Chapter 170
Chapter 170
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 170
Chapter Title: 82. Finger Princess (1)
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Keystone had posted after a long absence.
The reason he hadn't been able to post was his neighbors.
He'd had an unusually high number of neighbors settling nearby, and this time too, new ones had set up shop, forcing him to watch his step.
In the end, he'd barely held out by running minimal heating until they froze to death.
Once, he'd risked his life venturing out of the bunker to run the generator and even started a forest fire in the process.
A seasoned response worthy of an oldbie user, indeed.
Keystone and I didn't get along, but he was one of the dwindling original board users.
Original board users were those who'd rented Star Obelisks before the war, signed up for Viva! Apocalypse!, and shelled out over 200,000 won a month.
It was a shame, but the number of original board users was dropping by the day.
New influx users were filling the gaps—acquiring satellite gear through bartering or other means—but they could never match the sensibilities of us originals.
We were doomsday preppers to the bone, people who'd turned our beliefs into action.
Before the war, we'd debated and discussed countless strategies and plans for the end times.
Any original board user had pulled at least one all-nighter deep in those discussions.
Keystone had brought up a topic that evoked nostalgia for those old days.
In truth, it was a question long since settled.
The answer: kill them.
Staying out of sight—low visibility—is the greatest virtue of us doomsday preppers.
Having someone right next door massively undermines that, and there's the risk they'll attract looters or other dangers.
Even if they're unarmed now, you can't ignore it.
Who knows when an armed friend or acquaintance might show up.
Besides, in the apocalypse, contact with neighbors almost always ends in disaster.
Just look at how long it took for Rebecca and her daughter to warm up to me.
And that only happened because of my one-sided help.
If you don't have that kind of resolve or leeway, it's wiser to forgo neighbors altogether.
Finally, they're unarmed.
Easy to kill.
A person with a gun and one without are entirely different creatures.
No matter how strong they are, how good with their fists, how brave, or even if they've killed before—none of that matters.
In the apocalypse, neighbors bring more losses than gains, and if they're easy-to-kill unarmed folk, there's no room for hesitation.
Kindly, Keystone even added the caveat of "no attractive young woman" to spare us the dilemma.
Sure, someone with sexual appeal like a young woman has value beyond an ordinary person, even if it means something brutal—but you can't lump them together.
Well, to a cold-blooded type like Defender, they'd all just be one person anyway.
Anyway, the oldbies were thrilled by Keystone's blast-from-the-past question and piled on the comments.
...and so on.
I considered leaving a comment myself, but as the now-famous SKELTON, there was no need to flaunt my oldbie status here.
But Keystone's post wasn't only getting oldbie comments.
Before the war, anonymous numbers never exceeded four digits.
So any four-digit anonymous now was either a smurf account or a new influx user.
Anonymous 1311 was a prime example of the latter.
We were all Viva! Apocalypse! users, but an invisible, subtle wall separated us originals from the new influx.
It was a natural historical flow.
There had been unsavory incidents with satellite gear thefts multiple times.
The now-legendary Sage incident was one of them.
Early in the war, looters didn't know what our satellite gear—Obelisks—were for, so they'd discard them, dismantle for scrap, or sell them.
But once Failnet opened and Viva! Apocalypse! became known in that world, our satellite gear and accounts fetched high prices.
Of course, that traded gear belonged to dead or murdered board users.
Maybe someone they'd casually chatted with or left a comment or two for.
We wouldn't treat someone using a dead board friend's gear—especially not even a doomsday prepper—as one of us, no matter how much our heads understood it; our hearts couldn't accept it.
The most common discrimination oldbies showed new users was ignoring them.
They'd reply to oldbies they knew but ignore influx users entirely.
Keystone's post was the same.
They'd offered an opinion, but no one answered Anonymous 1311.
It wasn't just this once.
I remembered Anonymous 1311 because, newbie or not, they were hyper-active.
Being an active newbie meant getting tons of ignores and cold shoulders from oldbies.
SKELTON had once gone commentless too, but that was different from Anonymous 1311's case.
The former was jealousy or lack of agreement with my post.
The latter meant they didn't even click due to the four-digit anonymous prejudice, regardless of content.
