Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

KIg’s scheduled i s jam-packed yesterday, so only 1.

“…I want to be with you guys.”

“That means you have to share all your secrets with us, no more secrets between us, is that okay?”

When I asked again, Geom-in nodded his head.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while… What use is it to become a king in this god-forsaken world? Also, can I really become someone who suits the position?”

“Is there something wrong?”

At Da-jeong’s question, Geom-in smiled shyly and scratched his head. “You should know as you’ve been in the government shelter before. My presence there was insignificant. To those people, I was basically nothing.”

“But still, you must have a reason that turns around your mindset completely.”

The swordsman said right away. “It’s because of Gim… Seongho.”

“Me?”

“Yes. We met in the battle royale arena, didn’t we? I was really, really taken aback back then. You, suddenly pointing a gun at me, and telling me to run.”

“I had no choice but to do that, because I want to save you. And as you experienced, the bug only works when we break through the wall of monsters within a certain amount of time.”

“I know. Anyway, after that, I started thinking about you guys. You are all strong, and I wanted to be strong too. So I tried to hold hands with Joo Seung-cheol. But…”

“Rapwi kicked that guy out of the government shelter.”

“Yes haha… now that I think about it, it’s a good thing. Anyway, I don’t want to go back to the shelter, but I want to be together with you all… just like back in the game.” Geom-in said as they looked at us one by one. I respect his choice, and I do want him to join us. But before that, he still has something he needs to do.

“I’m sorry, Geom-in, but you have to return to the government shelter.” I said. Hearing my words, his eyes opened wide.

“Huh? Am I- No, I can’t be with you guys?”

“It’s not like that. I mean, I do consider you as my friend, but you should stay in the government shelter for the time being.”

“Why? Oh, it’s because of the guns.”

“You say you don’t have much influence, but you still have your stake in the government shelter. Seokhyun is also gaining popularity there too, isn’t he?”

“I have to say… These days, he is more popular than me.”

“If he wears proper clothes, not only panties, he would be very popular with women too.” Da-jeong giggled as she pulled Seokhyun’s panty line and snapped it back to his thighs.

“I am not popular. Everyone ran away every time they saw me, as if I was a monster.”

“What the heck did you do in the shelter?”

“It wasn’t much. I just eat, sleep, and fight monsters like usual.”

Upon hearing his words, Da-jeong’s face reddened and she started slapping Seokhyun’s back. “I told you to stop eating those goblins, didn’t I?”

“But it’s okay to eat them, though.”

“Okay my a**! Those people treated you like a monster because you are eating those goblins, you know!”

“I do not care. Moreover, I won’t eat them in front of you guys.” He declared proudly.

Well, should I be happy with his consideration?

Anyway, I explained the situation to Geom-in. “Until the corrosive disease disappears, you and Seokhyun should stay at the government shelter. We don’t know what’s going to happen, so it would be better to have someone inside so we can deal with some unexpected situation.”

“Okay.”

“Then, what are we going to do?” Da-jeong asked.

“We have to go to the Incheon subway and loot the government’s spare shelter.”

“Ah… Nothing changes then.” She giggled.

As if it was timed, there was a rumble coming from Geom-in’s stomach as soon as Da-jeong finished giggling. Hearing that, Da-jeong patted my ass.

“It’s the first time the four of us gather together like this once again, don’t you have anything good to celebrate this?”

“It’s winter, so a hot soup should be good, right? Open portal.”

“That’s the magic word that opens a portal to his own world.”

“If you go in here, the place you will appear at is… at the meadow you spawned at in the last battle royale event.” Da-jeong said towards Geom-in, who entered the same battle royale match as me.

“That place with a snowy mountain?” Geom-in asked.

“Yeah, My shelter is close to that place. This portal is connected to another world.”

“Wow… that’s a jackpot…”

Geom-in could not keep his mouth shut and for a long time he just repeated the words of ‘jackpot, jackpot.’

Anyway, it seems that he hasn’t acquired our unique skill yet. Well, it was to be expected, as something like ‘trust’ was something that will take a long time to be acquired. It would take time for the current ‘us’ to be as close as the ‘us’ back in the game.

WIth those thoughts in mind, I entered the portal and prepared a meal.

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We ate and chatted for quite a long time. Thankfully, the meal I prepared seemed to have pleased all three of them.

“Wow, I never imagined I would eat kimchi stew this good in the apocalypse.”

