WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
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◈ Hiding a House in the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 11: Chaebol (2)
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The greatest damage caused by the war was not nuclear attack, but the sinister attacks carried out beneath cold waters.
South Korea depended on overseas supplies for nearly everything. If its sea routes were cut off, it would die.
When Chinese submarines attacked the trade routes, Korea's shipping lanes were paralyzed, and its economy was handed a death sentence.
Pafung was not exempt from that fate.
Still, it had a chance of lasting a little longer than the other groups.
It had construction and distribution subsidiaries, as well as heavy industry and defense companies.
Was that why?
The equipment mobilized for the operation was far more impressive than I'd imagined.
Five unfamiliar new armored vehicles armed with flamethrowers and 20 mm autocannons. Three forty-kilogram quad drones capable of providing air support in an emergency. A platoon of foreign mercenaries who looked like former U.S. soldiers. More than two hundred supporting personnel armed with various small arms.
There weren't many young people.
Even the younger ones were in their mid-to-late thirties, while most were in their forties. There were quite a few in their fifties, too.
The operation was commanded by a person called Director Choi, who had served up to the rank of Army colonel, but had no experience with anti-monster operations.
There was a hunter serving as an adviser, but not only was he someone I didn't recognize, he wasn't even a proper hunter.
By a “proper hunter,” I meant someone who had received systematic education and training at an internationally accredited school, gained at least one year of combat experience under a proven mentor, fought for at least another year in a Gate Zone established before a Rift, and earned a C-rank or above.
Someone like my mentor John_nenon, who had completed school but quit midway, was D-rank and considered a non-factor in monster combat.
And yet, someone considered a non-factor held the lifeline of a chaebol group that had once dominated South Korea.
“I am Park Sangmin, a sitting National Assembly member and a hunter. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
This man, handsome enough to be an actor, was a member of the National Assembly.
I heard he had entered the Assembly through proportional representation by playing up his hunter background, one of those so-called specialized proportional representatives.
I didn't know what qualifications someone who wasn't even a proper hunter had to represent the entire hunter community, but the Rose of Sharon pin sparkling on the collar of his quasi-military uniform did look rather stylish.
Director Choi was the nominal commander, but Park Sangmin was the one actually leading the operation.
“A large number of zombies have appeared in this industrial complex. However, research shows that zombies have a lifespan of one month. After one month, they starve to death. We delayed this operation to avoid unnecessary combat with zombies.”
He had a handsome face and a soft, reassuring voice. To anyone who didn't know better, even his bullshit sounded plausible.
“What do you think, Hunter dispatched by the National Crisis Response Committee (NCRC)?”
For some reason, he asked for my opinion at every turn. His intentions were painfully obvious.
He wanted to put me down.
Because I was a hunter sent by the National Crisis Response Committee.
At this point, the National Assembly was nothing but their own league with no real power, while the National Crisis Response Committee held actual authority.
That resentment had warped into mockery aimed at me.
I could laugh something like that off.
He had three years at most. That was his lifespan.
The problem was that Park Sangmin might try to pin responsibility for this operation's inevitable failure on me.
That was not what I wanted.
I was supposed to live quietly and alone, then cut all contact with everyone when the time came and live in peace.
“I don't think that's right.”
“No, Assemblyman. You are mistaken.”
“I don't agree at all.”
So I objected at every turn.
It was hard not to.
The guy only spoke nonsense.
“I see it differently.”
Even a worm wriggles when stepped on. After taking it a few times, Park Sangmin finally struck back.
“You see it in 3D?”
That was his counterattack.
Since there was nothing in his head, he tried to dismiss what I said with sarcasm and nonsense.
I ignored him and continued.
“If zombies look like they'll starve, they shut down. They enter a state of suspended animation and drastically lower their metabolism. It's true that they starve if they remain active for a month without finding nutrients, but zombies that have established a base in an urban area where they can avoid sunlight should be viewed differently.”
“Ah, right. Get off AntWiki.”
Park Sangmin was extremely rude, but the senior group executives watching our exchange didn't look particularly pleased.
The chairman's change was especially noticeable.
Even if he was a layman, it was obvious from the context alone who was speaking more sense.
The climax of our argument was over how to enter the industrial complex.
Park Sangmin insisted that the armored vehicles should go first. I argued the opposite.
