Hiding a House in the Apocalypse

While we were away, Defender and his sister left the territory.

Word has it that Ha Tae-hoon only came out briefly to see them off, but no one else, not even their peer Cheon Young-jae, saw them off.

From what I gather, the rift between them ran deep.

Of course, Defender didn’t contact me on the day he left.

Maybe he was just trying to avoid being a bother, but the fact that he left without even leaving a note or a single message left me feeling somewhat disappointed.

“They’re finally gone. Those people. Really, what were they even doing?”

It’s a common thing to badmouth those who leave.

Watching Defender’s sister, who’d been hovering around her son Bang Jae-hyuk, suddenly come out in broad daylight to speak ill of them, I sighed.

“They were supposedly siblings, always glued together. What was that about? Doesn’t it seem shady?”

I wasn’t planning to defend Defender and his sister, but I also didn’t want to listen to their insults, so I called Bang Jae-hyuk aside.

“I know.”

Bang Jae-hyuk limped toward me, clearly aware of what I needed to discuss.

“I’ll keep an eye out. But there’s a lot to it. Their relationship wasn’t great. If you keep rejecting someone’s goodwill so coldly, even a saint would get angry, right?”

“Even with that in mind, I think you’re going too far.”

“Can’t you let me vent for today? I know she’s my mom, but old people... you know, sometimes we have to let it out to feel better.”

They say there’s no country for old men, but the truth is, not many good old men around either.

It’s just the way it is.

Body and mind are not separate; they are one.

No matter how noble a person’s mind, they’re bound to change with age.

The weight of life that one person can bear—it’s limited.

There are variations, but no one can carry everything.

The reason why people so highly respect saints who bore such an overwhelming burden, like carrying a cross, is because they chose to take on a weight that wasn’t granted to humans.

“······.”

I thought of Rebecca.

She was the one I was most worried about.

She hardly leaves the bunker and has been leaving all the perimeter duty to Sue.

The only difference now is that instead of Viva! Apocalypse!, she’s been doing Necropolis.

I decided to check on her.

“Skelton.”

She had lost a lot of weight.

Her energy was gone, and her eyes were hollow.

According to Sue, she spent all day lying in the dark bunker, just doing Necropolis.

Sue loved Rebecca, but her continuous decline had made Sue start questioning things.

With rebelliousness typical of adolescence, combined with mounting disappointment, I wasn’t sure where it would lead, but it seemed likely that it wouldn’t end in a good way.

For a moment, the image of the Defender siblings flashed through my mind.

Especially the image of Da-jeong, who used to smile at me every day. Her face was etched so deeply into my memory that it almost seemed like a lingering afterimage.

“...Wait. Should we go outside?”

I felt like I couldn’t let this go on any longer.

“Where to?”

“I thought getting some fresh air might help.”

“No.”

“Even if you don’t want to, it’s probably better if we go.”

I made a gesture as if showing the wire connected to the bunker and pretended to cut it with my fingers like scissors.

At that, Rebecca sighed and reluctantly got up.

She hadn’t washed her hair and was still wearing a sloppy military outfit, exuding an odor that would make anyone grimace from a distance.

I didn’t let it show.

Just then, Sue, returning from her perimeter watch, saw us and tilted her head as she noticed us.

I waved her over casually, then opened the main gate of the territory and walked down the slope with Rebecca.

We only spoke once we had descended the gentle slope and entered the flatland.

“You don’t like being here, do you?”

I didn’t want to twist my words unnecessarily.

“Yeah.”

Rebecca immediately revealed her true feelings.

“What are you going to do about it?”

She asked, walking beside me.

“I don’t know.”

I had suspected for a while, but after seeing her recent behavior, I was sure now.

She was still someone from across the sea.

She had a small connection with me, but that connection was based on necessity.

Aside from a small liking for me, her feelings toward my comrades hadn’t changed much since we first met in front of my bunker.

She wanted to remain a stranger.

Until now, I’d been watching from the sidelines, but I knew it was time for me to intervene.

I wouldn’t deny that the departure of the Defender siblings played a large part in this decision.

“If you want to go back to where you were, I’ll help you.”

“Where? Daegu?”

“Not possible.”

I turned and looked east.

It was the village where Rebecca and her mother had lived in the past.

Now it was an abandoned ghost town, but it had always been a place full of memories for both Rebecca and me, with gunfire always ringing out from that area.

“That place?”

“I’m thinking of loading up everything you need and helping you clean it out. What do you think?”

Taking a break might be a good choice.

After all, her territory and mine were right next to each other.

It wouldn’t hurt to keep some distance while trying to foster slow cooperation.

Rebecca didn’t say anything, but her eyes were shifting.

She was probably calculating something.

Soon, she looked at me with eyes that seemed to have a different color than usual and spoke.

“I’ll go.”

