Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 250



Only Krnovel

103. Struggle (6)

It was the beginning of the time when the existence of Awaken, led by Kang Han-min and Na Hye-in, was becoming known to the world, and new Awakens would soon appear one after another following them.

Still, our old school hunters were the core of the hunter world and the most important on the monster front.

Even though all indicators suggested that we would be relegated to the past and washed away, we made our own plans to survive.

While many of the ideas were mundane but costly and time-consuming, such as more efficient tactics, the development of futuristic equipment like exosuits, and the deployment of cutting-edge Chinese drones, there were also more radical suggestions, such as enhancement drugs or genetic engineering.

It is true that the majority of our self-help measures consist of strengthening the Old School Hunter itself, as in the examples listed above, but some rather creepy methods were also presented behind the scenes.

The idea was to consider all Awaken as mutated beings and include them in the category of enemies we must kill.

Looking at it now, it seems like a thoroughly Chinese claim, but in reality, the first place this movement emerged was the United States.

To give a brief background, it’s a common story about a large corporation that was making a lot of money from monsters, but was about to go under with the appearance of the Awaken, so they lobbied politicians, and the politicians exerted influence over the military and the Hunter organization.

We also developed tactics against Awaken.

I didn’t get involved directly, but I know that it has progressed quite significantly, with Jang Gi-yeong at the center.

But soon after, the budget was cut off and the away system was introduced, leaving everyone unemployed.

Still, some of the helpful lessons derived from it still stick in my mind.

How Awaken perceive humans, how clairvoyants see things and their limitations, how to avoid being detected by Awaken with limited mind reading, and theoretical countermeasures against Awaken of level 5 and above.

I don’t know what level of Awaken those approaching me now are.

The ones revealed are low-level Awaken, but there is talk that there may be level 5 or higher Awaken among them.

But there won’t be much difference.

The battlefield I have chosen is a narrow maze covered in rubble and rocks, where close combat will often occur.

“I’m in there! I’m alone!”

The atmosphere is definitely different than before.

Unlike before, when the country quietly and covertly hunted its prey and returned, this time they came with a large number of people to kill the country itself.

“Ahh!”

A faint scream echoes from beyond the wall.

Looks like I’m trapped.

At the very least, your ankle will be broken and you will either die or become ill with a fatal disease.

Because the trap was filled with rusty pieces of iron and dirty glass like the teeth of a wild beast.

The insole of a sneaker would have gone through easily and made a hole in the sole of the foot.

“AAAAAH! F*ck! It hurts so much! It hurts so much!”

The screams of pain continued to be heard, and I was reaffirmed that the other person was young.

Just because someone is young doesn’t mean they are good or innocent.

I think that human purity is not something that is given to us at birth, but is the result of education and care.

Ignorance and inexperience are surprisingly often confused with innocence.

“······.”

I stayed in one place quietly, waiting for the enemy to appear before me.

In the grand Awaken tactic, the most threatening ones are the Awakens with transcendent specs like Kang Min, but realistically, the most annoying ones are the ones with the sensor ability.

We’ve done a lot of research into ways to exploit the sensing abilities of those with sensing abilities, and the conclusions we’ve reached are largely the same.

No matter what we do, there is no way to escape their eyes, so let’s use their abilities to our advantage.

Knowing where your opponent is doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win the fight.

Ultimately, the one who wins the fight is the one who is better trained and better prepared.

I’ll tell that fact to my young friends.

Jeobuk-

The enemies approached the outpost.

I waited silently for them to come.

“Stay inside!”

There are no windows on the first floor of the outpost.

It is surrounded by concrete walls on all sides, and the concrete is quite thick.

It means that even if you shoot a hundred times with a rifle, it won’t penetrate.

Squeak–

They opened the door.

At that point I figured there were at least eight people approaching the outpost.

A significant difference.

But I decided not to think about that number.

What I have to do is simple.

Killing each and every one of the guys that appear in front of me.

“Over there, beyond the wall!”

bang!

They kicked down the door.

But the door was locked.

It was done on purpose.

Because they don’t realize that it’s a trap that’s hard to get into.

Well, you can’t fool even the most suspicious friend, but what can he do?

Unlike the sealed underground bunker, the strategy of pouring smoke into it is not only less effective than the bunker, but I also have a military gas mask right next to me, ready to use at any time.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I hear the sound of a gun firing at a lock.

