Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 42



Only Krnovel

31. The Man Who Became Light (2)

“Do you remember······? Mr. Skeleton. It’s me, Jonnaenon.”

Authentication was requested.

It was such an obvious thing, but the moment I saw the certification video, I felt a bit of shock and an inexplicable sense of guilt.

“The Mark Seven Harpnizer that Mr. Skeleton requested. It’s brand new, unsealed···.”

I remember going to the Jonnae-non meeting before the war.

He stuck to a bizarre fashion that featured his muscular body in training suits that were one size too small.

Now that I think about it, I think I was about 183cm tall.

In restaurants where you have to take off your shoes to enter, your height decreased by about 10 cm, but when you just put on your shoes, your height increases back to 183 cm.

Since he has muscle, his weight would probably be around 88kg, right?

But I don’t think the object was 18cm.

I remember one time when we were standing next to each other at a bar and urinating, I caught a glimpse of it while I was drunk, and I remember his thing not being that big······.

But now, the cheerful, laughing, and chatty protagonist will never be seen among those people again.

The arm revealed in the video was so thin that it seemed like only bones remained.

The extreme poverty seemed to be due to other causes rather than nutritional problems.

The once cheerful voice that shouted “One more bottle of soju!” now trembles so nervously that it is barely audible.

What happened?

SKELTON: Sir, are you sick?

They avoided answering.

All they asked for was to meet me.

I took my fingers off the keyboard for a moment and thought.

It is extremely dangerous to go outside now.

Gunfire is heard intermittently from the north right now.

There is talk of continued fighting and confrontation.

There’s no telling what lies beyond.

Gone are the friendly soldiers who, just a year ago, would give you information if you contacted them with your personal identification number.

You have to go through a dangerous area alone, a path you know but now an unknown path.

But if we just sit back and let the erosion spread like this, not only I but everyone around me will die or go crazy.

If you ask Woo Min-hee for help, your immediate safety is guaranteed.

But she won’t leave me alone.

They’ll probably make up an excuse to force me out of the bunker and throw me into the ditch.

“······.”

It’s a difficult choice.

It’s like taking a risk that could lead to death in an hour in order to avoid certain death that will come in a year.

But I’d rather do something than just sit still and die.

Moreover, I pride myself on being able to control to some extent the dangers that I may encounter outside.

The answer is set.

Crash

It’s time to find my role model.

But the sun hasn’t set yet.

With drones flying around all the time, moving around in broad daylight is reckless.

I logged onto the community to kill time until the sun went down.

SKELTON: Does anyone remember John Nannon?

I suddenly became curious.

What do people on the bulletin board think of the memorable user named Jonnaenon?

After I got ready for a short trip, I saw a few comments.

Doyourbest321 : Fucked up? That bastard. He’s a scammer.

RKKArA: You’re a Hunter, but back then there were Awakens? It’s something that even a normal person with a high level of nerve would be able to do, knowing that he was a second-rate hot-barrier and still pretending to be a Hunter. To put it bluntly, what would we do if there was even one Awaken among us?

Anonymous848: Hey~ I’m so sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve heard that name. I think that person is still alive. He must have made a lot of money, right?

Defender: I went to that human lecture once, and all he said was a bunch of weird stuff. What? Personal nuclear power? Does that make sense?

There was not a single friendly comment.

All the comments were either sarcastic or insulting, and no one talked about his good points.

Although this is the great meaning of the bulletin board, I felt a little disappointed.

“······I respect you. You’re a good person.”

It is true that Jonnaenon copied without permission.

It is also true that he made a huge fortune by using the bulletin board.

Still, wasn’t his information useful?

Everyone must have gotten a little information or two from reading the texts he translated.

Plus, if there was any construction work or anything like that, he would call the specialists himself and they would take care of everything we needed.

Who could provide such a service?

It’s a real story.

No one except John Nae-non has ever gone out of his way to help others.

But the reality was harsh.

No one forgave him or remembered the achievements hidden in the past.

Maybe that’s why.

Our distorted hero continued to remain silent.

What did he think during those long years?

Are you ready for a splendid comeback?

Or maybe he was preparing a quiet revenge?

Neither option seems likely.

Eternal indifference may have been the conclusion he chose.

*

I left the bunker when the spiderweb started to form.

The current temperature is 1 degree Celsius.

The sky was full of dark clouds.

It looks like it’s going to rain or snow heavily.

I rode my bike quietly, feeling the warmth of the hot pack attached to my heart.

It was pitch black outside, but I knew this road well.

I could guess where I was based solely on the outlines of the terrain revealed by the starlight, and descended the steep slope with minimal braking.

A stream appeared.

It is a fairly deep river.

Deep enough to get wet up to your buttocks when riding a bike.

If you go a little further, there is a road that the farmers have made by piling up gravel little by little.