It took her about a minute to make the decision.

Typical Rebecca.

But this wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t about whether she was going or not.

I sighed softly and asked,

“Have you talked it over with Sue?”

“Sue?”

Rebecca gave me a confused look but quickly broke into a bright smile and answered,

“Sue listens to me well. She’s a good daughter.”

I remembered what Sue had said and done in Sejong.

Rebecca’s relationship with Sue was starting to show cracks, and her patience with her mother was wearing thin.

As much as Sue had grown, the gap between mother and daughter had only widened.

“What if Sue doesn’t go with you?”

At my question, Rebecca stopped walking and stared at me with her mouth agape.

I turned around and quietly watched her.

“What? Sue?”

“Yeah. What if Sue doesn’t go with you?”

Rebecca muttered in English, her face showing surprise from an unexpected angle.

She seemed taken aback.

I walked ahead slowly, leaving her behind.

The field, still with some greenery, and the scattered small factories caught my eye.

“Skelton!”

Rebecca chased after me.

“What do you mean Sue won’t go? What does that even mean?”

Worried that she might not understand the term "adolescence," I pulled out my phone and showed her the English translation of "adolescence."

“...Adolescence.”

Sometimes, one word has more impact than a hundred.

“Sue, adolescence...”

At that moment, I made a gesture for Rebecca to stay silent.

Click—

There was movement nearby.

Rebecca, despite her earlier appearance, was still a survivor of the apocalypse.

Her face quickly transformed from a dazed one to that of a soldier, and she manipulated her rifle with practiced ease, providing cover for me as we backed away.

The possibilities of what we might face ahead were three:

Humans, mutations, or wild animals.

Any of them were dangerous, but if we had to choose, wild animals would be the least threatening.

But it was too early to make any assumptions.

With the rifle in hand, I reaffirmed the weight and texture of the axe in my lower body, signaling Rebecca to take cover as we slowly retreated.

If our potential enemy was human, then lying low was the right move here.

But if it was a savage beast like a mutation, lying down wasn’t the smartest option.

The moment you lie down, you lose the advantage of being a human.

Humans, standing on two legs, have the advantage of a wide field of vision.

That field of vision is closely tied to firearms.

Especially when it comes to taking the initiative.

“······.”

Constantly scanning the surroundings, I sent Rebecca a signal to secure cover.

Despite her earlier missteps, Rebecca was a soldier from a once-powerful military group.

With her physique, she swiftly ran to secure a stone wall and tapped it with the butt of her rifle, signaling she could provide cover for me.

I quickly repositioned, moving alongside her and crouching down.

“What was that?”

Rebecca asked.

Instead of answering, I stared intently at the ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ direction where the sound had come from.

Soon, there was rustling from the bushes.

Rebecca tensed, tightening her grip on her weapon.

“Cease fire. Only fire when I give the order.”

“Okay.”

Rustle—

The sound echoed.

I barely moved my finger resting on the trigger, holding my breath.

Soon, something dark appeared from behind the bushes.

Rebecca laughed.

It was a cat.

Not a mutation, just an ordinary cat.

The same kind I used to see a lot before the war.

“······.”

Had my senses dulled?

It didn’t feel like it was just a cat.

There was something else.

“Skelton, it’s a cat.”

Rebecca, maybe a little fond of cats, smiled like she had just cheered up.

I stared at the cat with a neutral expression.

What appeared before us was a kitten.

Not one, but two—no, three.

They had fur with a mixture of white and gray, a clear departure from the Korean short-haired breed. They likely weren’t wild cats but more likely domesticated breeds, possibly pets once kept in homes.

Soon, what seemed to be the mother appeared cautiously, then bit the neck of one of the kittens and turned to look at us.

“······.”

Not every animal becomes a mutation.

If every animal did mutate, humanity would have been extinct by now.

The mutation rate in animals varies by region, but in areas like ours, where there are no erosion zones nearby, the probability is less than 1%.

Yet, it seems like everything around us is mutated because each presence has such a strong impact.

Any area where a mutation has settled becomes a dangerous zone on its own.

Although the threat wasn’t major, I aimed my weapon.

Click—

That 1% probability isn’t fixed.

Just like someone with hypertension lives each day knowing the likelihood of death is always present, animals too react to mutation factors daily and change as a result. And that probability significantly increases with the appearance of nearby monsters.

“Skelton, are you going to kill it?”

Rebecca asked.

I nodded.

“If we don’t kill it now, they might come after us later.”

Rebecca murmured something in English.

I looked at her and added,

“That’s the world we’re in, right?”

“I know. I know...”

Rebecca didn’t seem to like the idea of killing the cat.

Being a mother herself, she probably empathized with the mother cat, raising her kittens.

Seeing Rebecca’s uneasy expression, I started reconsidering.

