Chapter 30
Chapter 30
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Sea Monkey Papa
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I've never raised animals before.
I spent a long time in places where keeping pets wasn't allowed, and dealing with mutations so often made it hard to see animals in a positive light.
In fact, none of the hunters with real combat experience keep pets.
On the other hand, a small number of users in our community do raise animals.
Those who actively breed them are the ones who've chosen group survivalism.
These folks, who band together with like-minded friends or family to form groups, tend to base themselves around exposed houses rather than bunkers, aiming to control fairly large territories.
With so many mouths to feed, their stockpiles can't keep up with consumption, so they have to farm. And farming inevitably requires vast amounts of land.
Well-trained dogs help secure that wide territory.
They can stand guard, intimidate and chase off wandering strangers, and even be used in combat when needed.
But their love didn't last long.
It couldn't be helped.
Not killing animals that start mutating is no different from suicide.
So, raising animals in the apocalypse requires resolve.
The resolve to kill them once they mutate,
or an even greater resolve to embrace them after they do.
And here's someone with that greater resolve.
He raised sea monkeys.
I learned about SeaMonkeyPAPA around the time I was getting used to life in the apocalypse and starting to accept doom as part of everyday existence.
Early in the war, I was pretty on edge.
Any suspicious shadow on the horizon had me grabbing my gun and staying on alert for hours, checking my gear obsessively like a paranoid.
Being my first apocalypse not as a hunter but as an individual, I guess I was extra tense.
As time passed and I adapted to the changed world, gaining experience, I started to loosen up.
That's around when I went from lurking on the community to posting myself.
Back then, SeaMonkeyPAPA was a fellow unpopular user with a similar vibe to mine.
He was diligently trying creative stuff to get attention but not getting the views his effort deserved.
In my case, it was just bad luck, but SeaMonkeyPAPA had chosen the wrong path from the start.
Who in the world finds sea monkeys cute or touching?
Most people who clicked his first post were just curious what "sea monkey" even was, and once they saw it was some flea-like thing barely visible in a tank, they hit back without a second thought.
Sea monkeys' official name is brine shrimp—literally shrimp-like critters.
They're tough, highly adaptable to environments, low-maintenance, and active, which made them popular as pets in the late 20th century. But they quickly fell out of favor, becoming disposable things kids raise briefly for school projects before they all die or get flushed down the toilet prematurely.
SeaMonkeyPAPA had real skill in video editing. Every upload came with detailed explanations and care tips, trying to spread the word about these obscure creatures we barely knew.
He loved exclamation points.
Naturally, his popularity was rock bottom, but he knew it and prepared his masterpiece.
It was a combo of tedious, technical efforts.
Feeding them glow-in-the-dark food to make the sea monkeys shine in the dark; fine-tuning the lighting so a crappy camera could capture them clearly without blur; beautiful new-age classical music; glowing sea monkeys swimming in multi-angles, slow-mo, meticulous subtitles, and over-the-top exclamation points.
All that painstaking work hit the board.
I was about to post something around then, so I clicked it. He shyly noted he'd poured a full 18 hours into shooting and prepping.
18 hours.
My video took barely a minute.
Impressive dedication.
But reality is harsh, as always.
Recreating the scene back then, it'd look something like this.
Just looking at the titles, it doesn't seem much different from now.
But check the view counts, and the dark truth emerges.
Yeah.
SeaMonkeyPAPA's masterpiece got a measly 8 views.
Just 8.
18 hours of work for only 8 views.
Accounting for repeat views by the same user, fewer than 8 people even clicked it.
Even I'd despair if I were him.
Fine, losing to big names like Defender or Anonymous118 (now Foxgames) is understandable.
But getting utterly crushed by some low-effort butt crack pic that a now-deceased scholar tossed up from his porn folder after 10 seconds of thought? That's ridiculous.
I beat him, but that wouldn't be much consolation.
Maybe that's why.
SeaMonkeyPAPA seemed utterly dejected afterward, barely posting anymore.
Just occasional reactions to Dragon C's comics.
While I transformed from unpopular lurker to infamous user, he faded into the background, the kind who'd vanish without anyone noticing.
Time flew, and now it's just before Christmas.
SeaMonkeyPAPA suddenly drops a hit post.
The moment I saw it, I muttered without thinking.
"Still alive, huh."
But what's with the title?
It feels off. Curiosity piqued, I clicked.
"......?"
An unbelievable sight unfolded, hard to credit even seeing it.
The location was a reservoir.
It looked no different from the ones near my turf, but in that dark, murky water swarmed white things with red eyes and long tails—huge ones.
First time I'd seen it.
A primitive animal like sea monkeys mutating.
Kyle_Dos's webtoon mentioned a lobster turning grayish-white, but that's just cartoonish fancy. On gray-white earth, everything looks gray-white to human eyes.
Mutations only happen to higher animals with brains, spines, and lungs.
