Chapter 336
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 336
Chapter Title: 135. Generations (3)
Early in the war.
The movement of refugees was strictly controlled.
To be precise, it was easy to get in but hard to get out.
Once you entered a major city with large-scale refugee camps set up, the police and military took charge of controlling the refugees.
Unless it was a group that could raise a collective voice, it wasn't easy for an individual to break free from that control.
So, what you did before the war or how much wealth you had didn't matter much anymore.
The world had regressed to a one-dimensional state.
Only what you had in your possession was real wealth, and the abilities you could prove right here in this cramped refugee camp were your true capabilities.
Cheon Young-jae was the kind of man who stood out in such a system.
He was a top-tier hunter from a school, with plenty of real combat experience. On top of that, he was even a low-level Awakener.
The old man Park Young-chuk that Cheon Young-jae often mentioned had been a billionaire with over a trillion won in assets before the war—a figure from the clouds. But now, he was just a powerless geezer wrapped in worn-out luxury brands.
This unlikely pair of young and old had joined hands.
Cheon Young-jae didn't explain how they had teamed up because the battle started before he could.
"Now's the time. Let's go."
It wasn't a difficult task.
They spotted a gap in the lax security, slipped through, and eliminated the threat.
Crack!
Killing a person with an axe wasn't exactly pleasant. At least sending him off painlessly was the only courtesy I could offer a damned soul.
Thud!
Cheon Young-jae used a shovel.
He switched cold weapons as needed, and this time it seemed he'd chosen the one that fit his hands best.
They neutralized three guards and entered the nursing hospital.
It looked like they'd set up only one entrance for defense—a classic case of knowing one path but not the other.
It might have been a decent choice against looters coming to pillage the hospital, but for someone like Cheon Young-jae, who sought pure slaughter without wanting spoils, it was a gift from heaven.
A large mirror hung at the entrance.
It seemed rarely used, cracked all over and stained, making the reflection quite blurry.
As I absentmindedly looked at my reflection, Cheon Young-jae suddenly spoke up from beside me.
"Let's burn it down."
A sound judgment.
Setting the building on fire could take out most of them.
I hesitated for a moment.
"What's there to hesitate about?"
"Can't we at least talk first?"
"Talk about what?"
Cheon Young-jae snapped irritably, but when I met his eyes with a glint of killing intent, he shut his mouth and asked again in a softer tone.
"What? Talk to the old man? He won't listen anyway."
"Let's just deal with the leader."
We already had the upper hand anyway.
The old men had nowhere to go but the narrow hallway and the connected stairwell.
The windows on the first and second floors were all blocked by concrete or bricks they'd put up themselves.
It wouldn't be wise to show themselves in a hallway guarded by not one but two hunters.
Every limb they exposed would just get shot full of bullets.
"Who knows? Maybe there's someone among them who doesn't agree with the old man."
Even with a generational gap, they were all Koreans.
Before Korea dove headfirst into extreme money worship, I think the elderly had a better image than they do now.
In Cheon Young-jae's silence, I fired a shot into the air.
Bang!
To say it again, the battle was already over.
The old men were trapped in the trap we'd set, and their lives were in our hands.
Of course, they put up a little resistance.
Bang! Bang!
After two more bodies hit the floor, they finally agreed to negotiate.
My demands were simple.
"Send the guy who radioed us over here."
The old men fell silent.
"I'll give you an hour."
From beyond the hallway, murmurs and debates erupted among the old men.
A heated argument.
It probably wouldn't be decided easily.
Cheon Young-jae was already preparing to set the fire.
Synthetic oil and a pile of kindling.
And a single match.
By pre-war standards, it was worth less than a million won, but it was more than enough to prepare for the impending massacre.
"Where were we again?"
Cheon Young-jae, having regained his smile, resumed the story.
"Right. The plan to head to Park Young-chuk's secret bunker, yeah?"
It wasn't easy.
