Chapter 15

14. Taboo

The location where the human hunter took the photo can be estimated.

It was once a vast farmland, where crops turned golden before the war.

It is officially recorded as a field, not a mountain or forest, and excavating and constructing there is no easy task.

I, who frequently traveled through that area, never saw any signs of construction.

The human hunter must have passed by there by chance.

He also mentioned that he was around the Guangjiao area and the scenery in the continuous photos of his killings suggested that he lived in a mountainous area with dense forests.

Perhaps this human hunter is the type who constantly wanders around.

However, it doesn’t seem like he uses a vehicle or other means of transportation.

The only thing I found around the tracks left by my four-wheeler was a footprint from a men’s size athletic shoe.

The footprint was heading east and disappeared into a chaotic reed forest.

But why is he going east?

I don’t want to know, and there’s no way to find out.

The issue is this guy’s recent activities.

[Defender has sent you a friend request.]

I only just learned that Biva! Apocalypse has a friend function.

Why?

Because I’ve never received a friend request before.

But why this guy?

To be honest, I don’t like this guy.

I understand that in a world where people have to kill each other, but his behavior of immediately killing and certifying multiple people as soon as the war started was twisted in some way.

Even now, after unblocking him, my feelings haven’t changed much.

[Accept] [Reject]

Here are two clear options.

For some reason, I haven’t pressed the reject button yet.

*

It has been one year and ten months since the war started.

The external temperature today is 32 degrees. It’s mid-summer.

Every year around this time, the community is flooded with posts cursing the harsh four seasons of the Republic of Korea and the foresight of Dangun.

I’m not afraid of summer.

The indoor temperature is 24 degrees.

That’s the current temperature in my bunker.

Yes.

My bunker has an air conditioner.

On the dining table, there’s the assassin’s pasta I made earlier and a shaved ice dessert with condensed milk and canned red beans on top of finely crushed ice.

When I take a large spoonful of the shaved ice and put it in my mouth, which has been warmed by the pasta,

“Ah~.”

A pain that makes my head throb with a ringing sensation brings a sense of happiness.

Perhaps this is the joy of summer.

I’m not oblivious.

I didn’t post the shaved ice photo on the community.

If I did, the only people who would read my posts would be weirdos like the human hunter, since I’m already disliked for no reason!

Although I’m an unpopular user on the board, my quality of life is among the best.

No, I might be as well-off as the tycoons who built the castles.

The core of my luxurious life is, above all, abundant power.

The power generation facilities are different.

While most community users use small generators like gasoline or gas, I run a large diesel generator that could be used in a factory.

This generator, which I named Skeleton Heart, boasts an enormous size that surpasses a typical bunker, and it can be called the heart of my hideout.

Its performance is solid.

As long as there’s fuel, it generates tremendous power, quickly filling dozens of batteries and still has energy to spare.

The downside is the installation cost, noise, and massive gas emissions.

The installation cost was covered by buying cheap land, and the noise isn’t a problem since I settled in an uninhabited area, but the exhaust gas was a headache throughout the construction of the bunker, just like groundwater.

I drilled seven ventilation shafts and, after numerous trials and errors, established a duct system.

Still, when the generator is running, black smoke billows out through the ventilation shafts.

I tried to reduce the smoke by installing dust collection facilities, but from a distance, it might not be noticeable, but from a place where my bunker can be observed with the naked eye, seven columns of smoke can be seen.

So, the generator is usually only run at night, especially on rainy or windy days, even when electricity isn’t necessary, I intentionally run it to charge the batteries.

However, this abundance has a condition.

There must be no people around.

The smoke is hidden by the darkness of night, but if people live within the range where the noise and ground vibrations from the generator can be felt, it’s a problem.

Bang! Bang!

That afternoon, the sniper mother and daughter were firing enthusiastically from the south.

More than usual.

Is a battle breaking out?

Soon, the K-walkie-talkie crackled and spat out stammering Korean.

-Static! Skeleton. A large number of people are heading there.

Since the day of the typhoon, I’ve maintained a loose alliance with the sniper, despite a somewhat distant relationship.

We haven’t explicitly agreed, but our relationship has gradually improved.

Providing information is one of those improvements.

I asked the radio with a wry smile.

“Did you drive them away?”

There was no answer from the radio, but just before it cut off, the faint sound of the daughter’s laughter could be heard.

The sniper had driven away refugees.

Refugees, once a hot topic in the community, are now rare guests.

In the year following the war, many refugees left the harsh conditions of Seoul for the provinces, but most failed, and rumors of those failures spread.

Moreover, the war stabilized, and the government began to show hopeful messages and actions, so the number of refugees sharply decreased and hasn’t been seen for several months.

But refugees now?

They headed straight for my territory.

“Ah, damn.”

I felt a surge of annoyance.

Why did they come to my territory when there are so many other places?

Could they be looters?

Their armament isn’t impressive.

Most of them carry a homemade crossbow called a judge killer, and only a few have firearms.

They reached just before my outer bunker.

I turned off the air conditioner, took out my firearms, loaded the ammunition, and secured two axes to my belt.

I’m not the sniper mother and daughter or the human hunter.

My strategy is to avoid combat and not reveal my position whenever possible.

I activated all the eavesdropping and surveillance equipment to monitor their movements.

“There’s nothing here, why did we come this way?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Wasn’t this area hit by a nuclear bomb?”

“That place used to be a U.S. military base. Our goal is to head there, right?”

The voices murmured from the speakers.

The one who answered was a man in his mid-40s wearing a homemade uniform.

“This area is high ground, and there’s a low hill nearby that can be used for observation.”

The man in the uniform looked around and added,

“Since the urban recovery failed, our goal is now to recover the U.S. military base. That’s the U.S. military base right there. However, there’s the issue of residual radiation, and there might be looters hiding there, so let’s set up camp here and observe the surroundings while slowly recovering the area. As you know, this area is dangerous, right?”

