Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 9



Only Krnovel

9. Neighbor

bang!

Late in the afternoon, as I sit blankly on a folding chair and gaze at the sky, I occasionally hear gunshots from the south.

A dull, wide-spreading gunshot pattern.

It belongs to a sniper living in the southeast.

Originally there was a small town.

The distance is about 5.5km in a straight line.

It was a bustling area with a church, a supermarket, a village bank, a community center, and an elementary school.

As the war began, the area was reduced to rubble, but a few steel-framed concrete buildings remained, looking like skeletons of corpses.

There lives a crazy sniper here, one of my few neighbors.

The reason it’s called ‘crazy’ is because the sniper shoots everything that passes by.

Their behavior of trying to kill anyone who approaches their territory is reminiscent of the human hunters in our community, but in fact, while their intention to kill is the same, if you look deeper, there is a world of difference between the two.

Human hunters kill people to hide their territory and avoid revealing it.

On the other hand, a crazy sniper just shoots and sees.

There is no other choice.

They lie in wait in high-rise buildings with a commanding view of the world through their scopes, intent on killing anything that comes within effective range.

Of course, this sniper is also human.

She also has a warm heart like a warm-hearted animal and knows how to love people.

The sniper knows me just as I know the sniper.

The story goes back three months after the outbreak of the war.

*

It was the end of the year and New Year’s holidays.

It was a time of crowds, sparkling trees, children running wild in department stores, snow covering the streets, and Santa Claus, who, if you think about it, was a creepy man—but right after the war, all of that was just a faded memory that could never be recovered.

At that time, I was busy checking the status of the weapons taken from the US military base.

The guns and ammunition were in a well-built bunker so there was no direct contact with damage or radioactive fallout, but there were concerns about radioactive contamination as they were in an area that was directly hit by the nuclear explosion.

Fortunately, the test results showed that both the gun and the ammunition were usable, so I kept them in my armory.

Unfortunately, there were no weapons beyond rifles.

There was no weapon beyond a grenade, let alone the expected hunter equipment.

I’m not a military official, so I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but the base was empty before the nuclear strike.

Looking at the shredded documents strewn about, the items that seemed to have been hastily thrown away, and the mug of coffee left unattended on the desk.

The situation on the American side wasn’t all that good either.

The nuclear attack on South Korea is just the tip of the iceberg.

There were hundreds of feet there.

As expected from the US military, which is called the Space Force, they showed off their prowess by intercepting most of them.

However, even among the US military, there is a thing called a “responsible group.”

It’s a monster.

Monsters are beings from another dimension created with completely different principles and logic from humans. They have characteristics of both living and non-living things, and they are the natural enemies of humanity who seek to destroy humans with powers and miracles that humans do not have.

It appears in a dimensional gap called a rift, and this rift has two characteristics.

One is even distribution.

Each crack opens at regular intervals.

There are four in Korea, but the deadly one is the Paju Crack in Paju.

The reason why only one is so lethal is because cracks have another characteristic called strength.

The strength of the crack is proportional to the number of humans living nearby.

The intensity of the Paju crack, which covers the metropolitan area, is the highest grade, while the Jeju crack is the lowest grade.

A large population and a large territory are traditional criteria for distinguishing between a powerful and a small country, but now they have become criteria for a country that quickly falls.

It is not a coincidence but inevitability that India and China, with their large populations and territories, fell into ruin so quickly.

The United States, with a smaller population than the two countries, is doing relatively better, but even there it is not entirely safe.

Because the territory is so vast and the population cannot be considered small.

In fact, before the war, the United States showed a move to repatriate troops deployed in major countries to their home country.

Before the war broke out, it was not uncommon to hear that there were not a single American soldier left in Korea.

But then the supposedly extinct American military invaded my territory.

They were pulling a heavy Humvee with a 12.7mm machine gun mounted on its roof.

As the Humvee barreled through the golf course and into my territory, I thought of the old saying that in this world, luck is everything and the rest is nothing.

No, fuck, why of all people?

What sin have I committed?

If I pick up a discarded weapon, is that a crime?

With all sorts of thoughts running through my head, the Humvee stopped in front of bunker 11, my territory.

The one who got out of the car was a young blonde woman.

