Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 187



Only Krnovel

Episode 187

87. Unknown Number (1)

Even when I was young, I used to get calls from numbers I didn’t know.

It seems that a secret expectation remained in my young and innocent heart that the owner of the unknown number might be someone I longed for and had forgotten about.

As Internet phishing and advertising became more rampant and people increasingly used SNS and messengers instead of phone calls to communicate with each other, I began to avoid receiving unknown numbers, and by the time I returned to Korea, I barely answered them at all.

This is because most of them were meaningless things like advertisements and opinion polls, and sometimes there were even some suspicious suggestions that bordered on treason and crime.

There was a person who called me and knew my personal information, which was supposed to be kept top secret.

They appeared to be Chinese agents or brokers working for them, and they contacted my old number and made a standard offer to me to visit China.

But I don’t remember having any trouble because of that.

As a professional debtor, I only use 3 cell phones, so I always turn off the phone with my old number, and most of those malicious calls come from my old phone.

But how would you feel if you got a call from an unknown number during the apocalypse?

Last night, after I finished showering, I was soaking dried food in water for dinner.

I received a call from an unknown personal identification number.

Personal Identification Number: 7_CORP_CMD

I didn’t receive that call.

*

Unlike before the war, it is extremely difficult to identify someone using only their personal identification number.

Let’s assume there is a person.

He is a person who knows Park Gyu from his professor days, but does not know Park Gyu from his Skeleton days.

That person doesn’t even know that Park Gyu uses the Internet.

Let’s assume that the unknown person is looking for Park Gyu through a K-walkie-talkie with a personal identification number.

He probably won’t call me with his personal identification number, PROFESSOR?

If that doesn’t work, I’ll add a number after my professor, or my year of birth, or my year in school, etc.

But in no case will that person be able to deduce that my personal identification number is SKELOTN.

Me too.

It is impossible to identify a person just by looking at their personal identification number, which I do not know.

If you write your own name openly like Kim Da-ram, it might be different.

For that reason, I don’t know the person named 7_CORP_CMD who suddenly contacted me.

However, the personal identification number called 7_CORP_CMD itself seems to have its own meaning.

Translated into Korean, it is the 7th Corps Command.

The 7th Corps was hastily organized to secure strategic points in North Korea during the fall of North Korea, and was mainly composed of reserve volunteers and contract soldiers.

Even the Diesira I blocked must have belonged to the 7th Legion.

They quickly occupied Pyongyang and Gaeseong, which had become a no man’s land, but because the level of destruction in North Korea was so serious, they had no choice but to retreat with only their men, and the corps, which had become useless, was disbanded.

But why did the radio of the disbanded legion contact me by specifically identifying my personal identification number?

I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

I thought of my junior, Kim Da-ram.

She’s one of the few people who knows my personal identification number, and she’s also connected to the military.

Wouldn’t it be most likely that she, a member of the Legion, received an unused radio and contacted me through it?

Beep- beep- beep-

The radio rang again.

It’s a distinctive signal tone that I hear when I get a call using my unique personal identification number.

The sender has been confirmed.

Personal Identification Number: 7_CORP_CMD

It’s the same number as before.

My conclusion is clear.

You must not be contacted.

The best way to protect myself from Kim Da-ram is to become a dead person.

For that, they even dug a bunker next to it to let the Sega fall in.

Beep- beep- beep-

As before, the calls continued for a while.

It got disconnected once, but then it called me again after a short interval.

Beep- beep- beep-

Maybe it would be a good idea to turn the radio off for a moment.

As my thoughts reached that point, the caller used a feature of the K-Walkie-Talkie that I had forgotten about.

Beep- beep beep beep- beep— beep beep beep—

It’s Morse code.

K-Walkie-Talkie supports Morse code function so that communication can be made even when the microphone is broken. It does not simply send Morse code, but also supports a function that displays the interpreted sentence on the LCD when the other party contacts you using Morse code so that even people who do not know Morse code can use it.

The beeping sound that had been ringing for quite some time was replaced with the following sentence:

I am B. Line break.

The current situation is not good. Line break.

My son noticed the line break.

I contacted them before I went there. Line break.

This is a very urgent matter and I need your response. End.

The moment I saw that sentence, I thought that the person calling me might not be Kim Da-ram.

The Kim Da-ram I know is the kind of person who would go find someone in person or hold a grudge if they didn’t hear from him. He’s definitely not the kind of person who would nag using petty means like Morse code.

Beep- beep- beep-

The signal rang again.

What should I do?

After thinking about it carefully, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just get in touch with Kim Da-ram if he’s still this persistent in his search?

If she’s this persistent, she’ll try to find me somehow.

Maybe it’s in my area.

Before making contact, I carefully checked my surroundings through the periscope.

There is nothing and no trace of it.

