Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 163.2: The Horde (2)

Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 163.2: The Horde (2)

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Spotlights converged on the slanted rooftop of The Hope.
No, they weren’t hosting a film festival.
Wheeeeeee—
The lights lit up the enormous signal tower installed atop The Hope.
Constructed from scrap metal, plastic, and recycled paper, the signal tower moved using an external power source and displayed a system of command signals that could be seen from over 10 kilometers away.
Clang—
With a heavy metallic groan, the shifting signal finally locked in place. It now broadcasted a message into the dark sky: missing personnel must immediately fire a flare or some other signal to indicate they were alive.
We passed by the tilted apartment complex.
Inside the swaying armored vehicle, silence reigned.
Everyone knew it.
This mission wasn’t going to be easy.
Even before the war, rescue missions for missing persons were notoriously difficult.
Truth be told, even when orders came from the Chinese military, people only pretended to follow them. No one actually moved.
The word “missing” was loaded with uncertainty, and those incidents always occurred in high-risk zones.
Back in the Chinese days, the phrase “lost contact” was just a euphemism for ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) total unit annihilation.
Hunter operations were always conducted near headquarters, and every member carried a communicator that allowed real-time contact.
Until the Chinese government got caught blatantly stealing our tactics and know-how, we even wore bodycams that transmitted directly to command.
Under such conditions, there’s only one reason for a hunter team to suddenly go silent.
They were all wiped out in a flash.
Fanatic ambushes usually caused such disasters, though monster attacks weren’t uncommon either—especially unpredictable ones that swallowed entire teams whole.
Now, however, we had confirmed the existence of monsters that could destroy communication equipment.
In fact, after a strange, distorted roar, multiple devices had been ed broken.
Engineers and researchers theorized that the mysterious wave responsible for disabling the gear had struck the outer zones more intensely than the city proper.
That meant it wasn’t the whole city they were targeting—but our team, working across the river in the north.
Why they hadn’t used their emergency flares was still a mystery. But we’d find out soon enough.
Thunk!
The armored vehicle jolted violently.
One side of the chassis had risen up high after running over debris scattered on the bridge, before settling back down.
“Senior, what is that thing?”
Kim Daram, expression blank as always, looked at the weapon I was holding with hollow eyes.
“You’re looking at it.”
I carefully polished the edge of a newly finished weapon with cloth.
A two-handed axe.
Or more precisely, something closer to a polearm than a traditional axe.
The shaft was unusually long.
Even lying flat on the ground, it was nearly 1.5 meters long.
“That’s... excessively long,”
Cheon Young-jae, who had also joined the mission, raised an eyebrow.
“Reminds me of the Qinglong Yanyue Dao that Chinese hunters used.”
It wasn’t like I was trying to look flashy like Baitou by lengthening the shaft.
It just turned out that way during the making.
I had a strong urge to explain, but doing so inside a noisy armored vehicle didn’t seem worthwhile.
Instead, I turned to the last team member seated next to Cheon Young-jae—Ahn Seung-hwan.
“......”
His face was dark with worry.
Not fear.
But anxiety and guilt churned inside him.
He blamed himself for Lee Haru’s disappearance.
She had taken the mission originally assigned to him—and this was the result.
The shock clearly weighed on him.
He was normally stoic, a straight-laced guy who rarely showed emotion—so the fact that he was this shaken spoke volumes.
“How are you feeling?”
We had given him antidepressants before deployment.
I’ve never tried them myself, but they supposedly covered a wide range of emotional issues.
Fortunately, it seemed the meds were working reasonably well for Ahn Seung-hwan too.
“I’m fine. Too fine, actually... it’s worrying.”
Still anxious, but a lot better than before.
The armored vehicle came to a stop on the riverbank, where the pale moonlight poured down.
Beyond the embankment stretched a desolate wasteland—what we called the “ruined plains,” where former buildings had been bulldozed.
We called it a plain, but in truth, the building foundations couldn’t be fully cleared, and the wreckage of collapsed structures still loomed here and there like the mounds of a graveyard.
After we disembarked, technicians also climbed out from the vehicle.
“How’s cable 3? Is the signal active?”
“Cable 3’s good. Looks like it’s already been restored.”
