Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 68



Only Krnovel

42. Paradise (1)

Before the apocalypse, the most popular corner on Viva! Apocalypse! was “Show Off Your Shelter.”

Doomsday activists from around the world have opened their own refuges and inspired many of their fellows on the same path.

In fact, each of the shelters they certified had merits that were worth nodding to.

Shelters did not necessarily involve digging bunkers or building defensive structures.

A Canadian user has proven through his overwhelming camping and hunting skills that he has mastered the Native American way and can survive without any cumbersome equipment or construction.

The refuge he boasted of was an endless primeval forest.

On the other hand, there were also wealthy users who silenced everyone with their overwhelming money-making.

No one dared spit in front of the Arabian oilman, who had a luxury yacht worth over a billion won, and was equipped with survival necessities, bodyguards, and even a helicopter.

The person who built the most extravagant refuge in Korea was Chairman Park Cheol-ju, who came from a wealthy family.

His fortress, which he built on a hill with a grand fortress, agricultural and livestock facilities, and even a small golf course, could be said to be a small world in itself.

But the fortress was suddenly destroyed by artillery fire and became a ruin.

The Legion’s artillery fired without reason, and the conglomerate’s fortress collapsed without warning.

Not many people know about the fate of the chaebol family after that.

They came to my territory two days after the Jeju fleet arrived.

*

Message from unicorn18: Nuna! Why aren’t you uploading beatbox again?! I’m totally into the beat right now! (@@ )( @^))(@@ )( @@)

Recently, Unicorn18 sends me messages every day.

Why on earth are you doing this?

I think I know why, but it’s a little burdensome.

But I think it’s better to endure it.

“······.”

It’s strategic ambiguity.

It actually worked.

“senior.”

Not long after Skeleton’s Beatbox (4) was uploaded, I received a direct contact from Woo Min-hee.

“Senior, do you have any strange hobbies?”

“What are you talking about?”

“No, no. Nothing.”

She cut off the call as if running away.

There is no way to know what was in her mind, but perhaps she was a little suspicious of this skeleton.

Well, if your personal identification number and Viva! Apocalypse! nickname are the same, anyone would be suspicious.

There is a heated debate going on on Palenet and our bulletin board.

The main topic of conversation is, of course, the evacuation fleet heading to Jeju Island.

The government-released footage showed numerous ships lined up against the backdrop of the blue Jeju Port, disgorging countless people.

Everyone who arrived in Jeju Island had a happy expression on their face and hugged their family members or what appeared to be a welcoming crowd.

Although this video is touching enough in an age where there isn’t much to be happy about, some people have claimed that the video is a manipulated fake.

Among them, the one who spoke the most passionately was the best named m9 on the Jeju Island bulletin board.

There is no way to know what he did for a living before his destruction, but m9 is now active as the best fake video identification expert in South Korea.

mmmmmmmm : 00:13 The hand of a woman wearing a purple jumper in the upper left corner of the screen generates noise

mmmmmmmmm : 03:37 The direction of the light coming into the close-up male pupil and the direction of the light reflecting off the hair of the child standing next to him are different.

mmmmmmmmm : 04:10 What looks like a trawler in the upper left corner, the shadow direction is different QED proof complete

“······What.”

I don’t know.

I haven’t studied this much and it’s tiring to even question the facts.

Still, it’s fun to watch positivists and deniers fight it out on the keyboard.

If you look closely, you can see that the time that feels like homework has passed in a flash.

But there’s something to do before that.

It’s food organization.

Rustle

Even the food warehouse that seemed like it would last forever began to reveal empty spaces one by one.

In particular, the consumption of freezer space is extreme, which is intentional.

Even when eating the same food, I tried to eat and process the food that was kept in the freezer first.

After running the freezer for nearly three years, I realized that electricity is a big issue, but the risk of not being able to run the freezer is also very high.

It’s good to just pile up a lot, but that’s only after you’ve secured infinite power and safety.

My territory is relatively safe, but no place is 100% safe.

No one knows when another crisis will strike.

It would be better to reduce the proportion of frozen foods and, if they remain frozen, to change them into forms that are easy to preserve.

Like replacing raw meat with smoked meat, making pemmican like before, or replacing it with jerky or sausage.

The biggest prize is the prey given by Gold.

Gold threw a few beasts at me and never looked for my territory again.

The guy seemed to think that was enough to cover the medical expenses.

So, what he’s saying is that the price of his life is one wild boar, two deer, three chickens, and three pheasants.

I ate the chicken and pheasant all by myself in a hurry, but the problem is the meat of four-legged animals.

Especially goral meat.

I absolutely cannot eat this.

For me, who can’t even eat wild boar, this may be too high a hurdle.

