First of all, I want to thank Ha Tae-hoon.
When Rebecca and her daughter needed a place to stay, he willingly vacated the cabin he was currently living in.
"Well, I can just move into my new house. It’s still under construction, though."
Thanks to him, I was able to separate Rebecca into a private space while she was feeling uneasy.
Rebecca needs ti to adjust.
Even if my intentions were good, I deceived her.
I denied the hope she had risked her life to believe in.
Even if that hope was aningless to , to Rebecca, it must have been sothing precious.
Fortunately, Sue adapted to our domain quickly.
"Hello?"
She walked around with , greeting the people living here one by one.
Everyone liked her.
Of course, this didn’t include the Defender siblings.
"..."
"Oh."
Sue wasn’t an easy target. Even when facing the Defender siblings, who exuded a quiet nace, she showed no signs of shrinking back.
Rather, as she left them behind, she whispered to .
"Those people... they’re the ones from before, right? The ones who were close to you, Skelton?"
"Yeah."
"Not my type."
The last person she greeted was the ace of our domain—aside from , the most important figure—Ballantine.
"Hello."
"Oh, hi?"
Ballantine greeted Sue warmly.
But as expected from a man I acknowledged, his insight was sharp.
"That kid..."
He leaned in and whispered to .
"She gives the chills."
"Really?"
"She’s not quite as bad as the ones with the surna Hong, but her gaze... I don’t know, sothing about her eyes is unsettling. I an, I’m not xenophobic or anything."
I don’t know what happened in the U.S. military camp, but it’s clear that her ti there left a strong impact on Sue.
"It was like hell. The whole place felt like one giant graveyard. Everyone was just sitting around, waiting for death."
Sue showed pictures she had taken at the camp.
"...What is this?"
"I took it right in front of the base."
This is serious.
The erosion had reached right up to the front of the base.
I had heard that erosion in the southern regions had beco uncontrollable, but this was far worse than I imagined.
The entire landscape south of the military base had turned into a bleak, grayish-white wasteland, reminiscent of a decayed corpse.
Could that life be what changed Sue?
I don’t think so.
Her real change ca from within herself.
Her height had already shot up a long ti ago, but now her mind had grown just as much, suffering from growing pains.
In other words, she had entered adolescence.
And one of the clearest signs of adolescence is challenging one’s parents.
"I can't stand my mom whining all the ti."
Sue muttered bitterly as she chewed on one of the juicy-—flavored jellies I had hidden away.
"You shouldn’t say that about your mom."
"Sorry, my Korean isn’t good enough to find a better expression. But still, it’s annoying. She won’t even co out of her room today. She could at least say hello, couldn’t she?"
Growing up isn’t just about getting taller and stronger.
It also ans gaining a new perspective, looking beyond one’s parents.
And whether that new view is black or white doesn’t really matter to them.
Because everything beyond their parents is new to them.
It’s the role of adults to help them understand the aning behind each color.
"She can say hello later. But before that, there’s sothing more important, isn’t there?"
When our eyes t, Sue smiled.
"I know what you an. You want to cheer up my crybaby mom, right?"
"Yeah."
How should we comfort Rebecca?
I already knew the answer.
David.
Rebecca’s husband.
For Rebecca, who stubbornly clung to the idea of a complete family, her husband was a puzzle piece she had to find and keep.
"Dad’s situation? I’m pretty skeptical."
Sitting on the desk and swinging her legs, Sue made a bored expression.
"I saw my mom trying to contact Dad, and it wasn’t really happening, was it?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. How should I put it? It’s like... people connect to each other, but then soone else connects to them beyond that."
"You an a connection through a third party?"
"Mmm. Yeah, sothing like that."
"I see."
This was unexpected information.
Sue’s words had just completely undermined the truth of David’s survival—sothing Rebecca had never doubted.
I asked her for more details.
"While Mom was desperately searching for news about Dad on Viva! Apocalypse!, so user nad SneakyLocomotion claid to know him. Guess what my idiot mom did?"
"She believed him completely?"
"She’s not that stupid, so she was a little skeptical at first. But then SneakyLocomotion showed her a picture of Dad."
"Really?"
"I don’t know where it was taken, but it was definitely from the sa unit. The guy’s clearly an actual soldier. So of course, my idiot mom fell for it."
Highly suspicious.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
"That’s what I’m saying, Skelton. Think about how weird this is."
As she calmly devoured my secret stash of snacks, Sue explained what had happened between Rebecca and SneakyLocomotion.
