Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 99



Only Krnovel

54. Fat

I remember seeing stories that said local issues weren’t an issue before the war.

For example, even when the same flood damage occurs, in the provinces, only a single line of news is reported, but in the metropolitan area, not only the three major broadcasting companies but also other commercial broadcasters broadcast special programs live 24 hours a day.

Well, I guess it can’t be helped.

Of the approximately 50 million people in South Korea, a whopping 30 million live in the metropolitan area.

If you make a fuss, more people will be shocked, and the person writing the article will also be concerned about where the number of views is high.

Even at this point, when the population has decreased to one-tenth of that 30 million, the fact that local issues are not much of an issue seems to be no different from before the war.

You can tell just by looking at the reactions of PaleNet users.

ㅇㅇ: Yangsan? Where is that? If it explodes there, will anything happen to us?

ㅇㅇ: It looks like we’re going to die right now.

ㅇㅇ: Wouldn’t it be right to take the soldiers guarding the province and guard this place?

ㅇㅇ: Are there any more people in the province besides warlords? It’s practically a region ruled by warlords.

ㅇㅇ: Just throw it away. We need to save the metropolitan area first. I’m not trying to look down on you, but isn’t it true that people in the metropolitan area are better off than people in the provinces on average?

…

…

The percentage of local users among our bulletin board users is not that high.

There may be several reasons, but I think the biggest problem is accessibility.

Viva! Apocalypse of Melon Mask! “Starzion Korea”, which handles satellite equipment, had its headquarters in Seoul and had seven branches in the Seoul-Gyeonggi area, but only one branch was opened in Busan.

I think I saw some complaints that the Busan branch was small, the staff was unfriendly, and there was little equipment to try out, but I don’t remember clearly, so I guess that means I wasn’t interested either.

After checking the bulletin board, it was true that the local area has poor accessibility.

Still, at least in the early days of the war, there were quite a few local users.

In particular, the number of users in the Gyeongsang region was significant, and although the number of users in the Honam region was lower than that in the Yeongnam region, it appears that there was not much of a gap in the number of excellent users who create quality content.

One user who had content about handmade seasonal food that looked like it was from the Jeonnam region was also a pretty decent user who had favorited it with Anonymous337 during the lurking days.

However, like other local users, his uploads gradually became less frequent and at one point he disappeared.

That’s not all.

At some point, there were no users that could be called local users.

My indifference may be indifference, but at least the local users who accounted for more than 20% of the share have disappeared.

A question that comes to mind at that moment.

Is it more difficult to survive in the provinces than in the metropolitan area?

I don’t think so.

Just looking at the damage from the war, the intensity of the cracks, and the presence of civil war, the metropolitan area suffered much more damage.

I’ve seen stories of fanatics appearing in the southern regions, but no matter how capable they are, I don’t think they have the ability to wipe out an entire region in such a short period of time.

Where have they all gone?

I recently wrote a post without thinking while feeling the breeze from the fan in the cabin I built for my vacation.

SKELTON: (Skeleton questions) But where did all my friends from the provinces go? Why haven’t I seen them lately?

I thought I had reached the semi-named level, but there were no comments.

I had no choice but to resort to a desperate measure.

SKELTON: (Skeleton video) Skeleton’s tank top zero two dance.msi

-Sorry for fishing, but where did all the local users go?

Unlike the previous post, there were several comments.

unicorn18 : Tsk tsk….

Yeah : Hey you little shit

Dolsingman: This is really annoying

mmmmmmmmm : (pure blood Seoul citizen) tsk tsk

gijayangban : ?

…

…

Why is there so much cursing and not a single helpful thing?

To be honest, it’s true that there aren’t many helpful people on our bulletin board.

I think there used to be a lot of them in the past.

But that afternoon, a notification for a comment on an article that had already floated down below rang.

Someone commented on an old post I wrote.

I checked it once.

Busangalmaegi: Do you want to know where the local users are?

This guy is a PaleNet user.

The easiest way to distinguish between PaleNet users and our bulletin board users is to click on their nickname and if the “Send Message” function is activated, then they are our bulletin board users, otherwise they are PaleNet recruits.

But this guy.

Just looking at his nickname, you can tell he’s a man from Busan.

