WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Hiding a House in the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 36: Seonbi (1)
──────
People say humans are sly animals.
I’m not much different from anyone else.
Once my toothache was gone, I fell back into that swamp-like boredom. I spent my days endlessly refreshing the board, checking popular posts, wondering why I couldn’t do the same, and letting time pass like it was homework.
The board’s hottest topic lately was, without question, the revived SUNBI.
That guy who used to spout nonsense had finally started speaking like a person.
SUNBI: I was wondering why everything was coming out weird. Someone set the keyboard up wrong. What the hell is Three-Set[1]? Old fuckers must use weird keyboards too.
No one person’s death was much better than another’s, but SUNBI’s death left plenty of room for interpretation, depending on how you looked at it.
But however you dressed it up, it was true that a woman had been involved in SUNBI’s death.
Was that why?
SUNBI: Hi, oppas and uncles?
SUNBI had turned into a woman.
The face in the blurry photo, taken at the so-called pretty-girl angle inside a musty bunker, belonged to a girl who still had the youthful look of someone in her mid-to-late teens.
SUNBI: You guys aren’t A.
I or anything, right? You’re real people, right?
The board erupted.
Recently, there had been talk of a truce, no Pioneers had come through, and we had spent a quiet winter.
Besides, the new SUNBI knew how to stir people up.
SUNBI: Sunbi doing makeup~
SUNBI: Sunbi hungry
SUNBI: Wondering where Sunbi’s from? Want to come see for yourselves?
SUNBI: Sunbi lives around Pyeongtaek. Any oppas or uncles nearby?
Maybe it would have been better if it had stopped there.
The board’s response wasn’t all that bad.
unicorn18: Sunbi-chan~ Show us your face more. No other pictures?
Anonymous848: I’m around Pyeongtaek too. (Reading the room)
DragonC: Hmm.
keystone: Today’s lunch proof. (feat. beef)
Anonymous458: Sunbi’s ugly......
For some reason, I had no interest in the subject.
As I drank a cup of coffee and thought quietly, I felt like I understood why.
Resentment.
Apparently, I didn’t like seeing someone who, unlike us, had never silently prepared for the future while enduring society’s scorn for preparing for the apocalypse, casually hitching a free ride into the doomsdayists’ hall of fame.
DentistKim, whom I had met not long ago, probably contributed to that feeling.
I wasn’t the only one who resented it.
No, someone else truly resented it.
That was SUNBI.
SUNBI soon showed us what kind of person they were.
SUNBI: You guys are such fucking dogs lol
There were several people in the picture.
Three boys and two girls.
All had the young faces of teenagers in their mid-to-late teens.
SUNBI: The country’s falling apart, and you don’t fight or help anyone. You dig holes like rats, stockpile food, clothes, and fuel so only you can live well, then sit around leisurely browsing the internet?
They were outsiders.
Different from us from the start, and unable to mix with us even after meeting us. They mocked and cursed us.
It was also true that their age group fed that sense of collective otherness.
The only action board users could take against these outsiders was to collectively ignore them.
But collective ignoring, the refined language of board users, was a language the outsiders did not understand.
SUNBI: Corpse I found today, frozen to death. (feat. happy family)
SUNBI: Hanging corpse.
jpg (feat. Corps Faction)
SUNBI: Come look at this cute baby
SUNBI: A puppy and its family......
The outsiders ignored the collective ignoring and spammed the board with photos they had taken.
Each had a different title, but the contents were the same.
Death.
The cute baby photo was the corpse of a frozen baby, while the puppy and family were the corpses of people with a dog.
There was nothing but miserable death in their photos.
SUNBI: Woman who died after being gang-raped, and her hanging husband.
jpg
I happened to see one of them.
“...”
What the new SUNBI wanted to show us couldn’t have been merely disgusting corpses.
What they truly wanted to show us lay beyond the corpses.
Things we knew well, but didn’t want to know. Things we didn’t want to see.
The concrete reality of life during the apocalypse.
SUNBI: Disgusting fuckers. People are dying like this, and you’re sitting around here giggling lol. Is it fun? Huh? Is the world ending fun?
In the truest sense, this outsider’s actions lit a fire in the users’ hearts.
