Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 244



Only Krnovel

102. Gray Dystopia (3)

Jeju Island is a completely controlled society.

The Internet, and even the most trivial areas of life, are under the shadow of control and surveillance.

As you walk down the street, you can see surveillance cameras lighting up the street here and there.

Coincidentally, the surveillance camera was made in China.

It’s the same model as the infamous machine I saw in China that could recognize a person’s face and track their every move.

Roll call was also done with the camera. The frame that the camera could recognize was marked on the field in front of the house, and when you stood there, the camera automatically determined whether or not you were present for the roll call.

If anyone did not show up for roll call, a government official would come before lunch.

As difficult as the pervasive surveillance was to bear, the lack of living conditions.

The Jeju government only gave half of everything.

Food and basic necessities were barely enough to sustain life, and medicines could only be prescribed in small quantities through public health centers.

In order to receive more necessities than the ration, I need credit accumulated on the card I received from the community center, but accumulating that credit is not that easy.

To earn a lot of credits, you either have to go to the battlefield or engage in elite work that is comparable to going to the battlefield.

Ordinary people, who are not like that, survive day to day, relying on the meager food and supplies given to them.

Luckily, my card says I have 948,000 credit.

This is a huge amount of money, considering that someone working 10 hours a day in two shifts at a factory earns only 15,000 credits a month.

For reference, a box of ramen you can buy at the supermarket costs 10,000 credits.

Personally, I feel like I was treated unfairly, but the Jeju government showed me their own sincerity.

But having a lot of credit doesn’t mean you’re free from hard labor.

A week had passed by in the blink of an eye as I was absentmindedly spending time in an unfamiliar environment.

“Are you Mr. Park Gyu?”

I headed to the job center next to the community center.

The employee, like most of the civil servants here, was a young man who appeared to be in his early twenties.

“I looked at the resume you submitted before, but um······. It seems like you don’t have any special experience?”

“······.”

I’m tired of explaining things now.

On this island, which is controlled by the lucky Awakens I saw in Gaeseong, our old school hunters are denied everything.

So there is no need to argue or raise your voice.

On this island, I am just an old-fashioned hunter who is behind the times.

The job center official went through the paperwork and told me what I needed to do.

“I looked for jobs that Mr. Park Gyu could do under the given conditions. There was one place left.”

“Where are you?”

At that moment, our eyes met.

The female employee suddenly blinked.

Is there something you are reluctant about?

Soon she cleared her throat and continued with the rest of the story.

“It’s a farm.”

There is nothing else to say and nothing else to talk about.

But before leaving, he pointed to a poster that was also attached to the community center and asked.

“What is that?”

This is a recruitment notice for forward base workers.

It provides free work, study, and training opportunities, as well as a wide range of free time and abundant snacks.

At the time, I just let it go, but when I was actually in a situation where I had to start working, it caught my eye.

The career center official answered with a smile.

“As you can see, we live in a kind of outpost beyond the walls surrounding us. We report when we find mutations or monsters, that’s all.”

Her eyes sparkled as she looked at my records.

“If it’s Mr. Park Gyu, it’s possible! If you have any ideas, please contact me anytime!”

I felt it in that moment.

This woman knows exactly what my career is and what kind of person I am.

*

The farm was located in an area where I lived, surrounded by another wall.

So, it’s a concept almost similar to the beehive in North Korea.

Each space, separated by numerous walls, is given a purpose and the materials and food necessary for survival are produced within it.

The concept is similar, but while North Korea’s hives barely cover a corner of a city, South Korea’s are so huge they cover a third of the island.

This is a scene that clearly shows the gap between South and North Korea.

We headed towards the agricultural area, crossing the thick wall that could withstand even moderate shelling.

Indeed, inside, green crops that are rarely seen in Jeju Island were growing luxuriantly in the well-maintained farmland.

You could see sprinklers turning vigorously everywhere, irrigation canals with fresh water flowing, and even vinyl houses lined up endlessly across the farmland.

“This is where our throats are. There are two food areas, but this one is the most productive.”

While listening to the driver and appreciating the refreshing scenery, at some point a foul smell started to sting my nose.

It smells like animal feces.

As expected, beyond the green pastures, cows and sheep leisurely grazing came into view.

I looked at them and asked.

“Are there any mutations here?”

“Ah, mutations are managed separately.”

“Even so, isn’t it dangerous?”

“Yes. We have also become more sophisticated. If there is an individual among the livestock that has developed a mutation factor, we immediately isolate it and send it to a mutation-specific farm.”

