Chapter 185
Chapter 185
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 185
Chapter Title: 86. Story (3)
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Thud! Thud! Thud!
Someone was pounding on the door.
It was the mid-level company president from the neighboring cabin.
He stared at Baek Seung-hyeon with bloodshot eyes and blurted out.
"You're a hunter, right? That old hunter, yeah?"
"What?"
"What do you mean, what? We need to gather people. People who can fight."
"Pardon?"
Baek Seung-hyeon was a cold, ruthless man, but unlike his nature, he wasn't one to show his emotions easily.
He didn't yell or turn red in the face, nor did he swing his fists recklessly.
Even so, there was a sharp edge to his voice right now.
The man from the next cabin didn't know much about Baek Seung-hyeon but fancied himself an expert on him anyway.
He was the president of a company with over a thousand employees.
He prided himself on knowing people.
Baek Seung-hyeon was no exception.
'He can probably shoot a gun decently. But he's got no social experience and doesn't think for himself. Just a big kid.'
Having sized up Baek Seung-hyeon in his mind, the man looked at him pitifully and snapped curtly.
"Don't you get it? You have no idea how this is gonna play out?"
"How will it?"
"Ah, damn. Must be that old hunter brain. Listen, our resources are limited. But there are a lot of people. What do you think's gonna happen? No clue?"
"Let's talk somewhere else. The kid might cry."
Baek Seung-hyeon glanced around.
"In your cabin. That okay?"
The child was indeed starting to whimper.
The man shot a cold glare at the tattooed young woman visible through the open door beyond, then entered his own cabin with Baek Seung-hyeon.
No one else was inside.
The man poured some premium whiskey from a bottle on the table and offered a glass to Baek Seung-hyeon.
A gesture of goodwill, in his mind.
Baek Seung-hyeon didn't even glance at the glass. He stared straight at the man and finally spoke.
"Dongtanmom."
"What?"
Baek Seung-hyeon grabbed the man's throat.
It happened so suddenly that the man had no idea what to do, but even if he'd anticipated it, blocking it would've been tough.
Baek Seung-hyeon was a trained killer who hesitated not a second when it came to murder.
"Gaaack!!!"
The man's face turned beet red, eyes bulging like they might pop out, as he flailed his arms trying to pry off Baek Seung-hyeon's grip. His eyes pleaded the question.
Why?
Why kill me?
Baek Seung-hyeon said nothing, just turned the man around and kept strangling.
Once the body went limp, Baek Seung-hyeon grabbed a cord from the scattered tools in the room, tied a noose, and hung the man from the ceiling.
"......"
He stared blankly at the dangling corpse's shoes for a moment, then rummaged through the room's belongings.
He took water, food, medicine, a few clothes.
And the booze, of course.
As he turned off the light and stepped out, Baek Seung-hyeon ran into someone else.
The dead man's wife.
The big-mouthed woman who'd gossiped about him and his wife.
"Why are you coming out of here?"
"Your husband said he had something to say."
"What?"
"Ask the president yourself."
Baek Seung-hyeon stepped aside.
The dead man's wife eyed him suspiciously, hesitated, then entered the cabin.
She tried to quickly shut the door behind her, but she couldn't.
In the dim light, she spotted the pale shape dangling from the ceiling.
"D-dear?"
The moment she recognized her husband, Baek Seung-hyeon struck from behind.
Thwack!
He smashed her occiput with a fire extinguisher.
A merciless blow with no mercy or forgiveness.
He didn't forget the coup de grâce.
Back in his own cabin, his wife asked.
"You went to the next room? What happened? I heard weird noises."
"Killed them."
"Why?"
"If I didn't, they'd kill us."
Baek Seung-hyeon beckoned his wife.
"Help me move the bodies."
"Where to?"
"Our cabin."
"Our cabin?!"
His wife asked in surprise, and Baek Seung-hyeon replied flatly.
"The door's better. This one's just a makeshift plank door, but the ones next door were original structures—much sturdier doors and locks. No one's getting in from outside easily."
With his wife keeping watch, Baek Seung-hyeon dragged the bodies to his cabin.
Of course, he re-hung the man from the ceiling.
Finally, he locked the door and shut it.
Thud.
His wife, holding the child, stared at him anxiously.
"It'll be fine. Our survival odds just shot way up. Even raiders won't get through this door."
