Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 170.4: Response (4)

Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 170.4: Response (4)

Courage and fear are like a zero-sum game.
The more someone feels fear, the more courage is given to another.
My steps were light.
Within the monster’s moment of hesitation, the distance closed in an instant.
Distance: 50—no, 45.
I aimed the tip of the harpoon that would deliver death to the monster and pulled the trigger.
FSSSSHHK—
The rocket launched with a thunderous roar, streaking toward the monster.
I watched as the scorching heat and shrapnel of the backblast struck my already-wounded back several times, waiting for the harpoon to pierce the thing.
It was right as the harpoon was about to reach the monster.
BOOM!
A shockwave exploded just before impact.
With the feeling that even my soul was being swept away by a gale, I glared into the trembling world, eyes wide open, to witness what was changing.
“?!”
An anomaly occurred.
Time stopped.
No—more precisely, the rocket stopped.
The harpoon, still trailing blazing exhaust, failed to advance and hung mid-air as if caught in invisible restraints.
In that moment, the word telekinesis came to mind.
I remembered the record of Na Hye-in stopping falling debris mid-air using telekinesis.
“....”
So this thing can use a similar Authority?
Despair raised its head within me—but before I realized it, my body was already charging toward the monster.
Because in the end, what we Hunters ultimately trust in isn’t high-tech weapons or the support of our allies.
Shhhh—
What comes before all those conditions—
Is ourselves.
I resumed my charge, drawing the two axes that were now part of me.
“Sunbae!”
But my destination wasn’t the monster.
It was the statue towering behind it—probably some heroic sculpture of the Chinese people.
Over twenty figures were depicted staring in one direction, clenching fists or cupping hands around mouths in typical communist propaganda poses. Despite being partially abstract in modernist fashion, it was still clearly full of climbable points—even within my narrowed vision.
“Senior Park! What are you doing?!”
“Sunbae! Snap out of it!”
To my noisy juniors, I gave a single reply.
“As you can see, I’m attempting close combat. Don’t just stand there—support me. Anything will do. Just distract it.”
I glanced at the monster.
The harpoon I had fired still hovered mid-air, spinning wildly, flailing within the formless barrier it had deployed.
And then I sensed something.
Even with its telekinesis, it couldn’t completely immobilize the harpoon.
Monsters might seem omnipotent at first glance, but each of their Authorities has its limits.
Even their famous reflective barriers shut down after exceeding a certain impact threshold.
The harpoon caught in its telekinetic net dropped weakly.
Plunk—
Before I knew it, I was at the statue’s center.
Above me, a crack. Behind me, the sculpted face of an unnamed People’s figure. In front of me, the gray-white enemy.
The statue pointed a finger somewhere.
The sculptor probably intended it to signify some ideological ideal or the great cause of the Communist Party—but right now, that bronze finger was pointing squarely at the gray-white monster.
I sprinted up the outstretched, massive arm.
I could see it.
The distance to the monster.
It was within reach.
I looked at the creature’s relatively flat torso and the horn-like head perched atop it, then leapt with axes in hand.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out.
Kim Daram’s.
BOOM!
The monster answered with a shockwave.
At that close range, the blast was enough to nearly shatter my consciousness—but I resisted, focused on finding a landing point.
Thump!
I landed on top of the monster.
The moment I did, its huge body quivered.
A mere tremor to the monster—but to me, it was an earthquake.
Balancing myself, I called out to Jeon Sang-soon.
“Pianist.”
Using his callsign instead of his name carried a special meaning.
It was a demand—a higher standard of performance.
“Unload every round inside the reflective barrier’s range.”
Jeon Sang-soon wasn’t a teammate I had personally chosen.
He had flaws in his personality.
He was constantly conscious of me and tried to surpass me.
That might have stemmed from the fact that he wasn’t a direct disciple of Jang Gi-young like I was. But more than that, it seemed he wanted to be remembered as the greatest Hunter of our fading old-school world—before we vanished from the stage.
Such competitiveness I could overlook, but I’d often heard whispers about his mental instability, which made me hesitant to include him on the team.
But when a position opened, Jeon Sang-soon applied insistently.
As expected, he repeatedly exposed his psychological weaknesses.
But now was his chance to prove his skills.
“...Copy.”
I saw Jeon Sang-soon charging in.
He was now within range of the reflective barrier, holding his 6-shot grenade launcher—now loaded with five rounds.
