Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 260



Only Krnovel

106. Return

The flight plan is to move along the sea from Jeju to the South Sea to the West Sea, then enter the Chungcheong area by land and drop me in my territory.

When we talk about dropping here, we literally mean falling out of an airplane.

Unlike previous aircraft that could take off and land smoothly on small runways and had stealth capabilities that could deceive even old-fashioned radars, this aircraft is old, slow, and much more difficult to take off and land.

Whew Whew Whew—

I looked down at the endless sea while listening to the engine sound that made my body shiver with excitement.

Suddenly, a story about old friends who used to be active on our bulletin board flashed through my mind.

There were doomsdayers who sought opportunity in the sea.

The most famous one was an overseas user who used a luxury yacht worth 1 trillion won per unit as a bunker.

Although our bulletin board was a gathering place for men with some financial means, the “yacht guy” had a different level of wealth, and was talked about for a long time.

But when the war actually started, Yacht Guy’s whereabouts were unknown and he never posted anything on the bulletin board again.

Many users speculate that he was betrayed on his luxury yacht and thrown into shark bait, but some others agree that the Yacht Guy was just posting on the message board to brag about his money and never really thought about a bunker on his yacht.

I also tend to think of the latter, but it is an objective fact that the survival rate of life by the sea is not that high.

For example, someone asked me a while ago about life on a deserted island.

If you just count how many times the Japanese pirates invaded the Korean Peninsula during the Goryeo Dynasty, you might not have the courage to choose life on an uninhabited island.

I have seen a few other people living a modest lifestyle on the coast, but they didn’t seem to be much different from people living on land, similar to us, rather than at sea.

In Europe, there were people who talked about a survival plan using a submarine, and like people who make a lot of noise, they bragged about it to attract attention and started a so-called sponsorship business, but as far as I know, the plan was not realized.

Life in the sea seemed to be at odds with the times of destruction.

But human vitality, as always, has a tenacity that is astonishing.

“Hunter Park. Look over there.”

The pilot was one of the few Jeju people who called me Hunter.

At the root of it all, there is dissatisfaction with the Jeju Awaken government that has forced them to live in poverty despite being pilots, but there is something wrong with calling them hunters.

I looked in the direction he was pointing.

“That?”

There is something huge floating on the sea.

Rather than a natural object, it looked like an artificial object with sharp straight lines here and there.

The plane lowered its altitude.

“Are you okay?”

Lowering your altitude means you become more vulnerable to anti-aircraft weapons.

“It’s okay. Mr. Park Hunter, please take a look.”

As the plane descended, the identity of the massive, man-made entity was revealed.

“Is that a boat?”

They are ships.

Dozens of large and small ships were gathered together in one place, forming the shape of a small island floating in the sea.

“What is that?”

“These are refugees who were trying to come to Jeju.”

“Really?”

Aren’t they all dead?

I remember hundreds of thousands of people leaving for Jeju Island and being abandoned in China or sinking at sea.

The pilot was said to have been at the scene at the time.

He recalled the events of that time with his eyes closed.

“Despite the notice of refusal, several ships continued to force their way into the port. They had the wicked idea before the war that if they pushed hard enough, they would be accepted. However, the warship opened fire, and the ships that had been forcing their way in burst into flames and sank into the sea. People fell into the sea with their bodies on fire, and no one came to save them.”

Although I speak calmly, it is not difficult for me to imagine what the tragedy was like at that time.

Because I’ve seen similar scenes several times in Shanghai.

“It was only when the government took a hard line that the people in the fleet who had been watching turned around.”

“Where have all those people gone?”

“I know that since there wasn’t enough oil to return to land, they loaded all the oil onto a few large ships and sent it to the mainland. The few people left on the abandoned ships tied the ships together to create this scrap island.”

The plane flew low over the island, which was lined with boats.

Although there weren’t many people on the ships, it wasn’t hard to find traces of human life, such as fog catchers, solar panels, and even small farms built on top of the ships, as seen at Woo Min-hee’s base.

“How many people live there?”

“Even if it doesn’t work out, a thousand people will still be alive.”

Sure enough, as we passed by, people appeared from all over the ship.

