"Oh, so you’re Skelton?"
Even after repeated explanations, FoxGame couldn't fully accept that I was Skelton.
"There’s a huge gap between what I imagined and reality. I pictured someone much older than me, desperately clinging to a youthful fashion that doesn’t suit them."
"...I am Skelton. Let’s just speak casually. We’re internet friends, after all."
"No, I prefer speaking formally. I’ve spent nearly half my life using honorifics, so anything else feels foreign, like some strange language that’s somewhere between a dialect and a foreign tongue."
For someone who had been a true named figure in our forum, FoxGame’s first impression was... questionable.
Not exactly a good one.
He made eye contact occasionally, but mostly avoided my gaze. There was a subtle yet firm line drawn between us. More than anything, he seemed uncomfortable with the fact that I had come to see him.
"How did you find this place?"
No matter how close you are online, if someone you never gave your location to suddenly shows up, you’d feel uneasy.
I gave him a simple explanation.
I told him what happened on the forum, that people were worried, and that I came to check in.
"VivaBot? The admin?"
FoxGame, who had been largely indifferent, finally showed some surprise when I mentioned that I got his address from VivaBot.
"Yeah. Everyone’s worried about you."
"Worried, huh..."
FoxGame let out a bitter smile as he stared absentmindedly at the field, now overgrown and resembling a jungle.
"I don’t think I’m the kind of person worth worrying about."
The source of this c𝓸ntent is freewebnøvel.coɱ.
"Don’t say that. You’re FoxGame. You have no idea how popular you are online. You’re a named figure."
"Named, you say? Haha. That’s ridiculous."
"Either way, just check in with the forum. People are disappearing left and right, and if someone like you goes silent, it’ll only make the place even gloomier."
I was planning to leave after delivering the message.
FoxGame clearly felt uneasy with me here.
But just as I was about to leave, he stopped me.
"Wait, would you like to have some tea in my bunker?"
...What made him change his mind?
I was always curious about other people’s bunkers.
Especially since I’d seen posts online claiming FoxGame was a billionaire. My curiosity flared.
How would my bunker compare to his?
My bunker, by ordinary standards, was an extravagant fortress that most people couldn’t even dream of building. But in the world of the wealthy, the money I spent on it was barely a drop in the bucket.
Still, I had made up for my lack of funds with meticulous planning and effort, crafting a personal hideout that could hold its own anywhere in the world.
Before the war, I had browsed threads about luxury bunkers built by the world’s elite, and I was confident that my own was competitive on a global scale.
Sure, it couldn’t compare to those multi-billion-dollar yacht bunkers that roamed the open seas, or Chairman Park Cheol-joo’s fortress bunker that once dominated the internet.
But the yacht bunkers vanished as soon as the war broke out. And Chairman Park’s fortress? It was obliterated by the Legion faction’s casual bombardment.
In the end, the last one standing was my bunker. Park Gyu’s bunker.
So then... how would FoxGame’s bunker measure up?
"This is the entrance."
"...?"
From the start, I had a bad feeling.
BZZZZZZZZT—
The ground shook as a massive shutter began to open.
For a moment, I wondered—
Was this a spaceship?
No... it felt more like the base of a giant robot from my childhood cartoons.
Whatever it was, something incredible was unfolding before me.
THUNK—
The shutter fully opened, revealing a vast underground tunnel reinforced with steel and concrete.
The tunnel was wide enough to accommodate a large truck.
I had a garage in my own bunker too, but mine was covered with a waterproof tarp that I had to manually remove. Underneath the tarp, I had wooden planks that I needed to push aside to reveal the entrance, which had a steep 30-degree incline.
Sure, my garage entrance was equipped with a hydraulic valve-operated shutter, but FoxGame’s fully automated system was in a completely different league.
"..."
Yeah... I lost the shutter battle.
But this hallway...
Why does it seem endless?
My garage had a sharp incline, and immediately below it, my vehicles were packed tightly together.
"Skelton?"
FoxGame glanced back at me, seeing me frozen in place.
"...Nothing. Let’s go."
I followed him inside.
The hallway stretched five meters deep.
