LON_MASK: I see. So that’s what was going on.
lon Mask’s chat was being translated in real ti.
Jang Soo-young, watching from the side, let out an astonished gasp in Chinese.
Woo Min-hee was just as surprised.
“Oh my. Sunbae.”
Even the almighty Woo Min-hee stood at attention before my internet clout.
“lon Mask? Who the hell is that? Isn’t he that scamr or whatever? He’s still not dead?”
Of course, there are always people like Cheon Young-jae who learned about the world through the internet. Best to ignore their opinions.
“......”
Tadak, tadak.
With spectators watching, I entered negotiations with lon Mask.
To summarize, there were two main issues.
One: that Jang Soo-young was Chinese.
This turned out to be surprisingly easy to resolve.
LON_MASK: So what?
Not exactly shocking.
Even as tensions between China and the U.S. escalated to extres, corporate interests remained largely pro-China.
Because that’s where the money was.
Who would willingly turn down a market that hands over piles of cash?
LON_MASK: Don’t worry! We’ve got real-ti Chinese translation! Not just Mandarin—we can do Cantonese at a native level too!
Just the fact that Chinese translation was casually built in showed that lon Mask had always intended to expand Viva! Apocalypse! to China.
LON_MASK: That’s not even a problem. Besides, I’m in space right now. Who’s going to order around?
LON_MASK: Even the almighty U.S. Departnt of Defense relies on my satellite network.
LON_MASK: So don’t worry about that. The real problem is...
lon Mask might not be a good person objectively, but at least as the creator of Viva! Apocalypse!, he always tried to highlight the brighter side of humanity—positivity, hope.
Viva! Apocalypse! itself was ant to offer hope and possibility to humanity in the face of certain doom.
Especially Live! Apocalypse!, which was the culmination of lon Mask’s efforts to maximize the uplifting potential of his platform.
LON_MASK: The problem is... what if we do the live broadcast and Shangri-La turns out not to exist?
LON_MASK: Imagine it. That Chinese lady there, after all her hardships, sails up the Yangtze to find the place she believes is Shangri-La... only to discover it’s not there.
LON_MASK: How crushed would she be? It’s not just Alice Zhang. Everyone watching the stream would be devastated too, wouldn’t they?
LON_MASK: Shangri-La represents the tiniest shred of hope that we can survive even in complete erosion. And to show that tiny hope being crushed on my broadcast? That’s where I hesitate, Skelton.
I nodded.
It made sense.
Good intentions don’t always yield good outcos.
There are plenty of cases where goodwill leads to tragedy.
Jang Soo-young’s stream might be one of those.
The concept was great: journeying deep through the erosion-stained Chinese continent, navigating rivers to seek a patch of green land.
It had the symbolism and ssage to make a full-fledged film.
But unlike a film, this couldn’t have a bad ending.
I looked at Jang Soo-young.
Woo Min-hee was already speaking to her.
“That place you’re calling Shangri-La—did you confirm it recently?”
“A year ago.”
“A year ago? That’s kind of vague.”
I asked Woo Min-hee.
“Do you have a hunch or sothing?”
“Sotis places like Shangri-La just vanish. Erosion doesn’t happen like clockwork. If so unknown interfering factor disappears, areas that hadn’t eroded before could suddenly erode overnight. Even Seoul isn’t eroding because people are holding out there, right?”
She may be traveling with us now, but Woo Min-hee used to be one of the top-level intel holders. She likely knows more than I do.
“Shangri-La might be gone, huh...”
I looked at Jang Soo-young.
There was an unmistakable look of dismay on her face.
But I’ve seen many like her before.
When soone’s backed into a corner and makes a decision, it’s not sothing they can easily walk back.
“......I want to see it with my own eyes. Even if it turns out that Shangri-La no longer exists.”
I nodded and turned my gaze to the monitor.
LON_MASK: Have you made up your mind, Skelton?
LON_MASK: That’s what my superior would say too.
LON_MASK: Our broadcast shouldn’t be a tool to display despair. You can find despair just by stepping outside the bunker.
I couldn’t lie to lon Mask.
But I wanted to respect Jang Soo-young’s will too.
Even if the chance was small—if hope existed, I wanted to show it.
I wanted to prove that even a sliver of possibility was real.
“Hey.”
Watching the chat between and lon, Woo Min-hee suddenly spoke up.
“Then how about we do it like this?”
*
Ti passed, and the weekend arrived.
Today was the long-awaited Live! Apocalypse! broadcast day.