Finally, after much thought, I accepted the call, holding the culprit that broke the silence of my bunker in my hand.

As soon as the communication was accepted, the radio started emitting a voice so loud that it made my body tremble slightly.

“No, why aren’t you answering my calls?”

The voice that came out of the radio was that of a middle-aged man, with a hint of irritation and anger, but also a sense of strength and solidity.

One thing is certain, it is an unknown voice.

It’s the voice of someone I’ve never heard before in my life.

I responded to the man’s words with a questioning tone.

“Who are you? Who are you to keep contacting me?”

Then a somewhat bewildered question rang out from the other side.

“Who are you?”

“yes?”

“Oh, that’s fine! Change the watch!”

“Yukyung?”

“Isn’t that Jeon Yu-kyung?”

“no.”

Should I say it’s disgusting or should I say it’s ridiculous?

It was a misdialed call.

In the age of destruction, who would have thought that a call would come in the wrong number, not even an easily confusing number, but an alphabetic personal identification number system.

I waited for the man’s next words with a bitter smile.

“No, why is a random guy answering my phone! Where did Jeon Yu-kyung go?”

The man raised his voice.

I’m not a bad tempered person, but it didn’t seem like anything would be solved by getting angry together, so I asked back calmly, unlike the man.

“Who are you? Calm down and tell me the whole story. I think there’s a misunderstanding, so let’s clear it up first.”

The man must have felt that what I said was valid, because he took a moment to catch his breath and then responded to the call in a more composed voice than before.

“This is Lieutenant General Bang Soo-byun, commander of the 7th Army Corps.”

7th Army Corps? Water defense system?

I don’t know the name of the Bangsu-byeon, but I know that the 7th Army Corps was disbanded.

“The 7th Corps must have been disbanded.”

“I was resurrected from the Legion Faction. You know about the Legion Faction, right?”

“Oh, yes. I know.”

“Anyway, I’ve told you my rank and name, so tell me yours too. Including why you’re holding Yu-gyeong’s walkie-talkie.”

“My name is Baek Seung-hyun. My occupation is a freelance hunter.”

I feel a little sorry for Baek Seung-hyun, but he is out of the reach of the Legion faction even if they try to harm him.

He is also a real person.

Besides, isn’t it all thanks to me that he uses the Internet now and has become popular on the Internet?

Thinking like that, I continued speaking a little shamelessly.

“I don’t know who Yoo Kyung is, and this radio was acquired by this Baek Seung Hyun on his own.”

“Do you think I would believe that?”

“No, believe it or not, this is true, so what can I do? Who on earth is that woman named Yu-gyeong? Is she your wife? Or your daughter?”

“Not my daughter.”

“wife?”

“Oh, that’s fine.”

Although Bang Su-byeon’s words were vague, he seemed to know what kind of woman Jeon Yu-gyeong was.

Maybe a concubine?

I’ve even heard it said that it’s fashionable for legionnaire generals to have a concubine.

Anyway, regardless of my doubts, the general on the other side is also full of doubts.

“How on earth did you get a radio? If you’re a freelance hunter, you’re probably an old-school hunter, but I don’t think old-school hunters were given Korean-style radios before the war.”

Here, I briefly explained how, back in the old days when Seoul was still alive, I had sold my connections to get a walkie-talkie and had a personal identification number assigned to me by an acquaintance of a member of the National Assembly.

Of course, I didn’t tell anyone that the person who gave me the personal identification number was Kim Da-ram.

Instead, he mentioned Lee Sang-hoon’s name.

“Lee Sang Hoon? Ah.”

Bang Su-byeon seemed to know Lee Sang-hoon.

“That worthless bastard.”

“······.”

“for a moment.”

He jotted down his memories.

“Was it Scarlett?”

The moment I heard that muttering, I chuckled.

“It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with skeletons.”

“I don’t know why, but I’ve seen that phrase often. Anyway, I’ll try contacting you using your personal identification number, Scarlett.”

The person who unilaterally contacted Bang Su-byeon unilaterally cut off contact.

I know that the “generals” within the Legion Faction have high prestige, but Bang Su-byeon also seems to have the average personality of those noble generals.

Anyway, the mastermind who briefly disturbed the silence of my bunker soon committed another terrorist act called contacting me.

I really didn’t want to receive the call, but I did.

“I think it’s a skeleton?”

“No. I’m saying it’s not me. If I cry, will I become Yoo-kyung?”

“There’s no response from Scarlett. Judging from the sound pattern I’m hearing, either there’s no number, or the radio is off.”

“Don’t you think I turned off the radio?”

“That can’t be. Yu-kyung is different from other women. She only looks at me, listens to what I say, and always treats me with sincerity. She’s on a completely different level from the untrustworthy subordinates, the vicious wife, and the children that she brainwashed.”

“Oh, is that so······?”

