Free Web NovelI felt sorry for the desperate friend on the forum, but I couldn’t relate emotionally to the situation of some North American user I didn’t even know, not like with the Melon Mask rescue incident.
Melon Mask was the creator of our world and a friend who continually revealed their face through Live! Apocalypse! Meanwhile, the user named lion482 was, to be blunt, a complete stranger with no connection to me.
Other North American users didn’t seem to feel much differently.
With more users than Korea, and thus more emotional detachment, they showed little real attachment or empathy toward lion482.
The more we talked, the more convinced the North American users became that lion482 wasn’t a true Vivarian like us, but rather a foreigner who had hijacked the Vivarian network.
And for good reason: lion482 was completely ignorant of basic functions and systems everyone—especially those from Necropolis—should know. He didn’t even know about basic satellite gear, like the Obelisk.
To make matters worse, a North American user publicly called out lion482.
DoodleDO: I know lion482. He was a friend I played games with back when FoxGames made that Korean-language game.
DoodleDO: He was cheerful and diligent. The only flaw was that he didn’t log in much. Even after the server shut down, we still occasionally kept in touch. When I saw him on the Clicker board, I was genuinely happy.
DoodleDO: But then he completely changed within 10 minutes. Compare these two messages.
[10 Minutes Earlier]
DoodleDO: Hey! Friend! Fancy seeing you here!
Message from lion482: Long time no see! Friend!
[After lion482 uploaded the pale gray landscape photo]
DoodleDO: Are you okay? Friend?
Message from lion482: Do you know me? Where are you right now? Can you help me?
Sure, it’s hard to judge people based only on text—but when you build relationships online, you start to pick up on their personality and identity, even from simple messages.
Even I, with years of internet experience, could tell the lion482 that DoodleDO pointed out wasn’t the same person.
More evidence came.
A comparison of lion482’s past posts and current pleas for help revealed drastically different [N O V E L I G H T] attitudes—clearly not the same person.
Even Dongtanmom, who’s probably busy campaigning for local elections, showed up on the Clicker board, acting like an old-school user.
dongtanmom: Yum yum... Looks like something went down in those 10 minutes, huh? Yum yum... Ten minutes is plenty of time to bash someone’s head in, hide the body, and get back to the computer. Yum yum...
As much as I’m considering campaigning against Dongtanmom, I agreed with her point.
In an instant, a person on the internet can change.
Like, let’s say Chun Young-jae suddenly snaps from all the stress he’s bottled up from Woo Min-hee, shoots me, and starts posing as Skelton online.
Anyway, all this meant that the rescue of lion482 started off completely different from that of Melon Mask—lukewarm, if not outright cold.
Though DoodleDO’s exposé turned many users away from the idea of saving lion482, this was still the last major event involving the old-school Vivarians before the Great Upheaval of Viva! Apocalypse!
One user summed up our collective sentiment perfectly.
Kerensky3082: In ancient Rome, priests used the shape of animal intestines to divine the future.
Kerensky3082: We can probably do the same, by watching lion482’s behavior. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Kerensky3082: Especially since he’s such a textbook apocalypse-era human.
Regardless of the outcome, the tone of the story was already set from the start.
Somewhere between cold and lukewarm.
—
lion482—who may very well be someone else entirely—was supposedly located in Arkansas, USA.
To be honest, I don’t know much about the place.
When you think of the U.S., you think New York, California, maybe Texas. Out of all 51 states, most people—even exchange students—could probably name only a handful.
According to AntWiki, a pre-war Korean wiki site backed up by FoxGame and preserved by Jon Nae-non, Arkansas is slightly larger than South Korea with a population of about 3 million.
Even most Americans only vaguely remember hearing the name in school. It’s not exactly a place you’d go out of your way to visit.
Once the war began, it suffered the same fate as other minor states.
As long as federal support was intact, the state managed to hold off the fractures. But once the federal system collapsed, the state government fell, and warlords and gangs took over. Total ruin followed.
It was only natural the region would be consumed.
lion482 was left behind in that kind of place, either alone or with a small group unknown to us.
lion482: So... what do I do here?
lion482 always spoke in questions.
As if desperate to show his urgency, every message he posted was a question, begging for information.
It didn’t seem like he was actually reading the forum or paying attention to the general atmosphere.
A post questioning his identity was sitting right in the most popular threads, and the overall tone of the replies ranged from neutral to hostile. Still, he kept asking questions, seemingly only reading the replies to his own posts.
Guerrero’s: Have you tried contacting the sheriff? Based on the photos, looks like you’re in his jurisdiction.
Lots of users offered advice—but then a dedicated responder appeared.
Guerrero’s: You can’t make calls? Didn’t you receive training? Like how to use the radio, or satellite phones?
That user was Guerrero.
Apparently with time to stay online all day, he was always the first to reply to lion482’s posts.
His replies seemed helpful enough to outsiders, so it was only natural that lion482 began to trust him.
Soon, lion482 started directing his questions exclusively at Guerrero.
lion482: Guerrero. I tried using the satellite phone. No connection. I unlocked it and tried calling the sheriff, but it didn’t go through.
From asking the whole forum, lion482 now directed all his messages to just Guerrero.
But Guerrero hadn’t approached with good intentions.
Anonymous811: It’s pretty obvious what you’re trying to do, getting him to call the sheriff with a government-issued emergency sat phone.
