Lottery

Chapter 11: Lottery

It has been 1 year and 8 months since the war started.

It's a languid spring day where the air is slowly getting warmer.

Gunshots can be heard in the distance.

Starting again, are we?

How many bullets do they even have? That mother and daughter?

They seem to have fired thousands of rounds; seeing them shoot every single day, you'd think they set up a bullet factory.

Recently, she seems to have taught her daughter how to shoot as well.

Seeing as I occasionally hear two gunshots in a row.

Call it early childhood education for the apocalypse.

The crazy sniper is indeed an excellent marksman.

Against ordinary people, she makes them back off with chillingly precise warning shots aimed at their toes or a vehicle's rearview mirror, but against direct threats like zombies or raiders, she unfailingly plants a bullet between their eyes.

And it's not just bullets; she has plenty of heavy weapons too.

Because inside the Humvee I saw earlier, there were Claymores as well as guided weapons like Javelins.

What's been annoying me recently isn't the mother and daughter's gunshots.

Those are good vibrations.

What grates on my nerves is the deafening roar of the transport planes crossing the sky right now.

The number of transport planes has noticeably increased lately.

To the point where it's comparable to right before the war.

I thought resistance from the Chinese side was all gone, so what's the problem?

Recently, out of nowhere, lotteries have become a trend in Seoul.

It's definitely a trend.

Anonymous848 : I heard the rumors too, they say it's pretty good?

Kyle_Dos : I had to drop by Seoul briefly, and everyone was only talking about the lottery.

Anonymous458 : I heard the 1st place prize is a real life-changer!

Seeing that our community members, who had resolved to build a wall against the world, were showing interest.

I considered myself a somewhat heavy man.

You could call it dignified, a person who isn't easily swept away by the waves of the world.

SKELTON : (Skelton Question) Where do you buy the lottery tickets?

But what can I do when I'm curious?

If you don't know, you should ask.

Unfortunately, an unpopular user like me doesn't get many replies.

What could be the problem?

Surely it couldn't be the header (Skelton Question) that's the problem, right?

It's purely a feeling, but I feel like I got more replies when I was just casually active before...

Fortunately, before my impatience ran out, someone replied.

Defender : You don't buy them. You have to participate in state labor to get them.

"......"

The one who replied was the human hunter.

I'm thankful, but I'm still a bit put off by this friend.

I wish he wouldn't comment on my posts.

But there was a reason for his reply this time.

Defender : Lottery Verification

This guy actually got a lottery ticket.

<Hope Lottery>

His lottery verification was the prelude to the 'Lottery Series' he was planning to write.

Defender : From now on, I'm serializing my lottery experience. Read it if you want, ignore it if you want.

It's a surprising event.

That this psychopath, who only ever posted murder verifications, was writing a post about the hottest recent issue.

This friend's ability to take action was well known from the Demian04 incident, but the reason he was suddenly doing something so good-natured was probably related to the Christmas tree incident the other day.

He's not on IAmJesus's level, but upon seeing the decorations filled with curses, the human hunter had posted a complaint.

Defender : No, did I really do something that wrong?

Looking at the tree full of curses, he seemed quite shocked.

Seeing that, I was absolutely certain this friend was a real psychopath.

Anyway, whatever the cause, the human hunter's lottery series satisfied the thirst for information of users like me who were far from the Seoul area.

The Hope Lottery was surprisingly similar to the Lotto.

However, whereas the Lotto has a total of 46 numbers, the Hope Lottery has 44, making the odds of winning much higher than the Lotto.

This Hope Lottery cannot be bought with money; it is given out along with wages to those who participate in state-required labor projects and finish their required quota. The drawing is held once every 3 days at locations designated by each district office.

Defender : The 5th place prize was toilet paper.

Whether he was lucky or not, the human hunter verified the toilet paper he received from winning the lottery.

Unlike the soft, embossed toilet paper I stockpiled, it was a shitty toilet paper made of recycled paper, with a rough texture likely to cause skin trouble on sensitive skin and a cheap color.

Even this low-grade toilet paper apparently holds enough value to be exchanged for a few meals' worth of food to the citizens of Seoul, who have run out of daily necessities.

As the rank gets higher, the prizes get better, apparently including sugar, rice, and stockpiled oil, as well as luxury goods like cigarettes, alcohol, and medicines.

The long-awaited 1st place prize was an extremely Korean trophy.

Namely, an apartment.

With ruined apartments scattered everywhere right now, I wondered what kind of apartment it could be, but sure enough, it wasn't an ordinary apartment.

Defender : They say it's an apartment like this?

The human hunter uploaded an additional photo.

