Chapter 115
Chapter 115
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 115
Chapter Title: 61. Recommendations (2)
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I thought about the man known as Anonymous 848.
He was a cheerful guy.
Along with Kyle_Dos and Anonymous 458, he was like the licorice of the forum—adding flavor to everything.
I vaguely knew that behind the personas on the internet could lurk murderers, rapists, or looters in their true forms.
But that uncomfortable reality had suddenly appeared right in front of me.
Counseling and mediation weren't my specialties.
Still, since I'd gotten dragged into this unexpected mess, even I, Park Gyu, had to don the ill-fitting garb of a mediator.
"It was right after the war started. Nuclear strikes had rained down on Seoul, and missiles were being intercepted in orbit, making the sky flash like lightning even during the day. That's when I found that woman."
Anonymous 848 had a talent, too.
The talent for rolling and smoking cigarettes that actually tasted good.
The leaf tobacco he shared was pretty decent.
Anonymous 848 exhaled a plume of smoke, a bitter smile playing on his lips as he muttered,
"Truth is, I knew her. She went to a nearby college—not a great one. She was living alone. I think she was a freshman. There was only one convenience store around here, so we ran into each other often. But come on, would a girl who'd just started college ever fall for a guy like me? I just snuck peeks at her pretty face, sweet demeanor, and that nice figure. Then, on the day the nukes hit Seoul, there she was at the bus stop in front of my bunker, frozen in place, not knowing what to do. I saw my chance."
In Anonymous 848's memory, their meeting was an extension of fate.
The war had twisted their parallel destinies together like thread.
"Her house got obliterated. Probably everyone she knew died. The whole city was gone. She had nowhere to go. Who did? She couldn't reach her friends. Seoul wasn't even her hometown, so what was a lone girl like her supposed to do there besides sell her body? So I took her in. That's how we ended up living together."
They seemed to get along fine for a few years.
There were some awkward moments and discomforts, but through mutual compromise and understanding, they'd even developed a pseudo uncle-niece relationship.
They farmed together and worked side by side, he said.
But their downfall might have been foreshadowed the day Anonymous 848 spotted the woman named Ye-jin at the convenience store by chance.
"That day, we were drinking, and fuck. I don't know what came over me—I made a move. We ended up sleeping together. She didn't resist much. I got the wrong idea. Thought she finally accepted me. But fuck, that's when everything between us went to shit."
Anonymous 848 rolled another cigarette and lit it.
I told him to wait a moment and headed inside the bunker.
The woman's name was Kim Ye-jin.
Unlike Anonymous 848, she'd clearly stated her full name, letter by letter.
Anonymous 848's bunker was pretty solid.
Not some mass-produced factory model like mine—he'd hired a construction firm, just like I had, and poured concrete and rebar into it. The interior was spacious, too.
The only reason it felt cramped was the partition dividing the fairly large space into two.
One side belonged to Anonymous 848, the other to Kim Ye-jin.
It was a fresh shock to me, living alone, to see how starkly different two halves of the same bunker could be based on the people inhabiting them.
Kim Ye-jin sat huddled on her mattress in her bright space, surrounded by dolls, gazing at me with hollow eyes.
She spoke in a subdued voice.
"...You're on his side too, aren't you, mister?"
"Mister? I'm not even thirty yet."
"You're still a mister."
"..."
Looking around the bunker confirmed it.
Despite her words, Kim Ye-jin had been treated pretty well here.
Just the fact that he'd given her half the bunker said it all.
I would never cede any part of my bunker to anyone, no matter what.
Like a king who doesn't share power, I don't share my bunker.
"Be honest with me. I can't do much, but I can at least listen."
"That's a gun, right?"
She eyed my rifle.
"What, you want to shoot that guy?"
"I do."
"Can you survive on your own?"
"Yeah. Somehow."
"No raiders have come around here?"
"They have. Oh."
Kim Ye-jin suddenly sighed, her eyes welling up with tears.
"...We weren't bad to each other."
She turned her head toward the shelf.
There sat a photo frame, turned backward.
Curious about the story behind it, I listened to her tale.
"It was after the war started. That's when I got to know him."
Unlike Anonymous 848, Kim Ye-jin's story began after the war broke out.
To her back then—at the convenience store, a college freshman full of hope for her new life—a guy like Anonymous 848 hadn't even registered as a blip in her memory.