KPGN: Exactly. What if the sheriff had actually answered?
baker820309: In a place as wrecked as Arkansas? He’d probably get executed on the spot.
...
...
In rural areas like that—where people live miles apart—sheriffs were granted extraordinary powers and managed their territory strictly.
Not only did they know everything about the citizens they oversaw, they were usually accompanied by armed units made up of ex-military. In emergencies, they had the authority to carry out summary executions.
If lion482 really had killed the original occupant and taken over, then the moment the sheriff arrived, he could be executed as a murderer.
It was clearly malicious, but no one condemned Guerrero for it.
To them, lion482 was a looter—a disposable person.
As time passed, Guerrero’s malice became more blatant.
Guerrero’s: Nothing good will come from going outside. Just stay put. You don’t know when raiders might come. Got food? Try to hold out. Corruption spreads like snow, you know. If the cause disappears, it fades. Who knows? Maybe it’ll become livable again.
The first rule of surviving in a corrupted zone was always the same:
Leave immediately.
That principle had never changed, not once.
Some might have survived there for a while, but most either went mad or simply disappeared.
Just look at our friend Kaieldos—proof enough of the danger.
Anyone paying attention to lion482 would know he wasn’t very educated or knowledgeable.
That became painfully clear when someone offered sincere advice.
AYkopato: Go to Texas, idiot. Take Route 30. Don’t you have a car?
lion482: Route 30? What’s that? You mean a highway?
AYkopato: You can get on at North Little Rock.
lion482: North Little Rock? Where’s that?
AYkopato: ?
He didn’t even know things any local would’ve learned growing up.
Some anonymous user even speculated he might be a Latino immigrant—an openly racist assumption.
Still, it was clear: lion482 had neither the means nor the knowledge to recognize Guerrero’s malice, which only grew worse.
Guerrero’s: Leave? Why? You can survive in corrupted zones. I saw crops in your pics—they look weird, but they’re edible. Chinese folks do fine in corrupted zones—why can’t an American? Right?
Guerrero’s: Got a woman with you? Post a pic. Who knows? Maybe someone here will drive out to help. Big laughs
Guerrero’s: Can you show us your house? Hmm? How many people did you kill, anyway?
Guerrero was clearly going too far. But lion482 showed no reaction.
He didn’t respond. At most, he answered with silence.
This endless mockery finally ended when another user stepped in.
Kerensky3082: Hey. lion. You don’t have time for the internet. Get out of there. Now.
Kerensky3082: Didn’t they teach you at the shelters? If you see signs of corruption, leave immediately and find another shelter or a patrol unit. Maybe they’ll shoot you. Maybe not. But that’s still better than dying mad in that house.
Kerensky.
The very same user who had compared lion482 to an animal whose entrails predicted fate.
He then turned his criticism to Guerrero.
Kerensky3082: Guerrero. Cut it out. Even if he’s a bad guy, toying with people like that isn’t something God would approve of.
Surprisingly, Guerrero backed off easily.
Guerrero’s: Here comes the hero. Big laugh Hey, lion. The real hero’s here now, so listen to him. I won’t interfere anymore.
And Guerrero disappeared.
This moment made it clear that lion482 was completely different from us.
lion482: Kerensky? What now? Leave? How? Where do I go?
Exactly.
lion482 had no sense of internet etiquette or shared understanding.
The advisor he had blindly trusted had vanished, and he didn’t even flinch—just transferred his blind trust to Kerensky.
Like a clunky machine or bot.
lion482: What should I do? Please tell me.
Someone had made a racist comment earlier, but it didn’t matter. lion482 wasn’t just a different race—he was a different internet species.
Kerensky3082: Tell me your location.
Kerensky, now holding the baton, began offering real advice.
Kerensky3082: If you can get your car working long enough to reach Route 30, you can escape to Texas. You can get on at North Little Rock. I’ll send you the route.
He taught lion482 how to jury-rig the broken EV, how to get to North Little Rock, which gang territories to avoid, and how to make it to Texas—one of the last livable places.
lion482: You mean Route 452? So I go this way?
That was the last message lion482 ever posted.
That he left the forum without even a word of thanks to Kerensky wasn’t surprising. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
Everyone had guessed it—lion482 wasn’t one of us.
Kerensky didn’t seem to expect gratitude, either.
Kerensky3082: From the worst omen to one worth hoping on, at least a little.
Just as Guerrero saw lion482 as a toy, Kerensky only saw him as a subject of divination.
So the “kindness” he offered was never really about helping—it was about not letting the omen turn dark while he was watching.
Kerensky’s omen likely wouldn’t end well.
After the dust settled, another user quietly predicted the end.
Sauber92: All routes into Texas are locked down. No one gets in.
Sauber92: They don’t do checkpoints anymore.
Sauber92: They shoot on sight.
Sauber92: Did you know? If you kill someone from 10 meters away, you feel guilt. But from 200 meters? It’s just like a game.
Sauber92: Guilt is like blood splatter from a shattered soul. If it’s too far, it won’t reach you.
Sauber92: Maybe a quick-witted or lucky guy might find another path.
We’ll never know what became of our omen, lion482.
But it probably didn’t go well.
Much like the future awaiting us.
– Welcome to the Viva! Apocalypse! forum, for all.
Melon Mask has made Viva! Apocalypse! open to everyone.
A once golden era was coming to an end.
