Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

Regular Update.

After a long crazy wild ride, which made my back sore, I was finally able to tell Da-jeong about what I experienced after my death down to the tee.

“…that’s what happened.”

“There’s something like that in the forest? Then, what about the resurrection scroll?” Da-jeong furrowed her eyebrows.

“Well, they work the same, but different. But who cares? I’m still alive, aren’t I?” I held out the two scrolls and she touched it.

“It’s amazing… So, there was a resurrection function in the spring in that forest, but you didn’t know about it until now?”

“Yeah. I thought it was just an ordinary spring… Seems like I have to die to know that hidden function, but I have never died before.”

“And it got polluted after resurrecting you?”

“Listen. When I first entered the forest inside the portal, I found the spring when I was walking around mapping the surroundings of my shelter. It was really clean back then, to the extent I mistakenly thought that the forest was something out of a fairy tale.”

“But what about after your death?”

“The atmosphere becomes eerie, and the water becomes pitch black. It seems like it accepted my death in exchange for my points. Not only that, the side effects of the resurrection were quite big… My level was reduced by one.”

“One whole level? Ridiculous! My bus was basically for nothing.” Dajeong grumbled. Well, I also feel annoyed by it. But if I see it from a different perspective, resurrection without having to use the resurrection scroll, the price becomes quite cheap. In other words, the resurrection method of the spring was different from the resurrection scroll, so the scroll was not consumed. “Let’s just be thankful for now.”

Da-jeong thought quietly and frowned. “Then, if you die again, will you get resurrected inside the portal without consuming the scroll again?”

“I don’t know. The spring is currently polluted. I don’t know if it can be cleaned or not.” The stag beetles seemed to know something, but when I was about to say so, Da-jeong clapped and looked at me.

“Why is the balance of this game all over the place? Why are you the only one with such features? Our playtime is not much different.”

“I think… I was just lucky. If the portal had opened somewhere other than the forest, I would be damned.”

“You’re lucky, huh? So why are you polluting a spring in the deep mountains like that?”

“Whoever hears it will be misunderstood. Moreover, it’s not like I just polluted it on a whim. I also paid a price for it.” Thankfully, I have a lot of points at the moment of my death. If my points were the same as the average survivor, I could have been resurrected a long time later.

Anyway, in exchange for saving the resurrection scrolls, there were three things I needed to restore: levels, points, and the spring. Though for the latter, I still don’t know whether it was possible or not. Of course, before doing all that, there’s still something more important to do. It was to clean Joo Seung-cheol’s bunker clean.

I got up and looked out the window. “You said you have kicked out all the people who had come to help Joo Seung-cheol, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. We are the only ones around. Though, I don’t know if there’s another hiding place around here.”

“Originally, I was going to kill the guy with the brainwashing skill too, but…”

“It’s too difficult because he locked himself inside his shelter?”

“He should have realized something was happening from all the fuss that we made. Therefore, he probably had run away or hid himself in the deepest part of his bunker. Let’s just loot Seung-cheol’s bunker.”

“It’s the moment you enjoy the most.” Da-jeong stabbed me in the side.

“I will enjoy it even more this time. After all, there must be some interesting things hidden inside.”

Da-jeong nodded her head at my words. “That should be right. That guy had a lot of hidden things. When I was in the government shelter, he always said that he would let me know about those if I came to his bunker.”

“Then… let’s see just how great his secrets are.”

“Okay.” We moved to Seung-cheol’s bunker with the ghouls leading the way. When we arrived at the entrance, the corpses lying there were already covered by snow.

Da-jeong smirked as she saw the corpses. “That’s why you should just give up when you made I Love Gimbap your enemy.”

“I want to show this to those guys at the Auction House who cursed at me every day. They really have to stop before I kill them.”

“Wouldn’t that make them even more excited? After all, no matter what they do or say in the Auction House, their identity would still be anonymous.”

“That does not apply to me. I can check their names with a skill I have. I already have a few names on my hit list.”

“Wow, you are really awful.”

“You just realized?”

As we chatted, the big ghoul opened the door and we all stepped inside.

“I shouldn’t have used this many ignition stones…”

“You say that after you’ve done it?”

However, contrary to my concerns, most of the bunker was still intact, and only the area around the vents was burnt black. When I checked the warehouse, there was indeed a huge amount of material piled up inside. When Da-jeong saw the spam wrapped in a plastic pack, her mouth hung open.

“To think he stockpiled this many expensive things…”

“He’s a tycoon, so of course he would be able to do so.”

