Chapter 76

43. Worry (3)

I saw Baek Seung-hyun’s wife.

“Oh, hello?”

My first impression was that she looked young.

Not just her face, but her voice and actions clearly showed the immaturity typical of someone inexperienced.

How did this woman, who looked barely in her twenties, meet Baek Seung-hyun, who was over thirty, and end up having a child?

If this had happened before the war, it would have required a series of coincidences and a dramatic story, but at this point, two and a half years after the war began, such a detailed story wasn't necessary.

Just by looking at the burn marks on her arm, the scar on her face, and the missing tooth that showed when she smiled, a 100% convincing cause-and-effect relationship was immediately formed.

“She was caught by some gangsters, and I saved her. Well, that’s how we ended up like this.”

At first, Baek Seung-hyun spoke to me informally, as if it were natural, but at some point, he started using formal language.

It was probably after I removed the capsule on my own.

I didn’t have much to do with him, so I just let it be, but now things are different.

If I decide to live here, Baek Seung-hyun will be my neighbor.

“Speak more casually. Senior.”

“Well, if you say so. You can speak more casually too.”

“No, I prefer formal language.”

Baek Seung-hyun’s house, now that he’s a father, is a shack.

It’s really made of planks.

If I had to guess the construction process, they built a foundation with bricks, laid plywood on top, and then fitted the planks together haphazardly, nailing them down and covering the roof with a slate.

I’ve seen barns and tool sheds built this way in the countryside, and I even helped build one under the old man Kim.

Of course, there are no water or sewage facilities.

You have to take care of your business in a communal toilet at the back and get water from a tap next to it.

“...”

Is this a house or a pigsty?

“How many people do you think have a single-family home in this world these days?”

Baek Seung-hyun looked at me in disbelief and laughed.

“Besides, this Hunter House has electricity. Can you believe it? You can read books and write at night? You can charge your devices inside. You don’t have to wait in line at the public charging station to charge your phone.”

This guy.

It seems he really likes this place.

A little later, Baek Seung-hyun led me to the place where I would be living.

My new potential home is another shack, facing his at an angle.

“...”

Is this a house?

That was my first thought when I saw it.

It feels like a homeless person’s cardboard box, just bigger.

What’s inside?

Baek Seung-hyun tried to decorate it with various wallpapers despite his poverty.

Still, I consoled myself that it might be cozy inside and opened the door.

Squeak!

A few mice greeted me.

In the corners, disgusting city bugs were rampant.

“...”

No words came out.

The only thought in my mind was one.

Do I have to live here?

“We need to disinfect it.”

Baek Seung-hyun looked at the bugs without any concern and calmly walked into the house, looking around.

“Since this house doesn’t have any electrical work done, it will be livable after some disinfection. We should also fix the leaks while we’re at it.”

I wanted to tell Baek Seung-hyun what Kim Daram had told me.

How can anyone live in such a place?

“How long have you been here?”

I asked Baek Seung-hyun as I hurried out of the house.

Baek Seung-hyun took out a cigarette and offered it to me.

I waved it off.

“Don’t smoke?”

“I’m fine.”

I decided not to smoke his cigarette.

It smelled like a corpse.

“About half a year ago?”

Baek Seung-hyun lit his cigarette and looked up at the sky.

“Isn’t this a recent construction?”

“No, it’s been here since the time of Kim Daram.”

“Kim Daram?”

Baek Seung-hyun nodded and looked at me.

“Do you know what Kim Daram did before she disappeared?”

“She was our freelance hunter manager. Didn’t she tell you that?”

“No, she didn’t.”

After I retired, I met her a few times personally, but we never talked about work.

I thought she was a high-ranking official in the National Council, but I never heard her specific title.

“To stay in a high position, an ordinary person has to...”

Baek Seung-hyun exhaled smoke and sighed.

“They don’t have the ability to do it, so they have to consume something, usually their past connections, to fuel their rise. They have to do this to maintain their position.”

Baek Seung-hyun spat on the ground.

“Isn’t it the same with companies? Retired executives from large corporations survive on the knowledge they gained from their old companies, or they create small parasitic companies to leech off their former employers under the guise of maintenance.”

As I listened to him, I felt a bit ashamed.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know what exact role Kim Daram played in the National Council, the stage where Awakened people play.

While Lee Sang-hoon, with his good family background, political acumen, and strong network, had built a solid foundation that even the abilities of Awakened people couldn’t shake, Kim Daram was an orphan and a former team member with no significant achievements to her name.

She was known for being smart and meticulous, but are there really that few capable people in this world?

Maybe in a battlefield, but I don’t think a high level of ability is required for decision-making positions.

Now, my junior’s secret is about to spill out through the mouth of my senior.

“Did you know that the freelance hunter system was created by that woman?”

“Kim Daram created the freelance hunter system?”

I had never heard of this before.

But for some reason, it didn’t surprise me.

