Chapter 1: Old Man Kim
How the world fell apart and turned into a total mess is a long, boring, and complicated story, but even within that, there are plenty of interesting episodes.
For instance, you could call it the wise future-proofing of me, Bak Gyu.
That a crisis was coming for humanity was something everyone from pseudo-intellectuals to YouTube bottom-feeders rambled about endlessly, but among civilians, only two types of people actually prepared for it.
Either the nouveau riche who had money to burn and could afford to build a bunker on private land, or the bold men of action who denied reality and invested everything into a vague possibility.
I am the latter.
As soon as I sensed the crisis, I boldly liquidated my assets and prepared for the coming ruin.
I didn’t inherit much, but I had what I’d saved.
I worked in a profession where saving money was the only option, and toward the end, I increased my workload like a madman, sleeping barely four hours a day.
Still, since I wasn't as wealthy as the nouveau riche, I picked up various skills in my spare moments while suffering through that grueling work.
Simple electrical work, construction, heavy equipment operation, pharmaceutical and chemical synthesis, basic medicine, and so on. Anything I didn't understand, I bought books or video tutorials and archived them.
The most important thing was where to set down roots.
It was not an easy decision to make.
I sought advice from survival experts, civilians who survived war zones, wilderness explorers, and a doomsday community I’ll introduce later called 'Viva! Apocalypse!'.
After long review and deliberation, I selected a site based on four core requirements.
First, a place where no one lived nearby and no one would seek out in an emergency.
Second, it must still maintain a reasonable distance from a major city.
Third, the terrain of the hideout.
Fourth, the price.
The first requirement is the most basic of basics.
For someone trying to build their own fortress in preparation for the end of the world, the greatest danger isn't monsters or hordes of zombies—it’s humans themselves.
In fact, humans have been the primary threat jeopardizing my life in the apocalypse all along.
However, humans are a species that finds it difficult to live entirely alone.
The second condition seems to contradict the first, but it is a vital requirement.
If you can establish a connection with a city, you can get your hands on essential supplies and valuable information in times of emergency.
Leaving a safe hideout for the dangerous outside world is extremely risky, but staying holed up in a bunker, unable to see the massive storm approaching, leads to certain death.
The third condition is the foundation for the struggle that will continue until the day I die.
The hideout must allow for surveillance in all directions and must not be easily discovered from the outside.
Defensibility is the next consideration.
No matter how easy the terrain is to defend, once the hideout is discovered, it won't be easy to hold it on my own.
Humans are the most populous animal species, excluding insects.
Oh, soil quality and groundwater are also important indeed.
The ground needs to be soft so I can dig deep into it, and groundwater will become my lifeblood once the tap water stops running.
Of course, all these conditions had to be considered within the limits of my wallet.
Currency might become scrap paper once the world collapses, but preparing before the collapse ultimately requires money.
The site I selected was forest land nestled against a mountain, situated between an Air Force base and a golf course.
It was sparsely populated, easy to observe from, and maintained a good distance from the city, but it had a fatal flaw.
The land had no roads; it was what you call "blind land."
It was an unavoidable choice.
Since blind land was anywhere from several to dozens of times cheaper than land with road access.
The fact that unscrupulous waste disposal contractors used it as an illegal dumping ground for construction debris—leaving mountains of industrial waste scattered about—also contributed to the low price.
But thanks to that, I secured a fairly large plot.
It was so vast that it didn't pale much in comparison to the golf course next door.
I solved the road access issue by agreeing to pay a usage fee to the adjacent landowner and providing free labor during harvests, but it wasn't easy.
"You're from Seoul? Sure, let's make this work."
I don’t remember the old man’s name now, but his surname was definitely Kim.
He spoke with a Chungcheong-do accent, had a scrawny, diminutive build, and was about seventy years old; my first impression of him wasn't great.
Sure enough, Old Man Kim's temperament was so foul that even I, who had reached a certain level of zen, occasionally felt a surge of murderous intent.
He’d throw tantrums at every opportunity, demanding I restore things to their original state; blocking the only road with obstacles was a daily occurrence, and he frequently dropped by to demand help with chores.
When he came knocking on my container house at 3 AM to ask for help, I felt a genuine urge to shove him face-first into a rice paddy.
Well, what could I do? You get what you pay for.
