Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 176.2: Salmon (2)

Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 176.2: Salmon (2)

“Dunno. Not really? I don’t have any particular thoughts right now.”
After the trial, Woo Min-hee looked like she had set something down in her heart.
“I’m just trying to enjoy the present. No one knows how long days like these will last.”
She was speaking brightly, but I could see it.
She still carried unease about the future.
She must be anxious.
Because she doesn’t know how things will unfold from here on out.
She’s still afraid of the battlefield, and she firmly believes that someday, Kang Han-min will drive her back into it.
“······.”
I didn’t pry.
I didn’t lead the conversation in that direction either.
That’s a burden she has to overcome.
The only thing I can do is be there when she needs help, and do my best when that time comes.
That’s about it.
But anyway.
“Can’t you drive a bit faster, Hunter Cheon Yeong-jae?”
“This car shakes too much. Honestly, Hunter Cheon Yeong-jae, you really lack delicacy. Is that why girls don’t like you? All the other hunters seem to have girlfriends.”
“Stop the car for a sec. Look at those pretty flowers. What are they called? Do you know, Hunter Cheon Yeong-jae?”
Our Miss Woo Min-hee.
She torments Cheon Yeong-jae in such a steady, innocent way.
I could see Cheon Yeong-jae’s face souring beside me, but there was nothing I could do.
She’s mentally unstable as is. If I say something and provoke her, the blowback might hit me.
“By the way, I saw on the board. That guy Umchang showed up again?”
Like just now.
“Apparently, while the trial was still ongoing, someone named Umchang reappeared on the board.”
“······.”
“Senior, why the sudden silence?”
“Ah, sorry. I was just reminiscing about the old battlefields in China. °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Brutal places, those...”
“You didn’t hear what I said, did you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Umchang.”
“Umchang? Who’s that?”
“It’s you, Senior.”
“Shit. They’ve tracked me down already? Yeong-jae. Contact the Chinese.”
Cheon Yeong-jae quickly tried to initiate comms.
“You are Umchang. Why’d you do that?”
Woo Min-hee looked amused, but I couldn’t indulge her.
Luckily, a Chinese voice came through and saved me again.
“This is Jang Soo-yeong. You’re en route, correct?”
Hearing a woman’s voice, Woo Min-hee reacted with surprise.
“Your Korean’s pretty good. Are you Korean-Chinese?”
Crisis miraculously averted.
The beast’s attention had shifted.
“I’m Han Chinese.”
“Really? You sound pretty native for that.”
“I went to school in Korea.”
“So you’re kind of pro-Korean?”
“Something like that.”
It wasn’t hard to see that the remnants of the Chinese military were preparing to leave Korea, even without visiting their camp.
Various ships, including the long-troubled submarine from back when Mr. Dragon was still alive, had gathered off the coast of Dangjin.
“Welcome.”
The Chinese soldiers greeted us.
Gone were the wary eyes and hostility from our first visit.
Everyone was either smiling or at least maintaining neutrality.
The reason was obvious.
They were going home.
They could see the hope of returning to the place they were born and raised.
Sure, China started the war, but not every Chinese person supported it.
Especially the youth who had been drafted and were at risk of dying—most of them opposed the war.
There was once a slogan that swept across China:
“The war started by the old men who have everything
Kills the young who have nothing.”
War took everything in the end, and the erosion that began as a fracture stole even the world humans once knew.
“Welcome.”
I reunited with Jang Soo-yeong.
Behind her, Bai Tou smiled like an old friend and waved at me.
He said something to Jang Soo-yeong.
Jang Soo-yeong gave a bitter smile and turned to me.
“Um... if it’s alright with you, Commander Baek, he wants to spar one more time. Says the previous loss has been weighing on his mind.”
I answered immediately.
“If we fight again, I’ll lose.”
That’s the truth.
The man’s physique is superior, and his weaponry is different too.
Above all, he’s trained exclusively with cold weapons.
What difference is there between this and a sushi chef challenging me to a sushi duel?
Besides, I already won once.
On the battlefield, one victory is eternal.
Losers rarely get to escape death.
It was only my whim and special circumstances that gave him another chance.
A man like Bai Tou would understand what that means.
He looked at me with fierce eyes and said:
“Thank you.”
The rest was in Chinese, so I couldn’t understand it, but judging from the tone, it was likely gratitude for sparing his life.
Better to roll in shit and live than to die—seems that sentiment holds in both China and Korea.
Jang Soo-yeong shared their schedule.
They planned to leave Dangjin within the month, in stages.
