Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 138: Pretty Boy
Deadman3821: Seoul? Even if you get there, all you’ll get is a cockroach-flavored nutrition bar. You all know the one, right? That trash bar?
Deadman45329: I heard Daegu’s totally wiped out, but Pohang seems okay. They’ve got a military faction holding it down.
Deadman3214: What about Sejong? I heard there’s a real functioning city over there.
Deadman318: Sejong’s easy to enter, easy to leave. But surviving there isn’t so easy.
Deadman8861: I just want to go to Southeast Asia. Anyone know if there's a boat?
...
...
With rumors of another cold wave and the temperature visibly dropping in real time, people began preparing for winter.
But not everyone thinks the same.
For me, the animal that best symbolizes winter survival is the ant.
Like in the story of the ant and the grasshopper, the ant sweats through the fall, stacking food and supplies in its warehouse. That’s what I see as the ideal winter strategy.
But the longer you live, the more painfully you realize that people don’t all think alike.
Online, I saw many people who thought very differently from me.
The most typical type: the migratory bird.
Deadman14010: Thinking of heading to Busan this time. Gotta be something left there, right?
Just like birds flying to warmer places to escape the cold, these types migrate to the warmer southern regions of the Korean Peninsula in search of a milder winter.
In fact, the winter temperature difference between Busan in the south and Seoul in the north can exceed 10°C.
Even during that brutal cold wave, some said the southern coastal regions like Yeongnam were still somewhat livable.
Minus 10 and minus 20 are different beasts. Minus 20 and minus 30 even more so.
They're all deadly if you just sit still, but after going through two cold waves, I’ve come to realize there are clear distinctions even among subzero temps.
Personally, I think minus 20 is survivable.
Minus 30 is when it starts getting dangerous, and minus 40—you need to hold on to your sanity with both hands.
So yeah, a 10-degree difference can mean a lot.
I don’t know the exact stats, but some claimed Busan averaged around minus 20 during the last cold wave.
But Busan isn’t habitable anymore.
After the military abandoned the rift, it became an erosion zone. Since then, no one’s heard from it.
Rumors say that past Mungyeong Saejae, only a few military strongholds remain, resisting while everything else has been overtaken by erosion.
So heading south isn’t going to get anyone far.
But hidden inside these migration plans is a different meaning:
Pillaging. And every act of survival that goes with it.
At this point, most people have become opportunistic looters, so killing and robbing someone isn’t rare anymore—but one of our PaleNet forum members got hit by a migratory bird group.
KIM_DONG_HUNG: Hey. Is this bastard your friend?
Correction.
This guy, Kim Dong-hung, may have posted on our board, but he was no friend of ours.
As the board’s secret admin, I’d been deleting his posts and banning him regularly. He was a toxic user.
And now, he’d finally met his match.
A migratory bird group caught him and uploaded a photo using his account.
The picture showed Kim Dong-hung, arms tied behind a chair, unconscious and covered in blood—clearly from a severe beating and likely torture.
*
Toxic user Kim Dong-hung first showed up on the board around the time I’d just escaped that hellish nightmare in Jeju.
Everyone hated him. His debut as our new forum villain was explosive from the start.
KIM_DONG_HUNG: Hello~
In his first post, he not only uploaded a face pic—he wasn't young, attractive, or even neutral. He had the kind of face that made you uncomfortable just looking at it.
From then on, he flooded the board with posts—always including selfies.
KIM_DONG_HUNG: Pretty boy taking a walk~
KIM_DONG_HUNG: Pretty boy's dinner!!!~~
KIM_DONG_HUNG: Pretty boy's home reveal~~
KIM_DONG_HUNG: Rainy day, and even the pretty boy feels gloomy~ like~
...
...
No one knew why, but he kept calling himself a “pretty boy” in this awkward, outdated way, always attaching fresh selfies.
The locations, backgrounds, and props changed constantly.
At first, I didn’t think much of it—but seeing a middle-aged man, definitely over 50, uploading twenty-plus selfie posts a day made me start to wonder:
Why the hell is this guy doing this?
I’ve seen my fair share of crazy.
