Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 95.6: Signs (6)

Everyone says it.

There’s no place better than your own home.

M9 had a similar sentiment.

But for anyone else to explore M9’s [N O V E L I G H T] house, which far exceeded the ordinary slope one might expect from a human, it required an immense amount of resolve.

“What are you doing? Skelton? Not coming in?”

M9 turned to look at me from the corridor entrance.

“Oh, no. It’s fine. I was just thinking about it. I already had tea earlier.”

That wasn’t entirely true.

I hadn’t had tea today.

It was just that my instincts screamed in warning, telling me not to step any further into that dangerously tilted, slanted place.

“...”

M9’s home was a four-dimensional labyrinth unlike anything I’d seen on a computer.

It wasn’t obvious where to step or where to hold on to move. A small mistake would send me plummeting to my death, and the place was filled with death traps.

Even I, who had overcome a fear of heights through training, found it a perilous place.

Rustle—

Updat𝓮d from frёewebnoѵēl.com.

After I mistakenly stepped and watched a stone fall into the abyss below, I froze in place.

“Hey. Skelton. What’s going on? You’re not coming in? Let’s have a cup of tea.”

M9, sensing my hesitation, grinned and waited for me to enter.

But there was no need for me to go.

I wasn’t here to uncover M9’s ecological history; I had only come as an observer.

“Hey. Skelton. Why aren’t you coming in? Are you already overwhelmed by my The Hope?”

“...”

“Well, nobody’s left here smiling after visiting my house. Just wait a bit. I’ll get the tea.”

As M9 excitedly stepped inside, a loud rumbling sound echoed from outside.

It sounded like a heavy building collapsing.

Such sounds weren’t unusual in this area, but I didn’t want to get caught up in M9’s pace, so I immediately exited The Hope and returned to the rooftop.

“Phew.”

At least it was better outside.

Unlike M9’s twisted, spider-like maze of a home, I could at least tell what was up and what was down out here.

As I leaned against the railing and spent some time waiting, M9 brought out a steaming cup of tea.

“I never thought I’d meet you like this.”

M9 and I sat side by side on the railing, looking out at the view.

The gray, desolate streets of the ruined city spread below, but there wasn’t a trace of worry on M9’s face.

“When I first came here...”

M9 began, almost wistfully.

“This area used to be an object of envy.”

At that moment, I noticed M9 was holding a phone with the camera turned on.

I glanced at him and asked,

“What’s this? Are you filming?”

“Of course, it’s live! Apocalypse!”

“Live Apocalypse, huh...”

“Well, it’s been a while since I had a guest, so I’m going to make the most of it and use whatever I can for material.”

M9 grinned at me.

“So, how have you been?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is life worth living?”

“Worth living...?”

Was this another expression of the will to live I often emphasize?

I’m not sure.

I’ve never really felt a taste in continuing life.

What sustains me is probably the fulfillment and satisfaction of each day, the small joys that help me get through.

“Not much to enjoy these days,” I said honestly, savoring M9’s tea.

M9 nodded.

“Yeah, the internet’s not as fun as it used to be. Fewer people, fewer things to talk about. Melon Mask is trying to create something new, but it’s just a novelty for a while and always ends up feeling the same. Yeah.”

M9 looked up.

“Everything’s so half-baked.”

Half-baked.

Maybe that’s the right way to describe all of us, abandoned in this waning era.

We can’t die easily, nor can we end it with grandeur.

Caught between these two extremes, we wait for the world to wither and die with us. It’s a natural flow in this world, but...

At least M9 was fighting to break free from that flow.

“You’re going to take down monsters with artillery, huh?”

He asked while filming the streets of Seoul with his phone.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here.”

“Well, let’s do it. Let’s make as many good shots as we can!”

He stood up.

There weren’t enough monsters yet to justify calling for artillery.

They were slowly forming groups from Hanam City, heading westward.

But dealing with them one by one wouldn’t be too bad.

I put on the special goggles linked to the GPS and focused on the riverside.

The red goggles synced with the GPS and immediately displayed the coordinates in front of me.

I transmitted the coordinates over the radio.

“Coordinates confirmed. Commencing artillery fire.”

I could hear the dry voice of the artillery unit over the radio, and soon after, there was a deafening sound of shells falling from the sky, followed by the destructive explosion hitting the exact spot I had targeted.

Boom! Boom! Boom!!

With the thunderous explosion, several buildings collapsed, and dust billowed into the air. M9 couldn’t help but marvel.

“Impressive.”

South Korean artillery is world-class.

If our old-school hunters specialize in close combat, then the South Korean artillery is the queen of mid-to-long-range warfare.

The Air Force might play the role of a firefighter when needed, but only the artillery can consistently provide reliable fire support at the right time and with precision.

“We’ll use artillery support to reduce the number of monsters heading toward Seoul.”

Today, we were only dealing with medium-sized monsters.

If we had more resources, I’d want to bombard all the monsters heading toward Seoul, but we didn’t have the strength to block an entire city like we did in the past.

“Coordinates confirmed. Commencing artillery fire.”

Since the war began, South Korea has steadily weakened, shrinking in size.

The military is no exception.

We can only expect what we can manage.

Thus began the dry, methodical battle.

We observed the enemy from the tilted apartment, called out coordinates, and directed artillery fire.

The elite artillery unit of the legion responded instantly, erasing the slow-moving medium-sized monsters from existence.

As this scenario repeated several times, M9 started to joke.

“What’s this? This is easier than I thought. These monsters are nothing.”

From a third-party perspective, it might seem that way.

But the only reason this was possible was because of the superior artillery, observation equipment, and the stronghold of The Hope standing in the middle of enemy territory.