They began checking the wired cables laid along the riverbank.
The cables were key.
They were installed along the riverbank to protect them from monster artillery.
At set intervals, the cables would branch off from the river and run deep into the city.
Whenever possible, engineers tried to utilize pre-war infrastructure for the network layout.
South Korea’s cable-burying technology was second to none globally, born out of bitter necessity when the North had pointed rocket artillery directly at the capital.
“The missing team probably approached Gunja Bridge.”
That was outside our designated operational zone.
No regular s or GPS data confirmed that.
Did they proceed after turning off their GPS?
Most accidents stem from simple mistakes—but major disasters are born from desire.
Gunja Bridge was one of the most frequently used routes for monsters coming from Paju.
Early on, we had installed monitoring equipment there, but after it was destroyed by unknown means, it was never restored.
Restoration would be nice, but the area around Gunja Bridge had long been a danger zone—even back in the Seoul government days, it was called the zombie field.
You can still find remnants of the government’s zombie barriers near the northern edge of the bridge.
Even though the government regularly cleaned out zombies from the zone, new ones always appeared to replace the fallen—just like Seoul always seemed to draw in every young person in the country.
Back when we installed equipment in the area, Kim Byeong-cheol’s unit had fought tooth and nail against hordes of zombies.
There were even Caterpillar-types among them, which made long operations impossible.
To this day, the exact nature of the Meatball-type—responsible for controlling the Caterpillars—remains unknown.
Some believe they’re just another combat variant, given how they sometimes disappear from active zones.
Outside of the one I killed, no other Meatball-types have ever been seen.
At any rate, heading into such a dangerous zone now seemed unwise.
One thing still didn’t add up—Shim Hyeong-do’s personality.
He hadn’t gone to any special academy, but he was a hunter through and through.
Even if results were lacking, he was the kind of person who would pull back if things didn’t go to plan.
Not the type to take unnecessary risks.
Clunk!
The armored vehicle stopped about 200 meters from the edge of the ruined plain.
Under the watchful eyes of soldiers and engineers, we stepped forward, gazing out toward the looming wreckage ahead.
Uuuuuuhhhh—
The chorus of zombies echoed from afar.
It was 2 a.m.
Prime time for zombie activity.
Even four years into the war, it remained a mystery how zombies stayed active and alive. But what never changed was how damn annoying they were.
Clack—
Ahn Seung-hwan readied his weapon.
A domestic automatic shotgun.
Most Regular Awakened opted for more manageable domestic SMGs or American double-barrel shotguns.
Choosing a heavy, unwieldy auto-shotgun signaled how seriously Ahn Seung-hwan was taking this mission.
“Gunfire attracts zombies. If it's a small group, Young-jae and I will handle it. Just cover us from behind.”
I checked the safety on his shotgun and lifted my own weapon.
Srrrrrk—
It was more of a halberd than an axe, really.
That’s probably the right term: halberd.
Not something I planned, just how it turned out.
“This the new weapon you were working on, Senior?”
Kim Daram looked again, curious.
I nodded.
“Looks like it has a gimmick.”
For all her gruffness and abrasive attitude, Kim Daram was still a top-tier old-school hunter.
She noticed the hidden mechanism immediately.
“Huh? Really?”
Cheon Young-jae was visibly nervous around Kim Daram.
Sure, he could beat her in a fistfight—but with guns, she’d kill him ten times out of ten.
Anyway, since the opportunity had presented itself, it wouldn’t hurt to show off the new weapon’s gimmick.
Clack!
The mechanism started by grabbing the protruding grip on the upper shaft.
With a hard twist—
Shrrrrak!
A metallic skirt flared out from the lower shaft, like a peacock unfurling its wings.
It looked flashy—but was designed for practical use.
Whether it worked would depend on the enemy, but I was satisfied with it.
“What do you think?”
Demonstrating a new weapon after mastering it was one of my few remaining joys from my days as Professor.
Smiling proudly, I looked at Kim Daram.
“What is this? Is this a joke?”
“...?”
Not the reaction I expected.
“It’s made with titanium aluminide bonded with ultra-thin ceramic tiles. Same stuff used on space shuttle hulls.”
I explained kindly.
