Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 149.5: Janggi (5)
Bang!
A gunshot rang out—suddenly, and not from our side.
The opposite direction.
I held my breath and watched.
From a distance, a man’s voice echoed down the tunnel, laced with a senseless chuckle.
“Fucking rat bastard.”
It came from the barricade on the far side of the tracks. Likely a reaction to a mutated rat.
We’d seen one too. And if there’s one, there are more.
With the cause understood, I resumed my crawl.
Ssshh—
I reached the 150-meter mark.
Up ahead, a concrete beam connecting to the ceiling jutted out slightly—perfect cover.
I tucked in underneath it and quietly laid out spare magazines for easy access.
I didn’t want a long engagement, but I needed to be prepared.
I watched the vague silhouettes beyond the green glow of my night vision.
My target: the machine gun nest.
To truly neutralize it, I’d have to crawl close enough to throw a grenade. But doing that left no fallback.
Even if I destroyed the nest, I’d have no cover from the retaliation that would follow.
And more importantly, they knew how crucial that machine gun was. They’d protect it at all costs.
That was their blind spot. fгeewebnovёl.com
“Let’s begin.”
I steadied my aim at the dim silhouette lounging lazily behind the mounted gun.
Bang!
The shot dropped him in an instant.
“Ambush!”
Panic.
John the Baptist’s followers scrambled for cover, scanning to pinpoint our position.
I didn’t move. I waited.
Waited for someone to approach the body, to grab the machine gun again.
Bang!
Another shot. I revealed myself only for the moment needed to hit my mark.
Classic Hunter shooting technique.
Every Hunter has a preferred range. For me, it’s between 100 and 150 meters.
“Shit! Byeong-su’s down too!”
Their furious shouting was drowned by erratic, panicked gunfire.
Bang! Ratatatatat! Bang! Bang!
Frantic, inaccurate suppression fire. They still couldn’t locate me.
“Secure the gun! Now!”
Click—
Another fool grabbed the handles.
Before he could pull the trigger—
Bang!
A lesson.
Let them grab what they can’t afford to lose, then punish them for it.
It’s one of the few anti-personnel tactics Hunters favor: the whack-a-mole technique.
I almost hoped they’d keep falling for it.
But of course, they had at least one guy with a brain.
“Back away from the gun! Keep aiming that spot! Pull it from below! No exposed angles!”
I keyed into my comms.
“Advance.”
“Roger.”
Defender and his squad moved in—two composite shields up front, fast and precise.
Footsteps echoed frantically behind the barricade.
Reinforcements, most likely.
But they’d already lost initiative the moment I got this close.
Had they positioned a detection-type, the outcome might have been different. But that’s hypothetical.
Through the haze of my night vision, I only saw chaos—untrained brawlers flailing in confusion.
“There! He’s hiding there!”
Finally, someone had locked onto me.
Too late.
Bang!
A bullet between the eyes shut him up.
Now they knew who they were dealing with.
“What the fuck? He’s dropping us one by one at that range...”
“Is he Special Forces? Gotta be someone high-level.”
“No... he’s a Hunter.”
“A Hunter?”
“Yeah. One of those old-school Hunters. Thought they were extinct, but looks like one’s still alive...”
Defender’s boots were getting closer.
Time to finish it.
“Attack.”
Under my cover fire, Defender’s squad stormed forward.
Bang! Bangbangbang!
Boom!
John the Baptist’s side had more men—but they’d lost their heavy weapon, and they weren’t trained for this.
As Defender’s kill-team moved with clinical precision, resistance collapsed like dry husks in the wind.
“Fall back! To the main hall!”
Most combat casualties happen when lines break.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
As they ran, Defender’s team stood tall, taking them down with surgical shots.
Bang! Bang!
Deliberate, controlled bursts.
Every shot echoed with a scream or a death rattle.
Bang!
Defender dropped another.
“AAAAAGH!”
He’d hit one in the leg—on purpose.
I broke from cover and followed.
Defender approached the wounded man, still clutching his leg. He kicked the weapon away and pressed a knee to the guy’s throat.
“How many left?”
No answer.
Thwack!
Defender smashed his hand with the butt of a pistol.