We had no way of knowing how many monsters and zombies were beneath us right now.

“Zombies? The number of them has gone down a lot, but they still roam at night. The same goes for those strange monsters.”

Without a stronghold like The Hope, it would be impossible to sit in a safe spot and call out coordinates for artillery support.

M9’s "easy battle" continued late into the night.

We called out countless coordinates and eliminated countless monsters.

The fact that there were fewer monsters than expected helped maintain the stable situation.

I didn’t encounter the large monsters I had feared with intelligence, and the monster groups sent sporadically westward but didn’t engage in more coordinated actions.

Once, when we had a bit of free time, I handed the equipment to M9 and had him call out the coordinates.

“777! Heavy strike! Artillery fire!”

M9, excited, happily tested his new toy.

As the afternoon wore on, I felt an ominous shift coming from the east.

The fog along the Han River was thickening and approaching.

Underneath that fog, I saw the shadows of several monsters.

I asked Kim Daram about the situation in the western part of Seoul.

“How’s the situation over there?”

“Not good. They’re defending with an old tank, but there’s no end to it.”

To help her, M9 and I spent the night calling out coordinates and doing everything we could to block reinforcements heading toward Seoul.

Aside from a moment where I almost slipped off the railing due to fatigue, there were no major crises or surprises.

We found, killed, and bombarded the monsters.

It felt like just another day in the battlefields I had seen in China.

But this world is no longer forgiving.

I realized that truth after I said goodbye to M9 and returned to a certain part of Seoul.

*

"Good work, Senior."

Was it thanks to M9 and my efforts?

Despite the large monster groups approaching, civilian casualties were low, and the military suffered minimal losses.

While a large part of the credit went to M9 and me for eliminating the threatening medium-sized monsters from a long distance, the contribution of the Legion faction soldiers and hunters also played a significant role.

Of course, the biggest reason was probably that the number of monsters that bypassed the Han River was much smaller than expected.

The real problem was what came next.

When we were heading toward The Hope, I saw countless plumes of white smoke rising from various places below the helicopter.

At that time, when I saw the white smoke, I had a bad feeling.

It reminded me of similar smoke and smells I had encountered back in China.

Back on the streets of Seoul, I saw it again.

The charred remains of buildings, burning with white smoke.

My gaze naturally turned to Kim Daram.

"Kim Daram."

I shifted my attention to the corpses.

"What is that? What’s going on?"

Kim Daram didn’t even look at the bodies as she responded.

"They're zombie corpses."

"Zombies? How are there so many?"

She sighed and glared at me.

"Just think of them as zombies."

With a tired look, Kim Daram brushed past me and returned to the barracks.

As expected of her, she hadn’t forgotten about the favor I’d asked earlier.

"You wanted something from me, right? I’ll leave my deputy behind, so let me know. If it’s something I can handle, I’ll take care of it."

After she disappeared, I looked back at the corpses.

A few soldiers and workers were moving the bodies onto carts, still unburned.

I knew exactly who these bodies belonged to.

The fanatics.

As soon as the monster invasion began, the Legion faction had detained the fanatics. While the battle raged on, they likely executed them using some form of gas for mass extermination.

I don’t blame their methods.

Fanatics are enemies of humanity.

If left unchecked, they would assist the monsters and bring even greater harm to us.

But seeing humans mass-executing other humans like this always darkens my heart.

It was the same back in China.

When soldiers with emotionless faces killed people, burned their bodies, and discarded them, I couldn’t help but feel drowsy.

Seeing people who once lived, laughed, and talked, now forever asleep, dragged by others, burned, and crushed—it was too much for me to bear, and it brought about an unbearable sense of apathy.

Now, this same scene was being reenacted here in Korea.

Countless thoughts filled my mind, but I tried not to think about any of it.

Instead, I focused on the small connections and motivations that had brought me here, trying to put them into action.

"Oh, Skelton! Thank you so much! Thanks to you, we’ve been able to send Da-jeong to a hospital in Chuncheon!"

Even seeing Defender’s bright face didn’t ease my heart.

"I’ll stop by with Da-jeong next time!"

I saw him off with a smile, but the darkness around me only grew deeper.

"..."

That day, the Legion faction’s radio broadcast relayed news of a successful defense of Seoul and the armistice agreement between China and Korea.

People were talking about Kim Byung-cheol’s leadership and the Legion faction’s strength, but my thoughts were entirely different.

Humans organizing to kill each other systematically.

This, too, was another omen.

That this world is heading toward its destruction.

But there’s something salvaged from it.

"What? You think The Hope might collapse?"

It was when I was heading back to Seoul after finishing the operation.

I casually mentioned my thoughts about The Hope to M9.

There’s a 90% chance of it collapsing.

This isn’t just my opinion.

It’s the common consensus among everyone watching from afar.

Seeing M9’s strengths in this battle, I subtly suggested to him.

"If you have nowhere else to go, come by our neighborhood. We don’t have a tilted house, but there’s an empty one you can use."

I gave him the offer with the best of intentions, but M9 just smiled mockingly.

He looked at me with a blunt expression and said,

"Come to think of it, you’re way more of a hunter than John Nae-non."

Surprised by the sudden compliment, I looked at him, and M9 grinned and patted his building.

"Even if The Hope collapses, don’t worry too much."

M9 smiled as he lovingly patted his building.

"The place I’m at is the hope."

For a moment, I felt the tilt and weight of the building we were standing on once more.

And a thought crossed my mind.

Maybe hope is not so much straight as it is tilted.

The despair I’m seeing is probably not so different either.