Since this guy posted on my bulletin board, I tried to start a conversation by leaving a comment at the end of the bulletin board.

SKELTON: (Skeleton positive)

It will take quite some time since we are not sending messages but rather communicating through comments on my bulletin board.

I’m the only one who gets an alarm when we leave comments to each other.

But it seems that the Busan seagull was looking at my bulletin board.

Busangalmaegi: Do you have Kookmin Net Cash?

If you look at the comments right away, you can see that.

But it presents a concept that I have never seen before.

SKELTON: (Skeleton hearing this for the first time) What is Kookmin Net?

Busangalmaegi: You’re not a country bumpkin. Where do you live?

SKELTON: (Skeleton Privacy) Gyeonggi-do

Busangalmaegi: Is it far from Incheon?

SKELTON: Yeah

Busangalmaegi: Ha, that doesn’t help.

SKELTON: What on earth is this National Net?

Busangalmaegi: This is a new website that the country recently opened to counter PaleNet, and they said that if you have KookminNet cash, they will exchange this and that for offline use.

SKELTON: Really? I’ll give it to you later when you join Kookmin Net and get some cash.

After thinking about it carefully, this guy called Busan Seagull. I think he lives in Incheon.

Then isn’t it the Incheon Seagull?

Busangalmaegi: Go to the Mayan bulletin board

The Busan seagulls showed me an unknown territory as if they were doing me a favor.

Mayan bulletin board?

I’ve heard of the Mayan Empire, and it seems to be the Mayan language.

But does that language have speakers?

Anyway, I believed the Busan Seagull’s words and went to a place called the Maya bulletin board.

It’s a long journey for me, who doesn’t even access English bulletin boards.

I waited for the loading time while crunching on a melon I had grown myself, peel and all.

Soon a Mayan bulletin board appeared before me.

null: (Busan) Isn’t this a monster?

null: (Gwangju) That thing is a giant monster. Where was it taken?

null: (Busan) Dongrae-gu area. Martial law is currently being declared.

null: (Pohang) This side is still safe.

null: (Jeonju) There’s an essential industrial complex there. Are the soldiers still there?

null: (Pohang) Only around the steel mill. The rest is just left abandoned.

null: (Gwangju) They’re transporting our food to the metropolitan area again. Certification.

null: (Daegu) We send up the oil as soon as we make it.

…

…

The first time I saw it, I felt like I had come to the wrong address.

Well, there’s nothing to add or subtract.

This is a Korean bulletin board.

It’s all in Korean.

However, there are a few points that are clearly different from our bulletin board.

They all use the same nickname, “null,” and when writing, they indicate their current location as the header.

I clicked on one of the nicknames and it was also “null”.

This bulletin board, after all.

It looks like a bulletin board that was just created.

Due to the whims of Melon Mask, space was created, but it was pushed down in the development priority and left unfinished.

Some of our bulletin board users have found this empty space and have come here to use it as a second bulletin board.

However, the number of articles is not large.

You can feel that the number of users is absolutely small.

If you look at the bulletin board screen, you can see a post from two days ago.

In fact, it is a small group in which only a small number of people are active.

Still, I am working hard on my own activities.

null : (Gwangju) : Military transport plane takes off from airfield, heading south

The moment you press refresh, you see a hot new article pop up.

Looking at them, one question arose.

Why do these people leave our bulletin board and come to such a remote place to continue their activities?

They say the number of Korean bulletin board users has increased somewhat due to the influx of PaleNet users, but it probably won’t even be a thousand at most.

Excluding lurkers, there are less than a hundred people who actually write and participate in the bulletin board.

null: (Skeleton) Why are you here instead of the Korean bulletin board?

I asked the question right away.

Well, if there are no comments, then it won’t be posted.

But, what can I say, right after I posted that, the atmosphere of the bulletin board changed rapidly.

I know it’s nonsense to say that you can sense the atmosphere of a bulletin board made up of electronic signals with your skin, but Viva! Apocalypse! It’s the intuition of a veteran user.

null : Skeleton? That fucking psychopath?

As expected, it comes out strong from the start.

But this skeleton is not the one who backs down.

null : (skeleton) ?