Dies_irae69: Anyone want to go kill SUNBI?
SUNBI had not revealed only a truth we had ignored.
The new SUNBI revealed our nature.
Anonymous848: Maybe I’ll lend a hand too?
Anonymous458: At least m9 was cute. This one needs to die.
ROKA_hun: I’m just a lurker, but can I come too?
keystone: I want to go too, but there are still a few assholes outside. Most froze to death, but they’re still annoying~
chouchou: I’ve only lurked until now, but I’ll work up the courage to post. What are you going to do with the woman?......
The unvarnished face of us doomsdayists, hidden behind cheerful usernames.
The community, where people had drifted in different directions, gathered with similar people, and collided with one another, formed one massive current with the arrival of a single outsider.
Foxgames: They say the fake SUNBI lives in Pyeongtaek, but that’s hard to believe. Looking at the old posts, the real SUNBI lived near Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Anonymous242: It was probably Gwangju. That cherry blossom photo the original SUNBI took before was from below the new town. Maybe somewhere around the wooded land in the lower neighborhood?
ROKA_hun: I have some ammo, so I’ll bring it. A hundred rounds should be enough, right?
What had made them act so eagerly?
I vaguely knew.
A sense of belonging, perhaps. Or, in more refined terms, solidarity.
Maybe the resentment I had felt upon first seeing SUNBI had also been part of that group consciousness.
Because I liked this community and cared about its users.
Anyway, at the end of a quiet winter, the board burned with more heat than the hottest days of summer.
Because the outsider had latched onto the board’s most respected user.
SUNBI: You call this shit a comic? It’s fucking terrible. What? Remnant? What a load of bullshit.
SUNBI: I could draw it too, asshole. Mine’d be butter than yours.
“?”
Why were they copying my typo?
Don’t tell me they really couldn’t tell the difference between “butter” and “better.”
Anyway, SUNBI’s behavior poured oil onto a board that was already in a bad mood.
Anonymous424: There have been suspicious movements from soldiers around here, so I can’t directly support you, but I’ll cheer you on.
tntn_Orthopedics: Those young kids have crossed the line, and crossed it badly. I think I know roughly where SUNBI lives.
berkut_break: Soulless people soaked in materialism gave birth to horrific creations like themselves. Even without the war, things like that would have walked the same rails. They are products stamped out by a dying factory.
Even users who normally showed little interest in community topics or barely posted condemned the new SUNBI.
The current could no longer be stopped.
SUNBI had to die.
That was the community’s will.
Countless users expressed their intention to join, and proof photos flaunting combat power, such as firearms, muscles, and gear, came pouring in.
Amid that torrent, I stood one step back.
I watched the situation with only mild surprise and interest.
Then a thought occurred to me.
What would Melon Mask say if they saw this?
They had foreseen that the community would fail to fulfill its intended positive function and become a place for entertainment and killing time.
In the welcome video shown when we first activated the satellite equipment and entered the community, Melon Mask had made sure to say that even if the world ended, we should enjoy ourselves to the fullest.
But even someone with such excellent insight could never have imagined that the community they created would be used as a venue for collective punishment.
Even as the noose tightened around their neck, the new SUNBI still mocked us.
SUNBI: What, you old fuckers think you’re strong when you band together? Stop talking shit. Come over. I’ll strip you naked, spray you with water, and kill you without even needing to see blood.
SUNBI: Proof
1.
jpg
SUNBI: Proof
2.
jpg
SUNBI: Why aren’t you saying anything? You all scared?
I joined this current not because I wanted to kill SUNBI.
Defender had asked me to.
A message from Defender: Sorry, but soldiers have been prowling around my territory lately. Can you go in my place?
SKELTON: Why should I? Can’t you go? I don’t want to get involved with either side.
A message from Defender: Honestly, it’s dangerous right now. Those Corps Faction bastards act like SUNBIs around Seoul, but the units that aren’t the main force have already turned into raiders.
A message from Defender: Be careful too. There are two of us, but you’re alone.
A grim future unfolded in Defender’s message, stripped entirely of its usual humor.
Groups of soldiers turned raiders.
Was there any more realistic fear than that?
Defender promised to give me the rough information they had gathered once this was over.
That information was probably obtained by catching soldiers and interrogating them.