In China, they've seen giant rats, cats, dogs, pigs—but never giant cockroaches or centipedes.
Yet here, one photo shattered that conventional wisdom.
Those child-sized monstrosities swimming in the reservoir with their repulsive legs and long tails? No doubt about it.
Mutated sea monkeys.
"......"
I hesitated for a moment.
Should I spread word of this shocking discovery?
Mutations spreading to lowly invertebrates like this is thousands of times graver than rifts or monsters.
It might mean humanity falls to mutations before rifts or monsters.
My only contact now is Woo Min-hee.
I didn't want to get tangled, but this wasn't something to handle alone.
Personal ID: REDMASK
First time contacting via personal ID since Kim Daram vanished.
Woo Min-hee picked up right away, like old times.
One of her few redeeming qualities amid all her flaws.
"Oh. Senior. What's up? You calling me? Thought you'd ghost a brat like me forever. What, running out of food?"
Still great at grating nerves, though.
"...Mutations in invertebrates."
"Invertebrates?"
"Yeah. Invertebrates. Shrimp larvae type."
"Sea monkeys?"
"!!!"
A dangerously alarming assumption flashed through my mind.
"...How'd you know?"
"How? Just a guess. I raised sea monkeys in elementary school. They all died. Popped into my head. So, problem with sea monkeys?"
"Found ones that grew gigantic. It's a mutation. No doubt. Even invertebrates are manifesting mutations."
"Oh, really? Thanks for the heads-up, but I already knew."
"You did?"
I knew I was out of the loop.
But apparently more than I thought.
If this shocks me but is old news to her.
"Anyway, busy right now."
Dull ship horns echoed from the speaker.
At the docks?
Curious what she's up to, but we're not close enough for personal chit-chat.
Our relationship is, strictly speaking, one of bad blood.
"Merry Christmas."
"Senior, isn't that early? Three days left."
"When else would I call?"
"Fair point. Merry Christmas to you too, Senior."
I cut the line and steadied my breathing.
Replayed the conversation.
Above all, Woo Min-hee's instant "Sea monkeys?" stuck with me.
"......"
No way. Coincidence, probably.
Yeah, has to be.
I want to believe so.
But I shouldn't let my guard down.
Woo Min-hee's always loved communities like this.
While I won't even join group chats.
While I was talking to her, the board exploded.
Defender and SeaMonkeyPAPA.
Two users with zero overlap clashing.
Watching their keyboard battle, I felt a growing unease.
What to say.
It was jarring.
Until now, I'd pictured SeaMonkeyPAPA as a mild-mannered, quiet middle-aged gentleman who just really liked sea monkeys.
His tone was refined, giving off a mature, intellectual vibe.
His bunker shots looked spacious and tidy.
Maybe a relaxed professional in his early-to-mid 50s? That's what I thought.
But his true face in the battle was totally different.
Not ugly, just childish.
He spewed vulgar, lowbrow insults unfit for print—30% dick-related slurs, 30% parental slanders, the rest exclamation points beloved by dogs and SeaMonkeyPAPA.
With profanity filter on, it read like:
Defender responded calmly, but everyone knows his patience isn't infinite.
Suddenly, Defender's—especially his big bro's—icy glare flashed in my mind like a drawing.
This is getting dangerous.
Not just me—the whole board felt it.
Defender was dead serious.
If I were SeaMonkeyPAPA, I'd apologize or at least stop typing.
But he didn't.
"Ah."
"This ain't right."
He crossed the line big time.
Even if Defender never messes with board buddies, this is too far.
I immediately messaged SeaMonkeyPAPA.
My attempt at mediation.
I'd even smooth things over with Defender if SeaMonkeyPAPA wanted.
Like it or not, he's a fellow survivor and board user—I didn't want another one gone.
A reply came soon after.
Profanity filter, maybe.
Or the gap between his image and reality was too vast.
The user messaging me seemed nothing more, nothing less, than a sea monkey.
Two days later, Defender's post was laced with horror-movie eeriness and mystery.
He tracked SeaMonkeyPAPA's location using the reservoir coordinates.
Not sure if he was serious or just talking big, but he said he'd shake hands, make up, and post apology proof if SeaMonkeyPAPA said sorry.
Defender easily found the bunker.
The inner door was open. Inside: what looked like SeaMonkeyPAPA's sea monkey setup, an old laptop, miscellaneous gear.
But no SeaMonkeyPAPA.
Not just him.
The bunker reeked of deprivation—poverty's gloom hanging heavy.
SeaMonkeyPAPA's remaining food: a week's worth of moldy hardtack, two boxes of soju, half a bottle of 17-year whiskey spilled open on the floor.
Defender recalled SeaMonkeyPAPA's proof post and drained the reservoir.
To kill every last repulsive mutation.
When the water was gone, not a single sea monkey remained.
In the muddy sludge, a skeletonized corpse lay at attention, exclamation-point straight.
His meticulous subtitle echoed unbidden: Sea monkeys die in freshwater.