Hiding a Logistics Center in the Apocalypse - Episode 29
(Home (3))
My father had a dream.
A dream of living a leisurely life in a countryside house with a spacious yard.
It was not a dream of just yesterday or today.
Whenever he had time to breathe, he would scour architectural vlogs on YouTube, browse architects’ websites, and fill notebooks with details about all kinds of building materials.
He was a father who said he wanted to see his four children running around on a green lawn.
But when my brother booked a wedding hall and my sisters announced plans to move out, Father said he realized that dream had been postponed for far too long.
Still, home is home.
The family home (本家).
A place we had left, but could return to at any time.
For that imagined space, Father bought land, laid foundation stones, and raised ridge beams.
Weekends, vacations, holidays… or even just whenever the thought crossed his mind.
Thinking of the children who would return thanks to the workforce called family, he designed a self-rotating axis that wouldn’t budge even against nuclear fission.
And so was completed the harmonious countryside house.
From the blurry blueprints to the front door handle with its cool touch.
Not a single thing was untouched by Father’s hand.
That was why.
That was why I could feel Father’s touch in this sturdy fortress.
“What happened?”
I couldn’t help but ask.
I had already witnessed the exploits of the countryside house turned fortress, but my family having survived intact felt like a grand miracle in itself.
My parents and grandfather, and even my brother and his wife.
Even my brother’s in-laws had gathered here, and not a single person had so much as a hair on their head harmed.
“…We went through hell.”
Father silently patted our shoulders.
Sharing our reunion, Father explained.
“I Awakened. They called me an
“This old man is putting on airs again. What about when you were hammering away all excited…”
Mother and Father still got along well.
Father continued.
“I had to survive first, so I turned the house into a fortress and upgraded it. But it’s still far from done. All I’ve got up is a single arrow turret.”
Father said he had scraped together magic stones to reach Level 2, and depending on his level, he could reinforce armor or install higher-grade defense facilities like bombardment turrets.
Of course, related materials were required, but fortunately, leftover materials from when the house was built had remained in the warehouse, so he could finish construction frugally.
Father had awakened an ability optimized for the apocalypse just as much as I had.
Perhaps feeling it was still lacking, Father sighed.
“What a shame! If only I had more magic stones… I could have built a grand fortress…”
“Dad, this kid Kim Jeong-gyeom has a ton of mon— mmmph!”
I clamped my hand over Kim Sol’s mouth before she could say something useless.
“Everyone, let’s go inside first.”
“…Where?”
I decided to bring everyone into the subspace first.
It would be faster than explaining.
***
The view of the vast logistics center spread out before them.
The family’s jaws dropped, though by now there was nothing novel about it.
“If you search here with the keyboard…”
First, I showed them how to order items from the picking station so they could take out whatever supplies they needed.
Next was a kind of traffic control.
Because Lee Yong-su’s family and the knights of Camelot were already inside the subspace.
I introduced Lee Yong-su to the family first.
“This is Mr. Yong-su… He helped us get here. If it weren’t for him, it would have taken much longer.”
It had been a long journey.
Whether by car or helicopter, he had taken charge of the driving with ease.
Without his awakened ability and courage, the journey would not have been smooth.
Ironically, I introduced him in a tone similar to when Lee Yong-su had introduced me to his wife.
It was proof that we had helped each other.
Lee Yong-su greeted the family.
“Not at all. I am the one who received all kinds of help from your son. The situation outside is dire… You must have had a hard time. Seeing you safe gives me great satisfaction as well.”
“Oh my… you must have suffered on the long road… Oh my!”
Mother’s face lit up seeing Lee Yong-su’s daughter, Yu-jeong.
She trembled her lips making a peekaboo sound, and Yu-jeong’s expression brightened instantly.
It was a warm, harmonious greeting in many ways.
“Then next…”
It was the skeleton knights of Camelot.
Their eerie appearance weighed on my mind.
As I was worrying about how to introduce them…
Thud, thud!
Grandfather patted Lancelot’s back.
“What’s your name?”
The rich dialect of the old man from Chungcheong-do put the medieval skeleton knight at ease.
“…I am called Lancelot.”
“I see, Mr. Ran. Do you live next door over yonder?”
Beyond the window, I saw the motel—no, Camelot Castle—attached next to the guard post.
“Yes, yes, that’s right.”
“Your appearance is fascinating, so I won’t be bored. Do you know how to play janggi?”
“I know how to play chess, but…”
“Hoho, a gentleman with a body like a mountain living such a complicated life. Isn’t chess or janggi all the same?”
Grandfather laughed heartily, wrinkling his eyes.
At the comment that he looked like he could eat a cow with that build, Skeleton Lancelot shook his head, but Grandfather seemed quite fond of him anyway.
Though it was a vast subspace, we decided to simply designate each other’s quarters.
Lee Yong-su and his family decided to use the women’s break room as it was, and the Kim family, excluding me, were assigned the commandant’s residence of the Army Transportation Command.
Since it was a space with its own yard, it wouldn’t be a countryside house, but it should be more than sufficient.
Naturally, the skeleton knights’ quarters were fixed as Camelot Castle.
