Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 97



Only Krnovel

52. Boiler (2)

To be blunt, there’s very little chance I’ll ever have children.

It’s a matter of survival before morality.

If I, who am hesitant to accept even the sniper mother and daughter I have known for a long time, accept the children as pitiful, it would be a betrayal of my life up to now.

“stop.”

I have no intention of letting my guard down just because he’s a child.

I have also seen the ways in which predators use children, and even these children cannot be viewed as innocent as they once were.

Crash

The children stopped walking when the gun was pointed at them.

“Turn around. Put your hands up.”

Even a child can kill a person if he has a gun.

The ages of the children standing in front of me range from lower to upper elementary school students.

Killing an unsuspecting adult is not a big deal if you know how.

The children who showed themselves to me were unarmed.

“there.”

He spoke a warning towards the railing leading to the second floor.

“I know you’re hiding. I’ll give you 10 seconds.”

As I aimed the gun, I observed the children’s reactions.

The youngest one looks unsure of what to do, but the two bigger ones exchange glances.

bang!

They fired warning shots at the children.

The children screamed and squatted or fell face down on the floor.

“eight.”

I turned my gaze to the railing and said out loud the number I had been counting in my head.

“seven.”

A white handkerchief fluttered on the railing.

“I’ll come out. I said I’ll come out.”

An adult’s voice.

It is a phlegmy, cloudy voice that is closer to middle age than youth.

Soon the owner of the voice appeared on the railing.

A man with long, unkempt hair and a dark face appeared on the bridge, limping.

“Come down. Raise your hands.”

He slowly walked down the spiral staircase to the first floor.

But it’s not just one.

Behind him, a line of little children followed him like ducklings following their mother.

It was obvious at a glance that these children were not this man’s children.

“Whose children are these?”

The man shook his head with a bitter sneer.

“These are the ones I picked up. They’re ants.”

“Angel?”

“I brought it out.”

The man spread his arms.

“I brought you out of that hell!”

*

The man did not reveal his name, but the children called him “Jang Sang-sa.”

I didn’t plan on talking, but he seemed very eager to talk, so we met briefly in front of the house while the children watched.

He immediately made me an offer.

“Do you need a child?”

“no.”

“Take what you need. A little food will do.”

“I said it’s not necessary.”

He was so clingy that I had no choice but to point my pistol at his stubbly chin.

Between his beard, a small white insect was wriggling.

am.

As soon as I saw him, I distanced myself from him and spoke coldly.

“Is that all your business?”

“Do you need a boiler?”

The manager chuckled.

“I saw the wood burning boiler next door. Are you going to take it?”

I had intended to take it.

Until I met these people.

“No. I was thinking of taking it, but I didn’t know you guys were here. I’ll just go.”

Since the wood boiler is widely spread out, you can just go somewhere else and get it.

If you do something, you might get help from the Defender.

“We’ll help you. Just put it on that motorcycle, okay?”

“······.”

“Just close your eyes and give them just a little bit. Do you see the condition of the children? If this continues, they will all starve to death.”

The children didn’t see it.

This is an intentional gaze treatment.

I don’t want to have useless pity.

It’s not like I’m going to raise it.

The manager continued speaking, staring at me intently.

“You don’t have to do anything. Just give us food. We don’t need much. I’ll load the boiler. We’ll do all the work. Do you see the kids? They’re not playing. They’re kids who can work. How smart they are.”

Before I could answer, the manager came rushing in from behind and shouted at the children who were watching with wide eyes.

“What are you doing! Get ready to dismantle that boiler! Get your tools! Get your cart!”

He bowed down to me slavishly, but roared like a tiger to the children.

“excuse me.”

He pointed the gun inside the mansion.

“What are those kids inside?”

The corners of Jang Sang-sa’s mouth went up awkwardly at my comment.

“What are you talking about?”

“There are two more.”

“······You have a good feeling?”

Crash

Pointed the gun.

My way of dealing with the situation is to talk things out, but this space, with its many unfamiliar children, its frivolous and dirty salesperson, and its mysterious ghostly energy flowing through the abandoned complex, made me feel uneasy.

“Who are you?”

He said it with annoyance.

The manager rolled his eyes.

“that is······.”

“The story is over. Go home. Take the kids.”

“Oh, no! Listen. I mean. They were kids. They were kids, but they grew up. Their heads were big. What is that? That. Oh! Puberty! It’s because of puberty. They’re not even listening to me.”

I discovered two facts from the way the general was talking nonsense.

One is that Jang Sang-sa is a person who is at a dead end both physically and mentally, and the other is that Jang Sang-sa is afraid of other children watching him from the darkness.

“Everyone, you tell me to come out! Don’t listen to me.”

He probably whispered so quietly that I could hear him as a last resort to save his pride in front of the watching children.

I sighed and spoke calmly to the other children watching me from the shadows of the houses.

“Come out.”

As I spoke, the children in the shadows appeared.

One man and one woman.