“These are made with kimchi made personally by Seongho, and they are fully ripe kimchi.”

Everyone ate well, so I was quite proud of myself. Then, after they finished, I started to explain what happened in the labyrinth.

“So, what happened inside…” I told them all I did was kill people after separating from Seokhyun who went to the boss’ room. “I killed a total of 15 people. I don’t know if the other two who I sent to dimensional prison are alive or dead. If you look at the Auction House, it looks like one of them survived.”

“Are those who attacked me all dead?” Geom-in queried as he touched the wound on his shoulder. Seokhyun had poured a potion at it, but it was still reddish and not yet fully closed.

“All of them were dead. And by the way, all the guys who died were all Auction House addicts, so the Auction House is clean now.”

“Ummm… the Auction House.” Da-jeong, who looked at the comment sections of various auction items, was amazed. “Oh my gosh. Seongho, there is no one swearing at you now.”

“It’s not that all the addicts have disappeared, they’re just laying low for now. After what I’d done, they would be a fool if they still cursed at me.”

Then Geom-in hesitated and asked. “Can you see their ID in real life too or is it available only at the Auction House?”

“I have a skill which allows me to see a person’s ID. I just need to pay 10 points to check people’s ID. I saw a guy with a lot of pretentiousness before, going around praising Survivor 1 in the Auction House, and he turned out to be you.”

“Ey… what are you talking about…” He lowered his head and ate the well-roasted hwajo I served. He tilted his head and ate two more times in a row. Seems like it was to his liking.

“So what happens after you kill them all?”

Da-jeong urged me, and I recalled things I did after that. “I thought clearing the labyrinth was going to be really hard, but Seokhyun literally killed every monster on his way to the boss room. He even leaves the boss close to death. As soon as I hit the last hit, experience points come in.”

“That directionally-challenged guy can find a way to the boss room?”

“I asked a scarab to accompany him.”

“Ah… I forget about them.” Da-jeong laughed. However, unlike Da-jeong, who guffawed happily, Geom-in was only staring at me, clearly lost. Seems like time had come for the debut of the stag beetles.

I entered the portal and headed to where the both captains were. I apologized to both Captain Scarab and Stag Beetle Chief and brought both of them outside the portal. Since they would surely fight if they stuck close to each other, I had to place them on the palm of each hand.

“Uh… it’s a real beetle? I thought it was a codename or something.” Geom-in laughed wryly as he scratched his head.

“They are sentient beetles who can understand our words. These guys are helping me at the shelter. You can think of these two as the captains of both camps.”

“Daebak…” Geom-in reached out to pet the stag beetle and was attacked by its pincher. (T/N for those who by chance don’t know what daebak is… It’s an exclamation. Direct translation from me is ‘Awesome’. But I just don’t get the feeling from those words.)

“AH!”

“Well, the scarabs were friendly, but the stag beetles were prickly. So be careful.” At my words, Chief Stag Beetle looked at me and spread his arms to both sides. It seems like he was protesting my statement.

“Sorry sorry.” I apologized and quickly sent them back to the cave. When both of them left, Seokhyun said as he looked at the place they disappeared into.

“I have had these thoughts since back then… Those scarabs are good at finding minerals, they’re also amazing at craftsmanship, and they’re good with directions. They are very similar to dwarves.”

“Dwarf?”

“Yeah, That dwarf race, that usually came from the fantasy genre.”

Now that I think about it, Seokhyun’s words weren’t completely off the mark. On the other hand, the stag beetles were similar to elves. But don’t elves have a gentle personality? Well, there must be some elves with bad personalities too, so… yeah.

Thinking so, I continue to talk about the results I got after clearing the labyrinth. “I went up to level 26, I also got some points and one more skill slot. The skill I got from the Uber Merman was Stamina Regeneration.”

“What the hell is Uber Merman?”

“It’s a monster that makes a sound like a boat horn. Its appearance looks like a combination between a fish and a lizard. Seokhyun killed almost every single one of them.”

“You did a good job. Just a little longer and our grand plan will come true.”

“A grand plan?”

“YEP! Entering Seongho’s portal and playing together inside!”

When Da-jeong made a fuss, Geom-in asked. “Everyone can come in?”

“It wasn’t possible for now, but I hope it will be possible when he reaches level 30.”

“For reference, his level 25’s additional effect is a dimensional prison.”

“That place is terrible. I just fell from the sky for five minutes straight.” Da-jeong shuddered.

“I got thrown into an open sea.”

