Hiding the House in the Apocalypse

22. Remnants (1)

According to the foreign language transcription method announced by the Ministry of Education in 1986, foreign names should be written according to the local pronunciation.

In China, I did not abide by this notice, and the reasons are complex.

At the time, I did not try to learn or understand their language.

We were unwelcome guests, and indeed we came for an unwelcome purpose.

Our purpose was not something like China’s salvation.

The order I received from the government was to collect data, such as the types and behaviors of monsters appearing in high-intensity rifts, the changes taking place in the rift area, and especially their impact on humans.

As a result, they avoided the battles they desperately needed with various excuses and chose only the areas or battles we wanted.

It is true that the vast amount of experience and data I gained there greatly helped in the defense of Korea afterwards, and it is also true that they contributed to making me a perisher.

In China, there was a man named Ma Won-gap.

An ordinary resident of the erosion zone, he had a great epiphany when he saw that a monster passed by him without any hostilities, and, as people who have attained a great enlightenment do, he founded a new religion.

The name of the new religion was ridiculed by the Chinese who worked with me, and they said that it was a name that would be given by a person who had no job and watched sage and martial arts in the corner of a room.

However, contrary to their ridicule, Manlyu Gui Religion (萬流歸宗敎) quickly spread in the erosion zone and drew a trajectory similar to the pseudo-religion that destroyed the Qing Dynasty.

Among the hunters dispatched to Korea, there was also a rider who killed more cultists than monsters.

Maybe Defender wasn’t that kind of jockey.

Now Ma Won-gap, his religion, and his followers have all been consumed in the flames of destruction, but those that burn have similar properties.

For example, rather than running away like a tree in the forest, he stands there and waits for himself to burn.

Someone I knew also had such flammability.

*

thud! thud! thud!

Gunfire is heard from afar.

Is it a start again?

They said they were negotiating on the radio.

Two years and two months had passed since the war began.

Daram Kim still has no contact.

When I measured the weather outside, it was minus 5 degrees.

Perhaps because of the global nuclear war last year, the weather feels lower than normal.

Inside the heated tent, I got up, washed my face, and prepared a meal.

For breakfast, give up half of the cabbage you just harvested.

I cut them roughly and tore them apart one at a time with my hands.

Before the war, it was unimaginable to eat a meal with just one cabbage, but at this point, when we are tired of canned food or preserved food, it is a fairly fresh seasonal delicacy.

I looked around with my binoculars while grumbling and filling my stomach.

Another group of refugees is heading south past the golf course.

Is that direction where the sniper’s mother and daughter live?

You might hear a gunshot soon.

After the meal, they patrolled the area lightly to digest food.

There are no special abnormalities.

It may be an overly hasty conclusion, but wouldn’t today be a peaceful day?

Unlike our peaceful neighborhood, a civil war is in full swing in Seoul.

The war that will change the fate of the Republic of Korea is holding millions of citizens hostage and spewing fire and rain at each other and killing each other even now.

The civil war did not have only negative effects.

At least it’s a short-term good news for me.

When the civil war began, the refugees could be seen, but the loathsome pioneer disappeared.

Since the Pioneer Corps was under military management, wouldn’t it have been taken to the battlefield?

However, it is difficult to find stories about the civil war in the community. Occasionally, shells fell around the house, so all I did was take a picture for authentication.

Considering that before the civil war broke out, the story of the civil war almost covered the bulletin board, it is a change like a sea change.

The direct cause may be that the journalist who was delivering information in Seoul was silent, but in fact, the civil war is a topic that does not need to be discussed at this point.

It has already happened, and there is no way we can do it, and above all, the civil war is in contact with our heavy reality.

No matter who wins, who seizes power, and who seizes Seoul, the aftermath will greatly shake our lives.

And that too in a very bad way.

Is that why?

In the community, bright and trivial stories unrelated to the civil war blossomed.

Shall we call it an ignorance of reality that was tacitly agreed upon?

I also joined the collective disregard by posting meaningless posts.

SKELTON : (skelton sound) Skeleton’s beatbox 23

While those boring days continued, a big incident occurred that shook the entire bulletin board.

After all, big things are done by big guys.

One of the four great kings of the bulletin board, former webtoon writer Mr. Dragon, announced a new series.

DragonC: Trying to start the latest work “The Remant”.

Mr. Dragon’s latest work, Remnant, which means remnant or dregs, is, in a word, the story of us, the destructionists.

As is the case with those who set foot in creation and make it their business, Mr. Dragon has now prepared a final masterpiece to make himself immortal, and for that subject, he chose the last human being, who is about to die or disappear.

That alone would be more than enough to turn the entire bulletin board upside down, but Mr. Dragon went one step further.

As if to practice that art is a reflection of reality, Mr. Dragon posted an announcement to recruit a main cast from among our community members.

DragonC: “The Remnant” Casting Announcement

1. To have a personality and background worthy of storytelling.

2. If there is a family or neighbor and there is an episode about it, additional points are given

3. Preference for women

4. It doesn’t matter if your face is ugly, I’ll adapt it myself.

*Please refrain from telling lies

“… Huh.”

The first time I saw this announcement, I smiled with a smile for the first time in a long time.

It has to be.

This is completely a condition for me, right?

Except for 3 or 4, of course.

I have a personality, background, and neighbors worth talking about, and I have countless episodes.

Currently, I am stigmatized as an unpopular user and am wriggling, but if I can appear in Mr. Dragon’s latest work, I may be able to become immortal as well as a place in the bulletin board.

The personal details of me, Park Gyu, are top secret, but what use is that in a country ruined?

Without the slightest hesitation, I wrote a new top-secret document and sent it to Mr. Dragon.

