Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 132: Going Out

The wind had gotten noticeably colder.

Temperatures were dropping faster than usual this year.

Calling it "winter" might still be a bit much, but there was no harm in preparing early.

To survive winter, you need two things: warmth and food.

Among the instructional DVDs I stockpiled before the war, there were a few bonus discs that came with the sets—some even included historical documentaries. One of them featured the story of Willem Barents, a Dutch explorer from the 16th century, who led an expedition north of the Arctic Circle and drifted through the ice for five months—surviving temperatures that averaged minus 40 degrees Celsius.

That Dutchman's brutal survival tale inspired me as I prepare for the harsh winter ahead.

And the fundamental principle for preparing for winter hasn’t changed a bit since Barents' time in the 16th century:

Fuel and food.

Those two essentials are still relatively secure in my current setup.

But we are not explorers.

We don’t move—we endure, year after year, through brutal winters in this territory.

And unlike Barents' men, my companions are not obedient subordinates who follow their captain without question.

They acknowledge my authority to some degree, but each one has a strong sense of individuality. They’re equals. Partners.

And that brings up the age-old problem:

Human relationships.

Our group is divided into three main factions:

Rebecca and her daughter, the Incheon hunters, and the Defender siblings.

We've all been living in the same place for a while now, but no one’s grown closer—and no one seems interested in doing so.

They all communicate through me and me alone.

In short, they’re just strangers sharing space.

Most of the time, that’s not a big issue. But during a brutal winter?

It absolutely will be.

Why? Because this time, everyone will have to live together in the same space.

Aside from my own bunker, none of the current dwellings are ready to survive the winter.

Maybe Ha Tae-hoon’s place could get through it, but the rest are makeshift dummy shelters—literally just decoys.

They were built as traps—designed to explode and take enemies down with them when seized. They're defensive installations from the ground up.

They’re half-buried like pillboxes, so they're slightly more insulated than surface structures, but they don’t even have proper heating, let alone ventilation.

We won’t be facing a five-month nightmare like Barents did, but even the conservative estimate of three months will require something new.

And so, I came up with the Winter House.

Right next to my bunker, I plan to build a large, spacious shelter using the materials scattered nearby—a proper refuge.

Why build a new place instead of using the bunker?

Because of human relations.

Even hamsters turn on each other in tight spaces.

My companions aren’t likely to eat each other, but forcing people who don’t get along to live side by side will always lead to conflict.

So I want to build a communal living space with enough privacy to reduce friction.

It might sound like a luxury, but I want this group to remain stable over the long term.

The problem, of course, is cost and time.

When I explained the plan, few were enthusiastic.

No one opposed it outright, but the general response was, "Do we really need to?"

But the current dwellings won’t make it through this winter.

Even my bunker is starting to feel like a freezer—those flimsy decoy shelters and huts won’t survive a single night.

“This winter, you know...”

It was Defender who confirmed that my concern wasn’t paranoia.

“I think it’d be better to live in the place we used to stay. It’s been left alone for a while, but it’s a pretty well-built house.”

It’s clear now that the Defender siblings heard something serious from Woo Min-hee the day they left Seoul.

Since that day, Defender’s expression has grown more pensive, and even Hong Da-jeong—who used to ping me through the comms at least once a day—has gone quiet.

“We’re finally together again. Do we really need to split up again?”

That’s what he said. But honestly, I thought it was a pretty solid suggestion.

If Defender and his sister temporarily stepped away, that’d reduce the construction demand for the Winter House.

But before anything else—I had to ask.

“Defender.”

He looked at me and gave a nod.

“What did Woo Min-hee say to you?”

He looked slightly surprised but, true to his loyal killer nature, he leaned in and whispered the truth.

“Nothing huge.”

He avoided my eyes.

“She made me an offer.”

“An offer?”

“Yeah. Asked if I’d join her territory.”

“Because you’re a hunter?”

“Yep.”