Well, I guess you’re still not very hungry.

When I see people complaining about side dishes in this terrible world.

Still, this goral meat is an excellent source of protein.

I heard that venison is rich in protein.

How should I eat this?

After thinking about it carefully, I think it would be a good idea to make sausages.

Unlike jerky, it doesn’t shrink in volume and has a fairly high preservation capacity.

We have all the ingredients and tools to make sausages.

As soon as I remembered it, I started working on it.

They removed the remaining half-peeled skin, dismembered the corpse, and separated the flesh and fat from the bones.

Since it was a task that took quite some time, I left the walkie-talkie, radio, and transceiver nearby.

Wheeeeeeeeing—

The finely chopped meat fell into a large bowl as it was ground.

Next is white fat.

It’s not from the gorani, it’s from pork fat.

When making sausages, it is said that mixing in pork fat, no matter what meat you use, gives it a better flavor and makes it look better.

The point is to grind finely crushed ice when grinding the fat.

A bowl half-full of red liver meat is topped with white liver fat like a sauce.

A smooth start.

I’ll make one today and finish it tomorrow. Including the boar meat.

I don’t know what it tastes like, but if I’m hungry, wouldn’t I eat it?

It was when I was thinking like that and trying to spur on my work.

A car horn could be heard in the distance.

Are you a pioneer?

He took off his gloves and observed his surroundings through the periscope.

There is a jeep parked on the road leading to the US military base.

It doesn’t seem to be a pioneer group.

I see they don’t have any of the loud flags that symbolize them.

I wondered what kind of person he was, and while I was observing for a while, this time the walkie-talkie rang.

Chijijijik-

“Hunter Park Gyu? Are you alive?”

A young woman’s voice.

It’s a voice I remember.

As I was struggling to remember who it was, they contacted me again.

“This is Ji Young-hee. The one who helped you before. Are you still alive?”

Why do you ask why I am alive twice?

I could have answered, but I ignored it for now.

If I have something to do, he will come this way, and then I will be able to know how many people he has brought and why he has come without having to talk to him.

I placed the bowl under the periscope and started kneading the dough.

The important thing is to mix well so that the curing salt containing sodium nitrite does not clump together.

It is said that consuming more than 10g of sodium nitrite at once can cause death.

But if you don’t put this in, another pathogen that can kill other people will be created inside the sausage.

Therefore, if you don’t want to die from eating sodium nitrite, you have no choice but to rub it hard.

Swish swish-

While I was mixing the meat dough diligently, I kept an eye on the outside environment.

I think I looked outside after rubbing it about 30 times.

The radio was no longer heard.

Jeeps never came here.

Instead, another vehicle appeared at the US military base.

It’s not just one or two.

It’s a huge group.

A large fleet of vehicles, including a container trailer, two large trucks, and five four-wheel drive SUVs, appeared in my area.

Because the scale of the incident was so large, we immediately stopped work and checked our weapons.

Firearms and ammunition, grenades and recoilless rifles, claymores.

The Javelin, which will be used in case of an emergency, is also equipped with a battery.

Beep-

I heard the javelin’s activating sound and sent word to the sniper mother and daughter through the bulletin board.

“There’s a large convoy of vehicles in front of me right now. It’s a bit far from you, but I want you to know.”

I received a new communicator from the Defender siblings and gave it to the sniper mother and daughter.

Radio is good, and the Internet is good, but for short-range communication, there is nothing better than a radio with its own encryption function.

“Okay. Call me if anything happens.”

Suu answered.

“huh.”

I appreciate their consideration, but I have no intention of engaging them in a fight.

If it was a fight where one or two people were left feeling sorry, then that would be fine, but asking for help against an enemy with such an overwhelming advantage from the start is no different from asking to die together.

Lee Park Gyu, I didn’t live with that much conscience.

I wanted to contact the Defender siblings as well, but to get there I had to overcome the ordeal called Gold.

First, I told the truth only to the sniper mother and daughter and continued to monitor the situation outside.

The sun was now setting in the west from its zenith.

The sunlight was more stinging than warm, and the edges of my vision were inevitably covered with haze, blurring my watch.

I thought about it for a moment.

I wonder if it was a mistake to tell Ji Young-hee my whereabouts.

That’s not it.

When your mind becomes anxious, you tend to regret everything.

So, I guess there was some doubt.

Let me be clear.

I made the best choice I could at the time.

I don’t regret my decision.

They didn’t leave the air force base until evening.

It was difficult to see due to obstacles including the trailer’s cargo, but it appeared that some work was being done in front of the US military base.

“There are people near the US military base. They are not part of the pioneer group, but I don’t know what their purpose is, so keep that in mind.”