Bang! Bang!
Gunshots rang out in the darkness.
Someone with a gun on deck.
Shouts echoed.
Raiders would swarm soon.
Baek Seung-hyeon slipped a kitchen knife into his sleeve.
"Stay here. Keep the door locked and don't open for anyone but me."
Outside, sharp screams pierced the air from everywhere.
People were gathering and murmuring down the corridor.
First-class passengers.
"We need a vigilante group. If we don't band together, we won't survive."
A man claiming to be a former colonel was raising his voice before the crowd.
"Fortunately, us first-class folks have formed a more harmonious community than the other classes. Our numbers are small, but if we unite, our survival chances are higher than going solo."
Baek Seung-hyeon didn't like the first-class passengers, but the former colonel's words made sense.
In the confined space of a ship, forming a group was the easiest way to survive.
It would at least buy time.
With that in mind, Baek Seung-hyeon stayed with the group.
"There are four entrances to first class. Let's block those first. To stop the raiders coming right now. They'll target us first-class cabins. No time to hesitate!"
Even in the chaos, the former colonel assigned people appropriately to guard the entrances to the first-class area.
Raiders climbing up to first class saw the club- and knife-wielding passengers on the stairs and retreated, turning to loot others instead.
The night passed in turmoil.
A thick fog like the city's haze blanketed the deck.
The stench of blood and human waste wafted from all sides.
From below deck, shouts, screams, and sobs echoed like wails from the depths of hell.
"How much food do we have left?"
"What about the other ships?"
"Anyone got a gun?"
The vigilante group moved busily.
They were first-class folks he'd disliked before, but for survival, Baek Seung-hyeon cooperated silently and worked diligently with them.
As he caught his breath, the women brought out food.
A mystery soup made by boiling canned baked beans with mixed grains.
Food for filling the belly more than taste, but for some reason, Baek Seung-hyeon found it delicious.
"Aren't you a hunter?"
A man recognized Baek Seung-hyeon and spoke up.
Baek Seung-hyeon replied.
"Just a worthless old hunter."
"Good with guns?"
"So-so."
The man handed him a grimy object.
A .38 caliber revolver.
He followed up with twelve rounds sealed in paper.
"Better you than me. If things get dicey, help us out with that gun."
Only then did Baek Seung-hyeon take a proper look at the man.
A neat early-60s man in slacks and a button-up.
He knew him.
A self-made president who'd bragged about making a fortune with large screen golf ranges in the provinces. One of the obnoxious first-class passengers who gossiped among themselves.
He grinned as he handed over the gun.
"Picked it up on impulse, but I don't even know how to shoot."
A 50s man nearby butted in.
"Unless you're an officer, when would you even need to shoot that?"
"I've shot one. Ex-military police."
"MPs use those?"
"Yeah."
"Army?"
"Air Force."
The other obnoxious first-class passengers chimed in one by one.
They weren't on good terms, for sure.
A ragtag group united purely for mutual benefit in dire straits.
But as crisis hit, they shed petty grudges and pretenses, trying to unite earnestly.
For the greatest goal: survival.
Experience played a part too.
As the former colonel said, in situations like this, first-class passengers were prime targets for raiders, and they'd seen enough lone stragglers die in Seoul and Incheon.
The full-scale raider assault began in the afternoon.
Raiders moving in groups of 4-5, up to 10, now banded together to invade the first-class area.
Hundreds of them, at least.
The first-class men numbered around 150, but they held good positions, were better organized than the raiders, and had plenty of reason to defend.
"Kill 'em all!"
"You bastards!"
"Get lost!"
Raiders charged with a roar like a tidal wave.
Baek Seung-hyeon swung an improvised spear—kitchen knife fixed to a pole with wire—desperately resisting alongside the other passengers.
He had a gun, but it was for raiders who might have guns.
Bang!
A gunshot cracked amid the fierce standoff.
From the raiders' side.
"President Kim!"
A first-class passenger blocking the stairs fell.
Baek Seung-hyeon's eyelid twitched faintly.
It was the screen golf president who'd given him the gun.
He died instantly, eyes wide, without a last word.
Baek Seung-hyeon glared down, scanning the ant-like swarm of raiders below.
There.
A gunman.
The guy grinned at Baek Seung-hyeon and aimed.
Bang!
Baek Seung-hyeon drew first, fired first, put a hole between the enemy's eyes first.
