Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 111.1: The Cold Coffin (1)

Message from Defender: Sorry, but things aren’t looking good right now. Getting out of here is already a problem, but even if I do, there's trouble waiting outside. A large-scale monster eruption is about to happen. Stay away from the northern regions for now.

Message from Defender: Oh, and my sister is safe too. The fanatics sabotaged the power lines, so electricity is rare as hell. I can’t stay connected for long. I’ll reach out when I get the chance.

It had been four years since the war began.

The total collapse of society—something predicted even before the war—was now an undeniable reality.

In Legion-controlled zones, fanatics carried out sporadic terror attacks and acts of sabotage.

Meanwhile, Seoul had devolved into a chaotic hellscape where the Legion, religious fanatics, and countless displaced refugees clashed in a brutal struggle for survival.

As a result, the number of refugees had surged dramatically.

Of particular interest was the recent emergence of large-scale migration groups.

Refugees from Seoul had begun moving in organized clusters, seeking safer regions with better resources.

Most headed for Wonju or Chuncheon, both under Legion control, but some took a gamble on an uncertain destination—Sejong City.

One such migration group appeared within my territory.

Valentine was the first to spot them.

While taking a break from poking holes in Jeju’s intranet—and stepping out for a smoke—he happened to glance down the distant road and saw a mass of people, packed tightly together, moving toward us.

"Move it! Cover the solar panels with camouflage!"

An emergency response was triggered.

There weren’t any visible drones, but with a group that large, there had to be at least one or two reconnaissance drones lurking nearby.

Better safe than sorry. We concealed anything that might stand out from an aerial view.

The migration group passed through our territory, continuing south.

Chhhhk—

"Sejong, can you hear us? We’re bringing our entire shelter group based on your contact’s assurances. Just to be sure—there’s enough room for us, right? We don’t want to make the long, hard journey only to be turned away."

Chhhhk—!

"We have room. But everyone has to pull their own weight here. If you think you can sit around like in Seoul or Incheon, eating for free, you’re in for a rude awakening."

Based on the radio chatter, the group was indeed heading for Sejong City.

The reason we could pick up their transmission, despite it not being a public frequency, was thanks to Ha Tae-hoon. freewebnøvel.coɱ

"We got plenty of mileage out of this back in Incheon. It’s not even that hard. These idiots transmit everything on basic frequencies."

Ha Tae-hoon muttered as he stroked his stubbled chin.

"Sejong, huh... It’s really gained a reputation. Last year, it wasn’t even on the list of potential relocation spots."

"That’s because it has a capable ruler."

"You mean that King guy?"

Ha Tae-hoon tilted his head in skepticism.

"Isn’t it just a good location? Far from Paju, far from the other Rifts, and aside from the early days of the war, it’s been mostly untouched. Easy access from multiple regions too."

"That’s part of it, but it’s King’s leadership that keeps the warlords in check. If he were gone, that city would be torn apart overnight."

Ha Tae-hoon remained unconvinced.

I didn’t feel the need to push my opinion on him, but his reaction reminded me of a common mindset I had seen before the war.

When someone achieved something, instead of recognizing their ability or learning from them, people attributed their success to luck, privilege, or outside connections.

"They don’t believe in success because they’ve never succeeded themselves."

That was a line from an audio diary—a recording Valentine had recently found in an archive, left behind by John Nae-non.

"This thing? Yeah. See, John Nae-non wasn’t in the best health, so he kept a recorder and logged his thoughts whenever something came to mind."

"You’re actually giving me this priceless archive?"

"I knew you’d appreciate it, but I didn’t expect you to be this excited. Should’ve found it sooner."

"No, this is more than enough! This is the greatest gift!"

According to Valentine, John Nae-non had originally planned to make video diaries instead, but storage limitations had forced him to abandon the idea.

Apparently, he deeply regretted not leaving behind a visual record of himself.

Regardless, listening to his profound insights had become my new nightly ritual.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

After a long day of exhausting work, I would take a shower, then drift off to sleep listening to the thoughts of my idol, John Nae-non.

"When I was a kid, people believed the internet would connect the world and unite humanity. But what did we get instead? An endless flood of indiscriminate information."

"More than anything, the internet exposed inequality for what it really was. And when people realized how powerless they were, the authority that once held society together crumbled. That was the beginning of the end."

"Someone once asked me—‘You’ve been burned by the internet before. Why are you still here? Why don’t you just let it go?’ And I asked them in return—‘Have you ever been a name?’"

"Tonight’s dinner—crackers with a thick spread of Nutella. Can’t really taste it, but the crunch is just as good as ever. Mmm~ Yummy~"

Since incorporating John Nae-non’s recordings into my nightly routine, my sleep had improved, and I felt better overall.

"Senior, something good happen?"

"Park Gyu, you seem different. Got a new girlfriend or something?"

Even those around me had started to notice my shift in mood.

I saw it as a good thing.

Especially in times like these—when life had lost most of its joys and purpose—finding something to look forward to each day was important.

More than anything, through John Nae-non’s mundane daily musings, I could see the process of a great mind shaping itself.

His ordinary habits only served to highlight his extraordinary nature.

Beyond the diaries, John Nae-non had left behind numerous records—one of the most intriguing being details about the survivalist services catering to the upper class.

"There are a lot of rich people in this country. Think about how many buildings are in Seoul. Not apartments—actual buildings. The ones with entire shopping centers inside. Someone owns all of those, right?"

Just like the luxury VIP bunker I had visited before, it seemed that beneath the surface, there had been a surprisingly active and extensive post-apocalyptic industry for the wealthy.

Considering that the rich had far greater access to information than the average person, it was only natural that they had invested more heavily in disaster preparedness than the rest of us.