“No, Assemblyman. Have you ever seen a zombie shoot a gun? Heard of one? Zombies are sensitive to sound and smell. If we bring armored vehicles reeking of fuel and roaring with engine noise, we'll just be advertising that we're here.”
“Enough!”
Park Sangmin waved his arm.
A rough-looking aide stepped in front of me, trying to shut me up.
I shook them off and continued.
“Send an experienced reconnaissance team ahead first, assess the situation, and decide how to enter based on that. It won't be too late. Fighting is ninety percent planning. The other ten percent is individual skill. If the plan's a complete mess, do you think we can win?”
“This bastard's really asking for it. Fuck.”
Park Sangmin's patience finally ran out.
“You little vermin think being a member of the National Assembly is a joke? Huh? How dare you keep talking back to me?”
The group employees separated Park Sangmin and me.
Fortunately, the person who took me elsewhere was also the reason I had come here.
“You're President Ji Changsu, correct?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Your daughter asked me to come.”
“Younghee did?”
Younghee.[1]
Such a model-student name, for that woman.
I briefly explained the danger of the operation to Ji Changsu, along with what I knew from experience.
As expected of someone who ran a company with over three thousand employees, even if it was technically a subcontractor, Ji Changsu seemed to consider my words carefully.
Then I dealt the decisive blow to his doubts.
“Actually, I'm not D-rank. I'm not bragging, but I'm in a different league from that pretty-boy fop.”
But some invisible cord still held his heart in place.
“But the chairman...”
“What about the chairman? Honestly, isn't the group finished anyway? Are you still doing business? No, do you even have any business left to do?”
Ji Changsu shook his head.
Even as he did, he stared into empty space with the deep, grave expression older people tended to wear when lecturing younger ones.
“Hunter Park, you're still young, so you may not understand, but bonds between people aren't so easily formed or severed. Especially for people like us, who have shared the same time and experiences...”
“...”
I thought I understood.
I had worried over something similar myself.
“Besides, even if we ran from this collapsing organization, what could we do? At best, wouldn't we just become mere refugees instead of Pafung men?”
“President Ji, you have family waiting for you to return alive.”
“...”
“I don't have a family waiting for me.”
I left first.
“When I give the signal, run without looking back.”
“But the chairman!”
“Don't worry. The chairman will make a run for it too.”
The outcome of the operation was as plain as day.
The armored vehicles went first, and the zombies swarmed toward them.
Things went well at first.
At least until they advanced toward the center, piling up walls of corpses with flamethrowers and autocannons.
But they soon hit their limit.
Zombies surrounded them from every direction and blocked their retreat. Worse still, the being I had feared most appeared.
A three-meter creature with a dull gray surface floated in the air, looking down at the humans.
It released shockwaves that made the surroundings ripple each time, as though it were breathing.
It was closer to a statue than a living creature.
No, perhaps an idol.
Every human there looked up at that being, each seized by their own fear and awe.
In the silence, I grabbed Ji Changsu's wrist.
“Let's get out of here.”
It was a monster, humanity's enemy.
Humanity could not defeat monsters.
The battle's outcome was clear.
Most of the equipment was destroyed, and all the mercenaries were lost.
Director Choi died in action as well.
Only half of the two hundred employees who had come as reinforcements returned alive.
Park Sangmin survived, but he blamed the defeat on Director Choi's incompetence and Pafung Group's lack of preparation.
I didn't care.
Ji Changsu had survived.
“This should have knocked some of the chairman's stubbornness out of him. Thanks for cooperating with me.”
Kim Daram welcomed me with a smile, but it didn't look particularly happy.
She had been forced to arrange this as well.
I understood.
In a world where everything had collapsed, it couldn't have been easy to ignore the demands of someone powerful.
“It wasn't exactly pleasant. But why did he do that? I can more or less guess what happened.”
“There were two playgrounds, and one of them fell apart. The most popular kid from the ruined playground came to the other one, but the others wouldn't let him join in.”
“An analogy fitting for a mother.”
“Anyway, be happy. He won't bother you anymore.”
Kim Daram sent me a congratulatory message, along with an unexpected gift.
The gift was a personal identification number.
From then on, I held special status in the world of military frequencies.
“But the chairman says he wants to see you again.”
“I don't want to see him.”
“Whether you meet him is up to you, Senior. He has no power left now. He doesn't have any resources left to exert influence with.”
What made me meet Je Pung-ho again?
