No-Ga Da Skills for Surviving the Apocalypse – Chapter 3
Early dawn broke over the Paju construction site of the office building, and the workers were just starting their day as most people in the country were still waking up.
Despite the horrific events of the previous day, the moment the sun rose the site buzzed with activity once more.
Workers prepared for the pre-shift safety meeting known as the TBM.
Each team leader counted his men and gathered them one by one.
Everyone forced out the usual jokes, yet there was an unmistakable tension beneath it all.
“Did they actually catch that crazy bastard yesterday?”
“No. The police even missed him. He wasn’t even properly captured on the CCTV.”
“Yo, nowadays the CCTV coverage is insane—how did they just lose him? Did they deliberately hide him somewhere?”
A conspiracy theory close to a rumor slowly began to surface.
The conversation naturally drifted to the virus that had become the hottest topic.
“There are so many videos floating around online lately. Some random guy walking on the street suddenly bites the person next to him. Inside the bus, people are going completely mad.”
“They’re saying it’s the CV-7 virus. Started in China. Someone in the comments said that.”
“No way, the news says Russia developed it for military use. They used it in the Ukraine war.”
“Russia made it, but the spread is blamed on China. Something about the airport… it just went out of control or whatever.”
Some articles claim the U.S. military scattered it. It’s all so different, so different.
“Yo, you can’t trust the internet rumors too much, man.”
“If I hadn’t skipped the Gangwon-do package trip last month… I probably ate something bad there. That’s why I’ve been feeling off lately.”
Someone tried to brush it off with a laugh while others subtly frowned.
“By the way, how’s the guard who got hurt yesterday and Park-hyung doing?”
“Apparently they sent him to a university hospital in Seoul because he wasn’t in good shape.”
University hospital?
It was no simple matter.
Normally when a site accident happened, they called an ambulance, rushed to the emergency room to stitch him up, and then immediately filed the industrial accident paperwork.
Sending someone to a university hospital meant the situation over there had to be even worse.
I stayed out of the conversation.
I simply kept a close eye on the other workers who had been scratched or bitten by the rampaging man yesterday.
The team leader with a bandage wrapped around his arm.
The man with a large gauze pad stuck to the back of his neck.
Both of them had the same unnaturally pale skin, like sheets of paper.
Even though it was still early and chilly, their faces were drenched in cold sweat far more often than it should have been.
Upon closer inspection, dark circles had formed under their eyes.
They barely reacted to the colleagues’ jokes and simply stared into empty space.
These people really need to go to the hospital.
People in this line of work avoided the hospital as much as possible.
They feared losing a day’s pay more than anything.
They usually just slapped on some plaster, took painkillers, and pushed through.
But this was more than just a cold or flu.
They had clearly forced themselves to come to work because of their daily wages.
Just standing there seemed to be a struggle for them.
The site manager stepped forward with a megaphone.
The TBM meeting had begun.
“Alright, everyone listen up! We’re passing on the pre-shift safety guidelines! Let’s start with each team leader checking his crew count!”
The manager’s voice boomed across the site.
Each team leader called out names in the familiar tone.
Some simply raised their hands like when attendance was taken, while others only nodded.
“For today, Team Formwork 1 will handle slab formwork disassembly on the 5th floor. The scaffolding team will extend the scaffolding on the 7th floor. Make sure every worker checks their safety harness and fall-arrest nets again!”
The familiar checklist continued.
Safety helmet straps, safety harness verification, fall protection, equipment pre-inspection.
The checklist was long, but in practice, workers barely remembered even half of it.
I habitually pulled my tool belt and safety harness tight around my waist one more time.
One mistake in scaffolding work meant instant death.
That was why even this formal TBM meeting triggered an instinctive response in my body even if I wasn’t listening.
But my nerves were entirely focused elsewhere.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the man who had been looking unsteady since the morning.
The words the police had spoken yesterday echoed in my ears.
Reports like this have been increasing lately. If this is really because of the virus…
Are those people okay?
Right then.
The man’s body suddenly swayed violently forward.
“Kuk… kuhk…!”
He made a strange choking sound, like someone being strangled, and collapsed to his knees.
Safety training came to an abrupt halt as every eye in the area turned toward him.
A nearby worker rushed over to support him.
“Hyung! What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
The man who had been supported to his feet could barely stand and swayed dangerously.
His eyes had lost focus and were glazed over.
“Hey! Pull yourself together, hyung! Did you overwork yourself? Head to the office container and rest for a bit!”
Overworked?
No, this was far more than simple exhaustion.
It was exactly the same as the rampaging man just before he collapsed the previous day.
A chill ran down my spine.
“Two more people to help! Support him and carry him to the container!”
The site manager raised his voice.
Several men quickly rushed over and draped the man’s arms over their shoulders.
His legs dragged along the ground as he was moved.
A passerby muttered under his breath.
“Should we call 119? Yesterday was already chaos.”
“Nah, there are tons of people who faint and then get back up. Everyone’s just tired lately. If we call an ambulance, the higher-ups will scold us.”
Someone else cut in.
“There’s a concrete truck arriving today. If it gets delayed, the whole site’s going to get really messy.”
