Hiding a House in the Apocalypse

At the beginning of the war, the movement of refugees was strictly controlled.

To be precise, it was easy to enter, but leaving was difficult.

Once you entered one of the large-scale refugee camps in major cities, the police and military were responsible for controlling the refugees.

It wasn’t easy for an individual to escape this control unless they were part of a group that could raise their voice.

Thus, what someone did before the war and how much wealth they had didn’t matter much anymore.

The world had regressed to a one-dimensional state.

What mattered now were the resources in your possession and the skills you could demonstrate within the narrow confines of the refugee camp.

Cheon Young-jae was a person who stood out in such an environment.

He was one of the top-level Hunters, a school-trained expert with plenty of combat experience. He was even a low-level Awakened.

The old man Park Yeong-chuk, whom Cheon Young-jae often mentioned, had been a billionaire before the war, a person who lived in the clouds, but now he was just a feeble old man draped in worn-out luxury.

The unlikely pair—a young man and an old man—had joined forces.

Cheon Young-jae didn’t explain how they had teamed up, because the battle had already started.

“Now’s the time. Let’s go.”

It wasn’t a difficult task.

We found a gap in the defenses, slipped through, and neutralized the threat.

Thwack!

Killing someone with an axe is never a pleasant experience. At the very least, the only kindness I could offer was to end their life without making them suffer.

Thwack!

Cheon Young-jae used a hand axe.

He was someone who changed his cold weapon as needed, and this time, it seemed like he had picked the weapon that fit his hand best.

We disabled three men and entered the care home.

It seemed like they’d only set up a single entrance for defense, which was a limited and naïve idea.

For raiders coming in to plunder, it might have been a decent choice. But for someone like Cheon Young-jae, whose purpose was pure slaughter rather than looting, it was a perfect environment.

There was a large mirror at the entrance.

It seemed to have been unused for a while, with cracks running through it and stains all over, making the reflected image appear blurry.

Without thinking, I stared into the mirror and caught my reflection when Cheon Young-jae suddenly spoke.

“Let’s set it on fire.”

A reasonable decision.

If we set fire to the building, we could probably kill most of them.

I hesitated for a moment.

“What’s the hesitation?”

“Couldn’t we talk for a bit first?”

“What are you going to talk about?”

Cheon Young-jae frowned, but when he saw the bloodlust in his eyes, he closed his mouth and spoke in a calmer tone.

“What? Talk to the old man? Even if we did, he wouldn’t listen.”

“Let’s at least deal with the leader.”

We had already won the upper hand.

The only places the old people could emerge from were narrow hallways and staircases.

Both the first and second-floor windows were blocked with concrete or bricks.

It wouldn’t be smart for anyone to show themselves in a hallway guarded by two Hunters.

Every limb exposed would be riddled with bullets.

“Do you think there might be someone in there who disagrees with the old man?”

Despite the generational gap, they were all South Koreans.

Before the rise of extreme capitalism, the elderly in South Korea had a better image.

I fired a shot into the air as Cheon Young-jae remained silent.

Bang!

Again, the battle was already over.

The old men had fallen into the trap they had set, and their lives were now in our hands.

Of course, they put up some resistance.

Bang! Bang!

Two more bodies dropped, and finally, they agreed to negotiate.

My demands were simple.

“Send the person who contacted us. Bring them here.”

The old men remained silent.

“I’ll give you one hour.”

Beyond the hallway, the old men were murmuring among themselves.

A heated argument.

It didn’t seem like they would make a decision easily.

Meanwhile, Cheon Young-jae was preparing to set the place on fire.

Synthetic oil, firewood, and a single match.

In peacetime, these things wouldn’t even be worth a million won, but for the massacre we were preparing, they were more than enough.

“So, where were we?”

Cheon Young-jae, now grinning, resumed his story.

“Right, we were talking about the secret bunker with Park Yeong-chuk, right?”

It wasn’t an easy task.