Every penny I saved on the cheap land was poured into buying heavy equipment, construction materials, and survival essentials.
For heavy machinery, I procured an excavator, a loader, a drill rig, and a forklift.
Hiring people to build a single bunker would have been cheaper and more professional, but my plan was to constantly expand and modify my hideout.
My 180 acres of land was to be my home and foundation in a dying world—a fortress of life that would become synonymous with myself.
Naturally, I hired people at first.
Knowledge learned from the internet and lectures simply cannot keep up with the skills and know-how of those in the trade.
"Wait, boss. Is all this equipment yours? What on earth are you planning to do?"
The contractors who saw my collection of heavy machinery were all equally shocked.
"Well, I just happened to develop a hobby in this area."
I gave a vague excuse and worked hard to win them over.
At first, they seemed reluctant to have a client jumping into the work, but after buying them drinks and snacks a few times, we eventually moved as one, like a single team.
From them, I learned vital, practical knowledge that you can never get from lectures or textbooks: how to dig into the earth, how to support excavated ground, the ideal mixing ratio for cement, and pouring techniques.
But as they say, "Good things often come with a catch."
As the full-scale construction began, Old Man Kim started throwing his weight around.
"Hey, what exactly are you doing there that you've gathered all these people to bang away? Do you even have a development permit?"
After putting up with his temper for about a month, I think I understood why he was acting this way.
It seemed he just needed someone to vent his stress on.
A body growing older, things not going his way, a sickening loneliness, and the looming face of death.
A despair that I could only vaguely comprehend had turned him into an annoying old man.
Well, looking at his reputation in the village, it seems his original temperament wasn't great either.
His nickname, of all things, was "Bastard of the World." A real piece of work.
Thanks to that bastard’s harassment, the construction of my first bunker was frequently interrupted, eventually drawing complaints from the workers.
I'm no saint myself, and just as I was reaching the limit of my patience, I noticed an unfamiliar vehicle parked at Old Man Kim’s isolated house.
It was a fairly shiny new Mercedes-Benz.
I caught sight of a man who looked like Old Man Kim—though much larger and younger—standing with a middle-aged woman who had a sulky pout.
"Is that the son of a bastard...?"
The words slipped out of my mouth involuntarily.
Old Man Kim had never once spoken about his family.
Seeing him constantly fiddling with his phone and occasionally trying to make calls while I helped him with chores made it clear he had family, but that was the first time I actually saw them.
But that day, I discovered the true stain cast upon Old Man Kim’s heart.
"No, I’m telling you to sell this land! We’ll take care of you. Why are you acting like this when we say we’ll look after you! Huh?!"
The man who looked like Old Man Kim grabbed him by the collar and shook him like a toy.
The pouting woman just watched, showing no intention of intervening.
Instead, she wore a faint, cold sneer as if he deserved it, silently cheering on the man who seemed to be her husband.
"Fuck. I put up with all your shitty drunken habits when I was a kid, and you gave the prime land to my sister and this trash land to your eldest son? Do you even know how much Park ignores me these days because of it?"
The man’s voice grew louder and louder.
He must have had a lot of pent-up resentment.
After all, Old Man Kim’s temperament had its ways of making even a zen person like me feel murderous.
But I could see things were starting to cross the line.
"That guy working at some shitty small firm lives in a much better apartment than me now, lording it over everyone, while the son who carries your name is struggling because he can't even afford English kindergarten fees for your grandson!"
I could see him constantly amplifying and reproducing his inner rage, increasing the amplitude of his emotions.
"Are you going to sell the land? Or not?"
When the man raised his fist, I let out a loud cough.
The man stared at me with a furious face.
As if to say, "What do you want?"
Since I kept staring blankly at him, he slowly lowered his fist and muttered something unintelligible.
Meanwhile, Old Man Kim, still gripped by the collar, was shaking his head weakly with a face more dejected than I’d ever seen.
His gaze was fixed on his crumbling house.
"Fuckk!”
The man spat out a curse, let go of Old Man Kim, and headed toward the Mercedes with his wife.
Opening the car door, he threw out a heartless remark.
"Don't expect us to bring Yeong-jin starting this Chuseok (Korean harvest festival)"
After the car left, I hesitated for a moment.
Whether to walk past the devastated Old Man Kim as if I hadn't seen anything, or to offer at least a word of comfort.
