Chapter 29
I’m not usually the meddling type, but the words slipped out on their own.
“That’s not how you build that.”
Kim Woong jumped at the sudden presence and spun around.
“Huh...?”
Then, looking awkward, he pointed a finger at the shelter he’d made.
“…Is it weird?”
“Yep. Very.”
The shelter was in seriously bad shape.
For starters, the frame itself had been set up wrong.
The spacing between the posts was a mess, and the center was completely off.
Even the location choice was terrible.
Apparently he hadn’t considered the wind at all, because the natural breeze was hitting it head-on. And as if that weren’t enough, there were holes all over the shelter too.
Sleep in there and you could genuinely freeze to death.
Looking at that sorry excuse for a shelter, I let out a sigh and said,
“You can’t build it like this.”
“…Ah.”
“You could end up with hypothermia.”
“…Is that so, benefactor?”
“Yep.”
Kim Woong stared at his shabby shelter with a thoroughly crestfallen look.
“I thought I’d built it pretty decently...”
Pretty decently?
This?
Unless he was blind, there was no way he could say that.
I shook my head.
“Everything about it is wrong. You’d be better off rebuilding it from scratch.”
“Well, isn’t a shelter just something you need to sleep in somehow? Haha. Don’t worry about it too much.”
A strong mentality is definitely a major survival asset, but...
I absolutely could not let that ‘as long as you can sorta sleep in it, it’s fine’ line pass.
This was an insult to survival itself!
A shelter isn’t just some tent you duck under to avoid the rain.
It’s a breakwater that preserves a survivor’s body heat and blocks the cold night wind.
It helps you avoid bugs and dampness too.
In other words—
a shelter is the only place in the wilderness that safely protects a survivor’s body.
The human body isn’t that resilient.
If you’re already exhausted and then spend the night exposed to the cold wind, you really could just die in your sleep.
Yerin herself had nearly gotten hypothermia, hadn’t she?
And that flimsy thing was supposed to count as ‘pretty decent’?
No, this wasn’t a shelter.
It was a pile of trash.
‘This won’t do. It needs a lesson.’
In the end, I couldn’t hold back and walked over to the lousy shelter.
Then—
Thud!!
I kicked the frame.
Crash!!
The loosely woven bamboo and branches collapsed without resistance,
and the leaves serving as the roof came raining down too.
Kim Woong’s face turned to despair as he watched the shelter cave in.
The shelter he’d been insisting looked decent up until a moment ago had collapsed from one measly kick from me.
Kim Woong stared blankly at the wreckage for a while, then
......
slowly turned his head and looked at me with eyes full of grievance.
Like a puppy betrayed by the owner it trusted.
“…B-Benefactor! W-Why... why would you do such a thing...?”
@
[Kim Woong is currently on his knees bawling in real time]
Author: nongnongnongnongnong
(Short clip of Reels kicking the shelter with her stubby legs)
The shelter he spent two hours making got blown away in one kick by our gallery star lmao
Ah fuck, this is hilarious lol
But it really was flimsy as hell
ㄴ“Looks pretty decent though?” < think that line set her off lol
ㄴIf one little girl can blow it up with a single kick, that’s not a shelter in the first place
ㄴReels’ expression while looking at that shelter was rotten as hell fr
ㄴFrom a survival nerd’s perspective, there was no way she could let that slide
ㄴThat’s exactly how a veteran gamer would react after seeing a newbie’s gear
ㄴFeels like a newbie in a game wearing an item cursed to the gills
ㄴfr lol like ‘If you use that, you’ll die?’ status
ㄴWhat Kim Woong built wasn’t a shelter, it was a coffin;;
[I’m a Kim Woong fan, and I have a newbie question]
Author: GymBroWarrior
Doesn’t everyone build shelters like that?
I’m seriously asking because I really don’t know
ㄴWhat are you talking about lol, it looks worse than the thing Reels threw together in like thirty minutes on the first day
ㄴBuild it like that and the wind gets in everywhere
ㄴNo, forget that—if it rains, you’re just done lol
ㄴfr;; at that point you should just GG and go home
ㄴShelter location matters like crazy
ㄴI lost it when it collapsed from one kick lol
@
‘Wait, was it really that bad?’
Kim Woong, who had been standing there blankly in front of the wreckage, slowly dropped to his knees.
Thump.
Then, clutching his head with both hands, he started letting out a mournful wail.
“W-Why...”
“….”
“My shelter... the shelter that held two hours of my labor...!”
His voice was full of genuine injustice.
He sounded like someone who’d just lost his life savings on crypto.
I nudged the collapsed wreckage with the tip of my foot, dumbfounded.
“…No.”
“….”
“If it falls apart from one light kick, it’s not a shelter.”
Kim Woong opened and closed his mouth, then muttered quietly,
“T-That’s... true, but...”
He couldn’t argue with that.
Objectively speaking, it was just a fact.
If this tiny, weak little body could make it collapse with one little tap, how was that a shelter?
It was just a pile of trash.
It was already getting pretty dark around the jungle.
It was too late to start rebuilding the shelter from scratch now.
And if he got hurt working without clear visibility, that would be a problem too.
I pointed a finger at the cave.
“For tonight, just sleep on the cave floor.”
“…Huh?”
“You can rebuild it tomorrow.”
“….”
Kim Woong stared at me blankly for a moment.
“…Benefactor.”
“What.”
“I understand now.”
What did he suddenly understand?