(T/N: Spam is expensive? It’s like 6 dollar a piece here…)

(E/n There’s probably like a thousand of em in there lmao)

Spam was not the only thing piled up in this warehouse. There’s also military rations, biscuits, dried vegetables, and pickles. Each in enormous quantities. These things weren’t the true reason I’m feeling excited, but still, I have to take care of them first. I opened the portal and put everything into it.

Da-jeong grumbled as she saw the spam she threw bounced off the portal. “I’m trying to help, but my good deed is denied.”

“It’s okay. I’m used to it.” But, now that I can get a good look at this warehouse, the size was no joke. At first, I thought this floor was the only floor used as a warehouse, but turns out, I was wrong. When I looked around the corner, there was a door leading down to the basement.

Da-jeong went down with the glowstone and cheered. “Wow! There is a lot of rice and flour here!”

“Anything else?”

“They must have stored almost all of the powdered stuff here!”

The size of the warehouse was evident that it belonged to a tycoon. When I went down myself, I was just as surprised as Da-jeong. Including sugar, salt, and various seasonings, the amount of grains stored was also abundant. All of them are also carefully sealed, so it will last quite a long time.

As I moved the supplies, Da-jeong went down to another floor and cheered. “The amount of dried vegetables and fruits stored in this place is no joke! Oh my gosh! They have meat and fish too!”

If the moisture was completely removed and a deoxidizer was added before packing it in a vacuum-packed container, the shelf life of those ingredients would be greatly extended. By that fact, it was obvious that Joo Seung-cheol had prepared for the apocalypse quite systematically.

“I don’t think he played the game a lot…” So, the question was, how did he know that the end was coming and prepared in advance? It might have something to do with him receiving the resurrection scroll as a gift from some place.

Anyway, I finally finished robbing the warehouse.

“Did he buy a whole mart and put all the stuff inside in here?” The amount of supplies stored in this warehouse were enormous. And when I finished moving everything to the shelter, I realized that I had to expand the place once again.

“I don’t know if I can eat all of this before it expires…” It would be great to have a subspace where food didn’t rot if being stored inside. I ripped the vacuum-packaged meat and fish and fed them to Dingo and Ding-soon. They’d done a great job, so this is the least I could do for them.

By the way, in addition to food and daily necessities, there were quite a lot of other things in the bunker. And amongst them, weapons which could only be purchased with points stood out.

“Only three long knives.” But I was still elated to find it, as my long knife was broken in the earlier fight. I moved everything from the bunker to my shelter. Only after a few hours did I finally finish looting the warehouse clean.

“Sigh…” The only thing left was the things inside the heavily reinforced door. When the bulky ghoul tore the door up, piles of gold bars, a small safe on the desk, and a door on the floor came to view.

“Wow, gold…” Da-jeong shouted in elation as she walked in. And when I opened the safe, there were several sheets of papers inside.

-I Love Gimbap. Total play time 5541 hours. Known to have knowledge about and had seen gathering information about the unknown monsters in the expansion pack. Records: 103 Deathmatch, 25 Battle Royale, 85% Great Labyrinth completion rate, 105 Hours playing as a murderer…

“This is your game record…” Da-jeong mumbled beside me.

“…”

How in the world did they have such a detailed record of me? Even things that I myself didn’t know were written here.

However, that was not the only thing inside the safe, but there are also Seokhyun’s, Da-jeong’s, and Geom-in’s records. On another piece of paper, the date of the D-day, the transcript of the government’s response, and Joo Seung-cheol’s action plans were written in detail.

On top of it…

-Failed to track the location of the ‘Four Stagnant Waters’… Also failed to track the location of another informant…

“Huh? Is this ‘Informant’ they are talking about, Ji-man?’

“Seems like it. He told me that when he contacted the government, only scary men in suits came to see him.”

“Then, it seems like these guys didn’t know everything.”

“Yeah… After all, if they knew everything, they wouldn’t need us, or even Ji-man.”

Though, there’s a possibility that what they need from Ji-man was his unique skill rather than the information he had. However, I doubted it was the case, since unique skills didn’t exist back in the game, so there’s no way they have records about people’s unique skills.

I searched the desk and found more papers inside the drawer.

“This is a list of people that he wants to capture…”

“Hey, there are even lists of people who need to be killed.”

“They really thought of everything they need to do once the corrosive disease is gone…”

On the paper, we could also see their plan to seize government shelters. It seems that their plan was going well, until Da-jeong entered. And when Seokhyun entered, their plan was on the verge of failing, which led Joo Seung-cheol to take an extreme measure: Provoking Seokhyun.