Anyone who had built a bunker would know how absurdly wasteful it was to dedicate that much space to a mere corridor.
As my sense of defeat deepened, FoxGame pulled out a remote and pressed a button.
BZZZZZZZZT—
What had seemed like a dead end suddenly began to open.
"A... double shutter?!"
"Yes. It’s designed to withstand direct nuclear strikes."
"..."
Behind the second shutter was a fleet of vehicles, neatly parked in rows.
All of them were luxury foreign cars.
Among them, I even spotted a buggy car from the same company that made mine.
But unlike my basic model, FoxGame’s was fully upgraded, even equipped with long-range communication antennas.
"...You sure have a lot of cars."
"Oh, I used to love driving."
FoxGame smiled faintly.
But this time... I had the upper hand.
If we were just comparing pre-war market prices, FoxGame’s collection crushed mine.
But in today’s world?
What good were Porsches and Lamborghinis?
Meanwhile, my construction vehicles could build an entire civilization.
And besides—
I have a Humvee.
This round? Skelton wins.
FoxGame led me past the luxury cars and opened a relatively small steel door.
"...?"
For a brief moment, my brain short-circuited.
There was another hallway.
And along that hallway—
Multiple doors.
The ceiling was six meters high. The width? Four meters.
"..."
That’s when I realized—
This wasn’t a bunker.
This was a palace.
After that, my memories became a blur.
"This is my indoor farm. I grow most of my vegetables here."
"This is the water purification facility. It draws water from a nearby stream and filters over 200 liters a day."
"This is my vault. Though, honestly, most of this stuff is worthless now."
"This is my closet. It also doubles as an armory."
"These are my employees’ bedrooms. Pretty luxurious, huh? They’re nicer than mine. The beds are Hästens, you know? The one-billion-won ones."
"This is the gym. Do you like golf? I have an indoor screen golf facility."
"This is the server room. Yeah, I had big dreams before the war. I wanted to launch an ambitious new game post-apocalypse and take over the industry."
"This is the power room. Hydrogen fuel cells. It’s still a prototype, but it works fine. Diesel doesn’t last long, after all..."
By the time I fully regained my senses, I barely managed to squeeze out a response.
"...Enough."
"Hm?"
FoxGame stared at me silently.
"Skelton? You don’t look so good."
"I have claustrophobia."
"But... don’t you live in a bunker?"
"I live in a somewhat open space."
"I see. Before you leave, would you mind taking a look at my workspace?"
I wasn’t particularly eager, but at this point, backing out would’ve been awkward. So, I followed him to his workspace.
It was located at the very end of a long hallway.
Beyond the tightly shut steel door was an unexpectedly small and modest room. A single computer hummed softly in the dim light of its monitor, and a bed was pushed against the corner.
Unlike the other rooms, this one was cramped.
To be precise, it was styled like a one-room studio.
Considering the bed, it seemed to double as FoxGame’s personal sleeping quarters.
Then, I sensed movement behind me.
A young couple, probably with a woman among them.
FoxGame paid them no mind and instead, for the first time, spoke in an animated voice as he introduced his small room.
"I modeled it after my college dorm. I liked the old style. Back when nothing was certain, when I stayed up all night eating instant noodles and coding simply because I loved games."
At least when reminiscing about the past, FoxGame’s expression seemed genuinely sincere.
"Wait here for a moment. I’ll bring some tea. Ah, my crew is here too."
In the dining area, the young couple from earlier was sitting with a child.
Just moments ago, we had been on the verge of pointing guns at each other, but now they smiled and spoke to me first.
After exchanging some pleasantries, I asked,
"Are you living here with him?"
The couple nodded.
"Director Choi took us in. It was dramatic, really. We were scraping by, barely surviving, posting junk games on Failnet when suddenly, someone claiming to be Director Choi messaged us, asking if we’d like to come here in secret."
"Oh?"
"We weren’t sure if we should believe it, but... it was hard to doubt. He knew everything about the company. How we met, how we got married—it was like he had an entire file on us."
According to them, they had been living in FoxGame’s bunker for a year now.
They were lucky.
The winter before had been harsh, but last year’s winter had been deadly.
