Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 26



Only Krnovel

22. Remnants (2)

Kyle_Dos: I was patrolling the area as usual.

It was a warm day.

The inside of the bunker was filled with oppressively hot and humid air.

There was a generator, but it was small and its power output was limited, so we couldn’t afford luxuries like air conditioning.

Gunfire rang out from the north.

It looks like another monster has emerged from the crack.

I was lucky when a giant bell appeared the other day.

We got to the 4km point, but then suddenly changed course.

However, the plants around him were changing into strange shapes, and the sunlight at dawn and dusk was grayish-white instead of red, which was an eerie phenomenon even to Kyledos, who was ignorant of the cracks.

At that time, Kyledos’ hobby was mining.

There are plenty of preserved foods and canned foods that have had their moisture removed to the extreme and are made to resemble bricks, but eating such foods for long periods of time is not good for your mental health.

We prepared sweet foods like jam and sugar as a countermeasure for depression, but if depression was treated with only sweet foods, no one in this world would go to the hospital or commit suicide due to depression.

For a change of pace, Kyledos went to a nearby stream.

By the stream, the stalls of the valley merchants that had not been demolished in time were left there, covered with the dust of time.

Sitting on a proper platform, Kyledos caught a large crayfish bobbing in the water with his military dagger.

They called it crayfish, but it was about the size of a lobster. Aside from its ominous grayish-white color, it was full of meat and tasted pretty good.

I was on my way home after catching enough crayfish to fill a large pot.

Flowers I had never seen before were blooming.

A gray-white flower garden, made up of not one or two, but hundreds or thousands of flowers, unfolded before him as if by fate.

At the center of the eerily orderly cluster of flowers, Kyledos discovered something white and shiny, completely different from the gray-white, lying and writhing.

She’s a woman.

Although she had been severely beaten by someone and was unconscious, stripped naked, the shape and curves were unmistakably that of a woman.

Kyledos brought her to the bunker and nursed her to health.

Neither the heat nor the stifling humidity of the bunker could disturb him.

Kaildos, wiping the sweat from her forehead with his sleeve, applied a splint to the woman’s broken arm, applied disinfectant to her scratches, and carefully applied ointment to her bruised, but still beautiful face.

It took quite some time for the woman to come to her senses.

The woman, who soon came to her senses, was startled and covered herself with the thin blanket, asking in a trembling voice.

“I don’t know what happened, but don’t worry. I’m not your enemy. You’re safe here. If you need anything, just let me know.”

That was the first meeting between Kyledos and his adopted wife.

Dragon C’s prologue containing the above content received rave reviews.

Anonymous458: Wow~ Why can’t I get girls like that?

roka3218: That’s a beautiful story.

Anonymous848: I envy you! Kyledos! All I see around me are corpses.

kimcic: I don’t really read comics, but since it’s about us, I found myself shedding tears without even realizing it.

unicorn18 : Are you a virgin?

…

…

But not everyone can think the same way.

There were a few negative opinions, and I won’t deny that I was one of them.

Defender: It’s just fantasy. Fantasy. Just show the status screen.

SKELTON: Hmm… that’s it?

Because Defender and I posted in succession with an extremely short interval of 1 second, the suspicion that I was part of the Defender gang grew stronger, and I even acquired the dishonorable title of a malicious commenter.

But few people know my true worth.

The protagonist of this story, Kyledos, was one of the few people who recognized Skelton’s true value.

He sent me a message.

Message from Kyle_Dos: Skeleton. I’m really sorry, but I have a favor to ask.

This request is an extension of a previous request.

They say another capsule has appeared.

And not just one, but two.

Not good.

Erosion is faster than expected.

As described in Dragon C’s prologue, the fact that the plants themselves are changing is clear evidence that the area has already entered the early stages of erosion.

In academic circles, they claim that the eroded zone itself has no negative effects on humans, and as evidence, they cite the 200 million followers of the Manryu Gwijong religion who have established their base in the eroded zone.

I think differently.

Humans cannot survive in eroded areas.

Just like monsters disappearing from the Earth, humans also lose something important.

What should I say, everything becomes fleeting and meaningless?

Where did the 200 million believers they spoke of go?

Erosion zones are truly dangerous.

I replied to Kyledos.

SKELTON: Where you live. It’s very dangerous. The capsule isn’t the problem. Get out if you can.

Message from Kyle_Dos: Where to go?

I thought about it for a moment.

I knew the model answer, but I couldn’t readily give it to you.

Because I’m not a completely altruistic person.

