While Dohee Kang, Gamja, and I were out gathering various things, Dojin Kang and Hayul repaired the ceiling on the second floor.
The repairs weren’t completely finished, so Dohee and I took care of the final touches. More precisely, Dohee did the finishing while I helped out, but regardless, the fact remains that we worked together.
For both lunch and dinner, potatoes harvested from the garden were the main dish, but we didn’t get tired of them.
Also, the seasoned greens the elder prepared were incredibly delicious.
And then, in the late evening—
At last, a moment of happiness arrived.
That happy moment was none other than…
“Ahhh~ So warm.”
“This is the best~.”
A hot bath.
Thanks to the firewood Dohee split that morning and the kids picking up dry grass and branches while we were out, we were able to enjoy this luxury.
‘This bathtub is great.’
Maybe because it’s an old house, it wasn’t a typical bathtub but rather a large rectangular tiled space, like something you’d find in a public bathhouse, where you could fill up with water.
Since we had to boil the water, to save the hot water, the elder, Jubi-yeong, and Dohee washed first. Then I, Dojin, and Hayul took a bath together.
Until now, we had only washed with cold water, but soaking in hot water for the first time truly felt like heaven.
After thoroughly scrubbing ourselves clean and soaking in the tub, Hayul, now completely relaxed, blinked sleepily and yawned.
Just as I was wondering if I should suggest we get out, Hayul suddenly opened his eyes wide and grabbed my arm.
“Hyung! Can I come with you tomorrow? I’m worried. How’s your condition?”
“I feel great. Oh, right. Dojin, I’ll definitely repay you for that potion. I’m really grateful.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking me. And there’s no need to pay me back.”
“No, I mean it. I’ll definitely remember and repay you somehow. Maybe it’s thanks to the potion, but when I was crouched down harvesting potatoes earlier, it didn’t hurt at all.”
“Really? Hyung, you were really bad at physical stuff. Whenever you did chores, you’d be so tired you needed to rest the whole day. But now you look fine! That’s awesome!”
“Y-yeah. It really is.”
Was I that bad at physical labor? To the point people said I was hopeless?
I must’ve been in such poor shape that even minor housework made me collapse.
And yet, I managed to push a bike all the way here… No wonder Hayul insisted on doing the pedaling himself…
Thinking back, the fact that I didn’t collapse on the way was practically a miracle.
I probably only collapsed once we got to this house and the quest was completed—my body must’ve relaxed all at once. I had been pushing myself through sheer willpower the whole time.
‘So I held out with mental strength until then. Good job, body.’
With gratitude toward my body, I reverently enjoyed the rest of my bath.
After spreading out the blankets so the kids could rest first, I came out of the room and went to the living room where the others had gathered.
Jubi-yeong, Dohee, Gamja, and Bamtol were sitting in a circle trimming greens.
No matter how much of that stuff we trimmed, it never ended. We did a ton yesterday too, and today they brought back another full basket.
“Huh? Noona, where’s the elder?”
Now that I thought about it, she was nowhere to be seen. I thought she went to bed early, but looking at her wide-open room, there was only bedding laid out—no one inside.
“Grandma’s probably on the rooftop.”
“Is she keeping watch?”
“Haha, no. Since Gamja and Bamtol are sensitive to movement, there’s no need for anyone to stand watch. I think she just went out for some fresh air. Haje, if you’re not going to sleep right away, want to go up and keep her company?”
“Hmm. I’m not the best at conversation…”
Still, after hearing that, I felt a bit guilty not going.
In the end, I told them to leave my portion of the greens and headed up to the roof.
When I opened the rooftop door and stepped outside, a cold breeze hit me. Thanks to the warmth from the bath, it was bearable, but if I stayed out too long, I’d definitely get cold.
The elder stood at the edge of the rooftop, facing the backyard.
I walked up slowly and stood beside her, but she kept her gaze fixed in the distance and spoke first.
“What’d you come all the way up here for? Should’ve stayed warm downstairs.”
“Just came to get some fresh air.”
She chuckled like she didn’t buy that excuse.
“Not many monsters around here, right?”
“No, ma’am.”
Even on the map, which I’d marked with black dots, they were all far away from here.
The elder, who had only been staring straight ahead, suddenly raised a hand and pointed somewhere.
My eyes followed hers naturally as she gestured in a sweeping C-shape from beyond the backyard to the far side of the front yard.
“From there to there—that’s land protected by the Mountain Lord.”
“…….”
Now that she mentioned it… The parts of the map without any black dots matched exactly with the area she pointed out.
The path we took to get here also partly fell within the Mountain Lord’s territory, and this house was situated right in the middle of the C-shaped zone.
