Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 161.2: Position (2)

Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 161.2: Position (2)

It was said almost as if he wanted me to hear it.
Sure enough, the man, who already looked full of discontent, made eye contact with me, glanced around to make sure no one was nearby, then approached.
"That bastard isn't Kang Jeong-woo. He's not the shelter director."
"What are you talking about?"
"No, he’s not even Kang Jeong-woo. That bastard’s someone else entirely."
The man suddenly reached into his coat and, after fumbling around for a while, pulled out something wrapped tightly in filthy, blackened plastic. It was so old the grime had turned it nearly pitch black.
He revealed an old magazine titled Legal Affairs Journal.
With a twitching smile carved by the years, and a trembling eagerness as though he’d waited forever to unleash this moment, he showed me a page.
[The Legal Nature of Consumer Loans and Common Practical Misconceptions – Kang Jeong-woo, Chief Judge of Yeongdeok Branch, Daegu District Court]
There was a photo attached. A man in a sharp suit wearing glasses.
“This is the real Kang Jeong-woo.”
What the hell was this guy trying to tell me?
As I thought about it, I recalled how during work, this man had been hovering around, sneaking glances, clearly trying to stay close to me.
Was this what he was trying to show me the whole time?
"His whole life is a lie. That bastard. He's in cahoots with that scamming bastard Chief Clerk Kwon to secure his position. I mean, what the hell does a mere clerk know? You think that makes sense? Don’t you find it funny?"
Shoving the magazine back into his coat, the man muttered again.
"You look like someone important. Figured you should know the truth about that con artist."
I kept silent and stared coldly. The man, noticing my discomfort, hesitated, then straightened his posture and turned away.
I silently watched him walk off.
Just then, Defender returned, glaring at the man with that flat, emotionless stare that made him all the more terrifying. He walked over to me.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing serious.”
My phone buzzed.
A text from Hunter Headquarters.
Routine status .
Summary: situation normal.
Except the control cables for the sentry guns had been severed during a bombardment, and a repair team had been dispatched.
Given the potential for monsters to target precision equipment—especially anything involving semiconductors—they had switched the sentry guns to fully manual operation.
“...Right, that happened.”
I briefly summarized what had just happened for Defender.
“Yeah?”
Defender pulled out a cigarette.
“Want one?”
I declined and waited for his opinion.
“Phew.”
After exhaling a slow plume of white smoke, Defender spoke.
“This kind of thing happens a lot in shelters. Shelter chiefs, evacuation heads, whatever you want to call them. Before the war, only people with some fancy title could be appointed as shelter chiefs. It wasn’t even a real job—it was honorary. But then the government gave them actual autonomy, and everything changed.”
“So the honorary title turned into a real position of power.”
“Right. After that, the position became so popular that people started faking their resumes and credentials just to get it.”
The tip of the cigarette in Defender’s mouth flared red.
“It’s not that surprising, really.”
“What isn’t?”
“This is South Korea. Scammers are everywhere. People lying about their credentials were crawling out of the woodwork. And let’s be honest—after the war, it got even easier. Hell, you can’t even Naver search anyone anymore. Why do you think PaleNet had a whole board just for digging up people’s backgrounds?”
That kind of board... yeah, it probably existed. Maybe. Maybe not.
People only see what they want to see.
“Whatever that guy just said, the shelter director was officially vetted. Claimed he was a chief judge? Maybe he's dead now, but back when he became director, there had to be at least one lawyer or judge in that shelter to verify it, right?”
“I heard the clerk was the one who helped him.”
“...At the very least, he must’ve passed some basic vetting.”
Defender wasn’t concerned with petty details about the past.
His eyes always focused on the living—on reality.
“The real problem lies elsewhere.”
“The real problem?”
“Public morale’s shot. Even if everyone volunteered to fight and risk death, when twenty people die like that, people start talking—doesn’t matter how long the guy's been in charge.”
We dug deep, but found no definitive evidence.
The only real option was to head into the ruins where fanatics might be hiding—but that wasn’t my job, and I didn’t want to send anyone else into that mess either.
Instead, we decided to dispatch a Hunter team that included a Regular Awakened equipped with a portable Necropolis transmitter.
“I’ll do my best, Captain!”
The one taking charge of the deployment was Kim Hanna, callsign Tannenbaum.
“Don’t push too hard.”
Before leaving, I met with Kang Jeong-woo one more time to finalize a few matters.
“That apartment... it sticks out too much. And fanatics tend to hit the same place twice. How about relocating it to connect with another position?”
“I completely agree with your point, Captain. But I want to insist just one more time.”
As I expected, Kang Jeong-woo was a man with firm convictions.