Although she was a woman, she was as big as me, and she was much better armed than me, wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest and carrying a gun with various attachments.

At that time, closed-circuit cameras and wiretapping equipment had not yet been restored.

The existing ones were completely burned down along with Mr. Kim’s house during the nuclear attack.

To make matters worse, the periscope installed for this very moment did not move.

It looks like the debris from the aftermath of the nuclear attack is stuck in the cracks, and even if you try to move it with force, all it will do is indicate that there are people on this side.

So we had to rely on the meager information coming in through tiny observation windows.

Soon she moved into the blind spot.

I stayed in my seat.

Because I still don’t know how many American soldiers have invaded my territory.

There could be as few as one, as many as three, or more, lurking within that steel beast.

Fighting well-trained and armed American soldiers is not something I want to do, but if they are coming for my territory, I have no other choice.

All of them, no choice but to kill them.

I watched for a long time, but there was no movement inside the Humvee.

Rustle

There was a noise from the side of the main bunker.

It’s that woman from before.

What should I do?

It can also subdue women quickly.

That one has an easier difficulty level.

But I thought of another way.

If that woman is a reconnaissance team, the American soldiers inside the vehicle are likely to be unguarded.

If we can destroy the main force with a single surprise attack, this difficult fight will end in a complete victory.

We took action immediately.

After hearing the soldier’s footsteps and predicting his path, he silently exited the bunker and moved towards the Humvee while hiding his body.

I remember one door being open.

The door had been open the whole time, and it was still open when I brought the Humvee back into view.

There is no response inside the Humvee.

The gun control automatically changed and approached.

Just before entering, I felt a presence behind me.

For a moment I was confused.

“?!”

This is because the sound came from an unexpected location.

Nevertheless, he calmly entered the Humvee and aimed his gun.

The car was empty.

The rear seats where people should be sitting were filled with a haphazard mix of guns, ammunition, and combat rations.

Gulp

My mouth just started to water.

This is a huge piece of equipment.

Even I, Park Gyu, who tries to uphold the human way, was equipped with enough equipment to turn me into a plunderer.

Is there one person?

Two people?

My head was spinning faster than usual.

I don’t know, but at least two.

The female soldier was whistling to indicate her position, oblivious to my greed.

Subduing her was no easy task.

He tripped him from behind, stomped on his back, and aimed the cold muzzle of his gun at the back of his neck.

It was time to pull the trigger and prepare for the next battle.

Another soldier appeared from the side.

The second soldier was enough to throw a pebble of doubt into my murderous mind.

It’s a girl.

Maybe about ten years old?

A naive child, completely out of place in the fin-de-siècle scenery of a golf course and its ruins, where everything had burned down and only ashes remained, was staring blankly at the day he was about to commit murder.

Suddenly I noticed that the child and the woman had the same hair color and also looked similar.

The child tilted his head and called for his mother.

“······.”

I thought about it for a moment.

Are we going to kill them and take everything?

Or will you take a risk and let them go?

It’s not an easy problem.

It goes without saying that the former has a huge advantage in terms of profit.

Anyone would choose the former unless they got shot in the head.

“······Phew.”

I took a deep breath.

A myriad of thoughts coiled around my consciousness like vines, but in the end, the path I chose was not a very wise one.

He took his foot off her back, kicked her gun, and stepped back.

The soldier jumped up with a single scream, walked over to the girl, wrapped his arms around her, and glared at me.

I stared at my reflection in her breathless blue eyes.

I stood there calmly, my bloodshot eyes in the center, wearing a gloomy robe of fear and contempt.

The moment I saw that sight, I knew what this foreign soldier thought of me.

She perceived me as someone who was clearly different from herself.

Incomprehensible and needless to understand.

For example, she is the only inhabitant of the civilized world thrown into the jungle, and I am an inhabitant of the jungle surrounding her.

Why, they look different, speak different languages, and have different cultures.

Is it really necessary to understand each other in such an extreme situation?

Even if the circumstances had been changed, the result would have been similar.

“Here. My land.”

He said, pointing his finger at my area.

I knew their language, but I didn’t bother to use it.

“My house.”

Because this is Korea.

They say Korea is not Rome, but Korea, which is currently collapsing, is as historical as Rome.

“?”

“Get out. Now.”

“······.”

