Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 117.2: Next-Door Issue (2)

Thirty uninvited guests.

Men, women, and children, but no elderly.

About sixteen able-bodied men, each armed with firearms—a mix of carbines, standard Korean military rifles, and even some North Korean models.

No heavy weapons.

No notable equipment.

They set up camp overnight on the golf course, and by morning, they had already sent scouting teams of five toward the abandoned U.S. military base.

That alone was enough to tell me why they were here.

The golf course was temporary.

Their real target was the base.

I saw no vehicles.

Even the ten-year-old children carried heavy backpacks, meaning they must have traveled on foot.

"No radio signals all night?"

"None. Not a single one."

They didn’t send a message.

They just walked in and set up camp without permission.

They were inside our effective zone even if they weren’t right next to us.

And more importantly, they were drinking from our water.

The creek that ran through our land was a vital resource—one they would keep coming back to.

At dawn, I called a meeting.

"We have unwelcome guests."

I would hear opinions, but coexistence was not an option.

We did not need neighbors.

Under the camouflaged tarp, my people gathered.

But not everyone was talkative.

Some people preferred to listen and only spoke when they absolutely had to.

Bang Jae-hyuk was one of those people.

He liked being alone.

He only spoke when necessary.

And today, he had nothing to say.

Ha Tae-hoon and Cheon Young-jae were neutral.

They rarely suggested ideas, preferring instead to comment or agree with others.

The loudest voice belonged to Defender.

Of course, his answer was obvious.

"Talking won’t work."

As always, Defender’s solution assumed killing.

"It’s cruel, but in the end, one side has to overpower the other. Even if we sit still, they’ll come for us."

He clapped his hands loudly, then pressed his right palm over his left.

A gesture of dominance.

"One of us has to disappear."

Put simply—kill them all.

And the worst part?

He wasn’t wrong.

This was the world now.

I saw Cheon Young-jae and Ha Tae-hoon exchange looks.

They had similar mindsets and were closer to each other than to Defender.

They weren’t disagreeing.

But they weren’t convinced either.

"Killing them all would be easier, sure."

Cheon Young-jae finally spoke.

"But that’s not exactly an easy thing to do."

He wasn’t just talking about combat difficulty.

He was talking about morality.

He meant the women and children.

And he was right.

I had seen a pregnant woman among them.

The Incheon Hunters weren’t hesitant about killing.

But they weren’t butchers.

They made distinctions between targets and non-targets.

And when they had the luxury, they showed mercy.

They could afford to.

They still operated under a semblance of government.

They got paid.

Even if their lives were brutal, they had never been entirely alone.

Defender and I, though?

We had nothing but survival.

From the ground up, we had fought alone in a world of every man for himself.

"Once hostilities begin, separating targets from non-targets will be nearly impossible."

Defender spoke again.

"Even if we only kill the fighters, someone will have to deal with the survivors."

"And I hope, for their sake, that person is merciful."

He looked at me.

Like a judge awaiting a verdict.

I turned to Ha Tae-hoon and Cheon Young-jae.

They looked uneasy.

Not because they disagreed.

But because they had no counterargument.

They had never seen what I’d seen.

They had heard stories about raiders dragging old people away.

But they had never witnessed the aftermath.

They knew how bandits stormed bunkers, pulling survivors out and looting their supplies.

But they had never thought from the perspective of the ones inside.

A heavy silence fell.

And all eyes turned to me.

It was my decision.

And I wouldn’t run from it.

"I’ll say this now."

My voice cut through the air.

"We are not making friends.

Hong Jung-ho is right—peace won’t last forever.

Even if we get along at first, bloodshed will come eventually."

I looked directly at Ha Tae-hoon and Cheon Young-jae.

"But that doesn’t mean it has to be war right now.

There may be another way."

It was my call.

But I wouldn’t decide yet.

For now, we would observe.

"Naïve."

Defender brushed past me, muttering.

He meant them.

Ha Tae-hoon and Cheon Young-jae.

And he wasn’t wrong.

By our standards, they were too soft.

But their perspective still mattered.

People needed limits.

If efficiency was the only goal, then what separated us from Dies Irae?

"......"

Of course, I had no solution yet.

Even after walking the perimeter, my mind remained blank.

There was no simple answer.

I ended up staring at the sky, lost in thought.

Until someone approached me.

A middle-aged woman in work clothes.

"Park Gyu."

Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother.

We had barely spoken.

She worked the fields and gathered vegetables.

Defender’s siblings rejected her food, but I at least ate it.

Not because it was good.

But because it added green to my diet.

"I heard from Jae-hyuk."

She got straight to the point.

"Those people are a problem, right?"

"Yes."

She wasn’t a decision-maker.

She was here because of her son.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

And recently, because of her conflicts with the Defender siblings.

That was the extent of my interest in her.

"This might be out of line, but..."

She hesitated.

Then met my gaze.

"Can’t you talk to them?"

"No."

"Why not?"

I felt immediate irritation.

But I pushed it down.

I answered calmly.

"This is about survival.

Words won’t solve it.

And coexistence is impossible."

"Is that so?"

She took a step back.

My tone had been sharper than intended.

I had hoped that would be the end of it.

But then—

"What about scaring them off?"

She asked it like it was obvious.

"We could intimidate them into leaving."

A stupid idea.

But I didn’t show it.

"I’ll consider it."

"Please do."

I watched her walk away.

