Chapter 178
Chapter 178
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 178
Chapter Title: 85. King (3)
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My mentor, Jang Gi-young.
He was a complicated man.
I won't deny that I was his most favored disciple.
Even so, I couldn't see him in a purely positive light.
I had no choice but to feel that way.
Jang Gi-young was the kind of person you just couldn't like.
He'd brag that he knew more about monsters than anyone else in the world, but as we went through more real battles, it became painfully clear how many lies he'd told.
His entire career was half fabrications and half delusions.
Having built his position on lies, Jang Gi-young demanded that we turn his delusions into reality.
If you implemented his fantasies well, you were a good disciple; if not, a bad one. He drew stark, visible distinctions between us.
Still, that didn't make me see him as purely evil—at the very least, his hatred for monsters was genuine.
And it was true that he tried to take good care of his favored disciples.
Jang Gi-young had a daughter, and by coincidence, her birthday was the same as Kim Daram's.
Yet he ignored his own daughter's birthday to celebrate Kim Daram's.
He'd gather us orphans in similar situations and cut a modest cake to fill the empty space left by our parents.
"Like killing monsters!"
I still can't forget the sight of him standing before the young students in front of that simple cake, slicing it in half with a bread knife and shouting those words.
When he sent me that notebook along with the white sheet of paper, I didn't take his words at face value.
The white paper itself was astonishing, but I concluded with some disappointment that it was just one of his many bogus hypotheses he'd rambled about.
Yet here before me was a being that chillingly matched Jang Gi-young's hypothesis.
He was the boss of a gang of thugs.
For some reason, he'd locked his predecessor inside a cylindrical container.
"Hello?"
The King had sent a woman.
She wore a rabbit mask.
She'd brought a cart loaded with alcohol and food.
I glanced at the food on the cart and spoke to the rabbit mask.
"Sorry, but I'm not really in the mood for a woman. Could you just leave the food and go?"
"Why?"
I didn't answer.
Instead, I just stared at the rabbit mask with a blank expression.
The rabbit mask took off her headgear.
Sure enough, she was quite a beauty.
Even so, my gaze didn't waver in the slightest.
Soon, the rabbit mask pouted her lips, muttered what I assumed was a curse under her breath, and turned away.
"I still have to stay here tonight, though. Otherwise, the King will get mad."
She turned back to look at me.
"If you want to see me die, go ahead and chase me out."
"...Sleep on the floor, then. I'm sensitive, so don't make any noise. Snore if you want?"
"Whatever!"
The rabbit mask squatted down on the floor with a defeated look.
She looked pathetically dejected, but I didn't need to concern myself with that.
This was a danger zone.
In a danger zone, you always had to stay cautious.
Of course, the most dangerous thing there was always people.
Jang Gi-young had taught me that.
That lesson held true.
No, it wasn't just that lesson.
Thinking it over carefully, quite a few of Jang Gi-young's teachings were spot on.
Things like interpersonal tactics or strategies for dealing with civilians.
Everything outside of monsters felt mostly accurate.
In other words, Jang Gi-young taught everything well except for monsters.
Especially his life advice had a uniquely sharp flavor even when I mulled it over now.
"Beware of women. No matter how much you romanticize love, all that's left in the end is fleeting memories and kids. In the end, we're beings who live in the reality of each moment. What kind of reality you want is something your sense of duty and hatred, etched in your heart, already knows well."
An uncomfortable night of cohabitation passed.
The rabbit mask slipped out the door silently around 4 a.m.
Thinking I was asleep, she glared at me coldly as she left and muttered,
"Fucking unlucky bastard."
Come morning, another masked figure brought breakfast.
There was steam rising from it.
Rice.
How long had it been since I'd had rice?
I scooped up a bite and tasted it.
This wasn't the old rice I used to eat.
It was fresh rice, probably harvested last year.
There were a few side dishes too, but I shoveled the rice into my stomach absentmindedly, ignoring them.
There was a glass of alcohol as well, but I didn't touch it.
"Have a hot night?"
The King was waiting for me.
Surprisingly, he was bare-faced.
Not a zombie, but human.
Sharp, yet refined and calm features.
He looked about my age.
Flanked by a horde of menacing thugs on either side, he pulled out a gas mask right in front of me and put it on.
I watched quietly, wondering what kind of performance this was, when he lightly patted my shoulder.
"SKELTON. Let me take you there myself."
"What?"
"We're board buddies, right?"
*
The armored vehicle rolled through the city.
Beyond the bulletproof glass, I saw hollow-faced people with emaciated bodies marching in orderly lines toward somewhere.