A girl and a boy in their mid-teens.

The girl in particular was tall, comparable to the general manager.

“We don’t have guns. We just didn’t want to go out and watch.”

The girl looked at me intently and said.

He didn’t seem particularly afraid of me.

Meanwhile, the boy’s eyes were blank and harbored a hint of hostility, but they were directed not at me, but at the general.

“Send the children back.”

I told the manager.

The manager listened to me and gestured to the children.

“Did you hear what this cool guy said? Get in there. Right now! Hurry up!”

The younger children followed orders faithfully, but the older children, especially the teenagers who came out reluctantly at the end, muttered something annoyed and went back into the house.

The boy showed his emotions to the point of nervously kicking the rocks at his feet.

The manager muttered, glancing behind him furtively.

“That shameless little bastard?”

“What happened?”

I handed him a pack of ramen noodles I had and asked him casually.

I’m starting to get a little interested.

This is the story of a strange man and children.

*

“I was originally a soldier. I guarded the front lines.”

Wagjak!

The manager began to tell a story while biting into a bowl of ramen.

They say he was one of the soldiers guarding the front line.

It seems that they experienced the final offensive of the North Korean army, and when the war began with China, they were organized into a defense unit on Ganghwa Island and guarded important positions.

He was later deployed to the front lines to block monsters and mutations, but eventually the front line collapsed, his unit became a warlord’s unit, and he became a plunderer following the company commander who opposed the warlord.

“I happened to be killing one of our own people, not the enemy. It happened in an instant. But when I came to my senses, I was in hell. In particular, I couldn’t stand to see the Angbal.”

As everything around him falls apart, Jang Sang-sa discovers bait children called Angbal.

“······It was a bad choice. I should have just gotten away. That bastard’s weak temper was just making a change.”

The general looked up at me.

“I should have acted like you.”

“Like me?”

“He didn’t even look at the kids. Just like our company commander.”

“······.”

In the end, it seems we are all the same people.

Even though this person is dirty, his actions are suspicious, and he seems like a bad person, he still looks at me.

Look at my actions and guess my intentions.

Actually, he read my mind exactly.

I was so embarrassed that my mind was read, but I didn’t show it.

“So you took the kids who were playing the angler?”

“yes.”

“What about the company commander and his former comrades?”

“He would have died. He would have died. He set fire to the barracks.”

The general’s hands and eyelids trembled simultaneously.

“······boiler.”

His condition did not look good.

Looking at his already dark face turning even darker, I wonder if it’s some kind of seizure.

Fortunately, the seizure didn’t last long.

He took a deep breath and asked with an expression that said nothing had happened.

“Boiler, can we move it?”

“Okay, let’s do that. But will it fit on my motorcycle?”

“There’s a cart. Just hook it up to it. Is it any good?”

“There isn’t that much food.”

“Even a little bit. Have you seen the condition of the children? They won’t last long. The youngest looks like he’s going to die soon.”

I don’t trust him 100%, but isn’t it an excessive personal insult to doubt him at this point?

Actually, the boiler is a necessary item, and if you can move it for free, it would be a great deal for us.

“Okay. Let’s do that.”

So I made a deal with the manager.

The general’s physical condition was not good.

He limped, coughed frequently, and sometimes just stood there for long periods of time, as if he were dead.

But, like a soldier, he was very good at his work.

Even I, an experienced carpenter, had no idea how to dismantle the boiler, so I simply removed it, dismantled it, and loaded it onto the cart one by one, performing tricks such as disassembling and reassembling it.

But sometimes he would lose his temper with the children and scold the slow ones so much that they would cry.

One time he even pretended to hit me with his belt loose.

The children seemed to follow him more out of fear than out of love.

The boy and girl we saw earlier did not interfere with this task.

They just stood behind the building, glaring coldly at the back of Jang Sang-sa’s head with a cynical expression.

After a while, the work was finished.

A crude but sturdy cart was tied tightly to the back of the motorcycle and a heavy wood boiler was loaded onto it.

“Okay, the boiler has been installed as promised! What a nice gentleman.”

Honestly, I was surprised.

What I thought was a pretty big task ended up being done so easily.

The price was only a few bags of brick-type dried food and ramen noodles.

You get what you want for an incredibly cheap price.

“······.”

I still don’t like this space.

I especially don’t want to spend even a second next to that dirty, ugly boss and those skeletal kids with their googly eyes.

But I think a fair job should be rewarded with a fair price.

“I think it’s a little lacking, so I’m going to bring some more food.”

I would be lying if I said I had no compassion for children.

“Really? You’re giving me more?!”

“······Come by again tomorrow afternoon.”

“Excuse me. Can you bring me some alcohol? If you have some, just a little bit? A little bit will do!”

I got on the motorcycle, watching the manager pleading with trembling hands out of the corner of my eye.

“See you tomorrow.”

Baek Seung-hyun’s motorcycle started to speed along briskly, making a loud noise, even though it was a little cumbersome.

