Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

Sponsored Chapter 17/30

She's the one who was ordered to monitor us. However, it was doubtful whether she knew our faces or not. After all, if the paper plane flew too close to the ground, there's no way I wouldn't have noticed. On top of it, as she's currently not exactly in her right mind, and we were also covered from hair to toe–including our eyes, as it was covered by our goggles, there was a little chance of her recognizing our identity.

Of course, I can't just ask her about the important information about the government that she might know about. So, I would have to disguise my identity and conduct a guided interrogation.

I took Da-jeong's hand and dragged her into the corner.

“Oh,” she said, grinning. “I don't know you're this wild, oppa."

“Don’t forget that I am one year younger than you. And no, I dragged you here to talk about her.”

“Huh? What are you plotting?”

“Plotting? What are you talking about? I only did that because it's convenient. By the way, do you know who Hyun-woo is?”

“Uh… I think I remember him, or maybe not?”

Hyun-woo is a soldier who left before Da-jeong arrived in Gimhae. I even saw him wandering around on an intelligence-gathering mission after he arrived in Seoul.

“In government shelters, there are people like Hyun-woo and that woman, who wander around collecting information for the government.”

“Ah… I know it. They are the reason why that old man knows about so many things, even though he never leaves the shelter himself…” It was a known fact that there were agents like Hyun-woo who collected information for government shelters. But, few people know about their identities.

The woman shook her body and looked around her.

“…There was someone here just now… Excuse me? Anyone here?”

“Did you hear it? She's yet to fully regain her consciousness. We have to finish collecting information before she fully comes to her senses. Da-jeong, all you need to do is just sit next to me, and support any words that come out of my mouth to make it more believable."

“If we do it my way, we can even find out what's the color of her underwear in just five minutes."

Let's not ask her what method she's going to use in order to do that and focus on the situation in hand.

I pulled Da-jeong's ear and whispered. “Be quiet. And remember, from now on, we are government agents."

"Okay!"

Having done our strategy meeting, we approached the woman. She was taken aback when Da-jeong and I appeared from the other room.

“Who are you?”

“Ah, we are intelligence gathering agents from government shelters. Our designated area was in the northern part of Gyeonggi-do.”

“I think I just heard that you are a passing-by couple just now…”

Da-jeong stuck out her tongue.

Dammit, the more lies you keep, the worse it will get later…

“It’s our fake identity. We need camouflage like that in order to look natural. After all, we are sent here as a pair of men and women."

"Ah…"

Fortunately, the woman didn't seem to have any doubts. Well, it's so cold to the point she's still shivering even when she's sitting next to a bonfire, so she won't even have time to think about it.

I lowered my voice. “Your name?”

“It’s Seung-yeon. Oh… Seung-yeon.”

“Okay, Seung-yeon. Let me brief you of our situation. We came here after seeing Seung-yeon's SOS posted on the Auction House, but we are not the rescue team."

"Then? When will the rescue team come?"

“It's still a mess outside. If they decide to send a rescue team outside, they will be stuck outside as well, and all we have will just be more people to save."

“Ah, yes…” Seung-yeon's expression turned into disappointment.

“Don't worry too much, we can help. But first, there are a few things we need to check.” I patted her on the shoulder.

“I’ll give you anything… Even my life…”

Don't say something like that. When Seung-yeon looked at Da-jeong with pleading eyes, she responded with a wink.

This girl, really…

“What do you want to check?”

“We want to check the information Seung-yeon got. I know you have reported it to the shelter, but because of the mess in the Auction House, the report didn't get delivered perfectly to the shelter."

“It can’t be… I clearly reported it… No, since I sent it through the Auction House, that possibility does exist…”

The woman really had no idea she was being tricked by us. A true intelligence collector wouldn't show this kind of gap, but judging from her ability, she must have been some kind of an engineer before the apocalypse.

“Isn’t the Auction House like that? They are all anonymous there, so there are a lot of false rumors and information going around. So the President has entrusted us with the task of acquiring the correct report. Even now, the auction items posted by our shelter have also disappeared.”

