Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 269



Only Krnovel

111. Cold pipe (1)

A message from Defender: I’m sorry, but things aren’t going well right now. Getting out of here will be a problem, but getting out will be a problem too. There’s going to be a massive monster eruption. You should also stay away from the northern area for a while.

Message from Defender: Oh, and my brother is safe too. The zealots have sabotaged the transmission towers, so electricity is very scarce. I can’t stay connected for long. I’ll contact you when I get there.

It’s now been four years since the war broke out.

The total collapse of society, anticipated even before the war, is now visible.

In areas controlled by the Legion, sporadic terrorist attacks and sabotage by fanatics frequently occurred, and in Seoul, a hell party broke out between the Legion, fanatics, and refugees with nowhere to go.

As a result, the number of refugees has increased significantly.

A particular topic of discussion recently is large-scale migration.

Refugees in Seoul are leaving in groups, organized by shelter, for safer, more resource-rich areas.

Most of them headed towards Wonju or Chuncheon, areas controlled by the Legion faction, but some left in search of an uncertain city called Sejong.

One such migrant group appeared in my territory.

It was Valentine who discovered the immigrants.

Today, as usual, he was drilling a hole in the Jeju intranet, and while he was taking a walk up the hill to cool his head and light a cigarette, he happened to see a crowd of people approaching, filling up the distant road.

“Quickly, quickly. Cover the solar panels with camouflage netting!”

An emergency has been declared.

The drones are invisible, but with such a large group, there would be one or two reconnaissance drones, and it never hurts to be careful, so we covered and hid anything that would be noticeable in the sky in preparation for drone reconnaissance.

The group passed through my territory and headed south.

Chijijik-

“Sejong, do you hear? I am taking the entire shelter with me and going there, believing what your contact said. I am asking out of concern, but will there be enough space to accommodate us? It is a long and arduous journey, and I do not want to be disappointed when we get there.”

Chijijik-!

“I can afford it. But here, you have to earn your own living. If you think you can just play and eat for free like you did in Seoul and Incheon, you’re screwed.”

Based on the radio transmission, it appeared that the migrant group was heading to Sejong City.

It was thanks to Ha Tae-hoon that we were able to hear the radio even though it was not a public frequency.

“I had a lot of fun with this in Incheon too. It’s not that hard. Those who send radios send on the basic frequency.”

Ha Tae-hoon muttered while stroking the dark beard on his chin.

“By the way, Sejong. It seems to have definitely become famous. Last year, it wasn’t even on the list of previous candidate sites.”

“Because it is a place with a capable ruler.”

“That guy called King?”

Ha Tae-hoon tilted his head.

“Isn’t this a good location? It’s far from Paju, far from other cracks, and besides, it’s a place that hasn’t been hit much except in the early stages of the war. It’s also easy to gather from other regions.”

“That’s true, but it’s because of King’s leadership that the gang leaders obey. Without him, the city would be torn apart and left behind no dust.”

Ha Tae-hoon’s reaction is skeptical.

I didn’t want to force my thoughts on Ha Tae-hoon, so I didn’t say anything else, but Ha Tae-hoon’s reaction was somewhat reminiscent of the reactions of the so-called “public” that were commonly seen before the war.

When someone achieves something, instead of praising them or finding something to learn from them, we tend to attribute that success to other factors, such as luck, parents, or acquaintances, rather than their own abilities.

“You can’t believe in other people’s success because you’ve never been successful yourself.”

These words are part of an audio diary, a voice diary left by John Nae-non that Valentine accidentally found in the record storage yesterday.

“Is this what you mean? Yes. Older brother. No, when Jonnaenon got sick, he got a recorder and recorded his voice whenever he had time to think about something.”

“Oh, no, you’re saying you’re going to give me this valuable information?”

“I knew you’d like it, but I never thought you’d like it this much. If I had known it would be like this, I would have found it and given it to you sooner.”

“No, it’s enough! It’s the best gift ever!”

According to Valentine’s backstory, John originally intended to leave behind a video diary, not an audio diary.

Although it was canceled due to capacity issues, according to Valentine, John Nae-non was sorry that he could not leave behind an image of himself.

Anyway, my recent pleasure is to work hard enough to soak my body like wet cotton, take a shower, and then go to sleep while listening to the profound spiritual world left behind by my idol, Jonnae-non.

“When I was young, the Internet was expected to be a medium that could unite people all over the world. But in the end, what came back was an indiscriminate flood of information. In particular, the visibility of inequality shattered the illusion of authority that supported existing society and became the basis for the collapse of society itself.”

“Someone asked me, why would you do something like this when you’ve already been hurt by the Internet? Why can’t you just abandon the Internet? I asked him, “Have you ever tried Named?”

“Crackers with lots of Nutella for dinner tonight. I can’t taste it, but the crunchy texture is just like before~ Mmm~ Yummy~”

After falling asleep while listening to John’s voice, my condition improved and my sleep became much more effective.

“Senior, are you having a good time?”

“Park Gyu. You seem to be in a good mood. Are you seeing a woman?”

People around me have also noticed my positive changes.

I think good things are good.

Especially in times like now when it is difficult to find joy or goals in life, enjoying each day is important.

Above all, I was able to see the giant Jonnaenon’s agony and the completion of one huge and great step in his daily life.

His ordinariness, revealed in his hectic daily life, rather highlighted his greatness.

In addition to daily life, Jonnae-non left behind many records, and one of the most interesting ones was the upper-class survivalist service that we do not know much about and have no way of knowing about.

“There are so many rich people in our country. How many are there in buildings in Seoul? Buildings, not apartments. Buildings. Buildings with many shops. Don’t they all have owners?”

