Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 302



Only Krnovel

120. The Creator’s Melancholy (2)

It’s fall.

The sun is still stiflingly hot and the heat rising from the asphalt is enough to make your whole body drenched in sweat, but you can feel the autumn in the humidity of the air that you can feel on your skin and the freshness of the trees that have withered somewhere.

We are now at a US military base.

“This thing keeps leaning to the left. The controls feel weird.”

“······That’s really strange. What’s the problem? The center of gravity is level and correct.”

On the runway, Hong Da-jeong and Ha Tae-hoon are testing a new drone.

The drone currently being tested is a copy of a Chinese reconnaissance drone, with two wings overlapping like a biplane.

Since the wingspan is 3m and the weight is 25kg, they say they are testing it on the runway.

Since parts supply was not smooth, parts were brought in from here and there.

The main board was taken from a Japanese game console, the camera was from the latest domestically produced mobile phone camera, the frame and battery were from China, and the propeller and communication device were from American and European equipment.

This new drone, “Jjuguri,” which can be called a true multinational chimera, was created as part of a Melon Mask cheering project that has been taking place on message boards recently.

According to Hong Da-jeong, the creator and producer of Jjugguri, the new mid-range reconnaissance drone will be used to film “The Hope,” the most famous apartment complex in Seoul that has been out of news for some time.

Of course, the real purpose of this drone is to check the survival of our bulletin board licorice mmmmmmmmm.

His method of confirming survival is simple.

“I think that apartment collapsed.”

If the apartment collapses, you die.

If the apartment is alive, it is presumed to be alive.

If it is presumed to be alive, they plan to attempt communication through a separate radio attached to the drone.

However, since it is a K-walkie-talkie, it cannot perform any other function other than voice conversation.

Meanwhile, the condition of our world’s creator, Melon Mask, is becoming increasingly serious.

MELON_MASK: This live! Apocalypse! I’ll be the main character.

MELON_MASK: It’s the return of Melon!

MELON_MASK: Look forward to it! You’ll be able to see a magnificent space show like you’ve never seen before!

He announced that he would be heading to Earth on a rocket next Sunday.

The reason for the surprise announcement of Melon Mask has spread secretly among users, and now there is no one who does not know.

Each language bulletin board has a “signature user” like me, and these signature users tell the general users what they heard from the bulletin board administrator.

Anyway, since it is clear that if Melon dies in space, our bulletin board games will also end, users who have even a little bit of free time are trying to appease Melon Mask in some way.

For example, in the case of Pirate_Lord, who is living on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, he drew a large picture reminiscent of a Nazca Line on an exotic white sand beach in the South Sea, filmed it with a drone, and uploaded it to a bulletin board.

Pirate_Lord’s post generated a considerable response on the North American message boards, but soon skeptical users discovered that Pirate_Lord’s original nickname was I’m_on_a_Boat, and that he not only looked different from the user who had used the same nickname in the past, but also had a different race. They began to question whether Pirate_Lord had killed the original user and then plundered the satellite equipment, as his nickname suggests.

After that, Pirate_Lord deleted his post and disappeared, but this incident left the message board with more questions and depression than hope.

This is because the dark side of the era of destruction was revealed in the place where the melon mask was intended to comfort.

Despite such incidents, it is a firm fact that most Viva! Apocalypse! users were trying to support Melon Mask.

A Roman-style plaster bust of the Melon Mask made by an American user, a thousand origami cranes folded by a Japanese user, an SD felt doll of the Melon Mask made out of wool by a Scottish user, and a female user from Mexico even got a tattoo of the Melon Mask on her forearm for authentication.

A Korean user also tried to send a message of support for Melon Mask with a soulful beatbox, but it fell through midway.

Anyway, in this rare and heated atmosphere, Viva! Apocalypse! finally regained its vitality right after the war, but the main character, Melon Mask, showed no reaction to these cheering activities.

Of course, the notice “Live! Apocalypse! Melon’s Space Show!” that decorated one corner of the bulletin board screen did not disappear.

Anonymous887: Even though it is space, things are not immutable. Rather, space is exposed to phenomena that rarely occur on Earth, such as cosmic radiation, temperatures close to absolute zero, solar wind, weightlessness, and vacuum. Starting a rocket is suicidal.

Anonymous3: I agree with 887. As a former NASA aerospace engineer, my short opinion is that if Mellon’s rocket is lucky, it will not work, but if it is unlucky, it will turn into space dust as soon as it works.

English message board users were unanimous in saying that what Melon was trying to do was suicidal.

Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do at this point.

Vivabot wanted me to do another great show like I did in the Twelve Square days, but it’s not that easy.

There are a few monsters around, but they are the ones that have finished their so-called fortifications.

What I’m saying is that it’s difficult for me to do it alone.

Even if you take your comrades with you, what’s the point if you lose them?

“Skeleton!”

It was the day before Melon Mask’s Earth Return Show that Hong Da-jeong was contacted again.