Defender isn’t exactly mentally sound, either.
There are villains who post corpses, others who make crafts from human skin.
But Kim Dong-hung’s madness felt... different. Twisted in another direction.
Why was he so desperate to be seen?
I once heard that the language used to describe hardship changes with age.
When someone young or still a child hits rock bottom, people call it pitiful.
But when someone older ends up in the same state, they call it pathetic.
Kim Dong-hung definitely looked pathetic.
His shelter wasn’t even a bunker—it was a dilapidated building with no heat, no protection. And “Pretty boy’s dinner”? Just scraps someone else had thrown away.
One thing’s for sure: he was living in a refugee camp or something like it.
I say “something like it” because if the members of that camp actually got to choose, there’s no way they would’ve picked him as one of their own.
What pissed me off most was that he somehow got his hands on satellite internet gear—probably by luck or murder—but never once tried to connect or engage with the community. Just posted low-effort selfies with that objectively unpleasant face.
Looks like his time is finally up.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
KIM_DONG_HUNG: First off, satellite gear’s confiscated. How do I change this nickname?
Looks like we won’t have to see that mug again.
I’m not the kind of person who enjoys others’ misfortune, but in his case, I think disappearing was the better path.
Sure, a new killer will probably show up with a different mask—but I doubt they’ll be as annoying.
Seriously, how many people are out there posting over a hundred selfies of their own face every day?
Anyway, the new guy who took over Kim Dong-hung’s account clearly has some internet experience.
Kang_Young_Hun: What the hell was this guy doing to survive?
He’s only had access to Viva! Apocalypse! for less than a day, and already figured out how to change the nickname and stir up a bit of drama.
“...”
I’ve got plenty I want to say, but I’ll hold back.
A big name like me doesn’t go talking directly to newbies.
Kings and queens don’t deal with peasants directly, right?
You go through intermediaries—that’s how it works.
But with the influx of new users, even bait posts like his get replies these days.
Deadman7732: Begging?
Deadman94214: Is this guy one of those doomsday cultists?
Deadman41: Judging by the look of him, probably never hunted anything in his life.
Deadman63232: Meh, probably just leeched off others.
...
...
“Deadman” tags. New users coming in from Necropolis.
Thanks to Ballantine’s sacrifice, we’ve got access to higher bandwidth now, so even Necropolis users can see limited images.
Of course, this being Necropolis, the images are usually degraded to hell, and watching videos requires dial-up era patience—but still.
For reference, Deadman_working recommends image resolutions of 640x480 pixels.
Anyway, I’m not going to jump in the comments and hang out with the newbies, but if I were to give my opinion—
Kim Dong-hung probably survived by scavenging.
His “pretty boy” selfies always had different backgrounds.
Open fields one day, rugged mountains the next. Ruined cities, refugee camps—he’d used them all.
Anyone who moves around that much... scavenger seemed like the most convincing theory.
Kang_Young_Hun: Wrong~
But all our guesses were off.
Kim Dong-hung wasn’t a scavenger, a beggar, a farmer, or even a doomsday cultist.
Deadman4827: Then what? Don’t tell me he was a raider with that flimsy body?
Deadman7614: Maybe he was a good shot?
Deadman63232: How the hell did he survive? Don’t drag it out—spill it.
Deadman7732: Did he live off dew or something? LOL
...
...
The answer was unexpected.
Kang_Young_Hun: Executioner.
Nobody could’ve predicted that.
In a world with no prisons, no courts, where private retaliation and collective revenge are the norm, “executioner” isn’t just nonsensical—it’s a role that shouldn’t even exist.
But as if reading our confusion, this surprisingly savvy mid-tier newcomer filled us in.
Kang_Young_Hun: The bastard was a euthanasia contractor.
“...”
I’d heard whispers before.
That when the war began and people’s lives collapsed with no hope in sight, suicide became widespread.
But not everyone who wanted to die could make it happen.
Even if someone longed for death, even that final step required something this world demanded—
The ability to end your own life.
No matter how strong the desire to die, how easy is it really to leap off a 30-story building?
To throw yourself onto train tracks?