There was the issue of distance, and weapons were also necessary.

Cheon Young-jae didn’t have any firearms or vehicles.

If he were facing a human, he could fight with cold weapons, but if he encountered a mutation, that would change things.

For someone like me, a Hunter skilled in cold weapons, I could fight mutations with similar weapons, but depending on the type and experience of the mutation, I might end up being devoured.

Finding a vehicle was no easy task.

Even though vehicles were still running in the city, for people stuck in the refugee camp with nothing to gather, the only option was theft or robbery.

Then I spotted an advertisement for Pioneer Corps recruitment.

Cheon Young-jae, with his extensive connections, knew what the Pioneer Corps was.

Park Yeong-chuk also had some connections and knew about the organization.

“There are many definitions of democracy, but they all turned out to be nonsense. Democracy is a system for the elderly. There’s no better political system for serving the elderly than democracy. Why? Because the elderly get a vote too, right?”

Park Yeong-chuk chuckled while sipping his drink.

“The Pioneer Corps is the government’s answer to the question of what to do with elderly people who can’t vote.”

Cheon Young-jae often described Park Yeong-chuk as someone who was inherently negative about everything.

He doubted everything.

Even the pure intentions or good will of others.

“That guy always talks as though he’s already made up his mind. Whether he’s right or wrong doesn’t matter to him. His words are always the truth, because he says so. ‘Why? Because I’m older and I’ve accumulated wealth. What meaning do your words have?’ Even if he admits the wealth wasn’t earned but inherited from an orchard land that rose in value by luck.”

The Pioneer Corps provided weapons, vehicles, some food, and manpower to reach their destination.

Despite its questionable purpose, both men decided to use this opportunity.

Even though the Old ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) School Hunter had fallen behind the Awakened, he was still a top-tier force among the Be-Awakened.

Cheon Young-jae, a veteran sent to China, was naturally in charge of the Pioneer Corps.

The Pioneer Corps started with seven members.

As the first Pioneer Corps, it attracted a variety of people.

Some joined just to secure food and money for their wives and children. Some joined because they hated the frustrating life in the refugee camp. Some had been dishonorably discharged from the frontlines. Even a woman was among them.

But they all knew exactly what they were doing.

They were all killers and mass murderers.

None could argue that they didn’t know what they were getting into.

The Pioneer Corps was composed of fifty elderly people, and they left Seoul in search of new opportunities.

Cheon Young-jae took on ten more elderly people during the process, and his proactive actions impressed government officials.

“Hunters who’ve been to China are different, huh?”

Whether it was a compliment or sarcasm, Cheon Young-jae led the Pioneer Corps, now with 67 members, southward.

“Hey! You there! Let’s talk, let’s talk.”

At that point, the old man who had contacted us finally spoke up.

“We had no bad intentions! We didn’t mean any harm!”

Behind the wall, his voice came slowly, now sounding irritating.

“You killed four of us already. Do you want more blood? Are you murderers? Huh? What do you gain by killing more of us old folks who have no time left? Damn. Hell, be damned. You bastards.”

His whimpering was cut short by a single shot from Cheon Young-jae.

“Shut your mouth and crawl out. You either die alone or die with the other corpses. Simple, right?”

Cheon Young-jae glanced at his watch.

“30 minutes left.”

He glanced at the pile of firewood beside him.

The argument resumed.

This time, it turned into a full-fledged quarrel.

“Damn bastard!”

“Why don’t you die instead, you piece of shit!”

“Why should I die, huh? You ignorant bastard who never even went to college!”

Just because they were old didn’t mean they argued gracefully.

Their bickering felt more one-dimensional and crude than a child’s argument.

“That’s how it was back then.”

Cheon Young-jae’s gaze turned back to the past, filled with regret.

“There was a fight among the old folks on the bus. It was childish and vulgar.”

Of course, the quarrel between the old folks was exactly what Cheon Young-jae and Park Yeong-chuk had hoped for.

