Prime Suspect
Camp Humphreys, Pyeongtaek.
The Special Operations Confinement Zone (SOC).
It was a place no one could set foot in unless they had been designated one of America's most critical assets or a special VIP — and right now, a thoroughly unexpected figure sat inside it.
Kim Dohyun, the man officially known as a perfectly ordinary B-Rank awakener.
"...Mr. Kim, why exactly were you in North Korea?"
"I've answered that several times already — it was for training. For various reasons, an independent awakener like myself can only hunt monsters in unexploited territory. I was hunting monsters near Paju, took a wrong turn somewhere, and apparently wandered all the way across the border into the North."
"Let me remind you once more... false statements can have a serious impact on the approval of your green card and citizenship, Mr. Kim."
"You keep pressing the point. Do you perhaps want me to have lied? Surely the American side doesn't genuinely believe I'm the 'Genocider' — the perpetrator of that horrific nuclear terror attack in North Korea?"
The nuclear explosion during the military parade.
Whether it had been a simple accident or someone had deliberately set it off, no one knew for certain.
Realistically, an accident was the more plausible explanation. Who in their right mind would deploy a nuclear warhead at a parade grounds ceremony without expecting something to go wrong?
Of course, that itself was an absurd scenario too — but it was still more believable than the alternative: someone breaching North Korean security to reach a detonation device that only the dictator himself could activate, and triggering it.
The real problem is that someone knew this accident was going to happen.
Which meant it could not, under any circumstances, have been a simple misfire.
Worse still, Dohyun had been standing at exactly the coordinates that informant had given him.
Could that really be coincidence?
And yet, there was no evidence whatsoever that Dohyun was behind the terror attack in North Korea.
"Jim, did the voice comparison with the transmission picked up by Forward Command come back?"
"Confirmed, sir. No matches found."
"...Figured as much. But voice modulation is a party trick — any Shadow Knight can pull it off."
"Do you actually believe Kim is the one behind the nuclear terror, Lieutenant Colonel?"
"...No. No, I don't. Or rather — I don't know what to believe."
There was no evidence, and realistically, the accusation made no sense at all.
But it was all far, far too convenient.
And there was one more thing that gnawed at him.
"...Mr. Kim, you grew your abilities to S-Rank in a single month. Do you have some secret?"
"Wasn't I headed for a graveyard of stars? I worked myself half to death so I wouldn't end up a burnt-out moth."
America's official S-Rank count stood at five hundred.
A number that made the ears doubt themselves.
It was a figure so ridiculous that if you'd written it into a novel, the readers would have torn you apart.
It only reached such absurd heights because every awakener and their cousin was apparently S-Rank over there.
S-Rank awakeners were so rare they were called Stars — the rarest of the rare among the awakened.
Moreover, the awakener population scaled with human population, and S-Ranks averaged just over one per ten million people.
Do the math, and that was roughly ten to fifteen per hundred million citizens? Worldwide, there weren't even a thousand of them.
With a population of three hundred fifty million, America should have had fewer than fifty S-Ranks at the absolute most.
The reason the count had ballooned to its current size was simple: the United States had devoured the world's S-Ranks whole.
It's no exaggeration to say every S-Rank from the Third World ends up in America. Even half the ones from proper developed countries choose the States.
As mentioned before, it was like baseball — no matter how many players the world produced, the best of them all gravitated to America's Major League.
That was how certain the treatment was.
They were showered with wealth and glory they could never have dreamed of back home.
And America could afford such treatment precisely because, in monopolizing the world's S-Ranks, it also swept up the planet's mana stone resources along with them.
It was a virtuous cycle: overwhelming awakener power secured the world's mana stones, and those resources in turn secured even more awakener power.
Another perk is that the more S-Ranks you have, the lighter the burden on each individual.
An S-Rank who stayed in their home country, treatment aside, had to shoulder crushing obligations and responsibilities — but in America, no such burdens existed.
S-Rank: paradise of the stars.
But it wasn't all sunshine.
With so many S-Ranks packed into one country, the competition between them was savage.
