Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 129.1: The Voice (1)

roxanneGIRL: What?

She denied it right away, but a part of her held onto a faint what if.

Monsters and rifts belong to the realm of the incomprehensible.

The brightest geniuses and scholars from every field poured their souls into unraveling the secrets of the rifts, yet not a single truth has been uncovered about the rifts themselves.

Which is why, when it comes to the nature of the rifts, everyone stands on equal ground.

That ground being ignorance.

Message from Deadman_working: The bandwidth used by Necropolis is pretty similar to the one presumed to be used by monsters.

Which means this guy might actually be right.

Monsters using radio waves?

Sounds like utter nonsense, but it can't be ruled out entirely.

I may call myself an expert on monsters, but all the knowledge I have is based solely on experience—in other words, everything I’ve learned, I learned the hard way by getting my ass kicked.

roxanneGIRL: What are you even saying? That makes zero sense.

She asked a question.

But—

Message from Deadman_working: It’s less responsive when it’s fragmented voices, but when something like this draws a massive chunk of bandwidth, they react 100%.

Deadman_working clearly had no intention of answering.

He just rambled on with what he knew.

Message from Deadman_working: Let’s hope there are no monsters nearby.

Doesn’t matter.

Whether that’s true or not, I’ll find out soon enough.

“Monsters are moving!”

“They’re coming out of the nest!”

“Targets Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta—full mobilization!”

The soldiers stationed behind the warehouse moved in a frenzy.

“What the hell—monsters? There wasn’t even a major eruption! Why now? And from ones that already established a base?!”

That was Kim Byeong-cheol, shouting.

“What’s going on?”

Hong Da-jeong’s voice came through the comms, and Cheon Young-jae answered in my stead.

“Monster alert. Doesn’t look like an eruption. Maybe a mass relocation?”

The monsters were moving.

It seemed Deadman_working was actually telling the truth.

“...”

A frequency used by monsters.

Internet communication using that frequency—and monsters responding to it.

It’s a fascinating concept, one that tickles my pathological curiosity for the first time in a long while.

At least during my time in service, no one had any clue, nor even proposed the possibility.

And now, a group of engineers with no ties to hunters supposedly discovered and utilized it?

“Hey. Skelton.”

Pulling me back from my thoughts was none other than Ballantine.

“Things sound pretty chaotic out there. Is there a problem?”

“Yes. I think so.”

I paused to think.

How should I handle this situation?

The soldiers’ reaction alone was proof that this wasn’t good.

It’s a monster. Humanity’s natural predator.

And it’s charging in, as a group, toward us.

If Kim Byeong-cheol were still the head of a major corps like before, he could’ve used powerful artillery to fend them off. But now, he was nothing more than a small-time warlord.

The first option that came to mind was to abandon the plan.

Shut off Necropolis’s reception, give up everything, and retreat.

I wouldn’t lose anything—but I wouldn’t gain anything either. The most passive of all options.

But would that really be okay?

What I feared most was regret.

Regret over not seizing an opportunity that may never come again.

I’ve felt that kind of regret many times in my life.

It never heals.

You can bury it under other memories and forget for a while, but once something comes along to unearth those memories, that scar of regret always resurfaces.

“...”

If I give up on this, I feel like I’ll be haunted forever by a regret that casts a deep, black shadow over my soul.

Necropolis?

It’s important.

A second PaleNet?

That too is extremely important.

Important enough that I’d be willing to risk my life for it.

But more than that, there’s now an even more decisive reason.

A frequency that summons monsters.

It’s a concept no one’s ever known or proposed before.

Not a single scholar or even the most advanced AI system has ever been able to decode the behavioral principles of monsters.

Which is why we’ve treated their invasions as “eruptions”—incidents without any intent.

Humanity is ignorant about monsters.

How they churn out new monsters in their territory, how they communicate with other species, how they expand the erosion zone—

We know nothing.

And that ignorance is what brought us to ruin.

But now, out of nowhere, a clue has emerged about the fundamental behavior of monsters.

A frequency used by monsters?

This might be the key that turns everything upside down.

“Skelton. What should we do? I think the monsters are coming.”

Ballantine’s voice was full of anxiety.

“Shouldn’t we just get out of here?”

Same for Hong Da-jeong.

“Hm. Something doesn’t quite add up.”

Cheon Young-jae, who never cared about the internet from the start, seemed rather relieved.