“As you know, our area has no proper pillboxes or defensive structures. That spot is the only real anchor point we have.”
Kang Jeong-woo turned to a man about his age standing nearby.
“What do you think, Chief Clerk Kwon?”
Chief Clerk.
Not a title you hear much these days.
I remembered it as someone who worked at a law firm or legal office, bringing in cases. I wondered if a former judge would still be called Chief Clerk even after the world ended.
Anyway, this must have been the very same Chief Clerk Kwon that the grumbling man had mentioned earlier.
He didn’t have the same poise as Kang Jeong-woo, but his demeanor was gentle and refined—unusual for someone his age.
He looked at me.
When our eyes met, I was a bit surprised.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t try to test me—just looked at me as I was.
There was something calm, something... generous in his gaze.
“Well, I think we should follow Captain Park Gyu’s lead. He’s the expert.”
Chief Clerk Kwon’s words clearly gave Kang Jeong-woo pause.
It seemed he relied heavily on Kwon’s counsel.
But as a true leader, he also had his own firm beliefs.
“That spot is the only one holding things together around here. I’ll reinforce it with more troops and defenses.”
Kang Jeong-woo decided to hold the line.
In that case, I just said what I needed to say.
“Then please keep the Hunter team in reserve. That’s the right call. I’ll inform them accordingly.”
A day passed.
Another attack.
Fanatics launched a second strike on the apartment complex, almost exactly the same route as before, killing 27 shelter support soldiers stationed there.
But this time, we had been on alert. The fanatics took casualties too. A distress call got out in time, and Kim Hanna’s Hunter team arrived swiftly, successfully repelling them.
Kim Hanna ed seeing something among the retreating fanatics that resembled a monster.
But a massive horde of monsters had arrived from the north, leaving no room to investigate further.
We returned to the shelter after wiping out about 50 monsters in the Kill Zone with artillery support and eliminating the remaining two using the Mutt Tank.
There were so many that the battle lasted three and a half days, with some even making it onto the bridge.
Those who had once scoffed at the idea of monsters stood silent, mouths agape, at the sight of that pale-gray thing—standing tall on the bridge, on the borderline between life and death.
After coordinating with other departments to plan early repairs to the destroyed Kill Zone, I headed for the troubled shelter zone.
It was 3 AM.
Cheon Young-jae hadn’t slept through the entire battle, so I let him rest and brought only Defender with me.
As expected, the shelter leadership had changed.
Kang Jeong-woo, who had led the shelter for four years, was unanimously dismissed, replaced by a younger and more energetic new director—but lacking the calm dignity Kang Jeong-woo once had.
“It’s another attack involving monsters. We need to deploy Hunters and take the initiative.”
I had no intention of agreeing with him, nor did I have time to waste on this petty localized skirmish.
Luckily, I had Defender.
“I’ve pretty much figured them out. Where they’re hiding, how they move—they’re in the palm of my hand.”
Defender had already drawn up a plan to wipe them out.
He requested one Hunter team including a Regular Awakened to counter the monsters.
I agreed.
He was a master of anti-personnel combat—and the fanatics were his personal enemies.
As I left the shelter’s operations room, I decided I needed to speak with Kim Byeong-cheol.
The monster offensive was advancing far more rapidly than expected.
Even if I wanted to help, there wouldn’t be time.
I needed to find a solution within Kim Byeong-cheol’s capabilities to reinforce this fragile line.
That’s when I ran into the man again—the one with the sour face burned into my memory.
The same man who had ranted to me about Kang Jeong-woo.
“What did I say? Kang Jeong-woo. That bastard. I told you he was a fraud, didn’t I?”
“...”
I ignored him, but he cackled like he’d just won the lottery, spewing out words no one asked for.
“I’ve been waiting for this day. This very day. When that bastard’s lies would be exposed.”
“Move along.”
I showed my irritation.
Only then did the man step aside.
The rise and fall of a man—that’s human business.
But when the entire world is collapsing, I can’t relate to people who waste emotion over petty grievances or find joy in another’s downfall.
Still, out of curiosity, I asked the shelter officer beside me what happened to Kang Jeong-woo.
“That old guy wasn’t lying. Kang Jeong-woo—or whatever we’re supposed to call him now—had been waiting for his reputation to take a hit. When people confronted him, they shoved that old magazine in his face and asked if he was really Kang Jeong-woo.”
“And?”
“He couldn’t answer. In this situation, silence is the same as admitting it. Legally, I think it’s called ‘ratification.’ Anyway, after two rounds of heavy casualties, he resigned along with Chief Clerk Kwon.”
“Where is he now?”
Not that I needed to know the fate of a single man.
“He volunteered to join the frontlines. I heard he requested the most dangerous position himself.”