So she really is trying to gather Awakened.

I’d suspected as much.

What matters more than Woo Min-hee’s intentions, though, is the siblings’ response.

“So what are you going to do?”

No matter what he decided, I’d support him. frёewebηovel.cѳm

Because no matter what anyone says, Defender is my friend.

“I’m still thinking.”

“You don’t like the people here?”

He gave an unexpected answer.

“Wanna go outside for a bit?”

I had a feeling it wouldn’t be just a casual stroll.

*

Everyone on the board knew that Defender had killed a lot of people in the early days of the war.

But what we knew was only the fact that he had killed—not how it happened.

All we ever saw were cold corpses and their ID cards. That was it.

“There were some civilians, but mostly it was groups of guys who ganged up to rob and kill unarmed people.”

Today’s mode of transport was bicycles.

We dug our old bikes out of the dusty garage and headed east together, shoulder to shoulder on the ruined roads.

Defender usually preferred walking, but he said he used bikes often when covering long distances or transporting heavy goods.

“Those guys always had hideouts. They’d stash their loot there—sometimes even women and kids.”

He spoke casually, but he was describing the chaos of the early post-war days.

“I even saw a celebrity from TV once.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She was dead, though.”

“...Damn.”

Defender said he used to salvage anything useful from those hideouts and store it himself.

True to his meticulous nature, he never hoarded everything in one place. He split it across hidden locations, hard for anyone to find.

“The more stuff you have, the more enemies you attract. And think about it—doesn’t it feel unjust? You die, and the guy who killed you gets all your stuff?”

“Fair point.”

As a fellow doomsday hoarder, I agreed 100%.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Not that it’s something to brag about, but I once seriously considered wiring my entire bunker with explosives—just in case I died inside.

I’ve always liked the idea of a grand finale, but I didn’t want my story to end that way. So I dropped the plan.

“We’re here.”

Defender stopped in front of a half-collapsed prefab building.

[Adult Products]

The store sign had long since faded, but the nature of the business was still obvious.

Judging by its condition, it had closed well before the war and had been abandoned ever since.

Calling it a prefab was generous—it was practically a landfill.

Defender picked the rusted lock with a piece of wire like it was nothing.

Even after unlocking it, the door didn’t open. Another one of his tricks.

He pulled a rusted hoe from under a red plastic bundle, then dug beneath the structure.

A metal stake had been driven into the ground to block the door.

“Most people ignore stuff like this, but there are always a few who try to open every door they see.”

As he explained his scavenger-proofing, he opened the hidden door.

“Ooh.”

The moment the door creaked open, a wave of stale air rushed out, accompanied by a swarm of wriggling bugs spilling over the threshold.

But what caught my eye more than the bugs was the sheer amount of fuel.

“Are these... coal briquettes?”

Defender nodded.

“Someone stockpiled an entire warehouse full of them. And this is less than half. If you go further east, there’s another storage site, but that area’s crawling with remnants of the Legion, so it's risky.”

He spread his arms wide.

“It’s all yours, Skeleton.”

“What? All of this? You’re giving it to me?”

“There are a lot of people living in your place, right? I heard you’re building a winter house or something. Thought this would be perfect for that.”

“Hm.”

“It’s better than firewood, right?”

He wasn’t wrong.

Coal briquettes are a far superior fuel compared to wood. There's a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, sure, but the heat efficiency is higher, and the smoke output is negligible by comparison.

Plus, with firewood being so inefficient, you’d have to burn it constantly just to keep warm. All that smoke would practically send up a signal flare for anyone nearby.

In contrast, this cache of briquettes could be a serious game-changer.

If I were to run two boilers off this stock, it would last about a month—maybe a month and a half. It wouldn’t get us through the entire winter, but it would cover the harshest stretch at the beginning with minimal risk.

And yet... the gesture sat heavy in my chest.

“Why are you giving this to me all of a sudden?”

I already knew.

Defender had made up his mind.