My dislike for Old Man Kim was no less than his son's, but for now, I still needed his cooperation.
Suppressing my irritation, I approached Old Man Kim.
"Looks like you saw everything."
Old Man Kim spoke without even looking at me.
His gaze was still fixed on the crumbling house.
I took out a lollipop, popped it in my mouth, and crouched down next to the old man, looking at the old house along with him.
"Was that your son?"
"...Do you have parents?"
I shook my head.
"They passed away in an accident."
"I’m sorry."
"It was a long time ago. Anyway, sounds like you're in quite a predicament?"
"I didn't give him cheap land."
Old Man Kim let out a sigh so heavy it felt like the ground might collapse as he watched the departing Mercedes.
"That land was much more expensive when I gifted it to him..."
“You mean the land you gave to your son."
Old Man Kim nodded, pulled out a cigarette, and put it in his mouth.
As I helped him light it, he began to tell his story with a hollow laugh.
"The land I gave my daughter was blind land like yours. It was even 'shit land' with a worthless dirt mountain. But who knew a 10-lane road would be built right in front of it? Who knew a tunnel would be bored through that corner lot and a new city would spring up?"
His life was exactly as expected.
He wasn't a good father, nor was he a great one.
He was a pathetic father who frequently fell into drunken habits and swung his fists at his family.
He lived his whole life as a bastard, only to have his land seized by the state in his final years, allowing him to touch big money and "level up" to a wealthy father—a dull life.
Had it not been for that, his children might have cut him off a long time ago.
I asked abruptly to end the conversation quickly.
"Why don't you sell that house? Wouldn't the problem be solved if you sold it and moved elsewhere?"
"I can't do that. I just can't."
The old man looked up at the sky, exhaling white smoke.
"My dead wife's ghost is there. She put up with a bastard like me her whole life..."
To this day, I don't know what I did right by Old Man Kim.
One thing was for sure: that brief conversation paved a 10-lane road in Old Man Kim’s heart.
From that day on, he no longer blocked the construction vehicles coming and going, nor did he burst out in complaints.
Since there were no more clashes, our relationship naturally improved, and I even began to approach him and volunteer my labor.
As neighbors, there was nothing to lose by being on good terms since we lived next door anyway.
There were some crumbs of benefit, too.
I learned agricultural knowledge from Old Man Kim that is hard for someone from the city to pick up.
"Farming, you see, is about the lunar calendar. The solar calendar is useless. You have to look at the lunar one. The solar terms. The solar terms are what's important."
He even caught a vague hint of what I was trying to do.
"You're one of those survivalists that are popular lately? A doomsday prepper or whatever they call it, right?"
"Well, something like that."
"Wouldn't you need seedlings for that? Even if the world ends, you've still got to eat your vegetables, don't you?"
"Is there anything that can grow underground?"
"As long as you have sunlight, water, and fertilizer, you can grow anything. These days, seedlings are developed so well. What matters is the care you put in."
Many solar terms passed after that, but his children never visited him.
During Seollal and Chuseok, I watched from afar as he stood alone in the yard of his crumbling house, staring blankly toward the road.
Later, when China started a war, missiles launched from China struck the capital region.
Old Man Kim came rushing to my bunker in a panic.
It was the first time I'd seen him so flustered since I'd known him.
"My son... find out what happened to my son."
Once communication was restored, I checked the casualty list.
I had to deliver the unfortunate news.
Old Man Kim simply hung his head in silence.
He didn't cry, nor did he sob.
I don't know what came over me.
"The world is coming to an end soon. If you'd like, why don't you come to my bunker?"
I made an offer that went against my own principles.
Old Man Kim looked up at me.
He smiled at me.
"Just wait a moment. I have something to prepare."
"Is there something you need to prepare?"
"I have something to give you."
He was a man capable of a warmer smile than I had ever imagined.
When I went looking for Old Man Kim again, he was hanging from the main beam of the crumbling house he had tried to protect, swaying like a banana leaf.
Beneath his cooling feet, seedling seeds were neatly packaged with obvious care.
I couldn't retrieve his body.
Nuclear air raid sirens were blaring from all directions, announcing the end of the world.
I quickly grabbed only the seedlings and evacuated to the bunker.
As it turned out, it was a wise choice.
For the angry flames of nuclear fission that followed burned the crumbling house and his body to nothingness without a trace.
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