“It's gone?”

“Yes. The President probably decided to do so because there are too many false requests. That’s also the reason why the shelter is sending us to try to figure out what’s going on.”

"Ah…" Seung-yeon seemed to believe my lies. After a while, secrets I had never heard of poured out of her mouth. It was information about the equipment the government kept in a closed subway station in Incheon.

“Recently, people have started to gather around the subway station. I don't think they'd found the entrance yet, but it's dangerous… Those people are predators…"

"I see… Other than that?”

“I was monitoring two people who went to Ganghwa Island. They robbed the oil warehouse. Just the two of them. They took everything."

Da-jeong suddenly started coughing while I nodded my head.

“They are fucking bastards. Anything else?" Seung-yeon, who now had completely put her trust in us, told us every single thing she had observed: Chinese people have landed on islands around Incheon. Rumors about the door of the time shelter in Bucheon were half broken, and a lot of other menial information.

I wrote everything down and then patted her shoulder. “Great. The President will be satisfied. Leave the report to us and recover your stamina first.”

“Here is a backpack. There's a lot of things inside.” Da-jeong handed Seung-yeon a backpack containing food, clothes, flares, and other daily necessities. Having come to her senses because of the warmth of the bonfire, she bowed her head to us.

"Thank you. Thanks to you two, I lived.”

“Your health is still not very good right now, so please wait and rest here for a while before trying to move around. Rescue teams will come later when the snowstorm subsides.”

I broke some furniture in the room and handed it to her. Seung-yeon didn't even know that she had leaked a lot of important information to an outsider, and yet thanked us again and again. Once she finds out the truth later, I bet she would be very angry, but it would be better for her to think of it as the payment for saving her life and move on.

There was no reason for us to stay any longer, so we went outside. At that moment, Da-jeong crossed her arms and said,

“If we leave just like this, wouldn't that old man become wary of us?”

“I bet he wouldn't. After all, we didn't cross any line we shouldn't."

“Oh my God, you're saying we still haven't crossed any line, even after robbing all the oil and stealing a lot of information from them?" Da-jeong asked sarcastically with an expression which I interpreted as ‘Do you have any conscience?'

I shrugged. “When I talked to him last time in Wolmido, I told him about my thoughts. I said unless he wants to become my enemy, I won't touch him."

"What exactly does that mean? To what extent do you think his actions can be considered as friendly?"

"I'm not sure…" Although I had told the President about my thoughts, I was still not sure what his true purpose was.

Will he truly be satisfied once he recreates a stable society and officiates weddings?

It seemed that the truth was somehow hidden behind those goals. Him giving me some things might have something to do with that ‘real goal'.

I rushed down the stairs as if to shake off my thoughts, and Da-jeong followed.

"Where are we going now?"

“Originally, we were going to go to Gimpo University, weren't we? But it looks like the plan has to be changed. Let’s go to the time shelter.”

“The one with the broken door in Bucheon?”

“Yeah. There must have been some people who couldn’t wait a year for the time shelter to open. We have to stop them.”

“Speak your true feelings!”

"We can't let them get all the honey for themselves. We need to loot everything inside.”

“Now that’s my Seongho.”

When we arrived at the door on the first floor, the heavy snow had subsided a bit. We shared winter strawberries and headed over to Bucheon. When it becomes too cold on the way, we will enter a nearby building and rest. Without the portal, this forced march would've been impossible. Fortunately, when I went inside to rest, I could warm myself by boiling water and soaking my body in it.

If we saw a frozen, immobile monster in the road, we would hunt it and I would be the one who took the last hit. Thanks to that, I was able to raise my level to 24 by the time we arrived at Bucheon Park.

“Now, just one level more. You have to promise that you will tell me what the additional effects are.” Da-jeong said.

“You won’t get what you want, probably.” I said as we entered a nearby building and checked the entrance to the park's parking lot.

