Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Remnants (2)
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I was out on my usual patrol around the area.
It was a sweltering day.
The bunker was filled with stifling heat and humidity that could drive anyone mad.
There was a generator, but it was small, with limited output, so we couldn't afford luxuries like air conditioning.
Cannon fire echoed from the north.
Another monster must have emerged from a rift.
The time that colossal one appeared, we got lucky.
It came within just 4 km, but suddenly veered off course.
But the plants around us twisting into bizarre shapes, and the dawn and dusk sunlight appearing not red but a dull gray-white—even to Kyle_Dos, who knew little about rifts, these felt like ominous signs.
Back then, Kyle_Dos's hobby was foraging.
We had plenty of dehydrated brick-like preserved foods and canned goods, but eating that stuff long-term wasn't good for mental health.
He'd prepared jam and sugar as countermeasures for depression, but if sweet foods alone could cure it, no one would ever end up in hospitals or committing suicide over depression.
For a change of pace, Kyle_Dos headed to a nearby stream.
By the streambed sat a weathered platform from some valley vendor that hadn't been dismantled, covered in the dust of time.
He settled on a suitable spot and, using his military dagger, caught a large crayfish wriggling in the water.
Crayfish it might be called, but it was lobster-sized, and aside from its eerie grayish hue, the meat was firm and tasted pretty good.
After catching enough to fill a big pot, he was on his way home.
That's when he saw flowers blooming—ones he'd never seen before.
Not just one or two, but hundreds, thousands forming a gray-white flower field that seemed fated to spread out before him.
In the center of those eerily orderly blooms, Kyle_Dos spotted something pure white and glowing—entirely different from the gray-white—writhing on the ground.
It was a woman.
Her clothes stripped off entirely, she'd clearly been brutally beaten and was unconscious, but that form and those curves were unmistakably female.
Kyle_Dos carried her back to the bunker and nursed her with utmost care.
Neither the bunker's sweltering heat nor its piercing humidity could deter him.
Wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve over and over, he splinted her broken arm, disinfected her abrasions, and gently applied ointment to her bruised face—still retaining its beauty despite the punches.
It took quite some time for her to regain consciousness.
Once she did, she startled awake in terror, clutching the thin blanket draped over her body and asking in a trembling voice,
That was the first meeting between Kyle_Dos and the wife he rescued.
DragonC's prologue, containing this tale, received rave reviews.
...
...
But not everyone thought the same.
There were a few negative opinions, and I won't deny I was one of them.
By sheer bad luck, Defender and I posted just one second apart, which only fueled suspicions that I was part of his gang, earning me the infamous label of "hate-comment clan."
But a few people knew my true value.
Kyle_Dos, the protagonist of that story, was one of the rare few who recognized SKELTON's worth.
He sent me a message.
That favor was an extension of the previous one.
More capsules had appeared.
Not one, but two.
This wasn't good.
The erosion was progressing faster than expected.
As depicted in DragonC's prologue, the plants themselves mutating was clear proof that the area had entered the early stages of erosion.
Academics claim erosion zones themselves have no ill effects on humans, citing the 200 million followers of the Manryugwi Church who've set up bases there as evidence.
I see it differently.
Humans can't survive in erosion zones.
Like monsters vanishing from Earth, humans lose something essential there.
What is it? A sense that everything is futile and meaningless, perhaps.
Where did those 200 million followers go?
Erosion zones are truly dangerous.
I replied to Kyle_Dos.
I pondered for a moment.
I knew the model answer, but I couldn't bring myself to give it easily.
I'm not purely altruistic, after all.
"......"
That was our last conversation.
When I heard Kyle_Dos had vanished, the emotion wasn't shock—it was more like, "It's finally here."
But wasn't it too soon?
There should've been more time.
Didn't he have a wife?
If she'd said even a word, Kyle_Dos would've found a way out, carving a new haven for himself and his wife.
He might've even shown up at my door uninvited, dumping his troubles on me.
The boards buzzed with theories about Kyle_Dos's disappearance.
The most popular theory was that soldiers got him.
It was the most plausible.
But there wouldn't be soldiers in that area anymore.
They'd all pulled back to Seoul for the civil war.
A deserter wandering around? Possible, but who'd brave an erosion zone with capsules popping up?
Other opinions floated too.
Twisted as it was, Defender's stab at the truth drew heavy criticism, but to me, it seemed plausible enough.
After all, not everything yelled on the boards is true.
In anonymous internet communities, lies outnumber truths by nature.
Even when I speak truth, I'm dismissed as a liar.
More theories on Kyle_Dos's fate poured in afterward, but none rang true to me.
"......Hoo."
Sipping coffee, I mulled it over myself.
But I knew it was pointless, so I didn't dig deep.
The only way to know Kyle_Dos's fate was to go check myself.
Just as that nagging doubt like heartburn began to fade...
The civil war halted.
It stopped as abruptly as it started.
The shortwave radio announced a ceasefire.