Though live broadcasts had been reduced lately, ever since the legendary one by Living Legend Skelton, only hand-picked and high-quality streams—personally approved by lon Mask—were being aired to preserve standards.
Today’s stream held special significance.
First, the main figure was a Chinese national—an enemy of Arica.
Second, it featured that Chinese person discovering a place called Shangri-La deep in the demonic lands of China—a touching scenario, a light in the darkness.
mangja488312: Hm...
gordonfreiman: Gotta admit, China’s a fresh angle.
X'Ds_Grrrrr: Let’s watch and see. Might be interesting.
L-V-R-M: Isn’t that a dead zone? Why watch sothing depressing?
anonymous666: Eat shit, China.
Zebusika: Go fry so orange chicken!
...
...
The chat wasn’t exactly enthusiastic.
Can’t be helped.
A lot of people bla China for the way the world ended up.
Still, maybe it’s not a bad thing for them to see the truth with their own eyes.
That the real cause of the apocalypse was the Rifts.
The screen lit up, and fluent English ca through.
“Hello, everyone. Pleased to et you.”
Jang Soo-young appeared.
The chilly chat ward up a bit at the sight of a beautiful woman.
So of the comnts got a little inappropriate, so I won’t repeat them here.
“What I’m about to show you is my hotown. And the hotown of everyone on this little boat.”
She turned the cara.
A deathly gray wasteland ca into view.
A world of eternal stillness, devoid of any signs of life.
Eroded China.
Even the fiercely active chat froze up at the horrific sight.
“......”
Unavoidable.
What Jang Soo-young was showing might very well be the near future that awaits us.
So of us might already be watching this from eroded zones.
But I had another screen.
One showing a similar—but slightly different—version of the broadcast.
That’s right.
This was the real live feed.
“How about it? This way, if anything bad happens, sunbae can cut the feed—and if sothing really bad happens, we can bla it on technical issues.”
That was Woo Min-hee’s idea. She barged into our office and took over a spot like it was her right.
To reconcile Jang Soo-young’s desperate desire to show hope—and lon Mask’s refusal to broadcast despair—we opted for an old, venerable thod: “editing.”
The thod was similar to what traditional TV stations used.
I, as the one holding editing rights, watched the live feed.
The actual Live! Apocalypse! broadcast had a five-minute delay.
aning what was shown was five minutes in the past.
LON_MASK: Then Skelton is the director. There’s no one more knowledgeable about monsters and danger than him. The mont anything odd happens, he ends the stream.
LON_MASK: Bla it on satellite equipnt malfunction. We’ve got excuses. ;)
It wasn’t ideal, but if this was how we could witness the success of soone chasing the fantasy of Shangri-La, I’d take it.
I watched the live.
“As you can see, our holand has turned into a place where humans can no longer live.”
She turned the cara again.
This ti it showed the boat.
A bright, white-painted sailing yacht.
The sa one I saw before.
Its half-open sail had Chinese characters written on it, presumably the boat’s na.
[ 三文鱼 ]
“Sanmun-eo? What does that an?”
I asked Cheon Young-jae, who was watching beside .
“Salmon, maybe?”
It was, of course, Woo Min-hee—camped out in our office like it was hers—who answered.
“Salmon?”
“Chinese folks call salmon sanwenyu. You were in China for a while, weren’t you, sunbae? You didn’t know that? I thought you loved salmon.”
“?”
“Whenever the cafeteria served raw salmon in the mornings, you’d eat it all without noticing and everyone talked behind your back.”
“......”
I ignored her and turned my attention to the screen.
“Ohhh.”
Cheon Young-jae let out a rare gasp.
A lively reaction from soone who’d been sulking since Min-hee arrived.
And no wonder.
I turned to the screen with a faint smile.
Beyond the endless gray—soft, magical green began to peek through.
“What the hell? What’s that?”
Though she’s an intruder, I exchanged a smile with Woo Min-hee.
“Shangri-La,” she said.
Yes.
Shangri-La.
The intersection of all the Rift limits.
In other words, the only region allowed by the Rifts for human survival.
Jang Soo-young and her companions had finally arrived at one of the few remaining miracles.
Chinese voices filled the screen.
There was no official Chinese translation function, but—as befitting a profitable country—real-ti translation stread in.
“We finally found it!”
“Shangri-La is real!”
“Those who went to Shanghai are probably all dead! The ones who went to Hainan died even faster!”
“I can’t believe it. That greenery still exists on our continent...”
Was translation even necessary?
