Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 150.2: Interview (2)

According to Mgu, his sudden visit was part of his signature style.

He claimed “surprise” was his identity.

In any case, Mgu was one of the pureblood oldbie users who had joined the forum around the same time I did.

Though his personality was on the goofy and shabby side, his thoughts as a Viva! Apocalypse! veteran were still worth listening to.

Of course, I wasn’t fond of surprises, so I asked how he found out where I lived.

Having your personal info tracked down is not exactly something someone as cautious and discreet as me welcomes.

“What do you mean how? You can see everything from above.”

A foolish question, answered with obvious truth.

“...It’s not like when the PaleNet guys came in. It might look similar, but the fundamentals are totally different.”

While brewing some homemade alcohol—shockingly close in taste to pre-war soju—Mgu rambled on.

“Don’t you feel it? That we’ve become obsolete?”

Naturally, I didn’t drink a single drop of the alcohol Mgu poured. I just stared at him.

Someone watching might say I was antisocial.

But isn’t it a matter of personal choice?

It’s not that I couldn’t drink, and I did enjoy the mood of a drinking table, but I didn’t like the idea of getting drunk.

So, I looked at the paper soju cup Mgu generously handed me like a cow watching a chicken.

This would help keep my thoughts sharp.

“What’s different? Isn’t it all the same situation?”

I didn’t think there was a big difference between now and PaleNet.

In the end, it’s just a minor upgrade, with PaleNet having become Necropolis. A bunch of users flooding into the forum from outside—same old thing.

But Mgu had a sharp edge.

“Ha. You dumb bastard. You know one thing, but not the other.”

“?”

He downed the soju he’d offered me and grinned.

“The ones who came from PaleNet back then? They were nobodies.”

“What?”

“Think about it. For them, PaleNet was the main hub. Our forum was just a side-colony, a place to mess around. They had their own big shots over there, right?”

“Probably.”

“And you think those big shots wanted to ditch their base and play in someone else’s yard?”

“!”

Shit.

I misjudged it.

I may make perfect calls in a battlefield, but the internet truly is a deep, mysterious jungle.

What you see isn’t everything.

“Now that PaleNet is gone, all their top-tier names have moved here. You went through it too with JeremyIrons, right?”

“I don’t even give a shit about that clown.”

“They’re not normal. These guys live and breathe the internet.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Those fuckers have ten years of it under their belts. They’ve fed their whole lives into the internet.”

“...”

Was it a matter of experience that made me lose to JeremyIrons?

Mgu, face flushed from drinking, took another swig and looked around. frёewebηovel.cѳm

“Oh, and this is a secret, but...”

He suddenly leaned in, face red as a beet.

For a moment, I debated pulling out my axe, but realizing he was just whispering into my ear, I summoned superhuman patience.

“Melon Mask told me...”

“Melon...?”

“They’re gonna start giving accounts to the Necropolis users.”

“What?!”

I jumped to my feet.

My shout was loud enough to shake the entire dorm.

Someone poked their head out from a window, but Mgu and I stuck close to the wall, avoiding view.

“...Are you serious?”

Once I calmed down, I asked.

Even with his flushed face, Mgu nodded with grave seriousness.

“He sent messages to the name-brand users.”

“?”

“What’s with that face? Don’t tell me you didn’t get one? I thought everyone and their dog got invited. You didn’t check your FoxCode?”

“FoxCode?”

“You didn’t get an invite?”

I frowned, confused, and Mgu looked at me with a strangely sympathetic expression, then let out a sigh laced with heavy soju breath.

“You really didn’t get one...”

“Get what?”

“Original forum user gathering. Everyone who’s been on the forum since the old days—except for the anonymous randos—got invited. The influx from Necropolis is fine, but since there are so many of them, we’re losing our presence. So we made a new board.”

“...How many people?”

“Ninety-two.”

“...”

Everyone except me?

Sure, it’s kind of interesting that the number of users dropped from a thousand to ten percent post-war, but the fact that I’m not part of that ten percent?

“Self-selecting exile...”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“How else can I make sense of this?”

“They probably just forgot. I’ll talk to Dongtanmom later.”

“Dongtanmom?”

“She’s the admin.”

“That idiot? I thought she went down in a blaze.”

“Tone down the curses, man.”

I picked up the soju cup I had refused all this time and downed it in one shot.

“Whew.”

