It’s hard for anyone who hasn’t experienced it to truly grasp the sense of loss and anxiety when you plan something out according to a projection, only for the future to veer completely off course.

Especially for people like us—those who’ve staked our entire lives on it—the pressure is on a different level.

The important thing is mindset.

No matter what happens or what changes occur, you have to trust the you of the past and grit your teeth to endure.

The so-called “hold and endure.”

Through long years of patience, I’ve realized one thing—the more insecure someone is, the more they tend to talk.

Anonymous5034: This place is a palace, a palace~

Anonymous5034: What kind of idiot would abandon a shelter this nice?

Anonymous5034: No matter how I think about it, there’s nowhere better than here. Is the guy actually sane?

Anonymous5034: Anyone coming to our shelter? Men, get lost—only women allowed. Pretty girls, post actively on Necropolis. Not that it’ll happen, but if you’ve got a satellite device, you can message me directly~

Anonymous5034: The guys who left here—they’re probably dead, right?

Anonymous5034: And they picked the most dangerous time to run away, too. If you’re gonna commit suicide in such a bizarre way, that’s art. Art, I tell you. lol

Maybe that’s why.

“...”

I don’t feel a thing anymore when I read posts like this.

“Hunter Park...? You don’t look so good.”

“No, it’s nothing. Anyway, any progress on the work today?”

“Ah. Yes. I’m working on linking things based on the annotations.”

“How long will it take?”

“Well, that’s a bit...”

The reason my expression wasn’t good wasn’t because of some garbage post online—it was a real-world problem.

Watching Yoo Jeong-min’s sluggish abilities, Kim Daram’s nagging, and Cheon Young-jae constantly trying to get involved with Yoo Jeong-min—it’s enough to wear even Skelton down.

But more than anything, what’s pressing on us right now is the peaceful reality itself.

Radio broadcast:

“Today, Leader Jeon Si-hoon announced the start of district heating. For households without hot water, public bathhouses and electric blankets are being provided. If you’re shivering from the cold, don’t hesitate to visit your local community center.”

“This afternoon, Leader Jeon Si-hoon released innocent people who had been illegally imprisoned by Hong Jeong-ho’s coup. He listened to their grievances and promised that such unfortunate incidents would never happen again.”

“A cache of supplies hidden by the ROK military that fled to Jeju and Jeju Committee member Kim So-uk has been found. According to the new government, among these supplies are enough food to feed Seoul’s citizens for three months, as well as a variety of luxury goods. In particular, they secured an excessive number of golf clubs, and the authorities are currently debating how to deal with them.”

“Chief Ma Jeong-chung, who led the revolution alongside Leader Jeon Si-hoon, accompanied by several Awakened and a number of Old School Hunters, hunted down a group of Mutations causing trouble in Yeoju. The meat will be distributed at the plaza starting at dawn tomorrow—please join us if you’re interested.”

Things seem to be running smoothly.

Not only on the state-run shortwave radio, but also on Necropolis and the forums, you can find plenty of posts claiming Seoul is regaining stability.

Necropolis itself is practically frozen due to the news about the Mutation meat.

“Jeon Si-hoon... he’s actually doing pretty well, isn’t he? That guy. I heard he even pardoned Sim Gwon-su? Sim Gwon-su’s even more pro-Jeju than I am. If he pardoned someone like that, doesn’t that mean he’d pardon me too?”

Kim Daram’s complaints are growing stronger.

Well, I can’t really blame her.

Most people experience the deepest regret in life when they compare themselves to those around them.

Hearing about some genius boy in a town you’ve never heard of becoming a multi-millionaire, or a childhood friend with stunning looks making it big—that’s something you admire, not envy. You knew it wasn’t in the cards for you from the start.

But if a neighbor or someone from your apartment building—someone who used to be on the same level as you—suddenly moves into a better apartment and drives a nicer car, that’s a different story.

You start to feel that self-loathing and heavy regret: Why did they make it and I didn’t?

