Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 152.2: Records (2)
They say a tiger leaves behind its hide and a person their name after death, but when you look back over five thousand years of human history, how many names have truly endured?
What a person can leave behind are their descendants and a few scattered records at best.
Diaries and memos are commonly cited examples, but to someone living in the 21st century, they probably don't feel all that relevant.
My old mentor, Jang Ki-young, was probably part of the last realistic generation to jot down his thoughts and reflections in a wrinkled little notebook.
It’s not that the human desire to record has faded—it’s that our tools have changed. From pen and paper to keyboard, mouse, and LCD screens.
Before the war, I once volunteered to teach about monsters and mutations at an elementary school in Seoul. When I stepped into the classroom, I saw a machine I’d never seen before.
A steel box that looked like it belonged in a server room.
I asked the teacher what it was, and I still remember her laughing response.
“It's a tablet charger. Kids these days all study on tablets.”
“Do the parents pay for those?”
“No. The government bulk purchases them and distributes them for free. If some kids had expensive ones and others had cheap ones, people would complain, right?”
Children are mirrors of adults.
And honestly, we adults are more used to leaving our traces on computers than on paper now.
Especially the internet—it’s a massive archive of someone’s life trajectory in the information age.
There’s a reason the police always run forensic scans on phones when they investigate a suspect.
Even just looking at search terms, you can infer what a person was interested in or thinking about at the time.
A community site like our board goes one step further—it can provide deep insight into a person’s thoughts, beliefs, even ideology.
Of course, that doesn’t apply to someone like me, who strictly separates online life from the real world—but that’s only possible because I’m me.
Most people unconsciously reflect their real lives onto the internet.
So, what about Kang Han-min?
I now have access to his past records—stored on Korea's biggest ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) portal site and foreign search engines—and I even have an expert helping me interpret them.
My friend, Ballantine, is a solid network specialist, but the person Woo Min-hee introduced me to actually managed a major corporation’s server center in the field.
"Let’s crack it open.”
And with that, the internet world frozen in time four years ago came back to life.
They say the past, buried in memory, is more beautiful than the present you actually lived.
It really was.
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Even those garish, glittery banner ads I used to hate—seeing them now triggered unexpected nostalgia.
Clicking one wouldn’t take me back in time.
They’re just fragments from a brighter, more vivid era.
What matters is the digital footprint that a man named Kang Han-min left behind.
“We’ve compiled a summary of the online activity for the individual you identified. Based on IP addresses, phone IDs, and tracked site accounts.”
The technician handed me a file—his mouth twisted in a reluctant smile.
“It’s probably just someone with the same name, right?”
The reason he brought up the possibility of a namesake so quickly was because the online behavior of this “Kang Han-min” was completely at odds with the image of the heroic Savior Kang Han-min.
His internet life was... far from exemplary.
A textbook forum addict.
Now, I had the excuse of the war—being forced to rely on online communities in an extreme situation.
But Kang Han-min? He was showing signs of digital addiction long before the war, back when Korea-China relations were smooth.
That weird post I stumbled on earlier—one of his, undoubtedly—was just the tip of the iceberg. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Gong Gyeong-min, and other deceased teammates, had mentioned before that Kang Han-min used to write weird shit online.
“That guy... what the hell is he even posting? He’s a hunter, not some basement shut-in.”
Put bluntly, it was all nonsense.
Just like we eat and shit, Kang Han-min dumped garbage posts all over the internet.
And like shit, those posts may seem worthless—but they are among the few remaining records that might help us understand the man he became.
Understanding Kang Han-min is just as important as researching commander-type figures.
Both Woo Min-hee and Na Hye-in had a pretty cold reaction to him.
Na Hye-in was more reserved, but Woo Min-hee had laid it all out during drinks once.
“No one knows what that guy’s thinking. He doesn’t talk to anyone. Whether it’s the Jeju Committee playing politics or people dying in the Rifts—he doesn’t say a word. Just goes in and out, over and over.”
No communication, no shared thoughts.
Not ideal. And definitely not what you’d expect from a proper hunter.
We hunters are born to be part of a team, bound by shared fate. Not speaking up is like denying your very identity as a hunter.
Now I was digging into Kang Han-min’s record.
According to the engineer, they recovered data from 10 years before the war up to right before it began.
He primarily used three sites.
The first was the default Korean portal site.
He used to run a blog—now deleted—and briefly traded secondhand goods in a local marketplace cafe. Aside from that, the only records were online purchases.
His shopping history offered some insights. Ten years ago, he bought sneakers, casual wear, games. After awakening, his purchases shifted to camping and fishing gear.
Most of his search history was also shopping-related.
The last search before the war?
[One-person brazier performance]
The second site was a Chinese e-commerce platform.
Nothing recoverable there. No big loss.
But the third... that was where I had hope.
His community.
The bizarre post I’d seen on the computer back at the quarters—it had come from that board.
Fortunately, the engineer said he’d successfully recovered every post Kang Han-min had ever made there.
“I couldn’t get every image or video, but a good chunk was restored.”
Then a problem surfaced.
“....”
He wrote a LOT.
[Posts: 52,352 / Comments: 152,421]
More data isn’t always better. This was a mountain.