"SneakyLocomotion claid to know where Dad was and even said they were in the sa area. But he never once let Mom talk to him directly. Whenever she asked sothing, he’d say he’d relay the ssage to Dad later."
"So he was always acting as a middleman?"
"Yep!"
Sue clapped her hands.
"It was always like that. Even for tiny ssages, even just to ask how Dad was doing, she always had to go through that guy. Isn’t that strange? He’s supposedly right there with Dad, yet he couldn’t even set up a basic video call?"
I don’t know what SneakyLocomotion’s true intentions were, but there was definitely so predatory behavior mixed in.
He had even asked for explicit photos, claiming David wanted to see them.
"Tell she didn’t send any."
"No. She’s not that stupid. And besides, I was right next to her. How could she take pictures like that?"
"Hmm."
This wasn’t a conversation a kid should be having.
But this was reality.
While the topic itself was disturbing, the bigger issue lay elsewhere.
The problem wasn’t just SneakyLocomotion—it was the control he held over Rebecca.
He was exploiting her desperate hope of reuniting with her husband to manipulate her.
"..."
As Rebecca’s friend, I couldn’t just let this slide.
"Sue."
"Yeah?"
"Write down his full userna for ."
*
SneakyLocomotion.
His posting history dated back to before the war, with around 5,500 posts and 1,500 comnts.
According to Da-jeong’s "post-to-comnt ratio" theory, this ant he was highly likely to be a terrible person.
For reference, Skelton’s post-to-comnt ratio had slightly shifted over ti, but I still maintained the golden 1:5 ratio of a "well-liked user."
But here’s the strange thing.
Even after searching, none of SneakyLocomotion’s posts appeared.
If he had deleted them, his post count would have decreased, but it hadn’t.
That ant he had likely set them to private.
In a forum filled with countless users expressing their thoughts, making posts private was as good as making them disappear.
There was no logical reason to do this.
But SneakyLocomotion had chosen to hide rather than delete.
I needed to dig deeper.
I wasn’t an ordinary user.
Tap, tap, tap.
SKELTON: (Request) VivaBot, are you there?
VIVA_BOT014: Huh? Are you asking for user info?
A smile curled on my lips.
Skelton’s other alias was TwelveSquare.
The ultimate model user of Viva! Apocalypse!.
If I had been a bit more ruthless, I would’ve been reigning as the king of the forums by now.
SKELTON: Yes.
VIVA_BOT014: This is a sudden request. May I ask why?
SKELTON: The reason, you ask?
VivaBot is surprisingly warm-hearted.
SKELTON: Soone I know is being manipulated by a malicious user.
Using the concise and to-the-point explanations I learned in school, I relayed the situation between Rebecca and SneakyLocomotion to VivaBot.
VIVA_BOT014: Hmm. That’s sothing to consider.
It seems to be working.
Sure enough—
VIVA_BOT014: What exactly do you want to know? Do you want to see the contents of their hidden posts?
She accepted my request.
Of course, it wasn’t just the sincerity of my story that moved her.
VIVA_BOT014: Technically, I shouldn’t be doing this, but Skelton, you’re an important figure to us. If a friend of yours is in trouble, shouldn’t I help?
My special status played a role in convincing her.
Well, to be fair, this is sothing I have the right to request.
It’s just that I, Park Gyu, am too soft-hearted and kind for my own good.
SKELTON: I’d like to see parts of the posts, and I also want to check SneakyLocomotion’s general location.
VIVA_BOT014: It’s showing as sowhere in Ohio. Do you need more details?
SKELTON: (Skelton, grateful) No, that’s enough.
After confirming SneakyLocomotion’s location, I returned to the bunker and reviewed the ssages exchanged with Rebecca.
“......”
There was no need to read too much into it.
It was a dark fable, recorded in the form of internet ssages, about a desperate person searching for family and the deception of soone trying to take advantage of them.
Lastly, I contacted Sue through the communicator.
“Sue.”
“Yeah?”
“You love your mom, right?”
“......A little more than before?”
“Do you know Necropolis?”
“Yeah!”
“Have you used it?”
“No. I couldn't access it. I tried several tis, but there was no way to connect.”
“I see.”
With that, everything was set.
Now, it was ti to wake Rebecca up.
It was ti to get my neighbor, who had locked herself away in darkness, back on her feet.
Sue, who had been wandering outside, was the first to spot and greet .
“Skelton!”
Together, Sue and I opened the door to the cabin.
Inside, it was shrouded in darkness, as black as night.
In the farthest corner, Rebecca sat curled up, her head limp between her knees.
Seeing this, Sue let out a sigh and tugged at my pant leg.