To jump from a bridge into the black, churning waters of a river?
Even now, I don’t think I could do it.
So for those desperate to die but lacking the will or means, the most broken, hardened people helped them along.
That’s what a euthanasia contractor is.
Though calling it “euthanasia” is generous. This isn’t the peaceful, clinical kind practiced in places like Canada.
They can’t offer a gentle, painless death.
Kim Dong-hung was a post-apocalypse euthanasia contractor.
He used a chair and a rope.
The same {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} chair he was tied to now, covered in blood—he’d used that very setup to tie down those who wanted to die, loop a rope around their necks, and squeeze until they stopped breathing.
Men. Women. Until they died.
Kang_Young_Hun: Looks like he killed over 100 people. The bastard even kept a ledger. Names, genders, descriptions, what they offered as payment—even this satellite rig came from some guy who wanted to die. LOL.
The list he uploaded included crippled soldiers, women who’d lost their husbands and kids, elderly people with no one left, even healthy men.
There was no pattern—no clear data trend.
Just... people in pain.
People crushed by life.
So what about Kim Dong-hung—the man who offered them relief?
Was he satisfied with his own life?
“...No.”
I don’t think so.
People only do truly bizarre things—things normal folks can’t imagine—when they can’t endure anymore.
Maybe all those ridiculous “pretty boy” selfies were a way of begging others to hate him, to judge him, to pay for his sins.
Kang_Young_Hun: Jesus. Look at these old posts. Deleted so many. And the ones left? Just rambling psychobabble. LOL
Kang_Young_Hun: “Pretty boy”? Are you kidding me?
I wasn’t there, but I could picture it.
The raider, this migratory bird, probably laughed as he beat the older man tied to a chair—punching him, kicking him, maybe using a blunt weapon.
It’s a violence I’ve seen many times.
Kang_Young_Hun: I wasn’t sure at first, but wow—what a freak. Still, lucky find. LOL
Kang_Young_Hun: Viva friends! Looks like this guy gave you all a headache, huh? Sorry on his behalf. I’ll check in now and then, so be nice!
Kang_Young_Hun: Oh, and before I go—want to see his final words?
A moment later, Kang Young-hun uploaded a short video.
Kang_Young_Hun: Final.
Just seeing that title, I knew.
Kim Dong-hung, the troll who plagued our board for so long, was dead.
Not all raiders kill their victims—but kids like these? They’d do it without a second thought.
So the video must’ve been, literally, his last words.
In a strange way, I’m the admin who interacted with Kim Dong-hung the most.
I deleted thousands of his spam posts. Banned him more times than I can count.
No one paid more attention to him than me.
So I wondered—what were his final words?
Possibility one: begging.
It’s the most common kind of last message.
Possibility two: the dramatic one.
Old philosophers used to say madmen have unique insight into truth.
Maybe, stripped of his madness at the end, he’d drop the act and speak sincerely—offering a single, meaningful line that pierced our souls.
But I doubted it.
Possibility three: the one most likely alongside the first—silence.
So... what did he choose?
With a faint flutter in my chest, I hit play.
The video opened in low resolution, showing a dark, dingy interior with a man tied up.
The camera zoomed in on his face.
Bruised. Bloodied. Kim Dong-hung’s swollen, broken face.
A masked man, probably Kang Young-hun, wearing a baseball cap, grabbed his hair and yanked his head back.
Kim Dong-hung groaned, opened his mouth—and showed blood, and gums with all his teeth torn out.
“...”
For just a moment, I felt pity.
It didn’t last.
Kim Dong-hung looked into the camera and grinned.
“Me,” he said.
“I’m a pretty boy~.”
BANG!
The video ended with a gunshot.
A few thoughts flitted through my mind, but I didn’t bother holding on to any of them.
[Delete this post?]
[Block user: Kang_Young_Hun?]
No need.
There’s nothing worth keeping.
Just then, the alarm went off.
I stepped out of the bunker and climbed the ridge, eyes fixed to the north.
Beyond the horizon, I could see them.
A crowd. Dozens, maybe more.
Migratory birds.
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