Despite the useful information, his posts rarely got comments, but the photo he uploaded at the end was an exception.

<Post-War Era Futuristic Residence : The Hope>

The photo depicted an architectural rendering of an apartment complex with a design similar to the chaebol's fortress that everyone had been shocked to see the other day.

Centered around a concrete wall enclosing the entirety, there were densely packed apartments, with farmland and manufacturing facilities located in the center, sports facilities including a soccer field and basketball court, and right in the middle, an auditorium and auxiliary facilities for various events were prepared.

Compared to the chaebol house, the chaebol's mansion was replaced by multiple apartments, and the miniature golf course changed into a soccer field, that sort of thing.

Of course, the scale is thousands of times larger than the chaebol house meant for family members.

Anonymous848 : This is it. This is it.

Kyle_Dos : No joke? Is this real life?

Anonymous458 : Isn't this just a mass-market chaebol house?

The community users' evaluations were favorable.

To the extent that some users even voluntarily denied our long-standing beliefs.

DocKim : I want to try living in a place like that.

qwer1234 : If something like that existed before the war, I wouldn't have gone through the trouble of paying good money to dig in the dirt, I would've just gone in there.

mmmmmmmmm : Bunker life really is sickening. Koreans should live in apartments.

It's true that bunker life is a bitch.

Cold in the winter, hot in the summer.

It's damp, smells, bugs endlessly creep in, it's cramped, and there are no windows.

The reason I try to go outside and get some fresh air whenever I have a chance is because no matter how well you decorate it, the inside of a bunker is still stifling.

If my beautiful bunker, which through painstaking effort and continuous expansion is closer to an underground empire than a bunker, is like this, how stifling must it be for someone living in an ordinary, standard-sized bunker?

The reason Anonymous337, whom I liked, committed suicide was probably complex, but it's my opinion that the stress of that cramped and uncomfortable bunker life held a significant share.

Meanwhile, regarding the trending apartment "The Hope," my thought was,

SKELTON : (Skelton Consideration) The Hope, before arguing whether it's good or bad, is there any feasibility of this actually happening?

It was a question mark.

As always, no one reacted to my opinion, but someone did leave a single 'like'.

In any case, the small ball thrown by the human hunter echoed its own small reverberations in the hearts of us doomsday preppers.

Wait, could this guy actually be someone capable of doing a proper job?

That's even more chilling.

About a week after the human hunter's Hope Lottery serialization ended, a post went up in the community and instantly became a trending post.

"What?!"

Watching that post climb to the trending section in real-time, I fell into a considerable sense of shame.

The chaebol story with Chairman Je Pung-ho that I wrote the other day barely made it to the trending posts by the final 3rd part, and to speak frankly, there was a little technical manipulation involved.

Unable to bear seeing the long post I put so much effort into get buried, I, Bak Gyu, infinitely clicked it myself to inflate the view count!

I think I bumped up the views by about 100 times.

It's a petty trick possible because Melon Musk, the founder of Viva! Apocalypse!, apparently hadn't foreseen such a situation and didn't lock down the ability to increase one's own view count.

But this new trending post had none of that.

Every guy who saw it wrote a comment, and 'Likes!' were attached at a high frequency.

It was literally a trending post free pass.

Harboring a bit of jealousy and emptiness, I clicked on the post.

mmmmmmmmm : I won the Hope Lottery lololololol

"Ah."

It's definitely content worthy of it.

I chewed on the feeling of defeat as I savored the content.

-After reading Defender's post, I also came out of my bunker and applied for state labor. I went into the Jungnang-gu area, and although I was pissed when the military and police bastards at the entrance asked for an entry fee like bandits, I was so curious about the lottery that I mingled in the square swarming with non-prepper beggar bastards in front of the district office, got a state labor spot, did some manual labor, and got a lottery ticket.

Luckily, the drawing was that day, so I checked it at the district office square, and the result is as follows!

<Congratulations! 1st Place Winner of the Hope Lottery!>

mmmmmmmmm.

The owner of this half-hearted and confusing nickname won 1st place in the Hope Lottery issued by the city of Seoul, Republic of Korea.

In other words, he was granted the right to live in the futuristic residence advertised by the government.

That meant instead of living a wretched life alone inside a sickening bunker, he could start a new life in a pleasant new apartment with guaranteed open views, and a quasi-chaebol class house envied by everyone at that.

The winner was swelling with expectation.

There was no need to look into his heart or examine his intentions.

mmmmmmmmm : Hey, where do I find a woman to marry right now? If I'm a "The Hope" winner, pretty girls will line up, right?

He was very excited.

