Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

After a long absence of it, I once again felt a weight in my stomach as soon as I woke up. When I opened my eyes, I could see Da-jeong was lying on top of me. She was as heavy as the pressure of being the shelter’s leader.

“…”

Albeit the weight, it’s really not bad to wake up to this sensation. Maybe it’s because Da-jeong’s fluffy body gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. The sense of security of being at home might also be the reason.

Home. Korea Shelter was my home. It’s not a place where I would stay forever, but for now, it’s like my home. Therefore, I had to work diligently to make my life there worth living.

When I turned my body to the side, Da-jeong fell to the floor. Seeing that she still slept deeply even after falling, she must have been tired. I washed my face properly and left my room.

On the first floor of the building right across mine, I could see Geom-in and Jiman. The pair was busy doing something. Leaning on the railing, I saw that they were carrying seafood from Lotus. It came from the trap I threw last night.

“Do I throw that much trap?” The amount of seafood poured into the basin was no joke given how many traps there were. It could roughly feed almost 1 company.

The reason that many fish were caught was due to Jiman. His power was just that absurd. It could be said that he’s a casanova against a non-human. When he cast a fishing rod, the biggest fish in the area would snap at it in less than 30 seconds.

“Well, the sea of Lotus is also that good.” Because there were no humans there, the sea of Lotus was very rich. Unless it was specifically polluted, it would continue to satisfy our stomachs.

As I looked around, a group of hornbills followed the two of them with a squawk. The four I stole from the knights were adults, so I’m not surprised when I looked at them, but Becky and Leggy? I just couldn’t close my mouth when I saw the two of them.

“When did they grow up like that?”

When I was dumbstruck, Dingo, Dingsoon, and the sixtuplets also came out and stretched. A peaceful shelter morning began.

I went downstairs and called Geom-in.

“Hey, Geom-in.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m sorry, but you don’t have any work to do right now, right?”

“Uh… Not yet?”

Geom-in was a useful guy. He’s quite strong and durable. On top of it, he was also knowledgeable. Therefore, the range of assignments that he could do was quite broad unlike Da-jeong and Seokhyun.

“I need you to go to China. There’s an entrance leading to China on the first floor of the Great Labyrinth, right?”

“I haven’t heard of that yet.”

“Go to Sangshin later and ask for the location. The thing I need you to do there is to find out their movement over there.”

“It’s because of that incident, huh?” Geom-in queried.

Seokhyun had wiped out the Chinese from this land. However, not all of them died. Some fled to their homeland with the same boat they took here. Since they was forced to come back, It was obvious what they would say about Korea and Koreans. If there’s a large armed force in China at this point, they would surely use that hate as a pretext to invade Korea again.

“I found out that the Korean government informed the governments of each country of the situation before the end. They also tell them to dig a bunker.”

“You mean, I need to go there and find out if there is any government movement?”

“Yeah. I’m sure they will definitely come this way.”

Given the nature of the Chinese government, I don’t think it will feel sorry for some of its own people. Which means, they would use it to rally the rest of their people.

-Koreans killed thousands of our people!
-Let’s pay back this blood tenfold, no, a hundredfold!

A good slogan was a simple one. With those, they would surely lit the spirit of Chinese’s survivors.

Geom-in heard my story and turned serious.

“The mission is hard… I mean, I have to sabotage them too, don’t I?”

“No. It was too dangerous to do that because of their numbers. Just gather enough information and come back. Take the stealth cloak with you as well.”

“What if there are enough forces and they have every intention to attack us?”

“We have to stop them in the Great Labyrinth. We can never let them step into Korean soil.” Their attack must be thoroughly defended and prevented. If we let them come to Korea for no reason, we could be screwed.

It would be even better if we completely destroyed their advanced troops beforehand and let them fall into panic, but the possibility of that happening was too low.

Geom-in looked to the west sky and said sadly. “I wish we had a little conversation from the very beginning.”

“Unlike in normal times, it is difficult to resolve conflicts through dialogue in Apocalypse.”

No, it’s not difficult, it’s close to impossible.

“I guess so…”

Hate begets hate. Breaking this chain was often called forgiveness, but not in Apocalypse. After all, someone had to kill others in order to live.

I tapped Geom-in on the shoulder and called the Houston guys and the Shiraishi family. Not long after, it was Natalie and Kenji who came to meet me.

“How are you guys doing??”

Kenji was the first one to answer my question.

“It’s a great place. The beds are comfy and the food is good.”

Natalie had a similar reaction to him.

“I never thought that being able to eat meat to my heart’s content would make me so happy.”