The Defender siblings and Ha Tae-hoon were gathered together.

It may seem like nothing special, but even here we can see the small conflicts within our group.

The Defender siblings, especially Hong Da-jeong, are at odds with Bang Jae-hyeok and his son.

Naturally, Defender also hated Bang Jae-hyuk’s hat.

Although Cheon Yeong-jae is a fellow defender, he has a special affection for Bang Jae-hyeok and his mother, with whom he had been through thick and thin in Incheon, and thus takes Bang Jae-hyeok’s side.

Ha Tae-hoon is one year my senior and is neutral.

He maintains a decent relationship with both Bang Jae-hyeok and the Defender siblings, but due to his personality, he will not lean towards either side.

The reason he cooperated with Hong Da-jeong was simply because it was related to drones, something he was interested in and liked.

“Then let’s start it.”

The drone, which looked like two overlapping pieces of cardboard, stood vertically and spun its propellers furiously.

“Oh, it’s rising. It’s rising!”

A drone came to mind.

As a mid-range drone, Hong Da-jeong moved the drone with a controller connected to a dish-shaped antenna.

The medium-sized drone, painted silver on the bottom and black on the top, disappeared into the clouds with a heavy propeller sound.

“It’ll take about three hours. It’s a lot slower than it looks.”

The screen she was looking at showed images of the ground and the front simultaneously in real time.

The side with better image quality is the side looking down at the ground.

“Skeleton and Oppa often go out, right? I want to help with things like this.”

According to her explanation, the new drone, Jjuguri, can stay in the air for over 12 hours and has excellent fuel efficiency, allowing it to operate not only in the Seoul metropolitan area but also all the way to the tip of Gyeongbuk.

It can be our eyes when traveling long distances.

We won’t be doing any long-distance activities, but if we do, drone support will be a huge help.

If you combine this with Cheon Yeong-jae’s sensing ability, it means that there is virtually no chance of being taken by surprise.

However, even so, you should refrain from outside activities as much as possible.

If there’s even a 1% chance of dying every time you go out, reducing the number of times you do it is the shortcut to living a long life.

We had a quick meal and returned to the bunker while the drone was heading towards Seoul.

Dajeong shared the drone’s screen to me through her own router.

I did something else with the screen on.

“······.”

Knock knock

Non-paying newbie: What sound does an architect make when he laughs?

Non-paying newbie: Geometry

This is to secure influence on the Red Archive bulletin board.

If in the past Skeleton got attention as a cute emoticon, my second personality, a non-paying newbie, changed the path to “gag”.

Unfortunately, so far there haven’t been many people who react to my jokes, perhaps because of the generation gap, but recently I’ve gained a fan.

Be happy :haha

This is the guy.

This guy only shows one reaction.

“lol”.

It’s not even a single letter, it’s just a consonant, but if you get the same reaction to every one of my gags, it means you’ve already fallen for my charm.

I think this is better.

If you become everyone’s favorite as quickly as Skeleton, there will be jealous people.

While I was working on gaining influence on the Red Archive bulletin board, I received a call from Hong Da-jeong again.

“Skeleton. Are you looking at the screen right now?”

“No. I’m just meditating right now.”

“Check it out quickly.”

I looked at the screen.

Sure enough, there was the bleak cityscape and the slanted apartment buildings we are all so familiar with.

“hmm?”

There isn’t much difference on the outside.

Is that because I’m looking down from above?

At least it’s certain that it didn’t collapse.

“I’ll try to enter at low altitude.”

“Are there any monsters around?”

“I don’t think so. But I’ll give it a try anyway~.”

The drone descended low and transmitted a view of The Hope from the front, rather than from above.

“how is it?”

Dajeong asked.

“hmm.”

There is no good answer.

That apartment has no choice but to be like that.

Now there are so many cracks so large that they are uncountable.

Even when Seoul was still standing, people used to bet on when it would collapse, but now it really doesn’t seem like it will end anytime soon.

I wonder if it will be difficult to endure this year.

Maybe Emgu left that apartment.

No matter what you say, that place is not a place for people to live.

Moreover, the gunshots that followed soon after served as a clue to guess Emgu’s current situation.

Surprisingly, there were people living in Seoul.

That’s a significant number too.

After Kim Byeong-cheol’s fall from power, it was thought that everyone had left the city, but a considerable number of people are living there in groups.

Bang! Bang!

The gunshots fired at us seemed more like shouts of help for their survival than a threat to us.

Hong Da-jeong wrote a post with the nickname Defender based on a series of videos.

Defender: (Defender Report) Taking a look at “The Hope.”

Beyond the water, Defender’s post, which is now a nostalgic user, received a hot response.

Not only the vivid drone photos, but also Hong Da-jeong’s witty editing and short snippets captured the tastes of bulletin board users.

In particular, the fact that so many people live in Seoul attracted as much attention as The Hope.

However, her post ends on a dark note.

