Hiding a House in the Apocalypse

A survival principle for the apocalypse:

Never be obedient.

If someone tells you to drop your weapon, doing so is equivalent to entrusting them with your life and everything else you own.

Therefore, ignoring demands to disarm or surrender is the correct choice.

Conversations between people holding weapons capable of killing one another should proceed differently.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I fired into the air.

The advancing elderly men hesitated.

Feeling the chilling silence spread through the forest, I finally opened my mouth.

“I think I took a wrong turn. I’ll just leave.”

Dialogue only occurs on equal footing.

Reinforcing to the other side that I have firepower and a means to fight isn’t too late.

There was no movement from the elderly men.

They were probably engaged in a heated discussion—deciding whether to let me leave or attempt an attack.

Soon, hoarse voices rang out from the ridge above.

“Fuck off, bastard!”

“Hands up and come out! Or we’ll kill you!”

“You think we can’t take down one guy? Huh?!”

Their response signaled battle.

What stood out was the depth of hostility and anger in their voices.

I had never wronged these people or harmed them in any way.

Yet, in every syllable, they radiated an unwavering intent to harm me in some form.

“Show yourself now! Drop the gun!”

“Stop being stubborn! We know you’re alone!”

It is well-documented in anthropology that isolated groups tend to develop hostility toward outsiders.

But we weren’t in some remote part of Oceania—we were in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

For elderly men to have become this belligerent required further study.

Of course, I hadn’t come here today to research the aggression of elderly survivalist groups.

“I’ll say it again. I simply took a wrong turn. I have no intention of fighting, and I want to avoid unnecessary conflict.”

My luck was clearly terrible today.

“Shut the fuck up! You came to spy on us, didn’t you?”

“You’re here to steal our crops, huh?!”

“What? Planning to take us somewhere and inject us with that zombie virus?”

I had come here searching for a potential third bunker site—only to stumble upon a hostile, militant group of elderly men.

The elderly group.

It was a depressing mirror reflecting an inescapable fate for humanity.

Everyone knew of their existence.

Everyone acknowledged the problems they posed.

Yet society had never found a proper solution for them.

Even in the apocalypse, the elderly remained.

Of course they did.

It’s not like all the old people living peacefully before the war suddenly dropped dead the moment it started.

Yet, as far as I knew, Viva! Apocalypse! had never seriously analyzed or discussed the presence of elderly survivalist groups.

• One rifle, 90 rounds.
• One handgun, three 12-round magazines.
• No grenades.
• Two axes.