I also contacted Defender.

“Okay. Skeleton.”

I resumed the task of mixing the meat again.

Although it was sporadic, the meat that had been cold to my hands had now risen to a temperature similar to my body temperature.

Spices, seasonings, and MSG were added and mixed together by machine, and then the meat was injected into a collagen shell called a sausage casing.

For a first timer, the work went well.

The sausage casing was unexpectedly elastic and held up well, resulting in a sausage with a nice appearance.

But the taste will be something you won’t expect.

It was made by grinding meat and adding various spices to it to mask the gamey taste of the meat.

You could say it’s the food we eat to live.

But even this would be considered a luxurious meal for people in Incheon.

Even a defender or sniper would be delicious right now.

After making about ten of those sausages, I looked toward the air force base.

“hmm?”

For a moment I doubted my eyes.

It had to be that way.

Because they were having a barbecue party.

“no.”

I immediately came out of the bunker and took a closer look with my binoculars.

There were about 15 people gathered around the grill.

A mixed group of men and women were holding glasses of beer and smiling while watching the meat being cooked.

There’s no way the smell there would waft over here, but as I watch them string various vegetables and meats on large iron skewers and grill them over a charcoal grill, I feel like the aroma is wafting over here.

A thought that comes to mind without thinking.

Are you trying to lure me with food?

“······.”

That would be an over-estimation of oneself.

But it is true that the scenery somewhat lowered my guard.

“Excuse me. Can you hear me?”

He spoke into the walkie-talkie.

“Hi, I’m Park Gyu. Do you remember me?”

*

“It’s been a while, Hunter Park Gyu. I thought something had happened since I didn’t hear from you.”

Ji Young-hee did not accompany her father this time.

I didn’t really ask.

A more important figure was standing in front of me, glaring at me with sharp eyes.

Park Cheol-ju.

He is the chairman of Seokju Group, one of the two largest conglomerates in South Korea, of which it is now difficult to find even a trace.

Instead of speaking to me directly, he bent down and whispered something to a middle-aged man who appeared to be his subordinate.

The man said something to Ji Young-hee, and Ji Young-hee waved her hand and answered.

“Hunter Park Gyu is not the kind of person who would do something like that. He lives here alone. I checked with my father several times.”

It seems like I’m the one being suspected.

I always suspect others of being predators, but in fact, I probably look similar to others.

In a time when the mere fact that you are a young, armed man can be enough to intimidate a stranger.

Wouldn’t you want to be more cautious if it was a human with a hunter badge?

Ji Young-hee guided me to another table.

It was a dark spot far from the grill, but she still brought me a plate full of meat and a glass of beer.

“Alcohol is okay.”

“There’s also cola.”

“Please give me cola.”

I tried the meat while she went to get the cola.

“!”

My eyes lit up.

This is real beef.

How long has it been since I’ve had such delicious beef?

It’s not just beef.

The paprika and green onions that were added together are still fresh.

As I was absentmindedly munching on a skewer, Jiyounghee approached me.

“Would you like some more?”

“No, it’s okay. I’ve had enough. More importantly, what’s going on here?”

I listened to her story as I slowly emptied the remaining plate.

Ji Young-hee didn’t tell even one story of her own.

Why is she hanging out with the Seokju Group, and where did her father go?

Instead, she spoke in her characteristically soft-spoken tone about the purpose of those who were acting with her.

“Are you thinking of going to Japan?”

“Japan?”

For a moment, I doubted my ears.

Japan, huh?

Japan is currently implementing a complete lockdown policy.

No vessel, aircraft, or person is permitted to enter or leave Japan.

There were even rumors that a refugee ship carrying thousands of people that had set off from Busan had sunk after being shelled by a Japanese warship.

To my ears, going to Japan sounded like going there to die.

“Japan? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“I got permission. The chairman has connections with Japanese politicians.”

“I see. Where are you going in Japan?”

“You are going to the Ogasawara Islands.”

Ji Young-hee smiled and took out her cell phone to show me a picture of an exotic tropical island, probably taken for tourism promotional purposes.

“The chairman said so.”

She smiled.

“Let’s get out of hell and go to paradise.”

The smile was so happy that I didn’t ask how she was going to go.

Because I know how difficult it is to have even a little hope in this terrible world.

I had a good meal.

I think that’s enough.

*

A day has passed.

Continuing from yesterday, today I watched their work from afar while making goral sausages.

The container door opened and something was dragged out on a forklift.

The moment I confirmed the identity of the cargo that had been dragged out of the container, I let out an exclamation without realizing it.

It’s an airplane.

Although not yet assembled, the plane’s elegant silver body held the promise of taking it anywhere in the world.