Just like the luxurious bunkers for VIPs that I visited the other day, it seems that there are surprisingly many post-apocalyptic services for the rich that are actively operating behind the scenes in society.

In fact, considering that the rich have much greater access to information than the poor, it is clear that they would have put more effort into disaster prevention measures such as bunkers than ordinary people like us.

John Nae-non says he discovered that there was a secret market for upper-class survivalist pedagogy not only because he made a lot of money from his speaking engagements, but also because these upper-class clients came to him personally for advice.

On the subject of destruction, no one was more popular than Jon Nae-non.

John Nae-non recalled the situation at the time as follows:

“I made a lot of money through consulting. Well, as you all know. At first, I made money through lectures, but later I made money through consulting for rich people. It was so much money that I could swim in Shinsaimdang. Well, to them, it was just like not shopping at a department store for a month.”

In fact, our Jonnaenon is not a person with a very good conscience or high moral standards.

To be honest, wasn’t it the French user’s unauthorized copying that made him famous?

However, even in the eyes of the so-called upper-class disaster preparedness market, there are said to be many unscrupulous scammers beyond imagination.

In his increasingly fascinating memoir, John Nae-non names one conman as the most inventive and terrifying.

“I have a black hair in the United States.”

I don’t know who Nelson Yongbeom is.

I’ve never heard of it or seen it.

But this guy.

He committed a fraud of such magnitude that it shocked even the most powerful men in the world.

“A frozen human?”

Although Jonnaenon used the term cryonics, to be exact, it is a long-term hibernation technology.

This is a dream technology that is being researched for interstellar space travel in the near future. It is a technology that, like in the movies, would put people in a hibernation chamber to drastically reduce their biological activity, allowing them to endure for a long time without significant aging or changes even during a voyage of several decades.

As far as I know, this technology has not yet been realized.

In times of peace, this might not have been the case, but as the cracks opened, global scientific capabilities were focused on elucidating and resolving them.

However, a man named Nelson Yongbeom attempted to sell this unrealized technology to the upper class by deceiving them into thinking it was real.

When we look at the rich, we all see them as equally rich, but it is said that even among the “rich,” there are clear boundaries.

While the VIP bunker operators who did business with the wealthy are said to be worth hundreds of billions of won, the wealthy people that Nelson Yongbeom did business with are said to be so-called VVIPs who do not even know how much wealth they have or how much money they receive in a month.

The sales method was not much different from that of VIP bunker operators.

They conducted closed sales activities, acquiring customers only through referrals between VVIPs, without any advertising activities whatsoever.

“Nelson Yongbeom. That bastard’s greatest assets were his American citizenship and diploma. His young and handsome appearance also seemed to have given him credibility. He was an American who graduated from a prestigious university that everyone knew, and he was bragging about providing a service that no one knew about, which was chosen by the wealthiest people in America.”

It was also VVIP who provided information about Nelson Yongbeom to John Naenon.

The VVIP felt that the hibernation technique was a dud, so he sought advice from another “survival expert,” Jonnaenon.

Our Jonnae-non is said to have gone to English and French bulletin boards and searched for the word hibernation as soon as he received that advice.

When there were no search results for hibernation on the bulletin board, Jonnaenon is said to have posted it himself using the power of a translator.

“That was the hardest part. The translator was fucking crazy.”

Before the latest translation tool developed by Melon Mask was available, we had to use a commercial web translation tool, so the translation quality was poor, but it seems that we were able to successfully ask the questions we wanted to ask foreign users.

The reactions of foreign users were largely in line with Jonnaenon’s thoughts.

“Many say that we should wait another hundred years. Some users have even suggested that simply keeping the body temperature low is not enough, and that hibernation will only be possible if a new drug is developed that drastically lowers the metabolic rate without destroying blood cells.”

In that part, John Nae-non spat out the six-letter word more than three times.

“I could have been able to run a bigger and safe building because of the old man’s airborne service.”

Despite the advice of John Nae-non, the VVIP he was working for is said to have signed a contract with Nelson Yong-beom.

As expected, we haven’t heard any news from that VVIP since then.

“That gentleman. He contracted for ten obelisks. He, his wife, his son and daughter, his daughter and daughter-in-law, his grandchildren, and even the housekeeper and his wife.”

Despite having over 10 satellite devices, the VVIP never showed up.

At least they never showed themselves until John Naenon died.

“Even after I got kicked off the bulletin board, I searched for my nickname every day. No one was looking for me. That means I wasn’t online.”

It’s all in the past, but the reason I devoted quite a bit of space to this story is because I was curious.

“That gentleman. I wonder what happened to him. He’s probably dead, but I still want to check out the human mind, right? I know where the hibernation facility is. I bought my secretary a drink and heard about it. Ah······ Health! If only I had a little more health, I would go there once······.”

Then, John Nae-non clearly wrote down the address of the secret hibernation facility in a file.

The location is a mountainous area near Anseong City.

It’s not that far.

The problem is that I don’t know much about that area.

I know that people do not live.

In accordance with the policy of moving to large cities, all residents of small cities moved to large cities.

As always in an abandoned city there are zombies, mutations, and monsters.

There may be opportunistic predators living in hiding.

Well then, let’s take advantage of the bulletin board’s natural functions for a while.

SKELTON: (Skeleton questions) Do you know any friends in Anseong?

It’s been a while since I asked a question.

Comments don’t get posted often on the forums, but there are still a few comments posted on the question posts.

As expected, a comment notification came.

“hmm?”

But then a somewhat awkward friend left a comment.

Dies_irae69: I know that place well. It’s our new territory.

Dies_irae69: Are you coming to visit? Ask me anything you want to know.

It’s Diesiraeda.