A Place to Call Home
“I’ve decided to work as an employee.”
“At the support center?”
“Yes. They must have liked what I’ve been doing so far. They said I’ll even get a salary.”
She had been talking with a city hall civil servant earlier, so it seemed they had settled it then.
After the noisy lunch passed, the large crowd either boarded the buses provided by city hall or climbed into any empty spots on the trucks carrying luggage.
The elderly boarded the buses first. Those who couldn’t fit into the remaining vehicles began walking under the guidance of city hall staff.
The Kang Tae-sung family, who had stayed until the very end to ensure no one was left behind, took one more look around the school and gymnasium to check if anything had been forgotten.
After that, they split into two vehicles and headed toward the city center. Kang Han-sung drove the truck while Kang Yeon-sung drove the four-wheel drive.
Kang Yu-ri sat in the passenger seat beside Yeon-sung, with their parents in the back. Tae-sung chose to ride in the truck bed rather than inside the vehicle.
“Why isn’t anyone riding in this one?”
Han-sung’s complaint drifted back from behind them. The family laughed, but Han-sung himself had no real objection to Tae-sung staying with the rest of the family. He had only said it in jest.
By now, most decent houses were already occupied. The Kang family wandered around until late afternoon but still couldn’t find a place to live.
In the current world, almost no one lived in their original homes. Most people simply moved into empty houses.
Of course, that meant they had to handle their own electricity and water supply, but the advantage was that there were no rent or utility bills to pay.
However, neither Tae-sung nor Han-sung had any intention of settling for just any empty house.
If it were only for living, anywhere would do. But when they factored in surrounding conditions, safety, and several other calculations, finding a suitable home in a single day seemed nearly impossible.
In the end, half-giving up, they searched the internet again and discovered a post about a nearby villa complex that was directly owned and operated by city hall.
“Directly operated by the state, huh.”
Currently, any houses or land whose owners had not reported them had their ownership temporarily transferred to the state. Anyone could move in and simply register their residence.
Even if you moved into an empty house, government offices were operating again under the banner of national reconstruction. Residents were required to re-register their residence, even if they didn’t pay taxes.
But a villa complex operated by city hall itself? They had never even considered such a place might exist.
When they went to see it, the location was better than expected.
The villas seemed to have an actual living area of roughly 60 to 70 pyeong. Each unit had one large bedroom, three smaller rooms, and two bathrooms—one attached to the master bedroom and another main bathroom.
The main bathroom was spacious enough for two adults to lie down side by side, complete with a generously sized bathtub.
There were plenty of rooms, a nice living room and kitchen, and excellent bathrooms. Even better, they could share the city hall’s water purification system and electricity.
Of course, it wasn’t free. In addition to monthly rent, they would have to pay additional usage fees based on electricity and water consumption.
Still, the biggest advantage was no longer having to worry about conserving even a single drop of water for washing or checking the remaining charge on solar-powered batteries.
Moreover, its proximity to city hall satisfied the condition Tae-sung valued most. It was located in the center of the city—the safest area in this town.
“It’s insanely expensive…”
Yu-ri, who had been looking at the same webpage, let out a groan. She had seen the monthly rent listed on the introduction page.
Ten million won per month.
The notice stated that a city hall collection officer would come every month to collect the rent in person. Ten million won a month.
It was an expensive price.
Even before the world changed, it would have been outrageously high. And in the current situation, it was even more so.
Perhaps that was why, when they looked around the villa complex, most of the units were empty except for a few. The current residents all seemed to have one thing in common: a hunter in the family.
“For these conditions, it’s actually cheap.”
But Han-sung said exactly that.
He explained that in Seoul, the monthly rent for a 30-pyeong apartment in areas with good security, transportation, safety from monsters, and proximity to daily necessities stores had already exceeded a hundred million won.
Even though this was technically a provincial city, a monthly rent of ten million won for these conditions was hardly a rip-off, he added. Then he tilted his head slightly and continued.
“The question is how much the electricity and water bills will be… I doubt they’ll be more expensive than the rent itself.”
“The foundation seems solid too.”
Tae-sung, who had been inspecting every corner, nodded with a similar expression.
Close to the city center, unlimited electricity and water, sturdy floors and solid ground—so solid that monsters probably wouldn’t bother digging up from below.
“You don’t need to worry about money.”
At Tae-sung’s words, their parents looked deeply apologetic.
“We keep taking from you.”
Their father spoke with a bitter face.
In the past, he would have looked for work at a factory or as a security guard, but in this world, finding such jobs was like searching for a star in the sky.
There weren’t even any factories in this city.
Recently, a leather processing workshop had opened, but it was more of a small craft shop than a real factory.
Instead of running machines with electricity, workers made everything by hand—tough leather gloves, protective pads for arms and legs, and vest-like armor. The prices weren’t cheap, but the items had gained a good reputation among hunters, so business seemed decent.
“Then we’ll take it.”
When they filled out the application on the city hall reception page, a reply came quickly saying someone would come soon.
The civil servant who arrived in person went through a fairly simple procedure, then collected ten million won as a down payment and issued them a residence certificate.