She didn’t want to look at it.
It was clear that a child doesn’t enjoy seeing their parent in such a vulnerable state.
Beyond just disliking it, a parent’s weakness can plant the seeds of resentnt in their child.
“Rebecca.”
I called her na.
“Yeah.”
Rebecca answered weakly, her head still buried.
“This is about your husband, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“David, was it?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is he now?”
“......Florida.”
“Why Florida?”
“That’s where he was deployed.”
“SneakyLocomotion told you that?”
At the ntion of SneakyLocomotion’s userna, Rebecca’s head snapped up.
Her hollow cheeks and sunken eyes told the story of her anguish.
“H-How do you know that?!”
Imdiately, she turned and glared at her daughter, Sue, with wide, furious eyes.
Under the force of her mother’s intense gaze, Sue quickly hid behind .
A silence stretched between them, brief yet feeling as though it lasted forever.
Then, Rebecca averted her eyes.
Though she made no sound, her tongue and lips moved sharply.
Just as Sue had been disappointed in her mother, Rebecca, too, was now feeling disappointnt toward Sue.
“......”
Is this how parents and children end up resenting each other?
It was a serious situation, but as soone who had never been close to a family before, it was a new and oddly fascinating experience for .
But that wasn’t the issue at hand.
I sat down on the wooden chair that Ha Tae-hoon had built.
Rebecca buried her head in her knees again.
She waved her hand weakly, as if to tell to leave her alone.
In a low voice, I began speaking.
“It’s not sothing to brag about, but...”
“......”
“Are you listening?”
“......”
“I’m on good terms with an administrator from Viva! Apocalypse!.”
“What?”
Rebecca mumbled, her voice muffled against her knees.
“I have connections. I just checked SneakyLocomotion’s location.”
“Why?”
“He’s in Ohio. That Locomotion guy.”
Finally, Rebecca raised her head.
The sa hollow, weary eyes that had been glaring at her daughter now turned to .
Feeling the weight of Sue, who was still hiding behind , I continued in a calm voice.
“I searched for your posts. Especially the ones you wrote after I gave you the equipnt. As expected, you were desperately looking for David.”
The internet is a condensed version of society—or rather, another form of society itself.
The weak and naïve get deceived and used.
“My guess is that guy saw your posts and decided to take advantage of you.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“SneakyLocomotion was in the sa unit as David. They were in Korea together, and they were deployed together! He even showed a group photo!”
She pulled a poorly printed, faded color photo from her pocket and showed it to .
It was an aged, discolored group photo of several U.S. soldiers standing together, all staring at the cara.
I couldn’t tell which one was David.
I couldn’t tell which one was SneakyLocomotion either.
One thing was certain—the photo was real.
But just because one thing is true doesn’t an everything else automatically becos the truth.
Truth is just truth. It doesn’t have the power to spread or infect anything else.
“You don’t an to tell that one single photo is your only reason for trusting SneakyLocomotion, do you?”
“That's...”
I reached out my hand to her.
“Skelton?”
“Co with . I have sothing to show you.”
We headed toward my dear friend Ballantine’s bunker.
“Whoa!”
Ballantine flinched at the sudden arrival of two foreign won.
“Ballantine.”
“Yes, Skelton?”
“Can you show them?”
“Show them what?”
Smiling, I answered.
“The City of the Dead.”
[F. Sawyer, M. O'Connor, and our dearly beloved Red.]
[Welco to the noisy City of Death.]
—If you are among the dead, press Enter.—
Rebecca, who had been watching the monitor, leaned in so close it was as if she were about to bury her head into it.
Her voice ca out desperate.
“What is this?”
I could see the lifelessness in her eyes slowly being replaced by sothing else.
Like Sue, Rebecca must have known.
She must have heard the countless voices wandering through their region like ghosts.
She must have sensed the possibility that lay beyond them.
“...This is Necropolis?”
Smiling, I stepped aside for her.
Rebecca hesitated, her face full of uncertainty, as she took in her unfamiliar surroundings.
The dimly lit monitors scattered across the room, the humming machines, the keyboards, mice, and input devices of unknown purpose.
But soon, that hesitation lted away like ice under the heat of necessity and curiosity.
Rebecca’s eyes, once as lifeless as those of a wild animal, now held a faint but undeniable will to live.
She curiously pressed the Enter key.
And before her, a whole new world unfolded.
“Now, you just have to find him.”
I said to her.
“In a place much larger than before.”
Sue stepped behind Rebecca, wrapping her arms around her mother as they both stared at the sa screen.
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