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

At their words, Geom-in’s eyes shook violently.

“By the way, Geom-in. No offense, but you’re very weak when compared to us. What exactly is your unique skill?”

“Ummm… My unique skill is…” He swallowed what was in his mouth and wiped the area around his mouth.. “I still don’t know the exact conditions, but I think I can copy the unique skills of people who trusted me. Copying costs points, and I can only have one of the additional effects of the unique skill that I copied. That too, was the lowest one, the level 5 additional effect.”

“Aren’t you level 19 now? What are the additional effects you have gotten so far?”

“At level 5, the additional effect eliminates the points consumption. At level 10, it copies additional effects of a copied unique skill. And at level 15, I got something called a unique skill storage.”

“Unique skill storage?”

“Yeah. I can’t use all of the unique skills I stored there, it just saves it. Taking a desk as an example, don’t you put all the books you don’t need to one side? You just bring it to the desk when you need it again.”

AHA. It had a similar effect as wearing an item with a skill attached. If you have 10 skills and wear an item that has a skill in it, the first skill on your skill list will temporarily disappear. And once you remove an item, the disappeared skill will be restored.

“Wait a minute… So that means you have four unique skills in total. It’s a cheat!!!” Da-jeong screamed as he hit him on the shoulder. However, Geom-in could only smile bitterly.

“Not necessarily. I mean, I should always have the shelter boost unique skill in the unique skill storage. It’s useful to other people, but not for me myself. After all, it only applies to facilities and weapons in a shelter.”

Hearing those words, Da-jeong snapped her fingers. “So that’s why you didn’t have to do any work at all at the government shelter, huh?”

“Sorry. I couldn’t speak about it at the time.”

“It’s fine. Back then, you could barely speak too anyway. You’re busy looking at my chest and legs every day.”

“Look at mine instead.”

“Rapwi! Don’t butt in!”

I mean, why should a man look at another man’s legs…

By the time, it’s time to sort things out. “Da-jeong and Seokhyun are waiting for me to hit level 30. But it wouldn’t be easy; it will take some time. And it’s still questionable whether that additional effect will come out or not even after I reach level 30. So, let’s do what we have to do first.”

Then, Seokhyun pointed to his own chest. “The two of us are returning to the government shelter, and you guys are attacking the government’s spare shelter in Incheon?”

“Yes. There is something good stored there, after all. When the sun goes down, I’ll have to check out the nearby time shelters too.”

“The funny thing about this guy is that he never stopped looting from the beginning of the apocalypse until now. It’s a complete farming life.”

“Thanks to that, my life was comfortable inside the shelter. I can listen to music and watch movies when I’m bored.”

“Wait, by chance, do you have a computer inside there?”

“Geom-in, don’t you know? There’s all sorts of things inside his shelter. There are even mini forklifts and motorcycles. He promised that we would ride it here someday.” Da-jeong posed like a cheetah who kept failing in a certain snack commercial as she said that. Seokhyun seems to be thinking the same and pointed it out at her. Soon after, he was hit by a kick from Da-jeong.

Ah, he should have kept his thoughts inside his mind and never talked about it.

“Where do you get your electricity from?” Geom-in asked, paying no heed to the fighting duo.

“From solar panels.”

“…there seems to be no corrosive disease there.”

“I also have some guns. Most of them came from Joo Seung-cheol’s shelter. He stored it together with some ammunition thousands of meters below ground.”

“How many computers do you have?”

“If I include the laptop, there are three. It’s not mine, though. I looted it from a random studio on D-day.”

“Were there any games in there?”

“Games?” When I asked him so, Geom-in explained that he used to be an avid gamer. Living without games was the most painful thing he had to do in this apocalypse.

“There are a lot of movies and music, but for games, I’ll have to look for them later.”

“When the corrosive disease disappears…” I noticed what he was trying to say. After all, it’s very obvious what a gamer wants.

“The government shelter didn’t have any computers stored?”

“There is. But it was used for important matters instead, so there’s no game kept in it.” I nodded at his words. Well, at least the government gets their priority right. At best, there would be some dramas and movies stored. But games shouldn’t be included.

“I’ll decide after looking at how you are doing.”

“Don’t worry. You just need me to properly secure my stake in the government shelter, right?”

“Yeah. After that, if the additional effect Da-jeong wanted really appears, everyone can just live in my shelter. But, since the cave is a bit narrow for everyone to live in together, we must each make a shelter, but we will still live together. We also have to share our supplies.”

