Clearing the Game at the End of the World

[‘A father who was too engrossed in games, and a daughter that wandered outside without the love of her father. One day, the father hears that his daughter caused a big incident and struggles to straighten out the problem as late as he already was…’ Dangg~ looking at it like this, you’re a really trash dad Vessel.]

‘And who was it because of that I bet my entire life on that game?’

[Mmm~~~~ You?]

Clench!

Gyosu barely managed to swallow back the curses that made it up to his throat. It was because Synthia, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was looking at him with an anxious expression.

“Then… are we going to the village right now?”

“Yeah. Since we took protection fees from those people with our name, I can’t just sit and watch. I’ll need to check how that ‘village’ is working to figure out how I can respond to it.”

“…Sorry.”

“I told you not to apologize. Anyone can make mistakes. Like I said earlier, it’s not repeating the same mistake that matters.”

Vrrrm!

I turned on the Buggy with one hand and gently pat Synthia’s head with the other.

The reason why I got mad at what Hyde said… was because his joke was true.

‘Synthia… has a serious mental issue.’

From what I think, Synthia’s kleptomania isn’t from greed but more of a struggle for survival.

‘Already in her short life, the people she met were the Underdome people that are always fighting over something as a daily routine, and her step-parents who abandoned her three times. Being pulled around here and there like a broken doll would make any kid overly possessive over the things that they could physically have.’

Since all three of my previous step-parents abandoned me, the next ones will too. So I need to somehow make a bunch of things that are ‘mine’. Then I’ll still have something left even if I do get thrown away—is probably what she was thinking.

[So she was trying to prepare her independence in her own way?]

‘Yeah, since kids technically don’t have anything that’s 100% theirs. It’s all things that their parents bought them. In that context, Synthia had her parents changed four times, including her biological parents, and lost her own possessions 4 times every time they changed. Which is why she got the thought that she needed to have things that belonged entirely to herself.’

I did have some responsibility for this happening as well. Since I didn’t give any attention to a kid that’s been repeatedly abandoned. It would be weird for her to not be anxious.

So I’m letting Synthia off the hook.

“Don’t discriminate people! If people can make mistakes like you said, then why aren’t you letting me off the hook!”

“You deserve it, you bastard. You’re the one that said you’ll take responsibility and teach her. But you let the kid wander off that much not even knowing about it and what? Shooting practice? Urban tactical movement? Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s because she’s going out on her own that you need to teach her survival skills! I looked it up on the Community too, and they said that the more important it is, you should teach them when they’re young! If I’m at this level after learning guerilla tactics at sixteen, then if Synthia starts learning at ten, she’ll become an assassin that the Wastelands will have never seen…”

Slap!

“Aaahhh!”

“What a thing to be proud of. So if she grows up to be a Rambo-level fighting machine, that’s the best path she has for her? You’ve got the wrong picture, to begin with. Where even were you at this early morning instead of looking after her?”

“I did look at her a few times! She was doing well on her own, so I went to get teaching materials for her! Here! Look what I got this morning!”

As Vex dodged my left hand swinging after him in the back seat, he opened up the sack he’s been carrying around all morning.

“Squeek!”

“Sqk! Squeak!”

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A mouse. A large one that looks well over 30cm long, covered in a weird mucus.

“Mousnail? Where’d you get that?”

“Keheh! See, changed your mind, right? You wouldn’t know how many humid places in the Wastelands I searched for this… It’s fast, doesn’t die easily, and can’t even hurt it even if you get a hit on it. Isn’t it the perfect moving target?”

“Yeah, I am changing my mind…”

I was now certain after seeing Vex take out a Mousnail out of the sack. That I should not let him handle Synthia’s education.

‘I’ll need to talk with the President when I get to the Dome, drop by the hospital… ah, and the promise with Speedwagon too.’

Thinking of all the things he needed to do today, I started to feel a little rushed, that feeling making the foot on the axle a little heavier.

“Uh, Gyosu? Do you know where to go? Should I tell you?”

“No. I roughly know one of them.”

Feeling the number of people watching increase at the sound of the Buggy’s rough cough, I parked the car on the street that’s become all too familiar in the past 5 years.

The three-way shopping street.

If my memory served me right, then according to what I saw in Chatroom 2, there was someone that settled down around here.

Geum-pil Kang. He believed that making the quick decisions he made in life was what shaped him into who he is today.