Defender stayed silent, but I could tell—he probably wanted to pull the plug on this reckless venture too.

That was the general consensus of the team.

But.

“...”

Let’s be honest.

Once you’re dead, it’s all over.

I may have talked big to Ballantine about meeting John Nae-non in the afterlife, but I don’t actually believe in an afterlife.

Death is the end.

I won’t let myself leave behind any more regrets.

More than anything, there was something about how the monster—an enemy that should have been buried in theory, only to burst through the surface of my reality—appeared in front of me that felt... fated.

That’s right.

Park Gyu was never a self-contained proposition.

A man like me only exists because there are monsters.

I’d momentarily forgotten that fate.

“General.”

I approached Kim Byeong-cheol, who stared pale-faced at the monitor.

“I’ll hold them off.”

It was during a battle that added a legendary tale to the already-famous call sign "Professor."

A single hunter team held off an entire battle sector against a massive wave of monsters advancing toward Beijing.

Just during the one-week battle, we killed over thirty monsters.

Only four of us, six counting the support team—a single hunter squad.

That kind of miraculous outcome will probably never happen again.

I’m older now, out of practice, and my teammates today aren’t the same caliber.

But if you ask me whether this fight is hopeless—

I’d say no.

“Monsters approaching. Small-type! Dancer-type!”

Right now, I was moving with the soldiers.

“Good. Let’s lure them in a little further.”

There’s a rumor that circulated during the fall of Beijing.

They said that if the city’s defense hadn’t been led by an incompetent general but by a professional hunter—someone like Professor—the capital of 1.3 billion people wouldn’t have fallen in such a humiliating way.

Personally, I think Beijing’s fall was inevitable.

Even if I had been in charge, I couldn’t have prevented it.

The most I could’ve done was slow it down.

I stared at the pale-gray figure on the monitor.

Dancer-type.

A dangerous one.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

It’s the only small-type I know that I can’t take down in close combat.

At least, of the ones I know.

But even that powerful monster—

“Now.”

An officer next to me pressed a button.

A thunderous boom echoed from afar.

BOOM!

On the screen, clouds of dirt and debris collapsed like a landslide onto the Dancer-type monster.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

The Dancer-type tried to resist with its signature reflective field, but the debris it bounced back scattered like volleyballs tossed high into the air, only to be dragged back down by gravity and smashed into its head again.

CRACK!

The Dancer-type was among the hit targets.

“Dancer-type neutralized! It’s disintegrating into particles!”

The strategy of luring monsters during urban combat and placing large quantities of explosives in buildings positioned along their predicted path may be traditional and simple, but that’s exactly why it works.

The reflective field has no target to counterattack. When you exceed the limit of what that field can repel, the impact overwhelms it. That alone makes it a solid tactic.

Most importantly, in the Seoul of today, you can demolish any number of buildings and there’s no one left to file complaints, no court to claim compensation for property damage.

Every scattered building and pile of rubble in Seoul is a weapon in our arsenal.

I’d suggested a similar tactic in Beijing, and that was the first time I truly realized how strong the Chinese sense of property rights is.

“Good. Solid start.”

So far, six active monsters confirmed.

Four of them are already within a critical 5km radius. One of them was just taken down.

The problem is the two monsters that started from the Misari side, outside the 5km zone.

For some reason, there was no eruption, but drone recon revealed a mid-sized monster approaching from the east side of Seoul.

Mid-sized monsters are a completely different level from the small ones.

It would be best to hit it with heavy artillery here.

But Kim Byeong-cheol has no artillery unit, nor a skilled spotter to mark coordinates for one.

Worst case, I’ll have to step in myself. But even then, I’m not sure I could take down a mid-size—especially a combat-type, Praetorian-class.

“Target Bravo! Approaching!”

Let’s worry about that later.

For now, we deal with the next one in front of us.

This new one is a small-class variant—a new type called Boar-type.

Just like the name suggests, it looks like it’s covered in spines. I’ve never encountered it before.

And there’s nothing more dangerous than a monster you haven’t faced.

Still, if I quote the words of an active hunter, it’s apparently not as big of a deal as it looks.

In close quarters, it ranks around the Spider-type. Maybe even weaker.

Of course, I don’t plan to fight it fair and square.

“Let’s engage with the tanks.”

Kim Byeong-cheol had three tanks. One of them was destroyed inside the government warehouse.

