This Old Man Sure Is Embarrassing
Ultimately, the first night watch fell to Ban and Eve.
"Ugh. Eating meat and drinking then moving right away is bad for your stomach... I think mine's acting up already. Am I gonna die? Adios. Take care, everyone."
Ban's grumbling nonsense was completely ignored by the group.
Only Eve, standing beside him with her arms crossed, hummed a cheerful tune as she tugged Ban toward the elevator.
"Master! Let's stand watch together romantically while we look at the sky and the sea~!"
She really was bright and sunny. They were heading out to keep watch, yet she was dressed that skimpy. Was that really okay?
Well, for all their complaining, both of them had somehow survived and thrived in this harsh world. They'd manage.
Left behind in the Underground Bunker, Yui and Haze began a proper exploration of the interior.
Yui flung open one of the doors lining the hallway.
"Whoa. Sis, look at this. This place is actually insane."
An exclamation of awe slipped from Yui's lips.
The moment the door opened, what greeted them was a suite that could slap the face off a five-star hotel room. The quality was that ridiculous.
A massive king-sized bed. Spotless luxury furniture and a chandelier. The attached bathroom even had a huge bathtub, perfectly set up.
And there looked to be at least ten more of these insane rooms lining the corridor.
"Sis, how many rooms does this place even have? I can't even guess how big the bunker itself is."
"Who knows. For now, you rest here. I'll go check the armory and come back."
"Hehe, that's my big sis! I'm gonna go swimming on this huge bed! Kyaaah!"
Leaving behind the sight of Yui diving onto the king-sized bed, Haze headed toward the tactical armory at the end of the corridor.
To a former mercenary like her, well-oiled firearms were far more exciting than a fluffy bed.
Haze opened the armory door and stepped inside, slowly scanning the wall-to-wall collection of pre-apocalypse firearms.
Matte black coating. Sleek, refined designs.
They were completely different from the crude, brutish hunks of scrap metal that rolled around outside these days.
Haze picked up what looked like the most standard rifle among them and stepped into the indoor shooting range right next door.
She loaded the magazine and peered through the scope.
Whirring—
A faint mechanical sound hummed inside the scope as it automatically calculated the distance to the target and wind direction, locking on with a red crosshair.
Bang—!
At the sound of the shot, Haze's eyebrow twitched.
There was no recoil.
No joke—this wasn't even a light impact against her shoulder. Zero. The rifle's built-in recoil control system had perfectly absorbed all the energy from the shot.
A clean hole was drilled dead center in the target's forehead.
"No doubt about it. Pre-apocalypse high-tech is on another level."
Haze muttered as she pulled back and locked the bolt.
The convenience and precision were straight-up broken.
But with the cold, rational eyes of a seasoned mercenary, Haze checked the muzzle and the bullets in the magazine one after another.
"Still, the destructive power is pretty mediocre."
It made sense.
Before that dogshit apocalypse broke out, the old world had been a peaceful era built on ultra-high technology. There weren't many fights between humans, and wars or armed conflicts were practically nonexistent.
Even if a major conflict did arise, unmanned weapons like AI, humanoids, and drones handled the fighting instead.
As a result, firearms meant for human hands had to focus on maintaining public order and suppression rather than mass slaughter or destruction.
The caliber and firepower were woefully insufficient for taking down heavily armed looters, other enemies, or those bulky mutated monsters.
Haze clicked her tongue bitterly.
No matter how smooth and convenient it was, if it couldn't kill cleanly in one shot, you'd still end up getting eaten alive. That was the reality now.
It didn't suit her taste at all. She'd always preferred heavy, satisfying firepower.
But if you flipped your thinking just a little, this weakness became an incredible strength.
"This would be perfect for Yui or Eve."
A faint smile spread across Haze's lips. Those two idiots were non-combat personnel with zero fighting ability.
Hand them one of the crude, high-recoil weapons of this era and they'd just whine about their shoulders being wrecked.
And they probably wouldn't even hit anything anyway.
But these pre-apocalypse guns had zero recoil and scopes that practically auto-aimed for you.
Even a civilian scrub with no firearm experience could immediately become a useful asset.
Plus, the suppressor performance was flawless, making them perfect for stealth missions or assassinations.
"Found the perfect toys."
With a satisfied expression, Haze picked out two lightweight firearms suited to Yui and Eve's builds and left the armory.