Next was my brother and his wife.
I happened to have some news to deliver.
“Your newlywed house is wrecked.”
“…?”
“A helicopter came by the veranda side and fired bullets like crazy… missiles even…”
“…??”
As far as I knew, it was a house he had obtained with a full loan.
I didn’t bother mentioning that I was the cause of it, or that I had personally torn off the front door.
“Jeong-gyeom, you really…”
He seemed to take it as a joke, so I decided to let it be.
The world had become a surreal place anyway.
There was no certainty we could ever get it back.
“There’s an officer apartment next to the military base. You can take one and use it. Have your in-laws pick one too… Order any furniture or appliances you need from here.”
“…Thank you so much. I never thought I’d benefit from you this much.”
“That aside…”
There was something I needed to ask.
The family I had finally reunited with.
Because it also meant strengthening our forces.
“Has anyone else Awakened besides Father?”
Unfortunately, the family drama where everyone awakened did not unfold.
Those who had awakened were Father and my sister-in-law.
“Si-eun awakened the
Father’s
I needed to learn more about them, but they were abilities with outstanding development potential nonetheless.
‘…Is this enough?’
I had achieved my immediate goal.
The subspace I had carried all the way from Gunpo.
Family had finally melted into this empty, hollow place.
Vitality returned to the once-empty subspace.
“Is the kitchen really that good?”
“I told you it is!”
Saying they would prepare a meal, Mother left for the staff cafeteria with Oh Ji-su.
My two sisters rushed in, chattering nonsense about setting up a hospital in the subspace, or a gym.
My brother ordered this and that appliance for the household through Pax, and Lancelot was held captive by Grandfather, listening to stories about how harsh military life in the sixties had been at the characteristic 0.7x speed of the Chungcheong dialect.
It was utter chaos.
As I stood there blankly for a moment, I muttered without realizing it.
“…This is a home.”
Noisy, hectic, a space where my ears were pulled this way and that by people’s voices, yet where I couldn’t so much as recall a single fragment of the word loneliness—a space filled to the brim with density.
That was my definition of home.
But,
“It is not yet a home.”
Father appeared quietly from behind and objected.
“It’s not yet…?”
“You need neighbors for it to be a home, you rascal.”
My thought that you needed family for a true home.
Father added another ideology to that.
“No matter how little people care for each other these days, is it a home when your neighbor is dying while you warm your back? Even if you can’t gossip about whose yellow dog had puppies at the corner store… you have to know everyone is safe to sleep with your legs stretched out. Are only our family a family?”
Those familiar words: are only our family a family?
They were the same words Oh Ji-su had said when pushing Lee Yong-su outside to help me.
Hadn’t it been thanks to that resolve that I could find my own family?
Father’s words continued.
“The Chois next door were taken. So was Mr. Yoon who runs the car center over there. Monsters in military uniforms came and took everyone in the neighborhood.”
It was the story of the 1st Corps.
They had already taken Uijeongbu, and were procuring manpower from Dobong-gu below as well.
As I had seen through the specters, they were installing goblin villages and altars throughout Uijeongbu, gathering people to use as sacrifices.
Unlike the subspace that had become a comfortable paradise, destruction still loomed outside.
And at the hands of humans, no less.
And that was not a story that ended as a mere ethical issue.
‘…I can’t let the 1st Corps grow their power any further.’
They boasted a force large enough to stand in direct confrontation with the government army.
Not content with giving up their humanity, they were trying to use other humans as sacrifices.
The prisoners of Uijeongbu confirmed through the specters.
Even at a glance, their numbers were enormous.
If a catastrophe occurred where they all became sacrifices, I couldn’t even begin to measure how overwhelming the 1st Corps’ power would become.
That wasn’t all.
‘…We can’t stay here forever.’
We were in the heart of enemy territory.
Since magic stones weren’t infinite, we would have to leave the subspace someday.
If we had to decide the timing, now—while we could still stop them from growing stronger—was optimal.
The 1st Corps had caused all manner of interference until now.
While invaders from another world were pouring in, these were guys who were tripping up their own kin.
Wouldn’t it be best to nip them in the bud right now?
“…!”
A voice sounded from afar.
Oh Ji-su and Mother had prepared the meal; it was a call to come and eat.
“……”
I stopped short.
I halted my steps.
Strangely, I wasn’t hungry.
No, to be exact… I wanted to eat something else.
What kind of place was the 1st Corps?
The 1st Corps was the largest unit among those defending the capital.
Even looking at branches alone, the 1st Corps was a unit that had everything.
“An armored brigade… an aviation unit, an engineer corps, and even a military logistics support unit.”
Only then did I realize.
What kind of person I was.
The neighbors taken prisoner.
The citizens of Uijeongbu.
Going further, the Korean Peninsula, and the people of the entire globe.
I was a person with boundless greed, wishing for every single one of them to be happy without exception.
It is my personal subspace.
But my fence had no limits, enough to swallow everything outside.
Licking my lips, I muttered lowly.
“I want to eat… the 1st Corps…”
The desire to contain everything that existed in the world.
I was the master of a greedy logistics center.