Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

As Da-jeong said, in order to smoothly gather some information, a greaser was needed.
In the apocalypse, most of the time, it means food, so Seongho set up a table as well as some alcohol.
Of course, he only did so after checking the dangers around the area and ordered Da-jeong’s ghouls to stand guard around the building.

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“We’ll only drink until we feel good, okay?”

Even though Seongho said so, deep down he didn’t believe that his two friends would adhere to his warning.
He just hopes that the two didn’t drink too much and start making ruckus out of drunken stupor.

Right after, the three raised their glasses and cheered.

However…

“What is all this?” Da-jeong’s eyes went wide open when Seongho started to bring out some smoked fish, pajeon (Pajeon = green onion pancake), tteokbokki, clam soup, etc, to the table.
All of it makes her wonder whether it’s okay for them to eat something like that in the apocalypse.

But right after, she woke up from her awe because of the sound Seokhyun was making.
She quickly shouted, ‘Thanks for the food’ and took her wooden chopsticks to the tteokbokki with egg.

But why is it so big?

“Seongho, I’ve been curious about this for a long time… The chicken dish you made, what was it made of? Moreover, I don’t think this big egg is a chicken egg either?”

“Now that I think about it, you are right… Now it’s bothering me.”

Seongho disappeared into the air, making the two laugh loudly.
The good thing about him was that he always did what the two wanted even though he found it annoying.

But when he came out with a monstrous bird in his hand, their raucous laugh stopped.

Flap-!! Flap-!! Flap-!!

The hwajo, which was caught in the neck, flapped its wings violently.

Seokhyun quickly covered the food in the table with his upper body and murmured.

“If you get even one of your feathers on the food, just know that we will eat you instead.”

On the other hand, Da-jeong was surprised to see the hwajo, which is three or four times larger than a normal chicken.

“Is that what the dishes are made of?”

“Can’t you see its name? Hwajo.”

nod nod.

“I found these guys in a goblin’s nest.
So after clearing it, I brought it to my shelter.
Because their fertility was good, their number still increased even after we ate a few of them.”

“Does that mean you’re growing vegetables and chickens inside, while also fishing?”

“Yeah…”

“Your unique skill is really a.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you..”

Seongho disappeared again after saying that, while Da-jeong chewed the soft and chewy tteokbokki.

“Ummm… it’s really delicious.
But normally, you can’t keep a rice cake like this for a long time, right? Did you make it there?”

“If you store it in a vacuum-pack and bury it on the ground of the forest, it can be stored for a long time.
The ground over there is almost like a refrigerator.” However, that was only the story for now.
The weather in the forest keeps getting warmer and warmer these days, so sooner or later, Seongho would have no other option but to sell the food he had in bulk at the Auction House.
By doing so, he would get some points in exchange; It was way better than just letting all of it rots away.

Seokhyun chewed the smoked fish and swallowed it before speaking up.
“I thought that when Seongho reached level 20, other people would be able to enter the portal as well.
But turns out, it’s not like that.”

“Will it be possible at level 30?”

“Well… the unique skill’s name has the word ‘dedicated’ embedded on it.
To be precise, the unique skill’s name was Dedicated Dimensional Door.”

Upon hearing this, Da-jeong frowned.

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“What is that? It’s completely selfish.”

“It would have been a big deal if someone else other than me could come in.
The entire population of Korea would have run to me.”

“…” Da-jeong looked up at the ceiling and imagined the case when the portal was opened to everyone.
Going by Seongho’s words, which said that there’s a forest inside, valleys, and sea inside, it was easy to tell that the world inside the portal was quite wide.
Which means, it could accommodate quite a large population.

If Seongho makes his unique skill known, as the apocalypse approaches, he will get countless requests he cannot afford.
And the public’s attention will be drawn to him.
Jealousy, envy, as well as desperation, can lead people to do extreme things.
Even if he received protection from the government, there were limits to what the government could do alone.