Emotions that pure—so full of joy and hope—didn’t need translating. The feeling ca through on its own.
A mont later, Jang Soo-young, having composed herself, slowly continued as she fild the approaching greenery.
“This is Shangri-La. Yes. One of the few miracles we believed in. The na of this boat ans ‘salmon’ in Chinese. Salmon are born and raised in rivers, then leave for the ocean as adults—but they always return to their birth river to spawn.”
Gentle music swelled, enhancing her sentintal monologue and the sight of the green earth drawing near.
I glanced at the chat.
ohio8: This is moving.
Daniel_Flix: Miracles still exist.
anonymous11: Beautiful. Transcends nationality and race.
dongtanmom: Shangri-La.
HashireV4: What a show. Wait, is that... are those tears on my cheek?
dongtanmom: Mmm, salmon... lol
...
...
The once-hostile chat now glowed with warmth.
As one user said, in the face of true miracles, race and nationality an nothing.
Before anything else, we are all human beings.
“She really is like a salmon.”
Of course, our very own Woo Min-hee is human too.
“It’s fine. Yeah. Really fine. Hooo. I love it!”
She seed genuinely touched.
Even now, though I’ve grown used to it, seeing my younger colleague so delighted lifted my spirits.
I looked at the screen.
Jang Soo-young’s boat continued sailing upriver toward the green land.
“Sunbae.”
Min-hee’s quiet word prompted a nod.
I ended the broadcast.
Then I typed into the admin chat.
ADMIN_LIVEAPO!: We apologize, but due to a sudden satellite equipnt failure, Live! Apocalypse! has ended.
ADMIN_LIVEAPO!: Let us all wish Alice Zhang a joyful new beginning.
The chat flooded with ssages.
I didn’t read them.
Most were probably complaints about the abrupt ending, right at what was arguably the emotional climax.
Ignoring all that, I turned to Min-hee.
“Can you replay the final part?”
“Yeah. Just a sec.”
Normally I’d tease her for those hook-shaped fingers dancing on the keyboard, but not right now.
We rewound about two—maybe three—minutes.
Reviewing the footage that hadn’t aired on Live! Apocalypse!.
“...Salmon are born in rivers, raised there, then wander the seas—only to return to their birthplace to spawn.”
The clip restarted at the mont Jang Soo-young delivered her dreamy narration, her long, glossy black hair fluttering.
She gazed at the river and the oncoming {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} greenery.
The Chinese soldiers aboard the boat heading to Shangri-La with her watched their new paradise with the sa expression.
“......”
I thought of salmon.
She’d said salmon return to their natal rivers to spawn after a lifeti adrift at sea.
But now, many salmon die trying, hunted or exhausted. And with humans altering rivers for their needs, many can’t return at all.
Bang!
A similar thing was happening to humans.
It’s simple.
A group of people tries to return to their birthplace.
But what awaits them is a wall—built by humans themselves.
Just like the cold concrete dams that block the salmon’s return.
Tatata-bang!
The music continued—but a jarring dissonance burst out from sowhere on the riverbank.
Bang! Bang! Tatatatang!
Gunfire.
“Aaaagh!”
Screams.
“What’s going on?!”
“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!”
“Who?!”
“No idea!”
Chaos.
Panicked shouts in Chinese exploded, and nearby, a scream rged with a yell—
“Huazhongtong!!!”
Rocket fire.
“I’ll stop them!”
Then—
Boom!
A shockwave.
In the wave of the blast, the live feed cut out.
That’s what led us to terminate the broadcast.
LON_MASK: What happened? Is Jang Soo-young okay?
lon asked about her.
“I’m ssaging her now. But... no reply.”
Woo Min-hee tried to establish contact via laptop, but no answer.
An hour passed. Then two.
Jang Soo-young never responded.
The paradise she had shown us vanished like a mirage.
“...It was fun. Up until the last five minutes.”
Woo Min-hee left the office with a faint, cynical smile.
Can’t bla her for the sarcasm.
Shangri-La wasn’t so idyllic paradise.
It was more like hell in disguise.
A battlefield where the few remaining humans fought over survival under a thin veil of hope.
“......”
Soday, the sa fate might befall this land too.
If even Kang Han-min fails and all hope is lost, and the entire Korean Peninsula is consud by erosion...
A sudden question rose in my mind.
When that day cos, who will we be fighting?
Before I knew it, I was looking at Cheon Young-jae.
He returned my gaze, clueless.
“What?”
It won’t be monsters.
That much, I was sure.
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