How the world fell apart and became a complete mess is a long, tedious, and complicated story, but even amidst that chaos, there are plenty of interesting episodes.

    For instance, you could call it the wise foresight of me, Park Gyu.

    The idea that humanity was on the brink of a crisis had been endlessly drummed into people''s heads by everyone from intellectuals to YouTube clickbait creators. But among civilians, there were only two types who actually prepared for the impending disaster.

    First, the nouveau riche, who had so much money that they could afford to build private bunkers on their properties. Or, the second group—daring risk-takers who denied reality and were willing to gamble everything on a vague possibility.

    I was the latter.

    As soon as I sensed the coming crisis, I decisively liquidated my assets to prepare for the apocalypse.

    I hadn’t inherited much, but I had accumulated some wealth.

    My job demanded that I save money, and towards the end, I pushed myself to the limit, barely sleeping four hours a day while increasing my workload like a madman.

    Even so, I wasn’t rich like the nouveau riche, so in between my grueling work, I taught myself various skills.

    Basic electrical work, construction, operating heavy machinery, chemical synthesis, rudimentary medicine, and so on. If there was something I didn’t understand, I bought books or downloaded video tutorials to study.

    The most important decision was where to settle down.

    It wasn’t an easy choice to make.

    I consulted survival experts, civilians who had survived war zones, wilderness explorers, and a doomsday prepper community I’ll introduce later called Viva! Apocalypse!

    After extensive deliberation, I selected a location based on four essential criteria:

    First, it had to be an area where no one lived and unlikely to attract people even in an emergency.

    Second, it still needed to maintain a reasonable distance from a major city.

    Third, the terrain of the shelter.

    Fourth, the price.

    The first criterion is the most fundamental.

    For anyone trying to build a fortress for the end of the world, the biggest threat isn’t monsters or hordes of zombies—it’s other humans.

    In fact, humans have consistently been the greatest threat to my apocalyptic life.

    But humans are also creatures that struggle to survive alone.

    The second criterion may seem to contradict the first, but it’s just as crucial.

    If you can establish trade with the city, you can secure essential supplies and valuable information in times of need.

    Leaving the safety of your shelter to venture into the dangerous outside world is highly risky, but isolating yourself in a bunker without seeing the incoming storm is a guaranteed death sentence.

    The third criterion serves as the foundation for the endless struggle I’ll face until the day I die.

    A shelter must allow for surveillance in all directions and should be hard to discover from the outside.

    Defense comes after that.

    No matter how defensible the terrain is, once the shelter is discovered, it won’t be easy to defend it alone.

    Humans, apart from insects, are the most populous species.

    Oh, and the soil and groundwater matter too.

    The ground needs to be soft enough to dig deep, and the groundwater becomes your lifeline once the water supply is cut off.

    Of course, all these conditions had to be within the limits of my wallet.

    Currency would become worthless once the world collapses, but preparing for that collapse still required money.

    The land I chose was a wooded area nestled between an air force base and a golf course.

    It was sparsely populated and easy to monitor. It also maintained a reasonable distance from the city, but it had a fatal drawback.

    The land was inaccessible—it was so-called blind land.

    It was an unavoidable choice.

    Blind land is far cheaper than other plots, sometimes by several times or even dozens of times.

    It was further devalued by unscrupulous waste disposal companies that used it as a dumping ground for construction debris, leaving it piled high with industrial waste.

    Still, thanks to that, I secured a reasonably large plot.

    It was expansive enough to rival the adjacent golf course.

    The issue of no road access was resolved by negotiating with a neighboring landowner. I agreed to pay a usage fee and provide free labor during harvest season. It wasn’t easy, though.

    “You’re from Seoul? Well, alright then. Let’s see how you do.”

    I can’t recall the old man’s first name, but his surname was definitely Kim.

    He was a wiry, short man in his seventies, speaking with a Chungcheong dialect. My first impression of him wasn’t great.

    And true to form, Kim Elder’s temper was enough to occasionally provoke murderous impulses even in someone as enlightened as me.

    Whenever he had the chance, he’d throw tantrums, demand restoration of the land, block the only road with obstacles, and frequently show up asking for help with odd jobs.

    When he knocked on my container house at three in the morning, demanding assistance, I was tempted to throw him into the nearest rice paddy.

