Chapter 396: Chapter 396

Reactions to the journey of sending a sloth across 380,000 kilometers back to its birthplace were all more or less the same.

keyser: Send Bumpy back to Earth?

Felzear: With a rocket or something?

Alex82: Wouldn’t it make more sense to eat him? Sure, he wouldn’t taste good, but at least it’s fresh meat?

Jesse_Pinkman: Nonsense.

Etynernyxx: Instead of wasting time on something so pointless, how about just keep Viva! Apocalypse! running?

Trasrg: I bet it’s impossible.

Every single one of them thought it was absurd.

To make matters worse, reports were coming in that even the state governments in North America were collapsing. The bare minimum of public order in some cities had completely broken down.

Most American doomsday preppers had tried to survive through extreme isolation in nature, but not all of them were like that. Quite a few—like me—had settled just outside urban areas to at least catch the last drips of civilization.

Now those people were stuck watching, through narrow peepholes in their bunkers, armed and starving refugees—people who could turn into raiders at any second—wandering nearby, and praying they’d pass without incident.

In the midst of that chaos, it was oddly moving to see Korean-style panhandling begin appearing even in the States. In a twisted way, it reminded me of our shared human condition.

Anyway, a fairy-tale mission like sending a space sloth back 380,000 kilometers wasn’t exactly catching fire in this kind of hellscape.

People had bigger problems.

But Viva! Apocalypse! wasn’t the only thing in America.

Necropolis took the bait.

A community thousands of times larger than Viva! Apocalypse!, Necropolis was Earth’s biggest online forum—naturally, it drew all kinds of people.

Among them were former astrophysicists who had once worked for NASA. Just like how old intellectuals used to solve difficult math problems for fun, these people enjoyed wrestling with physics problems too complex for ordinary minds.

So Bumpy’s return mission became a new toy for space scientists who’d been forced into early retirement.

Some of them accessed Viva! Apocalypse! through the tunnels dug by the hero of our era—Ballantine.

Deadman987541: Melon Mask was at Lagrange point L4, wasn’t he?

Deadman4143: That’d put him around 19 million miles away.

I suddenly realized something.

The distance between us and Melon Mask was far beyond anything my limited imagination could conceive.

Not 380,000 kilometers. Not even close.

Over 30 million kilometers.

Melon was even farther away from us than I’d thought.

Even 380,000 kilometers already felt like an eternity to me. But to people who were trained and educated completely differently than me, that number had an entirely different meaning.

They measured it this way:

Deadman987541: That’s where Earth will be in two months.

This is expert territory now.

For someone like me—someone society treats as barely educated—terms like general coordinate systems, holonomic constraints, non-uniqueness, Rayleigh scattering functions, orbital eccentricity... might as well be monster gibberish. If monsters could talk, that is.

What I could understand was this:

More and more users were joining the debate about returning Bumpy to Earth. And the discussion was gaining real traction.

Earth—two months from now—will pass through that location in space.

So they want to launch an object from there toward Earth, with the right force and angle to enter an orbit that reaches a jungle in South America.

Of course, I don’t have the time—or the mental bandwidth—to understand these discussions.

What did stand out was the arrival of an engineer.

Deadman95031: If I remember right, Melon’s space bunker has Canadarm2. It’s an upgraded version of the Canadarm on the ISS. Bigger, stronger.

Deadman8213: Using Canadarm2 to launch Bumpy back to Earth isn’t a bad idea. But think about it—even a pitcher with perfect aim couldn’t just “throw” something across 19 million miles and land it perfectly.

Deadman211213: Besides Canadarm2, there are probably compressed air ejection systems for orbital stabilization all over that station. Maybe there are spares? Attach one to Bumpy, fix him to the arm, and launch him toward Earth.

As more people joined in and the debate grew, Sue’s cute idea and Hong Dajeong’s psychological profile of Melon—once seen as wild fantasy—suddenly began taking on shocking realism.

Day by day, the plan evolved from expert jargon to something even someone like me could understand:

Sounds simple—but it wasn’t.

Even just dragging Bumpy out into space and securing him to the arm was a life-risking task for Melon.

Attaching the propulsion system and adjusting the launch angle? That wasn’t something Melon could do alone.

Only astronauts with elite training could handle that.

But at least in this case, Dajeong’s judgment was right.

Melon finally broke his long silence.

The moment I saw that, I muttered, as if Dajeong were right beside me.

Well, I guess my own instincts for reading Melon’s intentions were pretty decent too.

Anyway, everything was going exactly as Hong Dajeong predicted.

MELON_MASK: So... are you saying, if we do all this, we can send Bumpy back to Earth?

Yup. All this guy ever needed was attention.

SKELTON: I want to see Melon Mask working live on Live! Apocalypse!. Desperately.

He didn’t blow his face up full-screen like usual, but I’m willing to bet he was grinning like a smug bastard.

And so began Bumpy’s journey—19 million miles, or 30 million kilometers, by the standard unit of the world.

The first livestream showed Bumpy’s dead body, left in the vacuum to prevent decay.

“...He died so suddenly. There was no sign of illness. He just stopped eating one day. I looked over and—God. He was lying there, eyes shut... smiling.”

