Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 137: Keepsake

There was now an empty space.

“I didn’t talk to him much, but he seemed like a good guy.”

“Yeah... it’s a shame.”

“He was always holed up in his bunker, so there wasn’t much chance to talk.”

“Felt like he was avoiding us sometimes.”

The hunters hadn’t had much interaction with Ballantine, so his disappearance didn’t seem to shake them or stir any grief.

They wouldn’t show it in front of me, but I was sure there were a few among them who were quietly glad he was gone.

To them, Ballantine had always been dead weight—someone with a skill set centered around the internet, which meant absolutely nothing in terms of survival.

Maybe if I’d gone first, Ballantine would’ve followed after me instead.

The ones with any real connection to him were Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother and Rebecca with her daughter.

“Ballantine. Good person. A shame.”

Rebecca was probably the person who’d bugged Ballantine the most.

“Poor Ballantine. I hope he finds peace in the next world.”

Sue had also seen Ballantine up close, often standing beside Rebecca.

The two of them offered a small prayer in front of Ballantine’s bunker.

Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother wasn’t as close to Ballantine as they were, but as one of the only two non-combat personnel in the area, she’d shared a certain kind of understanding with him.

Looking at Ballantine’s now-empty bunker, she let out a sigh.

“Maybe... he didn’t have much attachment to life.”

She placed a few wild chrysanthemums on top of the bunker.

“Men can’t live long without something to support them. Maybe when they’re young, sure, but once they realize there are no more opportunities and they can’t do anything anymore, they give up too easily.”

I didn’t necessarily agree with her, but from Ballantine’s perspective, I could understand that his life probably didn’t feel like much.

Didn’t seem like there was anything fun in it.

He had a goal, and that goal gave his life meaning—but that goal eventually demanded his life in return.

“...”

Still, I think he was probably able to die with a smile on his face.

As I stood in silence, Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother suddenly turned to me and asked,

“Park Gyu, are you planning to get married?”

So this is why Da-jeong never liked this lady.

“Sorry?”

“I was talking about needing something to lean on.”

“Ah... yeah.”

“As you get older, a man needs a home.”

“Is that so?”

“Absolutely. If that man had had a family, I don’t think he would’ve thrown away his life so easily.”

“Let’s stop with that line of talk.”

I said it with a touch of displeasure and left the scene.

Well, maybe she had a point.

The words of older folks often reflect truths that are generally accepted.

But that doesn’t make them universal truths.

Let’s say I did decide to get married.

Who would I even marry?

The most likely candidate, Hong Da-jeong, I’d already turned down myself.

No other names come to mind.

With my personality, if I were going to get married, I’d need to actually like the person first.

The only one who fits that condition might be Na Hye-in.

But my interest in her is more about her skills and background than her as a person.

And physically, she’s just way too far away.

There’s no other woman that comes to mind.

Rebecca’s a comrade. Song Yoo-jin... she’s too good for me.

If I had to narrow it down, maybe Woo Min-hee?

“Ha.”

I laughed without meaning to.

Woo Min-hee, seriously?

I must’ve been lonelier than I thought.

The fact that I even considered her as a serious candidate...

Holding back a smirk, I stepped into Ballantine’s now-empty bunker.

It still held a few faint glimmers of light.

His computer and network equipment, left behind.

Seeing that he hadn’t even shut down the computer, I began to think—maybe Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother was wrong.

Maybe he hadn’t planned to die.

Maybe he really did think he’d come back.

“...”

This is the first time I’ve had to sort through someone’s belongings since I was a child—excluding the vague, frayed memories of that time.

During the war, I lost countless comrades, but I never dealt with their personal effects.

What I handled was the paperwork—checking the boxes for “deceased” or “missing in action.”

I usually checked “deceased.”

Even if it wasn’t confirmed, I wrote it anyway.

I didn’t want to leave behind false hope, and legally, it was easier for the surviving family members if it was classified as death rather than disappearance.

There were people whose job it was to handle the keepsakes.

They wore white clothes and masks—locals from China.

They spoke Korean, so they were probably ethnic Koreans, but they never revealed their identities and had no reason to talk to us.

They would quickly sort the belongings—what should be sent to the family, what could be discarded—then carefully wrap the keepsakes and ship them to Korea.

Never thought I’d be the one doing that job.

Thunk. Thunk.

First thing I had to do—just like those keepsake handlers—was sort everything out.

But the times had changed, and so had the standards.

Back then, the focus was on what to send to the family and what to throw away.

