Chapter 242
Chapter 242
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 242
Chapter Title: 102. Gray Dystopia (1)
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The pilot didn't reveal his name, but judging from the night landing, he was clearly a veteran with plenty of experience under his belt.
He seemed wary of anti-aircraft fire, flying dangerously low, when suddenly the plane banked sharply, tilting nearly ninety degrees.
"We'll head out over the sea."
I felt the aircraft slowly climbing, and soon a yellowish sea came into view.
Staring blankly at the ocean from above the clouds, something caught my eye.
"What's that?"
Even from this high altitude, I could clearly make out massive wakes cutting through the water.
They didn't quite look like ships—more like something ambiguous on the sea, enormous things reminiscent of boats moving about.
I dredged up a long-forgotten animal encyclopedia in my mind and recalled their names.
"Whales?"
The pilot gave a wry smile as he replied.
"Mutated whales, most likely."
"Mutated whales..."
Fish were considered too inferior to develop mutation factors, so the prevailing theory was that there were no mutations in the ocean. Whales, however, were a different story.
Whales had fins, sure, but they were mammals like us.
There had been some academic theories worrying about whales mutating, but they'd been dismissed by the scholarly community.
Whales had dwindled to such low numbers that they couldn't possibly threaten humans, and even if they did attack, it would just usher in a repeat of the brutal whaling era that dominated the world's oceans in the 19th century.
Unlike fish, whales had to surface regularly to breathe, making them easy prey.
Of course, you'd need whaling ships and monstrous weapons capable of killing mutated whales.
"Mutated orcas are a real headache. The big ones just keep getting bigger—some are as large as sperm whales now."
"Orcas? I thought orcas didn't harm people."
"That's old news. Now they're killer whales in every sense of the word."
"Sounds like a real pain."
"Yeah. They're smart to begin with, and now they've got the size, plus they hunt in packs. No way to survive against them. Even our regular supply ships to Busan have lost two already. We've got the navy here, but those bastards are cunning—they hear the propellers and figure out if the ship is a threat or not. If it's not, they flee far away and wait for an easy target to ram and smash to pieces."
"...That's horrifying."
The pilot chuckled dryly.
"Back when there were no humans, the seas belonged to the whales. Looks like the original owners are reclaiming their turf."
I stared at the sea, watching those bizarre wakes for a while as I listened to the pilot.
The propeller plane didn't have much mana to speak of, so the flight took far longer than a domestic flight departing from Gimpo back in the day.
We'd been flying over the endless ocean of the South Sea after crossing the West Sea for two and a half hours.
Land vanished from sight, only to reappear ahead of us.
For a moment, I forgot I was buckled in and nearly jumped from my seat.
Jeju Island.
The mythical paradise island that had been on everyone's lips.
Jeju.
How many people had dreamed of fleeing there?
The island, once synonymous with paradise, was shrouded in black.
"?"
No grass in sight.
And it wasn't the season for grass to be gone.
Yet the part of the island visible to me was nothing but black volcanic soil, as if proving Jeju's origins as a child of volcanoes.
A roar echoed.
Jet engines.
Whoooosh—
I turned my head to see a formation of heavy aircraft dumping something over the island.
"What's that? What are they doing?"
When I asked about the planes, the pilot sighed with a bitter smile.
"Spraying Agent Orange."
"Agent Orange...?"
"Yeah. Can't have grass growing in certain areas."
The planes banked westward.
The inland scenery, previously hard to see, now unfolded before my eyes.
I'd half-expected it.
Jeju Island was far removed from the paradise we'd imagined.
Mount Halla came into view.
Jeju's towering roof was painted in shades of gray.
Not the work of monsters.
Concrete walls.
Massive concrete barriers dwarfing even the hives in the North divided the island.
In that ashen labyrinth, not a trace remained of the beautiful Jeju landscapes or island charm I once knew.
"Welcome to paradise."
The plane began its slow descent.
*
None of the people waiting for me on the runway were familiar faces.
Two who looked like scientists, one guard, and three who seemed to be from the Jeju government.
"Is this the controversial data?"
My gaze toward them wasn't friendly.
A young man who appeared to be a government official grinned as he asked me.
"What do you do?"