“How many?”
Shhhink—
He drew a sword.
The man froze in terror, staring at the blade just inches from his face.
“W-We’re mostly dead! Two ran away! Four left total—one man, three women!”
Bang!
Defender granted him peace.
We pushed forward into the terminal.
My recon had told me this station had eight exits—all sealed.
A dead end.
We approached the stairs. Using a mirror, we peeked inside.
Empty.
We moved in slowly, carefully covering all angles.
One door.
Recently used. Blood-stained footprints hurried inside.
“That’s the one.”
A poor choice of ground for a last stand—shows lack of experience.
We surrounded the entrance and I spoke loud enough to be heard inside.
“Come out with your hands up. We’re not here to kill you.”
No answer.
Using the mirror again, I ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ checked the crack in the door.
A lone man stood inside, arms spread.
I signaled for a ceasefire.
Could be a regular Awakened.
“Did the government send you?” the man asked, slow and composed, his tone distinctly Seoulite.
No trace of northern accent.
“Drop your weapon and come out with your hands up. You have my word—if you don’t resist, you won’t be harmed. You have five minutes.”
I didn’t mention the child.
Never show your hand early—that’s how negotiations work.
After a pause, the voice replied.
“If it’s data you want, I can provide it.”
“...Are you John the Baptist?”
“So they call me. I’m not even Christian.”
“Four minutes left.”
I rattled the grenades on my harness.
Then—
Boom!
A shockwave.
Not staged.
That was either from a fully Awakened being... or a monster.
I immediately signaled for everyone to fall back.
In the tense silence, the composed voice returned.
“I don’t know whose orders you’re under, but we’ve done it. We’ve found a way to make humans Awakened. What North Korea and China desperately tried and failed to achieve—we’ve achieved.”
Bullshit.
That was my first thought.
Then—
Boom!
Another wave.
“Lee-seo. Come out.”
John the Baptist’s calm voice echoed. And from the doorway, a child emerged.
The one I knew.
No doubt.
The same child I sent, and later regretted sending.
She looked at us with those big, steady eyes.
Her hat was gone, hair loose.
A girl, then.
But that didn’t matter.
She was alive.
And—on the surface—seemed fine.
But that wasn’t something to feel joy over.
“What do you think?”
John the Baptist’s voice again.
A hand pulled her back inside.
“She’s a freshly made Awakened. Maybe you’ve met before? Not many kids show up alone right after a failed rendezvous.”
He laughed.
“Well, this saves us time. Yes, this girl is now a full-fledged Awakened. No side effects, perfectly healthy. One injection turned a powerless child into the future of this country. Amazing, isn’t it? Mr. No-Name?”
“You’ll be dead soon.”
He didn’t deserve to keep speaking.
“Like the boy Jin-ho you took.”
“Great discoveries always come with sacrifice. And let’s be honest—you knew this might happen when you sent her.”
“...”
“No need for more fighting between fellow humans,” he said.
Then he made a proposal.
“So... how about we play a little chess and talk?”
*
The room was dark.
Shelves lined the walls, but the contents were hidden in shadow.
In one corner, a wounded man was being tended to by three women. In another, the child—Lee-seo—sat curled up.
In the center, a camping table. A chessboard. Two chairs facing each other.
John the Baptist stood apart from the table.
A man with long, half-white hair.
Definitely an Awakened.
When he gestured, I took a seat.
The board was already set.
“Do you play chess?”
I shook my head.
Instead, I scoped the room.
Contrary to our captive’s claims, there were two more combatants inside.
Strangely, they wielded Chinese dao swords instead of firearms. Their faintly glowing eyes said it all—they were Awakened too.
Is one of them a regular Awakened?
Then I understand why John the Baptist seemed so confident.
“Then let’s change the rules,” he said.
He signaled to one of the sword-wielders, who sat across from me.
“Set it for Madman’s Chess.”
The man swept all the pieces off the board—except for one: the king.
From across the room, John the Baptist stared at me with glowing eyes.
“Do you know Madman’s Chess?”
“Roughly.”
“Who has the advantage, you think?”
I looked at the board.
Most would say the side with the Mad King—the one who can move twice per turn—has the edge.
