Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 112.6: Faith (6)

As a team leader, I always tried to keep plans as simple as possible.

Fresh graduates often have the illusion that a flashy, complex plan is the best approach, but that’s a foolish notion.

Sure, crafting an intricate and elaborate plan might seem impressive.

But the moment any plan is set into motion, it slips from the planner’s grasp. No one can predict where, how, or at what speed the massive ball of reality will roll.

That’s why a plan should always be as simple and as easy to understand as possible.

The net of human-devised strategy is too easily torn apart in the face of reality’s overwhelming force.

Still, there are rare occasions when I do craft slightly more complex plans.

Not just any time.

Only when a mission is absolutely necessary and when we are severely outmatched.

But no matter the case, I have never drafted a plan that anticipated failure.

"They might kill you on the spot. But what can you do? That’s just your fate."

Jokes were something the former Professor never had in his repertoire.

"But I’m certain of this. They won’t kill you outright. Haven’t you seen it on the forums? Those cultists are oddly obsessed with social media-style activities. So..."

I paused for a moment, choosing my words carefully, but Defender beat me to it with a grin.

"Proof of capture?"

"Exactly. That’s it. They’ll take you alive to show proof."

Every plan needs a clear objective at its core.

Seeing my internet friend light up at the word proof, I spoke seriously.

"If you see a familiar face, mark them."

The cultists may have several powerful Awakened, but they aren’t gods. They aren’t divine messengers.

They’re just a collection of deranged Awakened and humans on the verge of losing their minds.

Their ability to track us stems from a perception-type Awakened among them.

The solution is simple.

Kill the one with perception abilities.

As long as we take out the hunting dog that will sniff out Defender’s trail, we can escape from the cultists safely.

I prepared two things.

First, the bait.

The one who’s been marked—Defender—would serve as the lure.

I don’t like using an ally as bait, but the situation leaves us no choice.

And where there’s bait, there must be a fisherman.

The rest of us would lie in ambush 600 meters away on the ridge.

We could have widened the distance, but my sniping skills aren’t as good as Kim Daram’s.

I set the farthest possible range at which I could concentrate and guarantee a clean kill, staying just outside the sensory range of the enemy’s perception-type Awakened.

Cheon Young-jae and Ha Tae-hoon were in charge of fire support, while Da-jeong would operate drones to assist us.

"Wait, you were the drone pilot that day?"

"Yep."

Ha Tae-hoon was momentarily stunned by Da-jeong’s beauty, but the revelation that she was the drone operator who humiliated the Chinese that day left him even more shocked.

Da-jeong had three drones.

All of them were reconnaissance drones, but she had strapped a mortar shell to the largest and most powerful one.

"Alright, then."

It was a brief farewell.

Defender looked at me.

There was a hint of fear in his eyes, but beyond that fear, I saw trust—trust strong enough to push it aside.

"I’m counting on you."

"Don’t count on me too much. You might die."

"In that case, take care of my sister."

Defender glanced at Ha Tae-hoon and then at Da-jeong, who was piloting the drone.

"...You probably know this already, but neither of us has exactly led exemplary lives."

"John Nae-non."

"Huh?"

"No, never mind."

"What the hell was that about all of a sudden...?"

I didn’t know.

I had no idea why I suddenly blurted out John Nae-non’s name.

But somehow, it cut through the weight of the moment, easing the tension between us.

There was no need for us to be overly solemn.

That kind of dramatic flair only belonged in stories that had already ended.

For the last step, I checked the motorcycle in front of Defender.

The first stage of our plan hinged on Defender attempting to escape on the motorcycle—only for it to break down, forcing him to stay in place.

"Still running fine."

The motorcycle was in perfect working order.

I stood up, thinking of Baek Seung-hyun.

"Alright."

I met Defender’s gaze.

We nodded at each other at the same time.

There was no need for more words between us.

Except—

"Hey. Over there. Is that a monster?"

Cheon Young-jae, who had been scanning the darkness through night vision equipment, handed me the device.

In the northern entrance of the city, eight kilometers away from us, under the moonlight, hordes of pale, grayish-white creatures were sluggishly making their way into the city.

The soldiers had retreated for a good reason.

The monsters were coming.

"......"

Now that the lighthouse was out, monster swarms could appear anywhere.

But the human mind doesn’t work that way.

At least, I hoped they wouldn’t come here.

Luckily, people arrived before the monsters did.

Lights flickered in the distance.

The cultists had arrived.

Raising my clenched fist, I signaled to everyone.

*

Bang!

600 meters was quite a distance for me—a far reach even for a hunter like us.

Throughout the war, we rarely engaged enemies beyond 100 meters.

Besides, I was never a designated marksman.

I had always fought at the very frontlines.

I could leave this to Cheon Young-jae or Ha Tae-hoon, but this was my responsibility.

Unless it was their specialty, I wouldn’t burden them with missions tied to my affairs.

So, I had already fired a test shot in advance.

Bang!

I checked the impact point.

It didn’t matter if the cultists heard.

Gunshots were just another layer of white noise in this world.

“Good.”

Defender confirmed the impact point.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“Accurate. But it landed # Nоvеlight # just slightly to the lower right.”

“Got it.”

Beside me, Da-jeong was running a test on her drone controller.

As she maneuvered the small quarter drone, she answered the question I had asked earlier.

“Manryu-gyo? Yeah, a lot of people called it that. Some pretended they weren’t believers but still spread it among close acquaintances.”

It was no secret that Da-jeong had spent a long time in a hospital.