Feeling irritation at his condescending look, I replied coolly.
"Hunter. Served on the Beijing front."
They all stared at me in unison.
I didn't care what they were thinking.
"Where's the person I connected with via satellite internet?"
No Unicorn18.
Unicorn18 might be someone I didn't know in person, but there was no one here who seemed linked to that oddball.
"That person didn't come out to meet you."
A woman who looked like another government official met my eyes as she answered.
"..."
I didn't reply or react.
My mood soured.
Maybe it was the desolate landscape, or perhaps a premonition that I wouldn't be treated well here.
They led me into a massive bunker next to the runway, descending underground.
"Please stay here until the data analysis is complete. And there's paperwork on the desk—fill it out while you wait."
The documents they left were basically a household registry form.
Name, age, resident registration number I could barely remember anymore, occupation, family details, and so on.
The funny part was the request to write down my pre-war cell phone number.
Jeju's government must have inherited the old Republic of Korea systems pretty faithfully.
Makes sense—they'd been sending transport planes daily to strip the mainland bare and build this place.
If they didn't have that kind of bureaucracy, it'd be weirder.
I filled out the form as requested, digging through my memories, and submitted it.
The results came back in the evening.
"Mr. Park Gyu."
A stranger opened the door and walked in.
A 30-something man who looked like a hassle just from his face glanced at me and the paperwork in his hand, then turned to leave.
"We'll talk on the way."
As we walked down the corridor, he explained the situation.
"The data you brought in has been verified as authentic."
"I see."
"Did you peek at the data by any chance?"
"No. It was encrypted."
"Hop in the car."
A small electric vehicle was parked outside the building.
"What about my luggage?"
"Already loaded in the trunk."
I checked the trunk, then got in the passenger seat.
I looked around the car.
Something felt missing.
I soon realized what it was and asked him.
"Hey, no weapons?"
He gave me a strange look.
"Weapons?"
"Yeah. Guns or something."
The man stared at me oddly for a moment before bursting into laughter.
"No such thing here. This isn't the mainland."
"No mutations? No raiders?"
"Told you, nothing like that."
"Even so, just in case..."
As I kept pressing for firearms, he stared at me blankly before snapping curtly.
"Did you carry a gun around before the war?"
For a brief moment, I felt a pang of shame.
Yeah.
That was normal.
In Korea, unlike America, it was common sense—and the law—that individuals didn't carry guns.
"..."
Apparently, I'd spent too long wallowing in the mud.
Three years and seven months in an environment so pathological that going without a gun triggered extreme anxiety.
Developing a mental issue or two was probably inevitable.
I acknowledged his words, but as the car drove on, I held my breath in inexplicable unease.
No leisure to take in the scenery.
What stuck in my memory was the gloomy landscape of endless gravel and concrete, with hardly any blue in sight.
I focused more on what the man was saying.
"The data verification yielded fascinating results, and it is indeed what we were looking for. But it seems the data itself wasn't quite what we expected."
The researchers must have found it too.
That person's final record.
"Still, we can't just let someone who risked their life for the Republic of Korea, bringing such difficult data, go unrewarded. So we've specially assigned you a house in Zone 2."
"Zone 2?"
"Yes. Seems like you're single, and it's more than spacious enough for one person."
Zone 2, huh.
That meant a house around 57㎡, right?
Not as good as Zone 1, but better than Zone 3, from what I'd heard.
With plenty living in worse-than-Zone-3 refugee shacks, this wasn't total mistreatment.
If the data had matched exactly what they wanted, maybe I'd have gotten Zone 1.
The car pulled up in front of the massive concrete wall I'd seen in Unicorn's photo and from the air.
A huge gate loomed directly ahead, wide enough for a tank.
A sign bore the zone's name.
[Residential 2-23 Complex]
Beyond the gate stretched a checkerboard grid of roads lined endlessly with two-story prefab houses.
"Here's your key and certificate. It's late, so rest up at home tonight. Tomorrow, head to the community center to register. Oh, and obey all broadcasts. Disobeying comes with serious penalties."
143-213.
The name of my new domain.
The rickety stairs creaked with every step, leading to a narrow hallway screened by shaky railings.