He was a hunter.
Trained for paranoid-speed accuracy, used countless times in real combat.
Gun at the ready, Baek Seung-hyeon descended the stairs.
Raiders shouted and swung weapons, but backed off whenever his muzzle turned on them.
In front of countless raiders, Baek Seung-hyeon picked up the raider's gun and retreated, weapons trained on them.
"Anyone know how to shoot?"
Baek Seung-hyeon asked his fellow passengers.
A man raised his hand.
Baek Seung-hyeon handed him a gun.
Something he'd never do normally, but even he felt it.
To survive, he had to unite with them.
They were assholes who'd ignored his wife, but now they were his only neighbors.
Meanwhile, the pillaging and violence weren't limited to The Hope.
Small trawlers like troll boats had organized into pirate fleets, raiding similar vessels, killing people, seizing supplies, and stealing what little fuel remained.
A few such pirate ships turned toward Korea and vanished beyond the horizon.
Thus, a week passed in anxiety.
"Damn it. Food's gone."
"No water."
"The rotting corpses stink to high heaven. We'll get plagues like this."
In the increasingly grim mood, Baek Seung-hyeon thought his group wouldn't last long.
"Hey, Hunter Baek. That room you were using—wasn't that the one the Gunpyeong Enterprise president had?"
A man glared at Baek Seung-hyeon.
An early-60s man who'd boasted during introductions about running a big funeral home in Gyeonggi and being a good golfer.
From his face, he'd known all along that Baek Seung-hyeon had killed the mid-level president and taken his room.
He'd turned a blind eye because Baek was useful, but now with things worsening, he was raising the issue.
The man bulged his eyes and barked.
"Why'd you switch cabins?"
Baek Seung-hyeon snapped back curtly.
"Didn't like the room, so I swapped."
"Why?"
"Smelled like iron."
"I smelled rotting corpse from the room you were in."
"Suicide, probably."
"Suicide?"
"It's a shit world, ain't it?"
Baek Seung-hyeon glared, brandishing his pistol, and the man looked away.
Exactly as Baek Seung-hyeon said.
A shit world.
So a couple shitty things happening were nothing.
The silver lining: the raiders below were starting to collapse too.
The government hadn't left a scrap of relief supplies or food in this damn ship.
Everything was scarce.
The survivors were fish flung into the sea.
Thrashing wildly, but clearly not long for this world.
"Why do they keep coming? We got nothing either."
A fellow passenger on watch sighed and muttered.
"......They believe we do."
A man sucking on what was more cigarette butt than cig replied. He looked ragged, but said he'd been a university professor before the war.
"We gotta strip 'em bare first. Until they do, they'll keep attacking. Even if we hand over everything, odds of them letting us live are zero."
The end was near.
Baek Seung-hyeon acted fast.
The day thousands of turned-raider crowds climbed the stairs, Baek Seung-hyeon hid in his cabin and barricaded the door tight.
The problem: the window.
A round porthole built into the ship.
Baek Seung-hyeon thought.
Covering it would make raiders suspicious, but leaving it open let them peek right in.
'Any good ideas?'
He looked up at the ceiling.
He recalled the man he'd killed days ago.
In the dim cabin, using the last of his phone's light, Baek Seung-hyeon fiddled with rope.
His wife, watching, whispered.
"What're you making?"
"Harness."
"Harness?"
"To hang from the ceiling."
"Why?"
"Suicide cosplay."
Baek Seung-hyeon hooked his handmade harness to the ceiling, strapped in, and hung himself.
His body floated in midair, feet dangling limply like a hanged man's.
From above, he looked down at his family and said briefly.
"Take care of the kid."
Moments later, footsteps like a downpour thundered through the cabin.
The defense line collapsed.
Stairs breached, raiders pouring in.
"Kill anything alive!"
"You bastards! Acting all high and mighty!"
"Hey, you fucks! Let's see what good stuff you hoarded so desperately!"
Pillaging and slaughter began.
"Spare me! Please! We got nothing!"
A familiar voice begged for life.
The funeral home president who'd suspected Baek Seung-hyeon.
"Shut up, punk!"
A chilling whoosh and scream followed.
"What about the bodies?"
"Dump 'em in the sea."
Raider shadows flitted messily past the window.
One man pressed against the glass, peering in.
<86. Story (3)> End