Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

Chapter 6

I finally cleared the entrance to the kobolds’ den…no, since they were already dead, shouldn’t I call it Kang Seongho’s den now? Well, whatever the name was, the cave truly made me feel at  ease as it would be the foundation for my survival in this forest. Now I only need to work hard to protect this cave from any monster who comes knocking.

With a shining flashlight in my hand, I looked around the interior of the cave.

“It’s not that spacious…” The size of the entrance itself was narrow to the point I had to bend down to get in. Then as soon as I entered, I was greeted by a straight path with no turns whatsoever. The humidity wasn’t that high for a cave, so it seemed like it would be cozy. Plus, there were no worms or rats visible anywhere.

“Did those kobolds eat them all?”

My question echoed in the cave. They’re just that gluttonous. They were creatures that would eat practically anything.

At the end of the cave was the nest of the kobolds. All sorts of rubbish and bloodstains could be found there as a horrendous smell swept over me.

Covering my nose, I took out a measurement tape and measured the distance from the kobolds’ nest to the entrance. It came out to around 15m.

“It should be spacious enough.” I mused.

For now, let’s tidy up the interior of the cave first.

It was quite difficult to walk through the uneven cave floor. Even more so when my body was tattered like this. But I ignored it and desperately moved my aching body to clean the remains left behind by the kobolds. And after some time passed, it was finally over.

“Should I layer the ground with some mortar mix?” This space was a cozy and decent-sized cave, but the ground was too bumpy for my liking. It would certainly become much better once I flatten the ground. And also… I thought it would be good to bring a sandwich panel here to separate the room I would use for my daily life from the warehouse.

As I wandered through the cave with those plans in mind, my eyes suddenly caught a glimpse of a shining stone embedded in the one corner of the floor.

“Oh, it’s been awhile since I have seen you.” I smiled.

The shining stone in front of me was called a glowstone. It was a stone which was used as the primary lighting source in the incredibly dark night of apocalyptic world since carelessly starting a fire in apocalyptic world was synonymous to suicide as it would attract the nearby monsters to come. With the help of a piece of dark fabric covering the basecamp, the light from a glowstone wouldn’t be seen on the outside.

“Can I dig this up?” I momentarily returned to my home through the portal to pick up a pickaxe. My mind told me to continue working but my body urged me to just lie down on the bed as soon as I see one. But my mind prevailed in the end, albeit barely.

When I returned to the cave once again, I quickly started to hit the ground around the glowstone with the pickaxe. Fortunately, as the ground was on the softer side, I was able to excavate a glowstone around the same size as a fist without much difficulty.

“It’s pretty big. Will I find more if I dig more?” If I dug up more of these stones and put them in every corner of the cave, I don’t think I would fall down because of the uneven ground.

And so, I became a miner.

After religiously digging the ground, I found several more glowstones and even found a red stone.

“Boy! What a jackpot!”

The red stone was some kind of flint called an ignition stone. It would produce a spark when two of it were rubbed against each other. It also could be used without any problem even when it was wet.

“The more means to start a fire the better.”

With a lighter, a flint, a firesteel and an ignition stone, I practically wouldn’t have any problem starting a fire.

Of course, the use of an ignition stone wasn’t just to light a fire.

I put the glowstones and the ignition stone in my backpack for now and looked at the entrance of the cave.

It would be evening soon…

“Even if this is the last day of my life. I don’t want to sleep here…”

It’s indeed my cave, but it still needs to be renovated before I could live here with ease without worrying about my life.

As I exited the cave, I carefully covered the cave entrance with some bushes before returning home through the portal. And as soon as I saw my bed, I felt that it beckoned me to just throw myself to it. But once again, I resisted as I still had something to do, which was planning for the cave’s renovation.

“After levelling the ground with mortar mix…” I need to install a sandwich panel to separate the space inside. After that, I would be making a bed and stocking up on some supplies.

“I have to spend the night in the forest soon.”

It’s scary there but…

As I was thinking about it, suddenly the desk was in front of me.

“Aigooyaaaa.”

I was too sleepy to the point I unconsciously fell face-first into the desk.

It didn’t hurt that much though, although it did make my sleepiness grow heavier.

“Let’s just sleep…”

As I threw myself to the bed, my mind instantly went black.

It was a very tiring day.

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“Ugh.”

These days, starting my day with a groan seems to be a routine.

