Chapter 311
Chapter 311
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 311
Chapter Title: 125. To a Wider Place
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First off, I want to thank Ha Tae-hoon.
When Rebecca and her daughter needed a place to stay, he readily gave up the cabin he was living in.
"Well, I can just move into the new house. It's still under construction, but yeah."
Thanks to him, I could separate the anxious Rebecca into her own private space.
Rebecca needs time to adjust.
Even if it was with good intentions, I lied to her.
I denied the hope she had staked her life on believing in.
It might have been worthless to me, but to Rebecca, it was undoubtedly something precious.
Fortunately, Soo adapted to our territory quickly.
"Hello?"
She went around the area with me, greeting everyone we live with.
Everyone took a liking to her.
Of course, that excludes the Defender siblings.
"......"
"Uh."
Soo didn't seem the least bit intimidated by the Defender siblings, who were subtly emanating a murderous aura, proving she wasn't some easy pushover.
In fact, as she walked away from them, she whispered to me.
"Those guys. They're the ones from before, right? The ones who used to hang out with Skeleton."
"Yeah."
"Not my type."
The last person she greeted was Valentine, the ace of our territory and the most important figure here aside from me.
"Hello."
"Oh, hey?"
Valentine welcomed Soo warmly.
But true to the man I acknowledged, Valentine possessed unusually sharp insight.
"That kid."
He whispered to me.
"She gives me the chills."
"Does she?"
"Not as bad as those Hong family types, but her eyes... I don't know, they're kinda scary. I'm not xenophobic or anything."
I don't know what happened at the U.S. military camp, but it's clear that life there had a profound impact on Soo.
"It was like hell. The whole place felt like one massive graveyard. Everyone just sitting around, waiting for death?"
Soo showed me photos she'd taken at the U.S. military camp.
"......This is?"
"Taken right up front."
This is serious.
The erosion had advanced right up to the base itself.
I'd heard that the erosion in the southern regions was spiraling out of control, but the situation was far worse than I'd imagined.
The land south of the U.S. military base was dyed in the same gloomy gray-white as the entire Shanghai territory.
Could life there have caused the changes in Soo now?
I don't think so.
The real change came from Soo herself.
She'd already shot up in height long ago, but her mind had grown just as much—and she was suffering the growing pains to match.
In other words, puberty had hit.
And one of the clearest signs of entering puberty is rebellion against one's parents.
"I can't stand watching Mom bawl her eyes out."
Soo muttered bitterly as she munched on the Jell-O I'd hidden away.
"You can't say things like that about your mom."
"Sorry my Korean's not great. Can't think of a nicer way to put it. Still pisses me off, though. She won't even come out of her room today? She could at least say hi."
Growing up isn't just about getting taller and bigger physically.
With that increased height comes a broader perspective, and kids start looking beyond their parents.
Whether that view is black or white probably doesn't matter much to them.
Because everything beyond their parents is bound to be something new.
And it's the adults' role to explain the meanings behind those colors.
"You can greet people later. But first, there's something we need to do, right?"
Soo met my eyes and grinned.
"I know what you mean. Cheer up the crybaby mom, huh?"
"Yeah."
How to console Rebecca.
I already knew the answer to that.
David.
Rebecca's husband.
To Rebecca, who stubbornly clung to the idea of a complete family, her husband was a puzzle piece she absolutely had to find and hold onto.
"Dad news? I'm not optimistic."
Soo sat on the desk, swinging her legs boredly.
"I saw her get in touch with Dad, but it wasn't even that."
"Really?"
"Yeah. How do I put it? Person to person... but then connecting through another person beyond that?"
"A connection through a third party?"
"Mm. Something like that?"
"I see."
This was unexpected information.
It meant the survival of David—which Rebecca had never doubted—was suddenly called into question by Soo's offhand remark.
I asked Soo for more details.
"While Mom was desperately searching for Dad on Viva! Apocalypse!, some user called SneakyLocomotion said he knew him. What did the idiot Mom do?"
"She just believed him outright?"
"Mom's not a total fool, so she was a little suspicious. But then that SneakyLocomotion guy had a photo of him with Dad."