I later learned that the man’s name was Choi Jung-ryong.

His attire and the people around him made him look more like a reservist than an active-duty soldier.

The people with him were all men, mostly around the same age as Choi Jung-ryong.

They weren’t trained soldiers.

Most of them were slow and often showed signs of anxiety.

I wanted to ignore them if possible.

But when I saw them setting up tents in my territory, I knew things were going to get complicated.

To make matters worse, one of the men found a disguised dummy bunker.

“What’s this? It’s a bunker?”

It was empty inside.

The only thing inside was an explosive that I could detonate from my main bunker.

It was built in a half-bunker style, with a long, straight hole that served as both a gun port and an observation window, providing good defense but not suitable for living.

Most importantly, it contained a secret passage to my main bunker.

I emerged from the bunker with a gun.

I revealed myself because I judged that they were not looters.

When I appeared, Choi Jung-ryong and the others showed considerable surprise.

“This is private property.”

I stood at a safe distance with industrial waste nearby, ready to take cover, and told them.

“Please leave.”

The people murmured.

Some showed hostility, but most were surprised and intimidated by the armed figure I presented.

Choi Jung-ryong was the one who dealt with me.

He looked me up and down, gestured for the others to stay back, and took a step forward.

He had a pistol on his belt.

“Hello?”

He called out cheerfully.

I only nodded in acknowledgment and didn’t respond.

“I’m Choi Jung-ryong, a retired lieutenant colonel. I’ve come to develop this area with the permission of the Ministry of Land and Housing.”

“Develop?”

He tried to show me some documents as he approached.

I signaled him to stop with my gun, and he put the documents back in his pocket with a wry smile.

“You’re still young, but you’re very cautious. Did you get beaten up a lot in school? Anyway, have you been living here alone all this time?”

“I don’t intend to talk to you for long, so be brief.”

“Ha ha. Okay, I’ll be brief.”

Choi Jung-ryong, who had been smiling, suddenly became serious and raised his voice.

“You said this is your land, right? That’s all in the past now.”

“What do you mean?”

“The ownership has been reset. The registry has been wiped clean. The provinces, except for major cities, are now unclaimed land. The first to settle and occupy it becomes the owner.”

He waved the documents again.

“Here’s the permit.”

Then it made sense.

Why the refugees, who hadn’t been seen for a while, had reappeared.

I had a sudden thought.

The situation in Seoul might be even worse than I thought.

“Judging by your appearance, you’re probably a doomsday prepper. I won’t touch your land. Our goal is over there.”

Choi Jung-ryong pointed to the U.S. military base.

“We’ll need to borrow this area until we’ve secured that side. Can you give us that much? Mr. Owner?”

Choi Jung-ryong stroked his pistol.

I thought for a moment.

Whether to kill them all or endure.

The human hunter and his killing certification came to mind, but I quickly dismissed the thought.

“Two days should be fine.”

I conditionally agreed.

I didn’t want to cause trouble, and they weren’t looters.

“Two days? That’s too short, but I understand.”

Thus, an uneasy cohabitation began.

Everything was unsatisfactory, but the biggest issue was that I couldn’t run the heart of my territory.

The battery power dropped quickly.

The temperature in the bunker rose uncomfortably, and candles replaced the lights.

The most critical problem was that the temperature in the underground freezer was rising faster than expected.

At most, a few hours.

The freezer, which had been kept at sub-zero temperatures, would soon be filled with the heat of midsummer.

This meant my precious food supply could be lost.

Not being able to access the community was another source of frustration.

“...”

I thought about the human hunter again.

I kept thinking about the fact that he had sent me a friend request and that I hadn’t rejected it, in the darkness.

Choi Jung-ryong and his group didn’t approach my territory for the first day, but after that, they began to explore it like curious children.

They showed particular interest in the dummy bunker where I had appeared.

Each time, I held my gun to stop them, but fear is easily diluted.

At first, they were surprised to see me, but now they approached me casually.

“Sir, what do you eat here? Do you have any food?”

When the temperature gauge in the freezer pointed to minus one degree, Choi Jung-ryong came to me.

“Our situation isn’t good. Can you spare some food?”

“Food?”

“You must have some, right? You’re a doomsday prepper, aren’t you? You must have stockpiled a lot in your bunker.”

“Even if I do, why should I give it to you?”

“We’re all Koreans. We should help each other.”

Choi Jung-ryong looked around at his group and smiled.

“You might be young, but you’re living alone, right? Can you handle all of us?”

The agreed-upon day passed, but Choi Jung-ryong didn’t keep his promise.

Two days later, he and his group were still casually roaming my territory.

That afternoon, something happened.

Someone knocked on the emergency door of my main bunker.

It was the entrance to the passage connecting to the 12 dummy bunkers I had built.

“Hey, there’s a door here?”

They had found it.

My main bunker, which was my life.

“Push it! Push it!”

“Go! Go!”

After the nightmare of shouts, a moment of silence followed, and then Choi Jung-ryong’s voice echoed from the other side of the steel door.

“Are you there? Yes, you’re there! Your face is red with heat! Ah!”

Listening to Choi Jung-ryong’s taunting, I made a firm decision.

“I have something to say.”

I appeared before them unarmed for the first time.

In my hand was a cigarette.

“It’s hot, so you must be uncomfortable. Wait inside the bunker. I’ll bring out some alcohol and food. Start with the cigarettes.”

Choi Jung-ryong smiled and spoke in a casual tone.

“You should have come out like this from the beginning.”

He looked down at me and subtly pressured me.

“So, there’s a bunker on the other side of that steel door, right? I know everything. I know everything.”

He was