I think I should have lost some weight after all the hard work from yesterday. And so, I headed towards the mirror and checked myself…

And what I saw there was very pleasing. My body had become a tad slimer. Though, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly which part of my body had lost some weight. And at the same time, I also felt that I had become fitter than before. However, it turns out to be just an illusion.

“Got fitter my ass… It’s just been 3 days since I actively ran around in the forest.”

Now that the zombie outbreak is drawing near, I need to make my body much more agile than before. When I thought to the point, I thought of registering myself to a gym, but soon after l,  I completely gave up on that idea because I think working in the forest would suffice.

As I was about to go cook and eat, a text message notifying the arrival of my package arrived.

Why did it arrive so early… Ugh, it’s already afternoon? Seems like I was completely wasted.

“I wonder what arrived today…”

With an expectant feeling, I walked down the stairs. But suddenly, a sharp pain struck my ankle.

I rummaged through my memory trying to remember what I did with my feet yesterday as I crouched and checked my foot. Then I recalled that I was using it to kick a kobold. It seems like I couldn’t feel it yesterday because of the adrenaline rush I got from fighting the kobolds.

In this state, going up and down the stairs was really a painful experience.

“It’s because of the shoes.” The shoes I wore yesterday couldn’t protect my ankles properly. It would be better if I buy a pair of hiking boots or tactical boots that go up to the ankle.

When I think about it now, yesterday’s fight was quite dangerous. And in the future, I was certain I would be caught up in much fiercer fights. Therefore, I would need better equipment to raise my chance of surviving.

“Aside from a stab-proof uniform…” Gloves with hidden knife function, tactical vest and pants, and tactical boots seemed to be needed. For head’s protection, I could just wear a full-face motorcycle helmet.

I should order one after browsing through all the sellers and choosing only the one with good reviews.

As I arrived on the first floor, it seems the package which arrived today was the external hard disk I ordered. The ten 3 terabyte hard disks would be enough to store various videos I need.

“Let’s put other videos too…muehehe.”

I downloaded all the videos I had been watching on MeTube and stored it all on the hard disk. These were all necessary videos for me who would have to lead a primitive life in the forest. Especially those which shows me how to make weapons.

Currently, I used a ready-made bow as one of my weapons, however I was quite interested in the crossbow. Although it has a glaring weakness of slow reloading speed, it also had advantages which cannot be ignored: it was much more powerful, required less strength, and was smaller in size.

“It’s really good, but I can’t buy it…”

The authentication process of buying a crossbow in South Korea has been strengthened since the incident where a crossbow was used to shoot a person in the past. Crossbows with pulleys cannot be imported at all. Even the composite crossbow was treated like a firearm.

This goddamn country had far too many regulations dammit.

“The compound bow looks good, but…” it wouldn’t be enough. Reviews from real users said it’s powerful, but still, there were a lot of parts I was concerned about.

“How to make a wooden bow and crossbow…”

I type those words on the search bar of the MeTube. And then, a long list of videos uploaded by a white uncle showed up on my monitor. Truly, MeTube was the best source of information on the planet.

I selected the ones with the highest number of likes and saved them one by one on the hard disk. It may not be of much use right now, but it would certainly be a great help later on.

“These uncles are also capable of building a house.”

Even though it was not a fancy house, the videos even showed me how to cut trees in the wild to make a simple hut. Moreover, the videos also only use woodworking tools which were relatively easy to obtain.

“It’s really great!”

The time passed quickly as I continued to save the related videos. And when I finally looked at the clock, it was already 3 o’clock.

I quickly called the material store and ordered a mortar and several other tools.

“And can I get some sandwich panels, too? Ah, you want me to come and pick for the specification? All right, I’ll be there soon.”

I went out of the store and started the Tamas parked in front of the store.

(T/N the Tamas I found is an electric car. I don’t know if that’s the one.)

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I bought some stuff and brought it home.

It turns out sandwich panels were more expensive than I expected, but I still ended up ordering a lot. Afterall, money would soon become a useless piece of paper. And it would be better to exchange it with something more useful for the future.

I also bought many other things such as dozens of mortar sacks and a 20L barrel which was too big to be loaded in the Tamas. Fortunately, the manager of the construction material shop decided to deliver it to my house as a service.

I’ll just put it on the first floor when it arrives and bring it to the forest later on.