Damn it. It snowed so much to the point the entrance was sealed off. Several meters of thick ice had created a barricade for the station. It was unreasonable to try to drill through it or break it, and it seemed that the snow would only melt later in spring.

When we walked again, we arrived at the entrance of Bucheon Sports Complex Station along the road on Line 7. Just like the snow in front of the park's parking lot, the snow in this place had also frozen. However, it didn't completely block the entrance. When we entered, it was surprisingly warm inside.

“Oh, I wish we could just stay here.”

“Shh, your voice is too loud.”

It was quiet inside, but from time to time, some sound could be heard from the deeper part of the building. It's probably the sound of the looters inside.

When we heard footsteps coming up our way while we were exploring the place, we hurriedly hid in a nearby toilet.

“There will be no one wandering around in this kind of weather, so why are we patrolling?”

“Let’s just go downstairs. It’s cold.”

Whoever they were, they went away without looking for us. Now, we need to start our plan. However, when we were about to do so, a certain man entered the first basement floor amidst the snow.

Our eyes opened wide as we saw the figure. A bald man with rabbit ears on his head and just a panty covering his naked body.

“Why is he here?”

"Hey, Rapwi. Rapwi.”

Seokhyun tilted his head at Da-jeong's voice and found us, who were sticking our heads out from the bathroom's door.

“Are you guys lost?” He asked as a smile stretched from one of his ears to another ear.

It was you who got lost, you dork!

Rabbit Pwincess, Seokhyun traversed city to city like a madman. His physical ability had reached a superhuman level, and with his elemental resistance, which also covers cold resistance, blizzards pose no threat to him.

Thud.

The door of a certain building in Anyang burst open. Inside, a man who was waiting for the rescue team inside barely raised his head.

“Who, who…”

“Your savior.”

Rapwi's appearance while saying that was truly a spectacle; He was standing on his two hands because his feet felt cold.

“Ackkkk!” After he saw the strange spectacle of a naked man walking with his hands, the man passed out.

Why is he surprised? Seokhyun murmured to himself and carried the man on his back after tying his body to himself with a rope.

Even though he had one person on his back, Seokhyun's speed hardly decreased when he departed again. Just like that, he spent hours running back and forth from the government shelter in Seoul to another city in the region.

As night passed and dawn came, he never ceased to move. Neither bone creepers nor keepers could chase after him because of his speed. Every time he brought an isolated agent to the shelter, he was greeted with a grand welcome.

“Seokhyun is amazing!”

“As expected of Rabbit Pwincess!!”

But he was not impressed at all by the grandstanding and left the shelter again. Finally, Seung-yeon, whom Seongho had rescued before, was put on Seokhyun's back. And when they returned to the shelter, two days had passed since he first departed from the shelter. In other words, Seokhyun rescued five agents scattered in different cities in just a span of two days.

“Really absurd…”

“It’s crazy, crazy.”

It was amazing. Some people expressed doubts saying that it was an impossible thing to do for someone who was directionally challenged, but decided to ignore it and just be thankful to him.

A modest celebration was being held at the cafeteria, and Jang Won-taek sat down next to Seokhyun with a plate in his hand.

“It’s really great, Seokhyun-ssi. I never thought you'd save all five of them…"

“It was not difficult.”

He replied shortly and shoved his meal into his mouth. Even though he boasted a superhuman level of physical ability, after running endlessly for two days, his stamina was in a state of decline. In this case, it was best to eat a lot and rest well.

Geom-in also sat down next to him while watching him, and finally, Joo Seung-cheol appeared in the cafeteria. He put the plate down in front of Seokhyun and said, “You are wonderful. You rescue all agents without any difficulty, even though you are directionally challenged.”

Jang Won-taek frowned at his words.

What is this man talking about, all of a sudden?

Seokhyun looked up at him while putting the side dishes in his mouth.

“Say what you want to say.”

“It’s just that I can’t believe it. That illness of yours is so awful to the point you can't even find the toilet properly, but you're able to go to several cities correctly, even when the signposts have disappeared… Does it make sense?"

