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I gripped the hammer tightly, keeping an eye on the distance between the uncle and me.

“The distance…”

It’s ambiguous. Just the right distance for the uncle to swing his metal pipe. He’s already in a stance like a baseball batter. I’d get hit before I could even raise my hammer. No time to pull out the handgun hidden in my pocket.

I took a step back, and the uncle took a step forward. He muttered to himself.

“You, Jeondohyeong, Park Yang-gun… people who left the Hope Community… you have plenty of places to go back to. Maybe you’re even traitors.”

The distance remained.

I swallowed hard. Getting hit by a metal pipe? Broken bones? Infection? It’s as good as dying. My heart pounded, and it felt like the world was collapsing.

“Why did things turn out like this?”

Everything was going smoothly until the very end, when it crashed through the guardrail and fell off a cliff. The uncle, who had just changed his mind, became a lunatic who killed people out of suspicion, and now he’s coming for me.

I don’t know how to fix this. Can I talk him down? This guy’s paranoia is off the charts.

Listening to the uncle’s words, it felt like he had already crossed a river of no return.

“Especially you. Fake name, fake history. No matter how much I searched online, I couldn’t find any information about you.”

“That’s because I don’t use social media.”

“Oh? Then when, where, and how did you learn from Professor Kim? No matter how I think about it, there’s no connection between you two.”

He’s already investigated me. It’s not hard. Just contacting someone from the Hope Community and hearing my story would be enough.

That I acted as Deacon Kwon Dain, that I claimed to have learned from Professor Kim and was in charge of disaster response.

There’s no answer. There’s only one way to clear this suspicion. Kill him. If he’s dead, he can’t suspect me anymore. I’m worried about the aftermath, but this isn’t the time to think about that. If I don’t kill him, I’ll die.

I raised my killing intent and widened my field of vision.

The moonlight shone down on the dirty road. Scattered corpses and trash. Randomly abandoned cars. Trees and traffic signs.

The uncle, closing in on me, watching only me.

“Why did all the people from Peace Villa die? Why did Hope Church fall? Why did we fight with the apartment guys after talking so well? Why are there only corpses left where you’ve been?”

“That’s baseless suspicion.”

I subtly used a car as an obstacle, circling around, and answered with a tone full of resentment.

“It’s not that corpses are left where I’ve been. It’s that this world is overflowing with corpses.”

“No. That’s irrelevant. My suspicion is what matters. I can’t trust you. So—”

A prelude to the attack. The metal pipe, already pulled back, moved a bit further. Full of strength.

No time to think. I dropped to the ground, and a low grunt was heard.

“Die.”

My hair stood on end. The metal pipe, tracing a near-horizontal trajectory, grazed past my head. My baseball cap twisted. If I had been a bit slower, if the pipe had been a bit more accurate, I would’ve been hit.

Then, the metal pipe came down roughly. Just as I was trying to get up. I barely threw myself to the side, rolling away, and *bang*, the strike grazed me.

The gun. I need to make time to use the gun.

“Jeondohyeong! What are you doing!”

When I shouted, the uncle’s movements paused for a moment. The shadow of Jeondohyeong, the murder supporter, loomed over his mind. That moment of suspicion was enough.

I pulled out the handgun, aimed, and pulled the trigger repeatedly. *Bang, bang, bang*, three gunshots rang out. I gasped for breath and looked up at the uncle.

His hands fumbling over the gunshot wounds in his chest and abdomen. The metal pipe falling with a loud clatter. The uncle stared at my gun, letting out a hollow laugh.

“…A gun? The voice shouting about shooting a gun in the apartment was you too. It was you. You were the one who shot the gun back then.”

“You realized too late.”

He even remembered that voice? I guess I did leave a lot of clues to be suspicious of.

I slowly got up, and the uncle staggered and collapsed. It’s over. Now, all that’s left is the finishing blow.

I raised the hammer and spoke my final words.

“Goodbye.”

“You… you won’t die a good death either. Living like this…”

The uncle left his curse as his last words, but I ignored it and smiled at him. Just as betrayal is inevitable, so is death. Only one thing mattered.

“How you die isn’t important. It’s how long you live that matters.”

*Crunch.* The hammer crushed his face. I silently continued my work and searched his pockets. A bunch of keys and a notebook were all he had.

