Chapter 279
Chapter 279
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 279
Chapter Title: 113. Worry
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Bringing in the Defender siblings was a good move.
It brought vitality to the group, boosted our combat strength, and I managed to rescue people I care about safely.
I'm also looking forward to the stories we'll weave with them going forward.
But my heart couldn't fully bask in that joy.
A worry had crept in.
The nagging question of whether I should have killed that girl back then kept circling in my mind.
Vroooom—
Around the time the heavy machinery kicked into gear for a new construction project, I sat alone in a quiet spot, replaying the events of that day.
Various judgments flashed through my head.
If I'd fired there, the possibility of drawing the cult fanatics' attention would have been the biggest factor.
No matter how strong I am in close combat, there's a limit against that many Awakened.
Some of them even had guns.
Prioritizing sending my comrades ahead and avoiding the fight was the right call.
She was about eleven years old.
Skinny as a rail, emotionally numb from some massive shock.
There had been one chance.
I won't deny that.
Should I have killed her then?
"What're you thinking about?"
Defender showed up.
"Nothing, just..."
Defender sat down next to me.
He'd decided to bunk in a separate bunker from his sister.
His main roles: combat and resource gathering. Plus vehicle maintenance as a bonus.
He knows the area better than I do, so he'll be a huge asset to our turf from here on out.
"You look rough."
Him knowing me so well could be a pro or a con.
After a moment's thought, I decided to be straight with him.
"What? You're hung up on leaving that bastard's little sister behind?"
I nodded.
"There was a reason. Pulling the trigger right there definitely risked us getting surrounded. Still, I can't shake it. Wasn't squeezing the trigger the right move?"
I also mentioned how the girl had stared straight at me from the departing vehicle.
Defender let out a sigh.
Then he turned to look at me.
"Then how about we go kill her?"
Pure Defender move.
He always solves every problem by killing someone.
I've been wary of turning into him.
Because I believe humans have some bare minimum to uphold.
Hypocrisy, maybe.
Everyone carries their own totem of hypocrisy, after all.
Like most hypocrites, I convinced myself mine wasn't hypocrisy.
But that naked truth slips off easily when conditions are met.
"I know the place well."
For a split second, Defender's words made my heart twitch.
That brief agreement soon turned into a simmering anger like a low fever.
A flicker of resentment rose in my mind: This happened because of the Defender siblings.
I crushed that bud with firm denial, but that's how the human heart works.
When problems arise, people instinctively blame and resent whoever brought them.
Me, of all people, resenting those dear to me.
Not a good sign.
That seed of resentment turns into regret eventually.
Like wondering if bringing these folks into my turf was a mistake.
"......"
Should I have killed her after all?
Suddenly, my old mentor Jang Ki-young's words brushed past my ear.
"Your first instinct is often the best one. That raw lump of unrefined thought reveals unfiltered the essence of what you're made of."
I'd always tried to act the opposite of what Jang Ki-young said.
It was a fun rebellion, but now he's a zombie.
Rumors say he was spotted around Incheon.
Anyway.
"Defender."
I looked him straight in the eye.
"Yeah."
"What went through your head when you killed people? Back then, I mean. In the old days when we could surf the net carefree."
"Early days?"
"Yeah."
Defender stroked his chin, lost in thought for a bit.
"No special thoughts. Or rather, I tried not to have any."
"Really?"
"Just weighed the risk they'd pose to us."
Staring blankly at the sky, Defender reached his own conclusion.
"Looking back, it still feels right."
"Does it."
"I know it's not 'right' by pre-war standards."
Defender gave a wry smile and asked me,
"But what even is 'right'?"
No answer from me, so he sighed, picked up a stick, and doodled meaningless shapes on the ground.
Looks like he's drawing a person.
The so-called stick figure, that ultra-simplified human.
A rough horizontal line slashed across the easily drawn figure's neck, like a symbol for decapitation.
"......We should've killed that one back then. No way this would've happened."
He grinned wide.
"From now on, I'll kill 'em all."
His smile wasn't cruel so much as innocent.
I still felt resistance to that smile.
His words were reasonable, even relieving, given the root of my worry—but I was still clinging to remnants of the old world we'd lived in.
Pathetically holding onto fading values like morality, or hypocrisy.
The board was still crawling with the epitome of hypocrisy, brazen as ever.
Foxgames.
Rotten to the core inside, but his outward image wasn't bad.
Quite the opposite, even.
People were cheering him on.
Mostly new users flooding in.
I messaged Dies_irae69.
He was surfing the net too, and replied right away.
Dies_irae69, who often nailed human nature, already knew Foxgames's true colors.
He ripped into him harshly, but left a coda at the end.
Just like Dies_irae69 said.
Among the recent newbies on the board, the weirdos had multiplied.
As hidden moderator, I delete a lot, but here are three standouts:
A psycho messing around with human skin.
A psycho persistently posting pics of a woman raped to death.
Users suspect it's his own handiwork.
No clue why, but he floods the board with over 100 selfies a day of his face, plus unasked-for play-by-plays of his every move (guessing 50s-60s).
We had the board's four big pests before, but these new ones are next level.
And it's not just the Korean board.
The English board, with peak users, now features a "human safari" hunter as content, plus monsters posing as mad scientists doing live gruesome human experiments on innocents.
Even Melon Mask, who championed unlimited free speech, changed his tune and ordered deletions and moderation of toxic hate posts.
The world's been mad for ages, but now it's fully off the rails.
Four years into the war.