“Say what you want to say.”

When Seokhyun urged Joo Seung-cheol, Jang Won-taek tried to stop him.

“Don’t say that…”

“No, we have to do it here. Because everyone is gathered.” Seung-cheol took an exaggerated pose and stretched his arms wide. “Everyone knows that Seokhyun didn’t come here for nothing. He has clear goals. I've been curious about it for a long time, but I found out about it a little bit today.”

“What is it?” Someone raised their voice. That person was someone Joo Seung-cheol hired to complete his performance.

Seung-cheol said as if he was answering the question of the people. “You seem curious. But before revealing that, let’s unpack the information we heard from Seung-yeon.”

“Didn't I say we need to give them a proper rest first?” It was Jang Won-taek's request when the rescued agents entered the shelter. They were so exhausted that Jang Won-taek decided to ask them only after letting them take a good rest.

However, Joo Seung-cheol ignored his words.

“The President will be surprised to hear what I have to say." Joo Seung-cheol smirked. "She disclosed all information she had obtained to two people, who were supposed to be government agents. Who are those guys, I wonder?”

“I hope you…”

“They are agents disguised as a married couple… there is no such thing, isn't it? It seems that our Seokhyun also received help from someone. Is this a coincidence?”

People were buzzing at his words. The subordinates planted by Joo Seung-cheol tried to aggravate the situation even more.

“What, then, are you saying that there is someone behind Seokhyun?”

“It’s obvious!” One of them said, "It's probably I Love Gimbap and Duck Buttock."

“You mean that bastard is aiming at our shelter?”

Jang Won-taek massaged his forehead at the situation. Even though it wasn't just a guess, but a fact, he didn't want it to be known to people in this way.

Just why on earth did Joo Seung-cheol bring this up?

At that moment, Seokhyun rose from his seat. However, Joo Seung-cheol didn't let him go just like that and asked him. “We need an explanation. Who instructed you? It's I Love Gimbap and Duck Buttock, right?”

However, instead of answering with words, Seokhyun waved his fist.

Pak-!!

Seung-cheol couldn't react and was hit in the face and rolled around the ground. The restaurant went into chaos in an instant, and people woke up in surprise.

Seung-cheol's men ran and tried to stop Seokhyun, but it was simply impossible for them to do so. Even if there are 10 more men like them, it wouldn't be enough to stop Seokhyun in the first place.

“Uh-huh!”

“Ugh!”

They flew all over the place every time Seokhyun swung his clenched fist. Once he was done with the subordinates, Seokhyun approached Seung-cheol, who was still on the floor, and tilted his head.

“You aren't dead yet?”

Joo Seung-cheol stood up as he wiped the blood dripping from the corners of his mouth with his sleeve.

“…were you planning to kill me? Are you out of your mind? President! Are you going to let such violence slide?”

Jang Won-taek moaned as he covered his forehead with his palm. Violence in government shelters was strictly taboo. It's because they wouldn't be able to handle a fight between awakened people with various abilities. So he told people who want to enter the shelter one thing: Violence will be considered the same as murder.

In other words, what Seokhyun was doing right now was the same as committing murder. No one would tolerate such a person in a shelter.

When Seung-cheol was about to ask for another thing, Seokhyun swung his fist towards him again. What followed next was an indiscriminate beating. No one dared to even think of stopping him.

After punching several times, Seokhyun's punch stopped at Joo Seung-cheol's chin.

“The wall and the floor is made of reinforced plastic, so do it in moderation." Seung-cheol grabbed Seokhyun's wrist as he said that. His eyes were blazing red with anger.

On the other hand, Geom-in, who had been watching the fight, smiled in despair.

"Haha…"

His plan to become more friendly with Seokhyun by having a conversation with him, who would've been in a good mood after saving a lot of people and getting praises from all over the place had flown away. Also, his plan to schedule a visit to Joo Seung-cheol's shelter evaporated.

Nothing really happens the way he wanted.