Chapter 192
Chapter 192
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: 89. Forbidden Record (2)
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"Looks like the entrance has changed?"
Kim Daram had been showing her displeasure from the start.
From that moment, I had a bad feeling that things were going to unfold in a direction different from what I'd imagined.
"Ah, that toilet over there."
Kim Daram was definitely different from Woo Minhee.
Back in our school days, I'd envied Woo Minhee, but it wasn't really jealousy toward her as a person—it was more envy for the completely different path her life had taken.
Compared to me, who could do nothing but desperately strive from rock bottom after losing everything, Woo Minhee lived freely, doing whatever she wanted, yet still achieved similar results.
Their tastes had always differed, but the gap had widened even more with age.
Kim Daram had married young, had a child, and become a mother, while Woo Minhee remained a free spirit.
They'd spent the same amount of time, but their experiences were worlds apart.
That difference had only grown over time, and now it seemed to have escalated from mere differences into outright opposition.
As I booted up my laptop and logged into Viva! Apocalypse!, Kim Daram suddenly spoke up.
"You got satellite internet too, huh, sunbae?"
Her voice carried not even a hint of interest.
At that moment, I felt something akin to certainty.
Maybe my forbidden record held no meaning for Kim Daram at all. If so, I should start strong from the get-go.
Among all the footage I'd shot so far, this was the one that reeked most of amateurishness but captured the purest essence of those early war days. I boldly hit play toward Kim Daram, who sat with her arms crossed and a blank expression, staring at the monitor. On screen, the masked Park Gyu appeared, lightly swaying to the beat as he unleashed the beatbox skills he'd honed since his China days.
"Drum beat, hand clap~ Chickity-chick, clap-chick~"
For some reason, this video had earned the contempt and disgust of everyone who'd seen it.
Would Kim Daram feel the same?
"Ah, this one."
She gave a soulless acknowledgment while checking her wristwatch.
"Sunbae, this is that thing you used to practice alone in Beijing all the time, right?"
No reaction whatsoever.
But Park Gyu wasn't one to waver.
I showed her the silly posts I'd made over time.
It wasn't hard.
A quick search for the Skeleton nickname, and all my random, frivolous records would unfold before Kim Daram.
...
...
These were records from 2-3 years ago, but reading each one brought back the mood and feelings from when I'd written them, like replaying an old, low-res video that perfectly recreated the past sensations.
Those emotions were a jumble of various feelings, but the biggest chunk was probably nostalgia.
Back then, there were way more users and friends around, and life felt more worth living.
I probably wouldn't have ended up meeting Kim Daram like this.
To be honest, I'm scared of her now.
"It's kinda like what the Unified Headquarters is doing."
No, it's not.
I'd never thought our personalities or tastes matched, but we'd diverged way too far.
"I'll get going soon. I was just stopping by anyway."
Conclusion.
Zero interest.
The only thing she'd shown any curiosity about in my bunker was Kim Pilseong's Parkdo.
Gazing at the chilling blade hanging on the wall, engraved with the word "Invincible," she suddenly asked,
"Did that guy challenge you to a duel or something?"
"...Yeah, and that's how I survived."
"Figured as much. That bastard was overflowing with confidence. He bragged about killing a ton of people in China and kept asking me where you were. Said if you two went at it again, he'd win this time."
She said more in that moment than she had while looking through my internet history.
As she headed out of the bunker, she paused for a second and spoke.
"I'm heading to Seoul. Got handed a dangerous job."
Based on my experience, this was Kim Daram showing her true feelings.
"Might even die."
Whether she lived or died wasn't my problem.
"If I die, someone else will take my spot."
Kim Daram stared intently at Parkdo with her one remaining eye.
"There are quite a few guys like Kim Pilseong out there."
"..."
"It's because I'm here that things are under control, more or less."
Kim Daram was definitely my teammate.
She knew me well and understood how I operated.
She wasn't blindly threatening or making empty promises she couldn't keep. She presented a realistic, possible future to persuade me.
"What, if you die, will a second or third Kim Pilseong come knocking here?"
"Plenty of people are obsessed with the golden fleece. And some fixate on the Professor name. School grads respect it, but academy grads don't."
"Let 'em come if they dare."
"But no one will come at you as squarely and honorably as Kim Pilseong."
"...Tch."
That was the problem.
Kim Daram fiddled with her eyepatch.
"Don't worry. If I don't die, nothing happens."
Kim Daram turned to leave.
I called out to her as she was about to exit the bunker.
"I can help you out once."
Kim Daram smiled faintly.
"It'll take about a day. That okay?"