“If Sunbae gets caught in the blast—?”
“Don’t worry. Just shoot.”
“Are you serious?”
“Isn’t this a good chance for you?”
I said, smirking.
“Lousy joke...”
Jeon Sang-soon aimed the Bigek Jinchonroe.
Thunk-Thunk-Thunk-Thunk-Thunk—
He fired all five grenades toward the monster.
Balancing atop the shaking mass, I observed.
The grenades approached.
I knew their power very well.
If I got caught in the blast, I likely wouldn’t survive either.
But that’s exactly why I gambled.
The monster would have to block it.
Gritting my teeth, I braced for what was to come.
BOOM!
A shockwave burst forth.
The shockwave that erupted directly beneath me—on top of the monster—was almost unbearable.
Even with gritted teeth, I felt like I was losing consciousness.
But I endured.
And then I saw it.
The five grenades were now suspended mid-air, spinning.
The creature had used telekinesis again.
Thump—
My heartbeat thudded like a knock, jolting my awareness.
I charged toward the monster’s head—no, its core.
That was it.
No doubt.
The shockwave had emanated from right above the core.
Now, it was right in front of me.
It couldn’t use telekinesis anymore.
Its telekinesis had to be in a state of overload.
Believing that, I leapt again toward the creature.
In that instant of flight, I saw the monster’s face.
Angular, like a giant insect—like a beetle.
Where its eyes would be, there was a smooth, still-gray organ with a faint sheen—looking like eyes.
My reflection spread across the glossy surface of those eyes.
A figure holding two axes, charging toward the monster.
In that moment, I felt it.
I could kill it.
I could kill this thing.
With nothing but pure killing intent, I charged.
BOOM!
A shockwave erupted—but by now, my mind and body moved as a single machine with only one purpose.
Just as I raised my axe—
“....”
I couldn’t move.
I quickly assessed the situation.
I was no exception.
I too had been caught by the monster’s formless power, floating mid-air.
The telekinetic trap had caught me—Park Gyu—right in front of the monster.
Its face was right there.
If I swung my arm, my axe would hit it.
We stared at each other at point-blank range.
“...You.”
I spoke to it.
But neither I nor it could’ve heard those words.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! KA-BOOM!
Jeon Sang-soon’s grenades exploded mid-air.
As the flashing light and shotgun-like shrapnel flew forward and froze like magic right before my eyes, I spoke again to the monster.
“I’ll kill you.”
A strange glint flickered in the monster’s eyes.
That was the last thing I remember from that battle.
The monster flung me away.
In the disorienting blur of vision and fading consciousness, I heard frantic voices.
“...Professor’s out.”
“Professor’s down. Mission failed. Repeat, Professor’s down. The mission...”
“Professor, all units retreat immediately!”
“Joushoujoura~.”
“Joushoujoura!”
...
...
Amid the explosion of the Bigek Jinchonroe, I lost consciousness and was thrown beyond the Rift.
Jeon Sang-soon was edly killed shortly after, but his body was never found.
Even afterward, I crossed the Rift several more times and remained on the battlefield—but I couldn’t endure long and eventually left.
What happened next is well known.
I prepared for the apocalypse.
The Professor died—and Skeleton was born.
But the story circles back to the beginning.
The monster is still out there.
In the dreamlike ruins blurred by mist, many things become visible.
Ghosts, specters, illusions—call them what you want.
When I gaze into the countless particles of mist, faint images surface in my mind and project themselves like paintings onto that canvas.
Among them is a past version of myself.
The Professor.
The cold, razor-sharp man who tolerated not a single miscalculation.
But he cannot speak.
Because he’s just a vision I conjured.
Still, I feel I know what he wants to say.
I want to tell him:
His judgment wasn’t wrong.
Since leaving the battlefield, I’ve desperately tried to forget that day—but the more I tried, the louder the voice inside me grew, saying I hadn’t been wrong.
It’s time to prove it.
Shhhh—
I picked up my new weapon—cumbersome, heavy.
The maul.
“You seriously think that’ll work?”
Ha Tae-hoon and Gong Kyung-min looked on skeptically.
Kim Daram arrived late, slamming down the heavy case holding her anti-materiel sniper rifle, catching her breath.
“Over here, at least I can make out a silhouette.”
She, too, noticed the weapon in my hands.
“What is that? A toy? You’re seriously using that?”
Even Kim Daram said that?
As I hesitated to answer, I saw a scrawny zombie standing far off in the distance.