The paradise of stars was, at the same time, their graveyard.
"What I've been striving for is to become a proud American citizen and serve the United States of America. And yet I'm being treated like a villain. I have to say, I'm rather disappointed. Had I known, I would have accepted the offers from China or the EU instead."
"N-no, please, calm down, Mr. Kim. That was never our intention."
Lieutenant Colonel Bowen's face drained of color the moment Dohyun mentioned China and the EU.
America's S-Rank poaching wasn't only about strengthening its own forces — an equally large motive was weakening the awakener power of its rivals.
"If I gave offense, I apologize. These are unprecedented circumstances, and I've overstepped. I ask for your understanding."
"I'll understand. But if I continue to be treated like a criminal, I will withdraw my immigration plans."
"...Understood. Rest now. I'll coordinate with Immigration and do my utmost to bring you good news."
Once he was alone, Dohyun allowed himself a quiet smirk.
Of course they suspect I did it.
The truth was, Dohyun hadn't needed to contact the US military at all.
With the regime in Pyongyang collapsing overnight, North Korea was in no position to come after him.
He had reported to the Americans anyway, deliberately — to make them suspicious of him.
Because a proper plan needs the right kind of bait.
As he'd said many times before: Dohyun's goal was not to become America's number one hunter.
That had been his aim, he'd never have staged such an explosive spectacle in the first place.
Dohyun's goal was to become America's absolute ruler.
The scale was different, granted, but it was work he'd done many times before in Korea.
Factions. Reputation. Money. Power.
To seize all of it as fast as possible, he needed a lightning rod.
That said, being conclusively identified as the actual perpetrator would be a problem.
No matter how indiscriminately America accepted villains of every stripe, it was questionable whether they'd tolerate one confirmed to have committed nuclear terrorism.
A few days later.
Lieutenant Colonel Bowen returned with the answer Dohyun wanted.
"Immigration has granted final approval for your entry, Mr. Kim. However, there is a condition. For a set period, Immigration staff will be assigned to assist with your settlement."
"Surveillance, you mean?"
"...I would be grateful if you thought of it as support."
Dohyun cheered inwardly.
It was a condition anyone else would have balked at.
But everything was unfolding exactly as Dohyun intended.
Now the US government gets a real-time report on everything I do — no tedious relay necessary.
To be clear, this was in no way a benefit. Under normal circumstances, it was the kind of arrangement that made people sick with dread.
If you were "normal," that is.
Looking at the timeline of events in America leading up to Phase 1, I don't have a single moment to spare.
America hadn't simply dropped dead the instant Phase 1 began.
The federal government's decision to expel California.
The emergence of a twenty-first-century KKK.
The Philadelphia Massacre.
A civil war ignited by escalating internal strife.
A shocking, humiliating defeat in the war with the Mexican cartels that followed.
Foreign-collaborator traitors exploiting the chaos to attempt a Yellowstone eruption.
And on, and on.
Heinrich's Law held that a single major catastrophe was always preceded by countless near-misses and warning signs — and America's collapse was exactly that: a cascade of disasters, each one a fuse leading to the final detonation.
I watched it all from across the Pacific last time. I never dared dream of intervening.
If he wanted to claim the healthiest possible version of America, he had to exploit every tool available.
And that included the United States government itself.
I need to make the US government dance exactly to my tune.
Having a minder stationed right beside him would make that far easier.
"Then how am I to get to America? Should I take a commercial flight?"
"There's a flight from Osan Air Base to Hickam Field, Hawaii, in two days. We'll see you aboard it."
Under normal circumstances, the standard ports of entry for awakeners were the major cities — LA, Seattle, New York, Dallas, Chicago.
At the Awakener Immigration Office, they would retake a rank assessment and, depending on the results, be issued a green card, gold card, platinum card, and so on.
There was one exception, however: awakeners whom Immigration deemed worthy of special scrutiny were routed through Hawaii.
In case they need to block you from ever setting foot on the mainland. Perfect. Exactly as planned.