They say a person turns stupid when they go into shock. Was that what happened to Kim Woong too?
I answered in disbelief.
“What do you understand?”
“Weren’t you only doing all this because you were worried about me, benefactor?”
Kim Woong spoke with a serious face.
“Most people would’ve just looked at a terrible shelter like that and walked right past it. But you didn’t. You may be bad at expressing yourself, but you’re a very kind person.”
“…Yep?”
If Yerin had been here, she would’ve clutched her stomach and laughed at how absurd that was.
To say something like that to the person who had just destroyed the shelter he made himself—there was no zealot like this zealot.
Looking at the wreckage, Kim Woong spoke with a face full of resolve.
“Tomorrow, I’ll build a proper shelter no matter what.”
@
I asked Kim Woong, who was adding more firewood to the weakening fire pit,
“By the way, how did you end up separated from your group?”
Kim Woong’s hand stopped for a moment. Then he scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
“Ah... well.”
“….”
“Our personalities didn’t quite match. Haha.”
A personality clash.
Well, it’s not like I’d asked why he broke up with a girlfriend.
He was putting it very gently.
I could pretty much picture what had happened without even seeing it.
From the look of it, he’d probably been taken advantage of by the women and ended up doing all the hard work alone,
and then finally exploded when he couldn’t take it anymore.
Kim Woong stared blankly into the flames, then spoke quietly.
“At first, it was fine.”
“….”
“They said we should all work together and survive.”
The firewood crackled in the fire pit.
Kim Woong smiled bitterly.
“But now that I think about it, I think they were just trying to use me. I’m built pretty sturdy, after all.”
Hmm.
He definitely did have an absurdly overwhelming build.
His shoulders were incredibly broad, and his forearms were thicker than my thighs.
If you had one walking laborer like that around, things really would be easy.
“…But you’re amazing, benefactor.”
“Yep?”
“Your frame is much smaller than mine.”
“….”
“And yet you’re surviving far better than I am.”
That’s because I’m an avid documentary watcher.
Wasn’t that obvious?
“Knowledge is important in survival.”
“As expected.”
“….”
“So you’re an intelligence-type character, benefactor.”
An intelligence-type character?
Well, when you put it that way, I guess that was true.
There was no way this soft, squishy body of mine was a strength build.
After hesitating for a moment, Kim Woong continued.
“…Benefactor.”
“Yep.”
“Are you from the countryside, by any chance?”
What kind of question was that?
Yerin too, and now Kim Woong as well.
They both seemed to think I was basically some kind of mountain hermit.
I shook my head with an incredulous look.
“No. I’m a Seoul native.”
“…Then how is your survival knowledge so impressive?”
“I watched documentaries with my older brother.”
“......?”
Before long, Yerin, who had woken up at some point, let out a snicker from the bamboo bed.
“Mr. Kim Woong.”
“…Yes?”
“Don’t try to understand Reels. Just accept her. It’s easier that way.”
“….”
@
Day 5 on the deserted island.
Kim Woong was having a miserable morning.
Right up until the point when he woke up, washed his face with clean water, and even rinsed off his body, he had felt incredibly refreshed.
‘People really do need to live clean.’
He sincerely thought there was no heaven quite like that.
But the real problem lay elsewhere.
“You won’t build a proper shelter like that. Move the posts a little farther to the side.”
“…Yes.”
“Ugh, this is frustrating. Seriously.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“I’m telling you, you need to level it properly. Otherwise it’ll collapse when the wind blows.”
“…Yes.”
A tiny little girl stood behind him, watching him and constantly giving instructions.
It was Reels.
Kim Woong broke into a cold sweat as he set the bamboo post in place again.
“Not that one.”
“…Huh?”
“It’s crooked again.”
“…I’m sorry.”
Kim Woong genuinely felt wronged.
It definitely looked straight to him.
Did she have a protractor built into her eyes or something?
He had boldly declared yesterday that he’d build a proper shelter, but now regret was slowly creeping in.
Reels planted her hands on her hips, looked over the shelter Kim Woong had made, and deeply frowned.
“Hmm... still not quite right.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“….”
“You can just do it again.”
Even a devil drill instructor in military survival training probably wouldn’t be this bad.
Left with no choice, Kim Woong pulled the bamboo back out.
Pull it out, drive it in.
Tie it up, then pull it out again.
Over and over, endlessly.
Watching from a distance, Yerin was giggling to herself.
“Pfft. That’s one hell of an initiation.”
“….”
Kim Woong turned his head with an aggrieved look.
“…Benefactor, I really am working hard.”
“Then why is it still crooked? Working hard and being good at something are different.”
“…I don’t know that either.”
Reels reached out and lightly tapped one of the bamboo poles Kim Woong had set up with her finger.
Creak.
The whole shelter shuddered ever so slightly,
and Reels’ expression immediately soured.
“See?”
“….”
“I’m telling you, it can’t be like this.”
Kim Woong’s face immediately turned stricken.
No way. Again from the beginning?
At the thought that he might have to go through that hellish frame-building process all over again, his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Benefactor.”
“Yep.”
“I sleep fine even in cold places.”
“So?”
“N-No, never mind.”
Reels immediately added,
“Tie the posts tight again.”
“….”
“Fix the roof angle properly.”
“….”
“Make walls to block the wind, then come back for inspection.”
Kim Woong stared blankly at the shelter frame.
“…Ah.”
Survival really was hard.