Now, in our world, the question is: can it be used or not?

In a world where everything is precious and can never be replaced, that’s what matters.

Keepsakes in the narrower sense—things meant for loved ones—can be decided later, once everything’s been sorted.

Most of Ballantine’s belongings were computers and network equipment.

All of it still usable. All of it incredibly hard to find again.

Even if we don’t use it now, it’s worth keeping.

Cover it with industrial plastic to keep dust out, store it in a corner of the garage—that’s good enough.

Clothes are also usable.

Unlike before the war, clothes today are inherently valuable.

You can wear them yourself, trade them, or repurpose them as materials for something else.

Ballantine had more clothes than I expected.

Among them, oddly enough, was a full suit and a pair of polished dress shoes in a cardboard box.

“...”

What did he plan to do with those?

Job interview?

I packed up all the clothes, including the suit, shoes, and even the underwear.

There were things that had to be thrown away, too.

Moldy mushrooms and dried fruits, already rotted through.

Parts he’d already marked as scrap during his lifetime, a suitcase with broken wheels and holes, a crushed pair of glasses without lenses, adult items too old and worn to function.

There were also the decorations on display in the most prominent spot inside the bunker—those had to go.

A thumb-sized Empire State Building mini-figure, a few Lego minifigs, and a cannon-mounted ball-shaped model.

Ornaments of all kinds and origins, neatly lined up on the shelves—but not a single family photo among them.

Maybe there was one in his wallet or something, but it was clear Ballantine didn’t have much of a past worth remembering.

I finished sorting most of his belongings.

They fell into three categories:

Things that could be useful, things to throw away, and things on the shelf.

“...”

Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind—if I died, how would my keepsakes be sorted?

I have a lot of stuff.

Useful things, and things full of memories.

Well, I did build a big, fancy bunker, so of course I have a lot.

I’ve got all sorts of memorabilia, too.

Certificates, plaques of appreciation from presidents and officials, medals, honors, golden fleece, various types of formalwear, school and war-time photos from China.

If I died, would all those things just be thrown out?

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Probably everything except the clothes would get dumped in the wasteland.

Even those Chinese handlers threw most mementos into garbage bags and incinerated them.

If I die, the things in my bunker cabinets will probably be discarded too.

That’s what memories are.

What’s meaningful to one person is just a meaningless echo to someone else.

Clang! Clang!

Hammering sounds echoed from outside.

They were building the winter house.

Now that the weather’s turning cold, everyone’s putting their strength into the construction.

The foundation and frame are done, but constant new improvements and requests keep the work going endlessly.

Honestly, I should be out there helping.

Considering the urgency of the task, it makes more sense to build something that’ll protect the living through the winter than to sort through a dead man’s keepsakes.

But I’m doing this first for another reason.

I’m trying to find a way to break into the Jeju intranet—specifically, the Red Archive board.

I don’t know anything about network tech, but I believe Ballantine left something behind in his legacy to make it possible.

Somewhere, somehow. I believe he planned for it.

“...”

But I couldn’t find anything.

No matter how hard I looked, there wasn’t a single trace of Jeju intranet data to be found.

I’d already combed through the computer ages ago.

Ran deep scans on the hard drive multiple times, even connected all the spare drives to check.

Nothing.

Maybe the truth was right in front of me, and I just couldn’t see it because I didn’t know what I was looking at.

But still, knowing Ballantine—his warm, kind personality—I felt sure he would’ve left behind some kind of manual in case something happened to him.

But if it wasn’t here, then it wasn’t here.

I couldn’t just keep holed up in here while everyone else was outside working, either.

I was about to wrap up and head out when Sue stepped into the bunker.

“Skeleton, what are you doing?”

She had a gun slung over her shoulder—probably just got off perimeter duty.

“Sorting through Ballantine’s stuff.”

“Yeah?”

She looked around, scanning the items I’d sorted and the ones I hadn’t yet touched.

“Looking for something?”

“Does he have a journal or anything?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to read it, if he did.”

“He didn’t leave anything like that.”

A journal, huh...

How many people even keep a journal these days?

Back in Jang Ki-young’s time, I guess a lot of people still did. But as the world got more advanced and comfortable, journaling became «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» less and less common.

Still, I do write in a journal sometimes.

Not every day. Not for daily thoughts or feelings.

Just short, simple entries when something big happens—like writing a mission report.

Ballantine’s death was one of them.

It went like this:

- Ballantine is dead.

