Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 25
Only Krnovel
22. Remnants (1)
According to the foreign language transcription method announced by the Ministry of Education in 1986, foreign names should be written according to the local pronunciation.
In China, I did not follow this rule, and the reasons are complex.
At that time, I didn’t even try to learn or understand their language.
Because we were unwelcome guests and had come for an unwelcome purpose.
Our goal was not to save China.
The order I received from the government was to collect data on the types and behaviors of monsters appearing in high-intensity rifts, the changes occurring in the rift area, and especially the impact they had on humans.
As a result, they avoided the battles they desperately needed by making all sorts of excuses and only chose the areas and battles we wanted.
It is true that the vast experience and data I gained there were of great help to Korea’s defense later on, and it is also true that it contributed to making me a doomsday activist.
There was a man in China named Ma Won-gap.
He was just an ordinary resident of the eroded zone, but when he saw monsters passing by him without any hostility, he had a great awakening and, as is often the case with people who have achieved great enlightenment, he founded a new religion.
The name of the new religion was greatly ridiculed by the Chinese people I worked with, who said it was the kind of name a jobless person who would sit around in the corner of his room and watch fairy tales or martial arts novels would come up with.
But despite their ridicule, the Wanliu Guizong religion spread quickly in the eroded areas and followed a similar trajectory to the pseudo-religion that destroyed the Qing Dynasty.
Among the hunters dispatched to Korea, there were some who killed more cultists than monsters.
Maybe the Defender wasn’t that good of a rider.
Now, Ma Won-gap, his religion, and his followers have all been burned in the flames of destruction, but things that burn have similar properties.
Rather than running away like a tree in a forest, for example, stand still and wait for yourself to burn.
Someone I know had that kind of flammability.
*
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sound of gunfire is heard from afar.
Here we go again.
They said on the radio that they were negotiating.
Two years and two months have passed since the war began.
There’s still no contact with Kim Da-ram.
I checked the weather outside and it was minus 5 degrees.
The weather feels colder than usual, perhaps because of the nuclear war that occurred across the globe last year.
I got up inside the heated tent, washed up, and prepared a meal.
For breakfast, I had half a head of cabbage that I harvested recently.
I roughly cut them up and tore them apart with my hands to eat them one by one.
Before the war, it was unimaginable that one could eat just one cabbage for a meal, but now that we are tired of canned and preserved foods, cabbage is a relatively fresh seasonal delicacy.
I ate my fill of food and looked around through binoculars.
Another group of refugees heads south past the golf course.
Is that direction where the sniper mother and daughter live?
You might hear gunshots any minute.
After finishing the meal, I took a light patrol around the area to help with digestion.
There is no special abnormality.
It may be a bit too hasty of a conclusion, but won’t today be a peaceful day?
Unlike our peaceful neighborhood, a civil war is raging in Seoul.
The war that will change the fate of the Republic of Korea is taking millions of its citizens hostage, and even at this very moment, fire and rain are being poured on each other, causing a slaughter.
The civil war did not only have negative effects.
At least for me it’s a short-term windfall.
As soon as the civil war began, refugees appeared, but those damned pioneers disappeared.
Since the Pioneer Corps was under military control, wouldn’t they have been dragged into the battlefield?
However, it is hard to find stories about the civil war within the community. Sometimes, the only things that are mentioned are photos taken when shells fall near the house.
It’s a sea change considering that before the civil war broke out, civil war stories were all over the message boards.
The direct cause may be the silence of the reporter who was relaying information from Seoul, but in fact, at this point in time, the civil war is a topic that does not need to be discussed.
Because it has already happened and there is nothing we can do about it, and above all, the civil war is directly connected to our heavy reality.
Whoever wins, whoever takes power, whoever controls Seoul, the aftermath will greatly shake our lives.
And in a very bad way.
Maybe that’s why.
The community was filled with bright and lighthearted stories unrelated to the civil war.
It is a tacit agreement, let’s call it a denial of reality.
I too joined in the collective aversion by posting meaningless posts.
SKELTON: (Skeleton sound) Skeleton’s beatbox 23
As those free days continued, a huge incident occurred that shook the entire bulletin board.
As expected, big things are done by big guys.
Dragon, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the bulletin board and former webtoon writer, has announced a new series.
DragonC: As I’m about to start my latest work, “The Remant”.
DragonC’s latest work, Remnant, which means remnant or dregs, is, in a word, the story of us, the doomsday people.
As is often the case with those who set foot on the creative path and make a living from it, Dragon C has now prepared his final masterpiece that will make him immortal, and he has chosen as its subject the last of humanity, who will soon die or disappear.
That alone would have turned the entire bulletin board upside down, but Dragon went one step further.
As if to put into practice the idea that art is a reflection of reality, Dragon C posted an advertisement to recruit leading and supporting actors from among our community members.
DragonC: “The Remnant” Casting Announcement
1. Have a personality and background that is worth telling a story about.
2. If you have family or neighbors and have an episode about them, you will be given extra points.
3. Preference for women
4. It doesn’t matter if your face is ugly, I’ll adapt it to your needs.
*Please refrain from making false statements.
“······Huh.”
The moment I first saw this notice, I smiled proudly for the first time in a long time.
It can’t be helped.
This is totally the condition for me, right?
Of course, excluding numbers 3 and 4.
I have a personality, a background, neighbors, and countless episodes to tell stories about.
I’m currently being branded as an unpopular user and I’m struggling, but if I can appear in Dragon C’s latest work, not only will I gain a good reputation on the bulletin board, I might even become immortal.
My personal information, Park Gyu’s, is top secret, but what good is that in a country that’s in ruins?
Without a moment’s hesitation, I wrote a new top secret document and sent it to Dragon.
