Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 178.3: Journey (3)

Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 178.3: Journey (3)

Terror is intertwined with madness.
When the rifts opened and countries with massive populations and vast territories like India and parts of Africa began to falter, hardly anyone believed they would actually collapse.
Especially in the case of India, a nation once considered a potential superpower—no one had imagined it would fall.
And when India crumbled so absurdly easily, the ones most seized by fear were the leadership of each country.
They possessed information unknown to the public. They understood how the rifts and monsters were rapidly dismantling human domains and driving the human race toward extinction.
When the rift—once thought to be a divine opportunity—was revealed to be a gateway to hell and destruction, each nation began a desperate scramble to survive.
Nations with ethnic strife, like the United States, drove certain populations to the brink of death. Countries with political instability used the rift as a tool for legitimizing dictatorship.
So-called “first-world nations” were no exception.
They imprisoned and erased truth-tellers. They pursued forbidden technologies once deemed taboo.
In the face of the overarching theme of survival, every other sub-theme was discarded.
The discarded theory of eugenics rose from its grave, as if it were a natural course of events.
Over level 10 Awakened.
Also known as Alpha Awakened, these new-era heroes were considered the only solution for saving humanity from the large-scale monster invasions.
“It started as a simple idea. The strongest Awakened. If Kang Han-min’s genes could be widely distributed, then within ten years, dozens—maybe even hundreds—of Kang Han-mins could be produced. Since there are eight rifts combining North and South Korea, even if just ten mini–Kang Han-mins were assigned per rift, they believed we could ensure safety without issue.”
Eden was the twisted place where that absurd notion had been turned into reality.
But the ones executing that plan were neither cautious nor rational like the Chinese scientists.
Before collecting any data, they acted first and asked questions later.
There was no shortage of egg donors.
Giving birth to a child sired by Kang Han-min—a hero elevated to a national icon—was seen as both a historic duty and a path to national glory.
Of course, offering the allure of Jeju to women anxious about the future played a role as well.
“...They pressured Na-senpai too.”
Woo Min-hee let out a shallow sigh and continued.
“Na Hye-in?”
Her gaze was fixed on the girl who resembled her eerily closely.
“They demanded she donate eggs. Since they had gotten results from the male side, they wanted to see what would happen with female Awakened offspring too.”
“I see.”
They’d asked me to donate sperm once too.
But sperm donation and egg donation are vastly different—not only in complexity but also in psychological burden.
Eggs aren’t something that just pop out by fiddling with yourself, like sperm.
“Na-senpai... she’s strong and tough, but deep down, she’s fragile. You know it too, right? A classic case of a soft heart wrapped in a hard shell. She was horrified. Refused, flat out. Said she couldn’t, wouldn’t. But they were relentless. Even after all her refusals, they clung to her—and later even went after her younger sister, demanding her eggs.”
“...”
It seems they felt the weight too.
The burden that comes from standing in the shadow of honor and glory.
“I said I’d do it instead.”
I looked at Woo Min-hee.
Her eyes were still fixed on the girl who looked just like her.
“I couldn’t stand by and watch them gaslight and torment her anymore. Those bastards knew Na-senpai was mentally delicate, so they pushed even harder. So I said I’d do it.”
Before I got to know her, I didn’t think she was a good person.
Even knowing some of the good she’d done, my memories from school, layered with years of bad impressions, led me to view her as impulsive, incomprehensible, even dangerous.
Well, the dangerous part is still true.
Just being around her is draining.
But at the very least, she has the warmth to offer kindness—and even sacrifice—for those she cares about.
It’s the kind of thing you can’t see from afar.
“But I set conditions. Even if it’s just an egg donation, it’s still a part of me, right? I was vehemently opposed to it being linked with someone like Kang Han-min.”
“And they accepted your terms?”
Woo Min-hee gave a dry chuckle and curled and uncurled her hook-like fingers.
“I said I’d check the results of the egg I donated every year. Told them plainly that if I found anything weird, I’d kill everyone in the lab. Not in a fit of rage—calmly. Clearly. While looking them in the eye.”
“I see.”
I don’t know all the details, but I bet the people who dealt with her were sweating bullets.
“I also said I’d review the sperm donor’s identity. Flat-out refused to allow some random lowlife. Honestly, my real aim was for the egg to get discarded. But then... those people made an interesting offer.”
At that, I glanced at the girl who looked like Woo Min-hee.
The girl, who had been staring at her, now turned to look at me.
