Hiding a House in the Apocalypse

It wasn’t hard to guess Kim Byung-cheol’s online ID.

armeegruppe_B : achtung!

He had already revealed himself during the IamJesus incident.

Just like the other high-ranking figures who emerged back then, Kim Byung-cheol had made some effort to recruit IamJesus.

At the time, there had been no way of knowing who he was, but in hindsight, it seemed we had been playing alongside the very people who would one day control Korea.

Still, contrary to my concerns, Kim Byung-cheol never reached out to me on the board, nor did Kim Daram pressure me with any unreasonable requests.

A week passed quickly, and my daily life returned to peace.

"..."

Peace was good—but this was too peaceful.

The Legion faction had absorbed everyone—whether in a good or bad way—and now, I barely saw a trace of people anymore.

Once in a while, a wild animal or a mutation would wander into view.

Sitting idly by the stream, watching the rice grow tall and green, the fierce battle of last week felt like nothing more than a midsummer’s dream.

On the boards, people were saying that Kim Byung-cheol was doing a good job.

Apparently, unlike the previous government, he was actually creating real jobs?

At the same time, criticisms of the former administration were popping up at an increasing rate. And honestly, after reading through them, I had to admit, they made some sense.

ㅇㅇ : The key government officials from the old regime were all wiped out when Sejong got bombed. Only the second-stringers who couldn’t make ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) it there were left in Seoul. And what the hell could those nobodies do? Other than licking the boots of the National Crisis Committee? So they just did whatever the Committee told them to, running the country into the ground in the process. No wonder they had no real leader. Why? Because even they knew that not a single one of them was worth leading.

I found myself agreeing with that, at least a little.

It did seem like Kim Byung-cheol was genuinely committed to rebuilding Seoul.

Message from Defender: Damn, I really wanted to fight alongside you, but I was stuck on rear security. Anyway, my sister’s surgery was a success, so there’s nothing to worry about now. Once things settle down in Seoul, I’ll bring her over to visit your place.

Defender had sent me a message.

That was something only possible now that the situation had stabilized.

Ultimately, what happened next depended on what our Lady Kim decided to do, but from the looks of it, she wasn’t going to call me unless it was something truly important.

I could feel it.

That moment when she faked the eyepatch, trying to stir my sympathy.

While my real life had settled into stability, something grim was unfolding in the online world.

Anon458: Hey, doesn’t it feel like it’s been a while since we’ve seen Fox Games?

keystone: He disappeared in the winter. His last post was three months ago.

Anon1131: I actually started visiting this board after playing his game...

mmmmmmmmm: Damn... Another good one gone. If he’d come to our apartment, this wouldn’t have happened...

Rkkara: Anyone got any news on him?

...

...

Fox Games was gone.

He had shown signs of distress last winter, but in the end, he couldn’t bear the weight of life and became just another user who hadn’t logged in for over a month.

His last post read as follows:

Fox_games : if killer_man [nx][ny][nz] == 0

killer_man[nx][ny][nz] = 'true'

C, Z, Q = nx, ny, nz

count += 1

dir_count = 0

continue

else:

Fox_Games : false ; false ; false ;

It looked like game code.

I didn’t understand it, and even users who had worked in the gaming industry couldn’t find any hidden message within it.

But at least one thing was clear to all of us on the board.

Fox Games’ final cryptic code...

It was his last transmission before death.

Even the strongest and most optimistic people couldn't withstand the crushing weight of isolation, fear, suffering, and an endless sentence with no parole.

Most who succumbed lost their minds first.

Then, their bodies followed.

Fox Games was just following the same pattern as those who had come before him.

The only difference was that Fox Games wasn’t just another anonymous user.

He was a name on our board, known for his mild-mannered and kind personality, earning the affection of many users.

Rkkara: R.I.P Fox Games

ㅇㅇ : R.I.P Fox Games

Anon424: R.I.P Fox Games

RokaGG: R.I.P Fox Games

DAJUNG: R.I.P Fox Games

Anon458: R.I.P Fox Games

tntn_Orthopedics: R.I.P Fox Games

mmmmmmmmm: R.I.P Fox Games

Defender: R.I.P Fox Games

...

...

Unlike other users who had vanished, Fox Games’ departure was met with an outpouring of memorial posts.

One of our board’s longest-standing unspoken rules had finally been broken.

Until now, it had been forbidden to mourn or acknowledge a user’s death.