The flow of events was roughly the same.
Having suddenly lost her family and with nowhere to go, she'd come here out of fear and necessity.
It was true that Anonymous 848 had treated her well.
It started awkward, but through compromises, cooperation, and overcoming hardships together, they'd grown to rely on each other.
"It's from a year ago."
She turned the frame back around.
Inside was a printed photo of her and Anonymous 848 smiling in front of their tobacco field.
They weren't blood-related, but they looked like family.
But those good times were long gone.
"It was half a year ago. He got me drunk... and yeah. He raped me. I kind of saw it coming. The signs were there. But what could I do here? No one outside, just gunshots, no police to report to. And leaving? We both know how that ends."
Kim Ye-jin curled up, burying her face in her knees, sobbing.
"...The first time is always the hardest."
"..."
I nodded and stood up.
She lifted her head and rose too.
"C-Can't you take me with you?"
"I'm a man too. I might do the same thing that guy did."
"As long as it's not him."
Hatred lurked in Kim Ye-jin's teary eyes.
"...As long as it's not him."
I left her behind and exited the bunker.
Right outside, Anonymous 848 had snuck up, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
He looked worried.
Forgetting his shame out of fear that I'd steal Kim Ye-jin away.
The answer was already decided.
I beckoned him over.
"Where's the capsule?"
"C-Capsule? Suddenly?"
"Didn't you call me to deal with the capsule?"
"Yeah, but... this is so sudden, I'm at a loss."
I first grabbed my hunter weapon from the motorcycle, then headed into the dense woods with him.
The capsule sat neatly beside the broken swing at the old public kindergarten.
"Wait, stand over there."
I set the hunter weapon at my feet and pulled out two axes.
"Wh-What are you doing?!"
"Just watch."
I swung the axe at the capsule.
A reflective force field deployed, redirecting my axe straight for my carotid artery.
Clang!
I blocked it with my other axe.
"..."
The capsule was safe.
I loosened the taut string in my mind and let out a shallow sigh.
"Wh-What the...?"
I pulled the half-embedded axe from the force field and turned.
"Just a light test."
"It's real. Kyle_Dos was right! Skeleton's no joke."
"Don't mention it on the forum. Could get annoying."
"Sk-Skeleton! You... wow... you're the real deal. Awesome. The best!"
Showing him the capsule first was also a calculation to keep his head straight—no funny ideas.
This guy had a gun too.
A bullet from a sick bastard like him could still kill.
I picked up the capsule and asked for his help.
"Mind giving me a hand?"
"Y-Yeah!"
We loaded it onto the motorcycle's cargo rack, then I gazed at the sky.
Clear, blue, and high.
It had that crisp autumn sky feel, perfect for a hangover cure.
The leaves hadn't fully turned yet, but I could see the greenery fading bit by bit.
I watched a leaf from a tree that had browned ahead of the others drift down on the breeze.
It arced through the air, even rising again for a moment, before succumbing to gravity and joining the pile of fallen leaves below.
Breaking the long silence at the sight, I said,
"One of you has to leave this place."
Anonymous 848, smoking beside me, turned to look.
"Wh-What are you talking about?"
"You or Kim Ye-jin. One of you has to go."
"No, Skeleton!"
"That's the answer. One of you leaves this bunker and goes somewhere else."
I turned to face him.
"That's my decision."
I watched his face crumble in real time before my eyes.
Anger, shock, regret, desire—a whirlwind of emotions.
I stared him down coldly.
This was what he'd wanted.
He'd asked for mediation.
Showing him the capsule kept him from crossing the final line.
Instead, he huffed, his face flushed red, and spat,
"Why should I leave? It's my bunker! I built it after getting disowned by my parents and sneered at by my successful siblings. Why should I abandon it? Would you give up your bunker?"
"Looks like you don't get it."
I glanced toward the bunker.
Kim Ye-jin stood by a tree, watching us.
I raised my voice so she could hear.
"You two are done. One of you has to go."
"You're gonna take her?!"
Anonymous 848 bellowed.
"No. Nothing like that."
"Then why?! Leaving here means death, you know that? Skeleton!"
I called to Kim Ye-jin.
She approached, and I told her the same thing.
One of them had to leave.