And in the moment our eyes met, a cold shiver ran down my spine.
“No way. Don’t tell me that offer was...”
“You guessed right.”
Woo Min-hee tapped her hook-like fingertip against the glass.
“That girl’s me. Exactly 100% me. No more, no less.”
*
“Some of the children are already exhibiting strong Awakened potential. They haven’t officially awakened yet, but with continued observation and support, we’re raising them to become new saviors who will uphold the survival of South Korea.”
The head of Eden was called the Director.
She was a woman in her early fifties with a pleasant demeanor.
She stepped out of her tastefully lavish office to greet Woo Min-hee and me, giving us a tour of the Eden facility.
Her posture and voice exuded immense pride, and I found myself feeling revulsion in response.
When did it begin?
The collapse of our sense of right and wrong.
At least before I lost my family, there had been a clear line—what was just, and what was evil.
But once I came to my senses, those standards were gone.
Traditional values became objects of ridicule and neglect, and only the realistic and secular were held in esteem.
Material values, symbolized by money, ruled society.
The pride that the Director wore like a badge was likely one of the byproducts of that distorted world.
“The Chinese data you obtained, Hunter Park Gyu, has been a tremendous asset. But it didn’t create a new theory. We’d long hypothesized, based on experience, that the Awakened phenomenon might ultimately play a negative role in the survival of the human species. We just didn’t have the means to conduct large-scale experimentation like China did—nor had our research ethics deteriorated to that extent.”
The fact that she was showing more interest in me than in Woo Min-hee was notable.
She soon answered the unspoken question I had.
“Awakened alone cannot be the answer. These children here may one day carry an era, but they won’t be able to pass it on. What we need are more humans like you, Hunter Park Gyu—exceptional, strong, and untainted by the rift.”
So they needed my genes too.
But my answer was already set.
“I see it differently.”
The Director smiled.
“And how does Hunter Park Gyu see it?”
Recalling a post I’d read online, I added:
“In 3D.”
“Excuse me?”
I let her ponder the internet joke and stood up.
I wasn’t the subordinate anymore. And I had endless excuses.
“Looks like there’s a problem in Seoul.”
“What kind of problem?”
She tried to stop me, forcing a smile as if reluctant to let me go.
“Dongtanmom is winning the election!”
“D-Dongtanmom?”
“She’s extremely dangerous.”
“Is that so?”
“She must be stopped. All of Seoul could fall if we leave her be.”
Woo Min-hee stifled a laugh.
We walked out of the Director’s office together.
She said something behind us, but I didn’t listen.
We left the facility.
Beyond the empty playground, the wall that enclosed the entire complex and town was visible, and above that, the faint silhouette of Hallasan loomed in the distance.
We stared at the same view for a while.
It was Woo Min-hee who spoke first.
“There was a time I hated that mountain so much.”
Her softly glowing eyes seemed to look past Hallasan, to something even further away—perhaps a memory from the past.
“...But it looks a little different now.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Just a mountain? I don’t have any good memories of Jeju anyway.”
She smirked again.
Something amusing must have crossed her mind.
“Coming here with you was the right call.”
“Why?”
“Because, I don’t know when it started, but you’ve developed this knack for saying ridiculous things in important situations like it’s no big deal.”
“Have I?”
“I had a feeling you’d do it again here.”
She looked at me, her smile lingering.
There was something in her eyes—something stickier, more tangible than usual.
I ignored the chill down my spine and turned my gaze back to the mountain.
“...You met Kang Han-min, didn’t you?”
It felt like the right time to ask.
“Yeah.”
She answered lightly.
To my surprise, she didn’t get angry about the background check. She didn’t even nitpick.
There was a sense of detachment in her face—the same kind I glimpsed briefly on the plane to Jeju.
“I spent a lot of time thinking about what to do. Honestly, I lived aimlessly after leaving Jeju. Just drifted—because I was alive, I kept living. Even knowing that nothing good would happen, I tried not to think about the future.”
“I don’t think that’s a bad way to live.”
Overthinking isn’t always good.
People who think too much die quickly.
Sometimes, we need to live like a cat basking in the sun on a fence, yawning, or a dog grinding its teeth in its sleep.
“When I let go of everything, I started to see a little more.”
Woo Min-hee sighed quietly.
Her gaze lingered on the playground, where children had once played.
“...What Kang Han-min said isn’t entirely wrong. People like us—those who’ve been chosen—maybe we have a kind of duty.”