“Titanium or whatever—it looks like a broken umbrella to me.”
Kim Daram neither understood nor cared to understand.
She shrugged and looked away with complete indifference.
Even the more open-minded young ones were no better.
Cheon Young-jae and Ahn Seung-hwan didn’t even glance at it.
“No one around. Just zombies.”
Cheon Young-jae kept scanning the area.
“Haru... just hold on.”
Ahn Seung-hwan was still stuck in guilt.
Srrrrk—
I folded the skirt back into place and moved on as if nothing had happened.
“You always say a hunter without a gun is like an elephant without a trunk. So why the hell are you carrying that?”
Kim Daram grumbled as a parting shot.
“......”
Everyone ignored it, but this was a trump card I’d prepared for the upcoming battle.
A little attention would’ve been nice.
Instead, I got complete silence.
Like writing a heartfelt post on Viva! Apocalypse! only for no one to leave a single comment.
Bwooooooo—
A low sound signal echoed from the south.
We turned toward the Han River.
Sure enough, the signal tower mounted on a tilted building had shifted.
It now displayed three symbols in a 10-second rotation.
If memory served: large-scale, zombie, and active.
The message was clear—numerous zombies were awake and roaming.
Kim Daram turned on her lantern and checked the signal pattern chart.
“Should I turn the radio on?”
She must not have memorized the chart.
Then again, she always hated using her brain.
“No. I’ve got the pattern down.”
I had brought both a radio and a communicator—but left them off.
No need to waste energy on this.
I suspected the monsters that disrupted our comms perceived electromagnetic waves differently—like seeing radio signals blanketing the world.
“A large-scale zombie horde seems to be moving nearby.”
“Large-scale zombies?”
Kim Daram frowned.
Zombies were often underestimated—but they were formidable foes.
Maybe it was satire on humans consumed by materialism, but the more of them there were, the stronger they became.
Their numbers enhanced everything—from mobility and endurance to, believe it or not, intelligence.
Until now, we’d managed because of our weapons.
Tens of thousands of zombies could be turned into meat chunks by coordinated artillery fire.
Even a single well-mounted machine gun could mow down hundreds.
Because they were easy to destroy in bulk, most countries still armed considered zombies a lesser threat compared to monsters or mutations.
But without such firepower, zombies were more terrifying than anything else.
“If they bothered to warn us, the numbers must be serious.”
I pulled out a clicker-style sound signaler.
Originally used in North America for deer hunting, it could broadcast signals over long distances.
It was one of the replacement signal systems we rushed to develop after learning about Screamers.
Clack! Clack!
I used it to direct the armored vehicle another hundred meters forward—our only lifeline if the zombie horde targeted us.
The biggest problem was the way Kim Daram’s expression soured—but at least she was a perfect hunter when it came to missions.
“Over there.”
Kim Daram spotted something.
A flare cartridge lay discarded on the ground.
As expected. Her night vision was even more monstrous than her day vision.
“This...”
Ahn Seung-hwan recognized it.
“It’s Haru’s!”
I nodded and scanned the area.
Footprints. And blood.
Bloody footprints.
Clack! Clack!
I signaled the rear as we began to advance.
Somber glimmers of light pierced the darkness around us.
Zombies—many of them.
Srrrrk—
Weapons in hand, we moved forward cautiously.
The trail of blood led down into the basement of a partially collapsed building.
Just a plain, commercial structure at first glance.
But the more you know, the more you see.
“Huh? This place...”
Kim Daram spoke up, eyes fixed on the building’s entrance.
Zombies still trailed us, so I kept my halberd raised and waited.
“See that plaque near the entrance?”
Sure enough, there was a nameplate at the door.
It read: Lee Hyung.
“Never seen one in person—but this looks like a VIP bunker. The emblem, the plaque... everything fits.”
“VIP bunker?”
“Government issue. For high-ranking officials who might not make it out of Seoul in time. I only learned about them from files Woo Min-hee leaked.”
Ahn Seung-hwan chimed in.
“This... might belong to someone very high up.”
I looked at him.
He continued, likely recalling material from his training on Jeju Island.
“I think... this is the Presidential Office.”

Chapter 163.2: The Horde (2)