The squeaky sound of the door opening weakly could be heard beyond the wall.

“There. There. There it is.”

I hear a whisper.

Who will be first?

Swish-

The sound of slowly sliding footsteps continued from the door into the hallway.

One, no, two.

I try to hold my breath as much as possible, but in this confined space and this short distance, it doesn’t mean much.

If you let your guard down, you might not notice, but if you are really alert, even an untrained person can easily notice it.

Now I am sitting on a backless stole chair with my eyes closed.

Cosplay isn’t my hobby, but it’s a way of expressing my intentions in case someone has clairvoyance.

I’m weak and have no will to fight.

If I had to use a metaphor, it would be like the emoticon comments that “Kelton”, who is currently the most popular on the Red Archive bulletin board, adds to every post.

Few people are immune to the adrenaline rush that comes with being on the battlefield, and that adrenaline can make us more judgmental than usual.

For reference, I seem to secrete less adrenaline than other people.

Jeobuk-

I came right up to the front.

I opened my eyes and aimed my gun.

But they didn’t stop.

I soon found out why.

It’s a shield.

It was probably made by modifying the door of an armored car.

Because it was so heavy, the person holding the shield was also very large.

His body isn’t visible through the wall yet, but you can tell just by looking at the position of the shield.

He must be a large man, at least 190cm tall.

As soon as he saw the shield, he fell face down.

“Kill him!”

A large figure appeared with a stamping sound, its body covered by a shield.

At the same time, after a short delay, I also noticed another man with a pistol.

The man with the shield pushed in with his shield pressed against him to perfectly hide his strong physique,

bang!

I should have brought a longer shield.

“Ahhhh!”

He aimed his bullet at the gap revealed by the shield shaking as he ran, and slammed it into the man’s left ankle.

As I watched the man’s joints bend and his body begin to crumble against my will, I sprang up like a spring and kicked the lead man’s shield with my foot.

The man, who was already bulky and equipped with heavy equipment, collided with the man following him.

While the two enemies were neutralized, he aimed his gun at them and fired two bullets into different places.

Bang! Bang!

Two people were killed.

After the silence brought by the gunshot slowly settled, a voice that sounded like it had just started to change voice was heard from beyond the door.

“Jonghan. Jonghan.”

The dead do not speak.

The young voice called out the next name.

“Tough. Tough!”

I call my big friends by their names, and my small friends by nicknames that sound like derogatory terms.

This is a typical trait seen in young peer groups.

“You, you punk.”

The boy who had been calling his friends’ names called me.

“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch. Don’t you know what you’ve done? I won’t just kill you.”

“······.”

“I will not be able to live a little bit.”

While the boy was mumbling his evil words, I retrieved the shield from the corpse that had fallen on the other side of the wall.

Before I shoved my upper body into the hallway leading to the door, I had to use a mirror to check for any possible angles my opponent might use, but after I made sure no one was pointing a gun at me from beyond the door, I was able to do so with ease.

Because I could gauge the location while the guy was talking.

“I’ll pull out your fingernails, pluck out your eyes, and even pluck out your tongue······.”

After retrieving the shield, I retrieved the pistol.

As the babbling showed no sign of ending, I pulled the two corpses inward as well.

I pulled the big guy over and made him sit cross-legged, then placed the smaller guy on top of him.

It’s a kind of corpse barricade.

I said something to the boy who was still mumbling as I felt the records I had written in China come back to me vividly.

“Are you good at picking?”

“what?!”

“If I’m good at drawing, give me my gacha back.”

Finally the muttering stopped.

Instead, the sound of footsteps is heard.

The pattern of the sound, however, resembled the situation I most desired.

Mass assault.

The idea is to rush into it all at once and see it through to the end.

It’s an idea that a novice who only relies on his fraudulent abilities and hunts easy games would come up with.

I pulled out the secret weapon I had.

It’s a grenade.

He held it in both hands, pulled the safety pin simultaneously, waited for the grenade to mature, and then threw it so that it bounced outward against the wall beyond the barricade of bodies.

They showed up right after that.

Tata tata tata tang!

He sharpened his gun.

Speaker.

In an instant, the magazine was empty.

“Now! Cover!”

“No. Something fell?”

“what?”

