Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 147.1: Mountain Lord (1)
According to the government's announcement, the artillery corps from the Legion faction that bombarded New Seoul suffered devastating losses from our army’s counterattack.
“They picked the wrong fight.”
Kim Byeong-cheol, a cigarette wedged between his fingers, was glaring at the large operations map on the table, his eyes bloodshot.
“That’s what happens. When you rule your own little kingdom for too long, you lose your sense of fear.”
He called me here because of a mission.
They wanted us to reconnoiter the devastated warlord's artillery positions, captured by drone.
It was something the military could have handled, but they called us instead because they barely had any resources left.
Kim Byeong-cheol managed to recruit a few volunteers with the lure of better treatment and food supplies, but as always, planting a flag on territory takes a lot of people.
Moreover, few of Kim Byeong-cheol’s subordinates could really be called elite. Most importantly, the drone aerial photos showed some suspicious traces.
Footprints.
Even at a glance, they were huge.
“Mutation,” Kim Daram said.
“Looks like a big cat.”
Kim Byeong-cheol nodded.
“We actually sent a small advance unit. But when they saw the shadow of a giant beast, they ran for it. And the thing is...”
He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and exhaled smoke through both his nose and ears.
“They said it looked like a tiger.”
Is there any animal more deeply embedded in Korean emotions than the tiger?
Tigers in the wild had gone extinct long ago, but we still treat them like they live beside us, appearing in countless myths, legends, stories, and media.
As for me, I have no particular feelings about tigers.
All I know is that they’re large felines, good at hiding and ambushes, opportunistic predators with explosive speed. That’s about the extent of my interest.
But not everyone thinks like me.
Plenty of people still regard tigers as mystical creatures.
“There used to be something called the Three Divine Beasts. Especially strong and troublesome «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» mutations.”
I know Kim Daram isn’t the superstitious type.
She probably just collected all the myths other people muttered about.
“Among the government-designated most-wanted mutations, there were some particularly hard to capture.”
“Was the tiger one of them?” Kim Byeong-cheol asked.
Kim Daram shook her head.
“There was one even higher.”
She chuckled, as if it sounded ridiculous even to herself, and stared tiredly at the drone footage on the monitor.
“They called it the Mountain Lord.”
*
It was common knowledge even in our time that an experienced, naturally-strong mutation could be more dangerous than a monster.
Monsters don’t generally kill humans out of personal will.
Their goal is to corrupt the Earth itself, and human casualties are just collateral damage.
Mutations are different.
While many mutations still avoid humans, the ones that include humans as “prey” actively hunt and slaughter people.
The mutation known as the Nightmare of Punjab operated in northern India for three years, killing and consuming up to a thousand humans.
If this Mountain Lord really was a tiger mutation, we couldn’t afford to be careless.
Kim Daram had information.
“I think it’s an overrated mutation.”
She and I think alike.
We prefer reality over fantasy, results over process.
“Other designated wanted mutations have objectively proven records of damage. But the Mountain Lord doesn’t have clear data showing harm.”
“Then why’s it ranked above the Three Divine Beasts or whatever?”
I hadn’t encountered every famous mutation, but I had faced my share of monsters.
Armor-wearing monkeys, killer eagle-owls, and my half-legendary friend, Gold.
Honestly, they were far tougher than most monsters.
To outrank them as the most dangerous mutation, this tiger would need something beyond just the “tiger” label.
“They say it’s because there were no survivors left to report the Mountain Lord’s attacks.”
“Really?”
“They say isolated villages and shelters were its hunting grounds. And quite a few villages and shelters vanished.”
“Couldn’t it have been human work?”
“If it were early in the war, we couldn’t rule out Chinese special forces. But apparently, tiger-like footprints were found at the destroyed sites.”
Kim Daram sighed, staring at the drone photos on her tablet.
“All those little things added up to build the legend of the Mountain Lord.”
I stared at her and asked.
“Do you actually believe it exists?”
“No.”
She answered firmly.
At dawn, the recon team set out.
Eight members.
Four hunters, three soldiers, one driver.
We were assigned a wheeled armored vehicle.
A high-altitude recon drone flew overhead, giving us real-time alerts about any threats along the route.
Since the enemy was strong, both our equipment and personnel were top-tier.
“You didn’t really have to come, Senior.”
Kim Daram spoke while checking her gear.
We were still awkward with each other.
Once the best teammates, too many things had happened between us.
I knew we would never go back to trusting each other like before.
Maybe it was wisdom that comes with age — or maybe it was just lingering suspicion.
“Not like I have anything better to do. Looks like they’ll be busy with mop-up operations for a while. Besides—”
I smirked.
“If the Mountain Lord really exists, I want to see it myself.”
Kim Daram stared at me for a moment, then suddenly seemed to remember something.
“Come to think of it, Senior — you used to like the Nightmare of Punjab, didn’t you?”
“Nightmare of Punjab?”
I pretended not to know.
“That tiger mutation that appeared in India.”
“Oh, that one.”
“You said once, back in school, that if you ever went to India, you wanted to try hunting it.”
“I said that?”
“Yeah. You hardly ever talked about personal stuff, but you said that clearly. I remember.”
“······Really?”
She was probably right.
Even back then, my morbid curiosity was obvious.
When India was collapsing, the world debated whether to intervene or abandon it. Many young people volunteered to go.
Most of them died along with India.
But a few lucky ones returned, bringing back precious information. I devoured those reports.
The Nightmare of Punjab was one of them.
It was famously notorious.
“Maybe because it's another tiger, I thought maybe you volunteered for this mission because of that.”
“That’s not it. I’m just curious about the name 'Mountain Lord.'”
Mountain Lord (San-gun) — in old Korea, it was another name for a mountain god.