"Oh?"
"No idea where it was taken, but they were definitely in the same unit. Real soldier too. So, idiot Mom fell for it."
Definitely suspicious.
"Listen, Skeleton. Pay attention. This is how weird it is."
Soo calmly devoured my secret snacks while recounting what had happened between Rebecca and SneakyLocomotion.
"SneakyLocomotion said he knew Dad's whereabouts and could reach him. But he never let Mom talk to Dad directly. Whenever Mom asked something, he'd note it down and say he'd pass it on later."
"So he was always the middleman?"
"Yeah!"
Soo clapped her hands.
"Every time. Even for tiny messages or just checking if he's okay, it went through him. Weird, right? He says he can reach him right away, but not even a video call?"
I don't know what SneakyLocomotion's intentions were, but sexual ones were probably part of it.
He demanded lewd photos, including nudes, under the pretext that David wanted to see them.
"You didn't send them, did you?"
"No way. She's not that stupid. Plus, I was right there— she couldn't even if she wanted to."
"Hm."
Not exactly kid-friendly talk.
But that's reality.
This issue is provocative, but peripheral.
The real problem lies in the relationship between SneakyLocomotion and Rebecca itself.
Anyone could see he was exploiting Rebecca's desire to reunite with her husband to control her.
"......"
As her friend, I couldn't just let this slide.
"Soo."
"Yeah!"
"Write down that guy's exact nickname for me."
*
His nickname was SneekylOcomoTion.
Estimated activity since before the war, with around 5,500 posts and 1,500 comments.
According to Da-jeong's post-to-comment ratio rule, the odds of him being a jerk are extremely high.
For reference, this Skeleton's post-comment ratio has dropped some from the past, but I still maintain the golden 1:5 ratio of likable users.
Anyway, this SneakyLocomotion guy.
No posts show up in searches.
If he'd deleted them, the post count would drop, but it's still there, so he probably made them private.
On a board where countless users freely express themselves, going private is as good as being dead.
Posts already get buried like a flood—making them private is inefficient, and if you're worried about mistakes, just delete them.
Yet SneakyLocomotion chose this oddly incomprehensible way to protect his privacy.
Cultural difference, I guess. Let's chalk it up to that.
The problem is the comments.
On Viva! Apocalypse!, you can search posts but not comments.
As a last resort, I tried clicking popular recommended posts on the English board to track his activity.
Found a few comments.
As the list shows, nothing substantial. Just exclamations.
This tells me nothing about who SneakyLocomotion is.
If I were an ordinary user, I'd quit here.
But this Skeleton isn't ordinary.
"......"
Tap tap
This Skeleton's moniker is Twelvesquare.
The ultimate model user born from Viva! Apocalypse!.
If I weren't such a soft-hearted pushover, I'd be lording over the boards like m9 by now.
VivaBot's got a surprisingly warm heart.
I gave VivaBot a concise, to-the-point explanation—like something out of a school textbook—about the situation between Rebecca and SneakyLocomotion.
Seemed to work.
And sure enough.
She agreed to my request.
Of course, it wasn't just the story's sincerity that moved her.
My special status helped persuade her.
Well, it's also a right I can rightfully claim.
Park Gyu here is just too soft-hearted and nice.
After confirming SneakyLocomotion's location, I returned to the bunker and reviewed Rebecca's chat logs with him.
"......"
No need for a long look.
It's a dark fable recorded in internet messages: a desperate person frantically searching for her family, and the deceiver toying with her through common scams and manipulation.
Finally, I asked Soo via communicator.
"Soo."
"Yeah."
"You love your mom?"
"......A bit less than before?"
"Know what Necropolis is?"
"Yeah!"
"Ever used it?"
"No. Couldn't connect. Tried over and over, but no way in."
"Got it."
That wrapped up all the preparations.
Now it was time to wake Rebecca.
Time to lift up my neighbor, who'd locked herself in a dark corner of the room.
Soo, who was wandering outside the house, spotted me first and came over.
"Skeleton!"
I opened the cabin door with Soo.
The inside was shrouded in pitch-black darkness like night.