SKELTON: Don’t do anything dangerous.
A message from Defender: Well, if you don’t hear from us for a week, assume we’re dead and pray for our souls.
“...”
A peaceful winter.
It seemed that had only been my illusion.
Even in this silence, the world’s end was steadily progressing.
Doing its work one piece at a time without our knowledge.
The thought suddenly occurred to me that this collective action by our community might also be a sign of collapse.
Before leaving the bunker, I checked the community.
SUNBI: When are you coming, you old fuckers?
SUNBI: Why do old fuckers lie so much? You got beat up all through school, then got a little older and suddenly think you’re brave?
iamjesus: If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. Matthew 5:39
SUNBI: Should I just come find you? Maybe I’ll start searching now and catch you one by one and kill you~?......
SUNBI was still mocking us.
But the increased intensity and frequency of the insults suggested it was no longer mere mockery.
They seemed to have vaguely realized something.
That the community they had stumbled across was not such an easy target.
That many adults were willing to leave their bunkers, take risks, and kill thoughtless boys and girls.
I had no intention of denying that I was one of them.
Even if I had no intent to kill, I had joined the group that did.
In fact, if SUNBI’s group were really raiders using elaborate tactics and had set a death trap for us, I would gladly join in killing them.
That was what Defender had asked me to do.
I gathered some gear and headed to the meeting point.
People carrying their own guns and equipment had already gathered there in groups of two or three.
They outnumbered me, but we were all armed. When I appeared, the four or five people who had arrived first all looked at me at once, and some even put their hands on their guns.
“Nickname.”
A man with a large scar across his cheek and thick sideburns glared at me with bright, fierce eyes.
“SKELTON.”
“Ah. Are you SKELTON?”
“And you are?”
“Dies Irae Sixty-Nine. Please call me Dies Irae or Dies, though. Honestly, I barely participate, so no one knows me. And I picked the name without thinking.”
Dies Irae[2].
This was the person who had proposed the collective punishment.
He didn’t seem particularly interested in me.
What interested him was my gun.
“Oh. Chinese-made. Where did you get it?”
“By chance. You could call it a shady source.”
“I see. Do you have much combat experience?”
“Not that much.”
“Then hang back and just watch. We’ll handle everything.”
As we waited, users gradually arrived from the roads.
Each time, Dies Irae personally stepped forward to verify their identities.
One traitor could get him killed first, yet he had plenty of nerve.
All the users came from the west.
More specifically, from westward areas leaning south. Not a single person came from the east.
Whenever Dies Irae asked for their identity, they gave their usernames.
“Anonymous848.”
“ROKA_hun.”
“chouchou.”
“Anonymous1001.”
Some were people I had often seen on the board, and some were not.
Their ages were spread evenly from the early thirties to the early sixties. There were almost no people in their twenties, not even faces that looked to be in their mid-twenties.
They may have been in their twenties when they prepared for the apocalypse, but now, more than two years after the war began, they had all become thirty-somethings.
Like me.
A total of ten users gathered at the scene.
That was not a small number.
Honestly, I had not expected this many people to come.
That was how thoroughly the new SUNBI had scratched our Dragon’s Reverse Scale[3].
But there was something else.
There was a sense of reality that could only be felt in person.
It was a gathering to stomp SUNBI.
But there was another purpose as well.
The looks constantly assessing one another.
The polite yet careful questions about each other’s circumstances.
The complaints about the misery of current conditions, especially loneliness and growing threats.
The many metaphors for groups and organizations.
Dies Irae made the nature of the gathering clear.
“Everyone, let’s exchange information afterward. Isn’t that why we all came?”
The organizer himself made the hidden purpose of this strange meeting clear.
Bringing the community’s network into reality.
That was probably this strange gathering’s other purpose.
“Well, shall we kill SUNBI first?”
Footnotes:
[1] Three-Set: a Korean keyboard layout that assigns consonants and vowels to separate keys, unlike the more common two-set layout.
[2] Dies irae: Latin for “Day of Wrath,” best known from a Catholic hymn about Judgment Day.
[3] Dragon’s Reverse Scale: an East Asian image of the one backward-growing scale on a dragon. Touching it provokes the dragon’s fury, so it means a grievous insult.
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