When her thoughts reached that point, Da-jeong realized the essential reason why Seongho hid his identity and ability until now.
Opening a portal which led to another world filled with resources was indeed a great ability, but at the same time, the risk was equally high.
There will be a lot of jealous people who will come for Seongho.
Afterall, although no one but Seongho could enter, there’s no law that says other people should not be greedy for what’s his.

Stay by our side and help us…

Da-jeong was terrified to imagine an unspecified number of people reaching out to her.

“It seems like you are not hiding yourself out of fear, huh?”

“Well yeah… Let’s stop talking about unimportant things and set our goals first.”

Seokhyun’s ears perked up at the words ‘goals’.

“Should we set our goal as ?”

“Yeah.
You guys haven’t seen it, right?”

“What does it look like?”

Instead of answering, Seongho went into the cave, captured the screen where brutra appeared, and printed it.
When he came out and showed them the pictures, their expressions instantly turned strange.

“Isn’t that a keeper?”

“This guy is a lot bigger than a keeper.
Should I call this part its head? Anyway, this part of it goes up to the third floor.”

“So, this guy will appear later on, huh? Can the three of us win against it, though?”

Seongho nodded at Seokhyun’s words.

“We can.
On the premise that we reached the stats we have just before the game closed.”

“But, what should we do after beating that guy?”

When Da-jeong asked out of curiosity, Seongho wrote the notice from the management team on the paper.
Then, he pointed at the sentence.
“‘I hope we will be able to meet again someday…’ Now that I see it, it seems like a prophecy.”

“Maybe it’s those guys who are controlling all of this from behind.
I mean, the entire production team of Survival Life.”

“For what reason?”

“If I knew that, would I still be here?”

“Well…”

Then, Da-jeong told the two about Joo Seungcheol, the most suspicious man in the government shelter.

“Did I even mention that he had a personal shelter? It turned out that his shelter was gigantic.”

“Does it mean that he prepared for the apocalypse in advance? Do you know what his game ID is?”

“I don’t know about that, but I heard that he invested in the company which makes Survival Life.”

“Really?”

When those words came out, even Seokhyun, who had been quiet, paid attention.
It was obvious that the man named Seungcheol smells fishy.

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Da-jeong tapped the table.
“Anyway, the people in the government shelter are all shady.
I’m sure they are still hiding something.
Even the president keeps trying to dig up our information without telling us what his unique skill is.”

“That’s why one of us should stay there.
And the only person who can do it is you.”

“Send him.” When Da-jeong’s finger pointed at Seokhyun, he chuckled.

“Shall I go in?”

Seongho refused without even thinking twice.
“No.
never.
If I let you go, the government shelter will definitely be destroyed.”

“Wait a minute.” Da-jeong intervened in the middle.
She then looked straight towards Seongho.
“I need to know what your true goals are.
Are you just going to monitor them? Or maybe you want to get the guns they kept bragging about.”

“To be precise, I want to prevent the guns that could threaten me from going into the hands of someone like Geom-in.”

“Him? Are you serious?.”

“Why?”

In response to his question, Da-jeong expressed what she usually felt.
“That guy, even when he boasts a lot and tries to socialize often, people still hate him.
There is even a strange rumor about him.”

“What kind of rumor?”

“It says that if you are on friendly terms with him, you will lose your unique skill.”

“I had a thought that he had more than one unique skill, but was it actually a unique skill that can steal the unique skills of others?”

“No, I’m 100% sure about that.
But there are rumors like that anyway.
So everyone hates him.”

Seongho caressed his chin.
Perhaps, Geom-in’s unique skill was to steal other people’s unique skill and make it his.
But if that was true, there should be no one who wanted to stand beside him, or became his subordinates.
But according to Da-jeong, there were a couple of people whom he considered to be his direct subordinates.

“The unique skill of those whom he considered as direct subordinates was blink and body strengthening.”

“Huh? Is this coincidence or what…”

“Why?”

“In the gryphon dungeon back then, I saw Geom-in used blink while hunting one of the gryphons.
He also punched a tree with his fist and made a dent.
So, he must have body strengthening skills.”