Unlike Anonymous 848, she listened calmly, then stared at me and asked,
"Y-You're not taking me?"
"No."
"Why? Don't you like me?"
Each word from her drew a sigh from Anonymous 848.
His feelings meant nothing to me.
I looked her straight in the eye and said,
"I barely have enough food for myself. I live alone."
"..."
She gave me one last desperate look, but I turned away.
As I ignored her, her eyes cooled just as coldly.
"I see."
She turned and went back into the bunker.
Anonymous 848 brightened and called after her.
"Ye-jin! You're staying, right? Yeah? You'll stay here?!"
Kim Ye-jin didn't turn but raised her fist.
I didn't know what it meant, but it seemed like a positive sign to them.
Anonymous 848 grinned in delight.
"Y-Yeah! Back to how it was. No, like before... just like before..."
Anonymous 848 told me to wait.
A moment later, he emerged with some of his homegrown tobacco and corn.
Tobacco seeds were mixed in too.
"I had connections at the tobacco company."
It was valuable stuff.
Enough to show he was a generous guy.
"..."
I could have just left it at that.
But he was my forum buddy.
From a third-party view, his future was all too predictable.
"...Can you be harsh to that woman?"
My final piece of advice to him.
"What?"
"Can you?"
"Wh-What do you mean? Just do it! Easy!"
"Stay with that woman, and you're dead."
"Ye-jin? She's gonna kill me?"
Anonymous 848 scoffed.
"She couldn't kill a bug."
I spoke calmly, facing his denial of reality.
"You called me here, didn't you?"
"What?"
"She knows you can summon people from the internet. Can't you figure out what that means?"
This guy had more internet experience than me.
And he'd already seen people meet online and kill each other with his own eyes.
Realization would be tragic for him, but inevitable.
"F-Fuck...!!"
Anonymous 848 staggered back.
The joy was gone.
Since it was built on illusion, it vanished quickly.
"Wh-What did I do wrong?"
He must have vaguely sensed his own future.
The clear injustice on his shadowed face could only come from someone who knew the price he'd pay.
"We lived together for three years, sharing my food, my fuel, living safe? We played games, never went hungry, right? Watched webtoons, went on outings? Packed kimbap for picnics! So why...?"
"..."
"What did I do wrong?"
I mounted the motorcycle.
"If Kim Ye-jin had a man, would you have brought him to your bunker?"
He had no answer.
"...Th-That..."
Anonymous 848 slumped to the ground.
His face looked a decade older than when I'd first seen it.
Wrinkles etched deep, he sobbed,
"...I just wanted her to like me as much as I liked her."
"I'm going."
Even as I started the engine, his ramblings continued.
"Three years... like family... I was good to her..."
As I twisted the throttle, his final voice mixed faintly with the roar and wind, brushing my ear.
"We'll go back to how it was. Just like before..."
I doubt it.
Once a relationship is broken, it doesn't recover.
It just scars over.
In their case, the twist was particularly bad.
They'd never go back to how things were.
Maybe, as Na Hye-in said, their fate was sealed the first time they met at the convenience store—when Anonymous 848 saw Kim Ye-jin, and she didn't see him.
That was my experience in Anonymous 848's domain.
I posted about it on the forum quite a while later.
By then, there weren't many people left who could upvote recommendations on our board.
*
After that day, every post I made got an upvote.
For example,
Even garbage posts like these racked up at least one upvote.
Well, stuff happened here and there, but having someone upvote my posts wasn't half bad.
But some twisted forum user with a grudge took issue with my upvotes.
"Self-upvoting, my ass."
I occasionally upvoted my own posts, but I wasn't crazy enough to do it on everything.
Still, to this weirdo, everything looked suspicious—Anonymous 848's upvotes must've seemed like self-votes.
In Korea, getting falsely accused is nothing but loss, so even Skeleton broke the taboo and started self-upvoting.
Thus, all my posts hit two upvotes.
Then one day.
On a day when the mercury dipped to 0 degrees, I noticed one of my posts had hit 10,000 upvotes.
I searched for Anonymous 848.
No posts in four days.
The guy who'd commented almost daily since the war had gone silent.
I nodded, reclined my chair, stretched my neck, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
One friend who used to upvote me was gone.
Strangely, there was no sadness or regret.
Like leaves falling in autumn, it was a foretold end.