Thanks to learning a skill instead of going to college early on in his life despite his parents’ opposition, he was able to become the owner of ‘Gold-Pill Steel’ around the age of 40 and prosper, and when the war broke out, and the soldiers lined up all of the men, he was able to step forward unlike the others and reveal that he had a skill.

Appealing the fact that as a metal smither, he knew how to fix important facilities like air conditioners, refrigerators, and gas facilities and that he was able to make anything with the right tools in hand, he was able to safely hide in the underground shelters with his wife and son, unlike the other men who were conscripted. He only realized later that the shelter was only for the rich, and in between the people without any ability to produce something, he was able to live a satisfying life as one of the only professional technicians.

Surviving to the end after countless decisions, he now completely trusted his own judgment.

So when the anti-theft alarm he installed in his new home went off along with the appearance of the person he’s been waiting all of this time for, there was a reason why he took out the last business card that he had kept carefully with the picture of his deceased wife.

“I-it’s an honor, Mister Gyosu Park! I’m Geum-Pil Kang of the ‘Gold-Pill Steel’ company!”

One could say that his intention worked well since, for starters, he succeeded in flustering Gyosu.

Gyosu carefully looked over the golden business card he received. The corners were a little worn down, but the gold engraving was still left on the card. Since it was impossible to make such thick card paper or add gold engravings to it with the current technology, then this business card itself was a sort of proof that he had been working in this field before the war started.

“Let’s see… Whitesmith, that’s the name you use on the Community, right?”

“Yes, yes! That’s me! You remembered! I didn’t think you would actually come visit in person…”

“You were the one that called out your address in the chatroom. I happened to have something I wanted to ask, and though it’s unintentional, but we’re now neighbors. I thought, why not come visit.”

“I… wrote down my address? I do not remember doing something so dangerous…”

“I have my ways.”

When I leaned on the chair and let out a tone that made it sound like ‘I knew everything’, I could visibly see the man called Geum-pil Kang and his son next to him tighten up in anxiety.

‘This is the only place you can set base at in the three-way shopping street ruins.’

He’s spent 5 years searching through every nook and cranny of this street. Starting from which alleyways were good to hide in, ambush someone, or go into hiding in case my shelter was taken over, every single spot that could be considered important in this neighborhood was all inside my head. When I heard that he settled down somewhere near the three-way, this place was the exact location that popped into my mind.

And just like he expected, the moment he stepped foot near the entrance, a loud siren went off, and this man jumped out.

Sluurp—

Gyosu took a sip of the mushroom broth that Geum-pil Kang brought out as tea. It was after Vex gingerly took a small sip and confirmed that it was okay. He liked the odd bitter taste it had.

“Alright then, Mr. Geum-pil. Seeing that you gave me this business card… must mean you want to continue your role in this part?”

“Yes! It’s only that I brought my portable tools with me because I was in such a rush, but if I’m able to bring all of the tools I had back where I was, then I can confidently say that I am able to make anything that’s made of steel!”

When the topic of work came up, the man expressed great pride in his job. Gyosu gained a question at the man’s attitude.

A craftsman. And a rare professional at that, starting with the first step of processing the materials to the capability of repairing low-difficulty electronic products.

It’s been 5 years since the war ended, so those who survived already had their bases settled down. No matter how he thought about it, there was no reason for a skilled craftsman like this to abandon the stable base that he’s developed for the past 5 years just to throw himself at a rumored organization called BDSM.

There were two theories that popped into his mind right away. Either the claim that he was a craftsman was a lie, or the person came out from his previous organization due to some problem.

The first one he could check off the moment he stepped foot in the house. In the corner of the decently neat house was a stack of metal scraps and a pile of coal. Shining shovels and pickaxes that seemed to be newly made. And though it wasn’t as expensive as fuel, having that much coal, a material quite costly as a heating material showed that he was clearly a person working in that field.

Seeming to notice Gyosu’s suspicion, the man explained how he got here before he even asked.

“You were in a bunker for the rich but escaped when the situation turned in a weird way?”

“Yes sir. I was living a busy life doing facility maintenance all day, so I didn’t think much of it, but the rich who didn’t know how to do a single productive thing started to go insane, trapped in that confined space for all of those years. Because someone intentionally destroyed the communication device to the outside, nobody knew a single thing that was happening outside and didn’t know about the war ending or the mutants either. It was after the people realized that the entrance was blocked by a building that collapsed on the surface when they started to let go of their final straws.”

