Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 149.4: Janggi (4)

Let’s say a person’s mind is a game of chess. Everyone has an innermost core, something that must never break — let’s call that the king.

To protect that mental king, people act in all sorts of ways. Sometimes laughably. Sometimes despicably. And, once in a rare while, with genuine nobility.

Take Mgu or Dongtanmom — examples of the ridiculous. Their goals aside, the way they try to protect themselves — the situations they create — are straight-up farce. In chess terms, they’re making absurd blunders and scrambling to recover.

The ugly ones? Kim Daram and his wife, no question. Their intentions and methods alike are dripping in the petty malice of the common folk. Like players who’ve already lost the game but keep stalling with endless repetition — anything to avoid admitting defeat.

And yet, you have people like John_nenon and Ballantine. Undeniably noble. They played honestly, with clarity and principle, and claimed their victories. That it cost them their lives doesn’t matter in the world of chess — or the soul.

Because the king of the mind — like the soul itself — is difficult to define.

Some call it conscience. Others, conviction. Faith. Whatever you name it, it comes down to this: how do you protect it?

The adult way, as it's known, is simple: do it first, then close your eyes. Lash out at a young employee from personal grudge, then later call them into a room to blabber about how it wasn’t your “real” intention, that it had some bigger meaning — one even you can’t articulate. That’s how it’s done.

It’s not that different from that online mindset where “whoever leaves the last comment wins.”

It’s popular. Effective.

Because when someone’s made enough mistakes, one more hardly matters.

So just do it. And forget.

Go through the motions of "protecting the king" and later reassure yourself, it was what it was.

Memory is convenient like that.

“Skelton. This is the kid.”

Defender had brought a child. Thin, hollow-cheeked, jittery-eyed — just like any abandoned child. Looked around ten. The cropped hair suggested a boy, but that didn’t really matter.

“Picked him up from the beggar gang.”

“Beggar gang? There were survivors?”

“Yeah. The old gang broke up or ran away, and the older ones started leading the younger kids. But, naturally, since all they ever knew was exploitation, they just ended up mimicking their abusers.”

Underneath Defender’s disregard for human life was something deeper: contempt. He clearly believed in original sin.

“What’s his name?” I didn’t ask the kid — I asked Defender. He glanced around at his crew.

“Woo-seo? Maybe Lee-seo?”

“Wasn’t it Arthur?”

“Woo-seo Lightbringer,” one of them joked, and the rest chuckled like idiots.

Meanwhile, the child stood silently, unsure what to do, watching the adults with wide eyes still unstained by capillaries or pigmentation.

“Commander. I heard you were discharged. Where are you now?”

It was Ahn Seung-hwan.

“What is it?”

“Nothing urgent, just... I don’t think I properly thanked you.”

“Thanked me?”

“Yes. For the Tannenbaum case.”

“Tannenbaum? Is that a callsign?”

“Yes. Hunter Kim Hanna’s.”

“I see.”

“Thanks to that, we’ve managed to settle down in this strange place. Honestly, we were lost. Had no idea what to do.”

“That so.” Nice words. But what I was about to do wouldn’t earn any thanks.

“I’ve got things to take care of. Let’s talk later.”

The signal was weakening. We were moving outside the government’s reach.

The second rendezvous site was similar to the first. A high vantage point for the waiting side. A ruined maze behind them, perfect for escape.

With confirmed reports that John the Baptist’s group included at least one detection-type Awakened, any rash approach would be meaningless.

So — we’d send the child in alone.

...

I left the kid’s name unknown. Thought it would help me protect the king of my mind a little better. The child was calm. Didn’t cry, didn’t ask questions. A composed, stoic kind of kid — the kind that wins affection just by being still.

“It doesn’t taste good, but you must be hungry. Eat.”

“You know what to do if you hear gunfire, right? Drop flat. Stay low.”

“It’ll be over quickly. The men here are very skilled.”

Defender’s team — the same people who tortured and killed without blinking — treated the kid surprisingly gently.

The only ones who didn’t speak to him were me and Defender.

“We gave him a capsule tracker,” Defender said, tapping on his tablet.

“It takes at least 16 hours to pass through the digestive tract. We’ve got time. Unless they cut him open.”

Seeing how steady he remained even now made me smirk bitterly.

“People are gathering. The bait went in alone, just like we wanted.”

It was Da-jeong’s voice over comms — she’d been our eye in the sky since dawn.

“Thanks.”

It was time.

I approached the child.

“All set? You know what to do, right?”

The kid looked up at me with those big eyes and nodded. No family, no friends, no siblings — walking the ruins alone.

Not lonely. Just... heartbreaking.

Then he looked back at me, like he had something to say. But he turned away without a word, shoulders slumped, and walked toward the ruins.

“Come to think of it,” one of Defender’s men muttered, “that kid had an interest in you.”

“Me?”

“Interested in Hunters. Specifically old-school ones like you. Not even Awakened.”

“Really?”

“Think his mother was a Hunter.”

Ko Jeong-du — the only name I actually remembered — added quietly, “She was. Killed in action.”

“Was she from the Academy?”

Given his age, it was likely. Maybe even the child of a peer — someone who fought alongside me.