That night, into the early morning, Defender’s strike team ambushed and annihilated the fanatics who had been attacking the shelter.
During the operation, Defender discovered that the fanatics were using old Korean military equipment.
It was undeniable proof they were backed by the Legion faction.
However, the monster that had drawn me to this place never showed up—at least not there.
Ironically, it appeared somewhere entirely unexpected.
Believe it or not, while Defender was busy eradicating the fanatics, a small group of them led monsters in a surprise attack on the outskirts—and it was the elderly veterans of the shelter who took them down.
Not just the fanatics—but even the monsters.
And at the center of it all... was none other than the disgraced man, Kang Jeong-woo.
*
When I arrived at the hospital room, he was already on the brink of death.
Beside him sat Chief Clerk Kwon, an old man aging with him, holding his hand with a somber expression, standing vigil over the final moments of a comrade from /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ the days of collapse.
Word had it that Kang Jeong-woo—despite being shot three times by bullets deflected from a reverse magnetic field—pressed forward and took down a necromancer-type monster using a low-grade Hunter weapon known as a Monster Killer, issued by the military.
Whether that was true or not didn’t matter.
With death clouding his gaze, Kang Jeong-woo looked at me and tried to sit up.
Chief Clerk Kwon tried to stop him, but the man, stubborn to the end, propped himself up halfway and looked me in the eyes as he began speaking of his greatest insecurity—one he perhaps considered more significant than even his death.
“Jong-taek was right. I’m not a judge. Of course, I was never a chief judge either. I was just a perpetual test-taker who once dreamed of becoming a Supreme Court justice.”
With death’s shadow draped across his face, he gave a bitter smile.
“A senior who became a justice once lit that fire in me. I still remember it—the look in his eyes and his words as he spoke to us juniors, thirty years ago.”
A nurse entered the room.
When our eyes met, she slowly shook her head.
She was listening.
He had only been given enough narcotic painkillers to barely dull the pain.
The air in the room turned heavy, but the man continued speaking.
“I studied for a long time. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can recall the full table of contents and key statutes for every subject as if they were laid out before me.”
That knowledge must have been what helped him pass the qualifications test when he was appointed as shelter director.
“But it didn’t work out. After I turned thirty, I gave up on studying and joined the court system. But you know...”
He let out a hollow laugh.
“I was such a fool. Judges are all the same.”
“In what way?”
“Most of them retire as ordinary judges. That’s where their careers end.”
I didn’t quite understand why that mattered.
“To become a presiding judge, you at least need to have passed the juvenile track or something equivalent. A chief judge? Those guys passed the juvenile court exam while still in school. They passed the bar while still undergraduates, and not just barely—they were in the top tier of the Judicial Research and Training Institute. And as for Supreme Court justices...”
The man erupted into a fit of coughing, but even then, he didn’t stop talking.
“Only the most brilliant among the brilliant get there...”
Blood seeped from both the gauze covering his torso and the corner of his mouth.
Death was closing in.
“And this ignorant fool... I stayed crammed in a tiny, suffocating goshiwon in Sillim-dong even after turning thirty, clutching basic law textbooks and casebooks, thinking I’d become a Supreme Court justice someday. Not realizing that even if I somehow passed, I’d never reach where I wanted to go.”
He turned his head toward me.
But it looked like his vision was already gone.
His clouded pupils no longer focused—he wasn’t truly looking at me anymore.
“Still... I guess I couldn’t let go. When the war broke out and they started selecting shelter directors, I tried to fulfill a dream I’d already lost long ago...”
The monitor screamed.
The man lost consciousness.
A soldier and a survivor who were present at the site recounted the situation in detail.
Cross-verification confirmed that Kang Jeong-woo—or rather, the nameless man—had indeed killed the monster.
“...Director.”
Chief Clerk Kwon quietly muttered, gently holding the trembling hand of the dying man.
The truth had already been revealed, yet to Chief Clerk Kwon, that man remained the chief judge forever.
“He was a far better man than most chief judges—hell, even better than most Supreme Court justices.”
As I turned to leave, Chief Clerk Kwon spoke to me.
“I’m a former chief judge myself. I vouch for him.”
It seemed there was another hidden story buried beneath this series of events.
Time was short.
Beep – beep – beep
Another call came through.
I asked him:
“Why did you hide it?”
Chief Clerk Kwon responded with a faint smile.
“When you tell people you're a judge, they often beat you up for no reason.”
I turned to leave.
As I stepped away from the hospital room, I heard the dying man’s final words.
“Majority opinion... minority opinion... prevailing theory... precedents...”
His name was never revealed.

.
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Chapter 161.2: Position (2)