You could call it the textbook example of a guy who lived with absolutely nothing his whole life and then stumbled upon one lucky break.

But this friend.

After winning the lottery, the person changed too suddenly, and strangely at that.

mmmmmmmmm : They say move-in is next year, do I have to endure one more year here? Honestly, I feel like I'm gonna get a mental illness.

mmmmmmmmm : Thinking about it now, there was no need to dig a bunker and do all that bullshit; it would've been enough to just hide supplies inside the corner of the house I originally lived in. It seems they even give out rations if you're in Seoul.

mmmmmmmmm : People should band together and live with people. If you live alone, you just become prey for raiders, right?

mmmmmmmmm : I won the lottery, but thinking about staying in this hell continuously really makes my head spin~

Now that he was going to a better place, he took the lead in criticizing his comrades and our methods.

I had known this friend for quite a while, but he wasn't the type to write so many posts, nor was he the type to write such abrasive posts.

I understand he's happy, but it was a bit uncomfortable to watch.

So I said a word.

SKELTON : (Skelton Advice) m9. Is winning the lottery a government post? Let's keep it moderate.

It seems I wasn't the only one who thought so; starting with Skelton's advice, several users gave him a piece of their mind.

Our lottery winner (hereafter "m9"), however, did not stop.

mmmmmmmmm : If you're jealous, just say you're jealous. Let's be honest. You guys want to quit bunker life too, right? Aren't there some of you running out of supplies? Some probably almost froze to death last winter, and of course, you don't have women either, right? You culled loser bastards.

m9 continued to hurl curses resembling hexes at us.

It was the moment a new board villain was born.

Naturally, the board friends did not sit by and watch this.

Anonymous848 : Blocked

Kyle_Dos : I'm blocking this bastard too

Anonymous458 : What is the human hunter doing? Not catching that bastard?

Blocking and ignoring.

That is the sanction our community users apply to those who disrupt the order of the board.

The human hunter, who was once on the block list of many users but unexpectedly emerged as a somewhat prominent "named" user through his positive functions, also left a short and bold word for m9.

Defender : Do you trust this country?

m9 did not reply.

He probably doesn't want to die.

He's not just a guy who only kills bastards who enter his house; he doesn't shy away from expeditionary murders, and he's a guy who perfectly cosplays as a normal person to crawl into Seoul, do state labor, and win toilet paper. There's no way he isn't scary.

But this friend m9, at least to me, holds a good memory.

I know him.

He was a member of the early John Lennon fan club.

He was one of the few friends in his 20s.

He probably doesn't remember me, but I remember him.

Recalling him grilling meat at the shady raw meat restaurant, I picked up the K-Walkie Talkie.

Personal Identification Number : Would you like to contact DARAM?

One-on-one communication using a personal identification number.

It's a privilege of the apocalyptic era that only those assigned a personal identification number can enjoy.

"To think Senior would contact me first. What is it? I don't have any jobs right now. Ah, of course, there are plenty of spots on the front line. Overflowing."

Faint jazz music could be heard over the radio.

The scenery and air over there are probably different from here.

"I had one thing I wanted to ask."

I asked about the apartment in question.

The reason I bothered to contact this annoying junior was because I myself had doubts that the apartment would be properly built.

Right now, the chaebols have been demoted to local warlords, and there is no company capable of undertaking the construction.

Even if they gathered people and built it, how would they provide the materials and the fully self-sustaining system they promise?

And a massive complex where thousands of households will live, not just for a dozen people like a chaebol.

Above all, the very fact that the country was issuing such a lottery felt like it was fundamentally and solidly twisted from the root.

"Hope is......"

The image of Kim Da-ram blowing cigarette smoke floated vividly before my eyes like a painting.

"Just like a mirage."

She is probably looking at the ruins spread out outside the window.

A doomed city that has already lost its present and will even lose its future.

After a slight silence, she told me another fact with a shallow sigh.

"We are going to Jeju Island. We will all withdraw by next spring at the latest."

Coincidentally, right after those words ended, the deafening roar of a transport plane overhead echoed exceptionally loudly inside my bunker.

"......"

A question I had harbored from before was resolved.

"This story. Don't tell anyone else. It's quite top secret."

I naturally accepted her request.

I was the only one who knew, and I didn't tell anyone.

I did what I could do.

SKELTON : They say there's an extremely high chance that apartment won't be built. You never know how things will turn out in the world, so manage your bunker side and supplies faithfully.

I sent a direct message to m9.

That day, it was my own way of returning the favor for his diligence when he took the initiative to grill and cut the meat at the shady raw meat restaurant.

A reply came soon.

mmmmmmmmm : Blocked

Goodwill is not accepted as it is.