When I finally reached my store, I turned off the engine and got out of the car when a white face popped out of the hair salon next door.

It’s Mikyung.

“Ahjussi, I think it’s been a while since you cut your hair.”

“Is that so?”

It wasn’t that long though, but I thought it would be okay to cut it now since in the future I would have to shave it myself.

“There’s no other customer here, so I’ll cut it nicely for you.”

“Well, if that’s the case then…”

I went into the hair salon and sat down in the chair she recommended.

The chair momentarily wobbled under my heavy weight. And then Mikyung came towards me and wrapped a cut cloth on my body.

“Ahjussi, I think you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“Oh, you noticed that?”

“Yes. You lost quite a lot around your face. When I saw you earlier, I thought it wasn’t you for a moment.”

Then, Mikyung placed her hand on my shoulder and asked softly,

“What kind of cut do you want, Ahjussi?”

“Just cut it all, like a soldier.”

“Uh… a buzzcut?”

“Yep.”

“You’ve grown your hair this long. What a waste.”

“It’s okay, I just want to have a fresh start.”

“Ahh.”

She smiled knowingly, then she took the sprayer and sprayed it into my hair. After that, with scissors in hand, she cut my hair.

As I looked at my hair being cut in the mirror a short man with a tattoo on his forearm entered the salon. He is a tow truck driver who operates nearby and someone who once had an argument with me.

We had argued because his modified truck’s headlights were too bright and his sound system extremely noisy. When I told him to lower the volume of his music, he went out of his way to drive around my store while playing the music on maximum volume. When I came out and yelled at him, he would run away. After that, every time I saw him, I would report him for illegal modifications. But unfortunately, he was never caught and continued to wreak havoc in the neighborhood freely.

When he saw me while he was trying to sit on the sofa, he flinched. Then, he started to talk to Mikyung.

“Miss Mikyung. I’ve looked into it. But I think we are in big trouble.”

“Why?”

“That guy deleted all of his videos and disappeared. Currently our group is trying to figure out where he lives.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

The tattooed man grinned. “Illegal? No no no. After all, we are going to cover it up. Miss Mikyung needs to be a little bit bolder.”

“But still…”

From their conversation, I could roughly know what they were talking about.

It seems that the tattooed man knew about Survival Life as well as the upcoming end of the world. And the guy who deleted all of his videos is probably me.

The reason he said it in front of me is probably to arouse my curiosity. It was obvious he would feign ignorance as soon as I asked him what he was talking about.

So, he’s trying to figure out my identity, huh? Well, let’s let it slide for now. The law is still alive, after all.

When he saw me keeping my silence, the tattooed man coughed.

“Miss Mikyung, you are so frustrating. Are you really going to continue living like this? If we started to prepare only after the signs had appeared, it would already be too late! We have to prepare in advance.”

It seems I wasn’t the only one who was preparing for the end.

I don’t know whether he had awakened or not. But looking at him, it seems it wasn’t the case.

As Mikyung kept hesitating, the guy urged him.

“We can’t wait for your answer any longer, Miss Mikyung. Even right now, many people are begging to join us. As you know, the more people there are, the more dangerous it will become. We are taking a risk here by inviting you, Miss Mikyung.”

That’s right. Monsters, including zombies, had the ability to instinctively search for traces of living things. The more people there were in a group, the higher the chance of them being caught by monsters.

That’s why in Survival Life, I was reluctant to gather more than 6 people in a group.

The tattooed man continued to seduce Mikyung with plausible information. Thanks to that, the hand which takes care of my hair keeps stopping, making the treatment too long for a simple haircut.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but please stop. Can’t you see she is cutting my hair?”

When I said those words, the tattooed man’s face twisted and he stood up.

“Tch! Fine then! I’ve already said everything I want to anyway.”

He then went out as he murmured in a low voice. “Let’s see how long you will last…”

Well jokes on you, since I would probably last far longer than you. Moreover, I didn’t have any intention to leave the people who tried to harm me alone.

By the way, he looked strange when he left. When he was about to bump into someone who was passing, he freaked out and pulled out his hand. It was so suspicious.

On the other hand, Mikyung was restless. In her current state, it would be difficult for her to focus on her work.

“Hurry up, please. I have a lot of work to do.”

“Ah yes. I’m sorry.”

She leaned her body forwards and continued to focus on my hair.

It smells really good though.