Chapter 265
Chapter 265
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 265
Chapter Title: 109. Modest Sea Route (2)
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I get it.
Of course I do. He'd staked not just his own fate, but his entire family's, to head out to sea—and now there was no hope in sight.
But even in a situation like this, Dongtanmom's way of handling it didn't look all that great either.
And sure enough...
m9 landed a solid hit.
m9's jab quickly racked up recommendations from the other quiet users and shot up to the popular posts.
I couldn't help but chime in after seeing that.
It was a killer line blending wisdom and humor.
But it got buried in seconds.
The refresh rate was too fast, uncharacteristically so.
In the midst of all that, Dongtanmom posted something else controversial.
"... "
This wasn't good.
Objectively speaking, how many people on our board actually liked Dongtanmom?
Not a single one, I could say with certainty.
His popularity wasn't so much personal charm as it was the next-level show he'd put on in Viva! Apocalypse!
And honestly, even that popularity was more from the foreign language boards than ours.
In a situation like that, posting something trashing the entire board?
That was like putting a noose around his own neck.
m9 and Baek Seung-hyeon had never gotten along since way back.
They'd even gone right up to the brink of an IRL meetup.
m9 got lucky and dodged getting dumped on.
m9's mockery continued.
m9's mockery was fun, but it felt like too much.
I immediately messaged him.
True to his word, m9 didn't pick on Dongtanmom anymore.
But Dongtanmom was Dongtanmom.
Cornered with no way out, he vented his frustrations at us like it was a diarrhea of curses.
He's my senior, but why's he gotta be so pathetic?
Part of me wanted to block him right then, but I still had to keep this guy alive, right?
I found something I could do.
"Hm?"
Wait a second.
Didn't Dongtanmom say he was in the northern Okinawa waters?
His biggest problem right now was lack of supplies.
He was looking for a place to dock the ship.
But there was nowhere to go.
Japan was out, Jeju was out.
Most South Coast ports were wiped out, and Incheon was too far.
But I knew a spot that might work for a bit.
The island of ships I'd seen from the plane.
I didn't know the exact location, but I had a rough idea.
West of Jeju, probably a bit north.
With all those massive ships clustered, if the weather was good, you could spot it from afar.
Of course, whether those "island folk" would welcome Baek Seung-hyeon or not was his problem to solve.
"... "
Tap tap
I sent the message.
All that was left was up to Dongtanmom himself.
A reply came soon enough.
Still full of rage.
The old me would've ignored it, but things were different now.
I hadn't gotten my reward from Vivabot yet, and I wasn't about to make a name for myself across the whole board, but I represented all of Viva! Apocalypse!
So I couldn't just let a single user slip away carelessly.
"... "
Tap tap
I told him what I'd seen from the plane.
Did Baek Seung-hyeon know about it too?
The ship island.
Not impossible.
On a clear day with good visibility at sea, you could spot ships 40km out.
If he'd gone straight from Incheon to Shanghai, he might've passed near enough to see them.
That was the best advice I could give.
I wouldn't say more.
Dongtanmom's message popped up.
I watched his messages appear one by one, my face hardening.
That was the last reply from Dongtanmom.
He didn't show up on the board again for three days after that.
*
Dongtanmom posted out of nowhere, no warning.
No photo, and the body was incredibly short.
Users still holding grudges against Dongtanmom snarked back with stuff like "not dead yet?"
Maybe reflecting the bad blood, Dongtanmom had almost no replies—unusual for him.
But one would come.
m9, that is.
Who else hated Dongtanmom as much as m9?
Sure enough...
Not long after, m9 posted.
I clicked, wondering what fresh dis it would be.
What kind of genius burn was he dropping this time?
I blinked at the content, double-checking the author.
No mistake.
Definitely m9.
There was more below.
- She's a year-one newbie, but still, more attached than the recent inflows. Hope she doesn't croak.
Surprisingly, m9 wasn't bashing Dongtanmom.
