The Relocation (1)
Kwak Donghyuk refused to accept his failure and kept throwing tantrums until a group of burly thugs finally dragged him away. Of course, I’d asked Jaehoon hyung to arrange it. Nobody tried to stop them. By then everyone had already hurled every insult imaginable at the man, so he was thoroughly despised.
The look of pure terror on Kwak Donghyuk’s face as they hauled him off was genuinely satisfying. I’d told them not to actually touch him, so they’d probably handle the rest just fine. Was that what wanting to be a leader looked like? As someone who’d had the role forced on him, I honestly couldn’t understand the appeal. Maybe it was because I was still young. Or maybe he’d simply never tasted power before. Or perhaps his greed was just that enormous. Well, I’d figure it out eventually. For now, I only knew one thing for certain: I never wanted to become someone like him. It would be nice if he could just live quietly….
I decided to wait a little longer before deciding what to do with Kwak Donghyuk. I knew expulsion would be the cleanest solution now that he’d caused real trouble, but things were never that simple. Sending someone who couldn’t fight out into this world wasn’t really expulsion—it was basically a death sentence. I still hadn’t earned complete trust from the people yet, so it wasn’t a card I could play lightly. Besides, ordering someone’s death, even indirectly, wasn’t easy. Maybe I should build a prison? Dark days seemed to stretch out ahead of me….
Enough thinking about Kwak Donghyuk. The thugs would keep him out of my hair for a while. There were plenty of other things I needed to handle.
As I watched him being dragged away, someone stepped up behind me. I turned to find Nayoon standing there.
“It ended well, thank goodness…”
“Yeah… If it had actually turned into a fight… ugh, I don’t even want to imagine it.”
I shuddered just picturing that future. We probably would have won, nine times out of ten, but… people could have gotten hurt. Or worse, someone might have died. I wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility yet.
To shake off the grim thoughts, I spoke to Nayoon in a playful tone.
“I really didn’t want any of this, you know. So you have to help me a lot from now on!”
“Heh, of course I will!”
Nayoon answered with a beautiful smile. Was this exactly why I’d fallen for her looks and ended up in this situation? I’d been completely taken in by her charms. Terrifying things, those charms.
I gave a wry smile, and suddenly a strange silence fell between us. Right when things were getting awkward, Nayoon seemed to hesitate over something. Before I could ask what was wrong, she moved first.
She threw her arms around me in a fierce hug.
“Ugh—?!”
“…”
I let out a weird noise in my surprise. For a moment, time seemed to stop. My eyes were wide open, taking in everything around us—even the expressions on everyone’s faces. They looked just as shocked as I was.
“Thank you…! I’m so glad I met you…!”
“Uh, um…?”
After those words, Nayoon pulled away from me in a hurry. I couldn’t see my own face, but I was willing to bet it was just as red as hers. Our cheeks burned. Nayoon didn’t say another word. She simply walked past me toward the Mart with quick steps. From behind, she looked almost robotic.
“What… what was that about…?”
My confusion only lasted a moment before I tried to commit that sensation to memory. It had felt nice…! Sure, Nayoon was incredibly fit and solid from all her training, but what did that matter?
“I had a feeling… Looks like the competition just got bigger…!”
At Daon’s muttered words, I turned around to look at the others. What was she even talking about?
“So Nayoon unnie is also a candidate for new sister-in-law? Wait, could all three of them… Is that even possible? Or maybe it is now that there are no laws anymore?”
I decided to simply ignore my little sister and her strange comments.
Even quiet Jaehoon hyung chimed in this time.
“Boss, I’m rooting for you!”
The real problem wasn’t the three in front of me. Seorin came stomping toward me, fuming.
She was terrifying whenever she got like this. Stopping right in front of me, she exploded.
“In front of all these people—indecent—!!”
“W-what’s indecent…?”
“Shut up!”
I couldn’t defend myself or make any excuses. Inside, I only whimpered pathetically, What did I even do wrong? I didn’t dare say it out loud; that would only make her angrier.
After glaring at me, Seorin marched off toward the Mart just like Nayoon had, stomping heavily. Still not satisfied, she kicked a pebble on the ground as hard as she could. It hit the wall and fell pathetically.
“Why is there even a pebble here!!”
“What did the pebble ever do to you…”
As I watched Seorin’s retreating back, Daon brushed past me too.
“Oppa, I’m disappointed…!”
“Huh…?”
Sohyun and Jaehoon hyung each left with their own strange comments.
“Oppa, fighting!”
“Hang in there!”
“What is going on…? Argh, wait for me!”
Before I knew it I was standing there alone. After taking a moment to process everything, I hurried after them.
After resolving the situation at the Mart, we returned home first. We hadn’t been able to come back for several days, so I wanted to let my parents know we were safe as soon as possible. The family reunion went well, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner that my mother, Eunbin, had prepared for the first time in what felt like forever.