“This is a temporary one. Once the official residence cards are made, we’ll issue one for each family member. When entering, just hold it up to the main gate, the side gate, or the building entrance.”
It was essentially a card key.
It didn’t quite fit the atmosphere of a villa complex, but they were told that security and guard levels in the surrounding area would gradually improve. So they accepted it for now.
After deciding on their new home, Tae-sung watched his family enter the somewhat empty house. He then patted the shoulder of Yeon-sung, who was standing at the very back.
“It’s your turn today.”
“Have a safe trip! I’ll protect this place.”
Han-sung, who had been looking around the house again, poked his head out the front door and shouted.
“Before that, we should stop by city hall first.”
At his older brother’s words while pointing at the truck parked outside, Yeon-sung quickly ran over and checked the battery level.
The outdoor electrical outlets were strictly for residents only. Without authenticating with the card key, electricity couldn’t be used.
Perhaps wanting to leave a good impression to secure the contract, the civil servant who had shown them the house earlier had already arranged for both vehicles to be charged. Still, the remaining charge wasn’t particularly generous.
Yeon-sung swapped in the spare battery from the four-wheel drive and, just in case, placed the other spare in the empty space behind the truck’s driver seat.
Meanwhile, Tae-sung was pulling a huge amount of items out of the truck bed. Yeon-sung, now properly seated in the driver’s seat, glanced at it through the rearview mirror, then turned his head fully to look.
“……”
Various leathers, teeth, claws, and what looked like crustacean shells were packed tightly into the truck bed.
It seemed he planned to sell them at the exchange center in city hall, and that guess was correct.
The truck stopped briefly at the city hall entrance. Unlike last time, where they had only checked faces and names, this time they were inspected thoroughly like at a military checkpoint before being allowed inside.
They even used a long pole with a mirror to check underneath the vehicle for explosives. The line of cars behind them grew long, but since it was procedure, no one complained.
When they told one of the temporary exchange center staff that there was too much byproduct to carry by hand, one of the people sitting inside came out and approached the truck directly.
“Whoa. That’s quite a lot. Are you from a guild? I hear more of them have been popping up lately.”
“……”
Ahem.
When Tae-sung simply stared at him without replying, the exchange center employee gave an awkward cough and began properly inspecting the byproducts.
He tapped away at his tablet, searching for something. He must have had access to a price chart for monster byproducts, because he quickly calculated the value using a separate calculator.
The total amount earned from selling everything in the truck bed came to a little over twenty million won. In addition, he received a little over sixty points for the five cores he sold separately.
These cores had quite a bit of mana, so Tae-sung wondered if they were being valued higher than before. It turned out the market price per unit of mana had risen.
The brothers returned to the truck and headed straight for the place where they had awakened Han-sung the day before.
When Tae-sung gave him the general location, Yeon-sung understood well enough and navigated there without getting lost.
However, on the way, they stopped at an abandoned commercial district. It had once been known as the furniture store alley. It occurred to them that their new house had almost no furniture.
They wandered around for a while, pulling out various pieces of furniture and either loading them into the truck or storing them in Tae-sung’s pocket space.
They found a bed for their parents’ master bedroom, beds for the other three rooms, desks, chairs, wardrobes, a sofa and table for the living room, a dining table and chairs for the kitchen, and anything else that came to mind. The load quickly grew quite large.
If they hadn’t had the magic pouch to store some of it separately, they probably couldn’t have moved everything in one trip.
“If I’d known, I would have loaded this on the way back.”
“Yeah.”
After setting off again, Yeon-sung commented that the truck seemed heavier, so the battery was draining faster than before.
When they finally arrived at yesterday’s location, they were disappointed to find a group of people had already set up camp there.
Nearly twenty people, most of them carrying long-range weapons.
It looked like they were hunting by having people on the roof of the only intact building provide support from above while others drove monsters toward them from below.
Those fighting on the ground included some who only held shields and focused entirely on defense, as well as others who supported them from the sides.
“Looks like a professional hunting team.”
“There’s too many of them.”
While Yeon-sung watched the group with an admiring gaze as they carried out their skilled combat, Tae-sung simply spoke with an expressionless face.
The monsters they were driving in at once numbered only one or two.
How much experience or points could twenty or more people possibly gain from catching just that? Even if they sold the byproducts, how much would each person actually receive?
“There’s a lot of dead weight.”
Dead weight.
Tae-sung’s gaze was fixed on the large number of ordinary people shooting bows from atop the building.
Whether they knew it or not, they weren’t dealing any meaningful damage, yet their expressions were extremely serious.
They had probably worked very hard just to be allowed into this group.
“We’ll have to go somewhere else.”
They moved a little farther away and eventually found a relatively quiet spot. If not for the corpses lying here and there, it would have felt somewhat desolate but still fairly peaceful.
“The bodies…”
Yeon-sung trailed off as he looked toward the other side of the road. The corpses appeared to be outlaws. Since they hadn’t rotted much yet, it seemed they hadn’t been dead for long.
Thank you.
See you next time…