Chapter 28

24. The Magic Pill (1)

It had been a while since I had a dream.

For someone who strives for short but perfect sleep, having a dream is a disgraceful matter, but the dream itself was intriguing.

Park Kyu prepared for his future in America, not in Korea.

He easily obtained firearms and built a massive fortress in the vast wilderness, one that rivaled the mansions of conglomerate chairmen.

From the highest tower of that fortress, he shot down all the invading Yankees, cowboys, superheroes, and mad mice, crushed monsters with an 18-wheeled trailer, and, for some reason, had a banquet with the President of the United States.

At the climax of the dream, he tried to say something to the President.

But the words wouldn't come out.

I knew what I should say, but my unfamiliarity with his language and the doubt about whether my intended expression was correct blocked my speech.

In that moment, I realized I was a foreigner in that land, and I woke up with a feeling of deflation.

There was nothing to add or subtract.

It was just a dream. A funny dream.

But the background and situation of the dream seemed to faintly foreshadow the future that lay ahead of me.

Thinking about the people I will soon meet, I get that feeling.

Gunfire has been frequent lately.

From the one-sided shooting, it doesn't seem like a battle situation, but the frequency of gunfire is excessively high.

Has something gone wrong?

It doesn't seem like a situation that requires communication, but I am worried.

Perhaps the frequent gunfire is not just a sign of intruders but a trace of madness.

It has been two years since the war began.

Enough time for a person to go mad.

The sniper has always demanded drugs from me.

But what kind of drug can soothe her hollow heart?

Perhaps if there were a magic pill, it would be different.

But where can I find a magic pill?

*

People are good and have a good reputation.

There are still friends on the bulletin board looking for Kaildos.

Anonymous848: Kaildos! Are you alive? Where are you?

Anonymous458: Kaildos! Sorry. I said some bad things when I heard you were going to be a webtoon protagonist. Please come back!

Today, Mr. Dragon uploaded the latest chapter of Remnant.

The latest chapter depicts Kaildos' final story, where he fights fiercely to protect his wife from a defector and, in the last moment, realizes the futility of it all, holds hands with his wife, shares a final kiss, and pulls the pin of a grenade while glaring at the enemies pushing into the air-raid shelter.

Boom!

Explosion ending.

The reaction was extremely热烈.

Anonymous458: ㅠㅠ

roka3218: ㅠㅠ

keystone: ㅠㅠ

THE_LAST_MAN: ㅠㅠ

Anonymous848: ㅠㅠ

kimcic: ㅠㅠ

gijayangban: ㅠㅠ

Defender: ㅠㅠ

James_Catterer: TT

James_Catterer: Can somebody translate this to English? :)

..

...

Everyone shed tears through their keyboards.

Even Defender.

But I, and one other, did not.

SKELTON: Hmm....

unicorn18: Was she a virgin?

Objectively, they are a bunch of good-for-nothing guys.

One is a boring Defender friend, and the other is a weirdo who has lost his taste since his first year and has become a real unicorn, as his nickname suggests.

Anonymous848: Skeleton, isn't that too much?

Anonymous458: It seems like the concept was a bit off this time.

DragonC: Mr. Skeleton?

roka3218:

kimcic: Sir

keystone: The guy who only says "Hmm" is always mumbling...

...

...

Sure enough, they are being beaten together, but why do I feel like I'm the one getting hit?

Even Defender is giving me a hint.

Message from Defender: (Defender is shocked) Skeleton, is that it? A psychopath...?

I may have been falsely accused, but I am honest with myself.

This is my honest impression after trying to find Kaildos' air-raid shelter and verify the truth.

To be frank, it wasn't an explosion ending, was it?

I didn't announce Kaildos' news on the bulletin board.

I didn't think it was necessary.

I thought it would be better to leave him as the protagonist of the explosion ending, rather than giving room for various interpretations.

Anyway, it seems that when bad things happen, good things sometimes happen too.

A familiar face appeared in the comment section of the latest chapter of Remnant after a long time.

None other than the reporter.

He had been thought dead after the civil war began, but he boldly survived and subtly left a comment on the webtoon.

It was a natural flow that the return of a named user, who was thought to be dead, caused a storm on the bulletin board.

gijayangban: I was lucky. The National Assembly faction gave up on our apartment area and pulled back their main defense line.

gijayangban: The reason I couldn't connect was because the drone jammer below was active. Plus, there was a command post right below, and if I ran a generator, a few Panzerfausts would have flown through the balcony.

Clearly, the reporter has the qualifications to be a named user.

He, who could easily fill the popular post list with his survival report, shared a bundle of the latest information he had gathered from Failnet to make up for the gap.

gijayangban: Destroyed tank.jpg

gijayangban: Large monster sighted in Dongducheon

gijayangban: (Good news) The Hope is still standing

gijayangban: Current situation in Gangdong District.jpg

gijayangban: Recent cargo ship bound for Jeju Island.jpg

...

...

It felt like another world was unfolding for us, trapped in a crowded air-raid shelter.

All the stories were exciting, but one particularly caught the eye.

gijayangban: Current situation at the Seokju Group chairman's residence.jpg

In the face of the extreme variable of war, even conglomerates were helpless.

The fortresses that the wealthy families built in the suburbs to prepare for the future are now targets of attack.

One of these is the fortress of Chairman Park Chulju.

The elegant helicopter that stood on the helipad, the beautiful greenhouse that evoked the Louvre Museum, and the mini golf course that seemed to have been transplanted from a luxurious country club could not escape destruction.