In the Joseon Dynasty, it also referred to ferocious tigers that caused disasters.
It’s impossible to know if real tigers still exist in Korea.
Tigers went extinct in the wild long ago.
But you can’t rule out the chance that a zoo tiger mutated.
Still, the most likely explanation is a mutated cat.
If a cat’s fur pattern happened to resemble a tiger’s, and if that cat attacked enough people, it could easily have spawned the Mountain Lord myth.
“Really?”
Kim Daram asked abruptly, but I didn’t answer.
There was a reason.
“······.”
I needed a new story material.
Not for reality — for the internet.
Recently, someone had started imitating me.
*
I had intended to prolong our message board’s life by bringing in users from Necropolis, but as always, good intentions come with side effects.
Mangae3713: (Jeremy Irons) The so-called World Star “Ainz’s” Last Moments (3)
At first, I didn’t mind.
I thought of him as a nice kid, inspired by me — the legendary name of the board — trying to mimic me.
After all, that familiar post title.
John_naenon to Skelton — the perfect expression of my identity.
But I started getting annoyed when I noticed this nobody’s posts constantly — no, always — making it to the popular board.
Mangae118: (Jeremy Irons) The Sad Ending of National Little Sister “Yang Ja-hee” (3)
Jeremy Irons.
This malicious imitator had an oddly deep knowledge of past celebrities’ tragic fates.
Like some critics pointed out, I believe Jeremy Irons’s “tragic celebrity endings” series is pure fiction — not fact-based.
But the idiots filling the board didn’t care.
Mangae894: Wow······ Yang Ja-hee turned into a raider······?
Mangae7313: Why’d she go to Busan if she wasn’t even from there?
Mangae3121: There was a rumor her divorced mom was from Busan. Sounds plausible.
Mangae211: She probably got abused by soldiers before she was executed······?
...
...
They were eating up Jeremy Irons’s fake stories like candy.
Yeah, Koreans love gossip and celebrities, I know that.
But four years into the war, and people still care about celebrity gossip?
Maybe it’s the lure of words like “last moments” and “tragedy” that draws clicks.
I’m not bragging, but I have a decent sense for storytelling too.
It’s not usually a named user's job to chase trends, but I figured — new city, new beginning — I’d revive my old “Skelton’s Story Series.”
SKELTON: (Original Skelton) Skelton’s Story Series (1)
This story was about Finger Princess Yeo Sa-yul.
A true top-tier actress before the war, not some second-rate like Jeremy Irons’s subjects.
After the war, she vanished — but later showed up on our board, where I built a slight internet rapport with her.
I kept it simple. No dramatic twists.
Just 100% true.
A different league compared to Jeremy Irons’s sci-fi nonsense.
To help it along, I even upvoted it and commented with my alt account.
Dr.Emiless: Hm... So that happened to the “national actress” Yeo Sa-yul...
But that ended up being the only comment.
Even though Necropolis had brought thousands of new users.
None of those swarmy idiots commented.
Already pissed about the knockoff stealing my thunder, it hurt more than it should’ve.
So I reposted.
SKELTON: (Original Skelton) Skelton’s Story Series “Yeo Sa-yul’s Whereabouts” (1)
...
SKELTON: (Original Skelton) Skelton’s Story Series “Yeo Sa-yul’s Sad Ending” (1)
...
SKELTON: (Original Skelton) Skelton’s Story Series “Yeo Sa-yul’s Shocking End” (1)
...
Changed the title multiple times, but still nothing.
Then:
Anonymous458: Skelton. Why the hell are you reposting so much? It's pathetic.
A fellow board member I knew well threw that at me.
I asked him directly.
SKELTON: Why’s no one commenting on my posts?
Anonymous458 replied coldly.
Anonymous458: They’re boring.
Boring.
Which kind of boring?
Was the fact-based nature of my stories boring?
Or was it the lack of drama in the endings?
Maybe people just weren’t interested in Yeo Sa-yul anymore — she had been overexposed even before the war.
Adding insult to injury, Jeremy Irons posted a new story right after my repost spree.
Anonymous5321: (Jeremy Irons) The Whereabouts of “One-Hit Wonder” Jang Hye-na (1)
While my post barely scratched one upvote, his blew past twenty and hit the popular board.
Click.
Grinding my teeth, I read his post.
“······.”
It was entertaining.
But the real difference was in the material.
He just found better material.
If I find better material, the battered “Skelton’s Story Series” could regain its old glory.
Maybe that’s why I’m here now.
“Here we are.”
The armored car stopped.
The drone operator’s voice crackled over the radio.
“No hostile forces detected in the operation zone. Repeat, no hostile forces detected. However, proceed with caution — ambush possible.”
Kim Daram and I exchanged glances.
Click—
The vehicle door opened, and soldiers with reinforced plastic shields moved out first.
“Clear!”
I stepped out into the snowy field beyond the human wall.
Low mountain terrain.
Buried under snow from the night, but here and there, broken artillery wreckage poked out.
They had bombarded New Seoul confidently, but were caught by counterbattery radar and wiped out.
Frozen hands and legs sticking out of the snow told the story — they hadn't even been able to recover the bodies.
“I’ll do the search. Senior, you take watch.”
Trying to act the junior, Kim Daram volunteered for the dirty work.
Or maybe she just wanted to earn a little credit.
I strolled around lightly with an unknown soldier.
Soon something caught my eye.
Animal tracks.
“······These are huge.”
The soldier muttered, awestruck.
They were massive.
Bigger than an adult human head.
Definitely not a cat.
Far bigger than any size a mutated cat could reach.
It might really be a tiger.
A mutated Siberian tiger, never before recorded.
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