My mentor—Jang Gi-young.
He wouldn’t have come «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» here just to see his disciples... would he?
How should I explain this?
Suddenly, Jang Gi-young smiled broadly.
I understood.
His hollow eyes had long since lost their pupils—but he was staring at the "rocket axe" in my hands.
“Park Gyu! Everyone ignored what you wrote in your . Yeah, that’s right. There’s a limit to all the energy that monster produces. Telekinesis is no exception. Even if it’s a leader-class monster! You lost that day because that punk Jeon Sang-soon brought that toy Bigek Jinchonroe instead of a Harpoonizer.”
Jang Gi-young hated anyone who wasn’t his own disciple—but he especially disliked Jeon Sang-soon.
The man may have been called a fraud by some, but he had piercing insight. He surely knew why Jeon had joined my team.
If the “Professor” was rejected and “Pianist” rose to the top of the old-school Hunters, Jang Gi-young’s entire legacy would end.
“If that bastard had brought a Harpoonizer, the monster would've had its hands full just blocking it. That’s what gave me the idea for your weapon. Huh? Isn’t it simple? Just like how reflective barriers get smashed by a hail of shells, you can crush its telekinesis with raw force! Park Gyu—that’s what you’re holding.”
Jang Gi-young paused for a moment and said:
“The Maul.”
He cracked something like a smile across his torn lips.
“The hammer to judge monsters.”
I fell silent.
“....”
Did we think of the same name?
No matter how close our bond, or how much of my ideology was shaped by him, such a strange coincidence was eerie.
Just then, Kim Daram’s voice pierced my thoughts.
“Sunbae. It’s bad. The vanguard of a monster horde from the eastern Rift has appeared. Na Hye-in sunbae is holding them off—but she won’t last long.”
I nodded and glanced around—then turned to look at Jang Gi-young.
Surely they’d heard it too.
The words of our mentor, our school’s de facto founder and principal.
I checked my teammates’ expressions.
Strange.
Ha Tae-hoon tilted his head. Kim Daram was staring at me like I was insane.
Did something go wrong?
Of course.
Gong Kyung-min said bluntly:
“You’ve been staring at empty space this whole time. Seeing things? Hallucinating?”
I stared at him silently.
They couldn’t see it?
There—our mentor Jang Gi-young, standing tall in the mist, watching over us.
Strangely, Ha Tae-hoon, Gong Kyung-min, even Kim Daram who arrived late, showed zero interest in Jang Gi-young standing beyond the mist.
“You didn’t hear anything just now?”
They all shook their heads.
I looked again toward Jang Gi-young.
He was now farther away, still watching us.
Only then, seeing my teammates’ faces, did I realize:
They couldn’t see him.
Not the man who was my mentor, our instructor—Jang Gi-young.
“....”
Puzzling, but I decided not to think too hard about it.
In this mist, in this place where the Rift swirls, things beyond human comprehension happen all the time.
I’ll believe my mentor has joined that miracle.
After all, he fits better in myth than in reality anyway.
From afar, he waved to me.
“Go, Park Gyu.”
My eyes widened.
Someone stood beside Jang Gi-young.
It was me.
No—the Professor.
“Go, Professor.”
Beyond that Professor stood the shadows of countless young comrades dressed like me, bearing our insignia.
But I ignored them.
“....”
The past is just the past.
They say humans learn from it.
That’s all the past is good for.
Click!
With the sounds of gunfire echoing from all around, I looked toward the enemy crouching far off.
I raised my head.
Suddenly, the sound of a helicopter.
I looked up—but of course, I couldn’t see it.
Gong Kyung-min checked his phone and said:
“Hey, Park Gyu.”
He looked puzzled as he spoke.
“They say Kang Han-min just appeared?”
“Yeah?”
Gong Kyung-min’s face changed.
He looked genuinely worried for me.
He would know best how I felt when I left the battlefield and placed Kang Han-min and Na Hye-in on the blacklist.
But now, even Kang Han-min is the past to me.
I looked ahead.
Beyond the mist, a blurry silhouette came into view.
Such is the nature of human effort.
Opaque, uncertain.
But even so, humanity has challenged, broken, fallen—and sometimes succeeded.
“Let everyone know.”
Carrying the heavy, burden-like double axe—more like an instrument of punishment than a weapon—I took a step forward.
“Team Professor is entering the battle.”

.
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Chapter 170.4: Response (4)