Da-jeong, who heard the story, grinded her teeth.

“You were hiding it from me.”

Seongho concluded.
“If we take all the circumstances together… The chance that Geom-in has multiple unique skills is quite high.
Then the question is, what is his real unique skill? My guess is, his unique skill can’t exactly steal someone else’s unique skill, but it can only copy it..”

“How? There is no system to register someone as a subordinate.”

“Heart, heart.” Seokhyun put his hand on his chest.
Then, after telling Seongho to open his portal, he stabbed the air with his chopsticks.
Of course, it was blocked.

“If Seongho was the one who did it, the chopsticks together with his hand would enter the portal, you know? If we think about it this way, do you know what the difference is?”

“Um… Because the portal recognized Seongho?”

Seokhyun nodded his head.

“Geom-in’s unique skill probably worked the same way.
If he gets the heart of the other people, he will be able to copy their unique skill.”

It felt a bit strange that the system could even judge a person’s heart.
Da-jeong’s expression also changed strangely.
“If someone gives him their heart, they will lose their unique skill.
I almost got fucked.”

“Da-jeong, in the first place, there is no chance that you will fall for Geom-in, right?”

“Of course.
But the possibility still scares me… Now, I don’t want to see his gross smile anymore.”

Da-jeong shook her body before inhaling the tteokbokki.
She must have been under a lot of stress to the point she complained that there’s no cheese left when she’s the one who ate all of it.
Seongho took out more cheese he had kept and put it on top of the tteokbokki.

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“Women really like tteokbokki.” Seongho thought.
Mikyung also really liked tteokbokki.

The three of them drank alcohol until dawn, reflecting on their memories.
Then, Seongho presented to them his future goals.

“The first is to monitor the dangers in government shelters, and the second is to prepare for the aftermath of the corrosive disease.
The last thing is to prepare to catch the brutra.
Do you have any objections?”

“Um… no.”

“Nope.”

“Raising our stats is not something that we were forced to do.
Rather, it is something we must do… I will make more preparations in the cave.
So Da-jeong should take care of the dangerous people in the government shelter.”

“Sigh… I got it.
But I have to tell you this.
What if the dangerous people you mentioned aren’t as dangerous as you think?”

“Are you assuming that their goals are normal? For example, the reconstruction of civilization.”

“Yeah, that.”

If that’s the goal, there’s no justification for Seongho to intervene.
But Seongho was a guy who thought that there was no justification in the apocalypse.
What was there in the apocalypse was attaching one’s conviction in whatever they do.

“Even in that case, I will still need guns.
One or two will be fine.”

“What’s different then? That’s still extortion!”

“Phrase it beautifully please.
Call it transfer of ownership.”

“You are really psycho.”

“You only realized it now?”

Do anything to survive.
Even though it sounds evil, in the apocalypse, that’s the only way to survive.

Da-jeong raised her fist towards him.
“You look so dangerous, but you’re not an enemy, so I’ll take care of you.
But if you betray me… I will stick my toys up your ass!”

“Wow… giving a reward as a punishment… she’s actually quite generous…”

“It’s not a reward.”

Seongho hurriedly corrected it and Seokhyun gave an inexplicable smile.
Now that the three of them had gathered, they were ready to face whatever will appear in the future.

Seongho opened his mouth once again.
“I just remembered this, did any of you come to the fishing boat event? But, judging from the body type, it doesn’t seem like it was Da-jeong.”

“I didn’t go there.”

“Is it Geom-in, then?”

“Well.
He said he had never been to Busan.”

It could be a lie..
But, it’s not that important.
So, after pondering for quite a while, he decided to forget it and poured some alcohol towards Da-jeong’s glass.

.

.

.

Da-jeong took Seokhyun and disappeared somewhere.
She said that since she had been alone for a long time, it’s now her time to play together with Seokhyun.

“It’s not bad.” Since Seokhyun wasn’t here, I could finally do the things I’ve been putting off.