“If you don’t go out, you’re screwed! Got it?”

The woman noticed and quickly drew her gun and aimed it.

He quickly kicked the pistol away with his foot and aimed the gun at his temple.

The child’s scream rang out briefly, but I winked at the child and spoke to the woman.

“Take it easy, you bitch.”

“This bitch?!”

They say that when you go abroad, you learn how to curse first.

Do you understand what I’m saying?

“Two years?”

“go away.”

Only then did the woman realize that she had no murderous intentions toward me.

That doesn’t mean the differences are diluted.

She spoke in broken Korean, still revealing a subtle boundary.

“approximately.”

“approximately?”

“Medicine. Is that right?”

“which?”

The woman pointed toward the child.

“Just wait.”

He handed me some fever reducers and cold medicine, as well as antibiotics and a can of skim milk powder.

She seemed surprised by my kindness, especially when she saw the skim milk powder, and stared at me blankly.

“Don’t come back again.”

The mother and daughter left without even saying goodbye.

With a treasure that almost turned me into a plunderer.

It was not long before a neighbor to the southeast appeared.

Still, she was in the jungle, fighting the specter of prejudice to protect the child who was thrown into the jungle with her.

There was one exchange after that.

One dark night, a girl came alone to my bunker.

A child who had grown taller than before, probably because he had been drinking my formula, came wandering around the bunker with a tearful face, looking for me.

When I revealed myself, the child said:

“Mom, it hurts.”

The child seemed to have adapted better to the jungle that is Korea than his mother.

Like Mowgli from The Jungle Book, or Tarzan in commercial terms.

We drove our dusty vehicles into the village where gunfire was heard.

The woman was exhausted and sick, and to my eyes she looked more like a trapped, suffering wild beast of the jungle than a civilized city dweller.

He gave me an appropriate prescription, left the medicine behind, and turned around.

There was no need to mix in any words.

As I was turning around to leave after work, my child suddenly grabbed my wrist.

“name.”

The child was asking my name.

“Park Gyu.”

“Pucky?”

As I watched the child raise his hand in confusion, I smiled bitterly and told him his nickname.

“······Skeleton.”

The child seemed to savor the name, then smiled brightly and repeated it.

“Skeleton!”

Time passes and now.

It’s Christmas Eve.

In the community, a virtual Christmas tree decorating content that was converted by game developer Anonymous118 from something that was circulating before the war was popular.

It’s nothing special, it’s just a Christmas tree drawn with a single sprite, with 10 blank spaces, and each blank space is filled in by another user choosing one of 9 decorations and writing a message of encouragement.

SKELTON: (Skeleton please) Please decorate my tree too~

My Christmas tree is empty now since I haven’t gotten to know any of the unpopular users yet, but sometimes empty is better than full.

IamJesus : What kind of kid are you?!

The tree of this once-blocked, self-proclaimed Jesus Christian psychopath is now filled with anonymous congratulatory messages.

The human hunter received just as many messages.

As I was watching and laughing happily,

Tiring~

Something came.

[An anonymous user sent a message to SKELTON~]

I checked.

A decorated spot on an empty tree was filled.

“Huh?”

John?

What is this?

What does it mean?

My doubts were momentarily pushed aside by the sudden noise of the K-walkie-talkie.

-Crackle… crackle!

11 o’clock at night.

I don’t remember ever having a public frequency ring at this time, in this remote place.

Soon I discovered the culprit’s identity.

“Merry Christmas~.”

A young girl’s voice rang out from the speaker.

“Skeleton!”

That’s right.

He is my neighbor.

I hesitated for a moment whether I should answer, but the result was already decided the moment a smile appeared on my lips.

“Merry Christmas.”

I should have asked your name.

Although it was a short exchange, that day I was immersed in a deeper lingering emotion than any Christmas tree message, and I took out a bottle of whiskey, which I would never normally take out, and immersed myself in my emotions.

“after.”

As I opened the door, the cold air blew away all the heat I had wasted on heating, but my heart felt much refreshed.

I looked up at the sky.

The winter sky is pitch black and filled with countless stars.

I haven’t prayed since I realized I wasn’t chosen by God.

I put my hands together and prayed toward the night sky.

May the gunshots of this mother and daughter be heard for a long time.