Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 103.6: Struggle (6)

It was during the early days when Awakened beings, led by Kang Han-min and Na Hye-in, had just begun making their presence known to the world, and soon after, new Awakened individuals started emerging one after another.

Even then, we old-school hunters were still at the core of the hunter world, the most crucial force on the monster front.

Although every indicator suggested that we were relics of the past, destined to be washed away, we did everything in our power to survive.

Most of the ideas that surfaced were common yet costly and time-consuming—developing more efficient tactics, futuristic equipment like exosuits, and deploying cutting-edge Chinese drones. But there were also more extreme suggestions, such as enhancement drugs and genetic modification.

As evident from the examples above, most of our survival strategies revolved around strengthening the old-school hunters themselves. However, behind the scenes, some truly unsettling propositions were put forward.

One of them suggested classifying all Awakened as mutated beings and placing them within the category of enemies that needed to be eliminated.

Looking back now, it was a thoroughly Chinese way of thinking, but in reality, the first place this idea took root was the United States.

The background was simple: the massive corporations that had been making a fortune from monsters were now on the verge of collapse due to the emergence of the Awakened. In response, they lobbied politicians, who in turn exerted influence over the military and hunter organizations—a story as old as time.

We, too, had developed tactics against the Awakened.

I wasn’t personally involved, but I knew that Jang Ki-young had spearheaded a fairly serious initiative.

Not long after, funding was cut, the Awakened system took over, and everyone involved ended up jobless.

Still, a few useful lessons from that research remained etched in my mind.

Understanding how Awakened individuals perceive humans, the way clairvoyants see through objects and their limitations, methods to prevent limited telepaths from reading one’s thoughts, and theoretical countermeasures against Awakened of level five or higher.

I have no way of knowing the exact level of the Awakened approaching me now.

The ones who’ve revealed themselves are low-level Awakened, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a level five or higher among them.

Not that it would make much of a difference.

The battlefield I’ve chosen is a maze of debris and rubble, a tight space designed for close-quarters combat.

“He’s inside! He’s alone!”

The atmosphere is noticeably different from before.

Previously, they hunted me like prey, quietly and discreetly, and then withdrew.

But this time, they’ve come in force, with the explicit goal of killing me.

“Ahhh!”

A distant scream echoes from beyond the wall.

Someone fell into a trap.

At the very least, they’ve lost the use of their ankle. If they don’t die outright, they’ll be left with a wound severe enough to be fatal in this environment.

I had embedded rusted metal shards and filthy glass pieces into the trap, just like a beast’s fangs.

A simple sneaker sole wouldn’t have been enough to protect them. The shards would’ve pierced right through, leaving a gaping hole in their foot.

“Aaagh! Fuck! It hurts! It fucking hurts!”

The agonized wails continued, and from them, I reaffirmed something—my enemy was young.

But youth does not equal innocence or kindness.

In my opinion, human innocence isn’t something innate; it’s the result of education and nurturing.

Ignorance and inexperience are often mistaken for purity.

“...”

I remained still, waiting for my enemies to come into view.

The most dangerous Awakened in combat are those with overwhelming specs, like Kang Han-min. But in reality, the most troublesome ones are the sensory-type Awakened.

We had done extensive research on how to counter them, and the conclusions were always the same.

No matter what we did, there was no way to completely escape their perception, so the best strategy was to turn their abilities against them.

Just because someone knows your location doesn’t mean they’ll win the fight.

In the end, the victor is always the one who is better trained and better prepared.

I intended to teach that lesson to these kids.

Step. Step.

They approached the outpost.

I waited in silence.

“He’s inside!”

The first floor of the outpost has no windows.

It’s surrounded on all sides by thick concrete walls.

No matter how many rounds they fire, there’s no way bullets will penetrate.

Creeeak—

They opened the door.

At that moment, I counted at least eight hostiles approaching the outpost.

A significant numerical disadvantage.

But I ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) chose not to dwell on their numbers.

My task was simple.

Kill them one by one as they entered my field of view.

“He’s behind the wall!”

Bang!

They kicked the door.

But I had locked it.

On purpose.

I needed them to struggle to get inside so they wouldn’t immediately realize it was a trap.

Of course, the most paranoid among them might suspect something, but even then, what could they do?

Unlike a sealed bunker, releasing gas here wouldn’t be as effective, and besides, I already had a military-grade gas mask within arm’s reach, ready to use.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunshots rang out as they fired at the lock.

