Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 109.2: A Modest Route (2)

I get it.

Not just for himself, but for his family, he risked everything to venture out into the sea, only to find that there was no hope waiting for him.

But even in this situation, Dongtanmom's way of handling things doesn't seem particularly great.

And of course—

mmmmmmmmm: Hey. Dongtanmom. I get where you’re coming from, but could you maybe say things a little more nicely? Yeah? No?

M9 throws in a sharp remark.

M9’s comment quickly gains traction, receiving upvotes from other silent users and shooting up to the trending posts in an instant.

Seeing that, I decided to chime in as well.

SKELTON: (SKELTON proverb) Speak kindly today, and tomorrow’s words will be kind too.

A perfectly balanced mix of wisdom and humor.

But it was buried in seconds.

The flood of posts was moving much faster than usual.

And amidst all this, Dongtanmom posted yet another controversial message.

dongtanmom: What’s even left on this board when it’s just a bunch of freeloading parasites?

“......”

This isn’t good.

Objectively speaking, how many people on our board actually like Dongtanmom?

Without a doubt, not a single one.

His popularity isn’t because of any personal charm, but rather the spectacle he put on in Live! Apocalypse!—a show on an entirely different level.

In fact, even that so-called popularity isn’t really within our board but mostly in the foreign language boards.

And now, in this situation, he’s going ahead and slandering the entire board?

That’s just tying the noose around his own neck.

mmmmmmmmm: If you don’t like the temple, then the monk should leave. If you’re so unhappy, just get lost.

M9 fires back.

M9 and Baek Seung-hyun have never gotten along.

They nearly took it to a real-life fight once.

M9 just happened to bail at the last second, which was the only reason it didn’t escalate further.

And his taunts didn’t stop.

mmmmmmmmm: No other options? Swim your way over, then.

mmmmmmmmm: Or just abandon the boat!

mmmmmmmmm: Bubble, bubble! Gurgle! Oh! Ohhh!

mmmmmmmmm: Under the sea~ Under the sea~

M9’s taunting was amusing, but something about this didn’t sit right with me.

I immediately sent him a message.

SKELTON: (SKELTON restraint warning) Hey, M9. I get that you’re mad, but aren’t you going too far?

mmmmmmmmm: What’s the problem?

SKELTON: (SKELTON concern) I mean, as much as Dongtanmom pisses people off, he really is about to start gurgling for real. Maybe don’t push him so hard?

mmmmmmmmm: That bastard’s a pain in the ass. A real piece of work till the day he dies. Ugh. And now he’s a washed-up has-been, even losing to TwelveSquare.

SKELTON: (SKELTON = TwelveSquare) That so...?

mmmmmmmmm: Anyway, I’ll stop after this round. He’s just going to start whining again later. I’ll save it for then.

True to his word, M9 didn’t provoke Dongtanmom any further.

But Dongtanmom was still Dongtanmom.

As if to vent his frustration at being backed into a corner, he started spewing curses at us.

dongtanmom: You leeches just leech off the board without producing a single piece of content.

dongtanmom: What the hell can you guys even do without me?

dongtanmom: A Fox shit-game? A boring, bug-ridden mess?

He’s my senior, but why does he have to be this pathetic?

If it were up to me, I’d block him right away, but... I still have to keep him alive.

I need to figure out what I can do.

“...Hmm?”

Wait a minute.

Didn’t Dongtanmom say he was somewhere in the northern seas off Okinawa?

His biggest problem right now is the lack of supplies.

He’s looking for a place to dock.

But he has nowhere to go.

Japan is out of the question. Jeju is out of the question.

Most port cities along the southern coast have fallen, and Incheon is way too far.

But... I do know of a place where he might be able to stay.

That island of ships I saw from the plane.

I don’t know the exact coordinates, but I have a general idea of where it is.

Somewhere west of Jeju, probably leaning more towards the northwestern side.

Since it’s a cluster of massive ships, it should be visible from afar if the weather is clear.

Of course, whether those “islanders” would welcome Baek Seung-hyun or not—that’s his problem to deal with.

“......”

Tap, tap, tap.

SKELTON: (SKELTON serious) Dongtanmom. We need to talk for a moment.

I sent the message.

The rest was up to him.

A reply arrived soon after.

dongtanmom: And what do you want? Thought you were dead since I haven’t seen you in a while. You just dropping by to announce you’re still alive?

Still as angry as ever.

The old me would have ignored him.

But not this time.

SKELTON: Calm down, Dongtanmom. I know a way to solve your problem.