SKELTON: Anywhere but there. If you’re there, it’s certain death. Go there and see for yourself. Your area has already been eroded. It’s become the territory of monsters.

Message from Kyle_Dos: Thanks for the advice, but I have no intention of leaving. My wife is happy here too. Or maybe you should go to your bunker?

“······.”

Message from Kyle_Dos: That’s ridiculous. There are many reasons, but you know better than anyone what I’m worried about.

SKELTON: I think so.

Message from Kyle_Dos: Besides, I think it’s not human nature to ask you to come. There’s a war going on down there. Well, I’ll figure it out.

That was our last conversation.

*

DragonC: I suddenly can’t contact Kyledos. Is there anyone who can contact Kyledos?

When I heard the news that Kyledos had disappeared, my feelings were less shock and more a sense of anticipation.

But isn’t it too early?

There could have been more time.

Didn’t you have a wife?

If she had said anything, Kyledos would have done whatever it took to get out of there and make a new haven for himself and his wife.

Maybe he came here to steal my face and cause trouble for me.

There were various opinions posted on the bulletin board regarding Kyledos’ disappearance.

Anonymous848: Wasn’t it the soldiers who got hurt? To be honest, aren’t they scarier than the pioneers?

The most popular theory is that it was done by soldiers.

This is certainly the most plausible content.

But there will be no more soldiers in that area.

Everyone said there was a civil war and sent troops to Seoul.

If there were deserters wandering around, it might be possible, but what kind of bold guy would be wandering around the eroded area where the capsule appears?

There were other opinions.

Defender: I mean, Kyledos’s wife. To be honest, you didn’t pick her up, you kidnapped her. What’s so great about it? A pretty girl would go into a bunker that smells like a bachelor’s house. She’s injured, but it’s possible that Kyledos beat her up.

Defender’s opinion, which was twisted as it could be but told the truth, received a lot of criticism, but to me, this also seemed like a fairly possible story.

Because not everything people say on the bulletin boards is true.

Isn’t it true that, given the nature of internet communities that wear the mask of anonymity, there are bound to be more lies than truths?

In my case, even if I tell the truth, it’s treated as a lie.

After that, everyone had their own opinions about the fate of Kyledos, but none of them resonated with me.

“······after.”

While drinking coffee, I also had my own thoughts.

But I didn’t think deeply about it because I knew it was meaningless.

Because I knew that the only way to know the fate of Kyledos was to go and see for myself.

It was around the time when doubts like body temperature began to gradually subside.

The civil war has stopped.

It started out of nowhere and ended out of nowhere.

Shortwave radio announced a brief hiatus.

Among the miscellaneous reasons for the ceasefire was the opening of a humanitarian corridor for refugees, and the moment I heard the news, I sensed the call of destiny.

This has to go.

*

At 3 a.m. we left the bunker and headed to the nearest refugee camp, as directed by the shortwave radio.

There is nothing for the refugees to see.

What I’m looking for is a soldier, and an officer with authority.

“I’m very sorry, but my parents live in Paju. I’m worried because the civil war broke out and I haven’t heard from them, so I’m going to visit them.”

What moved their hearts was not my heartfelt story, but cigarettes.

“This is a pass. Please take this route. I cannot guarantee your safety if you take any other route. In particular, do not enter the Seoul area no matter what happens. They say there is a ceasefire, but the standoff is still fierce.”

Following their advice, we entered Incheon via Anyang.

Since it was an area controlled by the military, public security was surprisingly good and the roads were in good condition.

This was my first time visiting Incheon since the war began, and it was almost like it used to be, with huge refugee camps taking up most of the space.

On the street, they were selling unidentified honey porridge.

I didn’t eat it because I felt sick just smelling it, but instead I yielded it to others and got some small information.

It is said that an evacuation fleet will soon depart for Jeju Island.

This is a very large fleet of hundreds of thousands of people.

“It’s a kind of revenge.”

The old man who told me the news spat on the floor.

It appears that there was a foreign substance in the honey porridge.

“They’re feeding human bombs to those bastards who fled to Jeju Island first, saying they want to eat well and live well among themselves. Do you really think they’re going to calm down their own people?”

I headed straight towards Paju.

It took some time, but I found the location of Kyledos without difficulty since I had been there before.

At the beginning of the dirt road leading to the bunker, I stopped my bike and stared at the ground that had turned gray for a while.

I saw grass and trees.

The surface of the tree was shriveled and dried up, the branches were bent in an endless curling manner, and the roots were covered with a lush, disgusting, reddish grass that reminded one of lugworms.

The erosion was progressing faster than I expected.