If the old collapse was systemic, now it's the values we took for granted crumbling.
That's why Dies_irae69 said even Foxgames is better than those who've shed basic humanity.
My brooding must've shown to the others too.
"Park Gyu. What's up?"
Ha Tae-hoon asked with a serious look.
No need to hide it, and needless secrecy breeds misunderstandings, so I shared my worries.
"What, so..."
Cheon Young-jae said nonchalantly.
"You're worried that girl might be a Perceiver?"
"Something like that."
"Perception abilities are super rare. Eight or nine out of ten are detectors or clairvoyants."
Cheon Young-jae grinned at me and added,
"I wouldn't have killed her either. Killing a kid on possibility alone feels way ickier, right?"
Ha Tae-hoon nodded and chimed in.
"Get numb to killing, and you end up no better than the raiders out there. No matter how brutal the world, people gotta hold some line."
The Incheon hunters backed my call.
Not the Defender siblings.
"Even with some risk, elimination's the play. Kid or adult, Homo sapiens with accident-causing powers—humans, basically. No difference. Just smaller and weaker."
"......I like that about SKELTON, but this time the premise is off. Even if you let the kid go, it doesn't change that you killed her brother."
Defender nodded, picking up his sister's words.
"She might show up here someday."
Here, I freshly recognized the essential rift in our group.
Not everyone thinks alike.
Different upbringings, different worlds.
Incheon hunters, draped in scraps of morality at least.
Defender siblings, proactively killing to prevent trouble.
Worlds apart in thought, but both groups are precious to me.
I excused myself briefly and wandered the turf.
My domain, paced a thousand times over, had changed in so many spots already.
Not just the outer walls.
Traces of lively life everywhere.
Footprints, gear, personal touches, scents.
Unwittingly, I ended up at Valentine's bunker.
He'd skipped the meeting.
Holed up hammering away, loving languages of letters and symbols, he's burning the midnight oil on the infiltration at my request.
Worn thin from guard shifts, but still full of pep, he eyed me wordlessly as I entered his bunker.
"Got some worries?"
I gave him the short version: my hesitation, regret, and the worries it spawned.
Fanning himself nonstop as he listened, Valentine wiped his sweat-drenched brow with a towel and grumbled,
"Eh, does it matter?"
"Really?"
Resignation.
That's how I read it.
"Nothing's clean in this world. Take this war—even this one. Everyone hoped it wouldn't happen..."
"......"
Not me.
"But what happens, happens, right? Living in this crumbling world taught me: there's flows, unstoppable ones we can't control. Folks like me just get swept along."
Valentine pointed at his monitor, face tired but proud.
He tapped the keyboard, and a familiar screen popped up.
"This?!"
"Heh heh heh! Almost there! Jeju's admins aren't total idiots—they detected external access and threw up firewalls—but whatcha gonna do? From their view, I'm an unstoppable flow, like war itself."
Plain words.
Yet they hit me deep. I saw Valentine anew.
I hadn't known.
That this guy's words would resonate so profoundly.
Valentine. Without John_nenon, he wouldn't exist.
Blatantly alien in our group, arguably the low man on the totem pole.
And that Valentine calling himself an unstoppable force like war to someone.
"Whoa, is that a John_nenon quote?"
"Nah. Mine."
"I see."
Valentine took a swig from the Valentine's disease bottle his nick came from.
Not booze.
Purified water in that glass.
"I like that you feel human, SKELTON."
"Online?"
"Online you're plenty human, but I see you as human in real life too."
"Yeah?"
"Can't explain it. Take the new folks this time."
Valentine peeked out his bunker door, checking for anyone.
Clear, so he whispered,
"They rub me wrong."
"How so?"
"You won't tell them what I say, right?"
"My lips are sealed. 100kg lips."
"Mm...... Alright, you're SKELTON, so I'll spill. To me..."
Valentine sized up the Defender siblings like this:
"They're just... off. Both bro and sis."
His take might be spot on.
I'd felt the same when I first met them.
"Anyway, they're new, so gotta get along."
Valentine beamed.
"Don't overthink it, SKELTON. Life's short—what's there to it? Tough flows come, you get swept. Getting swept ain't always bad. Look, even here we end up."
Jeju intranet breach is imminent.
Final tweaks before the big op.
No later than summer, he says.
"Thanks, then."
I left Valentine's bunker with a strange emotion brewing.
"......"
The biggest comfort to me wasn't fellow hunters or neighbors.
Just an ordinary guy, one you could find anywhere.
Ordinariness lacks weight, but it can be a benchmark.
Especially for wanderers like us,
ordinary folks.
The worry ended abruptly.
"Hey, SKELTON. Seen the board?"
I was steeling myself with John_nenon quotes when Defender came by.
"What's up?"
"She's dead."
"?"
"That girl you say stared you down."
Defender smirked.
"What?"
"It's on the board."
Reporter posted it.
Woo Min-hee.
Why's she posting Wonju news?
Not just one—full spam mode.
Mystery deepening, I checked the pic Defender pointed to.
A corpse.
The girl who'd haunted my worries lay cold on the ground.
Flies already buzzing over eyes that'd never see again, rubbing their hands like on her brother's.
Defender watched me with a subtle, probing gaze.
Gauging my mood.
Probably checking if I'm like them.
"......"
No matter how I spin it, I felt relief at another's death.
A brief thrill, too.
Even so.
"......Poor kid."
I won't drop the hypocrite's mask.
At least I didn't bare my teeth there.