Opening the notebook, I saw densely written sentences. Information gathered from talking to people on Villa Street, information found online. Their hometowns, schools, workplaces, relatives, their actions after the apocalypse…

I quickly flipped through the pages and stopped at the one with my name. The most suspicion was written there.

Kwon Dain? Kim Dain? What’s your name? Why did you hide it? Starting with this, the murders at Peace Villa, the info about being an aspiring scenario writer, the deaths left in my wake, the personal info that couldn’t be found online.

I suddenly looked down at the uncle’s corpse.

“I tried to recruit him. And now I’ve been betrayed like this.”

A world where distrust and betrayal are inevitable. A world where there’s no one to trust. A world where you get attacked by your own allies. The apocalypse.

*Tap, tap*, raindrops began to fall. Looking up at the sky, dark clouds covered the moon. It looked like a downpour was coming.

I pulled my baseball cap down low and walked back to Villa Street.

***

The rain poured down. Soaked, I fell into deep thought. The aftermath is the problem. Two paths lay before me.

One, maintain Villa Street.

It was possible. The person who wanted to buy lettuce was a pillager, and I barely escaped. The uncle is dead. It’s because of that lettuce leaker. I can use the lettuce leaker as a scapegoat to bind people together.

The other, elimination.

There’s still some trust left. I can go in saying I’ll talk about the lettuce leaker and hit them on the head. Cleanly leaving only the pillager companions would mean plenty of resources.

*Boom—*

Thunder roared, and lightning struck. I felt summer in the rain, wind, and lightning. Suddenly, laughter spilled out.

“The apocalypse is coming, the apocalypse is here.”

In the end, everything will fall apart. Infrastructure will collapse, farming will stop, and with the uncle gone as the focal point, Villa Street will scatter. Betrayal will surely happen.

Now is the best timing. The timing to clean up Villa Street. If I hesitate and just suspect like the dead uncle, it’ll be too late.

“Let’s clean up.”

It’s time to stop this clumsy survival community act and return to being a pillager.

I splashed through puddles as I walked back to Villa Street.

The first stop was the lettuce leaker and the rice seller watching him. The corpse storage house on the second floor of Peace Villa where I live. I opened the front door and stepped in, and the two of them looked at me with terrified expressions.

“Why are the corpses kept like this?”

“My leg, my leg.”

Corpses seated at the dining table like they’re eating, lying neatly on the bed like they’re sleeping, fixed by the window like they’re looking outside, leaning against the wall like they’re watching TV, the house decorated to feel like people are living there.

The rice seller, looking uneasy, was wandering around the house when he heard my footsteps and turned around.

“You’re back? What happened with the lettuce trader?”

“They were pillagers. I barely escaped.”

“Ah… if we had really sold the lettuce, we would’ve all died.”

I naturally approached him and asked.

“How’s the corpse storage house?”

“Well, it’s a bit… uncomfortable—”

“Then die.”

Eliminated. The hammer quickly knocked his head. A heavy sound echoed a few times.

“Uh.”

The lettuce leaker looked up at me, his pupils dilating. He tried to get up with his broken leg, so I quickly spoke.

“That uncle, he’s gone crazy now. He’s trying to kill smokers and drinkers. We need to escape.”

“What…?”

“Escape first!”

He stood there stupidly, not fully grasping the situation. I quickly went behind him, pushed his back, and hit the back of his head with the hammer. *Thud*, he fell forward, escaping the apocalypse.

I calmly recalled the list from the uncle’s notebook. There are still many people to kill. I’d rather save the bullets.

I definitely need supporter Jeondohyeong. I went to his house, and Jeondohyeong hung up the phone and greeted me. His eyes fell on my hammer. The hammer, wet with blood and rain.

“What did you do? Did you kill someone again?”

“I killed the uncle. Hurry, grab your weapons. We need to kill the street people.”

“…Who are we killing? Why?”

He doesn’t know the situation. I sold out the uncle who betrayed my expectations.

“That uncle, he suspected us of being spies for the Hope Community and was trying to kill us all.”

“He did seem dangerous… but still, there’s no reason to kill all the street people—”

“Jeondohyeong. We can’t stop now. That uncle killed the lettuce leaker, and I killed the uncle. Before Villa Street falls apart, we need to kill them all first.”

The brakes are already off. We’ll run full speed and crush them all.

 

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