He was actually cheering her on.
His next post confirmed it.
“He probably didn’t write it to evoke emotion.”
The content was almost comedic.
But for some reason, I stared at that unremarkable post for a while.
"... "
So hearts could be filled like this too, huh.
At least this sight.
It's good.
Really good.
Our Dongtanmom posted the next update an hour later.
As expected, it rocketed to popular posts.
Bad feelings toward Dongtanmom weren't an issue.
Dongtanmom was a board pest, but also an ace content creator.
This post showed even more of his content creator side than usual.
In the intro, Dongtanmom said:
"Encountered an island of scrap metal in the vast ocean."
Dongtanmom had headed to the scrap island I'd tipped him off about.
Two perspectives were presented.
The one emphasized early on wasn't Dongtanmom's—it was the people living on the scrap island.
"What the hell?! That's an oil tanker, right?!"
"Fucking huge."
"Call the kids! Tell 'em to grab guns and come out!"
The scrap islanders spotted the massive tanker approaching from afar, panicked hard, and armed themselves.
Pirates used to eye the island greedily, though it had quieted down lately.
Pirate ships were nimble motorboats.
Spot prey from a ferry, launch motorboats, overwhelm with speed and numbers—that's how they hunted unlucky sailors.
But this ship was on another level from those pirate ferries.
A literal super tanker.
No clue how many were aboard.
"This it? We finally done for?"
"Shit. We were one step from starving anyway."
"Not Chinese, right?"
The tension wasn't just theirs.
Dongtanmom's crew was scared shitless too.
No matter how big the ship, they were only about 30 survivors.
If there really were over a thousand people like I'd said, and they were hostile, it'd be walking into hell on their own two feet.
From Shanghai hell to another hell.
At this point, Dongtanmom narrates:
"It was a powder keg. Guns pointed at each other. But then someone on the island spotted it."
There, Dongtanmom attached a photo of something he'd long forgotten.
The ship's name, half-erased and rusted faint.
That's right.
The ship's name was.
- The Hope
The name worked a miracle.
"That the Hope?!"
"Real Hope?!"
"They said they'd refit an oil tanker. This the real deal."
The islanders weren't totally cut off from civilization.
No high-tech satellite internet like us, but they listened to government broadcasts on shortwave radio, clucked their tongues at news of the secondary evacuation fleet led by The Hope heading to Jeju.
That hope had revived and appeared before them.
Once they heard Korean from the ship, no reason to keep weapons drawn.
"Where you from?"
One island guy shouted.
Dongtanmom answered.
"Hell."
What could be more ironic than hope from hell?
But their arrival was hope for the islanders too, in a way.
"The island had ship techs, even a trawler captain. Real talent overflowing. But no way to the mainland. They had food for now, but electricity, machines, generators, fuel running dry—doomed future. Us? Short on everything, but we had the ride to the mainland."
Interests aligned perfectly.
Islanders supply goods, check the ship; in return, Dongtanmom gives them passage to the mainland.
That was Dongtanmom's tale from his days in hiding.
If that was the end, it'd just be another standard Dongtanmom story.
Everything changes.
Dongtanmom was no exception.
The almighty Dongtanmom expressed thanks.
And.
An apology too.
His apology sparked a different kind of buzz.
…
…
You live and learn.
But the story wasn't over yet.
Dongtanmom messaged me too.
Not an overreaction.
I'd long been convinced Dongtanmom had a personality flaw: incapable of feeling "gratitude."
Had his mind been eroded or something?
Mind erosion reviving his deficient gratitude?
Before my doubts could circle my head, another message came.
Seeing that, I tossed all lingering doubts and smirked.
No more, no less.
Our senior Baek was just grateful for the modest route tip and expressing thanks.
"... "
Live long and prosper, I guess.
Never thought I'd hear "thanks" from the almighty Baek Seung-hyeon.
While we're at it, I made a request.
Fair trade.
A bit later, a reply from Dongtanmom.