– From the 13th class of the Hunter Training Institute “Guard” (graduated at the top of his class)
-Former S-rank hunter (highest rank before level zero change)
-Worked in Beijing, China for 5 years, call sign “Professor”
– Great contribution to the discovery of mutation mechanism
-Teacher Johnna
-Have neighbors too (including a cute girl)
…
…
When I sent my application via text message, I had no doubt that the lead role would be a given.
There was so much free time that I could fill in every blank space, even without mentioning the provocative topic of the Defender siblings.
The reply came within a minute.
Isn’t it too early?
No, maybe he was impressed by my brilliant career and contacted me as soon as he saw my information.
Message from DragonC: Are you kidding?
“?”
SKELTON: This is not a joke. This is real.
Message from DragonC: You want me to believe that nonsense? Even if it was written by a grade schooler, it would be better than that.
SKELTON: Not a birth, but a sickle.
Message from DragonC: Isn’t your weird header and “Nat” your only unique feature? Anyway, thanks for the support, but please don’t lie.
SKELTON: (Skeleton is upset) No, it’s true.
Message from DragonC: Don’t be stubborn. You don’t have anything to talk about.
SKELTON: Actually, I’m a woman······
Message from DragonC: Block me?
For some unclear reason, my appearance was canceled, but in fact, I wasn’t the only one who got ripped off.
A lot of users were rejected from the casting, some of whom I know well.
Defender: With my personality, you could give me a supporting role, right? Right?
Defender also showed considerable enthusiasm for appearing in Remnant, but Dragon C, as someone who serialized on a national portal site, tended to adhere to the review standards and avoid provocative material other than school violence.
By that standard, the defender would obviously be out.
However, the Defender was quite persistent and Dragon C gave him a public rebuke, which was unusual for him.
DragonC: Defender keeps sending me DMs, but you shouldn’t appear on the show. If you appear, the genre will change.
Defender: What genre?
DragonC: Is it a psychopath thriller or a splatter movie?
Defender: ㅠㅠ
It was only natural that the defender who had been hit by Dragon C would send me a message.
Message from Defender: Skeleton. What if I reveal that I’m a woman?
SKELTON: Are you my little brother?
Message from Defender: Did you miss me?
SKELTON: What about your brother?
Message from Defender: That guy wants to be in a comic. I don’t even watch his comics. To be honest, Dragon. His comics are so boring.
SKELTON: It’s true that it’s not fun.
Message from Defender: Right?
Defender is a strange guy, but he won’t reveal his identity.
Revealing the Defender siblings means giving up one of the killer siblings’ special moves, a male and a female, working in pairs.
Anyway, unlike Defender, whose appearance in Remnant has been blocked forever, I still have a secret weapon left.
That finishing move is also written on the casting application sent to Dragon-ssi, and it is none other than the sniper mother and daughter who live in the southeast.
If you take a picture with them and send them a touching story, wouldn’t Dragon-ssi react?
He immediately contacted the sniper mother and daughter and told them to pull out the bull’s horn in one go.
“Skeleton? What’s going on?”
“Can I see you for a moment?”
“What about medicine?”
“What medicine?”
“Morphine, fentanyl, etc.”
They say that a dog that has been trained for three months can recite poetry, and the sniper’s Korean has also improved considerably.
Since my daily job is listening to the radio or walkie-talkie on the roof of a building, it can’t help but be boring.
“Skeleton!”
My daughter welcomed me.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, but I might see you soon.
Because Christmas is coming soon.
“Skeleton, what did you eat today?”
“napa cabbage.”
“Cabbage? What is that?”
“So it’s raw kimchi?”
“Raw kimchi?”
As we were talking with a happy smile on our faces,
“approximately.”
The mother blocks the way.
“If you take medicine, we won’t meet.”
“Just one second. Take a picture. Okay? Chocolate!”
Communication was lost.
The operation failed.
There’s nothing I can do.
Drugs are only a last resort when surgery or extreme pain cannot be overcome.
Even I had a hard time getting it and only have a small quantity, so I can’t just give it away for such a trivial reason.
By the way, I wonder if that mother and daughter will be able to fly properly this winter?
Food aside, surviving two Korean winters wouldn’t be an easy task.
Anyway, this is how my ambitious webtoon appearance ended in failure.
*
Three days after that.
So that was the day when a fighter jet flying over my head was hit by a missile, torn apart in midair, and crashed to the west.
Dragon C has announced the protagonist of Remnant.
The protagonist, surprisingly, was one of the few people I knew well and whose face I had seen in the community.
DragonC: The main character of “The Remnant” has been decided to be Kyle_Dos!
It’s Kyle Doss.
He was active on bulletin boards frequently, had a good reputation, and was also part of friendly families such as Anonymous848 and Anonymous458.
But that’s exactly the level of users.
There’s nothing particularly to dislike about it, but it doesn’t have any major advantages either.
Even when I met him in person to get the capsule, he was just an ordinary South Korean man in his early 30s.
He was definitely not a hunter, nor was he a trained soldier.
What on earth made him so special that he moved Dragon’s heart?
The reason was stated in the post written by Kyle Doss himself.
Kyle_Dos: Actually, I picked up my wife a while ago.
The story begins shortly after I collected the capsules from around the bunker.
With his worries lifted, Kyledos, like any seasoned doomsday man, conducted intense patrols around the bunker every day, refusing to allow even the slightest change.
Then one day it happened.
It was probably late spring, Kyledos remembers.
Kyledos encountered something he had forgotten, but always thought about.
She’s a woman.
Young, attractive, and above all, in need of protection.
The story of a fateful meeting between a man with an eccentric personality and an attractive woman, who have difficulties with each other but become close and eventually become one, has the virtues of a universal story as well as an intense pheromone that stimulates the fantasies of lonely men.
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