This gift—it was his way of showing that decision had solidified.

“...I’m really sorry, Skeleton.”

He bowed his head to me.

“You’ve already gone through a lot because of us, and now we’re leaving again.”

So it was that.

I had sensed the shift.

Still, it felt a bit sudden.

The signs were there, but I hadn’t expected him to come to a decision this fast.

So I asked.

“Why? You don’t like my territory?”

I didn’t expect him to say yes.

But I was wrong.

Defender gave an uncharacteristically genuine smile and nodded honestly.

“Yeah.”

My heart wavered—just for a moment.

“...”

More than the fact that he was leaving, what stung was hearing that he didn’t like my domain.

As I stood there, stunned, Defender smiled and said,

“Well, let’s load up these briquettes.”

As I carried the fuel, I found myself thinking.

People often confuse what's familiar with what's good.

That tendency isn’t just limited to older folks. It’s universal.

I’m no exception.

I thought my territory was the best damn place in the world—an ideal hideout for the apocalypse.

And to be fair, based on the Korean PaleNet board, barely anyone has a bunker like mine.

Maybe some old fossils from FoxGame could compare.

But just because I liked it didn’t mean others would.

The first to make me realize that was Kim Daram.

She once asked, “How could you raise a child here?” But what she really meant was: “I don’t like your bunker.”

Same with Defender.

Looking back, he and his sister had always lived in places that were a bit lavish or luxurious.

That’s how I found them—living in a rich family’s old villa. And even after joining us, they chose to stay in a former illegal gambling house with secret rooms.

To go from that to a stinking, bug-infested underground bunker?

It must’ve been hell.

But the bigger issue was probably human relationships.

Nothing major had happened—yet. But Defender likely saw it coming.

That one day, the siblings would clash with someone in the group.

Pre-war, maybe that wouldn’t mean much. But now?

In this age, killing someone isn’t unusual.

Guns are everywhere. Drones and other tools of death are within arm’s reach.

Most of us here are already desensitized to killing.

And “being used to it” doesn’t just mean it’s familiar—it also means it’s easy.

As awful as it sounds, a conflict could turn deadly.

That, more than anything, is why Defender wanted to leave before winter.

“...There’s one more reason, too.”

He gave a faint, bitter smile.

“My mental illness is acting up again.”

“Mental illness...?”

I thought I’d misheard.

Wasn’t he already diagnosed?

He’s a self-admitted psychopath, after all.

“Wherever ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) I go, I feel like someone’s going to recognize me. Like I’m being watched.”

“...I see.”

So that’s what it was.

I hadn’t picked up on it at all.

I thought I was better at understanding people these days, but knowing someone completely? That’s something else entirely.

“I can’t risk being a burden to you or the others.”

“Our territory’s safe.”

“Yeah, but Woo Min-hee’s is safer.”

Fair enough.

Who else on the Korean Peninsula has a stronger backer than Woo Min-hee?

“Besides, Jong-cheol’s there.”

“Heo Jong-cheol?”

“Yeah. He’s kind of a quack, but he can see things clearly.”

“That’s true. He’s a clairvoyant, after all.”

“My sister’s been doing better, but she still needs observation. In a world without proper equipment, only someone like Jong-cheol can really check her condition.”

“...Is it cancer?”

I asked the question I’d been wondering about for a while.

Defender just gave me a faint smile.

So he wasn’t going to say—at least not yet.

Sure enough, he dodged the question.

“For now, we’ll go back to our old place and think things through.”

He started pedaling faster.

I watched him ride ahead, then muttered softly to myself.

“...Alright.”

I pedaled in silence.

The wind was blowing.

And somehow, the wind warmed by the afternoon sun felt colder than the wind of the night.

Not because of temperature, but because of something else.

Defender was going to leave.

But I also knew: the intent behind his decision wasn’t cold at all.

People meet and part, over and over.

If the parting is done right—

That’s all that really matters.