How the hell was I supposed to read all of that?
By typical standards, his post-to-comment ratio—1:3—was actually decent.
Means he talked and listened. A balanced user.
I skimmed through some of his posts:
Kanghan-nam: How much can I get for a 4-year-old graphics card on Carrot Market?
Kanghan-nam: Hey, anyone used SN panel monitors?
Kanghan-nam: Life of an alpha male.gif
Kanghan-nam: Are those boobs or watermelons?
Kanghan-nam: Yo, did you apply for that youth rent support thing?
Kanghan-nam: Spoiler) Found someone in class who shit themselves
Kanghan-nam: Candid of a white 9th grader.jpg
Kanghan-nam: Thinking of getting French and Japanese language certs
Kanghan-nam: Dinner tonight.jpg
Kanghan-nam: Just unlocked all 4 God Beasts in Usm!
...
Click.
That “white 9th grader” post? Turned out to be a picture of three Western monks posing in front of a mountain temple.
“....”
Kang Han-min, you bastard.
I organized his posts as best I could.
He’d been all over that board—but his main hangout was a tiny game forum at the edge of the community.
According to Hong Da-jeong, an internet specialist:
“Oh, that board?”
She knew it well.
“Used to be huge, but it turned into a ghost town after mismanagement. Total ruin.”
Kang Han-min had been posting there for over a decade.
In a way, he’d lived through an entire era on that board.
That realization made my blood stir a little.
The human behind the mask, the guy I used to ignore, was now beginning to emerge.
But 50,000 posts and 150,000 comments—those numbers weren’t decorative.
I scrolled until my eyes burned but found nothing useful.
Only one pattern stood out.
He was like me.
Buried under piles of nonsense, he had strictly separated real life from the internet.
His posts were silly, humorous, sometimes interactive—but “Kang Han-min” the person was never present.
He wrote entirely as Kanghan-nam, an online persona. Very few clues about his real self.
The closest were raw, primitive grumblings.
Kanghan-nam: Another damn day at work...
Posted from a Chinese IP, during the time he was in China—before he joined my team. Back when Jang Ki-young’s faction constantly bullied and isolated him.
That was his true dark age.
And in all that time, he expressed himself just once:
Kanghan-nam: Fuck... I’m really tired of this shit...
Judging by the date, that was probably around the time he messed up and got a Chinese soldier killed—and Jang Ki-young threatened to hand him over to a Chinese court-martial if he didn’t return to Korea.
After that? The tide of nonsense resumed, calm and steady like the Han River.
He liked “fishing,” it seemed. Online and off.
He was good at reeling people in.
I’d been at this for ten hours. The engineer had already gone home.
I warmed up by the electric heater and cracked open a precious can of coffee before checking the rest.
Still 30,000 posts left.
“....”
This wasn’t working.
I needed a smarter approach.
Instead of trying to read everything, I’d categorize his posts by time period and focus on key phases in his life.
Especially after his awakening—his so-called Alpha Awakening.
Even after becoming an Awakened, Kang Han-min kept posting in that game forum, like it was his hometown.
Beep— Beep— Beep—
Just as I was organizing his posts, my phone rang.
[01410]
Woo Min-hee.
Inside the New Seoul area, cell signals worked, so I didn’t need the bulky K-walkie-talkie anymore.
"Hey, is it going okay?"
Her voice was lighter than usual.
She’d always sounded cheerful, but there was something subtly different now—like she’d finally let go of some old burden.
"...More or less."
"Got it."
"So, what’s up? Why the call?"
“Oh, nothing major. Someone you know asked you for help.”
“Who?”
“Ha Tae-hoon? Sounds familiar, right?”
“Ha sunbae?”
“Yeah. It’s not urgent. He’s clashing with some Legion remnants. I told Kim Byeong-cheol to support him with artillery if needed.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I’d have to pause my analysis of Kang Han-min.
Not that reading everything would’ve magically revealed what I wanted anyway.
But then—these things always happen.
Just as I was ready to quit, something caught my eye.
Kanghan-nam: Spoiler) There's something I’ve been hiding from this board...
“....”
Probably bait. But the timing matters.
It was posted one month before the war.
Someone like Kang Han-min would have definitely known the war was coming.
That means...
For the first time in ten years, he was ready to drop the mask and show his true face to the board he’d called home.
“....”
Click.
—
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It was just as thrilling as I imagined.
Thanks, Bond. I feel so much better now.
No need to thank me.
Kim smiled and extended a hand. Nicola shook it, visibly moved—
...
...
“What the fuck is this?”
I was about to close everything and walk away when one final post snagged my attention.
Kanghan-nam: Aniki
At first glance, it looked like another throwaway post.
But I remembered.
That word—Aniki—was what Kang Han-min used to call me before he awakened.
He only said it when we were alone, and when I wasn’t paying attention. Always afraid, always careful.
Maybe it was his way of showing affection.
But I had always ignored the hand he extended.
“....”
A hand he reached out with ten years ago—now cold and stiff—that I’m only just now grasping.
The post itself was brief.
– Now, it’s really just me.
This was something he said to me directly.
The first sincere expression from Kang Han-min after awakening.
At least... that’s how I’ll choose to take it.
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