It’s hard to see because of the fast-flowing water, but there is a pile of stones at the entrance.

I used that as a sign and entered the stream.

The wheels were only slightly locked.

bang!

As I was walking down the road, I heard gunshots.

I got off my bike and took a detour on the road.

I climbed up a short hill and identified the people firing the gunshots.

He is a pioneer.

The people who had appeared and disappeared at the golf course the other day were building a barricade with broken cars and planks and shooting at the road across the street.

There was another group of people on the other side.

Is this Jo Seong-yong’s gang?

That’s probably the most likely option.

As we passed over the hill and entered the field, we confirmed their identity.

It wasn’t Jo Seong-yong’s gang that was firing from the opposite side.

“Shoot! Shoot! You little bastards! Kill them all!”

“Excuse me! Yongsu’s father isn’t breathing!”

“Bring me some hot water! I need to disinfect it!”

“When is the pioneer group coming?!”

They too were our ordinary neighbors.

People who had once taken the same subway, shopped at the same supermarket, and passed each other on the street were now split into two groups, trying to kill each other for reasons unknown to even them.

I walked straight towards the darkness.

There were no other threats after that.

The likely ambush points for looters were empty, and there was no sign of looters on the highway, which had become a giant car graveyard lined with abandoned vehicles.

The real threat came from the sky.

Swaaaaaaahh …

A torrential downpour of rain came down.

Getting drenched in cold rain in 2 degree weather is a disaster that can lead to death.

Inside an abandoned bus, I had to light a fire, put on a poncho, and fight four enemies: humidity, heat, cold, and discomfort.

I swallowed a caffeine pill without water to avoid falling asleep in the middle of the night.

“······.”

As soon as the rain stopped, I got on my bike and rode along the wet road.

We arrived in Seoul just as the sun was rising.

This speed is possible because I have a bicycle.

If you walk, it would take three days, or maybe even longer under the current circumstances.

I took the note out of my pocket and checked its contents.

[Next to the broken traffic light. Tell the bespectacled man at the stand with the FAIL sign that he is a idiot.]

On a street named after the capital of a Middle Eastern country, those left behind were selling their wares in a shabby market.

A ramshackle stand was lined with junk electronics, rusty kettles, quilts with ripped cotton in them, crumpled wads of paper, bundles of wood, and other miscellaneous items, but there were no luxury goods or precious metals.

Contrary to popular belief, luxury goods are still in demand.

Because those who deserve to live better are sweeping it all away.

The security situation was relatively stable, and National Assembly soldiers were patrolling the market area.

For the first time in a while, I walked along a street filled with the smell of people, pulling my bike by hand.

bang!

Gunshots were heard not far to the east.

This is the Legion’s controlled area.

Could it be that a battle is about to break out right now?

I looked around nervously and saw that I was the only surprised person on this street.

Everyone went on their way calmly, bargaining, looking at items, and sometimes even attempting to steal.

Even the old woman selling mugwort on a mat was yawning heavily.

As if the gunshots were a natural part of life.

I swallowed my surprise and went to the stall written on the note.

[FAIL]

There was a simple sign written in magic marker on a piece of cardboard, and sure enough, underneath it was a skinny man with glasses and broken lenses duct-taped together, selling computer parts.

I approached him and spoke in a low voice.

“I am looking for you, my lord.”

The man looked at me.

“Nickname?”

“Skeleton.”

The bespectacled man gestured to someone.

A man without a leg, wrapped in a blanket, limped toward me with a cane.

“Please take care of the store. I have somewhere to go for a bit.”

The bespectacled man pulled his hood up over his head.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes. But is it east?”

Gunshots rang out again from the east.

I was surprised, but the man answered calmly.

“yes.”

The place he led me to was a residential area with a forest of bland concrete structures called apartment buildings located on the east side of the market.

Beyond the forest of apartments, a tower that seemed to pierce the sky was half-collapsed and collapsing.

thud!

A piece of debris fell from above, creating a loud noise and a cloud of dust.

Before the dust has even cleared,

Bang! Bang!

Two gunshots rang out from the apartment complex.

That’s right.

It’s the gunshots that were heard earlier.

As I looked at the man with a disgusted expression, he began to talk while wiping his glasses with a cloth.

“The area across from there is controlled by the Legion faction.”

“Who are you fighting with? The National Assembly faction?”

“No. They are fighting among themselves. At first, it was stars fighting among themselves, but now it’s Rose of Sharon fighting among themselves. Soon, well, they’ll be fighting among themselves.”

“What does the National Assembly faction do?”

“Just watch. It will self-destruct without you doing anything.”

He took me to a shopping street with an old feel beyond the apartment complex.

It’s a street I remember.

My colleague and teammate, Gong Kyung-min, used to drag me and my teammates around, saying he would buy us a meal.

