special.

Anyway, 20 hours and 30 minutes passed in peace, boredom, and discomfort.

In the square where people gathered, fireworks announcing the safe arrival of the Hope Ship lit up the night sky.

The people gathered in the square prayed and prayed, each of them putting their wishes into the scattering flames.

Among those countless wishes, a corpse floated up on the dock, but in a world where corpses were more common than wishes, no one paid attention to the corpse.

*

Message from DragonC: Thank you. Thanks to you, I was able to come this far! I will keep my promise, Skeleton. This is a promise I make under my pen name, Pilcrum88.

When I got home and turned on the Internet, I thought the old man’s prediction was wrong.

The ship arrived safely and Pilcrum is still alive and well.

The atmosphere of the bulletin board is the same.

DONGTANMOM : Yum yum! m9. m9. Yum yum!

Baek Seung-hyun. I’m so excited.

mmmmmmmmm: What should we eat for dinner tonight?

M9 is desperately pretending not to see it.

DONGTANMOM: Yum yum! I see it! Jeju Island! Yum yum!

Dongtan Mom stimulates M9 until the end.

“hmm?”

But wait a minute.

Hasn’t the Hope Ship already arrived?

Pilcrum’s message arrived exactly 20 hours and 30 minutes after departure.

DONGTANMOM: (Dongtan Mom Photo Time) Let’s go to Jeju Island together~

Dongtan Mom proudly uploaded a photo.

Beyond the surging sea and the hazy fog, the land was indeed revealing its whitish shape.

mmmmmmmmm: What is that?

M9, who had been gritting his teeth and trying hard to ignore Dongtan Mom, was the first to comment.

mmmmmmmmm: Isn’t that a Chinese sign…?

“uh?”

It’s true.

When you enlarge the photo, you can see signs written in simplified Chinese.

And isn’t that overwhelming skyline, hazy as it is, the same view we saw in Shanghai?

Anonymous848: That’s true. It’s really China.

Anonymous458: Hey. Dongtan Mom. That’s China…

Foxgames: Wow.

SKELTON: (Skeleton shocked)

gijayangban : lol

unicorn18 : ?

…

…

After a brief silence, Dongtan Mom wrote:

DONGTANMOM : Yum…

mmmmmmmmm : Yomnyumnyum~

There is no way to know whether the Hope arrived in Jeju Island or whether the Hope arrived in China.

Maybe there were two Hope ships, or, as Captain Kang said, only the chosen ones were transferred to the other ship.

One thing is certain, this story is not over yet.

DONGTANMOM : Certification

Baek Seung-hyun revealed himself, his baby, and his wife.

DONGTANMOM: Survive.

There is one building and one ship named after Hope.

Although the locations and natures are completely different, in these two hopes, there are people who live for the topic of this era, survival, even at this moment.

DONGTANMOM: I will definitely return alive.

This is another story of hope.