Judging by the number of people holding guns and pointing their guns skyward, it seemed that they did not have much favor towards outsiders.

While looking at the strange island, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

If what the pilot said is true, at least ten thousand people returned, so news of them would have been spread in some way.

At that time, news about Jeju was equated with news of paradise that everyone was curious about.

“I don’t think I’ve heard any news about the refugee fleet. If they had returned to land, the rumor would have spread somehow. It might not feel real since you’re in Jeju, but two or three years ago, everyone was only talking about Jeju.”

As I spoke, looking at the receding scrap island, the pilot replied with a bitter smile.

“The local warlords are not very generous people. Think about it. If you are having a hard time feeding your own people, what would you do if tens of thousands of mouths came in all at once to feed?”

It’s a brutal story, but a compelling one.

“There are also stories that some people have been affected by mutations. Have you ever seen a whale mutation?”

“Yes. I saw it at sea when I came here.”

“Sea mutations are much more threatening than land mutations. You can’t catch them with whaling ships like you used to. You can catch them with airplanes, but it has to be cost-effective.”

The plane continued to fly over the sea.

As the same scenery continued endlessly, I felt bored and a little sleepy, so I covered my mouth and yawned.

The pilot was eating a snack.

It’s said to be a cookie made with eggs, but it’s a fake cookie that doesn’t even contain any flour.

Wheat flour, which was once available at reasonable prices, is now considered a more expensive grain than rice.

Oil is something that Korea is proud of, and although it can be replaced with synthetic oil in its heavy industrial complex, growing wheat in Korea’s subtropical climate is not that easy.

“By the way, aren’t you scared?”

The pilot asked abruptly, chewing on a cookie whose crunching sound could be clearly heard from afar.

“Huh? What is it?”

“You are returning to the mainland.”

The pilot smiled bitterly.

“If it were me, I would have told them to send me to a farm or a factory. No matter how much the farm or factory is a mess, isn’t it better than the mainland?”

“Is that so?”

I think differently.

It is true that my bunker is much better equipped and prepared than other places, but I think the free mainland is better than Jeju, which is full of regulations and oppression.

Well, you’ll have to deal with things like marauders, mutations, and monsters that attack at night.

By the way, this pilot. There’s a problem I haven’t seen before.

“By the way, I heard there’s something like a human flesh factory on the mainland.”

There is a lot of prejudice against the mainland.

I lived on the mainland for over three years after the war, but I never heard of anything like a flesh factory.

There have been instances of cannibalism in extreme situations, but this isn’t the Aztecs. Is it even possible to slaughter humans in a factory to produce meat?

First of all, there needs to be a sufficient number of mouths to feed it, and there also needs to be a means to store the large quantities of meat that will be produced.

If you have the power to run that kind of equipment and freezer, wouldn’t you consider producing food more safely and efficiently?

If I have a quirky eating habit of being a human meat fanatic and having to eat only human food, and there are at least a hundred people with the same taste as me, then it’s a business worth considering.

“There is also a story that young women were forced to be used as sex slaves and old, ugly women were shot to death with crossbows.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I read it in the broadcast and the intranet survivors’ accounts. There was also similar content in Apocalypse Iljin by author Pilcrum88.”

Apocalypse gang.

I read it, but rather than being a masterpiece that took a lot of effort, it’s more like a common action movie drawn by inertia in the old fashioned way to make a living as a painter in Jeju.

As the title suggests, it is a royalistic story about the protagonist, who claims to be ordinary, killing off gangsters who commit various atrocities on the mainland that has become an apocalypse.

Remnant, which inherited Dragon C’s legacy, was serialized for a while and then suddenly ended.

“Not to that extent.”

But even so, it’s not really that bad.

Although it is full of terrible death, misery and misery, the appearance of the places where people live is not much different.

Even in the city of King, the gangster boss of Sejong City, aren’t ordinary people living in their own areas, each displaying a vigorous and disgusting vitality?

“They said that the crack was about to close. It was already at the end, but with the return of the savior Na Hye-in, the crack closure process will be brought forward.”

The pilot suddenly became stiff-faced and started mumbling things that weren’t asked.

Suddenly the nose of the plane turned to the side.