But I disagreed.
Games require balance to function.
Overpowered setups often fall apart from simple counters.
And in this game, the side without the Mad King is allowed to rearrange their formation before starting.
I didn’t know much about chess, but that rule was enough for me to see the flaw.
“This side,” I said, pointing to the army facing the Mad King.
John the Baptist smiled.
The game began.
His man moved the king.
Each time he did, I lost a piece.
“You’re a Hunter, right?” John the Baptist asked, casually, as my pawn was removed.
“That fighting style... I’ve seen it. The old Guard Academy graduates used to fight like that. They were incredible, until the Awakened showed up and wiped them off the map.”
I’d seen enough.
They had blind faith in their powers.
They believed they could block bullets with their fields.
Believed those swords would be enough in close combat.
We’d see.
Click—
The Mad King took my rook.
“Ever wanted to become Awakened?” he asked.
I looked at him.
He smiled.
“Be honest. South Korea’s top monster hunters lost their jobs overnight to these Awakened freaks. Branded as ‘old school’ and tossed aside. How’d that feel?”
“Where are you from?”
“Good question. North Korea. Educated overseas. My motherland’s a hellhole, but it gave me the data I needed. Enough to spark humanity’s next evolution.”
He clapped.
Thud—
Lights came on.
The shelves revealed their contents.
Brains. Human brains, preserved in jars.
Some jars held two or three.
“I injected a refined compound derived from zombie brain matter. It was a secret Chinese project—on a Chinese scale. Outwardly, they condemned the Awakened. But secretly, they tried to mass-produce them as weapons.”
“I see.”
“The Chinese only dissected the Awakened, trying to reverse-engineer them. But it was like trying to understand a cube from one face.”
“They never got meaningful results. But I formed a new hypothesis—maybe it’s genetic.”
“...So you dismantled entire families?”
His expression changed.
Bullseye.
“And thanks to that, we made progress.”
He looked at the child.
“And now we have her.”
He clapped again.
“The experiment is done. We can make Awakened now.”
The Mad King advanced—cutting down my guard, aiming straight for my king.
But—
Clack.
“What?”
I moved an elephant into place. A wall.
His king was blocked.
Only two turns remained, and I had more pieces left to defend my king.
The Mad King wouldn’t get through.
“...Damn.”
His lieutenant looked back at him, pale.
But John the Baptist didn’t care about the game.
“Tell your superiors. Take the girl. Let’s talk.”
“What’s the success rate?”
I gripped my king and stared at him.
“Maybe one in three hundred? Could be one in a hundred.”
“What happens to the failures?”
He gave a sick grin and shook his head.
“One in a hundred... for a regular Awakened?”
I hurled the king.
It struck the only light in the room.
Shatter—
Darkness.
BOOM!
A shockwave. From John the Baptist.
But he misread the moment.
Shff—
I drew my axes and watched a dao blade sail toward me.
Clang!
I deflected with one axe—
Crunch!
—and split a man’s skull with the other.
“Turn the lights on! Now!”
Using the corpse as cover, I charged forward.
Bang! Bang!
The women fired pistols. Flashes lit the darkness, briefly outlining their positions.
I hurled the corpse toward them and slashed.
Thwack! Thwack!
Two down.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Another dao-wielder.
The wounded man on the floor tried to rise—
Crunch!
I stomped him back down and charged at John the Baptist.
“I am humanity’s future!”
CRACK!
My axe split his skull.
I shoved the body aside and yanked the weapon free.
Defender and his team burst in, their weapon lights sweeping the room.
One of them flicked the lights back on.
Only two remained.
Me—and the girl named Lee-seo.
She looked at me, scared.
I held out my hand.
“Let’s go.”
“...Are you really a Hunter?”
She asked.
I nodded.
“Yeah. I’m a Hunter.”
We walked out slowly.
“...Like your mother was.”
The fire rose behind us.
Madman’s Chess was over.
John the Baptist’s records would be lost forever.
I didn’t think that was a defeat for humanity.
If anything—it was a victory.
The next day.
A mid-sized helicopter landed in Incheon, cutting through fog and foul weather.
Kang Han-min had arrived.
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