Hiding a House in the Apocalypse-Chapter 116.1: Target (1)

The more people you have, the less work you need to do.

Now, assigning bunker spaces and guiding new settlers was someone else’s job.

"That’s the toilet. That’s the well. Use the electricity from this side for now. We’ll start construction soon."

Cheon Young-jae had taken over the orientation duties, moving with a noticeably lighter step.

I wasn’t sure if he was fully committed to my cause, but at the very least, our trust in each other had grown.

With less to do inside the bunker, one might think my workload had decreased.

It hadn’t.

Because I had another, far more important mission.

"Skelton-nim. It’s finally done."

Ballantine typed rapidly across the keyboard.

[ Welcome to the Red Archive Forum! ]

At long last, the backdoor between Viva! Apocalypse! and the Jeju Intranet was complete.

Now, we could move freely between the two sites.

"We infected unsecured computers with zombie PCs to expand our breach. During that process, we even found a few PCs connected to other satellite systems. Their configurations were different from Viva! Apocalypse!, but the core principles were similar, so it wasn’t hard to exploit them. That means even if the home PC in Jeju gets shut down, it won’t matter."

Jeju could no longer block us.

"Of course, they could shut down the entire intranet as a last resort. But can they really afford that? They run almost all administrative processes through it, just like before the war. Even if they do a full system-wide shutdown and investigation, it won’t matter. As long as they don’t format every single PC, the protocol we implanted will quickly restore our access."

Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I logged into the Red Archive forum.

[ Please enter your username. ]

The interface was the same as before.

"..."

Tap tap tap.

[ NoPayNewbie ]

"Huh?"

Ballantine, peeking at my screen, tilted his head.

"You’re not using your usual nickname?"

"No. I’m just here for recon right now."

"Fair enough. Still, that username fits the forum’s atmosphere well. ‘NoPay’ and all that. It’s not a term we usually see on our board, right?"

"Right."

It wasn’t bragging, but I, Park Gyu, had easily climbed the ranks in the Red Archive forum.

Since I had nothing better to do except stand guard and browse forums, I knew this place better than anyone.

And yet.

Tap tap tap.

"..."

My fingers stopped.

On my screen, the input box displayed:

NoPayNewbie: Is Skelton superior, or is QuantumCollapse better?

I hadn’t hit Enter yet.

The message was unfinished.

Ballantine turned to look at me.

"...Skelton-nim?"

Tap tap tap tap tap.

I slammed the backspace key, erasing the message.

"Skelton-nim?!"

I let out a sigh and answered Ballantine’s unspoken question.

"After thinking about it... this isn’t the right approach."

"Huh?"

"Yes, we have a backdoor between our forum and Jeju’s intranet now."

"Right."

"But look at their activity rate. It’s insane, isn’t it?"

"Easily over 3,000 active users."

"And what’s the active user count on our board?"

"At its peak? Around 120. When it's slow, sometimes less than 10."

Exactly.

What’s the point of having a bridge...

If we don’t have enough troops?

The demographics of the Red Archive were also completely different.

Their users were young—mostly teenagers and people in their early twenties.

Meanwhile, our forum had been a middle-aged board from the very beginning.

Even at its prime, the average age of Viva! Apocalypse! was 40+.

If we could turn back time to our Renaissance Era or the PaleNet migration, we might have a chance.

But right now?

Most of our users were old and exhausted.

Their energy was gone.

Would our handful of aging survivors really be able to take over Red Archive?

Or would they—the young, active users—end up swallowing us instead?

Granted, any kind of influx into our board would be a good thing.

But that wasn’t the goal.

I didn’t break into Jeju’s systems just for more users.

I did it for revenge.

That sparrow bastard who mobbed and exiled me—

I was going to turn the tables on him.

That was why I had risked my life to bring Ballantine into this.

"Can we really take over that forum as we are?"

I asked honestly.