It’s a bad habit to rely on alcohol, but I could feel my head cooling off just a bit.

After a brief silence, Mgu spoke again.

“Anyway, we can’t let things stay like this. If Melon Mask hands out accounts, we’ll be buried. We’ll be just another early-buzz water rocket.”

I got what he meant.

If Melon Mask gives out accounts like candy, the Necropolis users would shed their “Deadman” stigma and stand on equal footing with us.

I don’t know why that evil bastard of a yankee, so obsessed with our board, would do that—but first, we need to survive.

“If we go investigate what Kang Han-min’s actually doing right now—really report on it—it’ll shake up all those assholes spamming the trending board with their secret clique crap.”

“Secret clique crap...?”

“You didn’t know? That guy you love so much, Jeremy Irons, and all the other Necropolis ghost trolls are gaming the upvotes to dominate the popular posts.”

“Really?”

It never crossed my mind.

I don’t spend all day online like I used to in the bunker. These days, I have actual work. So my browsing is limited to stuff that catches my interest.

To think this kind of serious problem had started while I was slacking...

Still, going to dig into Kang Han-min’s side of things? Isn’t that kind of overkill?

“Why Kang Han-min all of a sudden?”

Mgu grinned.

“Someone on FoxCode gave us a lead.”

“Who?”

“Reporter Guy.”

“Reporter Guy...?”

Suspicious, I asked, and Mgu slapped my shoulder with confidence.

“Reporter Guy’s info. Your combat skills. And my mobility. There’s nothing we can’t do.”

“...”

Reporter Guy. So Woo Min-hee’s involved.

Of course—she has no idea what Kang Han-min’s up to, so she’s tossing the ball to us.

Honestly, I am curious myself. The longer I sit here not knowing when or if he’ll come, the worse it gets.

If I can find out what Kang Han-min’s thinking, maybe I can finally clear my head.

And if it boosts my online rep at the same time? Two birds with one stone.

Mgu seems to think he’ll get all the credit from this little expedition—but this might be the perfect time to show him the bitter taste of the internet.

I looked at him and said,

“Fine.”

I make fun of him, but objectively speaking, Mgu isn’t just some nobody.

After living for three years in the wasteland of The Hope—completely devoid of other humans—he’s developed agility and primal instincts far beyond any average person.

You could say he’s like a gibbon mutation.

“Hold up. I’ll check.”

Whenever we ran into anything suspicious ahead, Mgu would climb the walls like a monkey to scout from higher ground.

“...”

I’ve never seen anyone climb better than Kim Daram.

She’s got innate balance, the strength of a man, and the body weight of a woman—a perfect combo.

Mgu, meanwhile, climbs with the nimbleness and speed of a gibbon.

Back when I met Mgu at the John Nae-non meetup, he had a job that—well, let’s say—wasn’t particularly impressive.

On the way to our midway destination, I asked out of boredom.

“What did you do before the war?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“I worked.”

“At?”

“A factory.”

“Oh.”

“I was the manager.”

“Bullshit.”

Mgu stretched and looked up at the sky.

“For guys like us, honestly... a war’s better than peace, don’t you think?”

“...Well, I guess that’s true.”

My reluctant agreement made Mgu chuckle.

“If the war hadn’t happened, I’d be royally fucked.”

“Yeah?”

Maybe it’s because we have similar tastes.

The subject intrigued me.

In places like Shanghai, if I was stuck spending time with a younger female junior, I wouldn’t even know what to say—just watching the clock tick.

But Mgu, despite being someone I don’t particularly like, kept bringing up topics that made me want to listen.

“How much did you bet?”

Among us oldbies, “bet” means how much someone invested in prepping before the war.

“I quit my job and used my severance and inheritance to build a bunker. Found a better apartment later and moved, but at the time, it felt like the best call.”

“No debt?”

“Why would I take out debt?”

“What do you mean, why? If war breaks out, you don’t have to pay it back.”

“?”

“If the war doesn’t happen, your life’s screwed anyway, right?”

Mgu gave me a look that said he didn’t get me at all.

Like we were on totally different wavelengths.

“Wow... I knew you were a freak with no filter, but...”

“What, did I say something wrong?”

“Even if the world’s ending, try to keep your humanity, Skelton.”

Mgu moved ahead.

“There it is!”

By the Han River, there was an abandoned pier.

It used to be for jet skis and yachts—now, totally deserted since the war started.