And muttered to myself.

"Scare them off, huh..."

Easier said than done.

If that were an option, I would have already taken it.

Would a warning shot be enough?

Would executing one of them publicly send them running?

I didn’t know.

They had calculated everything.

Just like I had.

They had staked their survival on this land.

They had weighed their options, endured the hardship of travel, and arrived here fully prepared to fight for it.

A few casualties wouldn’t be enough to drive them away.

They had already accepted death as part of the journey the moment they abandoned their last settlement.

Even if people died, they would not leave.

Just as I would never abandon my own territory.

Frustrated, I logged onto the forum.

My first stop was the Red Archive board in Jeju.

"..."

Tap, tap, tap.

FreeloadingNewbie: "My wife.jpg"

I randomly selected a female game character illustration from the Red Archive folder and attached it.

Today’s choice?

A fox-eared girl with a gentle aura.

Tap, tap, tap.

"- My wife. Isn't she pretty? (No insults allowed.)"

A meaningless shitpost on the surface.

But a crucial setup.

Skelton was too dangerous to bring out right now.

Too well-known.

A named figure on the Red Archive board and a marked target for the Sparrows.

So I had to slowly, gradually, build "FreeloadingNewbie" into a name.

For the day of reckoning.

When it finally mattered.

With that simple yet vital task completed, I switched back to our own forum.

A familiar name popped up among the trending posts.

One of the new users that had been gaining everyone's favor.

Anonymous1936: "That neighbor issue I mentioned before? It’s all resolved!"

"Huh?"

That wasn’t an issue that should have been "easily resolved."

Given the server lag, I had a few moments to speculate before the post loaded.

"..."

The most obvious conclusion?

Murder.

Despite all the problems, it was still the fastest and surest method.

But if Anonymous1936 had turned into someone like us so quickly...

That wouldn’t be a pleasant realization.

The post finally loaded.

With it came multiple attached images.

I scrolled past them absentmindedly.

Then my fingers stopped.

And I scrolled back up.

"Hmm?"

What I expected to see wasn’t there.

No blood.

No corpses.

Just an abandoned campsite.

Signs of hasty departure.

Nothing more.

My eyes immediately dropped to the text beneath the images.

Anonymous1936: "A lot of people were worried, but we resolved it peacefully."

Anonymous1936: "I know most of you have been isolated survivors for a long time, but people who live in relative safety or within communities develop a sort of irrational fear toward the outside world."

Anonymous1936: "And if we have that fear... wouldn’t they?"

"So I decided to test it."

Their method?

Intimidation.

Late at night, he and his group approached the settlement and unleashed a barrage of gunfire.

But not at the people.

They spread out and fired into the air for ten minutes straight.

Surrounding the entire camp in unseen, relentless gunfire.

They gave them a full taste of death.

Then they left.

And watched.

Their effort paid off.

The next morning, the squatters packed up and fled.

Anonymous1936: "If we had actually killed or injured someone, they wouldn’t have left so easily. Koreans don’t let go of grudges that easily."

A clean, decisive resolution.

Even I, an old-timer, was taken aback.

Of course, some weren’t happy.

Most notably, Keystone—the infamous butcher of neighbors.

keystone: "You got lucky."

Maybe.

Maybe luck played a role.

But I found myself leaning toward Anonymous1936’s perspective.

A newbie had just taught me something.

Or rather, reminded me of something I had forgotten.

*

Boom.

Ha Tae-hoon’s mortar made an almost comedic popping sound as it launched its shell.

"You really think this will make them leave?"

Defender was unimpressed.

I simply smirked and watched through my binoculars.

Boom!

The shell exploded just outside their camp.

No casualties.

But absolute panic.

And we had extra props for effect.

Bzzzzzzz—

A medium-sized drone, piloted by Dajeong.

She never left her bunker, but her voice came through the radio, sounding annoyed.

"You really think this will work?"

"It will."

"Skelton, you’re getting soft~"

The drone hovered at the perfect altitude to ensure they saw it.

"DRONE!"

"IT'S A RECON DRONE!"

Bang! Bang-bang-bang!

They fired wildly at it, but Dajeong simply flew it eastward out of their reach.

Then, for the first time, their K-radio crackled.

"Who is this?! Who's doing this to us?!"

Pure terror.

The moment I heard that voice, I knew.

This was working.

We said nothing.

We simply fired another round of mortar shells.

By the next morning, before dawn even broke,

they were gone.

A perfect victory.

Four mortar shells.

That was all it took to drive out 30 people.

Defender watched them leave.

Then turned away.

"Lucky."

He had the same reaction as Keystone.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe it was luck.

But here’s what I knew—

Not everyone is like us.

Not everyone is hardened, ruthless, and desensitized.

Not everyone sees the world the way we do.

And we forget that.

Too easily.

Especially those of us who think we "have experience."

"Here, try some."

Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother approached, holding a plastic container.

Inside—pickled cucumbers.

I took one.

"It’s good."

She smiled and walked off to offer it to others.

I called after her.

"Don’t give any to them."

She turned back.

Then laughed softly.

"Even if they asked, I wouldn’t."

She had found her own answer.

"Where do you think those people will go?"

She asked, watching the displaced refugees vanish.

I chuckled.

Picked up another cucumber.

"Somewhere."

"They’ll go somewhere."

They had their own plans.

Their own calculations.

Their own logic.

One I might never understand.

But that was fine.