They were all meant to die in front of Park Yeong-chuk’s bunker anyway.

When the bus left Gyeonggi-do, the Pioneer Corps showed their true colors.

“Just wait a minute.”

An old woman suddenly stopped the bus, claiming she needed to use the restroom. When she left, the bus moved on without her.

That was the first abandonment.

Even though she screamed and chased after the bus, it continued on.

The second abandonment was even bolder.

“Elderly people, go to that house.”

The man leading the group, a father with two daughters, was a devoted family man but ruthless to the elderly.

“Go! Move, you old bastards!”

They abandoned ten elderly people at a derelict apartment and drove off.

By then, the elderly realized their fate, exchanging glances and trying to figure out how to survive, but they didn’t know what was coming.

They didn’t know there was a traitor among them.

The Pioneer Corps let the elderly occupy a bus without fuel and moved forward without them.

Only twenty of the elderly remained.

“Captain, shouldn’t we wrap things up here?”

Kim Yeo-sa, the only woman driving the bus, checked the fuel and asked Cheon Young-jae.

“Let’s go a little further.”

It was just as he said.

A little further, and we would reach Park Yeong-chuk's bunker.

At that point, I asked a question.

"That Park Yeong-chuk guy, he seemed quite formidable. Did you really want to live with someone like him?"

Cheon Young-jae shrugged.

"He had diabetes. He hadn't been able to take his medicine for over a year. And besides diabetes, he had all sorts of chronic illnesses. How long do you think someone like that would survive?"

The fact that Cheon Young-jae knew even about the hidden, invisible diseases like diabetes suggests they were quite close.

But even so, it’s questionable whether Cheon Young-jae trusted Park Yeong-chuk's words.

Did it make sense for him to risk his life, and even sacrifice others, on an adventure where the secret bunker might not even exist?

It didn’t align with Cheon Young-jae’s usual cautiousness and his tendency to always doubt others.

Now, the bus had reached the bunker.

The first victim was the driver, Mrs. Park.

Bang!

The shot pierced the back of her head in one blow.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

With her head collapsed onto the steering wheel, Mrs. Park died instantly, and the bus continued to roll toward the cliff on the winding mountain road.

Amid the chaos, Cheon Young-jae grabbed Park Yeong-chuk’s arm and jumped out.

The bus plunged to the bottom in an instant.

A clean and efficient solution, typical of Cheon Young-jae.

Now, it was time for the reckoning.

The old man, whose death seemed imminent, climbed the rugged mountain path with surprising agility, almost defying his age.

"Here it is. Over here."

The two of them reached the entrance to the bunker.

It was a secret stronghold hidden behind natural cliffs.

"There should be Jeong-hoon and Jeong-hee in there too. I saw them once when we were young, remember?"

With a satisfied smile, Park Yeong-chuk pressed a hidden intercom.

But there was no response from inside.

Park Yeong-chuk, using some unknown method, opened the door.

As it opened, a foul odor pierced the air.

The smell of decaying human corpses.

"No... No..."

There were seven bodies.

Four adults, three children.

"No... Jeong-hoon... Jeong-hee... No... Oh, Chung-ho... Chung-un..."

The state of the corpses was so damaged that it was impossible to guess the cause of death, but based on the burn marks and unburned fire starters, it was presumed to be suicide.

In front of the bodies, Park Yeong-chuk knelt and couldn’t speak for a while.

The bodies needed to be moved.

Even in a well-ventilated bunker, if corpses were left to rot inside, the stench would be unbearable and a risk of disease would rise.

Cheon Young-jae moved the bodies outside.

Moving the bodies was a tedious and troublesome task, but for Cheon Young-jae, it was a stroke of luck.

They were troublesome people.

Including the dead children.

Moreover, he thought their deaths could be another opportunity for him.

"He was my father."

At that moment, Cheon Young-jae solved the biggest mystery himself.