Barely wide enough for two adults, it naturally evoked all sorts of pathetic concerns.
I walked the corridor, stepping on perforated metal panels that squeaked like the stairs.
Gazes pierced from the barred windows lining the hallway.
I ignored them and reached my new place.
The rusty lock took a few tries, but I finally opened the door.
Not a great feeling, having several doors down the hall crack open with strangers peeking out while I fiddled with it.
Creeeak—
A stale stench hit me as I stepped inside.
Not a corpse, but a rotten smell permeating the whole house.
I soon found the source.
A black, decayed lump stuck in a tiffin box like dried jelly.
"..."
The house itself wasn't small.
Tiny compared to my bunker, but plenty spacious for a single average Korean guy.
The problem was elsewhere.
No bathroom.
No shower either.
The space that looked like it should be a bathroom was piled with dusty emergency gear: hazmat suits, gas masks, that sort of thing.
I spent the night on a blanket reeking of someone else's stink.
The nightmares didn't end.
It cut off midway, but I dreamed the sequel to that recurring nightmare of someone bursting through my door and gunning me down.
It felt even more chilling than the ones in my bunker—because unlike before, I had no means of resistance. Not even a gun.
At exactly 6 a.m., a blaring noise erupted overhead.
- Roll call and morning exercises today. All citizens must attend without fail.
- Absences are the individual's responsibility. If you have a valid excuse, report to the community center's disciplinary office within three days of the incident.
"Roll call?"
The curse slipped out automatically.
But I hadn't forgotten the civil servant's warning when he dropped me off.
Follow broadcast orders unless it's dire.
I stepped out, figuring I'd get a look at the neighbors too.
Several residents were already gathered in front of the building.
Something felt off.
A sense of incongruity.
The average age was young—too young.
Mostly teens.
Very few in their twenties, and not a glimpse of anyone in their thirties.
No one over forty at all.
At the very least, there wasn't a single elderly person here—that much was clear.
"..."
Looks like the rumors were true.
They'd sunk all the refugees heading to Jeju.
I'd chalked it up to Baek Seung-hyeon's case, but before him, countless people had made their way here individually or in small groups via various ships.
All sent to the ocean depths, apparently.
The low average age wasn't unique to our building—it was the same in the neighboring ones lined up in rows.
- Republic gymnastics, begin! One! Twooo! Three! Four! Five! Six!...
I half-assed the exercises—I didn't even know the moves—and asked a nearby boy.
"Hey."
The boy glared at me coldly.
It pissed me off, but I kept my cool.
"Where's the bathroom?"
He didn't answer, just pointed west with a finger before turning away brusquely.
"..."
I wanted to smack him, but I held back.
It was a communal bathroom.
A line of students already waited in front of the few stalls.
More stalls for females, apparently, since the ratio of waiting boys to girls wasn't too lopsided.
Next to the communal bathroom were showers and sinks.
Some kid was doing laundry at the sinks.
"..."
After zoning out at home for a bit, another broadcast came.
- Breakfast time now. No food outside hours, so come on time.
We ate at the communal cafeteria.
Or what they called one—more like picking up meals from tented mess halls in each zone.
No bowls in sight, but I soon figured out why.
The putrid, rotting mess in that tiffin box from my room? That was our personal dishware.
I showed up without it, and a woman with a ladle gave me the side-eye.
"Your tiffin?"
"First day here."
"No tiffin, no food."
"It's my first day."
"Sorry, no exceptions. You look old enough to understand that, right?"
"No."
A guard with an armband approached, and she backed off.
My stomach growled as I slunk away, muttering under my breath.
"This is bad."
I didn't like it from day one.
This Skeleton was always like that, sure, but wasn't this overkill?
Anxious, yeah—but the Park Gyu who lived without envy in the Imperial Bunker, stuck in a dump like this?
Unicorn's warning flashed before my eyes.
"Haa..."
Yeah, leaving home means hardship.
Wonder where that damn Unicorn bastard is.
I grabbed a passing kid and asked straight out.
"Any place here with internet or computers?"
"There's a PC bang."
The boy answered curtly and vanished.
"PC bang...?"
Find Unicorn.
Might actually be possible.
I have to see Unicorn before leaving Jeju, even if I bail.