“Now it’s the Chungcheong region. We’ll take a detour to avoid the Chinese garrison.”

For a moment the plane rocked violently.

It looks like turbulence occurred simultaneously with the turn.

Even though I am indifferent to monsters, I still feel fear in the unknown and uncontrollable space of an airplane.

Because fear comes from the inability to solve something on your own.

As the plane’s fuselage stabilized, the pilot sighed and said:

“They are recruiting applicants from the mainland.”

“Are you a local applicant?”

“Yes. They are literally sending them to the mainland. The government data says they are recruiting them, but I’m not sure. It’s weird to say that, but from what I can see, you’re saying they’re going to send them by force?”

Looking at his expression, I can tell why he brought this up.

It looks like a risk zone.

Among the people Jeju Island wants to kick out.

Although being a pilot is a specialized job, it is not like we need as many pilots as we did during World War II, and the airplanes themselves are not something that can take off often due to various problems.

Among the pilots, only those with guaranteed careers and proven skills will remain.

Like the experienced-looking middle-aged pilot who took me to Jeju.

“They say that if we go to the mainland, we’ll be given a settlement equivalent to a Class 1 area. How many people would like to go?”

“well.”

It’s not really my place to answer, but if it were me, I would have chosen it without hesitation.

“······Really. They kept talking as if everything would be fine if they just closed the cracks, but they ended up striking like this. Even if it’s the Jeju government, the Republic of Korea is still the Republic of Korea. I just had to think to myself.”

The pilot’s dissatisfaction with the Jeju government, which was felt from the beginning, ultimately seems to be connected to this issue.

Listening to their stories, it seems like being kicked out of Jeju Island is an unbearable punishment for these guys.

“Where did you live before the war?”

So I asked.

“I lived in Uiwang.”

“Uiwang? I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there. What is it like? Is it a nice place to live?”

“South Korea is kind of like that. It’s okay to live there. It’s just that it’s so far from Seoul. But for me, a soldier, it’s no different from anywhere else, so my wife and I just lived there.”

The pilot chuckled.

“But if you tell me to go now, I will never go. Even if it is my hometown, there is nothing left, so what good would it do to go there? The sorrow of a displaced person can only be realized if there is a proper hometown. If I go back to a place overflowing with looters, monsters, and zombies, what else would be left but a miserable death?”

“The mainland is also pretty livable.”

I looked at him and spoke calmly.

The pilot looked back at me.

His eyes were full of distrust.

“Really?”

I’m asking that, but he won’t nod to me.

Because his short question was filled with distrust rather than confirmation.

Still, I have to say what I have to say.

“Of course, you have to be well prepared. Things like bunkers. Guns. Food. Fuel. Most importantly, choose a safe place that people won’t frequent.”

“Ah, the destructionist.”

For a brief moment the pilot revealed a look of contempt.

The moment I saw it, I was convinced that this guy was one of those countless people who had been criticizing us before the war.

Luckily, I came to Jeju Island, so I was able to retain my naive way of thinking from before the war.

“It’s surprisingly livable.”

It’s not something that someone who has run away from my territory on my own feet should say, but I have experienced both Jeju and the mainland.

Well, there are some areas where Jeju is superior to my area.

Infrastructure, amenities for the masses, public safety, etc.

But that is not my land.

The fruits I obtain there are not the result of my own efforts.

It’s just a given.

Anything that is given can be taken away at any time.

“In my opinion, it seems like the mainland would be a better place to live if they were prepared.”

There’s a lot to do.

I also need to check on my turf that I left to my colleagues for a while, rescue Valentine, and let Defender and my internet friends know how I’m doing.

I should also check the news that Baek Seung-hyun left Shanghai.

More than anything, my heart is filled with anticipation as I think about wearing the “new armband” that Vivabot promised me.

“well.”

The pilot stared helplessly down at the ground.

“In my view, that place is a land of no hope.”

Empty-

The door opened and a fierce wind blew into the cabin.

“Okay, I’ll go. Thank you so much for giving me a lift here.”

It’s time to descend.

We jumped out of the plane, thanking Jang Ki-young for giving us parachute training.

The earth is approaching.

The land that the people who lived in the ashen land said was a lost hope was green with life.