I hadn’t received my reward from VivaBot yet, nor had I done anything to make a name for myself across the board.

But I was still a representative user of Viva! Apocalypse!

That meant I couldn’t afford to let even a single user go to waste.

dongtanmom: Munch, munch... And what the hell is your useless ass gonna do to help me? Munch...

SKELTON: You’re looking for a place to dock, right?

dongtanmom: Munch, munch... What? You know a place? You actually know something? Munch?

SKELTON: (SKELTON unwavering eyes) Calm down, Dongtanmom. I’m not here to mess with you.

dongtanmom: Bullshit... lol...

“......”

Tap, tap, tap.

SKELTON: There’s an island of ships west of Jeju.

I told him what I had seen from the plane.

dongtanmom: That cluster of ghost ships? How the hell do you know about that????

So Baek Seung-hyun knows about it too.

That ship island.

It’s not impossible.

On clear days, you can see ships as far as 40km away over the sea.

If he traveled straight from Incheon to Shanghai, he might have seen those ships along the way.

SKELTON: People live there.

dongtanmom: ?

dongtanmom: And I’m supposed to believe that? Those ships are jammed together like a shipwreck graveyard, and you’re telling me people live there? lol

SKELTON: Yeah, they do.

dongtanmom: And why the hell should I believe you?

SKELTON: Believe me or don’t—it’s your choice. All I know is that there are people living there. Whether they welcome you or attack you, I have no idea.

SKELTON: But over a thousand people are living on those ships. They farm, they generate electricity, they survive. I don’t know how they’ll react to you. They might attack you. But isn’t that still better than drifting aimlessly through the open sea with nothing?

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

That was the best advice I could give.

I wasn’t going to say anything more.

dongtanmom: What if...

Dongtanmom’s message popped up.

I stared at it as it appeared on my screen.

dongtanmom: What if there’s no one there?

SKELTON: Then what if there is?

dongtanmom: If you’re wrong, you’re dead meat.

That was the last message I received from him.

Three days later, Dongtanmom reappeared on the board.

*

Without any prior notice, Dongtanmom posted an update.

The content of the post was incredibly short, containing not even a single photo.

-Still alive.

Users who still held a grudge against him snarked at his survival.

Anonymous1429: Bet he’s dead by tomorrow.

Anonymous1392: Did you do a battle royale?

Maybe it was a reflection of their lingering resentment, or maybe they’d just lost interest, but surprisingly few comments followed.

But there was one person who was bound to respond.

M9.

Was there anyone who disliked Dongtanmom as much as M9?

Of course not.

And sure enough, not long after, M9 made a post.

mmmmmmmmm: Dongtanmom.

What’s it going to be this time?

What creative insult was he about to throw?

Curious, I clicked on the post.

-Come back alive.

I blinked and checked the author again.

I hadn’t misread.

It was M9, no doubt about it.

There was more.

- You’re only a one-year-old newbie, but at least you’re better than the recent ones. So don’t die.

Amazingly, M9 didn’t criticize Dongtanmom.

He was actually rooting for him.

And just to make sure there was no misunderstanding, he doubled down with another post.

mmmmmmmmm: You’ve got another live show to do, right? Not like it’ll beat my secret content—The Hope: Self-Repair Edition, but still.

mmmmmmmmm: I don’t want to lose a good rival. Come ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ back alive. With the baby too.

He probably didn’t write it expecting some emotional response.

The tone was even a little humorous.

And yet, for some reason, I found myself staring at that seemingly insignificant post for a long time.

“......”

Can people really feel a sense of connection like this?

At least, right now.

This moment.

It’s... nice.

Really nice.

One hour later, Dongtanmom posted another update.

Real Status Update.jpg

As expected, the post shot to the top of the trending board.

Any resentment toward him didn’t matter.

Dongtanmom might be the board’s resident pest, but he was also one of its top content creators.

And this time, more than ever, he proved that.

He began the post with:

"Encountered an island of scrap metal in the middle of the endless sea."

Dongtanmom had set course for the scrap-metal island I had told him about.

Two perspectives were presented.

At the start, the emphasis wasn’t on Dongtanmom’s group but rather on the people already living on the island.

"What the hell?! Isn’t that a damn oil tanker?!"

"That thing’s huge as hell!"

"Get the others! Grab your guns and get outside!"

The islanders panicked as they saw the massive oil tanker approaching.

Not long ago, pirates had frequently targeted their scrap-metal island.