Ballantine, the administrator of PaleNet, the only large-scale post-war community, answered without hesitation.

"Not a chance."

"..."

"I mean, sure, we could run macros 24/7 and spam gore images to annoy them. But that’s not ‘taking over’ a community. At the end of the day, a forum is run by people."

We needed people.

A lot of people.

At that moment, something flashed through my mind.

A role model I had long admired.

A giant standing unshaken in the currents of history.

I felt an almost prophetic clarity as I turned to Ballantine.

"Ballantine-nim."

"Yes, Skelton-nim?"

"What if—"

I looked him in the eyes.

"We created a second PaleNet?"

*

Inside John Nae-non’s mausoleum, his final legacy, PaleNet, still clung to life, taking its last, shallow breaths.

But that was all it was doing.

"The server's been unmanageable for a long time. When I last checked, over 75% of the storage was corrupted. It’s basically a natural death. The direct cause of PaleNet’s death was the loss of communication equipment, but even if we restored that, I doubt it would change anything."

PaleNet was dead.

And it couldn’t be revived.

Relying on familiar, easy solutions felt like laziness, even cowardice.

The only way forward was relentless exploration.

And through that exploration, a path would emerge.

With PaleNet’s demise confirmed, I turned my gaze toward North America—the birthplace of our board and of the internet itself.

There, Viva! Apocalypse! was still running, dozens of times larger than ours.

And beyond that?

They had created something new—a raw, open forum accessible to ordinary people, just like John Nae-non’s PaleNet once was.

That place was called Necropolis.

Ballantine and I connected to Necropolis.

The process was complex.

Using Obelisk's satellite signals, we had to modify them to mimic conventional satellite transceivers, then locate North American transmissions before tapping into the Necropolis current—a flow of data that constantly shifted.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Once inside, text appeared on the screen, delayed by a few seconds.

[ In memory of F. Sawyer, M. O’Connor, and that lovely red thing. ]

[ Welcome to the noisy city of the dead. ]

- If you are one of the dead, press Enter. -

Since the same translation tools from Viva! Apocalypse! worked here, we had no trouble communicating.

The bunker was stiflingly hot.

I brought over another fan, trying to cool down, but inside this cramped shelter, I could still feel the oppressive heat from the computers and electronics.

Ballantine and I stared at the screen.

Dead57351 (MD): I heard the roar of an airplane. Flames are rising over the city.

Dead19231 (NY): Looking for ammo. I have disinfectant and headache meds my grandma made.

Dead3413 (FL): A lazy afternoon.

Dead83219 (IN): Killed another black guy today. Yesterday was a Hispanic. Who will I kill tomorrow?

Dead4214 (NY): @19231, Location. Caliber. Amount. Confirm.

Dead5321 (MT): Saw an elk mutation yesterday. Too many mutations. They’re growing. Getting closer.

It was a world made entirely of raw text.

No decoration. No fluff.

It reminded me of an old FOXGAMES title.

At first glance, it looked simple.

It seemed like something that wouldn’t require much tech to build.

But Ballantine thought differently.

He typed a few messages, examined the responses, then opened several unfamiliar tools to inspect the site’s structure.

After a while, he shook his head and closed the window.

"This isn’t going to be easy."

"Really?"

"This... is beyond me."

"What? Something like this?"

"It looks crude, but it’s top-tier even by North American standards. It was built by someone who could be called a genius. The algorithms, the design, the way it functions—I can’t replicate any of it."

Even the arrogant Melon Mask had reportedly been unnerved by Necropolis.

It was far more sophisticated than it looked.

While it technically operated as a P2P system, expanding direct connections between users, Ballantine explained that the actual technology was far more intricate.

"Basically, there’s no physical server, but the data flows like there is. That’s Necropolis’ core technology. It’s like an imitation of grid computing, but honestly, comparing it to that is an insult. Necropolis has pushed human network technology several levels ahead!"

Ballantine couldn’t stop marveling.