Once we finished eating, I gathered everyone in the living room. I had become the leader of the coalition with the Mart, so it felt strange for that leader to keep living separately. Commuting back and forth didn’t make sense with the current situation either. Dookang came over from the house next door as their representative.
I explained the situation to my parents, then shared what I was thinking.
“So I’ve been considering moving. Dad, Mom… are you okay with that?”
“To think our Dohyun would end up taking on something this big…!”
My father, Taejung, said a few words before discussing it quietly with Eunbin. Their conclusion was to follow my wishes.
“Living long enough really does mean you get to move house thanks to your son!”
“Mom doesn’t care about anything else, but the kitchen has to be big!”
“Of course, Mom! We’re going to build something much larger than this house!”
I asked the others for their opinions too.
“You guys are okay with it, right?”
“We don’t mind at all. As long as I can stay by your side…”
“Huh?”
She’d mumbled the last part and I hadn’t caught it. When I asked again, a flustered Daon quickly shook her head.
“N-no, never mind!”
Since Daon was fine with it, I looked at Seorin.
“…”
After what happened that afternoon, Seorin wouldn’t even make eye contact with me or speak. This is probably going to take a while to blow over…? Still, she hadn’t said she was against it, so I took that as agreement.
I turned to Dookang.
“You’ll have to move again. Is that all right?”
“Of course it’s fine. As long as we can stay with all of you, we’re happy to do anything!”
“Thank you for saying that!”
With that, our move was decided.
The next day at the Mart, I decided to create specialized teams since we had so many people. The first one I made was a dedicated construction team. Given my own abilities, construction was just as important as defense or hunting.
“Does anyone here have experience in construction? Or even if you don’t, is there anyone who wants to work on building things?”
I gathered the people and asked. Hands went up one by one. With so many survivors, there were naturally quite a few who had construction backgrounds. Even those without experience wanted to join since it didn’t involve fighting.
“I used to operate excavators.”
“I drove dump trucks.”
“I’m a carpenter.”
“Um… can women do this kind of work too?”
“As long as you have the will, there’s no problem at all.”
Construction sites were usually full of men, but now that we could raise our stats, there was no reason a woman couldn’t do the job if she was determined enough. I also planned to gradually raise the average level of the group to 10. At that point, even the women would be able to exert as much strength as the men.
In the end, I recruited about twenty people for the construction team.
After that, I created a hunting team and a security team. Nayoon naturally took charge of the hunting team, which included Seorin, Sohyun, and Jaehoon. Dookang became the leader of the security team. Excluding my own party members, his level was 12—one of the highest—and he had both popularity and experience leading people, so I believed he would do well. He seemed burdened by the offer at first but eventually accepted the position.
“If you’re entrusting me with this, I’ll do my very best!”
“Thank you, sir… I mean, Security Team Leader!”
We also made a support team, though it was only half-formed with just Daon for now. She would follow the hunting team and provide backup.
“This should cover everything we can do right now, right?”
“Yeah, it seems sufficient!”
Jaehoon answered my question. There were still people without assigned roles, but I couldn’t create work out of thin air. Still, a few of them volunteered to handle meals and other miscellaneous tasks. Once the atmosphere became one where people actively looked for things they could do, the rest would find their own roles. That was exactly the kind of environment I wanted.
Finally, I addressed the whole group one last time.
“We can protect you for now, but this changed world demands that you learn to protect yourselves. That doesn’t mean I’m telling you to go out and hunt monsters immediately. There are no limits on how many people can join the hunting or security teams. If you ever feel ready, just tell the team leaders!”
After my rather long speech, the people dispersed while thinking over my words. Each team went off to handle their own tasks, and I gathered the construction team members.
An older-looking man asked me,
“What should we do now?”
“First, I heard some of you can operate heavy machinery?”
I checked who could drive what and calculated how many machines we would need.
Two excavators… three dump trucks… one forklift.
Come to think of it, we’d also need people to maintain the equipment. I regretted not asking earlier. It felt wrong to call everyone back after they’d already gone off to their tasks, so I decided to handle it later. The machines probably wouldn’t break down right away.
“Does anyone know where we can find construction equipment nearby?”
“Ah, I do.”
“Could you guide us there?”
“Well, that’s…”
“Don’t worry about safety. I’ll protect everyone on the way with everything I’ve got!”
“In that case… yes, I can guide you.”
“Those of you who can operate the machines should come along too.”
“Makes sense. If we’re bringing them back, we’ll need to drive them.”
“Let’s do that then.”
I set out first to secure the equipment. No matter how high our stats were, there was a limit to what we could do with manpower alone on a construction site. Besides, the machines would be useful for other tasks too.
“All right, let’s get moving!”