"He was an illegitimate child. The reason he made me a Hunter wasn’t just because I wanted to do it, but because he probably wanted me to die quickly. It must have been because I was one year older than the others in my class, right? You know how hard that is for a senior, right?"

While moving the last body, Cheon Young-jae thought about comforting words.

He had never spent any time with his father, so he felt a mixture of excitement, fear, and expectation about how to approach the father he had never known.

But reality, as always, was cold.

Thud!

The bunker door slammed shut.

"...President?"

He knocked on the door.

There was no answer.

"President Park Yeong-chuk!"

He kept knocking.

But there was no response from inside.

"What are you doing? Huh? What about the promise?"

Darkness was falling.

Even though it was early autumn, the mountain air was chilly.

He knocked so hard that his fists nearly bled, but there was no answer.

As his dry calls began to carry emotion, he raised his voice.

"Why are you doing this? I followed your orders, didn’t I? Huh? I killed people as you asked, and I’ve thrown the old people who trusted you and followed you all down there! Why? Why are you doing this!"

Silence.

Finally, he tried appealing to the familial bond.

"Father...!!"

But even his desperate appeal went unanswered.

In the chilling silence, Cheon Young-jae, his body soaked in his own blood, slid down the iron door.

"...Damn it."

He muttered.

"How much longer do I have to live..."

As soon as the muttering ended, a chilling voice echoed from beyond the iron door.

"That’s your true heart."

Cheon Young-jae’s biological father spoke for the first time.

Cheon Young-jae turned around with wide eyes.

Only then did he realize.

His biological father had been standing silently beyond the door from the very beginning.

With patience that was almost sinister, he had been waiting to catch that one slip of the tongue.

"That’s what you really think!"

With a fury that felt like a lash of a whip, Cheon Young-jae spotted a camera reflecting him from an angle.

Bang!

He shot it, breaking the camera in one blow.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

He shot the door as well.

The metal door dented, but it didn’t show any signs of opening.

After emptying the entire magazine, Cheon Young-jae turned around.

He had known from the start.

The day that door would open would never come.

Even if he died from illness or old age inside, that old man would never give him a single benefit.

"..."

550km, mutations, raiders, the cold and food, legal consequences when returning, and investigations.

Another harsh reality loomed like a dark cloud beyond the fading night, but Cheon Young-jae didn’t hesitate for a moment and took a step toward the darkness.

"Well, that’s the story."

With a nonchalant tone, Cheon Young-jae said.

"That old man? He’s probably dead by now. But even if we go there, the shelter itself won’t mean anything. I saw that the food and fuel they stored are nearly gone. The bunker looks grand, but it’s empty inside. He was so foolish, he killed himself."

"..."

Maybe, from this moment, his chronic suspicion had firmly taken root.

"Get out! Bastard! Get out!"

The reality was more or less settled.

The old man who had harmed us was dragged out by another elderly person.

He was a dignified old man with white hair.

His face quickly twisted into a grotesque expression.

Clack!

He spat at the other old man, and at that moment, Cheon Young-jae shot him.

Bang!

In the knee.

Bang!

In the other knee.

The old man collapsed, his legs twisted in different directions.

"Ahhh!"

Towards the screaming old man, Cheon Young-jae fired his last bullet.

He smiled with satisfaction.

"You don’t need to talk to the old ones. Why do we even talk about generational differences? Our ways of thinking are different. There’s no communication between us."

The matchstick sparked.

"I’ll be the bad guy."

"..."

No words were spoken.

In fact, I knew.

This was the cleanest and most certain solution.

The fire quickly caught.

"What are you doing?"

"Ahhh!"

Amid the chaos, I suddenly looked at the mirror hanging on the wall.

Whether it was the blazing flames or the pervasive darkness, or maybe the cracks and stains on the mirror, I didn’t know, but the reflection of our faces in the mirror was different from usual.

The cracked, blurry image was not much different from the old men beyond the flames.