Luckily, the remaining two are both “Dumbhead” types.

Specialized anti-monster tanks.

Normally, these “Dumbhead” tanks block the monster’s advance by firing low-powered shots that can’t penetrate their own front armor—but I’ve always wanted to operate these tanks our own way.

So then—

“Tank 4 has target lock. Tank 5 reports intimidation round ready.”

We’re going to intimidate it with the tanks.

Just a simple curiosity.

What kind of reaction would a monster show when hit with an intimidation strike using a high-caliber tank shell?

BOOM!

The tank’s powerful roar echoed.

The result was transmitted to the tablet and monitor with less than a second delay.

Result: ineffective.

As expected.

To monsters, tank shells and bullets are barely different.

One of the officers watching the screen muttered, “We don’t have that many shells...”

Must be the logistics officer.

Hard to blame him. There’s no real supply line anymore, so it’s only natural he’d be worried.

“Let’s try it once more. No—twice.”

Honestly, I wanted to fire four times. More, even.

I wanted to see how a monster wouldn’t react at all even under threat from something as lethal as a tank cannon.

But what can you do?

The logistics officer looked like he was about to cry.

In moments like this, you show respect to the commander’s face.

Kim Byeong-cheol, who had already given me full authority, let out a low groan and gave a nod.

“Proceed with two additional intimidation rounds.”

The signal officer relayed the order to the forward tanks.

BOOM!

The tank cannon fired.

As expected, it was blocked by the reflective field, the shell barely skimming the side of the tank.

And the third shot—same result.

Now for the real deal.

“Alright. Time for live fire.”

We’d fire twice ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) with a slight delay.

First a threat shot, then a lethal one.

The new monster had already come within two kilometers of The Hope.

If we let it go any farther, we’d have to blow up another building.

But that building’s reserved for another one. Specifically, if the mid-size type heads our way.

So we want to conserve resources—use minor firepower if possible.

“Now.”

I gave the command through the transmitter.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two shots fired with a razor-thin delay.

I stared coldly at the monitor.

As the tank cannon roared, I unconsciously clenched my fist.

There’s no shockwave.

Which means—

CRACK!

The intimidation shot grazed the monster’s side, just barely missing.

Then, the next shell—aimed straight for its torso and head—ripped through its body.

Even if the shell was low-yield, a monster’s body is tough enough to resist axes, not tank shells.

With a hole torn clean through it in a single hit, the monster began to dissolve into particles of light.

“Target Bravo, neutralized!”

At that moment, Kim Byeong-cheol, who had been silently staring at the map and monitor, finally looked at me.

He gave a nod.

“...Impressive. To take down two monsters with such minimal expenditure.”

Forty-eight rounds of 155mm artillery shells.

That’s the average number fired to take down a single monster.

More accurately, that’s the number used on one procession of monsters crawling out of a rift.

And if multiple monsters are nearby, the efficiency drops even further.

One could argue that killing humanity’s enemy is worth that cost. But even so, those numbers are irrefutable proof of why humans cannot win against monsters.

Monsters spawn infinitely.

Not in the inflated, meaningless way humans throw that word around.

But in the truest sense of the word: infinite.

Some say forty-eight shells is nothing for modern manufacturing. But how many rifts are out there in the world?

How many times a day—maybe several times per day—do monsters appear?

Can we really sustain that kind of ammo consumption?

What if we used even more expensive tools—aircraft or advanced equipment?

Economy of scale.

It’s that basic concept that’s allowed monsters to trample humanity.

“This is only the second one.”

Now, we have to fight smart.

And fighting smart means fighting economically. In other words, being willing to take risks.

It might be unfamiliar to these once-spoiled soldiers, but to us hunters, this kind of efficient battle is second nature.

“Third monster spotted. Shit. Necromancer type.”

Cheon Young-jae reported in from the recon point.

Upon hearing it, I turned to Kim Byeong-cheol.

“Can you handle the zombies?”

“That won’t be a problem. Why?”

I pulled out the most cost-effective weapon in front of Kim Byeong-cheol—a melee weapon.

“I’m going to try dealing with it using this.”

Kim Byeong-cheol smiled.

That smile would soon fade.

Because I know.

These aren’t all the monsters that are coming. freēwēbnovel.com

Maybe even Woo Min-hee is among them.

But that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

If the voice of the dead really is drawing the monsters in, then there’s going to be a hell of a lot to talk about.