There’s also his evaluation of me. Which If i must say, quite blatant.

-I Love Gimbap. Estimated to be male in his 20’s or 30’s.

-Presumed to be someone with a subspace unique skill. Cautious and full of suspicion.

-Does not engage first often, but will not avoid battle.

-Cold-hearted and greedy.

-His build was quite large, and he seems to be helped by someone.

-Moving to Seoul after meeting Rabbit Pwincess.

-Very interested in government shelters. Probably because of sealed firearms.

-Subspace ability is…

-Cooperation is deemed impossible. Target must be brainwashed to be utilized, or exterminated.

Look at these b*st*rd.

“They know you better than you know yourself…”

“I know right?”

I was certain that the force that gave Joo Seung-cheol the resurrection scroll was also the one who gave him this information. And judging from the game records of me and the other stagnant waters, they were very dangerous.

“They know our game record, but why don’t they know our real life information?”

“Hmm… maybe because they don’t know much about Korea?” I muttered. “Do you know about the Yeouido shooting incident?”

“Oh!” Da-jeong put his finger on her forehead and exclaimed. “I remember it. Wasn’t it the incident that got covered immediately? It was suddenly gone without any traces.”

“The president told me that at that time, he summoned all army commanders and checked each army for deserters who might be the preparator of the incident, but there’s none. Which means, there was an unknown foreign force capable of bringing in firearms and fighting in the middle of Seoul.”

“So you’re thinking they are the ones who gave Joo Seung-cheol the resurrection scroll?”

“Probably… And they are definitely an enemy.”

“Our enemy.”

After nodding my head at her words, I turned the lever of the door on the floor and opened it. Inside, a reinforced concrete wall with a protruding hook made of concrete could be seen. I went down and tied a parachute string to it before returning back up and handed it to the bulky ghoul.

“Pull it.” Several ghouls pulled it as Da-jeong ordered. And just like that, the concrete wall was lifted, revealing the black hole underneath.

Da-jeong threw a stone and counted. A few seconds later, a small sound was heard. “Huh? It didn’t even reach 200 meters.”

“Really?” This is somehow ominous. Can they stop the corrosive disease from reaching the things they hid with only a 200 meters deep hole?

I made a long rope, tied it to the bulky ghoul’s body, and went inside. When I went down to the floor and took out the glowstone, a surprising sight greeted me.

“Hmm?” Pistols, shotguns, a few rifles and ammunition boxes, which appeared to be Russian-made, were lying on the floor. When I opened the 7.62mm bullet box, a dark green can covered with Russian words could be seen.

“Is there 500 rounds in one can?” There were 2 such cans in the bullet box, and there are 5 such bullet boxes, so there’s at least thousands of 7.62mm bullets.

“Not that many…” It was strange that there was only this amount. Since it was a tycoon who had stocked up these things, I thought he would fill this room to the brim..

“Tsk…” I put the guns and the ammo boxes into the portal as I swallowed my regret. And when I returned upstairs, Da-jeong had an excited expression on her face.

“Are there a lot of guns? Can we arm all my ghouls with it?”

“No. There’s only a total of 6 guns and 5 ammo boxes.”

Her excited expression turned into disappointment in an instant.

“What the? Are you serious? You’re not lying to me, aren’t you?”

“I will never lie to you and Seokhyun.”

“Hmm… is that so?” Hearing my words, her expression changed again. Now that the bunker has been cleaned, it’s time to leave. I wanted to use this bunker as our temporary shelter, but there were a lot of hostile bunkers nearby. It was difficult to fight them all at once, so we had no choice but to just walk away.

We board our sled and leave the bunker behind.

.

.

.

Around the same time as Seongho made a ruckus in the wealthy village of Hannam-dong, Seokhyun crossed the Han River and returned to the government shelter. However, when he arrived, the entrance was firmly shut. He knocked on it with his fist while calling for the person in charge of the gate.

“How dare you return here?” However, it was the President, not the person in charge, who greeted him.

Seokhyun answered casually.

“Since I make the suspicious guy leave the shelter, didn’t I actually helped keeping the safety of the shelter

“It may be so. But I simply can’t ignore the fact that you just casually broke the rules and acted your own way. Hwang Seokhyun, if I let you in, the people of the shelter will not just stay silent.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Someone else’s voice comes between their talk.

‘Is that Geom-in?’ Seokhyun focused his hearing on their conversation.

“President, let’s think about it. Just like he said, that suspicious guy is now gone from the shelter. Isn’t it the same as plucking a rotting tooth?”