That’s the kind of regret Kim Daram is dealing with.

It’s human nature, so I don’t plan on criticizing her for it.

But Kim Daram isn’t just any woman.

“Honestly, wouldn’t it have been better if we’d just stayed? You’re friends with Jeon Si-hoon, aren’t you, senior?”

At first she only grumbled to herself—though clearly loud enough for me to hear. Now she’s openly questioning my choices at the dinner table.

This is when Cheon Young-jae should be stepping in to back me up. Instead, he’s too busy watching Yoo Jeong-min, wondering whether to offer her more food.

Why doesn’t he notice she’s showing clear signs of disliking it?

I’ll admit, living conditions are uncomfortable.

The space is cramped.

No matter how well-built a private bunker is, it’s still just a private bunker. Unless you have some rare syndrome where you can’t breathe without a high ceiling, most people build them low and minimize the space—because space is money.

Corporate tycoon bunkers from the early war might have had it better, but they still wouldn’t match up to government bunkers.

Anyway, thanks to Kim Daram’s escalating nagging, I had no choice but to prioritize building convenience facilities.

Fortunately, Cheon Young-jae, Kim Daram’s husband, and Dongtak all pitched in willingly.

The reason Kim Daram’s usually lazy husband suddenly became so eager was that he gets nagged at least as much as I do.

“Yeah, let’s just get it over with quickly. I’m not a specialist, but in a world like this, I’ve learned the basics.”

Apparently, he’d honed some construction skills, with plastering cement being his specialty.

I figured maybe his delicate hands from his plastic surgery days had gone dull, but no—he was actually pretty good at evenly spreading cement, even more so than I was. He could make it almost perfectly straight, unlike my rough, fast, and efficient style.

Foxgames’s bunker, compared to mine, is a typical nouveau riche shelter—built with money, not understanding. Still, Foxgames is a pure-blood Viva! Apocalypse! member.

It feels like he at least referenced the English board on Viva! Apocalypse! and the translated resources John Nae-non provided when designing it.

He’d done things like moderate modularization for expansion, stockpiled construction equipment, and included a septic tank.

Plus, this bunker had an advantage mine didn’t—no nearby enemies and a faction providing protection.

Whether Dies_Irae is a devilish person or not, as long as he’s managing the area, no hostile force ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) would bother coming here.

That meant we didn’t have to obsess over camouflage like before.

So we built openly.

The weather had already dropped below freezing long ago, and standing water was starting to ice over, but thankfully, there hadn’t been heavy snow yet, and the ground wasn’t completely frozen, so construction was doable.

The goal was to build a new residence next to Foxgames’s bunker.

We decided to call it the “Kim Daram House.”

High ceilings, comfort, its own bathroom—just as she wanted.

She was the most disgruntled person in our group, so there was no avoiding it.

And honestly, it did look like a mistake to have left my old bunker for here, at least in the short term.

“Wow. They say cell phones work again in Seoul. Must’ve reactivated the base stations.”

“People aren’t the same as they used to be. Everyone gets old. Your prime only lasts a moment. Me included...”

—She trailed off here, staring straight at me—

“They say there’s a Christmas tree going up in Seoul. They’re putting on lights. Sounds nice. I thought maybe this year I could sing carols and exchange gifts with my family...”

The single biggest factor in determining the difficulty level for a doomist is having a family.

For someone like me, with no parents or siblings, I can just do as I please. But for those with family, it’s a different story.

You can count on one hand the number of doomists with wives and kids.

It’s not easy.

It’s not just about opportunity cost—when things don’t go as planned, your family will start to nag and push, and even the most stubborn person can break.

Back when I was still a doomist, I used to think friends with families were mentally weak when they gave it up. Now that I’ve experienced it, I realize it’s no joke.

The constant complaints, blame, and self-pity from a family member—every single day—wear you down in ways I never could have imagined.