I could’ve added more, but I didn’t.

It’s not for anyone else. It’s for me.

Sue stood silently, staring at the shelf I was about to clear out next.

“Do you think Ballantine went somewhere nice?”

She asked while looking at the trinkets on the shelf.

“No idea.”

I don’t believe in the afterlife.

Once you’re dead, that’s it.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

“Wait.”

Sue’s eyes sparkled with curiosity as she examined the little junk items.

“Can I touch this?”

Some of them did look like rare toys or collectibles. It was understandable that she’d be drawn to them.

“Well, Ballantine’s not around to object. And these guys probably don’t want to end up tossed away either. If there’s something you want, you can take it.”

“Really?”

She reached for the Empire State Building miniature first.

“I think my mom would like this.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

“What else...”

Sue scanned the shelf seriously, eyes narrowed.

I figured she’d pick one of the Lego minifigs.

Nope.

She grabbed the round model with a cannon attached.

“Skeleton. What is this?”

“Dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’m not really into robots.”

Jang Ki-young liked this kind of stuff.

Me? I’m not a fan of moving machines. Got burned pretty bad by drones when I was in China.

Sue suddenly shook the round model.

“Hmm?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear something inside?”

“Like what?”

“A rattle?”

Now that she mentioned it, there was something inside.

Probably just a loose part rolling around.

I didn’t think much of it—until Sue suddenly gripped the sides and popped it open like a box.

“Huh?”

Something fell out.

I assumed it was just a model part and didn’t even look.

But Sue wasn’t like me.

“Skeleton?”

“What?”

“Isn’t this it?”

She brought over a small object, no bigger than her finger.

“What is it?”

An SSD drive.

With a sticky note attached.

-For backup

*

The USB Sue found held the entire essence of “Ballantine,” the man I hadn’t been able to find in his bunker.

The structure of Failnet, how to build the network, server maintenance tips, things to prepare—everything he learned while working with Jonnaenon, down to the nitty-gritty details.

He’d even saved a personal collection of videos and games—of course, some of them were rated 18+.

Countless personal photos. Judging by the pictures, Ballantine used to be in a bunch of hobby clubs before the war. There were banners showing swing dance, hiking, surfing, music recitals, even a divorced singles group.

Among all those pictures, not a single one seemed to feature his wife. Not even a single photo with family.

“Ballantine really did everything he wanted to do, huh.”

Sue said it like she was a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of photos.

“He could die without regrets...”

“...”

One thing stood out on the backup disk: educational material.

Just like how I collected DVDs about survival tactics in my bunker, Ballantine had stored an entire archive on network building and site development inside that tiny SSD.

While I had store-bought resources from America, Ballantine had scraped and preserved everything from the internet himself. That small contrast said a lot about the subtle differences between us.

The most important folder was the last one—titled “TO SKELTON.”

- To Mr. Skeleton

“...”

Ballantine was Ballantine.

A kind man.

Inside the folder was a text file labeled readme.txt.

- If Mr. Skeleton is reading this, it probably means I died without even leaving a body behind.

If you’re not Mr. Skeleton, you can ignore this. It’s technical stuff anyway.

The rest of the folder contained a method for infiltrating the Jeju intranet—specifically, a full hack of the Red Archive board.

According to the files, the backdoor was already set up.

Since the Necropolis invaders had already entered Viva! Apocalypse!, all that was left was to find a way to go through that door.

Not that it’d be easy for someone like me with no networking knowledge—it would still take days of trial and error.

But the most crucial breakthrough came thanks to Sue.

“Thanks, Sue.”

I meant it.

That little kid had grown up to give me something this big.

“It’s nothing, Skeleton. Really.”

“You sure there’s nothing you want?”

“Your bunker.”

“Yeah, no.”

“Stingy.”

As we looked over Ballantine’s true keepsake together, I asked her something I’d been wondering.

“How’d you know to find it?”

“Ballantine always played with that thing.”

“So?”

“Well, there’s gotta be a reason if someone’s always fiddling with something, right?”

So that was it.

Simple, but it made perfect sense.

I scanned the disk more carefully.

Checked for the most recently modified file.

A photo.

It had been added the day before we left for Paju. Saved inside the folder labeled “Skeleton.”

“Huh? I’m in here too.”

“...Yeah, you are.”

“Skeleton? Why do you look like that all of a sudden?”

One thing’s for sure.

Ballantine didn’t dislike me.

“...”

That’s all I wanted to know.

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