In the meantime, one guy appeared over the wall, but that was all.

Boom! Boom!

Two grenades exploded.

In the midst of a storm of ruthless tyranny and the debris it hurls around, no ordinary person can survive.

I quickly reloaded before the vibrations of the explosion had even died down and jumped into the dust-filled hallway.

“Krrrrrr······.”

I could still see the thing alive and writhing in the thick dust, but I ignored it and charged forward.

I see a wide open door.

Just run outside and look outside.

Beyond the thick fog, not as thick as the dust, three people are standing vaguely.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three people, no, two people fell.

One guy instinctively dodged and avoided a fatal blow.

He approached the boy who was lying on the ground and bleeding.

Although it was my first time seeing his face, I easily recognized the boy as the murderer who had tried to kill me before.

The softly shining eyes were just eyes, but the broken soul contained within those shining eyes held the distortion that only a person who had voluntarily thrown off their human status could have.

“Fuck······.”

He quickly struck the boy’s temple with the buttstock, knocking him unconscious, and then confirmed his death with a pistol he had just captured.

bang!

I went to other places and confirmed life and death.

The man kicks her hard in the chest, and the woman stomps on her neck with her boot, pressing hard enough to break her cervical vertebrae.

“······.”

There is no response from either of them.

I went back to the outpost and did the same thing.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I held the breath of the three people who were still breathing, then sat down on a chair to catch my breath for a moment.

After his breathing had subsided, he reported this fact over the phone.

“This is Outpost 328. We just engaged a group of humans and killed them all. No. Wait. I see a light.”

A dark light is visible beyond the fog.

It’s a vehicle.

It’s the same route that the vehicle that always brings me food takes.

I asked into the phone.

“Have you sent any reinforcements?”

“Oh, no. There’s nothing reported here.”

He went up to the rooftop with his gun in his hand, lay down, and watched the vehicle’s path carefully.

The chances are fifty-fifty.

I don’t feel optimistic in any way.

Because on the battlefield, there are only two types of people you’ll meet: those who want to kill you and those who don’t.

Perhaps because of the thick fog, the vehicle arrived below my area at a slower speed than usual with its fog lights on.

Soldiers with guns are seen getting off.

“Are you government troops?”

Since our main enemy is not human and civilians would not come here, we do not use a password here.

The soldiers looked this way.

I watched their actions without taking my finger off the trigger.

“Are you Mr. Park Gyu?”

One soldier asked.

“Yes, but.”

My finger is still on the trigger.

“I heard that you were attacked by the enemy.”

“yes.”

The soldiers are seen looking around with anxious faces.

“Where are the enemies?”

“Good job. Where did you come from?”

Still, I don’t take my finger off the trigger.

It’s clear that they’re a different breed from Manhunters, but that doesn’t mean they’re out of the category of people who want to kill me.

A man wearing the rank of sergeant looked up at me.

He looked slightly surprised when he saw me pointing a gun at him, but soon blinked and spoke to me.

“······That’s it. The Savior sent it.”

“Savior······?”

I know there are people like that.

But can the word savior be a nickname or a pronoun?

I waited for him to say what he would say next, recalling a concept I had read in a book before: oxymoron.

“Sent by the savior Na Hye-in.”

Was that a title?

I asked, snorting without realizing it.

“Are you Na Hye-in?”

“Yes. Na Hye-in, the Savior, appeared before the committee in person and requested salvation.”

“······.”

He took his finger out of the trigger guard with a bitter smile.

“Where are the enemies?”

The boss asked with a nervous face.

He answered, walking slowly towards the stairs with the gun slung over his shoulder.

“Let me show you.”

As I was coming down the stairs, the stench of blood and excrement filled my nostrils, but what unfolded before my eyes was a completely different illusion.

Blue sky, a wide open horizon rarely seen in Korea, a structure that looks like a railroad track, and cosmos flowers blooming there.

“So it was that guy after all.”

99% certainty has now become an established fact.

I quietly muttered to myself, recalling a face from a vague memory that I could no longer quite remember.

“······Thank you for your hard work.”

So, what I’m saying is that I’m not the only one who’s been struggling.

In our own places, we each fought against our own reality and achieved our own results.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, but first I have to get these bodies out of the way.

It was about nine hours later in the morning that the truth about the young murderers was revealed.