It looked like the two of them were pretty satisfied. Nodding my head, I proceed to give a mission to both of them. The two looked a bit surprised when they heard that there might be government forces remaining on their homeland.

“The government gave no explanation… They abandoned us.”

“Damn right! They always talked like a parrot: We are still discussing or we are still reviewing it. Disgusting bastards.”

It was understandable for the government to be unable to make a swift decision. After all, if they made one wrong move, it would affect the lives of thousands of people. However, the fact that they did not explain the circumstances to their own people until the end was an attitude worthy of criticism.

However, No one would be held accountable now.

“I know it’s a bit harsh to say it like this, but the Japanese government before the apocalypse was never kind to us, Koreans. I think you will understand.”

“It is regrettable. I wish we were a little closer…”

The relationship between the two nations was too entangled to the point it was not easy to unravel. In any case, what mattered to me was the Shiraishi family’s intention.

“If a Japanese government were to be established, what would the Shiraishi family do?”

He looked straight into my face.

“Looks like you still doubt our loyalty. I will prove it to you.”

“No, I don’t need loyalty. We are colleagues, I’m fine as long as you don’t betray us.”

“You don’t have to worry about that at all. Moreover…”

“Moreover?”

When I asked, Kenji hesitated for a long time before finally confessing.

“It seems that my younger sister is interested in Ji-man.”

Ji-man? That Yuzuka was interested in that Ji-man?

When I asked Kenji the reason for Yuzuka’s interest, he answered hesitantly.

“She said she liked the fact that he’s friendly with animals and innocent… if that’s rude…”

“It’s not rude at all since there’s a lot of girls who also like him because of that.”

“Is that so?”

On top of Yuzuka, there’s also the Texas tomboy, paige. Additionally, I’d heard that girls in their 20s at the Shelter have taken an interest in him too lately.

Unfortunately for them, Ji-man had no interest in them at all. It’s easy to get close to him, but it would be very difficult for them to make Jiman develop a feeling towards them. After all, he’s almost like a Buddha.

After parting with the two of them, I returned to the dorm. The scarabs then walked to me and presented the journal they had analyzed so far.

“Thanks.”

This is good. I just need to read them slowly while eating.

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Me, Seokhyun and Da-jeong sat together to have a meal. But my purpose for calling them to eat with me was not only to have a meal, but to also tell them something.

“Listen to me while you guys eat. First of all, Seokhyun, I want you to lead the people to attack the Great Labyrinth.”

“Aren’t they still attacking it even at this moment?”

“I want them to do it more systematically. I heard that there are people who have gone down to the second floor by now. But, I don’t want them to move like that, I want them to move like an army, you know what I mean?”

“Hmm…”

Da-jeong slapped Seokhyun on the butt at that moment.

“Don’t worry, they will take care of themselves once you take your pants off.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Then what is it?”

“The monster on the 7th floor. I want to fight it, but I can’t do it now since I have to help the people.”

Come to think of it, the reason we withdrew from the 7th floor was because of the atmosphere and that monster.

I emphasized to Seokhyun.

“The 7th floor is a blockade, so it’s hard to break through right away. I doubt that the amount of heavy weapons we have right now will work against it, so I’ll look around the bunker with Mikyung for a better weapon, so just wait.”

“Okay.”

If possible, fighting without relying on heavy weapons was better because it would give us some fighting experience. However, what can we do when it’s an environment where no answers can be found? We would have to shoot something and pierce it.

“Da-jeong, you checked while riding the gryphon, right? The area where the status window is blocked near Ezekium.” I said as I opened the research journal.

“Ah that… It made me feel really bad. The gryphon struggles too.”

“It’s called Ether blocking field. The Ezekiums were the one who invented it. It is a very troublesome item.”

According to the interpretation of the scarabs, the Aether blocking field prevented the movement of ether. However, it was also said that it couldn’t block the ether that was unique to each individual.

“It’s the same as the blockade floor on the 7th floor!” Da-jeong snapped his fingers.

“Even when the stats are intact, all other skills are blocked. Our unique ability is also blocked, so we better be careful.”

Perhaps they were even more dangerous than Giudecca. As I continued to flip through the journal, I came across an unusual passage.

-It was a mistake to decide to cooperate with Ezekium.
-The Giudecca they created is by no means a normal existence.
-From birth, it harbors a fierce hatred, and will eventually destroy the world.
-Giudecca is not a god…

When Da-jeong saw those entries, she clicked his tongue. “You shouldn’t do anything you’ll regret in the first place.”

“They can’t help it since they’re weak. The thug-like Empire tells you to do it, so how can they say no?”

“So you’re saying they weren’t responsible for giving birth to Giudecca?”

“Wait a minute… I have a lot of explanations.”