This makes it certain.

The woman named Jeon Yu-gyeong appears to be the concubine of a woman named General Bang Su-byeon.

It seems that he is so obsessed with her that he even spews out curses at his wife and children.

So that’s why he’s been contacting me so persistently.

At least it is certain that this person is not Kim Da-ram.

“Tell me honestly. Mr. Baek Seung-hyun. Jeon Yu-kyung, are you here?”

K-Walkie-Talkie has special features.

This is a function that roughly estimates the distance to the other party with whom you are currently communicating by calculating the location of the received radio wave using an input formula.

Although this is a feature that is mainly meaningful on public frequencies, it can also be useful for people like General Bang, who are virtually no different from anyone you encounter on public frequencies.

Our current distance is medium distance.

This means that it is at least 50km away.

General Bang will also be well aware of that fact.

“Do you know how to check the distance with a walkie-talkie?”

“I know. I knew everything and contacted you.”

“No, if you don’t believe me, you can catch a live person. Take your men and go to my house or Jeon Yu-gyeong’s house. You said you were a general? There should be a few of them, right? If I’m at Jeon Yu-gyeong’s house, I won’t blame you whether you kill me or bury me alive. Go check it out for yourself!”

I tried to be polite and courteous to the other person, but my emotions exploded at the end.

I don’t know if it was because of my strong language or because General Bang realized his own haste, but Bang Su-byeon politely changed his attitude.

“Mr. Baek Seung-hyun. No, Hunter Baek Seung-hyun.”

“······What is it?”

“I know I was really rude. I apologize. But I’m really, really sorry. You said you were a Hunter, right? And a real Hunter from the Guard, not a fake like Awaken.”

When someone suddenly starts saying nice things to you, it means they are trying to take advantage of you.

I watched the clear truth unfold before my eyes, silently waiting to hear what this so-called general had to say.

“Can you go to Jeon Yu-kyung’s house for a bit instead of me? I’d like to go myself, but I can’t do that right now. Besides, it doesn’t seem that far from there. I’ll bet my favor. Seriously! I’ll bet my name on Bang Su-byeon.”

As expected, he asks for a favor.

“······I sent a female soldier to the hideout with her. And I sent her with enough supplies to last her a lifetime. Luxury goods, luxury cars, wine, food, medicine, electronics, fuel, everything. More than enough to last the monsters until they’ve had their fill of trouble and gone back into their cracks.”

“······.”

“I’ll say it again, it’s not a difficult request. Go to the hideout I tell you about and check if that woman is there. Whether she’s alive or dead. Or not······.”

“What if there is another man?”

I think it’s a pretty mischievous question.

But this question touches closely on possible realities.

General Bang continued speaking without getting angry, as if his judgment was completely clouded.

“Then report that to me. I’ll go there. I’ll go and give you the case myself. So, Baekhunter, you don’t have to do anything. Just report. It’s reconnaissance. It’s not a military area, and as far as I know, there’s only one female bodyguard.

“There are no monster strongholds or thug dens nearby. The area around here is a wasteland with nothing.”

If you just look at the content, it’s not that dangerous of a request.

I’m not really expecting a favor, but it’s true that I’m attracted to this general’s status.

Legionnaire General.

If I could have this many connections, wouldn’t Kim Da-ram not be able to touch me?

But according to the Morse code interpretation he sent me, this man’s situation doesn’t seem so easy.

You will naturally learn more detailed information as you make your request.

“Where are you?”

At least it’s more productive than killing time in a bunker.

End

ⓒ Road Warrior#

(Main comments)

(Grape**) -Recommendation 65-

I can’t help but suspect that he’s doing skeletons, but he seems to be just bored…

(Sha**) -Recommendation 61-

In the end, the story started because Skeleton was bored,,,

(Bureo**) -Recommendation 44-

Is it because the apocalypse setting is so suspicious?

Asking me to check area A, but it all sounds like a lie

It’s not like they just gave me the general title with an identification code.

There may be an intention to check if there is a problem in area A.

(properly**) -Recommendation38-

This skeleton guy looks like he’s going to die from the apocalypse

I’m bored so I’m taking on the quest. If I were a professor, I’d ignore it. Seriously.

(One Two**) -Recommendation 30-

In these times, we have moved food and luxury items that will last a lifetime to the rear?

Monsters enter the road through the crack?

I don’t know if this guy is a general who doesn’t understand the situation or is just joking, but it doesn’t seem like anything good will come of getting involved.

(Luo**) – Recommended 26

Since you’ve already impersonated Baek Seung-heon, are you going to copy his speech a little bit too?

(Ran**) -Recommendation 25-

In the apocalypse

Tell a stranger where there are plenty of supplies

Asking someone to find you is almost like asking someone to kill you.

If it’s an unusual request, there’s a high chance it’s a trap.