Because the next to go could be any of us.

Because even in this doomed world, we wanted to see only good and bright things.

That had been the collective mentality of our board.

But now, there were far fewer of us left.

Some new users came in, logging in through the devices of the dead.

But the ones I knew—the ones I had talked to—were disappearing at an alarming rate.

Ignoring it wasn’t an option anymore.

Destruction was creeping ever closer.

And now, for the first time, we had accepted death as a reality.

That acceptance had taken shape in the form of a tribute to Fox Games.

"..."

I didn’t post a tribute message.

Because I considered Fox Games to be... a bit special to me.

We had never met in person. Not even once.

But he had felt like an old friend.

He had even gifted me a super account once.

Sighing, I decided to log into his final masterpiece, Monster Park.

Not because I expected it to be up and running.

In fact, I expected the opposite.

With no one mentioning it anymore, and with Fox Games himself missing, there was no way the game was still functioning.

And yet—

[Welcome to Monster Park!]

The familiar message, written in ASCII art, flickered onto my screen.

For a brief moment, I felt a flicker of nostalgia.

But that feeling quickly vanished.

No one was here.

The once-crowded lobby, teeming with users, was now utterly deserted.

I began typing.

Recalling an old command from memory, I entered:

cmd online_users

Then, I hit Enter.

< Current number of Hunters in Monster Park: "1" >

The number of active players appeared on the screen.

One.

So, that meant... I was the only one here.

No one wanted to step into a dead cyber-world, abandoned by both its updates and its creator, who had long since lost his mind.

These types of games were only fun because other people played them.

The moment the most valuable resource—other players—was lost, the population bled out at an accelerating rate until the game was nothing but a ghost town.

Fox Games' words drifted through my mind.

He had once warned me that my account was a special cheat account and that I shouldn’t tell anyone about it.

But now?

With the game dead, what did it matter if my account was super or cheat-tier?

It was meaningless.

Completely meaningless.

I stared blankly at the chunks of text on the monitor, calling itself a game.

"..."

Another one was gone.

Looking back, there had always been users who vanished without a trace.

We just chose not to acknowledge it.

For all I knew, I could have been one of those sudden disappearances.

Still... it pissed me off a little.

Fox Games was someone I knew.

And I hadn't been able to do a damn thing for him.

It frustrated me.

At the very least, I could’ve offered him a delivery service.

If he hadn’t been too far away... or in an area that was too dangerous.

I was lost in thought when I got up to make some coffee.

But when I came back—

A message had appeared on my screen.

< Someone has appeared. >

"?"

The message vanished like mist the moment it popped up.

Then, another one replaced it.

< Someone has moved east. >

And just like that, it disappeared as well.

*

I didn’t know much about Monster Park.

Which meant I needed advice.

For once, I had to thank the Legion faction.

Because they had allowed Failnet to survive, several forums had been revived—including the game discussion boards.

But there wasn’t a single person left playing Monster Park.

ㅇㅇ : Monster Park? That game’s trash.

ㅇㅇ : For a text-based MUD, it barely had any content.

ㅇㅇ : The class balancing was garbage, so everyone just went Heavy Gunner.

ㅇㅇ : A game like that only works if you can make money farming items. But who the hell can make money in this world?

ㅇㅇ : A multiplayer game with no players. And to make things worse, the dev completely lost his mind and stopped managing it.

ㅇㅇ : There are a hundred better games to play.

...

...

Judging from the way they were shit-talking, I was sure at least a few of them had spent sleepless nights grinding Monster Park.

Even though it was being treated like trash on Failnet, there had definitely been some dedicated hunters in the game.

ㅇㅇ : Someone? A message popped up, and then it disappeared?

ㅇㅇ : Oh, that’s a Camo item.

ㅇㅇ : Oh yeah, those things. They never dropped.

SKELTON: Camo item? What’s that?

ㅇㅇ :  Camouflage. For a game that’s literally just text, they made a weak attempt at stealth mechanics. When a player uses it, their name gets replaced with “Someone,” and the message disappears immediately.

SKELTON: Ah-ha!

So, that solved the mystery.

It wasn’t some internet ghost.

Someone had used an item.

But who?

Who would go through the trouble of using a rare item in a dead game world, just to reveal their presence to me?

Unfortunately, I had no way of tracking them down.

The only person who could have done that was Fox Games.

And he was dead.

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