Unlike elite warrior programs that prized brute strength, the Academy favored traits like composure, endurance, and precision. Its door had always been more open to women.

A lot of those female cadets died in the war.

War is the ultimate equalizer of genders — nothing grinds people down like a battlefield.

“She was probably Academy,” Defender said. Just a throwaway line. But something about it shifted how I looked at the boy’s back. From indifferent to concerned.

“He was amazed when we told him you were the best Hunter,” Ko Jeong-du added.

“And that his mother was on your team.”

As soon as he said that, faces — so many faces — flickered through my head like a stuttering slideshow.

Who was it? Which one?

Thirteen women had died. Two in hospitals.

Did any of them look like him?

I couldn’t recall. Their faces had drifted beyond the haze of sleep and time.

“...Should I stop?”

I said it without meaning to. To Defender.

“What?”

“Feels like I’ll regret it.”

In other words, I wanted to protect my king.

“Twelve hours.”

It had been twelve hours since we sent the boy.

The signal had been still for the last four.

“It’s one of two things. Either he’s at their hideout — or he’s dead,” Defender said, watching my face.

“You still worried about that kid?”

“Not at all.”

In the end, I sent him. I won’t make excuses.

It was necessary. John the Baptist must be eliminated.

Before his warped “research” catches the interest of those in power.

Science may have replaced religion, but human nature hasn’t changed.

There are still people desperate to believe in something they don’t understand.

People who worship science like religion. And maybe that’s fine — if it’s real science. But what most people think of as science is just borrowed prestige — the echoes of geniuses, the remnants of proven work.

When it comes to the Rifts, [N O V E L I G H T] all we have is theory. No solid proof.

Even so, there’ve been attempts to treat the Rifts with science.

India — the world’s top exporter of brilliant minds — suffered the most.

Their rapid collapse wasn’t just due to population or societal instability, as sociologists claimed.

Some scholars theorized that like a force field, a Rift could be destroyed if it absorbed enough damage.

So the Indian government deployed nukes, spaced evenly across their vast territory, targeting Rifts.

The first strike succeeded. The Rift disappeared — temporarily.

But it returned. And even with more bombs, nothing changed.

Then came the claim: Rifts were like bamboo — separate nodes connected to one system. If hit everywhere at once, maybe they’d vanish.

So they did just that.

The result? India lost its kill zones. And then India fell.

Similar cases happened elsewhere.

Trusting science blindly, especially violent science, brings disaster.

Think about it — the once-docile otherworldly species that now destroy and slaughter?

Who do you think turned them into monsters?

“It’s underground.”

We tracked the signal — the coordinates were in a wasteland, but nothing was there on the surface.

“It’s right on a subway line. Looks like Line 7.”

South Korea’s subway systems are top-tier — designed not just for transport, but to double as bomb shelters in wartime.

After the war, many people made their homes in subway stations. Some left as infrastructure crumbled, but others stayed behind.

Hard as it is to believe, some people fully sealed the entrances and adapted to the darkness — building ecosystems like caves.

Maybe John the Baptist did the same.

The signal pointed to an area accessible only by track — the station lobby had collapsed, blocking surface access.

So we’d have to go in through the rail line.

We had decent gear, being technically government-affiliated. But nothing heavy-duty — no armored vehicles for this kind of solo op.

With Defender’s shield-bearing man in the lead, we moved in silently. No lights.

Clack. Clack. A faint red glow.

Rats.

One of them glowed brighter than the rest.

“Mutation,” Defender muttered.

“Probably.”

Mutated rats were common. But I didn’t grow up in the city, so I hadn’t seen many.

They were about the size of a large dog — unimpressive in power, but dangerous nonetheless.

They hunt the vulnerable — the old, the weak, the unprotected. And they’re smart. They only strike when they know they can win.

A Chinese general once said: above ground, humans and monsters share the space.

Underground belongs to the rats.

We usually kill them on sight. But now, we couldn’t afford the noise.

Silently, we pushed through the dark. Then — faint light ahead.

“What now?” Defender asked after scanning with his night scope.

A barricade.

Heavily fortified. Even mounted machine guns. And about the same number of troops as us.

Maybe they’d detected us. Maybe they were just always that alert.

We were far out of range — even detection-type Awakeneds wouldn’t pick us up from here.

Still, breaching that position with no cover? A nightmare. Even with luck, the risk was immense.

“Any other routes?”

“We could try the vents. Might take a while though.”

“Can they hold an adult’s weight?”

“Maybe. But they’ll make noise.”

Backing off and returning with more troops would be the safest option.

But then—

“Hm?”

The signal moved. Slightly.

Zoomed-in map confirmed it — the signal was on the move.

The kid was alive.

“...”

Maybe it was already too late.

“Let’s do it.”

I must be getting old — looking for moral cover after making my move.

“I’m going first. You all wait here.”

I strapped two grenades into my harness, courtesy of Defender.

Then I crawled down the cold track in silence.

Hoo... hoo...

Through the green-tinted night vision, I saw the barricade. The rail. Human shapes — glowing.

The HUD marked the distance:

[302m]

Close enough for detection-types to sense me.

I gripped my gun tighter and kept crawling.

The plan was simple.

Kill before they can shoot.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