＜The “SKELTON”” introduction＞

-From the 13th class of “Guard”, a hunter training institution (highest graduate)

-Former S-class hunter (highest rank before changing to level system)

-Activated for 5 years on the other side of Beijing, China, callsign is “Professor”

-Major contribution to the discovery of mutation mutation mechanisms

– f*cking teacher

-Have neighbors (including cute girls)

…

…

Even when the application form was sent by message, I had no doubt that I would have won the lead role.

To what extent was there room for it, except for the stimulating theme of defender siblings, it was enough to fill in the blanks.

The reply came within a minute.

Isn’t it too early

No, maybe he was moved by my brilliant career and contacted me as soon as he saw the material.

Message from DragonC: Are you kidding?

“?”

SKELTON: No kidding. Really.

A message from DragonC: Believe that lie? Even if elementary school students use it, I will give birth rather than that.

SKELTON: Scythe, not birth.

Message from DragonC: Aren’t weird headers and “baby” your only personality? Anyway, thanks for the support, but please don’t lie.

SKELTON: (Skelton unfairly) No, it’s real.

Message from DragonC: Don’t force yourself. You don’t have a single street to write about, do you?

SKELTON: I am actually a woman…

Message from DragonC: Blocking?

For some unknown reason, my appearance was canceled, but in fact, I wasn’t the only one who ate Pakku.

A lot of users dropped out of the casting, and among them were some guys I knew well.

Defender: If you have a personality like mine, can you give me a supporting role? yes or no?

Defender also showed great enthusiasm for appearing in Remnant, but Mr. Dragon, like a person who published serials on a national portal site, tended to abide by the screening standards and avoid provocative material other than school violence.

According to that standard, the defender would of course be out.

However, it seems that Defender was quite persistent, and Mr. Dragon, unlike him, openly criticized him.

DragonC: Defender keeps sending me DMs, but I can’t let you appear. When you come out, the genre changes.

Defender: In what genre?

DragonC: A psychopathic thriller, or a splatter?

Defender : ㅠㅠ

It was only natural that the defender, who had been hit by Mr. Dragon, sent me a message.

A message from Defender: Skeleton. Would it be a big deal if I revealed that I was a woman?

SKELTON: A younger brother?

Message from Defender: Did you miss me?

SKELTON: What about your brother?

Message from Defender: He wants to appear in a cartoon. I don’t even watch his cartoons. Honestly, Mr. Dragon. He’s a cartoon dog no jam.

SKELTON: It’s true that it’s boring.

A message from Defender: Right?

Although Defender is a weirdo, he won’t reveal his identity.

Revealing the defender’s brother means abandoning one of the murderous siblings’ special moves, which work as a team of two, male and female.

Anyway, unlike Defender, who was blocked from appearing as a remnant forever, I still have a trump card.

That special move is written on the casting application sent to Mr. Dragon, but it is none other than a sniper mother and daughter living in the southeast.

If you take a picture with them and send them a touching story, wouldn’t Mr. Dragon respond?

I immediately contacted the sniper mother and daughter to remove the bullhorn as well.

“Skelton? What happened?”

“Can I see you for a minute?”

“About, is this?”

“What drug?”

“Morphine, fentanyl, etc.”

It is said that Seodang-gae can recite Poongwol in three months, and the sniper’s Korean also improved considerably.

What I do every day is listening to the radio or walkie-talkie on the roof of a building, so I can’t stop doing it.

“Skelton!”

My daughter welcomed me.

I haven’t seen it in a while, but maybe I’ll see it soon.

It’s Christmas soon.

“Skelton, what did you eat today?”

“napa cabbage.”

“napa cabbage? What is it?”

“So raw kimchi?”

“Raw kimchi?”

We are talking with a smile on our faces,

“approximately.”

The mother intervenes.

“I won’t meet you if you use medicine.”

“Just one second. Snap a photo. okay? Chocolate!”

Communication is broken.

operation failed.

I can’t help it.

Drugs are the last resort used when surgery or extreme pain cannot be overcome.

Even I had a hard time getting it, and it’s only a small amount, but I can’t give it away for trivial reasons.

Anyway, mother and daughter, can we fly properly this winter?

Aside from food, going through two winters in Korea would not be that simple.

Regardless, this is how my ambitious webtoon appearance ended in failure.

*

3 days after that.

So, it was the day a fighter plane passing overhead was hit by a missile and shattered in the air before it crashed westward.

Mr. Dragon announced the main character of Remnant.

The protagonist was, surprisingly, one of the few people I knew well and had seen a face in the community.

DragonC: “The Remnant”’s leading role is decided by Kyle_Dos!

It’s Kyle Doss.

Although he was often active on the bulletin board, he did not have a bad reputation and belonged to a friendly family such as Anonymous 848 and Anonymous 458.

But that’s just the amount of users.

I don’t have a corner that I’m going to have a crush on, but there’s no big advantage.

Even when we met in person to pick up the capsule, he was an ordinary Korean man in his early 30s.

Hunter was never, nor was he a trained soldier.

What on earth made him so special and moved Mr. Dragon’s heart?

The reason was stated in a post written by Kyle Doss himself.

Kyle_Dos : I actually picked my wife up a while ago.

The story begins shortly after I collect the capsules from around the air-raid shelter.

Having relieved his worries, Kyledos, like a seasoned destroyer, conducted intensive patrols around the air-raid shelter every day, not allowing even the slightest change.

Then one day.

It was probably late spring, Kyle Doss recalls.

Kyledos came across something he had forgotten, but always thought about.

It’s a woman.

Young, attractive and in need of protection above all else.

The process in which Kyle Doss, who has a non-angular personality, and an attractive woman meet fatefully and get to know each other despite difficulties and eventually unite as one, has not only the virtues of a universal story, but also a strong pheromone that stimulates the fantasy of a lonely man.