“It’s a mutation farm······.”

“They are big and smart, but they are still animals and their taste is the same. Rather, since they are big, if you slaughter the same cow, you would get more expensive parts like sirloin, right?”

The man behind the wheel looked at me and smirked.

“By the way, I think you were assigned to the mutation farm.”

“······is it so?”

“Yes. It says so in the documents. Are you Mr. Park Gyu?”

“yes.”

The man made a pitiful expression.

“Well, there’s no law that says you have to be transferred to a bad place and die. You can be transferred every year. If you hold out for a year and ask to be transferred to another place, you can go somewhere else.”

It’s easier said than done.

Easier said than done.

“Here it is.”

The electric car stopped and let me go.

“When you leave, you can take the commuter bus with the staff here.”

The vehicle left.

In front of me stood a huge barn that was roughly three times larger than the other barns.

There is no one guarding it or passing by.

All that can be felt is the horrible stench that permeates the barn.

I walked slowly to the entrance.

Whew Whew Whew—-

A strange murmur is heard inside the barn.

The sound box itself looks different from any animal I know, so I’m guessing it’s probably a mutation sound.

Such things resounded like a sinister chorus, one after another.

I climbed the stairs and entered the office amidst the strange hum.

There were several people keeping watch inside the office.

One of them, a balding man wearing glasses, turned to me and asked curtly.

“who are you?”

For a moment I felt surprised.

At least 40 years old.

He is an older person.

Not only that, but the people here are generally older.

Some were in their 50s and others looked to be in their 60s.

“I am the person who was assigned here today.”

“Oh, really? Just a moment.”

The man was fiddling around with his computer.

He was not familiar with computers, so he stared at the monitor for a long time before he finally got up from his seat and looked at me.

“Ah. That’s true. A new recruit has finally arrived!”

His name was Chief Han Chang-hee.

He is the manager of this barn.

He gave me a little orientation while a large crowd of people my age watched.

“As you can see, it’s a barn. But it’s a barn that handles special animals. Well, it might be difficult at first. They look similar to the beasts we know, but they’re completely different. But it’s not dangerous. We’ve taken perfect safety measures. The work, well, it’s not that dangerous, even if you have prejudices. In fact, if you look at the absolute amount of work, our barn has much less work to do than a regular barn. That’s something that Park Gyu-ssi will know when he compares working here to people working in regular barns.”

Contrary to first impressions, he was a kind person.

I guess I felt like they valued me.

It’s not just that I like it, but I have a strong feeling that this person is desperately needed.

He looked at my face and asked slyly.

“······Do you have a rough idea of ​​what a mutation is?”

“yes.”

“Have you ever seen it in person?”

“I’ve seen it a few times.”

“Yes. That’s better. They are dangerous, but here they can’t do us any harm. As I said before, we have perfect safety measures in place. They can’t go even an inch outside of our enclosure. The moment they leave our enclosure, my heart stops!!”

Han Chang-hee stood up from his seat.

It looks like they want to go to the celebration together.

I got up from my seat and followed him.

As we walked down the hall, he continued to describe the excellence of this church.

“The more you know about it, the more comfortable it becomes. But people, when they come here, they are always scared, intimidated, and intimidated. They are just animals.”

“······.”

“But if you slaughter them, you can eat a lot of good meat. Large intestines! Tenderloin! Sirloin! Short ribs! Kukki! You can eat all these things until you’re full. It’s on a whole other level than what you get from regular livestock. Even if you hit them hard, you can hit them even harder.”

At the end of the hallway, a heavy iron door with a hatch blocked our path, half-shrouded in darkness.

Han Chang-hee opened the hatch in front of the door and looked at me.

“If I may ask you one thing······.”

He, who had been smiling brightly, suddenly rolled his eyes and took on a serious expression.

Soon he continued, glaring at me with a stiff expression he had never shown me before.

“Just forget what you see inside. Just ignore what you hear. It’s probably easier to just think of it as a nightmare.”

“······.”

It’s a nightmare.

Does this person know?

That I am someone who escaped from a nightmare?

Squeak-

The hatch opened and a hidden mutation breeding facility appeared before me.

My first impression was that it wasn’t much different from any other breeding facility I knew.

There are cages divided into compartments on the left and right of a large central hallway, and each cage contains one animal.

As Han Chang-hee said, it is no different from a regular barn that has been enlarged.

“Look. It’s no different, right?”

I went down the stairs with Han Chang-hee.