Creak.

The door slowly swung open.

“He’s in there. Right there.”

A whisper.

Let’s see who goes first.

Slide.

Soft, gliding footsteps from the entrance, moving cautiously into the corridor.

One person.

No, two.

They were trying their best to move quietly, but in this confined space, at this short distance, it was meaningless.

Unless they were completely off guard, even an untrained individual would sense their presence.

I was sitting on a backless stool, eyes closed.

I don’t care for theatrics, but this was my way of sending a message in case a clairvoyant was among them.

A silent declaration: I am weak. I have no will to fight.

If I had to compare it, it was like the emoji responses that “Keltoni” would post on every thread in the Red Archive forum.

In a battlefield where life and death are decided in an instant, very few people are immune to the rush of adrenaline, and adrenaline often leads to rash decisions.

For what it’s worth, I seem to produce less adrenaline than most.

Step.

They were right in front of me.

I opened my eyes and raised my gun.

But they didn’t stop.

I quickly realized why.

A shield.

They had likely modified the door of an armored vehicle.

Given its considerable weight, the man carrying it had to be massive.

His body wasn’t visible yet, but judging by the position of the shield, he had to be at least 190 centimeters tall.

The moment I saw the shield, I dropped to the ground.

“Kill him!”

With the sound of footsteps pounding the floor, a towering figure emerged, shield raised in front of him.

At the same time, slightly staggered behind him, I spotted another man holding a pistol.

The shield-bearer pressed forward, keeping the shield flush against his body to fully protect himself.

Bang!

He should’ve brought a bigger shield.

“AAARGH!”

As he rushed forward, the slight shift in the shield revealed a gap—just enough for a bullet to find its mark.

The shot shattered his left ankle, forcing his leg to twist violently under his own weight.

As his massive frame crumbled, I sprang forward like a coiled spring and kicked the shield.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Burdened by his sheer bulk and heavy equipment, the man stumbled backward, colliding into the one behind him.

As the two of them tumbled to the ground, I steadied my aim and fired two more shots.

Bang! Bang!

Two down.

A tense silence settled over the room.

Then, from beyond the door, I heard a voice—young, trembling but furious.

“Jong-han. Jong-han.”

The dead do not answer.

The boy tried another name.

“Bbak-gu. Bbak-gu!”

He called the giant by his name but addressed the smaller one with a mocking nickname.

A classic sign of adolescent social dynamics.

“...You bastard.”

The boy turned his rage on me.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you. Do you even know what you’ve done? You’re not getting off easy.”

“······.”

“You bastard. Huh? I’m gonna flay you alive, piece by piece. I’ll make sure you can’t live or die for at least a month. You think I can’t do it? I’ve done it plenty of times before, you fucker. Yeah?”

While the boy rambled on about the gruesome things he planned to do to me, I retrieved the shield from the corpse slumped against the wall.

Before leaning out into the hallway leading to the door, I checked the angles using a mirror to confirm if anyone had a shot on me. Once I was certain that no one was aiming a gun in my direction, I continued my work without worry.

As long as he kept talking, I could pinpoint his location.

“I’ll rip out your nails, pluck out your eyes, and tear out your tongue...”

After recovering the shield, I picked up a pistol.

Since the boy showed no signs of stopping his senseless rant, I also dragged the two corpses closer to me.

I positioned the larger one in a cross-legged sitting posture and stacked the smaller one on top.

A makeshift barricade of bodies.

As I recalled similar tactics used in China, I finally responded to the boy, who was still rambling on.

“Are you good at pulling things out?”

“What?!”

“If you’re that good at pulling things, why don’t you do some gacha pulls for me?”

At last, he stopped talking.

Instead, I heard frantic footsteps.

The sound pattern was exactly what I had been hoping for.

A full-on charge.

They were planning to rush me all at once, hoping to overwhelm me with sheer numbers.

A foolish strategy, typical of rookies who had grown overconfident in their abilities, treating every hunt as an easy game.

I pulled out my trump card.

A grenade.

I held two in my hands, pulled the safety pins simultaneously, and waited for them to “mature” before tossing them beyond the barricade, making sure they bounced off the wall before landing outside.

They rushed in right after.

Tatata-tata-tata-tang!

A barrage of gunfire erupted.

They were spraying bullets wildly.

Their magazines ran dry almost instantly.

“Now! Go get him!”

“No, wait. Something fell—”

“What fell?”