    But what could I do? Cheap things come with strings attached.

    The money I saved by buying cheap land was poured into heavy machinery, construction materials, and survival supplies.

    I purchased an excavator, loader, drilling machine, and forklift.@@@@

    I shook my head.

    “They passed away in an accident.”

    “I see.”

    “It was a long time ago,” I replied casually. “Still, that seemed rough.”

    Kim Elder let out a deep sigh, his breath seeming to sink into the ground.

    “I didn’t give him a garbage plot,” he murmured, his eyes following the departing car. “Back when I transferred the land, it was worth much more than the one I gave to his sister...”

    “Ah, so you’re talking about the plot you gave to your son.”

    Kim Elder nodded, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and placing it between his lips. I lit it for him, and he took a deep drag before exhaling with a hollow laugh.

    “The land I gave my daughter wasn’t anything special either. It was blind land, just like this—worse, even. It had a hill of useless dirt attached to it. But who could’ve known they’d build a ten-lane road right in front of it? Who could’ve guessed a tunnel and a new city would pop up nearby?”

    His life story was as predictable as it was pitiful.

    He hadn’t been a good father, not even a decent one.

    He’d spent his life terrorizing his family with drunken rages and violence—a pathetic excuse for a man.

    The only thing that redeemed him in his children’s eyes was the fortune he stumbled into when the government seized his land. Without that, they might have cut ties with him long ago.

    Wanting to wrap up the conversation quickly, I asked bluntly, “Why don’t you just sell the house? You could move somewhere else and start fresh.”

    “That’s not an option. I can’t do that.”

    Kim Elder exhaled a puff of smoke, tilting his head back to gaze at the sky.

    “My wife’s ghost is in that house. She put up with my bullshit her whole life...”

    To this day, I still don’t know what I did to earn Kim Elder’s trust.

    One thing’s for sure: that brief conversation opened a ten-lane road in his heart.

    After that day, he stopped blocking construction vehicles and complaining.

    With no more conflicts between us, we naturally grew closer. I even volunteered to help him out with odd jobs now and then.

    After all, living next door to someone is easier when you’re on friendly terms.

    And there were perks.

    I learned valuable farming knowledge from Kim Elder, things a city kid like me would’ve never picked up otherwise.

    “Farming isn’t about the Gregorian calendar; it’s about the lunar calendar. You’ve got to pay attention to the seasons. That’s what matters.”

    He also seemed to figure out what I was up to.

    “You’re one of those survivalists, aren’t you? A doomsday prepper or whatever they call it?”

    “Something like that,” I admitted.

    “If that’s the case, you’ll need seedlings. Even if the world ends, you’ll need vegetables to eat, right?”

    “Do you think I can grow anything underground?”

    “As long as you’ve got sunlight, water, and fertilizer, you can grow anything. These days, seedlings are top-notch. The key is dedication.”

    As the seasons passed, Kim Elder’s children never came to visit him.

    On Lunar New Year and Chuseok, I’d spot him standing alone in the yard of his crumbling house, staring blankly toward the road.

    When China launched its war and missiles struck the capital region, Kim Elder came running to my bunker in a panic.

    It was the first time I’d ever seen him so shaken.

    “Can you find out what happened to my son? Please.”

    When communication was restored, I checked the casualty lists.

    I had to deliver the tragic news.

    Kim Elder hung his head silently, neither crying nor wailing.

    And for some reason, I made an uncharacteristic offer.

    “The world is going to end soon. If you’d like, you can come stay in my bunker.”

    Kim Elder lifted his head to look at me, a faint smile spreading across his face.

    “Just wait a moment. I need to prepare something.”

    “Prepare something?”

    “There’s something I want to give you.”

    It turns out he was capable of a warm smile after all.

    When I went back to check on him, I found him hanging from the beam of his crumbling house, swaying like a dead leaf.

    At his feet lay neatly packaged seed packets, meticulously prepared with care.

    I couldn’t recover his body.

    The blaring of nuclear strike sirens tore through the air, announcing the apocalypse.

    All I could do was grab the seeds and retreat to my bunker.

    In hindsight, it was the right call.

    The fiery blast of nuclear fusion that followed erased the crumbling house and his remains without a trace.