Yet Anonymous 1311 was resilient—or maybe their mindset was just different. Despite all the ignores, they kept their head high and asked questions.
They weren't totally clueless, though; lately, they'd posted realizations about reality.
Naturally, even that self-pitying post got no replies.
Instead, new posts sniping it appeared.
The lowest quality were mid-influx types like Baek Seung-hyeon.
They'd bully even newer influx users more viciously than oldbies did.
No one rivaled m9 as a newbie oppressor.
Fingie.
Short for Finger Princess—those malignant newbies who flood game boards and such, too lazy to search even basic info and just finger-type questions.
m9 spammed "fingie" at every new influx user to pressure them silently.
Dongtanmom's jabs had gotten no reaction from Anonymous 1311, but m9's words seemed to wound them.
For some reason, a unicorn replied to that post.
What did they sense?
Anyway, the fingie in question posted another question.
"......"
I'd heard Park Gyu was a cold person, but he never judged or discriminated based on appearances.
As a professor, I'd only cared about skill.
Sure, personality was part of that skill, but it boiled down to obedience, cooperation, and courage needed for missions.
Privately dirty or accused of civilian killings? Irrelevant to me.
Now just a named user SKELTON, I still carried some of that impartial vibe.
Plus, wasn't this guy kinda cute?
I left a comment.
Probably influenced by SKELTON, nine times out of ten.
That small gesture moved me.
A noble presence graced this humble thread.
Exuding the aura of a reclusive master.
As expected.
Pretty thrilled.
I got it—I'd been through commentless days too.
That rush when one finally drops after a drought, wanting to rush out barefoot to greet it.
I found myself smiling benevolently as I replied.
For our Anonymous 1311, Park Gyu delivered a rare lecture.
Deserted islands.
Seemingly ideal survival spots.
Water might be scarce, but isolated from the outside, tech could secure food, and best of all, virtually immune to monster threats.
No monsters crossed the sea, as far as I knew.
Water issues solvable with proper machines and knowledge; some even had drinkable springs.
Sewage disposal was a breeze.
But why not?
Because they're deserted.
Fundamentally, no trade possible.
Especially survival tools like weapons—zero access.
Islands are isolated but high-visibility.
Sea horizon limited by Earth's curvature, but still tens of kilometers.
Smoke from an island visible from dozens of km away, drawing visitors.
Islands don't move.
Fixed, hard to mistake for others.
If Korea had Pacific islands like Japan or the US, maybe, but ours hug the mainland. Not that many.
Precisely because they're countable—they're more dangerous.
The problem? People.
Deserted islands are sitting ducks for boat-borne looters.
This was settled on our board long ago, alongside the neighbor issue.
Early war heroes started on islands but didn't last a year.
Weapons were scarce pre-war, so island doomers were mostly unarmed, later butchered by sea-savvy, gun-toting maritime raiders.
Islands scarier than land—no "passing by."
Countable means targetable.
No such trait for my wasteland zone next to a US base.
Who counts wasteland spots?
Islands differ.
Limited livable nooks.
Sea raiders swept every island with drones and dogs, searching, finding, killing, looting.
I recalled a family unit; no need to imagine their fate.
Evoking old memories, I answered the newbie.
Anonymous 1311's reaction:
What was with this guy?
Always felt off—acting cute?
No wonder unicorn18 freaked.
One last reclusive master vibe before leaving Anonymous 1311's thread.
Everyone knew they kept asking questions after.
Everyone knew they got ignored.
But no one knew their identity yet.
Then one day.
I remember the day Incheon's oil depot was attacked—black smoke visible from my zone.
Anonymous 1311 attached a photo.
A normal photo would've been ignored like their others.
But this wasn't normal.
The subject: a woman.
Stunningly beautiful.
It had to be.
Yeo Saryul, one of Korea's top stars.
The ugly bullies suddenly fawned over Anonymous 1311.
Anonymous 1311 replied.
(Note: Yeo Saryul's my age.)
Her verification post got ten comments.
Might seem few.
But views topped 3,000—way above our board's average of over 100.
The problematic newbie followed up before the shock faded.
"......"
Maybe Anonymous 1311 was fated for replies even without revealing themselves.
The photo showed a grayish-white orb.
A capsule.