“She didn’t want to employ or take responsibility for retired people like me, so she created it as a cheap way to use us. The term ‘freelance’ sounds good, doesn’t it?”

Baek Seung-hyun snorted and continued.

“She turned her seniors, juniors, and peers into real freelance day laborers. She was sucking the blood out of her past connections.”

Baek Seung-hyun sighed and showed me a radio in front of me.

A K-walkie-talkie, the same military radio I have.

“...The day she defected to the military faction, she left the radio behind. She must have been afraid of being tracked. They could use the radio frequency to trace her and launch artillery or airstrikes.”

“I wish you had told me this back then.”

I meant it.

If I had known her true nature earlier, I would have mourned her less.

In other words, I would have felt that the time and emotions I spent on her were wasted.

“Back then?”

“At the front of the National Assembly.”

Baek Seung-hyun looked at me and said seriously.

“Back then, even if I told you, you wouldn’t have believed me.”

I had nothing to say.

He was right.

Even if he had told me the truth back then, I wouldn’t have believed him.

But our conversation had indeed created a somber atmosphere.

Silence enveloped us.

The silence was broken by Baek Seung-hyun’s baby.

“Aaaaaaah!”

Unlike his soft-spoken father, the baby had a very loud voice.

Soon, Baek Seung-hyun’s wife came out of the shack with the crying baby.

“Uncle~”

“Just a moment.”

Baek Seung-hyun asked for my understanding and went back into the shack.

His wife handed the crying baby to Baek Seung-hyun.

Baek Seung-hyun took the baby, wrapped in a blanket, as if it were a precious jewel, and began to soothe it with practiced ease.

“Oh, you’re such a good baby. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Coo, coo, hoo-hoo!”

His face contorted rhythmically as he gently shook the baby, showed patience, and whispered soft words into its ear. He looked like a very ordinary father.

While he was soothing the baby, his young wife approached me.

“You’re a year junior, right?”

She examined my face and asked.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You look really young. No, it’s not that you look young, but you seem well-fed and well-rested.”

“I actually eat and sleep well.”

I handed her the roe sausage I had brought.

“This is a small gift. I hope you’ll accept it.”

“Wow, sausage? Did you make it yourself?”

“No, I received it from a friend.”

“Oh, I see. My husband knows a lot of people, but he has no substance...”

She sighed and stared at the ground for a while before shifting her gaze to the sea visible between the narrow corridors.

“Still, my husband is strong.”

“He is a strong person.”

I agreed.

Baek Seung-hyun is a strong person.

In many ways.

*

In front of the communal toilet and water facilities, the sea and the harbor spread out.

While watching a few seagulls flying in the sky, Baek Seung-hyun spoke.

“That woman took care of her entire family and brought them out.”

“Really?”

“What else? She recruited the freelance hunters who listened to her and escaped with them.”

The story of my junior, Kim Daram, as told by Baek Seung-hyun, was realistic.

It was as irrational and selfish as reality, yet it had a convincing power that made me nod.

I recalled the last scene when we parted ways.

“Anyway, I’ll contact you once I’ve settled down.”

She said she would contact me.

But the call never came, and instead, people who wanted to kill me appeared, leading me here.

“Still, she had a good sense. She must have noticed that I disliked her and didn’t include me in her plans.”

Baek Seung-hyun snorted and smiled at me.

“Shall we stop the depressing talk?”

“Well, I think that’s enough. Do you have anything else to say?”

At my question, Baek Seung-hyun laughed mischievously like a boy.

“Do you remember the orientation?”

Orientation.

It’s been a while since I heard that noun.

I still remember it.

The scene of nearly a thousand freshmen sweating profusely while preparing for a mass game in the spring chill.

The grade competition mass game.

That was our school’s orientation.

When new students arrived, they prepared a mass game under the guidance of a senior from their grade, and a month later, all the students gathered in the stadium for a grade competition mass game.

There, the seniors demonstrated a seamless movement as if a thousand people were one, and they shouted thunderous commands to break our spirits.

We freshmen, not to be outdone, banded together with determination and performed as if we were one.

At the time, I thought it was a meaningless event, but it had its significance.

The fact that this event is still vivid in my memory from those long school days shows that.

I remember a senior from my third year.

He had a shaved head, and I don’t remember his name, but he commanded thousands of people without any hesitation, shouting loudly and directing them.

It was cool, even to my young heart, and I still think it was cool.

They say he died.

Not only him.

The young students who moved as one, holding cards in the stadium stands, died before they could grow old.

Very few survived, and those who did are living uncertain lives day by day.

“Jeon Hyun-jeok. He’s from the cursed 17th batch. He was active in South America.”

Baek Seung-hyun showed me the remnants of the school.

“Bang Jae-hyuk. 15th batch. He would have been more successful if his knees weren’t injured. Still, his shooting skills are on par with Kim Daram’s.”

They all graduated from the same school and lived through similar times.

But why?

“This is Ha Tae-hoon. 11th batch. My