*
Clunk—
Inside the rattling armored vehicle.
Kim Daram was checking her weapon.
12.7mm anti-monster rifle "Baby Killer,"
A gun she'd favored back in her active days.
One of the few domestically produced hunter gears, it had been stripped of bulky parts and swapped with lightweight plastic wherever possible to reduce weight, but it still tipped the scales at over 10kg.
It was one of the many flops in the hunter world—ambitiously developed but ultimately shelved like the Blader.
Simple structure meant high reliability, but originating from a heavy machine gun, it lacked long-range accuracy. Each shot packed a punch, but lightweighting sacrificed burst fire, and with no convenience features or safety mechanisms, it never caught on.
Yet Kim Daram took a liking to this failed gear, ditching her German rifle for it.
When I'd asked why once, she'd smirked and said,
"Wanted to take down mid-sizers too. With the two of us, we could do it, right?"
Fetching this relic from the armory was fine, but one question lingered in my mind.
"You sure you can handle that gun?"
Kim Daram had lost one eye.
You can't aim a rifle with one eye.
Humans gauge precise distances using the slight difference in position between two eyes.
With one eye, accurate shooting is impossible.
Especially against enemies that demanded the most precise marksmanship of all monsters.
Maybe the eyepatch was just cosplay, but the deep scar etched around her eye socket was real.
With a wound that deep, the chances of her eyeball being intact weren't high.
"I'll shoot by feel. If I miss, I die anyway—what's the difference?"
She answered nonchalantly.
"What about Dongtaki?"
"Eh, her dad's raising her fine. Our Commander Kim Byungchul might be cruel and quirky, but he takes good care of his subordinates. That's why he's outlasted all those other generals."
Commander Kim Byungchul was a rising figure lately.
Back when the Legion faction first surged, he was just a brigade commander. But he'd shoved aside a constellation of war heroes and veteran generals to seize control of the Legion.
Executing the flood defense bastard was his handiwork too.
Kim Daram seemed to be on Commander Kim Byungchul's line.
"Not too worried. But a mom's heart doesn't want to die either."
"...What about your husband?"
"At the hospital."
"Still doing plastic surgery these days?"
"Demand's insane."
"What? In this mess?"
"You wouldn't believe it. Used to be too pricey for most, but now it's basically freebie work for generals' mistresses, side chicks, and whatnot. Comes home dead tired every night."
When talking about her husband, Kim Daram wore a warm smile she'd never shown me.
I glanced at the scar peeking out from under her eyepatch.
Fixing all those other faces, but couldn't cover his wife's scar.
Well, she'd only recently secured her position, so maybe back then, there was nothing he could do.
In the intermittent silence, the vehicle stopped.
Seoul's outskirts.
Under a faded sign reading something about Digital Whatever, the Legion faction's camp came into view.
As we dismounted the armored vehicle, people in wild, hunter-style outfits approached us.
"Team leader."
"Team leader-nim."
"Kim Team Leader!"
Seemed Kim Daram was called "team leader."
"Recon complete."
"Numbers are pretty high, though?"
"No new strains in Sector D, but drones spotted them in B and C."
Every one of them had fierce, untamable, rebellious faces.
They'd probably danced with death through countless crises.
The trust these tough customers placed in Kim Daram was impressive.
Not absolute, but as a leader, she had their deep confidence.
Her claim of carving out a spot in the Legion faction was true.
While she chatted with her subordinates, Defender sidled up and murmured,
"Knew it was Skeleton. Only you'd get Kim Team Leader calling you 'sunbae' like that."
He hadn't said a word in the vehicle or acted like he knew me.
Instead, he'd conveyed his gratitude with expressions.
"What's with the limp? Malingering?"
"Something like that."
"Still dragged yourself here?"
He glared at Kim Daram's back, giving a wry smile and shaking his head.
"Well, no one can say no to riding on Kim Team Leader's coattails. But she's impressive. Built all this in enemy territory. Survived multiple creepy conspiracies too."
"Conspiracies?"
"Guys saw she was a woman and thought it'd be funny—tried gang-raping and killing her with a bunch of dudes."
"Seriously?"
"All died by her hand, but one guy's axe hit her eye."
"An axe..."
"Tons of Professor cosplayers around. Especially academy grads."
Defender eyed a shady group lurking in the corner, watching us darkly.
Academy grads.
Short-term training mills cranking out hunters to meet demand schools couldn't fill alone.
John_nenon had been one of them.
"How good are your academy buddies?"
"Seem better at killing people than monsters."
As we talked, Kim Daram turned toward us.
Defender and I pretended nothing was up, looking away in different directions.