But it looked like someone had started using it again.

Mgu spoke into his K-walkie-talkie.

“CQ CQ. Sierra One-One.”

After the transmission, a soldier emerged from an abandoned shack, armed.

Mgu waved.

“What the hell is this?”

“I told you, we’ve got a guide.”

“Didn’t expect a soldier.”

“Right? Reporter Guy said it’s someone she knows. Whatever, good connections are good.”

Someone she knows, huh.

Figures. Woo Min-hee’s behind this.

The soldiers at the pier silently pulled out a military motorboat from a hidden section and gestured us over.

“We’ll take you to the island.”

Just like that, we were on a boat trip.

“Wow! This is nuts! So thrilling!”

Mgu was busy filming, thrilled, while I was worried.

I approached the soldier manning the mounted gun.

“Hey, is this... safe? It’s not pre-war anymore. This seems risky.”

If someone with a grudge started shooting from the riverbank, we’d have nothing but luck on our side.

“It’s fine.”

The soldier replied.

His uniform was clean, not improvised—clearly not from a militia. Likely a government soldier, someone connected to Woo Min-hee.

“If someone shoots, just lie down.”

“What?”

“The boat’s sides are high. If you lie flat, you’re in the blind spot. Anyway, no one’s been shooting lately.”

He gave a bitter smile.

“As you know, Seoul was a dead city after everyone pulled out to Incheon. A few survivors here and there, sure—but in a place this big, even a thousand people wouldn’t stand out.”

In his mind, there was no danger.

We silently crossed the wide, ruined river.

Three layers unfolded before us.

First, the riverside roads once infamous for traffic—now buried in rusted-out car husks.

Above them, abandoned Han River mansions and apartments—symbols of wealth, now standing like corpses.

And above that, skyscrapers, pale and grim, casting their gloom over our hearts.

To change the subject, I asked the soldier,

“How’s Ganghwa Island?”

He answered after a pause.

“Well...”

Then smiled bitterly.

“...Doesn’t seem like a very pleasant place to live.”

We passed shattered bridges and those living atop them, then hit open sea—and soon arrived at the island.

“We’ll wait here.”

They dropped us off on the northern shore.

In the distance, the broken stretch of Ganghwa Bridge loomed bleakly.

Clack—

Weapons in hand, Mgu and I surveyed the surroundings.

A white mountain and barren ground.

No signs of life—but an eerie, creeping hostility seemed to seep from the entire island.

“So, now what?”

There had to be a plan.

For someone like Mgu—who’s not built for combat—to come all this way, he had to be confident in something.

Sure enough, Mgu had a plan.

“Just wait. Not far from here is a friend of ours.”

“Friend?”

“Yeah.”

Mgu led the way.

He walked freely, with only a pistol on his hip, in a world where being armed to the teeth was the norm.

It made me chuckle, but hey, everyone’s got their style.

Charging forward like a trained soldier wasn’t his thing.

After about ten minutes of strange marching, we arrived at an old factory.

[ Banseok Engineering ]

Covered in snow like everything else, but the open yard showed signs of old tents and camps.

It looked like this area had seen people settle in the past.

Something about the place felt familiar.

I asked Mgu,

“This it?”

He nodded and knocked on the factory door.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Five knocks.

Then—

Thud.

Once more.

Probably a pre-arranged signal.

Creeeeaaak—

A sharp metallic screech.

But not from inside—from the back.

And then—

“Who’s there?”

A child’s voice echoed cautiously.

Clack—

I turned and raised my weapon.

“Who are you?”

The kid’s bait.

There’s another one.

Behind those snow-covered bushes.

“I’ll give you three seconds.”

“Wait!”

Mgu jumped in front of me.

He turned back and shouted,

“Keystone! It’s me! Mgu!”

“Keystone...?”

That eternally negative bastard.

Still alive, huh.

Out of the forest came a limping man.

“Uh?”

But the first thought [N O V E L I G H T] in my head wasn’t Keystone.

It was: actor and director.

That’s what popped into my mind.

“It’s Keystone.”

Mgu grinned and approached the man.

“Looks familiar, right?”

He did.

Graying hair at the temples, but still traces of the striking beauty of his prime.

This gloomy man had once been Korea’s most famous actor and director.

“Skelton...?”

Keystone looked at me with a glare as bitter as his internet reputation.

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