Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

Until now, what I knew about the portal was limited to the fact that it could be summoned for an indefinite amount of time. That’s why, in order to deepen my understanding of it, I was currently conducting various experiments with it. The first thing I wanted to know was what would happen if I put an object on the portal and closed it.

“Close the portal.” As I said that, the pipe in the middle of the portal was pushed out to my side rather than being cut in half. I also tried it several more times with a chunk of meat and many other things. The results were all the same, they were all pushed out. In the end, I conclude that the same thing would also happen to living things.

“I can’t use it as a weapon.” I sighed before moving on towards the next experiment. The next experiment was about analyzing where it would materialize once It was summoned. I called the portal while doing so many different poses. After many many tries, I concluded that the position the portal would appear in was constant. It was always 1m away from my body.

Even when I was lying down facing the floor, the portal would open vertically on the ground.

“If I open it in a narrow space, it will materialize in the wall.” The portal opened in the wall won’t allow anyone other than me to enter. With this, it was possible to open an invisible portal on the wall and escape, making whoever chasing me hit the wall.

“The sound is…” There’s no difficulty to hear sounds from the other side of the portal when I was inside. However, when I was outside, I couldn’t hear the sounds from inside the portal.

So, to sum it up, “This portal is a 90-inch CCTV with a dimensional leap function.”

I was still unaware whether the portal could be destroyed or not. However, with the newly acquired invisibility effect, it should be okay as long as I don’t mess around too much.

“I thought the levels existed just to open the Shop and Auction House…” However, I’m not complaining at all about the newly added feature. The game Survival Life had no system such as unique skill, but now that it exists, everyone’s chance of survival should be slightly higher.

I closed the portal and looked around.

“…this place is too narrow.” It was the conclusion I came to after stocking up on supplies for several days straight. Even though I already made a basement, those feelings still remain. Maybe it’s because I bought too much canned food…

“Now, I have no choice but to put the supply outside.” The problem was, by doing so, I would put myself in danger. Those foods would undoubtedly become something which would lure all the inhabitants of the forest to come. Even if the passing animals weren’t interested with the supplies, the monsters who saw it would certainly come either because of curiousity or pure greed.

How to fix it, I wonder…

“In the end, there’s no other option than building a shelter.” However, it was too high of a hurdle for me to create a shelter which was capable of withstanding the power of medium-sized monsters such as orcs. My head started to throb just by thinking about a way to get them away from my cave.

“They can’t break through the barbed wire easily though.”

Thankfully, I’d never seen such medium-sized monsters around the vicinity of the cave. At most, there were only goblins and kobolds or carnivorous animals such as wolves around.

I took out my hand-drawn map of the forest and noted down the ecology of each monster I know based on the footage I got from operating the drones from the past few days.

“And I also need to find out whether there are only low-level monsters such as goblins and kobolds around here, or are there other monsters stronger than them.” Perhaps, the territory of the stronger monsters were in the forest beyond the valley just like the owlbear. If that’s really the case, then it all would’ve become simpler…

“Let’s check it out.” I took out four drones and let them fly at the same time. Drones these days were so good as they could fly automatically while maintaining an appropriate height. Of course, they couldn’t automatically execute a complicated movement, but for my purpose, the automatic flying function was enough.

The four drones flew low through the forest and transmitted the scene they captured to the laptop. Every time I saw an animal, I stopped the drone and noted down their location on the map.

“Valley deer, rabbits, wild boars, forest rat, spotted bird, maned wolves, gray fox, weasel…”  This forest was truly an animal paradise. It would be perfect if monsters didn’t exist here.

“There are no dangerous monsters near the cave.” There used to be an adult silver wolf around the area near the cave, but it could be considered as an exception as I couldn’t find a single one other than Dingo and his mother.

About 3km to the north from my cave, I found a cluster of primitive huts made of wood with a roughly-built wooden fence circling around them. It was a goblin nest. Currently, I could see around 10 moving things there through the drones, but I know that there should be more goblins inside the huts and the forest.

“There should be around 20 or 30 goblins, it is unreasonable to attack it right away.” It would be nigh to impossible to withstand the paralysis darts from dozens of those guys. In addition, there seems to be a hobgoblin present on the nest.

“By the way… where is the kobolds nest…” From what I know, kobolds mostly live in a cave, so it would be difficult to find them with a drone.

After spending a few hours scouring the forest with the drones, I was convinced that there are no medium-sized or larger monsters around. This means that I only need to repel kobolds, goblins, and other small carnivores from my cave if I build a shelter.

It’s worth doing.

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In my note, a detailed topographical map around the cave was drawn. Bushes, trees, rocks, and all other features were also precisely noted down. Then, around the vicinity of the cave, I drew a circle.