After being occupied for so long by an enemy force, Dangjin would finally be liberated.
I knew where they were headed, but with Woo Min-hee beside me, I feigned curiosity to steer the conversation.
“Where are you headed?”
From what I’d heard, deep inland along the Yangtze River.
They said there was a zone of overlapping rift limits there—Shangri-La.
But what I heard next was different.
“Everyone’s returning to their hometowns.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The original plan was to head into the Yangtze interior, to Shangri-La. But not many people believe in it, honestly. So we decided to split up at sea.”
“I see.”
“Oh, but me and my close friends—we’re going to Shangri-La!”
She said that, glancing at Woo Min-hee.
“She says so,” I echoed.
Woo Min-hee nodded silently, eyes shining faintly as she gazed at the ships floating on the sea and the bustling Chinese moving about.
“Those people.”
She pointed at a group of women.
“Aren’t those women Korean?”
Jang Soo-yeong glanced at Woo Min-hee, then gestured at me.
I nodded slightly.
It meant “yes, that is the Woo Min-hee you know.”
Jang Soo-yeong quickly answered.
“They volunteered to come with us. But if you’d like, we can check their intentions again and repatriate them to New Seoul.”
The Chinese military surely understood the terror that was Woo Min-hee.
They were the only army with actual experience confronting an Awakened ranked over level 10.
“Please do.”
Even if Woo Min-hee had lost her power in Seoul, she was still Woo Min-hee.
Jang Soo-yeong, well aware of her dread, followed her order without complaint.
While she briefly stepped away, we were given some free time.
We stood under the sea breeze, watching the ships and the people and listening to the noisy foreign language all around.
Though she had snapped at Jang Soo-yeong earlier, Woo Min-hee looked pleased.
“Turns out, I just needed a business trip.”
She murmured that with a wry smile.
I didn’t want to respond, but here, I had to play along.
“······Business trip?”
I asked reluctantly.
Woo Min-hee beamed and nodded.
“Yup! A business trip! You know, if you sit in the office all day, even if there’s nothing to do, your body gets stiff, your mind foggy, and you get stressed, right?”
Apparently, what Director Woo said in court about her doing nothing in the lab had been true.
She wasn’t the type to handle paperwork or mediate disputes with patience.
“Getting out like this, seeing the sea, meeting people, hearing good ol’ Zhongguo language—it feels fresh. Really. I don’t know why I didn’t like traveling when I was a kid.”
As she rambled on with ominous enthusiasm, Cheon Yeong-jae glanced at me with a face full of agony and shook his head.
That meant “you deal with her.”
I grimaced, but he turned his gaze away.
After a moment, Woo Min-hee turned to me cheerfully.
“Let’s go out often, okay?”
“······.”
“What’s wrong, Senior?”
“······Out there, raiders swarm, and mutations are rampant. Down south, they say there’s a monster living in every household. One household, one monster. I’ve even heard the term ‘monster adoption mandate.’”
“It’s fine. If people live in Zhongguo, we can live too.”
This woman.
Why does she emphasize consonants like that?
Why, after acting like such a deadly poser in her youth, is she now trying to act cute in her thirties?
I don’t mind cute.
But why the hell does she have to act that way in front of me?
As I sank into inner turmoil, Jang Soo-yeong returned.
“Yes. I checked again. I’ll send you the list. Where should I send it?”
Some of them wanted to return to Seoul.
You could call it an appropriate intervention.
In this matter, Woo Min-hee actually pulled off a good one.
“Commander Park, I have a personal question, if that’s okay?”
Woo Min-hee tilted her head, but it seemed this was something Jang Soo-yeong couldn’t let go of.
Even under Woo Min-hee’s glare, she asked:
“Are you... the famous Skeleton?”
No need to deny it here.
She was with me until right before the Nemesis battle.
I nodded.
“Yes.”
A huge smile spread across Jang Soo-yeong’s face.
“······I knew it!”
SCREEEECH—
A sharp sound rang from behind.
Woo Min-hee was grinding her hook-like fingernails.
An unspeakable sense of doom settled over me, but I couldn’t back down now.
Why, right in front of me stands a fan.
A real-life fan of Skeleton, the living legend produced by Korea’s Viva! Apocalypse! board.
“I’m Skeleton. Also known as TwelveSquare.”
I proudly introduced my other self again.
Jang Soo-yeong giggled and said one thing:
“Odongtong?”
“?”
“Ah, it’s nothing. Anyway, the reason I asked if you’re Skeleton is because...”
“Yes?”
“Do you think I could do a stream like yours, Commander?”