To be precise, I felt we should postpone killing the cat for now.

There was no need to add another burden to her already tough life.

As I always emphasize, a person’s capacity for stress has limits.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Stress doesn’t recover easily and can sometimes leave scars on the heart that never truly fade.

“······Let’s go.”

Rebecca looked at me, her eyes sparkling.

“Skelton? You’re not killing it?”

“Looking at your face, I feel like I shouldn’t. Plus...”

I stretched out my hand, feeling the temperature of the wind brushing my fingertips.

It had gotten noticeably colder.

The current temperature was 23 degrees Celsius.

Considering it was still daytime, the temperature had dropped significantly.

Things unprepared won’t survive this winter.

That act of kindness, however, ended in an absurd way.

Not long after we left, the sharp scream of a cat rang out.

The sharp scream soon turned into a dying gasp, and the surrounding area fell into silence.

Exchanging a glance with Rebecca, I raised my weapon again, aiming toward the direction of the sound.

Rustle—

A long shape emerged once again.

With wide eyes, the beast that held the dead cat in its mouth was a marten.

Bang!

In an instant, I pulled out my handgun and blew its head off.

It wasn’t just for the sake of avenging the cat.

Martens are dangerous predators.

Especially when mutated, they could become more troublesome than the black cat that caused the trouble in the territory.

Like the otter I had dealt with earlier, members of the weasel family become formidable fighters when they grow larger.

Moreover, their chances of survival in the winter are high, so they needed to be eliminated.

“······It’s dead.”

Rebecca muttered, staring at the beasts' corpses.

With her pistol still drawn, she kept a vigilant eye on the surroundings.

If there were any of the marten’s friends nearby, I would need to wipe them all out.

While I searched for the marten, Rebecca found the bodies of the kittens.

One survived, but with its intestines spilling out, it wouldn’t last much longer.

When I finished searching and returned to Rebecca, she was still staring at the bodies.

“······Skelton.”

She clenched her fist and turned to look at me.

“Do you want to stay?”

I stared at her.

Her eyes, now with a different hue from mine, seemed to carry a familiar meaning at that

moment.

"Yeah?"

Had the death of the beasts taught her something?

I don't think so.

For her, it was simply the trigger she needed.

Swish—

Rebecca expertly stripped the fur from the beasts with her dagger.

It wasn’t just the marten.

Without hesitation, she skinned the cat as well, sometimes asking for my help.

“Hold it. Yeah. Pull it straight.”

Though she had a rough image, she was a survivor in the same world we lived in.

It was true that she had received help from me, but most of her days had been spent bearing the weight of raising her young daughter.

Honestly, her survival difficulty was much higher than mine.

“······I must be annoying you, huh?”

As she layered the skins on top of each other, she gave me a careless smile.

I nodded.

“Sue's been annoying too.”

Rebecca shook her head with a wry smile.

I walked ahead toward the territory, with her carrying the furs and following behind me.

There wasn’t much to say between us.

It was a surprising realization.

*

“Hey. That woman, her skills with her hands are no joke.”

At least getting praised by Ha Tae-hoon in the construction field wasn’t an easy feat.

Ha Tae-hoon was watching Rebecca’s craftsmanship with wide eyes, clearly impressed.

The technique of joining two pieces of wood without nails, simply through precise notches, seemed unfamiliar even to Ha Tae-hoon.

I had noticed Rebecca’s excellent woodworking skills when she built the cabin earlier.

She wasn’t just a carpenter, though.

Rebecca had an extraordinary talent in hunting as well.

Bang!

Her sharp shooting skills were impressive, but her ability to track animals using the signs they left behind was even more remarkable.

“If we had a dog, it’d be a lot easier.”

She had tracked and hunted down the entire marten family.

She was skilled at dismantling the corpses and, in particular, expertly skinning them.

In exchange for her hard work,

Whizz— Whizz—

The clearing where she had hung the skins to dry was filled with a foul stench, and flies swarmed all over, but no one looked down on her.

“Here. American lady. Try this.”

Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother offered a drink.

Rebecca, staring coldly at the stranger’s offer, took the cup and drank it in one go.

Rebecca gave a thumbs-up.

“It’s good.”

There was no grand welcome or awkward gathering.

We simply mingled naturally and cooperated.

It was as if we were getting soaked in a gentle drizzle.

That was how bonds begin, through exchange.

I couldn’t expect a large connection, but at least we wouldn’t be living isolated as we did before, with walls completely built around us.

“······.”

I stared at the empty bunker where the Defender siblings had lived.

If we had acted faster, could we have caught them?

I’m mostly certain that’s not the case, but here, I’ll push the assumption that if I had caught them, they would have stayed.

“Park Gyu. Here. Have some. It’s the Hongsiade I made yesterday.”

It would make me feel more at ease.

“Thank you.”