“Don’t tell me… there was another entrance that connected the bunker to the surface. Like an equipment elevator behind the maintenance room…”

“D-did you already know all of that as… Ah! That reminds me, you were also at the recent bunker battle in Area 45! Yes! There was one elevator that was big enough for an entire car to fit in. Since the bunker maintenance staff didn’t know a single thing that was happening outside, including the fact that there was a mutation virus, they turned down all the power in the facility, saying that we must not spread out that terrible virus out into the world, then jammed the elevator door with tools. Though as a facility manager, I escaped through the vents with a few others who still hadn’t gone insane.”

Gyosu and Vex calmly listened to the man’s story without a single movement. However, under the table, they were poking each other’s legs at rapid-fire speed, sending military signals to talk.

[Forward, forward, forward, passed target, survivor!]

[Sudden encounter, hideout, civilian!]

The Area 45 underground bunker. Geum-pil Park was the survivor of the underground bunker in Area 45 that had already turned into a mutant lair by the time they arrived.

“So after leaving that place, we fell into despair at the fact the world turned into a wasteland and was taken captive by Scavengers and had been creating armor and daggers under their orders until recently. Their group that I was a part of had also been one of the Scavengers who got wiped out during the bunker battle. Like that, I gained freedom, and while I was debating on where to go next, I heard that the BDSM Caravan has allowed people to live nearby and came right this way.”

“Then, what about the people you said you escaped the bunker with…?”

“Some were unable to handle the cruel labor we were forced into and passed onto the afterlife, but those who survived currently settled down with me at this place.”

‘Yes!’

Gyosu internally pumped up his fist.

To think he would be able to slurp up the technicians that the Dome’s been looking for this easily.

Honestly, though we did receive protection fees, I was thinking of just taking it and keeping quiet. But the story changed entirely if professional workers like this just walked in on their own. Not to mention, they were inside of the bunker until the war ended, and were being worked to the death by Scavengers when they were suddenly freed, so there were no worries about backlash for taking them in.

Poke poke—

When I felt another poke on my leg and glanced downwards, I saw Vex send me military signals under the table.

[Forward, miscommunication, information]

[Confirmed. Aware]

Of course, I knew that there were some lies mixed into that story.

‘If they were really being slaved around, there wouldn’t have been a chance for them to be in the Community with their own ID. It means that they were guaranteed rest time and had their own personal game pods.’

It probably wasn’t a lie that they were captured by the Scavengers. They were most likely roughly handled at first, but later on, they were acknowledged for their skill and worked so hard that they got accepted as one of their members. Actively killing people, participating in territorial disputes, and such.

‘He said with his own mouth that it was his choice. If he’s on the Community, he would have known the Dome treats technicians well, yet he made this choice… this guy, he’s trying to take it first.’

[Take first? What?]

‘The position of a founding merit by contributing to a newly created organization. They prefer to be the head of a snake over a dragon’s tail.’

Gyosu scanned the man sitting on the opposite side of the table, looking at him with eyes filled with confidence. With a body toned from labor to that attitude of lying without batting an eye in a situation that could be pretty oppressive. Decently ambitious, somewhat selfish, and with a quick wit and ability to read the room. He liked that the guy didn’t just spill everything and lied when he was stabbed at. If he was just a worker, then he would have needed to take care of every part, but a person like this will be able to take care of himself to an extent.

“Mmm. Alright. Pass!”

When Gyosu announced aloud as he tucked the business card in his pocket, then Geum-pil Park, and his son, who seemed nervous the entire time, both brightened visibly.

“B-by pass…”

“It means that you’ve been scammed by our kid until now, but we should now work together as an official member of BDSM.”

Unlike my judgments, the fandom would be short-lived, the fame of ‘Hero Gysou Park’ did not die down easily, and there was already an entire group formed around the house.

If I just ignored them in the current situation, the problem was only going to get worse. Since there were people gathered, I might as well use them, and there just happened to be a person suitable to be the manager in the middle right in front of me.

“Mr. Geum-pil. What do you think of, instead of cleaning up the neighborhood like some kind of territory expanding game, we properly clean out this area?”

I didn’t need to hear the answer. Because the man had already been making an excessive amount of shovels and pickaxes for a single person even before I came here.

“I-I have a friend who is well-versed in architecture! The people living two blocks away said that they came from a demolition company, so if you just tell us to, we will provide you a satisfactory result!”

Geum-pil grasped the right hand that Gyosu reached out with two of his own. Believing that his judgment was once again correct.