Honestly, the entry route didn't matter to him. An awakener's assessment was much the same wherever it was administered.
But Dohyun had deliberately chosen Hawaii for a reason.
The Pearl Harbor catastrophe is coming soon.
A catastrophe was already scheduled there — one that would dwarf the attack on Pearl Harbor in the Second World War.
Disasters of every kind had become commonplace since the Cataclysm, but ones on that scale were rare.
Especially in America, the self-proclaimed strongest nation of awakeners.
It would be the first violation of US soil since 9/11 — and heaven only knew how badly that would wound American pride.
A fitting stage for my American debut, don't you think?
"Then am I to remain in confinement here until then?"
"...Not at all. You're free to come and go as you please."
"In that case, I'll step out for a bit. I still have some loose ends to tie up."
Arriving at Pyeongtaek Station, Dohyun confirmed that no one was shadowing him.
They're not going to poke the hornet's nest unnecessarily, I suppose.
On paper, Dohyun was an S-Rank Shadow Knight. Short of outright surveillance, tailing him in stealth was impossible.
For now, he'd dealt with most of the heavyweight villains who would go on to rot the Republic of Korea from the inside.
New ones would spring up like cockroaches, inevitably — but the situation would still be a little better than before.
Still, one last task remained.
THWACK!!
"Wh-what are you doing—?!"
THWACK!
"Spare me!! I was wrong about everything, I swear!! I'll never touch loan-sharking again! My elderly mother is all alone at home— ughh!!"
A man built like a grizzly bear wept great heaving sobs as he groveled before Dohyun.
By his own confession, he was a loan shark — well, the street-level collector who did the dirty work beneath one. A two-bit thug, in other words.
To think a piece of trash like this becomes Korea's number one in the future.
Kang Chul-min, the future Martial God of Korea.
Excluding Dohyun himself, this man would become the strongest in the Republic of Korea. The only problem: if left to his own devices, he'd defect to China and end up a puppet of the Outer Gods.
In previous cycles, Dohyun had kept him at his side. This time, that wasn't an option.
"I'm going to teach you a skill."
"T-to me? No, no, you can't just learn a skill by being taught—"
"Copy me."
Kang Chul-min copied Dohyun's movements — and his eyes flew wide open.
Clumsy, yes, but he had reproduced, on his first try, the knight-class skill Dohyun had just demonstrated.
Cheonmu Jiche — the All-Martial Body.
The legendary trait Kang Chul-min had been born with.
Only D-Rank for now — but one day, stronger than anyone.
"I'll teach you a few more. Learn them well."
"Th-thank you!!"
Kang Chul-min threw himself into the training with giddy abandon, but after a while, he hesitantly spoke up.
"Wh-why are you doing all this for me? What... what price should I be paying you?"
"Devote yourself to mastering every combat skill I teach you. That's all the payment I need."
"I-I'll give it my absolute best!"
"Good. Because if you don't give it your best, you'll die. So work hard."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"If you master the skills I've given you but fail to learn the ones that follow, your qi channels will twist themselves apart and kill you. I'll return in two years to check. Master them thoroughly by then."
"I'm sorry — what? Did I hear that right?"
WHOOSH!
Dohyun paid visits to several more individuals.
People with enormous latent potential who, left alone, would instead become monstrous liabilities down the road.
To each of them, he gave tailored instruction, setting them on the proper path.
Looks like I still have some time to spare.
After a moment's deliberation, Dohyun made his way to the columbarium where his parents' remains rested.
As it happened, it wasn't far from Osan Air Base.
"......"
The reason Dohyun had never considered going to America, cycle after cycle, was his parents.
Their hollow, senseless deaths had been shaped, in no small part, by the failure of his immigration to the United States.
Perhaps that was why — for the first time — he found himself wanting to see their faces before he left.
"I don't think I'll be able to visit this time around. But if I somehow manage a miracle and stop that godawful apocalypse for good... I'll come back and see you then."
Dohyun left the columbarium, headed for Osan Air Base, and boarded the plane without delay.
Several hours later.
He arrived in Hawaii.