What Jang Soo-yeong, the Chinese woman, really wanted to ask...
...was how to join Live! Apocalypse!
*
Live! Apocalypse! is open content available to any Viva! Apocalypse! user.
Frankly, even morons like DongtanMom and MGoo use it just fine, so if your broadcast conditions are met, it’s fair to say anyone—literally anyone—can do it.
The problem is that Jang Soo-yeong is Chinese.
As everyone knows, China is a hostile nation to the U.S.
While the trigger of this war may have been China’s invasion of Taiwan, the real driving force behind it was the extreme conflict between two global powers—China and the U.S.
China simply fell faster. But even before the war, these so-called "great powers" with vast territory and massive populations were already reaching their limits.
Governments obsessed with approval ratings tried to hide everything. Suppression, cover-ups, scaling things down. The ones sacrificed as disposable were always the young.
Just look at our own Legion Deployment.
Tens of thousands of young people had to remain enlisted due to extended conscription, forced to continue living as soldiers.
Anyway, back to the point—
The issue of whether a Chinese user from a U.S.-hostile country can use Live! Apocalypse! is a matter packed with explosive implications.
As far as I know, Viva! Apocalypse! was never deployed in China.
The U.S. had already imposed trade sanctions, especially blocking high-tech IT ventures like Viva! Apocalypse!
Even now, our board’s real-time translator has every language active except Chinese. That alone should tell you something.
Most importantly, you need specific gear to run Live! Apocalypse!
“This is the right thing, right?”
Jang Soo-yeong showed me a piece of satellite equipment known as an Obelisk.
I didn’t bother asking where she got it.
Could’ve been stolen, or maybe she got it through bartering back when Obelisks were a hot commodity.
“It’s legit.”
I checked its condition.
Pretty good.
The laptop connected to the Obelisk also looked to be in excellent shape.
Honestly, I was tempted.
But I couldn’t exactly steal gear from someone who was about to leave.
I hid my greed and helped with the setup.
“······.”
Clack clack
Alice_Chang: (test) test test
Her nickname was Alice_Chang.
Never seen it before.
Either she changed it recently, or she’s been lurking silently all this time.
But if she did change her nickname, that meant she’d gotten used to our board in her own way.
I asked:
“Have you been active on the board?”
She nodded.
“Yes. I stumbled across it half a year ago. I’ve been slowly learning how to use it, and after the Battle of Seoul, I started using it seriously.”
“Have you ever posted anything?”
“No. I only read. I never post.”
For some reason, she sounded proud that she never posted.
“······.”
Let’s chalk that up to a cultural difference.
“But why do you want to stream?”
“Oh, well—when I watched the VOD of Skeleton—no, of your stream, Commander Park—I was so deeply moved.
It’s not easy to give people hope and inspiration through just a video, especially in a time as dark as this.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Hope has become a luxury in these times.
But that was exactly why we needed to be very selective.
“What kind of stream do you want to do?”
Depending on her answer, I might have to reject it.
If it’s anti-social, if it defends China’s position, or if it’s a stream slandering the U.S.—I can’t allow it.
Not because I want to take America’s side.
Our platform is for all of humanity.
It’s a space to discuss hope and potential.
Now the baton was passed to Jang Soo-yeong.
She fell silent, gazing out the window at the sea, at the ships floating on it.
“······I want to show them something.”
“Show what?”
“Shangri-La.”
“Shangri-La.”
Right. She did say she was heading there.
“You know it might not exist, right?”
“Yeah. It might not. But I believe it does. It might not, sure. But if it does exist, then I want to show it to everyone.
That even in a world blanketed in ash-gray, there is still green. There is still hope.
That’s what I want to show them.”
“······.”
I looked into her eyes.
No hint of fear. Only conviction.
Or to be more precise, the look of someone with nothing left to lose—but that only made it more sincere.
“······Understood.”
Which brings us back to the beginning.
There was still one problem.
The fact that Jang Soo-yeong is Chinese.
That she comes from a U.S.-hostile nation—the same as the Melon Mask.
Even I can’t just cut through the decades of diplomatic knots between our countries.
But this is the internet.
And on this platform, my influence is stronger than anywhere else.
“Please wait a moment.”
I asked for a moment and sat down at the computer.
Alice_Chang: VivaBot-nim.
Jang Soo-yeong stood next to me, watching the screen with nervous eyes.
Soon, a reply came.
VIVA_BOT014: ? Who are you?
“······.”
Clack clack
Alice_Chang: (blushing Skeleton) I’m Skeleton.

.
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Chapter 176.2: Salmon (2)