Nowadays, it was rare, but just last year, pirate raids had been a serious problem.

Pirate ships were typically fast motorboats.

They’d stash them on a ferry, find a target, then release the boats in a coordinated attack—overwhelming unlucky sailors with speed and numbers.

But this ship... ƒгeewёbnovel.com

This wasn’t some pirate ferry.

This was an ultra-large oil tanker.

They couldn’t even begin to estimate how many people were aboard.

"This is it. We’re dead."

"Shit. We were already one step from death anyway."

"They’re not Chinese, right?"

But they weren’t the only ones nervous.

Dongtanmom’s group was equally terrified.

No matter how big their ship was, they only had thirty people.

I had told him that the island housed over a thousand people.

If they were hostile, this would be hell.

From one hell, Shanghai, straight into another.

At this point, Dongtanmom narrated:

"It was a standoff. Guns pointed at each other. But then, someone on the island saw it."

And then he attached a long-forgotten photograph.

It showed the ship’s name, partially erased by rust but still faintly visible.

That’s right.

The ship’s name was:

-Hope.

That name brought about a miracle.

"Wait. Is that the Hope?"

"Is this really Hope?"

"So they really did convert an oil tanker... It’s the real deal."

The islanders weren’t completely cut off from civilization.

Unlike us, they didn’t have high-tech satellite internet, but they still listened to government broadcasts through old-school shortwave radios.

They’d heard the news—the second refugee fleet, led by the Hope, had been heading toward Jeju Island.

They had scoffed at the idea.

And yet, now, Hope was right in front of them.

The moment they realized the people on board spoke Korean, there was no reason to keep their weapons raised.

"Where did you come from?" one of the islanders called out.

Dongtanmom answered.

"Hell."

Could there be anything more ironic than Hope coming from hell?

And yet, for the islanders, their arrival was a kind of hope as well.

"The island had ship engineers, former trawler captains—exactly the kind of people we needed. But they had no way to reach the mainland. They had food for now, but as fuel, power, and machinery continued to dwindle, their future was looking grim."

"Meanwhile, we had nothing. But we had a ship that could take them to the mainland."

Their interests aligned.

The islanders would provide supplies and fix the ship.

In return, Dongtanmom would give them passage to the mainland.

This was what had happened during his disappearance.

dongtanmom: I’ll be heading back soon.

If the story ended there, it would just be another one of Dongtanmom’s typical storytelling posts.

But the world changes.

And Dongtanmom wasn’t an exception to that change.

dongtanmom: Thanks... for the support.

Even the great Dongtanmom was expressing gratitude.

And then.

dongtanmom: Sorry for the hysterics over the past few days.

An apology from Dongtanmom.

That, in itself, was a bigger shock than the post.

Anonymous1588: Wait. Since when was he like this?

defender: Oh wow.

Anonymous458: Dongtanmom. Are you sick?

berkut_break: Actually, I’m pretty sure this is just fiction. In reality, isn’t this just the rebirth of the Minognet disaster?

gijayangban: ?

foxgames: Dongtanmom! Thank goodness! Please come back safe!

SKELTON: Hmmm...

dies_irea69: That’s a relief. Congrats, Dongtanmom. When you get back, reach out anytime. We’ll be waiting.

...

...

Truly, if you live long enough, you see everything.

But this story wasn’t quite over yet.

Out of nowhere, I received a direct message from him.

dongtanmom: Thanks.

SKELTON: (SKELTON shock) ?!

I wasn’t exaggerating my reaction.

For as long as I had known him, I had been convinced that Dongtanmom had a fundamental personality flaw—a total lack of gratitude.

Had he suffered some kind of mental erosion?

Had his mind been so altered that it reawakened a lost sense of thankfulness?

Before I could even finish that thought, he sent another message.

dongtanmom: I only even thought about heading there because of you.

The moment I saw that message, all my questions disappeared.

Instead, I let out a small laugh.

There was nothing to add or subtract.

Baek Seung-hyun—our beloved senior—had simply felt grateful for the humble route I had pointed him toward.

SKELTON: Good for you.

dongtanmom: Thanks, Skelton.

“......”

Live long enough, and you see everything.

Who would have thought I’d ever hear Baek Seung-hyun say thank you?

Since we were on the subject, I figured I might as well push my luck.

SKELTON: (SKELTON fair trade) No need to thank me. But how about sharing this with everyone?

A fair deal.

A moment later, I got his reply.

dongtanmom: 🖕

SKELTON: ?

dongtanmom: Munch... lol...