*

“Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I really didn’t believe you’d be back here. Really.”

I gave them a lot of food that I didn’t need.

Of course, I also brought a bottle of soju.

This is not just for the sake of the general, but also my own sincerity to repay the hard work of the soldiers who sacrificed themselves to protect this country.

Jang Sang-sa was an alcoholic, as were many people of this era.

When you see him open a bottle of soju and gulp it down in one gulp without any side dishes, you can tell.

“Wow~! This is it. This is it. This is it!”

Whether he drank or not, there was no significant change in his behavior or expression.

Still, he was insecure, timid, and afraid of the young men standing behind him.

I knew from the beginning what his shadow was.

As he drank, he revealed his feelings more seriously.

“······I shouldn’t have taken the children in. I should have just abandoned them.”

They are children.

“Couldn’t it have been abandoned in the middle?”

“That didn’t work out as planned.”

“You hate children so much?”

“If I had abandoned them, they would all have died. Last winter, only two died because I was there. If I hadn’t, they would all have frozen to death. Oh, that’s right!”

I don’t understand his feelings towards children.

What can I say, it was full of irrationality.

They feel pity for children, yet hate them; they are afraid of them, yet fear them.

The cause of the discomfort was soon discovered.

I don’t see any purpose.

What on earth leads him to such a contradictory life?

So I asked.

“Why are you doing this?”

At this, the manager licked the neck of the empty soju bottle with his tongue and muttered with a strange smile.

“I don’t know. But when I came to my senses, I ended up carrying that damn thing.”

The general’s eyes sparkled.

“No, I think I know.”

He said in a confident voice.

“I don’t want to go to hell.”

“hell?”

“I don’t have to go to hell, but I can’t die?”

“······.”

I still don’t understand.

Is it a feeling similar to atonement?

That’s all I can understand.

There are probably many differences between the world he sees and the world I see.

I turned my attention to more practical matters.

“What are you going to do with those big kids?”

The boy and the girl.

It’s not for nothing that Jang Sang-sa is afraid.

It’s dangerous.

If we leave it like this, either the general will die or they will die.

“Are you going to kill me?”

In a similar situation, I would kill them.

“no.”

As expected, Jang Sang-sa is of a different race from me.

“Otherwise you’ll be in danger.”

“Then there’s nothing we can do.”

“Is that part of the atonement?”

“Atonement? Well, I don’t think about anything grandiose. Anyway! If I kill them, the rest of them will all die. Can you see clearly that I don’t have much time left?”

“······.”

“I taught those ungrateful bastards how to survive. They’re shit, but the kids follow them more than I do, and they like them more than I do.”

The general who had been talking about the miserable reality with a serious expression suddenly smiled like a boy.

“Do you have a K-walkie-talkie?”

“Yes.”

“You know CQ?”

“Of course I know.”

CQ.

A signal that requests a random number of people to call you when communicating via radio.

Most of it is omitted, but if you do it like FM, when calling a random receiver on a public frequency, you have to say a code that starts with CQ.

“I told you to call it C8. If they get their hands on the radio, it’ll be C8 C8, right?”

The manager kept giggling with his face reddened, wondering what was so funny.

I didn’t listen to his drunken rants just to hear his life story.

I handed him another gift I had prepared along with the food.

This is Woo Min-hee’s sheet music.

He taught me how to use it.

“If you see something white or similar to white, contact me by radio. I may not be able to bring you all of them, but I think I can help that child live a good life.”

This is the end of the story.

With a stern face, the general saw me off, leading his children.

“Fuck!”

He sent signals that only we knew, but I didn’t respond.

*

After that, Jang Sang-sa never contacted me again.

I completely forgot about him and even the wood boiler.

It was a hot summer, another monster eruption in the north was causing chaos, and in Incheon, an unprecedented situation was turning the entire city upside down.

It was when the early chill began to chill the land in late August that I thought of Jang Sang-sa again.

The bulletin board said it was a cool autumn day, but I quickly took out the wood boiler and tried lighting a fire.

Hwaruruk-

The performance of the boiler was satisfactory.

There is nothing broken and nothing left to fix.

Until then, I had completely forgotten about Jang Sang-sa.

That is, until the K-Walkie-Talkie suddenly started receiving public frequencies.

“Fuck.”

A young girl’s voice rang out over the radio.

Why are you suddenly swearing?

As I was wondering, the same curse words continued to echo from the other end of the radio.

“Fuck, fuck.”

Only then did I think of Jang Sang-sa.

You’re the son of a merchant.

I hated him so much.

“Is anyone there? Please answer.”

Hearing this voice probably means that Jang Sang-sa is no longer in this world.

A question that comes to mind at that moment.

Did those kids kill the general?

Or did the general die from a chronic illness?

“Huh? Is anyone there? F**k, f**k.”

There is no way to know why.

Because I will never respond to that signal.

“Yes! Is there anyone there?!”

At least that innocent voice was full of hope.