Looking back, I think it was curiosity.
As a Korean, wasn't seeing the end of a fallen chaebol something everyone wanted to witness at least once?
Je Pung-ho received me on the third floor of his headquarters building.
The construction elevator that had once taken me to the fifty-fifth floor had stopped operating.
The luxurious restroom reeked of urine.
Je Pung-ho had prepared a meal and waited for me.
The main dish was steak with truffles, and he had also prepared some top-quality wine called Château Something-or-Other.
The mushrooms and wine were excellent, but the meat he served was clearly inferior to what I had stored in my bunker.
“Hunter Park.”
He greeted me with a bright smile.
His face was not much different from when I had seen him at the cafeteria.
“I looked into your career. Ran a background check. You're quite an important figure.”
“I'm a washed-up has-been now.”
“Just like me, then.”
Je Pung-ho's eyes sparkled.
“I heard that swaggering Lee Sanghun was no match for you. And that you were on the same team as Kang Hanmin and Na Hyein, saviors who are half legend now.”
“...”
The taste of the wine immediately turned sour.
I had heard names I didn't want to hear.
Names I had nearly succeeded in erasing from my memory.
“Why did you call me here?”
“It seems you intend to refuse before I even say anything.”
“You know me well.”
“To get straight to the point, I intend to challenge that industrial complex again.”
“It won't work. You saw what happened.”
“There are times when you have to act, even when you know it won't work.”
Je Pung-ho half closed his unusually shining eyes and stared at the blood-red wine in his glass with regret.
“I was born to a mistress.”
“...”
“My registered mother is listed as Jang Misuk, but she isn't my mother. My real mother couldn't even leave behind her name. When I was born, my chance of inheriting the group was zero percent. But I did it.”
Je Pung-ho's gaze deepened.
To be precise, he opened his narrowed eyes wide and caught more light from the dim ceiling fixture, but I mistook it for his gaze becoming stronger.
“I brought down and trampled everyone who stood in my way, until my father had no choice but to choose me.”
He had the force of will for it.
“I am sixty-nine. It's time to challenge it again.”
“I won't do it.”
“Just tell me how. How can I defeat that monster?”
I couldn't refuse even that request.
After all, I owed him something.
A warm bowl of gukbap and a shot of soju.
“...It's a type called a Necromancer. As you saw, it mutates the dead and raises them as zombies. When attacked, it creates a reflective force field around itself, but it can't reflect organic matter, even living bodies. Getting close is extremely difficult, but if you can get close, you can find some way to make a move. And there is one spot where it has no field, about the size of a coin...”
Je Pung-ho nodded eagerly and wrote down my information as though he had returned to childhood.
After I finished, I asked him.
“Why are you so obsessed with that place? Your wealth and connections alone should be enough to prepare. If you settle somewhere suitable, you could easily protect your family and the people around you.”
“How could I do that?”
He asked tearfully.
“There are thousands, tens of thousands of Pafung employees who rely on and follow only me.”
I finally thought I understood why his eyes shone so strangely.
He was a boss to his bones.
The kind who gathered people around him and made them follow.
No, perhaps he had come to see himself and Pafung as one and the same.
Je Pung-ho's final challenge ended in failure.
The fact that the father of the woman who had spoken to me was not on the list of the dead gave me a small measure of satisfaction.
The cafeteria Je Pung-ho had ambitiously established had become a den for drug addicts, then was abandoned and turned into an eyesore no one visited.
That was the end of one chaebol I had known.
Thanks to it, I went from being a perpetually unpopular user to a user with enough clout to make a popular post.
But it seemed Je Pung-ho's story was not over yet.
About one year and ten months after the war began, a photograph was posted on the community.
gijayangban: Found this photo on PaleNet. Doesn't someone in it look familiar?
The photo showed a horde of zombies.
They seemed to be operating somewhere in the provinces, forming an enormous group numbering in the thousands.
But the zombie standing at their head had a familiar face.
There was no mistake.
The zombie in the shiny suit was Je Pung-ho, chairman of Pafung Group.
While most chaebols abandoned their groups and settled into fortresses for their own clans of only a dozen or so people, this leading businessman still roamed abandoned ruins today, leading thousands of followers.
Footnotes:
[1] Younghee: A conventional name for the exemplary schoolgirl in Korean elementary reading exercises, giving it a prim, textbook feel.
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