It was the first time I truly realized how much strength it takes to resist the urge to troll someone.

And yet, our forum members held strong.

Not a single sarcastic or cruel comment. No mocking Melon despite all his usual diva tantrums and power-tripping.

Cheered on by everyone, Melon Mask began a truly memorable event—even in this dying world.

“Honestly, when this guy killed my staff, I was terrified. I’ve seen videos of Mutations killing humans just for fun. The way animals can torture people... even after watching so many, I had to start taking medication.”

In his sleek spacesuit, with his corporate logo proudly stamped on the chest, Melon Mask began tightly wrapping Bumpy’s massive, rock-solid corpse in industrial plastic wrap.

He compressed the body as much as possible to fit it into the round escape pod within the space bunker.

Unbeknownst to Melon, that escape pod was part of a contingency plan devised by engineers who had hidden it behind his back before the war erupted.

It wasn’t meant to rely on rockets.

The idea was that the pod could self-launch into the path Earth would pass in two months and wait to be pulled in by gravity.

A last-ditch backup—if the rockets failed.

There’s a chance they even feared Melon would ditch them and use it solo.

Regardless, the escape pod’s survival rate was thought to be less than 1%.

Whether it would be caught by Earth’s gravity, whether it could survive reentry, and even if it could land safely—if it landed in a country hostile to the U.S., then what?

So many layers of risk.

Maybe that’s why the pod had poison included—for suicide.

Sadly, all the engineers who could’ve explained that... had been ripped apart by Bumpy.

Apparently, the woman who specialized in that system hated Bumpy.

“If I remove the survival gear, radiation shielding, insulation, I can make room for Bumpy.”

Live, with tens of thousands watching, Melon Mask cheerfully went to work.

The plastic wrap pulled tight again over Bumpy’s dead body.

Next was cramming Bumpy into the pod.

The pod was big—but Bumpy was massive, far beyond average human size.

Weightlessness didn’t help—nothing to brace against made it harder.

Even so, Melon pushed on, smiling. A man who, days ago, looked ready to shut his site down.

Then came fixing the pod to the Canadarm2 ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) attached to the space bunker’s exterior.

Astrophysicists had already calculated the trajectory. Engineers had pinpointed the launch angle to send Bumpy toward the Amazon rainforest.

Some doubted the whole thing.

“Y’know what I think?”

Defender—who I hadn’t seen in person for a while—gave his take.

“Those so-called physicists? I bet they’re faking it. Who can even understand the crap they’re saying? At least legal jargon you can kinda guess. This stuff? You’re screwed without years of study.”

“Yeah. I think they’re not scholars at all. Probably Melon’s staff in disguise. If his site shuts down, they’re the ones who lose the most. And think about it—when he was whining like a brat, no one flamed him? That set off my alarm bells.”

He sipped hot synthetic coffee and continued.

“What if this whole thing’s one giant act? A play, staged just to manipulate Melon Mask.”

Defender, like Hong Dajeong, had incredible insight.

Especially when it came to cynical takes—he was unmatched.

I get it. That view makes sense.

But me? I don’t hate people who burn the last of their life force for hope.

Melon’s task was almost done.

“These were Bumpy’s favorite things.”

He stuffed the pod with vegetables grown in his automated farm—especially lettuce—and even lowered his head once or twice, swallowing tears.

Now it was time for farewell.

Our forum’s astrophysicist claimed, oddly enough, that this moment marked the best possible time for launch—when planetary and lunar interference was minimized for optimal trajectory.

Melon Mask, unmasked, pressed the button.

With a hiss, the Canadarm2 released the restraints and the compressed air nozzles pushed the pod free from the space bunker.

Slowly but steadily, a white orb floated away—toward the beautiful, fleeting blue planet in the distance.

Two months from now—that’s where tomorrow will arrive.

“I was happy, all this time.”

Melon Mask’s show ended successfully.

But the show wasn’t over.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNG—

A siren blared at the very end.

The K-WalkieTalkie shouted in urgent tones:

“Large-scale monster swarm advancing toward Seoul! They’re heading this way!”

What might be a horrifying, yet glorious, final chapter.

VIVA_BOT014: (emotional VivaBot) Skelton...

VIVA_BOT014: How many times have you saved me already?

VIVA_BOT014: Even if I had a hundred bodies, I couldn’t repay you...

VIVA_BOT014: Even if you’re not from TwelveSquare, you’re already my hero.

I sent a message to VivaBot.

SKELTON: I’m going to send Melon a message. Can you open the channel?

She was calling me. Urgently.

But I had something to do first.

VIVA_BOT014: Yes. I just granted access.

I messaged Melon immediately.

SKELTON: That was a hell of a show, Melon.

He sent a few more messages right after—but I didn’t have time to read them.

Instead, I finished what I had to say.

SKELTON: Now it’s my turn.

SKELTON: I’ll put on the best show.

MELON_MASK: (CEO shocked)

SKELTON: Whether it’s a bad ending or a happy one... that hasn’t been decided yet.

For the sake of tomorrow, Melon let go of his friend.

And we, too—will fight for tomorrow.

I slid my axe into its sheath.