Chapter 517
Chapter 517
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: The Greatest Creditor (7)
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The moment he felt the ground beneath his feet light up, the shock raced from his toes all the way up his spine in an instant.
Before his eyes—dried out and evaporating, turning milky white and shriveling—Ian caught sight of Gustav and him, with a bolt of earthly lightning crashing down from above their heads.
A secret weapon unleashed not at Gustav or the spaceship, but straight into the empty air.
Bzzzzzzt!
The reason he could even think that, the reason his form still held together, was because they’d been exposed not to Zeus’s direct attack, but to the side discharge sparking off its massive surge.
The damage was minimal: two people jolted by a tiny fraction of discharged electricity. And the connecting bridge they’d been standing on, severed by a glancing high-voltage current.
Zeus’s attack had missed.
Crash!
Success.
‘By now, that bastard Young Chief of Staff is probably spewing every curse he knows.’
A dried, cracked smile tugged at Ian’s lips as he plummeted alongside the collapsing bridge.
It wasn’t about function or accuracy. Zeus’s strike had veered into empty air because he’d hurled the casing—the guidance device—right in that direction.
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‘Ashfield. This is Alexander Young. The channel we’re on now is a secure one, exposed only to you and me. I contacted you before entering the combat zone to discuss the operation.’
‘I told the Professor that, but the actual plan hasn’t changed. We’ll avoid artillery combat as much as possible, but if circumstances demand it, we’ll prioritize destroying the spaceship.’
‘Deceived by a god? Yeah, I’ve betrayed trust again. Just like in Sector 38. So, do you think it’s right to sacrifice Professor Park again to uphold that precious honor of yours?’
‘You know it better than anyone! War doesn’t follow the hopes of either enemy or ally! What if the Raptor Society’s forces exceed our expectations? What if our troops are pushed into a defensive? Are you going to beg that ‘great hero’ to save us again? Chew away at his life once more?’
‘He’s already at his limit. First his left arm, then his whole body, coming back in a state where medicine could declare him dead, lying vegetative in that lab for months. He only just came back to life.’
‘If he pushes himself further in that condition, it’ll really be irreversible. And he will. With very high probability.’
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Crash!
The platform crumbled before it could reach Gustav, but the bridge had charged at the enemy to the very end, fulfilling its duty admirably. His falling body was still hurtling toward Gustav on momentum alone.
Ian thrust out his charred, shriveled fingers.
That split-second stretched into eternity.
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‘I believe in his value now. In the last few months, suicides in Sector 47 have dropped to unbelievable levels. Crime rates have hit record lows, and productivity has skyrocketed.’
‘Exaggeration? You really think so? Was there anyone in the wasteland who didn’t know we were slowly withering away to death? Dome, Sector 47, the wasteland—all of it! Even me! No one hadn’t felt death creeping under their skin! No one jokes around with [Wanna die?] like they used to! That word stopped being a punchline in our lives!’
‘With every passing year, winter drags on longer, supplies dwindle! The old world’s survival goods, solar panels, organic synthesizers, shield generators—one by one, their lifespans ran out! No way to replace them! Dome wasn’t humanity’s forward base for rebuilding. It was just a well-maintained giant hospice ward! Everyone carried the inescapable death coming someday deep in their minds, ignoring it, waiting for it!’
‘The one who changed that perception... was him. Professor Park. He did it. Whether he had professional training or some extraordinary will doesn’t matter. What matters is he proved [it’s possible to survive even in that situation].’
‘Proving an answer exists to a problem we thought had none. That alone uprooted the deep-seated despair in every wasteland survivor’s heart. He’s now a living, breathing legendary idol and symbol of hope. Not some sentimental tale—proven by hard data.’
‘That’s why I refuse to trade the server room for Professor Park’s life. I’m talking about preserving the miracle already here with us, not some uncertain future hope proven only by enemy words.’
‘That’s why I’m entrusting this guidance signaler to you. Ian Desmond. Metaljaw. Ashfield. You, more than anyone, know how positively his presence affects those around him.’
‘Save him. Let him stay alive selfishly by our little community’s side, not oxidizing for some distant future of all humanity.’
‘Zeus will destroy the spaceship. Forcefully prevent his sacrifice and disrupt the Raptor Society’s event. That’s our operation’s goal.’
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Memories oozed out slowly, like slackened tape unspooling endlessly.
‘Fox-like... bastard.’
That must be why it was him.
Young Chief of Staff knew. As Dome’s leader, he understood Ian Desmond’s notoriety deeper than anyone, remembered his misdeeds more vividly than anyone, knew better than anyone the abilities that made them possible. He’d chosen the one person on this battlefield best suited for the job, and it had nearly succeeded.
If only he hadn’t deliberately thrown the signaler off-target at the end, luring Zeus’s strike into empty air.
“Khuh, huh... Your loyalty... falls short...!”
Zeus had missed. The spaceship stood intact.
The Raptor Society’s forces were shattered.
Professor Park was alive. A cripple, sure, but he’d make it here somehow. He always did. That’s who he was.
The list lingering in Ian’s mind erased line by line, until only the topmost one floated over his fading consciousness.
Gustav. Al-Harb. Raptor.
The crumbling, falling bridge hung obliquely between buildings.