“We came from over there. No wonder we didn’t see any monsters after the first day. It wasn’t luck—it was thanks to the Mountain Lord.”
“Mmm. That’s right.”
The elder nodded deeply, then turned her gaze back toward the distance beyond the backyard.
I felt like I knew where she was looking, so I turned my eyes in the same direction and stared for a long while.
The night sky was full of stars.
“Full” didn’t even begin to describe it—it looked like the god who manages stars had accidentally spilled an entire bag of them across the sky.
And in stark contrast to that beautiful sky, the mountain was pitch-black.
Not a single light—like it had been painted over with ink.
Normally, such darkness would feel terrifying, but maybe because of what I’d just experienced, it didn’t scare me as much.
“Boy.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“What was the place you lived like? Was it okay? Different from here?”
“Hmm. It was fine at first. But right before we got sucked into this place, some black hole and a green one suddenly appeared and started swallowing people indiscriminately. So after that, we have no idea what happened to the place we were in. Did something like that happen here too?”
The old man nodded, still staring off into the distance.
“Yeah, there was something like that, but I didn’t see it myself… Heard talk of something blowing up in the city.”
“…..”
“I only heard people say that black fog came pouring out of some dark hole and then it disappeared, so I don’t know if it’s the same kind of hole. No one said anything about it swallowing people, but who knows. Not many folks live in remote places like this.”
The old man added a bit more explanation.
It was long before monsters started appearing in this world.
He said there were a few rumors about a pitch-black sphere that suddenly appeared mid-air in the middle of a town not too far from here.
At first, everyone thought it was just a new kind of special effect for a movie, thanks to advanced technology.
Then black smoke started flowing out of the sphere and spread across the area, only to evaporate and vanish along with the sphere.
According to another witness, something seemed to come out of the smoke, though they didn’t see what it was. Still, rumors spread that some being had emerged from the smoke and ended up here.
Then one day, soldiers suddenly swarmed the area, sealed off the place where the sphere had appeared, and took people somewhere for health checks and other examinations.
“There were tons of rumors flying around—some said it was a germ attack, others a chemical one. Everyone panicked and started hoarding supplies, from corner stores to supermarkets. But in the end, nothing happened. Not until about half a year later.”
Half a year after the military withdrew.
That’s when strange people began to appear—monsters we now know as “spiders.”
The old man’s family lived in a very isolated part of the countryside, so they didn’t hear the news right away.
So as usual, the elderly couple drove into town together, completely unprepared—and encountered a monster with nothing to defend themselves.
“Scared the life outta me. These people had their stomachs flipped open, crawling around in bizarre ways. I thought they were all drunk or on drugs or something, but my God… Their eyes had all gone crazy.”
The old couple immediately knew they weren’t looking at humans and fled, returning home to try to escape with their granddaughter and daughter-in-law.
But there were just too many monsters—so many that no one could even tell where they were all coming from. In the end, they had to go back home.
“So as soon as we got back, I locked up the front door and all the windows. Figured the government would send a rescue team.
Even wrote ‘HELP’ in dried red peppers up on the roof, waited it out. But… my husband got bitten. By one of those freakish things. Then after about two days, he started changing too…”
Because of their age, the couple had often talked about these things.
“We always said, someday, when one of us goes first, just build a simple grave and don’t bother visiting too much. Just wait for the other one in the next life. We promised we’d meet again.”
“But this man, he got himself bitten just to protect me. As he started to change, he told me—‘Honey, I think I’ll be going first.
But if I go like this, I won’t be able to greet you properly. I’ll look too hideous. So please… let me go first.’”
“But I said no. I told him no way. The government will send someone. A rescue team, soldiers, something. We just have to hold out a little longer.”
But no rescue team ever came. No soldiers came, either.
The old man had no idea what to do with his completely transformed spouse and locked him on the second floor.
For days, the sound of the transformed husband crawling around the wooden floor upstairs kept the old man awake at night—until finally, one night, exhausted, he managed to fall asleep.
That night, the daughter-in-law used the gun her father-in-law had left behind and ended it.
“It broke my heart that I couldn’t say a proper goodbye. I cried so much… as I buried him…”
“No matter what you look like, I’m okay with it. It doesn’t matter. So you better come greet me when the time comes. Don’t you dare leave me waiting just because you think you look too awful.”
With tears streaming uncontrollably and a chest full of sorrow, she buried her husband near the sunflower field. It was pouring rain that day.
And then, someone knocked on the front door.
Peeking out cautiously, she saw a trembling bear and a raccoon standing there, pitifully.