The next moment, something eerie happened.

The mutations – mostly made up of cows – all started looking at us.

At that point, I was convinced that I would never forget this scene and that it would probably recur in my nightmares.

It might have been better if it had ended there.

Whew Whew Whew—

The cows made strange noises.

That’s the muttering I heard outside the barn.

“Here we go again. These kids! Mr. Park Gyu. Just ignore me.”

Han Chang-hee kicked the railing.

A loud roar echoed through the barn, but it couldn’t drown out the roar of the giant beast ten times larger than us.

And that mumbling.

“?”

It gradually took on a specific form.

Han Chang-hee looked at me.

“Ah. Just. I told you to ignore it!”

Beyond his frowning face, a sound I knew and could say was clearly lodged in my eardrums.

“I···························.”

“Kill······me······.”

“U······Kill······.”

“Kill me······. Give me······.”

The cows are talking.

They are begging us to kill them.

You can tell by looking into their eyes.

The giant cows understand exactly what the humans are saying.

We met hundreds of eyes looking at us through the cursed cows’ words.

A mutation cow caught my eye as if by fate.

It looked at me with tear-filled eyes and pleaded with me.

“Kill me.”

On its chest, a blood-dripping iron chain was still attached, piercing the skin and deep into the flesh.

“······.”

That day, I applied for a posting to a forward base.

*

The vehicle was climbing the mountain.

This is the foot of Mt. Halla, one of the sacred mountains of our nation.

As I was blankly gazing toward the distant mountain peaks towering toward the sky, the officer sitting next to me suddenly opened his mouth.

“You’re unlucky.”

He was looking at me with pitying eyes.

“Of all the forward bases, why the 328th Outpost······.”

He read my resume and asked me a question.

“You don’t have a criminal record······. Do you have any record of your superiors?”

“Why do you think so?”

“No, they send you to a mutation farm right from your first job. If you say you don’t like it, they send you to a place where people get swept away whenever they get a chance.”

It asked me, blinking its eyes unnaturally.

“Can’t you see that he’s intent on screwing over everyone?”

There is one person I can guess.

My classmate. This is Gong Kyung-min.

I broke up with that guy on bad terms.

He probably holds a high position in Jeju.

So I tried not to think about him as much as possible and I didn’t even bother to tell anyone his name.

Just like how I used to not even think about Kang Han-min and Na Hye-in’s names and try not to even mention them.

It’s my own escape, but I know it.

“······.”

That my escape had no effect on reality.

The military vehicle put me down with the load.

He asked, looking at the carrier.

“What is this?”

“This is the food and ammunition that Mr. Park Gyu will need for a week.”

“Is this a personal item?”

“yes.”

“Am I the only one writing this?”

The officer nodded.

“The person assigned to this outpost is Mr. Park Gyu.”

“is it so?”

He asked, looking towards the outpost.

“What about your predecessors?”

At this, the officer shook his head and sighed.

“I hope Mr. Park Gyu is stronger than them.”

I climbed the steep slope carrying a carrying pole.

Beyond the undulating sight, a faded concrete building is visible.

“······.”

Did I end up coming back to this place after going around and around again?

I thought again about the resolution I had made from the moment I set foot on Jeju Island.

The plan is to return to the mainland.

It won’t be easy.

No, it will be a very difficult path.

however.

“hmm?”

At the entrance, you see something familiar.

I know that machine very well, half-buried in the dirt and covered in layers of dust, as if it had been abandoned for a long time.

“obelisk?”

It’s satellite internet equipment.

He carried the load on his back and immediately entered the outpost.

There were still bloodstains inside the outpost that hadn’t been completely erased, but that alone wasn’t enough to stop my heart from pounding.

I have a laptop.

It is for upper level communication.

He threw his load off the wall like he was carrying a load and searched and searched like a madman through the wall filled with trash and debris.

“under!”

He lifted the cable with a smile that was no different from that of a madman.

This is an internet connection cable.

The obelisk’s power is off.

To be exact, someone picked it out.

That was quite a while ago too.

Could this be a device that was used for a while before satellite internet became known?

I checked the obelisk and verified my internet connection.

It’s rising.

A signal indicating that an Internet connection has been established has appeared!

I logged onto the Internet, feeling all the joys I had forgotten fill my heart with happiness.

“······.”

He just sat down in his seat.

It’s a good thing there’s dirt on your butt and blood on your feet.

I can’t check my expression because I don’t look in the mirror, but right now, at this moment, don’t I look happier than anyone else?