I flew a drone and piloted it towards the forest to scout the area pointed by the scarabs; It was close to the northern mountains.
Although the weather had cleared up considerably compared to before, the peaks were still as white as ever.

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“Let’s see… I heard that emperor honey is made by emperor bees…” And it was said that the emperor bee lives around the flower they like; a kind of flower which formed a colony.

When I scanned the foot of the mountain with a drone, I saw a huge blue lake.
At the end of the lake was a cliff, the water of the lake fell from that cliff, making a big beautiful waterfall.

“Wow…” Although the video was taken by a camera, it was nonetheless a very impressive scene.

I would love to live there…

However, there were monsters there, and the terrain itself made defending against monsters not an easy matter.

Let’s just take a look.

I flew two drones alternately and finally found the flower colony.
It was flowers with dark golden colors.
They were blooming in heaps around the lake.

“Where’s the bees?”

When I lowered the drone to take a picture of the terrain, I heard some buzzing noise from the laptop.
The bees were small and fast so it’s a bit hard to see, but I could still see them nevertheless.

I drew the route towards their area on my personal map.

Isn’t this a good place to go by motorcycle?

On the return flight, I checked the terrain and found that most of the route towards the emperor bees area was flatland.
It was a typical grassland with low bushes swaying because of the wind which could be found close to any forest area.

“Should I go…” But before that, I need to clean the monster nests around my shelter first.
When I got out of the cave with my backpack, I could see the scarabs were busy running maintenance on the ballista.
Meanwhile, Dingo was inside hwajo’s cage, sleeping.

I woke him up and proposed to the scarabs.

“I found the bees you were looking for, does anyone want to go with me?” (T/N Uh so… In these words, if I translated it directly it would be, ‘which person- no scarab wants to go with me.’ But, it just didn’t sound good in english.
So, I use that because if I translate it to ‘Who wants to go with me?’ it’s too plain.)

The captain scarab raises his foreleg, signifying that he is willing to go with me.
Now that the expedition members have been decided, it’s time to do some cleaning.
But, this cleaning wouldn’t use any brooms or other cleaning tools, but weapons..

At the top of the list of the cleaning plan was to confuse those thrash with dingo’s barking as soon as we found their nest.
The second and the last was to ignorantly charge in and kill everything in sight.

Even though two of my useful skills: Terrain Detection and Survival Instinct had disappeared, the newly acquired skills gave me a boost which was far beyond the effect of the disappearing two.
Therefore, engaging in a close fight against a group of kobolds wouldn’t pose any problem for me.

“Get lost, you trash!” I landed a soccer kick on one particular kobold, making it could not even scream before dying as its skull was dented.
I seemed to have gotten pretty strong, but shouldn’t get arrogant.
I paid attention to every detail and did my best to kill all the monsters.

Just like that, before lunch, I was able to destroy all the nests around the shelter.

「Agility has increased by 1」

“Whew…” Even though I had moved wildly, my breath did not even become ragged.
It was solid proof that I had grown a lot.

Feeling proud, I called the status window.

「Level: 22 Points: 6610

Vitality: 12 (+4) Strength: 13 (+4) Agility: 10 (+4) Dexterity: 12 (+4) Perception: 10 (+8) Unique skill : Dedicated Dimensional Door

Skills: Life Tracking, Paralysis poisoning Resistance 2, Fighting Instinct, Light Gait, Eyes of Truth, Stigma of Death, Hard Skin 2, Griffin’s Eye, Resolute Strike, Lethal Strike 

Active buff:- 」

“Looks good…” What was written in the status window was not everything.
It was because all stats will be strengthened by 20% when the Fighting Instinct skill is activated.

It was really disappointing that the skill space was limited to 10.
Because if I manage to acquire more skill in the future, both Life Tracking and Paralysis Poison Resistance will disappear.

“If only skill slot extensions fall from the sky…” It seems like I would have to look forward to the battle royale event.

When I sat in the ATV and started the engine, it groaned and smoke poured out from its exhaust.
I loaded both Dingo and scarab leader into the trunk at the back before accelerating through the woods.