“Shelter… Shelter…” Geom-in, who was a shelter addict back in Seola, suddenly got excited. Back in Survival Life, he was always confined in his own shelter most of the time. I remembered he said that it feels good just looking at his collection of items.

However, out of nowhere, something I tried not to think about sprung on my mind, making me frown. Da-jeong also makes gurgling noises too, perhaps thinking the same thing as me.

“Duck, are you pregnant?”

“Pregnant my a**! I get nauseous imagining you running around in the woods naked!!!”

“Humans are supposed to be one with nature.” Seokhyun nodded his head and closed his eyes as he said it. As if he just said some profound words.

“You’re really going to run around naked in there, huh?”

“Pregnant?” Geom-in blinked at those words. Then, Da-jeong said lightly.

“I had s*x with Seongho.”

“Uh-huh? Congratulations I guess?” Unexpectedly, Geom-in was not surprised at all. He just started eating the kimchi stew again.

At his indifference, Da-jeong was the one who was left confused. “What the? Didn’t you like me before? You have to show some despair after knowing you lost me to another man! Why are you so calm?”

“I passed that phase already.”

You’ve made up your mind, huh?

I patted his shoulder. “If it was you, you would surely meet a good woman.”

“Thanks.”

Maybe…

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Seokhyun and Geom-in left for the government shelter the next day. I asked for a favor from him before they left. It was a favor to train Geom-in.

-No matter how much I think about it, it doesn’t make sense that he couldn’t even kill a werewolf with his unique skill. It’s a matter of mindset.

-You want me to train him?

-Yeah. Even if you have to drag him around, make sure that he kills some monsters that give him skills and build up some experience. Knowing that he’s not weak will naturally make him stronger.

-It’s what I do best. Leave it to me.

-Oh, and for the time being, don’t tell Jang Won-taek about him and us.

After they left, Da-jeong and I finished preparing ourselves and went to Sindorim Station. When we arrived there, Jang Won-taek and his Chief of Staff, Lee Beom-seok were already waiting for us. The two looked at Da-jeong next to me, and they both smiled.

“As expected, the three of you are definitely together. May I ask what happened to our Geom-in?”

“At least we didn’t kill him with our own hands.”

“So he’s alive? If so, I guess the three other people who are together with him are dead, huh?”

“Who are you talking about?” I knew about it, but pretended not to know.

Jang Won-taek sat down and let out a sigh. “It’s a big deal that people die just by meeting Seongho.”

“I will not make excuses. But if it wasn’t them, it would’ve been me who died.”

“Can’t you just spare them? South Korea’s population will continue to decline in this case.”

I had expected that this ahjussi would say something like this. But my determination wouldn’t change at all.

“I think it will be easier for you to persuade those who fearlessly attack me rather than trying to persuade me instead.”

“If it was a normal society, it would have ended in a court case, it’s a pity…”

“If that’s the case… They wouldn’t even touch me. However, now that they realize what I can do, everyone will be quiet…”

“…”

“I only attack when the opponent is a murderer or I had been attacked. I’m not a bloody murderer who attack the innocent.” As I raised my voice, Jang Won-taek waved his hand.

“No, no, I am not blaming Seongho. It’s just, it’s a little disappointing. If we all just communicated well, I think we can all work together…”

Da-jeong scoffed as he said that. All of us here were aware that what he said was something impossible in this kind of world. After all, currently, everyone has superpowers called unique skills. The era of fantasy, in which monsters attacking humans are your usual daily sight, has arrived. In such an era, it was almost impossible to trust and cooperate with the unspecified majority.

“You two were talking about Masan earlier, what happened there?” Da-jeong asked.

“Masan? I never said anything like that?”

“Don’t think about lying. I have many ears in many places.” Da-jeong smirked.

She was now level 25. An additional effect of being able to hear what the zombies and ghouls hear was added to her unique skill. It was similar to Yoohyeon’s additional effect, but it also had many pros and cons.

Anyway, I was also interested in what happened in Masan, since I have some people who I trust there.

After receiving Jang Won-taek’s gaze, Lee Beom-seok opened his mouth. “The Japanese who fled from the radiation in Busan had entered Masan. We still can’t figure out their exact number, but we conclude that it was at least a few dozen people.”

Those dozens of people wouldn’t just pass by the island…

I hid my expression and stood up. It seems like I would have to contact Masan after a long time.