Chosen.
So that’s how Kang Han-min sees it, too?
He never said it outright, but hearing that she received it in the same way struck something deeper in my chest.
“What do you think of Kang Han-min?”
It was something I’d always wanted to ask but never had the courage to.
According to An Seung-hwan and other regular Awakened in Jeju, those who can cause waves inside rifts are said to perceive each other more clearly in there.
Not so much reading each other’s thoughts, but sensing their orientation—the essence of their humanity—almost like a scent.
Apparently, the stronger an Awakened’s power, the sharper that sense becomes.
But with only a few over level 10 Awakened existing, who knows if that’s true.
Still, the pathological hatred Na Hye-in and Woo Min-hee feel toward Kang Han-min can’t be just about his mysterious behavior.
He wasn’t popular in school or in China. He often seemed out of place. But that was due to his lack of social skills, not something inherently detestable.
They must have seen things I haven’t.
Woo Min-hee looked surprised by the question at first, but then she turned toward the mountain and, after a moment of thought, answered in a quiet voice.
“A dangerous person.”
“Dangerous in what way?”
“What kind of answer are you hoping to hear?”
There was a subtle bitterness in her tone.
I needed to say this properly.
I weighed the future I feared against the answer I wanted and said:
“...Does he want to be king of humanity? Or does he want to be the enemy of monsters?”
Woo Min-hee glanced at me, then looked up at the sky.
Her hooked fingers curled and uncurled a few times.
A breeze, still cool but carrying the warmth of spring, brushed between us.
Her eyes moved.
There was a flower.
Still just a bud, not yet in full /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ bloom.
It looked like a cherry blossom—but it wasn’t.
“White plum blossom.”
She named it for me, more familiar with flowers than I was.
And then—
“I think it’s closer to the latter.”
She answered my question.
“...”
So what I felt in that maddening, deranged room... was real?
Kang Han-min.
His goal and mine are the same.
But sharing a goal doesn’t mean we agree on everything.
I still don’t know what means he’ll use to reach the same end.
And the more time passes, the more uneasy I feel.
I’ve long known he isn’t normal—but the reality he reveals surpasses even my worst expectations.
Even this place, Eden, is proof of that.
Even someone as emotionally numb as I am feels a dull ache inside.
Hundreds of girls born from one man’s sperm?
“...”
Watching someone is often a sign of doubt.
Yes.
I doubt Kang Han-min.
If I truly trusted him, I wouldn’t have stayed in Seoul.
But maybe the reason I did is because I, too, have something left to protect.
As I looked at the profile of my junior, staring solemnly at the mountain, I thought:
The answer is already clear.
I’ve already felt it.
Rebecca and her daughter showed me the answer.
“You came here to see that girl?”
Woo Min-hee nodded silently.
“I didn’t even give her a name. She’s not my child. They made her however they wanted. Honestly, I didn’t think about her once in all these years. Never looked back. Never thought of her as mine.”
She let out a heavy sigh.
“But now that something big is coming, I suddenly remembered her. Why? Yeah. That’s it.”
She turned to look behind her.
“A trace that I existed?”
I stared at her and asked directly.
“Did you come here to die?”
Screeeeech—
Her hooked fingers scraped against each other, making a horrific sound.
But my eyes and face didn’t flinch.
“Why do you think that?”
“You might’ve been surpassed by now, but in China, I saw a lot of people like you—your type.”
Woo Min-hee scoffed.
“...What’s someone like me even good for? Our kind already has a set end. Why do you think Na-senpai was cornered like that? You don’t know. You don’t know the burden we carry.”
“That’s not true.”
For a brief moment, her eyes trembled.
I know she’s the third-ranked over level 10 Awakened. That she once briefly surpassed Kang Han-min.
QUEEN.
Her call sign foretold a future queen of the battlefield.
Whether or not she ever ruled Seoul doesn’t matter.
She’s still my junior.
Park Gyu’s junior.
I don’t look after all my juniors—but this one, I want to.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“...”
“If Kang Han-min wants something, I’ll try to handle it. And also...”
I looked at the facility she had been wistfully eyeing.
“That child. If we can, let’s bring her with us.”
I felt her quickly turn to look at me, but my gaze was already fixed on a man waiting for us far beyond that towering mountain, thousands of kilometers away.
Kang Han-min.
I can’t just watch him any longer.
“...”
That bastard needs a team leader.

Chapter 178.3: Journey (3)