“Securing the area within the radius of 15m around the cave should be enough.” If it was converted to pyeong, it would be over 200 pyeong. With that much space, I could build a comfortable country house in Korea.

“If it’s too wide, it will be troublesome to control the whole area.” Even if it feels cramped, I could expand it later down the line when I’ve become strong enough. Let’s just be satisfied with this much for now.

By the way, what sort of defensive measures should I build?

“Ah, Let’s build that!” A basic defensive measure everyone thinks of when they think of medieval castles: moat.

The wider and deeper you dig, the more difficult it is for the enemy to cross. Though, the moat around my cave didn’t have to be too grandiose as kobolds and goblins weren’t that big in the first place.

I drew another circle around the existing circle to mark the location of the moat. When thinking of a moat, there’s also an option of filling it with water. However, as I will be working on it alone, I don’t think I would be able to do that. So, In the end, I decided to just dig it. The thought of shoveling thousands or tens of thousands of times already made my shoulders stiff.

“The more I work hard, the stronger my defense will become…” This forest was full of honey. Even though it was currently bitter, it would certainly become sweet once I finished all that I had to do.

“The width of the moat should be about 2m.” It doesn’t have to be too wide as barbed wire would be installed right behind it. Moreover, if I poured mortar mix on the floor and threw in some broken glass on it, it would become a proper defensive measure.

“If they jump in without knowing, they will die.” To remove their corpses, I just need to fish them out with a rope. Simple!

After careful consideration, the defense would be like this:

“A 2m wide moat and 2 lines of 2m high barbed wire fence.” It looks perfect at first glance, but it was not impenetrable. For example, If a large monster or a bone creeper comes, they would breach it with little to no struggle.

A werewolf would easily jump over the moat and the barbed wire fence while the bone creeper would blow up the entire structure to smithereens

“I’ve never seen a werewolf before, so I think it would be fine.” And in case of the bone creeper, let’s just say I would be able to kill it with money instead of skill.

After finishing the concept, I took a walk through the forest together with Dingo to calculate the necessary materials. By my calculation, a large amount of money would be needed. But it’s fine. Afterall, it was all to ensure my safety.

“Let’s order generously as I will surely need to repair it as well in the future.” After securing the zone with a defensive measure, the next step would be building a new warehouse.

“Let’s just build it with sandwich panels as the wall and mortar mix on the ground to prevent dampness.”

And as the area became wider, several more CCTVs were needed. Fortunately, this part of the forest receives a lot of sunlight, so there should be no difficulty in gaining electricity. It was amazing to see that the solar panel’s production rate was the exact same as what the manufacturer said even after installation.

I went to my house, booted up my PC and ordered the necessary materials to build both the moat and the warehouse.

“I should go to the construction store too.” Afterall, it was better to buy tools like shovels and pickaxes offline. A lot of saws and axes were also needed because there were too many unnecessary bushes and trees in the safe zone I set up.

“Thanks to that, I don’t have to buy firewood.” I don’t know if it was a good thing or not though.

After that I walked out from my house and turned the tamas on.

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“They were here huh?” On my way back from the building supply store, I happened to see the thugs hanging around in an abandoned villa at the foot of the mountain which was rarely visited by people. I could see all of them having fun as I peered through the telescope.

“That guy already removed the crane from the back of his car.” Was it because he thinks that there’s nothing to tow now?

Instead of the crane, the back of the car was converted into a cargo box full of combat ration and bottled water.

“All of you are also trying to survive, huh?” Afterall, it’s impossible to not do anything when they know precisely what will happen.

As I continued to observe, a car arrived at the villa. From the car, two women walked out and joined the crowd. They were really having a sweet time, a can of beer in one hand and cigarettes on the other.

The man with the hat I met at the hair salon several days ago suddenly headed towards one of the cars and pulled something out of the trunk. It was baseball bats and wooden sticks.

“It seems like they ordered it from abroad.” There were also reinforced plastic bats which were promoted as unbreakable. It was a quite strong weapon to inflict damage to humans. However, the soon appearing enemies were not humans but zombies.

“It’s not enough.” Making a hole in the skull was the surest way to kill a zombie. We, stagnant waters had concluded so after doing our experiment to prove our speculation about where the spores were nested at. Me buying a war club was because of that very reason, not just because it was a good weapon.

“Still, he seems to have some idea of what had to be done.” When I saw him taking out a stab-proof vest and even a reinforced plastic shield, I could feel that he was well prepared.

“How many of them will survive, I wonder…” From what I know from Survival Life, less than 50% of the initial number of people would survive through the tutorial.

“The exact conditions of who will be infected by spores and who will not is also still unknown.” The only thing I knew was everyone except the awakeners could become a zombie. There’s also a possibility that the entire human race would extinct at once without differentiating Awakened or normal people. The future was unknown, so the most important thing to do was to prepare as much as possible.