"Ah. Full belly, warm back... now I'm sleepy."
Yui, rolling around on the bed, muttered while staring at the ceiling.
This really was heaven.
But the occupational disease of this arrogant hacker, whose bones were made of information, wouldn't let her rest.
She was dying to know what the hell this insanely huge bunker had been built for.
Eventually Yui dragged herself out of bed.
After poking around the hallway and peeking into various rooms, her steps stopped in front of the command control room.
It was the place she'd only briefly glanced at before dinner earlier.
Huge wall-spanning displays and server racks greeted her.
"Okay. Time to get a taste of pre-apocalypse high-tech."
Yui plopped down into the cushy chair in front of the main console, wiggling her butt to get comfortable.
Thanks to the master access she'd cracked through the elevator, the initial connection was smooth.
A blue holographic blueprint appeared on the screen.
"Let's see... Single-floor layout on Basement Level 1. Total area roughly three thousand pyeong. It's not as ridiculously huge as I thought."
Yui's purple eyes with their X-shaped pupils rapidly scanned the blueprint.
Centered around a hundred-pyeong main room were fifteen fifty-pyeong private quarters like the one she'd seen earlier.
Spa and sauna facilities. Armory and shooting range.
And then the massive central power room and supply warehouse that took up more than half the bunker's area.
Yui clicked on the status windows for each sector.
[Hydroponic Cultivation Room]
The internal CCTV feed on screen showed it was basically empty.
"Anyway, none of us know how to farm, so we'll just abandon that one."
[Engineering Lab]
"No gearheads who know how to tinker with machines either, so we'll skip this too."
Yui clicked around with the mouse, checking the detailed lists for the medical and research wings.
There weren't many, but the list was filled with cutting-edge surgical tools, well-preserved medicines, and chemical experiment equipment.
"The milk cow would lose her mind if she saw this. The medicine looks usable right away, but..."
Yui rested her chin on her hand and let out a small laugh. No matter how good the machines were, it was still people who had to use them.
There was no way they could immediately operate the complicated pre-apocalypse medical equipment. The milk cow would have to bash her head studying before they could make any real use of it.
They had all the necessary facilities, but they couldn't actually use most of them. They just didn't have the know-how.
"Still, thanks to that stupid bitch Vanessa, we scored an absolutely insane base. But who the hell built this, and why?"
To find out the bunker's true owner, Yui clicked on the core data folder.
Highest security clearance required.
"Huh? It's rejecting me?"
Yui's mind raced. She was a former Intelli Master—one of the best in the continent, capable of cracking most system firewalls with her eyes closed.
Tap-tap-tap-tap—!
Her fingers danced across the keyboard in a dazzling display.
But all that appeared on screen were endless error messages.
"Haa? Not even close? Guess it'd take someone on Sua's level to break through."
It was clearly a top-tier classified facility even by pre-apocalypse standards.
She could view the blueprints and surface-level information, but the bunker's core data was completely locked down.
"How annoying. This is damaging my pride."
Yui bit her lip and glared at the red warning window on the screen.
Just then, the control room door slid open behind her.
"You said you were going to rest, yet here you are playing with computers again, kiddo."
It was Haze, holding two unfamiliar firearms in her hands.
Ban and Eve, having climbed back to the surface, sat side by side on the roof of the Humvee.
Maybe it was the happiness of finding such an incredible bunker, or maybe it was just the sea breeze that felt so pleasant as it wrapped around them.
The sun was slowly setting, dyeing the northern sea a deep red.
"Wow. It's really beautiful."
Eve gazed at the crimson horizon and sighed in admiration.
"Yeah. It is pretty."
Ban exhaled cigarette smoke and gave a half-hearted agreement.
But deep down, he felt a strange emotion.
After a lifetime of rolling around in the dirt and getting torn apart, had he ever sat side by side with someone like this, watching the sunset with real sentiment?
Hmm... probably not.
What to eat, how to get cigarettes, where to sleep—he'd always been too busy just trying not to die like a dog.
This unfamiliar peace felt awkward, but not bad.
"Master. Actually, I don't have any memories from when I was little either."
Eve suddenly spoke while keeping her eyes on the sea.
"You're an orphan too? Nice to meet you, fellow orphan. Heh, how many people in this world even remember their parents' faces?"
"That's right. The first thing I remember is the floor of the Red Cross laboratory."