In the farthest corner, Rebecca was crouched, her head limply buried between her knees.
Soo sighed at the sight and tugged at my pant leg.
She didn't want to see it.
Parents' weakness isn't a pretty sight for kids.
Beyond just not liking it, it plants the seeds of resentment toward them.
"Rebecca."
I called out.
"Yeah."
She answered weakly, head still buried.
"This because of your husband?"
"Yeah."
"David, was it?"
"Yeah."
"Where's that guy now?"
"......Florida."
"Why Florida?"
"He returned there."
"SneakyLocomotion told you that?"
At the nickname, Rebecca snapped her head up.
Her gaunt, hollow-cheeked face spoke volumes of her torment.
"H-how do you know?!"
She immediately glared at her daughter, Soo, with wide eyes.
Soo, hit by her mother's fierce gaze, instantly hid behind me.
After a silence that felt eternal, Rebecca looked away.
She didn't make a sound, but her tongue and lips moved sharply.
Soo was disappointed in Rebecca, and it seemed Rebecca felt the same about Soo.
"......"
Is this how parents and kids start hating each other?
A serious situation, but as someone with little family experience, it felt novel and fresh to me.
But that's not what's important now.
I sat on the wooden chair Ha Tae-hoon had left behind.
I could see Rebecca bury her head again.
She waved her hand as if wanting to be alone, and I spoke softly.
"Not to brag or anything."
"......"
"You listening?"
"......"
"I'm buddies with the Viva! Apocalypse! admin."
"What?"
Rebecca mumbled from under her head.
"Got connections. Just checked SneakyLocomotion's location."
"Why?"
"He's in Ohio. That Locomotion guy."
Rebecca finally lifted her head.
She turned those hollow, weary eyes—once fixed on her daughter—toward me.
Feeling the weight of Soo hiding behind me, watching her mom in fear, I continued calmly.
"Searched your posts. Especially after I gave you gear. You were desperately looking for David, as expected."
The internet is a microcosm of society—no, society in another form.
The weak and naive get deceived and exploited.
"My guess is, he saw your posts and decided to scam you."
Rebecca shook her head.
"SneakyLocomotion was in the same unit as David. They were in Korea together, evacuated together! He even showed a group photo!"
She pulled out a crudely inkjet-printed photo with faded colors.
It showed a group of washed-out U.S. soldiers standing side by side, staring at something.
I couldn't tell who David was.
Or who SneakyLocomotion was.
One thing's for sure: the photo's real.
But one truth doesn't make the whole thing true.
Truth is just truth—it doesn't infect or color everything else.
"Surely that one photo isn't the only reason you trust SneakyLocomotion?"
"Well..."
I extended my hand to Rebecca.
"Skeleton?"
"Come with me. Got something to show you."
We headed to my dear friend Valentine's bunker.
"Whoa!"
Valentine freaked out as the foreign mother-daughter duo barged in.
"Valentine."
"Yes, Skeleton."
"Show them this?"
"What?"
I grinned.
"The City of the Dead."
"[For F. Sawyer, M. O'Connor, and the lovely red one.]" "[Welcome to the noisy city of death.]" "- If you're one of the dead, press Enter -"
⟨ Necropolis ⟩
Rebecca, peering at the monitor with us, shoved her face right up to it and asked frantically.
"What is this?"
Life was gradually returning to Rebecca's dead eyes.
Like Soo, she knew about it too.
The ghostly clamor haunting their area, the voices of countless people.
And the possibilities there.
"Is this... Necropolis?"
I grinned and yielded the seat to her.
Rebecca awkwardly eyed the unfamiliar surroundings.
Monitors lighting the darkness everywhere, humming equipment and computers, keyboards, mice, mystery input devices.
That awkwardness melted away like ice under the heat of necessity and desire.
Her eyes, infused with a will to live—not quite as feral as a wild animal's, but enough—sparkled with curiosity as she pressed Enter.
A new world unfolded before her.
"Now just search."
I told her.
"In a wider place."
Soo slipped behind Rebecca, hugging her from behind as they stared at the same screen together.