Sometimes I think of Woo Min-hee.

Would she have nagged me in the same situation?

...No, she wouldn’t have.

She’s sharp-tongued and eccentric, but she’s not the type to harp on things like this. She’d just shrug it off and go find something fun to do.

The one who snapped wasn’t me—it was Cheon Young-jae.

“If you like Seoul so much, why don’t you just go back?”

Kim Daram said nothing, just stared at him without blinking.

“Man... I was honestly terrified,” he admitted later.

“I heard you killed a thousand civilians in China. Is that true? The look in your eyes—there’s no way that was human.”

“Not a thousand.”

“T-Then how many?!”

“I didn’t count. Maybe over a hundred?”

“...Wow.”

Whatever it was, Cheon Young-jae’s comment definitely struck a nerve.

Kim Daram pulled me out of the bunker.

We don’t like each other, but there’s no partner I understand better.

I already knew she was about to tell me she was leaving—Yoo Jeong-min had innocently told me she’d seen Daram’s husband and Dongtak packing the day before.

And sure enough, she was waiting with a determined expression.

“Can you write Jeon Si-hoon a letter for me?”

I let out a short sigh.

“There’s nothing good for you there. I get why you’re wavering, but the trend is already set. Can’t you at least stick it out here for the winter? In spring, I’ll personally take you to Jeon Si-hoon.”

“No, I want to go now.”

“...Yeah?”

I was about to reluctantly approve my junior’s poor decision—when her husband suddenly came running out of the bunker.

“Daram!”

He almost never calls her by name—usually it’s “honey,” or “darling” on certain nights. For him to call her “Daram” meant something serious was going on.

Radio broadcast:

“Early this morning, Leader Jeon Si-hoon, to secure Seoul’s safety against the growing threat of the Paju Rift, ordered the destruction of all remaining Han River bridges. The land north of the river will now be left for the next generation.”

The bridges were gone.

When I was defending New Seoul, I’d fought to protect them—but now they’d vanished in an instant.

Even Kim Daram isn’t foolish enough not to understand what that means.

“Oh... it’s true?”

She glanced at me, then tried to walk away like nothing happened.

I called after her the same way her husband had.

“Daram.”

She froze without turning, shoulders slightly hunched.

I grinned.

“See? Looks like I was right.”

She said nothing and hurried away.

The most important trait for a doomist is stubbornness.

No matter how much the world shakes around you, you don’t budge.

Self-belief is the core success factor of a true doomist.

By that measure, Kim Daram was never meant to be one.

“Come to think of it, that neighborhood had bad air.”

At least she had enough self-awareness to be embarrassed about her own behavior.

“Bad location, too. I was going to move quickly, but then I thought—was it really a good place? The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t. So I came to get your opinion.”

Not exactly the kind of thing you say after packing all night with your family, but the wind that had been shaking her was gone.

She hadn’t meant to, but she reminded me of the thrill of victory I’d felt as a doomist.

Of course, the real victory would be the event—the major incident I’d predicted, one big enough to change history.

Radio broadcast:

“Today, Leader Jeon Si-hoon announced that in response to the growing threat of the Rifts, he will grant new rights and status to those once known as Awakened—Rift-sensitives. All outdated customs and systems will be abolished, and society will be reorganized around them.”

Just as he said he would—and just as I predicted.

“What? What’s that mean?”

“He’s saying he’s going to make the Awakened into an elite class?”

“There’d been talk, but to actually go through with it...”

While those around me reacted in confusion, the shortwave radio cemented my victory. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

“From now on, we will call the Awakened—those with mental sensitivity—Knights.”

I went to my quiet room and opened my laptop.

I smirked.

Sure enough, that loudmouth had gone completely silent.

As I was about to close it, something blinked in the corner of the screen—a message.

Who could it be?

There were hardly any people left who’d message me now.

Curious, I opened my inbox.

Message from gijayangban: Senior, you alive?

It was Woo Min-hee.