“And do you think for the sake of removing a rotting tooth, a dentist can do whatever he wants as long as the tooth is removed? So if a dentist just hits the head of the patient with a chair, and the tooth falls off, is it still okay?”

Seokhyun had also threatened them to not pursue Seongho. However, they didn’t punish him for that. Therefore, Jang Won-taek decided to bring that matter up too. Afterall, crimes must have consequences.

“Didn’t you see it too, Geom-in ssi? We don’t know when or where Seokhyun will kill other people.”

“He won’t kill anyone.”

“Who can guarantee it?”

“…I can guarantee it.”

Seokhyun blinked his eyes as he was startled. After hearing those words, even though he knew for sure that the voice belonged to Geom-in, he now doubted it.

Meanwhile, people start to gather inside the shelter. Lee Beom-seok, Oh Seung-yeon, and some other people came and listened to their conversation.

Jang Won-taek glanced at them and asked Geom-in. “Why all of a sudden? Did you finally become his friend?”

It was an established fact in the government shelter that there’s bad blood between Geom-in and Seokhyun. However, Geom-in couldn’t explain his reason to the President. After all, the reason was because Seokhyun was sent to the government shelter by I Love Gimbap-the man who saved him. And so, he feels obligated to help Seokhyun, as it would count as helping Gimbap.

“It’s not like that… but Seokhyun has helped us a lot. Seung-yeon is here thanks to him.”

“If Seokhyun-ssi hadn’t come, I might have died. I’m very grateful towards him.”

Seung-yeon mustered all her courage and opened her mouth. The other four government agents who also returned to the shelter on Seokhyun’s back also supported her words.

“It is never easy to run with someone on their back. But Seokhyun still ran without rest and saved us.”

“When we first met, I was a little scared, but he seemed like a very kind person.”

“Seokhyun-ssi is just not good at expressing himself.”

Geom-in stood back slightly, sign that he was sharing the same sentiment as them, and waited for Jang Won-taek’s answer.

Lee Beom-seok whispered to him. “There will be a power gap if those guys decide to leave as a protest. If Seokhyun doesn’t return, the damage we will suffer in the future will be great.”

“…” Jang Won-taek closed his eyes at his trusted aide’s words. In fact, Seokhyun alone was capable of doing the work of 10 people. On top of it, he had also saved 5 people. If calculated, the result was still +15 for Seokhyun as Joo Seung-cheol wasn’t truly dead as he had a resurrection scroll. Therefore, he was innocent. And even if he was found guilty, what can he do with the power he has? Law? In this apocalypse, law was more worthless than a slice of bread.

Jang Won-taek opened the door with a stiff face. Outside, Seokhyun was doing an ancestral bow naked.

‘What is he doing…’ Jang Won-taek bewildered, but Beom-seok pointed out to him.

“It was perceived by young people as showing the utmost courtesy.”

“The utmost courtesy…”

Jang Won-taek took a deep breath and approached Seokhyun. “When you talk to other people, you need to look straight into their eyes. Stand up.”

Seokhyun stopped bowing and raised to his feet. Thanks to that, many people saw his naked figure.

“Are you forgiving me?”

“It’s not forgiveness. Seokhyun obviously broke the rules, but I judged that it brings more prosperity than harm. So, I decided to put you on parole.”

“Parole?”

“It means that your action would be supervised. In the future, if you stay calm, people will accept you. However, if you caused an accident again…”

“I’m not going to cause any accidents again.”

“Is that I Love Gimbap’s instructions?”

Now that everyone knew that Seokhyun had a deep relationship with Gimbap, there was nothing to hide.

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“He should be fighting Joo Seung-cheol by now.”

“Surely you jest. That bunker of his is very sturdy. No matter how much…”

“I think he will be robbing his bunker in an hour. Want to bet?”

Jang Won-taek was at a loss for words at how certain Seokhyun sounded. Just how strong he is to break into a concrete bunker in an hour?

Jang Won-taek said to Seokhyun. “I want to make a proposal in return for accepting Seokhyun back.”

“What?”

“I want to meet I Love Gimbap. However, unlike before, I want to talk face-to-face this time. Is it possible?”

“At least, I’ll ask him about it. But don’t expect it, he’s such a shy friend.”

‘Shy friend…’ Well, that’s not wrong. Seokhyun said he would stay in his place until he heard the news from Gimbap and sat down on the ice. Then, Geom-in brought him a blanket and clothes.

“Thanks.”

“Uh, well, it’s nothing.”

Geom-in retreated. For some reason, those words make him extremely happy.