I took out my mask and covered my nose and mouth.

Scholars claim that the air in eroded areas is harmless, but this is only my experience.

The air here is definitely polluted.

Through the grayish-white haze, we discovered the bunker of Kyledos.

The bunker appeared to be a factory-made, one-piece, built-in bunker, and as is typical of these cheap bunkers, it was accessed by a ladder.

The hatch was open.

He prepared a gun and an axe and looked for sympathy.

There were no signs of life inside the bunker.

Instead, the smell of rotting corpses was so strong that it even pierced the mask.

I turned on the lantern and went inside.

I pressed what appeared to be a light switch and surprisingly, the light came on.

The moment the lights came on, what filled my vision were dozens of women in swimsuits.

Almost the entire wall of the bunker was painted with pictures of women.

Among them were explicit photos showing exposed breasts.

But even with all those beautiful women, the crampedness of the bunker could not be covered up.

On the bed was a corpse, rotting with its neck hanging.

The decay was so severe that it was impossible to recognize them, but the clothes they were wearing, the long hair hardened with maggots and pus, and the shape of their bones told me that the owner was of the same sex as the women who filled the walls of the bunker.

The death appeared to be recent, but there was no sign of looters.

Food, laptops, and satellite equipment are all intact.

Do you have about a year’s worth of food left?

In particular, the rich composition of medicines caught the eye.

I opened my laptop.

The laptop was in sleep mode, but as soon as I touched it, it magically turned on like a light bulb and showed me exactly what the previous owner was trying to do.

It was a bulletin board.

Kyledos was writing a message.

– I’m going to the flower garden with my wife. To the place where I met her. I’ll gather my thoughts there and tell you the next story. Just wait a little. Don’t rush me.

The recipient is Mr. Dragon.

Maybe he was trying to talk about the next plot of the webtoon.

I looked around as I dragged the body out and cleaned it up.

Two bodies were found.

The decomposition was much more severe than that of the women, making it difficult to determine the exact cause of death, but both were men and appeared to have been shot in the back.

“······.”

I continued to look around.

Where the old capsule used to be, there was a new one, and behind it, as if a tumor had grown, another one was calmly taking its place.

Transporting is difficult.

It’s too big and heavy to fit on my bike.

After taking everything of value from the bunker, especially the painkillers, they closed the hatch, covered it with dirt and leaves, and marked the trees around it.

I was about to leave, but I inadvertently remembered the last message that Kyledos had intended to send to Dragon.

You said you were going to the flower garden.

I looked it up once.

The flower garden he spoke of was nowhere to be found.

I tried going up the valley that appeared in the webtoon, but it was in vain.

It was a time when everything was withering and dying due to the season, and the forest was so dense that there seemed to be no room for even a flower garden.

It was the moment when I was about to give up and turn around.

A family passed before my eyes as if in a dream.

Kyledos says he found his wife, rescued her, and slowly became close to her and their marriage began.

But what if it’s false?

What if the story he told contained distortions and misrepresentations of the facts?

Well then, there are a few possibilities we can consider.

The first is the possibility that the woman was dead from the beginning.

The woman, who was said to have been so badly beaten that she lost consciousness, was found dead.

Kyledos brought the corpse to his hideout, stitched up the wounds of the corpse that would not rise, spoke to it, confessed his love, and slept with it in the same bed.

Then, when the body decomposed, they cremated it and raised it up with ropes, but in the end, without knowing what to do, Kyledos left the bunker and disappeared.

The second possibility is more terrifying.

While on patrol, Kyledos stumbled upon a group of survivors, including a young woman of mysterious age.

He was just going to let it go, but Kyledos saw the woman’s beauty and awakened the instincts he had been suppressing.

When he came to, everyone except the woman was dead, and Kyledos had taken the woman as his own.

The honeymoon, marred by violence and seduction, ended with the woman’s suicide, and only then did Kyledos realize his mistake, leave the bunker, and disappear somewhere.

The final possibility – and I hope this is true – is that everything, including the woman, is a figment of Kyledos’s imagination.

That is, women never existed in the first place, and women were never brought into the bunker.

For a long time, in this cramped, otherworldly, madness-infested room, he could not bear the loneliness, so he created an ideal woman woven from the net of his imagination, and with her he achieved the ideal love he had hoped for.

In a haze of dreams and reality, Kyledos left the bunker with his wife and went on a date, after which a woman he had no connection with came and hanged herself in the bunker.

Perhaps this is the end of the story.

I am watching.

The flower garden that Kyledos was going to visit with his wife at the end.

It consisted of thousands of capsules.