Kim Daram beckoned me over.
I limped toward her.
She glanced at my leg and asked,
"Can you run?"
"If I push it."
"No need. I won't let you have to."
Kim Daram signaled to the group.
Amid the murmurs, a cluster approached us.
"Sam!"
Song Yujin.
Not just her—Lee Hoyeon, the level 4 Awakener we'd roamed Seoul with before, was there too.
"Wait, why are you guys here?"
Song Yujin gave a wry smile and sighed.
"Life's like that, right? Recommended resignation, job hopping—happens all the time, Sam."
Kim Daram, watching, chimed in.
"They were under Woo Minhee. She cut all the 'unnecessaries.'"
"Yeah?"
"Claims she's assembling an elite team to plug rifts, but doubtful. Probably just short on resources? Fewer mouths means bigger shares."
Every time Woo Minhee's name came up, emotion flickered across Kim Daram's face.
She really, truly hated Woo Minhee.
Well, who really likes our Mini(20)?
"Quick briefing."
Kim Daram led me into a tent.
A somewhat faded Seoul city map lay spread on the table inside.
"We're in Gasan-dong now. We'll sweep north along this road."
A red marker circled an area on the map.
"Monsters?"
Kim Daram nodded.
"That's a lot."
At least ten, but she looked unconcerned.
"Don't worry—just monsters."
"You know saying that to anyone else would get you labeled crazy, right?"
"That's why I called you."
"..."
"From here straight to Yeouido National Assembly Building in one go. Rest up tonight—we start at dawn tomorrow."
"Isn't that two days?"
"Labor laws don't count rest into work hours, you know?"
"You've never done part-time, have you?"
"Me? No way."
"Quoting labor laws without ever working a gig? Kinda invalidates it."
"Why so serious all of a sudden?"
"..."
Drop it.
No point talking labor with someone who's never punched a clock.
Still, as "sunbae," she'd prepped a private tent for me.
Inside: drinking water, coffee, snacks, TP, towels, toothbrush—essentials, plus phone charger and battery.
We'd worked together long ago, but her thoughtfulness hadn't changed.
Definitely a comfy type to team up with.
She'd changed a ton swapping combat gear for suits, but on the battlefield, she was peerless.
That's why I'd searched so hard when she went dark.
Problem is, she didn't come when I wanted her to and showed up when I prayed she wouldn't.
I entered the tent, but it was only 8 PM.
Murmurs drifted from outside.
"This for real? Clear from here to Yeouido in one day?"
"Gotta do what we're told. His Excellency the Unified HQ Chief wants Seoul retaken by Memorial Day for a speech at the National Assembly."
"That's why he's Park Chung-hee cosplaying."
"He claims it's Che Guevara."
"Wasn't Che a guerrilla?"
"Either way, one day's impossible. Even if Sector D's looser than others, reported monsters alone are a handful."
"Think we can? Kim Team Leader on site wasn't enough—they scraped up National Crisis Committee rejects too."
"Fuck, we'll build a mass grave tomorrow."
I got the gist.
Her boss wanted a spectacle, so he dumped an impossible task on Kim Daram.
To pull it off, she came for me.
The limp and Skeleton reveal were pointless shows.
She'd planned to drag me along from the start.
Just as I knew her skills, she knew my true capabilities.
The monster markers on the map told the tale.
No one but us could do it.
*
The next day—go time.
"Sunbae, ready?"
Kim Daram came to the tent.
She was fully geared for battle.
Me too. I secured the harness with its two axes on the table one last time.
She stared at me intently with her one eye and spoke.
"Heard the chatter outside?"
I knew what she meant.
Kim Daram had heard it too.
How reckless and impossible this op was.
She'd slept in an RV, but it didn't block the gripes from all sides.
I nodded with a wry smile.
"...Yeah."
"Remember how many we took down in Beijing that day?"
"Thirty-four—no, thirty-five?"
"Less than half now. No hostile civilians or fanatics."
I nodded and flung open the tent flap.
The dim predawn sky, tinged with faint light, revealed the lined-up faces below.
They whispered as they saw me.
"Who's that guy anyway?"
"Noticed yesterday—that limper's getting VIP treatment."
"Who knows."
Kim Daram hadn't spilled my info.
Her way of being considerate.
I hated dangerous gigs—even unto death—but here we were.
No choice.
Irrationally, my heart thrilled a bit.
"Shall we start?"
Why wouldn't it?
The moment had come to kill monsters with my top partner.
A moment I'd thought gone forever.
Plus, today my flames of hatred could feast to their fill.
End of <89. Forbidden Record (2)>