-Giudecca has power comparable to that of a god, but in the end, it is just an ether life form.
-If we create a huge ether explosion, it will also take damage.
-But for that, we need more than a thousand Aether Stones.
-So it’s impossible. Goddamit.

It seemed that whoever wrote the entries had a lot bones to pick against Giudecca.

In any case, according to the translation, Giudecca was not a god. And it seemed that it was hurt.

But where can we get all those ether stones?

Seokhyun looked at the entries and said, “It must be in Ezekium. They made it, so it is only natural that they have countermeasures in place.”

“I think we can trap Giudecca in the ether field and explode it with ether bombs?”

Indeed, Da-jeong is correct. But, in order to even attempt that, it was necessary for us to infiltrate Ezekium. Then, we had to somehow capture someone who knew the internal affairs well.

However, I realized that it would be quite difficult. According to Seokhyun’s scouting results, the Ezekium Garrison was a kind of fortress with a population of close to 10,000. On top of their numbers, it was close to impossible for us, who have very different looks to infiltrate it.

When I said so, Seokhyun chimed in.

“If we kill them all, there will be no witnesses, right? Then the infiltration was successful.”

Let’s just ignore him…

No matter how strong Seokhyun was, it was simply impossible to beat everyone in the Ezekium Garrison. In the first place, his ability was born from their research. Of course, there can be no research on infinite resurrection, but as they research the ether itself, it could be said that those researches were the origin.

I’m worried about the ether field, I’d rather they come this way…

I thought about this and that and remembered that vice-captain Fistel was angry. It was wrong to give Seokhyun the Whispering Jewel, but that was something we had to do, so I couldn’t help it.

Anyway, while he was discussing with Vice-captain Fistel, she eventually found out that he wasn’t a Transcendence Knight. It was said that she got angry and said the words that Da-jeong had expected beforehand.

-How dare you deceive me! I won’t forgive you!

It’s a very typical line, so it’s not scary.

After that, Seokhyun’s intentions were ignored, but one thing was certain. She’s grinding her teeth because of us. Which meant that even if we just hung around near the garrison, she would probably run at us bare feet.

Da-jeong twirled the chopsticks on her fingers and said, “But she’s not going to come out alone.”

“We have to lure her this way.”

“Where? To here?”

“Yeah. I’m sure she’ll ride a hornbill and come after me with a few men.”

“Then, you’re saying they can pass through the dimensional gate?”

“They made the portal. For some reason, I get it as a skill, but they are the original ones anyway.”

Also, they were only aware of the existence of this side, but hadn’t moved yet. If we just create the opportunity, they will definitely come here.

Seokhyun crossed his arms and said. “The hornbill is so fast, can we really catch it?”

“We can lure them using Jiman’s power. We just have to ambush them and attack them.”

“That’s good.”

“Don’t kill them, okay?”

“I am not that ignorant.”

Who will believe that word?

Anyway, I decided to leave the provoking to Da-jeong and Yoohyeon. They just need to attack them with paper planes until she come out.

What if she didn’t come?

Simple, we would just raise the intensity of the provocation. We have a lot of weapons, after all.

“That Pistel is a woman, right? Since she’s a woman, Geom-in will like it.”

“Didn’t he like Amelia?”

“When he saw her while flying around the garrison, I saw him drooling over her. He must have a change of heart.”

What the? How come his feelings change so fast?

Anyway, we have finalized our plans for the future. The maintenance of the shelter had been left to others, so we could do our part step by step.

As we were eating, the topic of the next appearing monster came out. It was Ogre. The time for it to come had finally come. Not right away, though. But after some monsters appeared.

“The guy who appeared before was the enhanced version, right?”

“Yeah. It was strengthened because of the Catastrophic Dungeon. It shouldn’t be that strong.”

No matter how strong an ogre was, it shouldn’t be strong enough to ignore rocket guns.

“I remember playing with those guys’ punches before.” Said Seokhyun. From the expression on his face, it was clear that he’s reminiscing.

“You danced in front of it and ran away.”

“It was really fun back then. There were only four of us too.”

It was like that in the game. But in reality, there was no reason or need to do such a thing. The priority was to kill iit for their items and skills.

“By the way, Seongho. What level are you now?” Da-jeong asked me.

“Level 44.”

“Why are you still at that level? If you raise it by one more level, a new additional effect will be unlocked.”

To be honest, I was also curious about what kind of additional effect I would get and how long will we still get more additional effects.

Seeing that Giudecca could get someone to level 50 in an instant. That level seemed to be the limit. But since we were called purebloods by it, our limit might be a little different.

Well, whatever…

Let’s just eat…