Eve continued speaking calmly, without her usual exaggerated cute tone.
"I studied like a madwoman just to survive. The useless kids were turned into test subjects the next day. I took on every shitty project they threw at me."
Ban silently watched Eve's profile.
"I performed human experiments too. Cutting open living people's stomachs, injecting horrible drugs."
Eve's shoulders trembled slightly.
"When it was a matter of my own survival or having to kill an enemy, taking another life felt natural."
"But treating people like they weren't human just for some twisted greed or pure academic curiosity... I really hated that."
She naturally had the curiosity of a scholar. But what Eve had truly wanted was the medicine that could save people.
The contradiction of having to kill people in order to survive—had that eaten away at her back then?
"But I don't have to do any of that anymore, right? Thanks to you, Master, I'm finally free."
Eve turned her head to look at Ban.
Her pink heart-shaped pupils, catching the light of the sunset, curved beautifully.
"Being by your side right now is the happiest I've ever been in my life. Really~"
A straight punch with no warning.
They'd already seen everything there was to see of each other and spent many nights together.
But this still made him genuinely embarrassed.
Ban cleared his throat and looked away.
"Uh... Professor Eve, um... when you set the mood like that, this old man gets really shy, you know? Cut it out, you walking breast wallet."
"Hehe. Look at you getting all embarrassed. My Master is so cute!"
Eve immediately linked arms with him and pressed her enormous breasts against him. She'd returned to her usual silly self.
"Hey, get off me. It's hot! This old man is a very shy old man!"
Even as he grumbled, Ban didn't actually push Eve away.
"So. Is it fun? Playing around with a stupid name like the Super Lucky Solution Group."
Ban stared out at the sea and pulled out another cigarette.
"Yes. It's fun. The most fun in the entire universe!"
Eve looked at Ban with a bright, wide smile.
It was a smile more beautiful than the sunset.
He nearly dropped the cigarette in his mouth.
That smile was straight-up cheating.
"Then that's good enough. Just don't die and keep following me properly. It'd be annoying if any of you died now."
After speaking, Ban lightly jumped down from the Humvee roof.
Once he landed, he lit the cigarette in his mouth and looked back.
"Huh?"
Eve was standing precariously at the edge of the roof, grunting as she tried to figure out how to jump down.
For the milk cow who had zero athletic ability, the Humvee roof was quite high.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and get down."
"Master! Please catch me~! I think I'll twist my ankle!"
Eve spread her arms and whined.
"No thanks. You're too heavy because of those tits. Come down yourself."
"Hiiing..."
Maybe it was because the sea breeze blowing today felt especially refreshing, or maybe it was because those heart-shaped eyes catching the sunset light had bothered him.
"Ughhh! You're such a pain in the ass."
Ban grumbled as he walked over to the side of the Humvee. Then he spread his arms.
"Jump."
"Kyaa!"
Without hesitation, Eve threw herself into Ban's arms.
With a heavy weight and soft flesh pressing firmly against his chest.
"You're seriously fucking heavy. How much beef have you been eating?"
"Hehe. Master's chest is so wide and nice!"
Eve laughed brightly with her arms wrapped around Ban's neck. Ban gently set her down on the ground.
"Whatever. Let's head inside. The sun's down and it's getting cold."
Ban took the lead and walked toward the hatch leading down into the Underground Bunker. Eve followed close behind with quick little steps.
A soft blue light leaked out from beneath the open hatch.
"You go down first, Doctor."
"What? What about you, Master? Aren't we going together?"
Eve paused with her foot on the hatch stairs and looked back.
"I'm gonna stay out here and get some more fresh air. Tell the Ice Witch and the shorty to just go to sleep."
"What about the watch?"
"Don't know. I'll handle it myself today. Just go in and sleep."
His words were curt, but his actions weren't. Ban's large hand roughly tousled Eve's pink hair.
"Good work."
At those short words, Eve's eyes wavered once more. But she soon nodded with a bright smile.
"Yes! Master, don't stay out too long and come inside soon too!"
Eve waved her hands wildly and trotted down the stairs.
The hatch closed, and the surroundings grew quiet once again. The northern sea breeze ruffled Ban's hair.
Left alone, Ban looked up at the stars in the sky and took a deep drag from his cigarette.
The fact that the things he now had to protect in this shitty world were sleeping soundly deep underground.
"Not bad."
A faint smile curved his lips at this first-time feeling.