Ian plummeted toward him, clinging desperately to it for survival.
Crunch!
“You persistent...!”
“Too many deeds for either of us to vanish without a trace...!”
“...I’m grateful for that folly! I didn’t expect Dome to go that far! A moment’s misjudgment nearly ruined everything, but your petty revenge fixed it! The spaceship lives, I live—nothing’s changed! The plan is complete! Thanks to you! All because of one man’s revenge!”
“Even fate obeys! Yes! This time, I’ve found the right answer! Because it must happen, the world aids it!”
He too bore scorch marks everywhere from the electrocution, but Gustav was laughing.
“Revenge? As if...”
Ian’s face twisted into a deep smile as he faced it.
“Professor Park, Young Chief of Staff, you—all had your own visions of the future. Well, I had mine too—!”
If Gustav’s laugh was mockery, Ian’s was pure victor’s grin.
Two men perched precariously on the tilted railing.
Sand whipping through the air.
In the apocalypse, a place no one could reach.
Ragged breaths. Bloodshot eyes.
Electrocuted bodies refused to move, high-tech gear dangling uselessly—all fried. All that remained was who drew their iron first.
Not a bad Mexican standoff.
Ian felt he’d reached the moment he’d long awaited.
Ian’s hand moved, and Gustav’s darted frantically to his holster.
Time crawled unbearably slow. Unlike the hair-trigger reality, his mind slipped back into the past.
‘Black and white.’
Black and white. The wife who’d turned his grayscale world into vibrant human life.
He’d chased thrills and roughness ever since her death, terrified of slipping back into that numb past she’d saved him from. His quiet voice turning gravelly, laughing like a bandit, guzzling hard liquor and chain-smoking—it all stemmed from there.
And so, in a world without wife or daughter, to avoid reverting to the old ‘Ian Desmond,’ he’d lived as wasteland spice dealer ‘Metaljaw.’
But now, in this situation.
‘Westerns don’t suit black and white.’
Maybe time to set Metaljaw aside and be Desmond again. With that tiny white derringer—too small to call a real gun—engraved [Molly Desmond].
One reason Ian’s half-charred body beat Gustav to the draw.
His opponent’s gun was buried deep in his coat,
Bang!
But he’d worn his around his neck, waiting for this exact moment.
A tiny hole punctured Gustav’s forehead, matching the small caliber of the gun and bullet.
“If I’d held onto hot revenge all this time, I’d have burned to ash long ago.”
Click!
Clink!
An empty casing tumbled like Gustav’s collapsing form.
Two-shot chamber. One slot held the bullet he’d kept for suicide, the other an empty from a failed attempt.
Inside the spent casing Ian pulled out was a tightly rolled memo.
[Think again!]
Round, bubbly letters like his wife Molly’s. She hated violence so much she’d unload the gift gun and stuff it with this instead.
Ian clutched it, slumping against the railing.
“Not revenge. Call it a father’s duty. Pride... works too....”
Clatter.
The gun rolled from his hand. Heart, breath, eyelids—all sank one by one, quietly fading.
‘Saved Vex. Saved the spaceship. Cleared the obstacle. Professor Park... that guy’ll handle himself.’
At death’s door, instead of the wife and daughter he’d longed for, those two idiots’ faces appeared. Probably because he’d just sent Gustav packing. If he met wife and daughter in death, he could boast, ‘I did what I could!’ But those two—he still owed them.
‘But unlike you... I’ve got no one I want to grow old with anymore.’
So he’d decided. If one of the three had to die, it’d be him.
“Yeah. So... that’s how it is.”
Hooo.
Ian exhaled the deep sigh he’d held back. Blood poured from his throat with it.
-Click
He adjusted his broken sunglasses with his few remaining fingers.
Flick, flick—
“Shit...”
Joy at finding a miraculously intact cigarette in his pocket was short-lived; the lighter was dead. He couldn’t hide his disappointment. He’d once debated those guys for three hours on the vital topic of ‘life’s lamppost.’
Damn.
“If I just hold it... later... you can light it for me...
-Thud.
That was his final thought.
On a slanted iron bridge between charred, crumbling buildings, in a shadowed crevice no one would see.
He vanished like that.
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Huff. Huff, guh-huh, huff!
Thud. Thud. Screech, boom!
Minutes later, someone clawed their way up the spaceship with labored effort. A clear scar on his forehead, he muttered indistinctly to himself, groaning like a beast.
Minutes more, and with all preparations complete and passenger aboard, the spaceship ‘Next Space’ began its countdown.
[6-. 5-. 4-. 3-. 2-. 1-. 0----]
Ruuuuumble—!
Amid countless barrages and deaths, the launched ship rocketed toward the thick dust clouds.
Someone leaped through the rocket’s exhaust just before liftoff.
But it meant nothing to the bloodied man left behind. His breath had already stopped; unlike other failed idiots, he’d perfectly achieved every planned goal before the end. What remained was for the survivors.
....Except.
The pillar of fire from the rocket at launch poured down on the bloodied man atop the collapsed bridge below.
That inferno, powerful enough to hurl two thousand tons of metal into space and incinerate the body beneath without trace,
Whoosh!
Even lit the cigarette clenched in his mouth, smeared with blood and soot.
Perhaps that’s why his final expression was a satisfied smile.
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