Even in the midst of the chaos, one of them peeked around the wall.

That was as far as he got.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two grenades detonated.

The brutal force of the blasts, along with the storm of shrapnel they sent flying, ensured that none of them survived.

Before the reverberations of the explosion even faded, I swiftly reloaded my gun and charged through the dust-filled corridor.

Grrrr...

A figure still writhing in agony was visible through the thick dust cloud, but I ignored them and pressed forward.

I spotted the wide-open door.

Dashing through it, I scanned the outside surroundings.

Through the lingering haze, three blurry figures stood in the fog.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three shots.

No, two kills.

One of them had the reflexes to dodge just enough to avoid a fatal hit.

I approached the fallen boy.

A face I had never seen before, but I had no trouble recognizing him as one of the murderers who had previously tried to kill me.

His faintly glowing eyes were unsettling, but what disturbed me more was the broken soul reflected in them—something that only those who had forsaken their own humanity possessed.

“Fuck...”

I swiftly slammed the butt of my rifle against his temple, knocking him unconscious, then executed a final shot to make sure.

Bang!

I moved on to confirm the others’ status.

I delivered a crushing kick to the groin of the male target.

For the female, I stomped down on her throat with enough force to snap her neck.

“······.”

Neither showed any signs of life.

I returned to the outpost and repeated the same process.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I finished off the three who were still breathing, then sat on a chair to catch my breath.

Once my breathing steadied, I picked up my radio and reported.

“This is Outpost 328. I engaged a hostile group and have eliminated them all. No, wait. I see lights.”

A bright glow flickered through the fog.

A vehicle.

And it was coming from the same route as the supply truck that regularly delivered my rations.

I spoke into the radio.

“Did you send reinforcements?”

“No, we have no reports of any units dispatched to your location.”

Keeping my gun ready, I climbed onto the roof and went prone, carefully observing the vehicle’s approach.

There was a fifty-fifty chance.

And I never let optimism cloud my judgment.

On the battlefield, there are only two types of people—those trying to kill me and those who aren’t.

Due to the thick fog, the vehicle moved slower than usual, its fog lights cutting through the mist as it reached the edge of my territory.

Armed soldiers disembarked.

“Are you with the government?” I called out.

Since our main enemy wasn’t human and civilians had no reason to be here, we didn’t use challenge passwords at this location.

The soldiers looked in my direction.

I didn’t remove my finger from the trigger guard as I observed their movements.

“Are you Park Gyu?” one of them asked.

“Yes.”

My finger remained inside the trigger guard.

“We received reports that you were under attack.”

“Yes.”

The soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, scanning their surroundings cautiously.

“Where are the hostiles?” one of them asked.

“I took care of them. But where exactly did you come from?”

I still hadn’t removed my finger from the trigger guard.

It was clear they weren’t manhunters, but that didn’t mean they weren’t here to kill me.

The sergeant, distinguished by his rank insignia, looked up at me.

He flinched slightly at the sight of my raised gun, but quickly blinked and spoke.

“...The Savior sent us.”

“The Savior...?”

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I knew such a figure existed.

But since when had "Savior" become a proper noun rather than just a title?

I recalled the concept of an oxymoron from a book I once read as I waited for his next words.

“Savior Na Hye-in sent us.”

A title, then.

I let out an involuntary scoff before asking,

“Na Hye-in?”

“Yes. Savior Na Hye-in personally appeared before the council and requested your rescue.”

“······.”

I exhaled a bitter laugh and finally withdrew my finger from the trigger guard.

“Where are the hostiles?” the sergeant asked, his face tense.

With my rifle slung over my shoulder, I slowly descended the stairs and answered,

“I’ll show you.”

As I stepped down, the stench of blood and feces assaulted my nose.

But what my mind conjured wasn’t the grotesque battlefield before me.

I saw a clear blue sky.

A vast horizon, unlike anything you could see in Korea.

Railroad tracks stretching into the distance, lined with cosmos flowers in bloom.

“So it was him after all.”

My 99% certainty had solidified into an unshakable fact.

As I recalled the blurred face of someone from long-forgotten memories, I silently mouthed the words:

“...Good work.”

Because I wasn’t the only one fighting this struggle.

Each of us had faced our own battles in our own places.

And each of us had achieved our own results.

Tomorrow was something to look forward to.

But first, these bodies needed to be dealt with.

The truth about these young murderers would only come to light the following morning, roughly nine hours later.