I jolted down the location of the villa on the map. I will surely visit them once the apocalypse hit. Looking at their usual attitude, it was easy to tell what they’re going to do once the apocalypse happens. Running wild like the owner of the world and become predator for other survivors. I had to deal with them first in order to have a less hectic post-apocalyptic life.

I hopped into my car and drove back to my home. When I arrived, I quickly checked the video on my laptop.

“If I remembered correctly, there should be an event around this time…” When I was still doing a live streaming, I just skimmed through the content of the event, so I don’t know the details. What was certain was, after the appearance of the orcㅡwhich I already killㅡanother monster would also appear in reality.

“Was it a hobgoblin…” As a higher-level goblin, it boasts quite outstanding physical abilities. Though, it was still weaker than an orc. However, the reason a hobgoblin was deemed to be a dangerous  creature was due to the fact that it always had at least 20 subordinate goblins around him.

“It’s here.” I found a part of the video where I was talking about the event.

―I Love Gimbap: No, honestly, is there anyone who looks at the background story while playing a game? In MMORPGs, there are background stories, and yes, it does exist. Things like “In the beginning, the devil invaded the human world….” But who reads those kinds of things these days?

– Poor Man: That’s right.

Hmmm… was there only one viewer?

I held back the urge to just turn the video off and watch it until the end. Even on this video, Poor Man donated 3,000 won towards me out of his loyalty to me. And just like any other day, he told an absurd story.

―Poor Man: I managed to survive by eating only one ramyun for 3 days hehehe. And with the money I saved, I sponsored you.

―I Love Gimbap: No, Poor Man. I haven’t told you to sit down yet.

―Poor Man: I’m sorry… Should I just stand here?

―I Love Gimbap: No…

By the way, I’m really curious about the identity of Poor Man… His concept while watching the broadcast was really unique. But, if It’s hard to just eat ramyun, it’s a bit strange to be able to use the internet to watch my broadcast every day. Ah whatever, let’s not think about that. Afterall, it’s not like he’s someone I know.

After the videos ended, I summarized the information I got on my notes.

―A group of goblins, including hobgoblins, will pop up in Korea.

―I don’t know anything about the date, place, time, etc.

―There are, however, reports of a fight between the police and a group of goblins.

“If it’s a police officer who was dispatched in a hurry, they would have a revolver with them.” Of course, goblins could be eliminated with a pistol. But the real problem was the hobgoblin. It had a physical ability which was stronger than any humans. It would be difficult to stop it with one or two pistol bullets.

“This is mouth-watering…” If these guys only provide some levels and points, there’s no need to overdo it.

However…

“If there is a hobgoblin, there is a high probability that there will be a golden goblin.” Though, when I say golden goblin, I’m not talking about their skin colour. It was only a term used for goblins which carry a bigger pocket than other goblins. Normally, most of what was inside was junk, but sometimes a rare treasure would be mixed in there.

“Because he’s a hobgoblin, he’ll probably also have a fat pocket.” In the backstory of the game, it met its end when it got killed by the military of South Korea. But, are there any rules that state it only could be killed by the military?

The problem was that I didn’t know the exact date.

“I’m sure it was before the Russian fishing boat event.” If so, I would have to rent a car and load the gears I need in advance. Once I heard the news, I would have to go right away so I could kill it. The portal had also been upgraded, so it didn’t seem like there would be any problem for me to walk around while avoiding people’s eyes.

Once I had decided, it was time to put it into action. I went to a nearby car rental company to rent an SUV. Following the guidance of the staff, I looked around the parking lot to pick what kind of car I wanted. That’s when I saw three motorcycles.

Wait a minute…

Can I ride those motorcycles in the forest once I change the tires?

“Can I rent a motorcycle too?”

At my questions, the staff had a nice smile on his face.

“Renting up to 125cc motorcycles is possible.”

The rental period was, of course, 15 days plus 1 day.

After deciding I would rent one SUV and one motorcycle, I went back home by driving the motorcycle while the car was sent by a chauffeur.

When I put it in front of the store, Mikyung sticks her head out from her hair salon.

“Wow, Ahjussi, I didn’t know you knew how to ride a motorcycle.”

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“Well, these days motorcycles are similar to a bicycle, so of course I can.”

While I was having a conversation with Mikyung, it seemed that Dingo had sensed me as I could hear him scratching the second-floor window.

It seems like a CCTV should also be installed on the door around the second floor for protection. And I also need to block the window with some things to prevent being seen from the outside.

As I opened the trunk of the car, a red sports car suddenly stopped in front of my store. The person who got off was Doctor Jo Sooyeon.

“Hello, Seongho?” She greeted me.