"What's that about?"
The only ones in the armored vehicle were me, the King, and the driver.
Two Jeeps and an SUV trailed behind us as escorts, but inside the vehicle, it was just the three of us.
The driver even seemed to be deaf.
The King typed commands directly on a tablet, and the man nodded silently in response.
"It's labor time."
The King had taken off his gas mask again.
I studied his face closely.
Still a human face.
But in that short hour or so, the King's face had aged noticeably.
Along with it, the zombie-like dried-fish stench emanating from his body grew even thicker in the confined space of the armored vehicle.
Aware or not of my suspicions, the King smiled at the corners of his wrinkled mouth.
"People might see our city as a den of thugs, looters, and gangs, but it's not that much of a hellhole. We have our classes, and everyone does their job according to their station. It's a place where people live."
The King pointed toward an elderly man and a woman.
"Those are the serfs."
"Serfs? Like slaves?"
"That's the gist of it."
"They all look pretty old."
"The young ones don't adapt well to self-objectification, so they end up in other jobs. It's a transitional phenomenon. Things will change once the city grows and the system solidifies."
The King chuckled softly.
Beyond the window, a group of looters on motorcycles and open-top trucks passed by.
Knowing the King was in this vehicle, they bowed their heads toward us with uncharacteristically polite postures for thugs.
"Those are the warriors. Fighters, plain and simple. They roam the monster-infested corners of the Korean Peninsula scavenging resources and food. Sometimes they raid other groups too."
"It's like a medieval class society."
The King gave a wry smile.
"We didn't start out aiming for this."
The vehicle bumped slightly.
We'd passed the speed bumps at the city entrance.
Soon, the armored vehicle exited the city, surrounded by collapsed buildings like walls.
"I built this city to what it is, but my predecessor laid the foundation."
The King gazed into the distance with a strange smile.
"My predecessor was an idealist. At first, he tried to build a democratic, egalitarian community. No matter how harsh the world got, we were members of a democratic society, and if conditions allowed, we could rebuild a second Republic of Korea from the ruins—that's what he believed."
All I knew about the King's predecessor was that he was an Awakener, now trapped in that cylindrical tube like a coffin in the King's office.
No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like abuse, but oddly, the King's eyes held not contempt or hatred when he spoke of his predecessor, but faint longing and admiration.
"But he didn't realize how many shitty bastards there are in this world. It was only after those shitty bastards beat him to a pulp that he woke up. He realized that in this dog-eat-dog world, only dog-eat-dog rules work. In the end, my predecessor built the city from the ruins not with votes and debates, but with clubs and guns."
The King tapped the driver's seat twice, and the driver turned back, stopping the vehicle.
The King gave instructions with lip movements and hand signals, and the driver nodded, maneuvering the vehicle into a 90-degree turn.
The King looked out the window.
The small bulletproof glass framed the entire city of Sejong like a painting.
"I inherited that city. And it will grow even bigger."
The King's face as he gazed at the city held an attribute I hadn't expected.
Pride.
"In about 10 years—no, 5—you'll see. You'll know which city is the best on the peninsula."
Watching the King stare at the city with nostalgic eyes, I realized I needed to revise my opinion.
This guy wasn't just some ordinary gang boss or thug leader.
In a way, he might be the most pragmatic pioneer of them all.
"But to get there."
The armored vehicle stopped.
Before us loomed another ruin, ghostly pale in somber gray.
We disembarked from the armored vehicle, eyeing the bizarre tree branches twisting inward at right angles endlessly.
Soldiers with guns piled out of the trailing vehicles.
The King looked up at the ashen domain, hands in his pockets.
Boom!
A shockwave erupted from his body.
Level 5 or higher Awakener.
A main-force Awakener.
The King turned to me, the eerie resonance from the shockwave still lingering.
"A city needs a king."
Beyond the King, I felt the gazes of the armed soldiers who'd come with us.
The emotions in their eyes toward the King were fear and awe.
*
Clack.
The armored vehicle's armory opened.
It was piled high with all sorts of weapons.
"Pick what you want."
I felt an intrigued gaze from behind the gas mask.
Out of the many options, I chose the hunter weapon I'd favored during my active days.
Mk 7. Harpoonizer.
A mixed-separation rocket launcher developed in North America.
Its principle was no different from an RPG, but it used a simple fuel that only exploded when mixed, tailored for monsters with detonation resistance.
"Ho."
The King approached me.
"I hear that's a tricky weapon to handle. No electronic guidance, and it's single-shot. Miss once, and you're done, right?"