To me, it looked like a basic FOXGAMES chatroom.

But to him, it was a technological masterpiece.

"How does it compare to Melon Mask’s Viva! Apocalypse!?"

I asked.

Ballantine laughed.

"If we’re talking about pure technology, it’s like comparing the Middle Ages to the modern era. Viva! Apocalypse! is the Middle Ages, and Necropolis is modern civilization. The gap is that wide."

"That big?"

"Absolutely. The only reason Viva! Apocalypse! can do more is because it has a powerful main server and multiple satellites forming a stronger network infrastructure."

"Hmm... that much of a difference?"

"Think about it. If Viva! Apocalypse!’s server headquarters—whether it’s in Florida or Texas—was attacked and destroyed? If all their small satellites decayed at 5% per year and eventually fell out of orbit? That would be the end of Viva! Apocalypse!."

"But Necropolis?"

"Necropolis wouldn’t die. Even if every human on Earth vanished, it would keep transmitting the voices of the dead, carried forever by the Earth’s magnetic field."

Ballantine was certain.

"I can’t read people’s minds, but Melon Mask must have been devastated when he saw Necropolis. I’d bet my life on it!"

Our visit to Necropolis ended with Ballantine’s awe, despair, and the realization that we couldn’t copy it.

But just because we couldn’t replicate Necropolis didn’t mean we were out of options.

"I can’t build Necropolis..."

Ballantine, briefly deflated, took a swig of water from the bottle that inspired his nickname.

Then, he grinned.

"...but I can still break into Viva! Apocalypse!."

His new plan was simple.

"We don’t use Obelisk. We use other generic satellite equipment to access Viva! Apocalypse!."

Simple.

But not easy.

Viva! Apocalypse!’s network security was pathetically weak—someone like John Nae-non could have cracked it in a few years.

But the satellite hardware itself?

It had top-tier encryption—so strong that even government agencies struggled to break it.

Even Ballantine, normally overconfident, quickly realized the flaw in his idea.

"Ah... yeah, this is harder than I thought. The hardware locks are insanely strong."

The concept was good.

The execution? Nearly impossible.

After tasting failure, Ballantine fell back on what he knew best.

"So... maybe we just build a second PaleNet?"

Building another PaleNet was no easy feat.

John Nae-non had powered the original with a massive nuclear-powered server.

But his data had been distributed through existing communications infrastructure.

Even if we built a new server, it would be useless if we had no way to send or receive messages.

"...Sorry. I don’t think this will be easy either."

"No. You’ve already opened a path into Jeju’s intranet. I just wish... we had more people."

We had been losing users for years.

After PaleNet’s silence and the collapse of the Legion faction, the Korean board's population had plummeted.

Even our mascot, M9, barely posted anymore, except to complain that his apartment was shaking.

Even my old comrade, Baek Seung-hyun, had gone silent after arriving at the Scrap Island.

The only thing left?

FOXGAMES’ endless apologies and low-effort cyberattacks.

Old users were disappearing, migrating to the English board instead.

Even I, a named user, had been less active.

I wouldn’t say I had lost interest.

But if ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) even I abandoned the board, then Viva! Apocalypse! Korean Forum would truly become a dead world.

Bang!

A gunshot echoed.

"Got it! Damn cat bastard!"

Bang Jae-hyuk's voice rang out in triumph.

A cat bastard?

Probably not the kind I was thinking of.

Still, one territorial issue was resolved.

But my concerns lay elsewhere.

More distant. More abstract.

As I gazed over the faintly glowing lights across the twilight plains, I wondered.

"..."

Could I breathe life into the board like John Nae-non once did?

Could I, like that immortal-willed man, accomplish the impossible?

It wouldn’t be easy.

Not at all.

Ding.

A notification popped up on my screen.

An unusual sight for such an unstructured forum.

I clicked it.

VIVA_BOT014: Emergency Notice.

Viva! Bot.