Among the miscellaneous reasons was opening humanitarian corridors for refugees—and the moment I heard that, I sensed fate calling.
I had to go.
At 3 a.m., I left my bunker and headed to the nearest refugee camp announced on shortwave.
Refugees weren't my concern.
I needed soldiers—officers with authority.
"I'm terribly sorry, but my parents are in Paju. With the civil war cutting off contact, I'm worried sick and want to check on them."
It wasn't my sob story that swayed them—it was the cigarettes.
"Here's your pass. Stick to this route. No safety guarantees otherwise. Especially avoid Seoul at all costs. Ceasefire or not, it's still a powder keg."
Following their advice, I went via Anyang into Incheon.
Military-controlled, so security was surprisingly good, roads pristine.
First time in Incheon since the war started—barely recognizable, now dominated by massive refugee camps everywhere.
Streets sold mystery honey porridge.
The smell alone turned my stomach, so I didn't eat, but traded it to others for tidbits of info.
A refugee fleet bound for Jeju was departing soon.
An armada of hundreds of thousands.
"It's payback, kinda."
The old man who tipped me spat on the ground.
Probably found grit in his porridge.
"Those bastards who bolted to Jeju to live it up are getting a human bomb in return. They won't sink their own people, right?"
I headed straight for Paju.
It took time, but since I'd been to Kyle_Dos's spot once, it wasn't hard to find.
At the dirt road entrance to his bunker, I stopped my bike and stared at the gray-white wasteland.
I examined the grass and trees.
Bark shriveled like it had dried up, branches twisted endlessly inward, roots sprouting thick, revolting, bloodworm-like weeds.
Erosion was advancing faster than I'd predicted.
I pulled out a mask, sealing nose and mouth.
Scholars say erosion zone air is harmless—but based on my experience, it's toxic.
Pushing through the faint gray mist, I found Kyle_Dos's bunker.
It looked like a prefab factory-made buried unit—cheap ones with ladder access.
Hatch was open.
Gun and axe ready, I scouted.
No signs of life inside.
But the stench of rotting corpses pierced even the mask.
Lantern on, I entered.
Hit what looked like the light switch—astonishingly, it worked.
The moment light flooded in, my view filled with dozens of women in swimsuits.
Walls nearly entirely papered with their photos.
Some explicit, breasts exposed.
But even all those beauties couldn't hide the bunker's cramped squalor.
On the bed, a corpse hung by the neck, decaying.
Advanced rot obscured features, but clothes, matted long hair with maggots and pus, bone structure—all screamed female, matching the wall glamour shots.
Death recent; no looter signs.
Food, laptop, satellite gear intact.
Enough rations for a year?
Especially the abundant meds caught my eye.
I opened the laptop.
It was in sleep mode but woke at my touch like magic, showing the owner's unfinished work.
It was the board.
Kyle_Dos had been typing a message.
- Heading to the flower field with my wife. Back to where we met. Gonna sort my thoughts there and continue the story. Wait just a bit. No rushing.
Recipient: DragonC.
Probably plotting the next webtoon arc.
Dragging out the body, I surveyed around.
Found two more corpses.
Far more decomposed than the woman; hard to pinpoint cause, but both male, shot in the back.
"......"
Kept looking.
Where the old capsule had been, a new one—and behind it, another sprouting like a tumor.
Too big and heavy for my bike.
Grabbed all valuables from the bunker—painkillers priority—closed the hatch, buried it under dirt and leaves, carved markers on nearby trees.
Meant to leave, but Kyle_Dos's last words to DragonC popped into mind.
The flower field, huh.
I checked it out.
No flower field anywhere.
Followed the webtoon stream uphill—nothing.
Wrong season anyway; too sparse forest for flowers.
Turning to leave...
A hunch flashed like a dream.
Kyle_Dos said he found, rescued, bonded with, and married his wife.
But if it was a lie?
What if his tale was distorted?
Then, possibilities emerge.
First: She was dead from the start.
The "brutally beaten, unconscious" woman was already gone when found.
He dragged the corpse to his lair, stitched wounds, talked to it, confessed love, shared the bed.
When rot set in, he tried cremation, propping it with rope—but lost, he abandoned the bunker.
Second: Grimmer.
On patrol, he stumbled on survivors including a young beauty.
Meant to let them go, but her looks awakened his urges.
Came to: All dead but her. He claimed her.
Their violent, coercive "honeymoon" ended in her suicide. Only then did he realize his sin and flee.
Last—and I hope true: All of it, including her, pure fiction from Kyle_Dos.
No woman ever; never brought one home.
Alone in that cramped, madness-seeping hole, loneliness birthed an imaginary ideal woman from his fantasies. They shared perfect love.
In dream-reality blur, he "left with wife" on dates. Then some unrelated woman showed, hanged herself inside.
Probably the truth.
I'm looking at it now.
The flower field Kyle_Dos meant to visit with his "wife."
It was made of thousands of capsules.