The familiar logic of reality smothered the worry.
The manager stepped away from the crowd and pulled out his phone.
It looked like he was speaking into it with a low voice toward the site office.
“Yes, boss. Yes… another guy collapsed… Is it related to yesterday’s incident…? Ah, okay. I’ll lay him down in the container and report back once I check his condition. We’ll halt work for now… Yes, understood. We’ll only run with minimal staff.”
I couldn’t hear the full conversation, but the last part was clear.
Work would continue.
The crowd dispersed once more.
I pulled out my phone from my pocket.
When I opened the portal main page, the articles from the day before still dominated the top.
[Russia’s Military Virus CV-7 Sparks East Asia Spread Concerns]
[Street Rampages Continue… CV-7 Connection Debated]
I tapped the articles and scrolled down.
Incubation period, transmission routes, symptoms.
Even reading them, there was nothing satisfyingly organized.
Even the so-called experts disagreed with one another.
What I had seen at our site yesterday.
The incident that had happened right in front of me.
And right now, the condition of this man and the team leader.
Could it really be that virus…?
I tried to deny it, but a cold feeling crept into my chest.
“Seongmin-ah!”
A familiar voice snapped me back to reality.
It was Yeo Ildu, the team leader.
“This morning we should start clearing out the scaffolding on the 6th floor. Don’t touch the area where the accident happened. They’re saying it’ll just bring more trouble if photos get leaked online again.”
“Yes, understood.”
***
Lunch break had ended and the afternoon shift had begun.
The clang of hammers echoed under the bright sunlight while welding sparks flew.
The morning commotion was already forgotten as everyone threw themselves into their work.
But I wasn’t the same.
Danger signals kept blaring in my head.
I glanced at the team leader as I tightened a scaffolding pipe while working from below.
He had looked pale since the morning.
On the 5th floor, the formwork carpenters were dismantling the slab forms.
Swearing mixed with shouts rang out amid the noisy clatter of falling plywood.
“Hey! Don’t chase after it when you can’t pull it out! It’s falling!”
On the 7th floor, another scaffolding team was extending the outer wall scaffolding.
Some of them had just hooked their safety harnesses to their belts and weren’t actually securing the pipes.
One of them could fall and we’d get hit with another news article.
This was the reality of the site—everyone preached safety while scrambling to meet quotas.
The team leader was moving pipes near the 4th-floor railing.
Ever since the morning TBM, his face had stayed pale, and his steps still looked unsteady.
I instinctively tightened the clamp once more.
The wrench in my hand felt cold.
At that moment, the sound of a pipe slipping from the team leader’s hands rang out sharply.
Thud—
When I looked in that direction, the team leader had already collapsed helplessly to the ground.
“Team Leader!”
The colleagues working around him shouted in shock.
The team leader who had fallen to the ground began convulsing violently.
His eyes rolled back white, foam dribbled from his mouth, and his limbs flailed wildly in the air.
The site safety officer was the first to rush over.
“Clear the area! Put away the tools! Everyone, get back! It’s dangerous, so move the tools away first! Turn off the welders!”
He responded with calm efficiency, as per the manual.
He kicked the wrenches and hammers scattered around the team leader far away with his foot and placed the safety helmet from his waist under the man’s head to cushion it.
“Someone call 119 quick! Lay him on his side so his airway stays clear! He might bite his tongue, so don’t reach in!”
At the same time, he loosened the tool belt around his waist so it wouldn’t press on his stomach.
He was trying to make breathing easier.
But before his shout had even finished, a scream erupted from another direction.
“Tha… that side too!”
I turned my head and saw another worker who had been scratched on the back of his hand the previous day convulsing on the ground with the same symptoms.
His arms and legs jerked uncontrollably like a broken puppet.
While everyone’s attention was fixed on the second victim, the team leader’s violent convulsions suddenly stopped.
Right as a sigh of relief escaped from the people surrounding him.
The team leader suddenly jerked his head up with a crack.
His eyes were bloodshot red, veins bulging.
Krrruurrr—
Foamy spit dripped from his chin.
It was no longer the face we knew.
He lunged toward the safety officer who had been caring for him.
Thud!
A grotesque sound accompanied as chunks of flesh were ripped from the safety officer’s neck and blood sprayed like a fountain.
“Kwaaah!”
The scream tore through the entire site.
Damn it!
He was exactly like that bastard yesterday!
There was no time to hesitate.
“Everyone, run!”
My shout signaled the site to erupt into chaos in an instant.
People screamed and scattered in every direction.
I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed the scaffolding pipes with familiar ease and began climbing higher.
By the time I had scrambled to the 10th floor, the view below hit me like a punch to the gut.
It was hell.
The fallen workers were one by one rising up in grotesque forms and attacking their colleagues indiscriminately.
Workers who had been bitten on the neck or arm fell to the ground bleeding.
Soon after, they too became the same monsters and began hunting down the remaining survivors.
Most fled the site screaming.
A few hid inside the container boxes, but the number of infected people was growing exponentially.
…Was it really possible? Was that really the virus?
Using blue-collar skills to survive the apocalypse – Chapter 3