I remembered the scene where he boasted that there was an amazing restaurant here, but couldn’t find it and ended up going to an ordinary-looking Chinese restaurant, only to be surprised at how delicious the food there was.

“Park Gyu. How long are you going to be so cold? They’re just special kids. Kids chosen by God. To be honest, before they awakened, they were worse than the dirt on our toenails. What can we do? Times have changed. Drink. Drink. Are you going to change our screwed-up fate by worrying?”

Now there is no Gong Kyung-min and my team is divided.

I will never be able to find that Chinese restaurant.

bang!

A gunshot rang out through the hazy memories, this time from up ahead.

A deathly sound of wind swept past my ears, and I could hear bullets flying behind me.

The man and I dropped to the ground and crawled toward the nearest shelter.

I spat out the muddy water that was sticky from the rain that fell the night before and asked the man.

“What is it?”

The man with glasses seemed immune to gunshots, but this time he seemed startled.

Leaning back against the wall, he tried to take a deep breath, panting.

“Fuck, I don’t know. It was fine until yesterday. Seriously. Living day by day is getting harder and harder.”

“Are you a legionnaire?”

“They could be civilians.”

“Why civilians?”

“I just write and look. This is the kind of neighborhood I’m in.”

Those with guns now show hostility to everything that passes by.

I thought of sniper Rebecca, but quickly dismissed the thought.

A fierce gunfight broke out on the side of the complex, and eventually a tank appeared and aimed its gun at the complex.

“······.”

After passing through streets stained with violence, we arrived at our destination.

“Here it is.”

It was a three-story, run-down mansion.

On the exterior wall of the building, which looked to be at least 50 years old, a half-torn banner celebrating the reconstruction was fluttering sadly.

John Nae-non was in the basement of that building.

“Come this way.”

As I stepped into the basement, several rats ran out.

The basement of the apartment was deeper than I imagined.

The man opened his mouth, turning on the lantern and illuminating the endless staircase.

“This townhouse is said to have been built as a camouflaged command bunker during the war during the military regime. The upper part is an ordinary rotten bridge building, but the lower part is special.”

Now is the time to ask.

“I heard you are the subordinate of the Lord Jonnae. What exactly is your relationship?”

The man stopped.

You didn’t stop to answer my question.

In front of us was a cheap locker that looked like something you would see in a bathroom.

When he opened the locker, to his surprise, an unexpected object appeared.

It’s a radiation protection suit.

It’s a higher-end model than mine, from the same company I have.

He handed me a protective suit.

“Yes, he is a subordinate. In other words, should I call him a follower?”

“Follower?”

“Yes, it’s true. Mr. Jonnaenon is a great person.”

The man’s voice was weak, but it didn’t sound like something made up.

He muttered, looking into the distance while wearing a protective suit.

“······If America has Melon Mask, Korea has Jon Nae-non.”

“Is that so···?”

That guy is the creator of Viva! Apocalypse! Melon Mask?

Isn’t that going too far?

Is it really possible that a great conman and businessman who amassed a fortune worth tens of trillions of dollars and had global influence at the age of just 40 should be put in the same category as a person who was cursed at and kicked out of a message board?

That’s not it.

This is an unreasonable assessment that even I, a person who is friendly to John Nae-non, cannot agree with.

“Please wear it.”

“Why is this happening?”

“You will understand when you come in.”

A man wearing a hazmat suit illuminated the other side with a lantern.

There stood a recently reinforced concrete wall, and in its center a lead door was firmly shut.

“There is a Lord inside here.”

I followed him out the door.

The room was dark.

There was a bed in the darkness, and someone was lying on it with their arms hanging down.

Oddly enough, a faint light was shining from his arm, but it wasn’t coming from his arm, but from the blinking light from the treatment equipment under the bed.

A man wearing a hazmat suit woke up the man lying in bed.

“Brother. Brother! Mr. Skeleton is here. You should wake up! Brother!”

The man who was on the borderline between life and death was supported and raised up.

A man with a body reduced to nothing but bones and red spots spread all over his face like a plague looked at me with vacant eyes.

When he tried to smile, I recognized him.

That he had hardly any teeth left in his mouth.

“······Lord Skeleton.”

The man spoke with slurred pronunciation.

I remember the muscular man I met at the cheap meat restaurant.

That sight now seems to have departed, like the others, to the other side, never to return.

Like that Chinese restaurant I’ll never find again.

Now one question remains.

Why did this dying man come looking for me?

Why did the country so desperately crave relics from the old days?

“no.”

Soon the clue was unraveled.

John Nae-non knew me.

“Professor···!!”

Another me hidden behind the mask called Skeleton.

One question leads to another.

Since when?

The scene where John Nae-non tried to say something to me at the last meeting I attended came to my mind as if in a dream.

“ah.”

Was it since then?