He shamelessly stuck his face in.

null: Why did you come here? To a playground for country bumpkins.

null: (Skeleton) Because I hardly see any local stories on the bulletin board.

null: Honestly, there’s nothing worth posting on the Korean bulletin board.

null : (skeleton) why?

null: Sometimes I go to see popular posts, because they only talk about things that have nothing to do with our survival.

Although the nicknames are unknown to anyone but me, it is clear that there is at least one Mayan language bulletin board friend who posts on the bulletin board.

As expected, soon several articles were posted one after another.

null: Seoul is always like this and that, Incheon is like this and that. Honestly, isn’t that unhelpful?

null: I signed up for this service to exchange information, but I wonder if I want to listen to all the news about a neighborhood a million light years away from my house.

null: We also have a Korean bulletin board. But this is where we mainly monitor. There’s not much to be gained from there, as it’s full of nonsense and neighborhood stories that have nothing to do with us.

After hearing their story, I think I understand why they left the Korean bulletin board and moved to this defunct language bulletin board.

You can get a rough idea just by skimming through the previous posts.

This bulletin board is intended purely for the exchange of information.

Excluding small talk and diaries, Viva! Apocalypse! shares real-time regional information of users outside of the Seoul area.

An anonymous user explained exactly why he left.

null: The quality was already getting worse, but it got worse with the influx of PaleNet users. To be honest, I didn’t like it before, but now it doesn’t have the features we want.

In short, the bulletin board quality has deteriorated.

I agree.

As someone who remembers the scholarly era when it was a place for the exchange of information among noble gentlemen, I can’t help but sympathize even more.

null: (Thanks for the skeleton explanation) Thanks for the explanation.

This will probably be my last post on this board.

When I remained silent, the Mayan bulletin board users returned to their daily lives as if nothing had happened.

Unlike our bulletin board where the scrolling is endless, I slowly pressed refresh to take in the articles that appeared little by little.

null: (Busan) Giant monster disappears.

null : (Busan) different angle

null: (Busan) Is Yangsan Man dead? Why haven’t you posted anything since that day?

null: (Daegu) Is the Gochang crack okay?

null: (Gwangju) It seems like there are no problems here yet, but you never know.

null: (Daejeon) Is it okay to travel to Gwangju by car?

null: (Gwangju) Don’t come. The warlords and local bosses have already taken control a long time ago.

…

…

As I watched the posts slowly but steadily filling up the bulletin board, I suddenly remembered our bulletin board from the past.

I remember the atmosphere being like this at the beginning of the war.

Everyone was watching their surroundings every day, their hearts were racing, and in the midst of all that, they were exchanging information with each other to survive.

It’s not that I don’t like our current bulletin board.

It is a last refuge for the lonely and the outcast, although there are times when it is frowned upon.

The problem is that there are too many people seeking comfort.

“······.”

I have no intention of denying that I am one of them.

However, it doesn’t seem like this bulletin board will have a long lifespan.

null: (Yangsan) It’s over here. The soldiers are jumping out too. Now it’s each for themselves.

The fat is disappearing.

This means that the end of this country, which was barely hanging on, is fast approaching.

The resonance of the Mayan message board soon spread to PaleNet, but as usual, it did not receive much of a response.

Because an event more important than the collapse of the largest industrial base in the Southeast has begun.

ㅇㅇ: [Celebration!] The second Jeju refugee fleet is about to set sail!

A fleet of refugees carrying only a few civilians is treated as more important than the destruction of a region that was responsible for an entire industry.

It’s a story that makes no sense, but it’s not that hard to understand.

For those who have tasted despair to their heart’s content, a handful of hope tastes even more delicious.

But even that hope is questionable in these times.

ㅇㅇ: The Reality of the Jeju 1st Evacuation Fleet.txt

A user posted a satellite photo to PaleNet.

The satellite image showed a port on China’s Shandong Peninsula.

At the border where the blue sea and the gray-white world overlap, a group of ships were stranded, washed up on the dock like waves.

As we zoomed in on the ship, the writing on its deck became clearly visible.

[ korea ]

If this photo is true, not a single one of the 200,000 people who boarded the first evacuation fleet set foot on Jeju Island.

They are all dead.

In a foreign land, not even Korea.

“······.”

It looks like a storm is about to break out.