Entire shelters had turned into war zones. Survival odds had plummeted.
If they had stayed out there, chances were, they wouldn’t have made it.
"I see. So now, you’re developing games under him?"
The couple nodded in unison.
"Yeah, we’ve been doing this for a year."
"There was also that text-based game."
"Oh, that. That was just something the Director made to test network traffic. The source code was pulled straight from the company archives from thirty years ago, so it wasn’t really ‘development’ per se."
They exchanged wry smiles.
"But the Monster Park incident really hurt the Director."
"Because so many people died?"
The couple gave me blank looks.
"No."
After hesitating, the man spoke first.
"There’s a board on Failnet where ex-game developers gather. That’s where the criticism started. People saying that... this is the best Director Choi could do."
"Did he see that?"
"Probably. He checks that board often. After all, that’s where he recruited us from."
The woman suddenly cut in.
"He doesn’t exactly have talent."
"Really?"
"Copying successful foreign games, office politics, stealing young developers’ ideas and taking the credit."
She cast a sympathetic glance at her husband.
"My husband was one of his victims. It’s an old wound, but still."
Clearly, she still held some resentment toward FoxGame.
"Even now, when I think about it, I get pissed off. He really screwed him over. My husband developed panic disorder because of that."
Had the man shared her resentment, FoxGame might have been dead last year.
But at least the man seemed to trust him now.
"Well, he must’ve had his reasons. You know how bad the company’s performance pressure was."
The wife scoffed.
"And yet, he went to China and made a fortune. He didn’t just steal the project—he took the whole damn team with him."
"Thanks to that, we have a place to live."
"Who knows what he’s plotting?"
I was about to change the subject before their conversation turned into a full-blown marital dispute, but just then, their son ran to his mother, momentarily breaking the tension.
As she tended to the child, the husband gave me a small, bitter smile and leaned in.
"...Honestly, Director Choi has a lot of issues. But you know what?"
He glanced up at the high ceiling and smirked.
"A new game is coming soon."
"A new game?"
"Yeah."
I wasn’t particularly excited.
I expected another Monster Park-style text-based mess.
Seeing my skepticism, the man pulled out his phone and showed me the screen.
"Don’t tell anyone about this."
I looked at the display.
"...This is...?"
It wasn’t a text jumble.
It wasn’t some outdated game from the past.
It was a fully realized world, bursting with vivid colors and stunning effects—the kind that drew you in, making you crave adventure.
I stared at it and asked,
"You’re telling me you three made this?"
The man chuckled.
"Yeah."
"How? There’s no way three people could produce something like this."
"The world’s collapsed. We don’t have to worry about copyright anymore. We can use anything we want."
"...Assets?"
"Think of them as pre-made game data. Characters, animations, effects, music, sound design—even concepts and gameplay mechanics—we just pick what we need and plug it into our framework. Director Choi’s server isn’t just filled with our company’s assets. He’s got data from other companies, too. Don’t ask me how he got it."
He shot a glance at his wife.
"My wife may talk tough, but she’s a damn good graphic designer. She manually modified everything to fit our game. Honestly, her workload alone is probably «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» greater than mine and Director Choi’s combined."
The woman sighed and turned away just as the door opened.
FoxGame had returned.
He carried a tray with an elegant tea set.
The tea was... surprisingly good.
Better than anything Da-jeong had brewed.
Not because of care, but purely due to skill and the quality of the tea itself.
"Good tea."
I gave a brief compliment as I sipped. Then, I decided to leave.
The young couple tried to see me off, but FoxGame stopped them.
"Don’t bother. He’s my internet acquaintance. You guys should rest and get back to work. There’s not much time left."
And so, I walked through the grand bunker once again, this time with FoxGame as my sole companion.
He had been silent inside the corridors.
But once we reached the garage, he closed the door and gave me a nervous look.
"Look, this is hard to say, but..."
He glanced over his shoulder, fear in his eyes.
"Those people back there."
A bad feeling crept up my spine.
I met his gaze and nodded.
"They took over my bunker by force."
His voice was barely a whisper.
"Ever wonder why I was alive, but not online?"