Defender: It’s really unfortunate, but mmmmmmmmm seems to be dead. Even if he got out of there, it wouldn’t be easy to survive in a place with so many armed groups. If you think about it, there’s not a single group that would accept an adult male without any connections, isn’t that a self-evident result?

Defender’s post not only became a popular post, but also attracted numerous users from overseas.

coral8103 : Oh. Is M9 dead?

X’Ds_Grrrrr : RIP m9.

Anonymous 13: I’ve lived a long time. It’s a miracle that I survived here in a place like that.

LVRM: It was fun. mmmmmmmmm.

Anonymous100: X

…

…

In fact, the visit of foreign users is a kind of condolences.

The funeral continued through the night and into the early morning.

So much so that it received over 700 comments.

That’s a huge number.

At a time like now.

In some ways, it is a natural reward.

Despite all this, Emgu, who lived bravely in a slanted apartment, was one of the stars produced by Viva! Apocalypse!

His death hit hard for users who spent time with us.

*

The day of the final battle.

Live! Apocalypse! appears to be going ahead as scheduled.

Melon Mask did not make any announcement until the day of the live.

“Maybe I was too honest.”

Hong Da-jeong muttered with a bitter smile, but her face, like that of the Defender siblings, showed not a single trace of regret.

There are a lot of people gathered in my bunker.

Everyone gathered except for Cheon Yeong-jae, who lives outside of my territory.

Everyone, come see Live! Apocalypse!

The projector that Defender had picked up was unstable, but it produced a pretty decent image.

“Hey. Your skills are great. Is this Viva! Apocalypse!?”

Ha Tae-hoon is secretly greedy.

Of course, I have a lot of satellite equipment at play, but I have no intention of giving it away just yet.

Even if we hand out the equipment, the bulletin board will be ruined right away.

If Melon Mask throws a fireworks show in space today, our bulletin board is finished.

In the midst of the noisy atmosphere, today’s main character, Melon Mask, revealed a haggard appearance.

Far behind him, his partner Bumpy is chewing grass with his usual stupid face.

Melon Mask said with a gloomy face.

“Hello everyone······?”

You can tell by looking at this human expression.

I must have been going back and forth between hell and reality for several days.

The result is.

“······As announced, today is the day I return to Earth.”

As you can see.

The chat window scrolled quickly.

Thousands of messages, many in foreign languages ​​and soon converted into Korean, contained one wish.

Please stay in space.

Melon Mask’s eyes move slightly.

He saw the message.

I hoped for a small miracle to happen, but he soon looked away.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. People have their own destiny, right? No one can escape destiny. Me, Bumpy, and you guys.”

Another storm of messages.

The coolness of the melon mask is unbreakable.

He looked at us with blank eyes.

“You know that guy? He lived in a building that was leaning even steeper than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I heard he died too?”

So it was Emgu who was the problem.

No, it’s not that Mgu is the problem, but I’m sure I went and saw the Mgu article in person yesterday.

So, you could just say whatever came to your mind.

Anyway, the situation is very serious.

I decided to wait and see this situation unfold, but as a signature user, it would be dereliction of duty to watch the creator of the bulletin board die right before my eyes.

I immediately sent a message to Vivabot.

SKELTON: Upload my beatboxing video right now! Yes?!

But Vivabot didn’t respond.

It had to be that way because Melon had risen.

He is about to leave the monitor screen.

We are walking towards a rocket that will most likely leave us and kill us.

Everyone was saying no, but Melon ignored them.

Melon turned his head to look at the screen, like a condemned man looking back before going to the execution grounds.

“?”

Melon tilted her head.

what?

Did you see anything?

I had been focusing all my attention on Melon’s expression, so I belatedly moved the screen to the chat window.

“······uh?”

A miracle happened.

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive you guys!!!!!

…

…

It’s Mguda.

With the ability to paint over 10 times per second, Emgu is easily surpassing this skeleton and is painting in chat rooms on a global scale.

“M nine······?”

Melon Mask approached us again with a staggering gait and sat down at the desk.

The next moment the bulletin board stopped.

Even though they couldn’t do it, thousands of bulletin board users all kept silent as if they had made a promise.

Waiting for just one user.

In the holy silence, another protagonist spoke.

mmmmmmmmm : I’m alive. Melon.

Then Emgu posted a link.

The link contained a photo of Mgu himself giving a thumbs up inside a slanted and dangerously cracked apartment.

“M nine.”

Our creator smiled.

······If the story had ended like this, it might have been the heartwarming ending that was needed in this era of destruction.

But there is no middle ground with the Melon Mask.

There’s a new photo in the upper right margin of the bulletin board we always see.

In the photo, another person was added next to Melon Mask, who was smiling happily with the killer sloth Bumpy.

This is Emgu who gave a thumbs up.

mmmmmmmmm™ : (King God General M9) Kekekekekekekekeke

Even the bastard’s nickname had something strange attached to it.

It’s shiny, it’s eye-catching, and it’s something that other users don’t have.

“······.”

I find that annoying.