She never talked about her illness, whether past or present, but she spoke calmly about the social plague she had witnessed there.

“There were more believers than you’d think. Why? Because monsters are terrifying. No matter how many you kill, they keep coming. China, India, Russia—those massive, powerful nations—all fell. Even the ones with nuclear weapons.”

It was undeniable that humanity had developed a delusion of grandeur after Hiroshima.

Sure, humans could pollute and desecrate nature, but in the grand scheme of things, we were just parasites clinging to this planet.

We weren’t even the only lifeforms that had reshaped Earth’s environment.

Take oxygen, for example. We breathed it in every second of our lives, yet without our ancient predecessors, it wouldn’t exist at all.

The illusion of human omnipotence had already begun to erode in the 21st century, but the emergence of monsters had completely shattered that arrogance.

When one faith crumbles, another rises in its place.

The idle fantasies of a Chinese youth, scratching his belly while reading martial arts novels under his parents’ nagging, had now transcended into a global belief.

“Cultists inbound.”

Vehicles approached Defender’s position.

Four four-wheel-drive SUVs.

Their entire exteriors were painted white, with a stark red stripe running through the middle, as if they had been split in half and sewn back together.

A black lotus. A barren bodhi tree. A fluttering yellow flag with the large, ink-brushed character 萬 (Ten Thousand). A pig without legs.

All symbols I had seen before in China.

Various factions and cults had their own insignias, and it seemed like one of them had spread beyond North Korea and into this land.

I didn’t know their exact name or allegiance.

But in the end, a cultist was a cultist.

“We should be outside their detection range at this distance, right?”

I asked Cheon Young-jae, who was assisting me.

“For me, yes. But I’ve heard of people stronger than me. Still, no perception ability should exceed 500 meters. It’s a hard limit.”

I saw that limit as something dictated by necessity.

If most Awakened abilities had originated from monsters, then they were likely adjusted to be most effective within their original users’ needs.

Honestly, even 400 meters was a wide range.

In urban combat, even 100 meters was more than enough.

Not that I, a non-Awakened, had much room to talk.

The vehicles came to a stop.

They had spotted Defender with the naked eye.

He was hiding behind his motorcycle, crouched behind the slope.

It was all intentional.

To the cultists, we were easier prey if they believed we had no knowledge of perception-type abilities.

Vrooooom—

The vehicles pivoted their bodies to face Defender’s hiding spot, their engines roaring before going silent.

A barrage of bright headlights illuminated where he was concealed.

“What a distasteful sight.”

Ha Tae-hoon, watching from the perimeter, let out a bitter chuckle.

It was distasteful.

But at the same time, it reassured me.

I spoke into the comms.

“As expected, these guys aren’t planning to kill you right away, huh?”

“Agreed.”

A seasoned killer like Defender showed no visible signs of tension, even when faced with dozens of enemies.

“Alright, then.”

This was the most critical moment.

“Do you see them?”

We needed to find the perception-type Awakened.

Take him out, extract Defender, and escape the area.

As long as we got Defender out, we wouldn’t have trouble escaping.

My buggy might guzzle the remaining, now-precious fuel, but when it came to rough terrain, an SUV was no match for it.

Even if the cultists tried, the best they could do was send drones after us.

The cultists stepped out of the vehicles, their headlights still maliciously focused on Defender’s position.

And their outfits—

I couldn’t help but laugh.

It was an awkward hybrid of Chinese and Western styles.

A communist zhifu (people’s uniform) remodeled into a monk’s robe.

But the fact that they had coordinated outfits meant they were part of a well-organized faction.

And not just that—these guys were high-ranking members.

“There might be several Awakened among them.”

I told Cheon Young-jae.

“So what do we do?”

“Step back a little.”

There was never much need for words between hunters, which was convenient.

Cheon Young-jae grinned.

“So, you’re planning to hunt them like monsters?”

“That’s right.”

“You think intimidation will work? They’re still human.”

“It’s fine.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“In a 50-50 gamble, there aren’t many who would choose the losing hand—especially in a situation where we have absolute superiority.”

Cheon Young-jae nodded.

“That’s one way to look at it. But considering they’re cultists, isn’t there a higher chance that they’re just crazy?”

I smiled.

“If they were truly insane, they’d be with the monsters already.”

That was the cultists’ fatal flaw.

Their founder—the Gae-pa Jong-sa, as they called him—believed that monsters weren’t humanity’s enemies but another form of balance bestowed by the world.

So he had gone to live among the fully eroded lands, surrendering himself to the monsters.

Most of his followers did the same.

Hundreds of millions of abandoned Chinese had remained in the erosion zones—and disappeared.

When some of them reemerged among the living, fellow Chinese survivors laughed at them.

To them, their so-called religion was just another excuse.

Another dynastic revolution, no different from the countless ones that had plagued China since the era of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.

The Chinese military had come to the same conclusion.

And I agreed wholeheartedly.

These people weren’t insane.

If anything, they clung to life more desperately than we did.

“Hey.”

Defender’s voice crackled through the comms.

“See that one guy in a t-shirt among the ones in white?”

“Short hair? Pierced ears?”

“Yeah. Shit...”

Defender suddenly cursed.

“What is it?”

“Goddamn it. She’s really here. My little sister.”

Indeed, among the robed cultists stood a small girl, barely in her early teens.

But that wasn’t our concern right now.

I turned to Cheon Young-jae.

“We’re starting.”

Gripping my rifle, I fixed my aim on the zeroed-in target.

Through the scope, I saw the one I needed to kill.