John Nae-non had discovered this hidden market not just because he had made a fortune from his lectures, but also because the elite had sought him out for advice.

When it came to the apocalypse, no public figure was more widely recognized than John Nae-non.

He recalled that experience like this:

"I made a fortune in consulting. Everyone knows that. At first, I made money from lectures, but later on, it was all about consulting for the rich."

"I was practically swimming in money. You could bathe in it, really. Though, to them, it was probably just the equivalent of skipping a month’s worth of shopping at the department store."

To be honest, John Nae-non wasn’t exactly a man of high moral standards or exceptional integrity.

Let’s be real—his rise to fame had a lot to do with a French user who blatantly plagiarized his work.

And yet, even John Nae-non was appalled by the sheer number of shameless fraudsters in the so-called elite disaster-prep industry.

In his increasingly fascinating memoirs, he singled out one individual as the most creative and horrific con artist he had ever encountered.

"There was this bastard named Nelson Yongbeom. You can tell from his name—he was a ‘black-haired foreigner.’ A Korean expat. Claimed he graduated from a prestigious university in the U.S. Said his major was molecular chemistry or something. Whatever. The point is, that piece of shit pulled off some truly insane scams."

I had never heard of Nelson Yongbeom.

Never seen him, never even come across his name.

Yet, this guy...

He had orchestrated a scam so massive that even the infamous John Nae-non was shaken.

"Cryogenic freezing? Are you kidding me?"

John Nae-non used the term cryogenic freezing, but to be precise, it was long-term hibernation technology.

A concept being researched for future interstellar travel—like in the movies, where people are placed in cryo-chambers to drastically slow their biological functions, allowing them to endure decades-long voyages without aging or physical deterioration.

As far as I knew, this technology had never been realized.

Maybe if the world had remained at peace, «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» but once the Rifts opened, all global scientific efforts had been redirected toward understanding and containing the anomaly.

And yet, Nelson Yongbeom successfully deceived the elite into believing this technology was real and tried to sell it to them.

To ordinary people, all rich people might seem the same, but in reality, there were strictly defined hierarchies even among the wealthy.

The ones targeted by VIP bunker businesses were centimillionaires, those worth hundreds of millions.

But the ones Nelson Yongbeom went after?

They were VVIPs—the kind of people who didn’t even know their own net worth or how much money they made in a month.

His business model wasn’t all that different from the VIP bunker industry.

No advertisements.

No public promotions.

Only through exclusive referrals among the ultra-rich.

"Nelson Yongbeom’s biggest asset? His U.S. citizenship and his fancy degrees. And let’s not forget—he was young and good-looking. That gave him credibility. A well-groomed Ivy League graduate, selling an ultra-exclusive service that supposedly only the richest of the rich in America had access to."

The person who tipped off John Nae-non about Nelson Yongbeom was actually a VVIP client.

Something about the hibernation tech seemed off, so the client sought out another survival expert for a second opinion.

As soon as John Nae-non received the inquiry, he immediately scoured English and French forums, searching for discussions on hibernation technology.

When he found nothing, he resorted to machine translation and posted his own question.

"That was the hardest part. The translation tool was absolute garbage."

This was before Melon Mask’s advanced translation AI became available. Back then, he had to rely on public machine translators, which were notoriously clunky.

Still, he managed to get his question across, and soon, foreign users responded.

Their reactions?

Almost identical to John Nae-non’s own suspicions.

"Most of them told me to check back in a hundred years. Some users pointed out that simply lowering body temperature wouldn’t be enough. Hibernation would require a revolutionary drug that could drastically slow metabolism without destroying blood cells."

At that point in his memoir, John Nae-non swore at least three times.

"That piece of shit Nelson Yongbeom cost me a huge deal. If I had landed that old man’s bunker contract, I could’ve upgraded Failnet HQ, moved into a bigger, safer building! I could’ve bought a better nuclear battery! Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up like this!"

Despite John Nae-non’s warnings, the VVIP still signed a contract with Nelson Yongbeom.

And of course, no one ever heard from that VVIP again.

"That old man... he signed up for ten of those damn cryo-pods. Himself, his wife, his son and daughter-in-law, his daughter and son-in-law, his grandkids, even his household staff—he took all of them with him."

Despite owning over ten satellite communication devices, that VVIP had vanished.

At least, until John Nae-non’s death, there had been no sign of him.

"Even after I got banned from the forums, I kept searching my username every day. No one was looking for me. Which meant... they weren’t logging in at all."

It was a story from the past, but John Nae-non dedicated quite a lot of time to it—out of sheer curiosity.

"I just want to know what happened to that guy. He’s probably dead, but still... wouldn’t you want to confirm it? I know where the facility is. Got the info from his secretary over drinks. Ahh... if only my health weren’t failing. If only I could go check for myself..."

Then, in clear and deliberate pronunciation, John Nae-non recorded the exact location of the hidden hibernation facility.

It was in the mountainous region near Anseong City.

Not too far.

The problem was, I knew almost nothing about that area.

As far as I was aware, no one lived there.

The urban relocation policy had forced most small-town residents to migrate to major cities.

And as always, abandoned towns were filled with zombies, mutants, and monsters.

There might even be opportunistic raiders lurking around.

If that was the case, I might as well make use of the community forum for once.

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Inquiry) Anyone here familiar with the Anseong area?

It had been a while since I last posted a question.

Shitposts rarely got replies, but questions usually got some traction.

Sure enough, notifications popped up.

"Huh?"

But then I saw who had responded—and it wasn’t exactly good news.

Dies_irae69: Oh, I know that place well. It’s our new territory.

Dies_irae69: Planning a visit? Ask me anything you want to know.

Dies Irae.