The King's points matched exactly the traditional criticisms of my weapon.
It was tricky to handle, true.
No recourse if you missed, also true.
But I'd never once missed with my harpoon—the Harpoonizer.
I grabbed the Harpoonizer and eyed the gray domain.
It still flowed with deathly silence, steeped in a gloom that sickened the mind.
Before entering, I asked for some intel.
The monster types inside, erosion timeline, and terrain info.
"Something spider-like crawling around. It's turned the inside into a maze."
"Spider type, then."
"Eroded since the early war days, so over three years."
"Turn on your phone airdrop. I'll send files direct."
The King answered my requests appropriately.
This was definitely no easy task.
Objectively more dangerous than the King's city.
A spider-type garden cultivated over three years wasn't in any data from my active days.
I had to brace for enemies on all sides.
Small infiltration-types endlessly fortify their nests into impregnable fortresses the longer they hold them.
Even one year made them impossible to assault—not to mention three.
But that wasn't the only problem.
"Thing is, there might be more than one monster type."
"What?"
"Folks said they saw something besides the big spiders."
"You sure?"
The goal of small infiltration-types is to spread rifts quickly by claiming spots everywhere and eroding the surroundings into erosion zones.
Human extinction or national collapse means nothing to them.
They only guard the domains they've turned gray, uninterested in anything else.
Another monster in a small infiltration-type's domain?
I'd never heard of that.
It went beyond everything I knew.
"Last year, when I was buddying up with the Legion faction, they sent some hunters. Even crazier ones than their drug addicts."
"Manryu Guijongyo?"
"As expected from a former hunter—quick on the uptake."
"Why'd they come?"
"I requested it. Having that thing next to my city isn't great for the aesthetics, right?"
Not just aesthetics—it tied directly to the city's fate.
For a King attached to his city, allying with the Legion faction wasn't a huge stretch.
"I'd heard they revived an old hunter group, so I asked for help. They immediately helicoptered in their top hunters and fanatic bastards."
"What kind of hunters? Any women?"
"Nah, no women. Why? Got a girlfriend in there?"
"No, nothing like that. Just wondered if I knew any."
"They called them top-tier hunters and fanatics. But they couldn't last a day and bailed. Left the fanatics behind—no sign of them. The hunters who escaped said there was one more before they boarded the chopper."
"What type?"
"Dunno the type, but they said medium-size."
"Medium-size?"
I rejected it outright.
"That doesn't make sense."
Monsters' greatest enemy isn't humans—it's Earth itself.
Because all monsters vanish for some reason the moment they arrive on Earth.
Only infiltration-types can resist Earth's environment long-term, but even they perish if they don't quickly create erosion zones.
Outside small-types, no infiltration-types have ever been found in other categories.
Medium-size infiltration-types don't exist.
Thus, no medium-size in that city.
But if a medium-size infiltration-type did exist, that changed everything.
A nightmare just imagining it.
Medium-sizes are all combat-types without exception.
Beings that devote all power to crushing and destroying human armies.
Living main battle tanks.
If those roamed like small-types, humanity would've gone extinct before the war even started.
"The Legion guys said so—what can ya do."
The King donned his gas mask.
Unarmed, he strode toward the gray domain with light steps.
"Where you going?"
That wasn't a place for the King.
That battlefield was mine.
Today, I was supposed to meet Jeon Si-hoon and tell him his father was dead.
But I'd judged too carelessly.
"...Woo Min-hee sent someone this way, she said. An old-school hunter with serious skills."
The King turned to me.
"You got business with Jeon Si-hoon, right?"
"..."
"You can tell the truth. No matter what you say, Jeon Si-hoon won't go back to Woo Min-hee anyway."
For a split second, I planned to kill the King and his men.
Awakener or not, the King in the reflex field could be axed, and the rest—tough, but I'd have to improvise with surprise and terrain.
Problem was the armored vehicle.
Had to trust the Harpoonizer.
As I memorized the men's positions and prepared to act,
The King stepped toward the gray domain again.
Unexpected words rumbled out toward the gas mask's filter.
"Let's go together, SKELTON."
I silently followed behind him.
He walked casually into the gray domain.
Without a single subordinate.
"I have something to say too."
The King, already far ahead, turned back to me.
"Wanna bet? Whether that flavorless punk Jeon Si-hoon listens to anyone. Ah, don't spill this on the net. You self-proclaimed big name know what I mean, right? Former armband boss?"
"..."
Looks like I'd have to put judging this man called the King on hold for a while.
I released my grip on the axe handle and followed behind him.