As the response from the butler of the chairman's residence heated up, the reporter added a comment.

gijayangban: It seems that a unit affiliated with the Legion faction marked the coordinates and launched an attack, purely for fun, with no particular reason.

I agree with the reporter's opinion.

Those shell craters are the marks of 155mm artillery.

Why would a corps-level artillery unit attack a wealthy family's residence in Chuncheon, which has no strategic value, unless it was for fun?

The family still holds their ground in the ruined fortress, but with the walls collapsed and the foundation destroyed, they won't last long.

Perhaps Chairman Jeungbu was wise.

Anyway, the reporter's resurrection brought a great vitality to the bulletin board, which had been in a lull.

It was a moment to confirm the strength of a named user.

But this man, unexpectedly, seems to have a lot of envy.

“...”

The desire to write about Kaildos spread to the tips of my fingers.

SKELTON: (Skeleton's Report) Visiting Kaildos' Air-Raid Shelter (1)

The title was already decided in my mind.

A well-crafted title that was destined to be popular from birth.

But it's better not to write it.

I don't want to break the bulletin board users' emotional connection.

The reality I saw can be interpreted in various ways.

In the hearts of our bulletin board friends, Kaildos is best left to end with the explosion ending.

“...”

But the more I think about it, the more my thoughts change.

Is it really best to keep this good material to myself?

While a dramatic ending is good, isn't conveying the truth just as important?

Honestly, I may not be as good as the reporter in terms of information, but I think my on-site reporting skills are superior.

My intense inner conflict was abruptly ended by a sudden noise.

-Static!

The K-walkie-talkie received a signal.

“Skeleton.”

A familiar voice came through.

It was the sniper's voice.

“I need support.”

Before she could finish speaking, a sharp gunshot echoed from the south.

*

I still think that humans are the most threatening in the world of the apocalypse.

While the erosion is an unavoidable disaster, Kaildos was just unlucky.

He settled too close to the crack.

The erosion speed itself is not particularly fast.

It might stain a radius of 1 cm per day, which is quite slow.

But there are exceptions.

The exact conditions are unknown, but sometimes a large area is completely eroded overnight.

There is a theory that stationary monsters are the culprits, but stationary monsters only create their territory and do not act as a catalyst to speed up the erosion.

There must be some other unknown cause, but generally, erosion spreads faster where there are monsters.

This is why so many hunters were trained in the old days, as they knew this fact from experience.

Do not let stationary monsters live, do not wait for them to disappear, and track down and kill the one the army missed until the end.

This is what we learned in school.

Anyway, some cause overwhelmed Kaildos and made him disappear from the bulletin board.

In my case, there is still time.

There is an absolute distance.

The fact that Seoul is in between is also a point.

Even if Seoul collapses, there will still be people who will settle there.

The value of Seoul will only rise, not fall.

Even if it becomes a ruin, everything needed will be under the ruins.

If my area is about to be eroded, abandoning the air-raid shelter might be an option.

By then, there probably won't be many humans wandering around in the Republic of Korea.

That means the most lethal enemy will be gone.

Bang!

Why are humans the most terrifying enemy?

This can be easily understood by looking at the looters who invaded the sniper's territory.

Bang!

A group of looters is camped on a ridge about 1.2 km from the sniper's building.

Two naked men are running around, appearing and disappearing like moles in a whack-a-mole game.

There is a reason they are doing this crazy thing in the middle of winter.

To mock the sniper.

Bang!

No matter how skilled the sniper is, it's not easy to hit a fast-moving target at a distance of 1.2 km.

Every time the gunshot is futile, the naked men mock the sniper by making obscene gestures, and the laughter of several people can be heard from behind the ridge.

Bang!

Another nervous bullet splits the air but is swallowed by the void.

“...”

From a distance, it might look like a comedy, but to the person involved, it is extreme stress.

Clearly, the ones mocking me from a point where they can reach me with a stretch of their hand are trying to kill me and take everything.

In the natural world, it's like a predator that, instead of giving up on a porcupine, observes it from all angles to figure out how to kill and eat it.

It will gnaw at the nerves and torment the other until it falls.

“Kiyahat!”

One of them even jumped out onto the ridge, spread his body in a large X, and made a strange sound.

Bang!

A nervous gunshot rings out, but before it can, the naked looter darts back to cover.

Bang!

Another bullet hits the man's body.

“Kiyahou!”

Even as he is shot and bleeding, the man screams and runs back to cover, and the laughter from behind is even louder.

Only humans can do this.

Only humans can kill other humans with a clear purpose.

Monsters lack such purpose.

This is why, despite their lethal strength, I place monsters below humans.

I circled around and approached the sniper's territory.

Three frozen bodies were visible at my feet.

Judging by the armbands on their arms, they were part of a pioneer group and died around autumn when they were at their peak.

“...”

There was no time to clear the bodies.

The sniper's constant whining about drugs came to mind.

Perhaps she is at her limit.

I waved my hand, having made up my mind.

Soon, a flash of light from a mirror on the building top signaled back.

It was Morse code, telling me to wait.

I waited with a stern face for the contact to arrive.

Soon, the sniper's daughter appeared in front of me.

Children really grow fast; she was taller than the last time I saw her.

But the U.S. Army helmet on her head still looked too big, and the gun slung around her was not a good fit for her body.

“Skeleton.”

The sniper's daughter looked at me with a worried face.

Just by looking at her face, I could tell she was under significant stress.

Her nutritional state was not at a dangerous level, but it was not abundant either.

“Let's go.”

I didn't offer any words of comfort.

What they need is a solution to the problem.

I came here to solve the problem.

But under no circumstances will I give her drugs.

Drugs are not a shortened form of the magic pill.