For starters, there was the distance issue, and they needed guns too.
Cheon Young-jae didn't have a gun or a car.
Against other humans, cold weapons might work, but mutations changed everything.
A hunter skilled with cold weapons like me could face mutations with blades, but depending on the type and experience, you could end up getting eaten instead.
Getting a vehicle wasn't easy either.
Cars were still roaming the city streets back then, but for people trapped in refugee camps without anything, the only way was theft or robbery.
That's when the pioneer squad recruitment ad caught their eye.
Well-connected Cheon Young-jae knew what a pioneer squad was.
Park, the old man, had his own connections and knew the truth behind it too.
"There've been a million definitions and interpretations of democracy, but they all turned out to be bullshit. Democracy is a system for the elderly. No political system serves the old as much as democracy. Why? Because old folks have votes too, right?"
Park, the old man, smirked as he tilted his glass.
"Pioneer squads are the government's answer to what to do with old folks who don't have votes."
According to Cheon Young-jae, Park was the type to see everything negatively.
He suspected it all.
Even others' pure goodwill or honest intentions.
"That guy always has his conclusion set before he even talks. Whether he's right or wrong doesn't matter. His word is always the gospel. Why? Because he's older and amassed more wealth. What meaning do words from punks like you have? Even if that wealth came from luck with inherited orchard land rather than his own effort."
The pioneer squad provided guns, vehicles, some food, and manpower to reach the destination.
Despite the shady purpose, the two decided to use the opportunity.
Old-school hunters had been pushed aside by Awakeners, reduced to backroom relics, but at non-Awakener levels, he was top-tier.
Plus, Cheon Young-jae was a school-trained veteran who'd even been dispatched to China.
It was only natural he'd take charge as squad leader.
The pioneer squad consisted of seven members total.
As an early squad, it drew a motley crew.
Some joined for food and funds for their kids and wives, others just to escape the stifling camp life without much thought. There was a guy dishonorably discharged from the front lines for screwing up, and even one woman.
But they all knew exactly what they were signing up for.
They were all murderers and massacrers.
No one could claim ignorance as a defense.
This pioneer squad loaded 50 old folks onto two buses and left Seoul in search of new opportunities.
During the process, Cheon Young-jae took on 10 more elders, and his proactive attitude left a strong impression on the government officials.
"As expected of a hunter who's been to China."
Leaving behind words that could be praise or sarcasm, Cheon Young-jae led the 67-member pioneer squad southward.
"Hey! Over there! Let's talk it out. Come on, talk!"
At that point, the old man who'd radioed us finally spoke up for the first time.
"We had no bad intentions. None at all!"
From behind the wall, he whined in a slow, now repulsive voice.
"You've killed four already? Need more blood? Murderers? Huh? What do you gain from killing old men with no days left? Damn you all. Divine punishment."
His whimpering ended with a single gunshot from Cheon Young-jae.
"Shut your trap and crawl out. Die alone, or croak with the other half-dead bastards. Simple choice, right?"
Cheon Young-jae checked his watch.
"30 minutes left."
He glanced at the pile of kindling stacked beside him.
The debates resumed, this time escalating to shouting.
"You son of a bitch!"
"You die, you bastard! Just you dying solves it!"
"Why me? Huh? You illiterate dropout!"
Getting old doesn't make arguments classy.
If anything, their bickering felt more one-dimensional and vulgar than kids fighting.
"It was the same back then."
Cheon Young-jae's gaze drifted back to that irretrievable, wistful past.
"The old folks started fighting inside the bus. So childish and tacky."
Of course, the elders' squabbles were just what Cheon Young-jae and Park wanted.
They were all people who had to die once they reached Park's bunker anyway.
As the buses left Gyeonggi Province, the pioneer squad showed their true colors.
"Gotta take care of something quick."
The first abandonment happened when an old lady stepped off the bus claiming she needed to pee, and they drove off without her.
Even as she screamed and chased after them, the bus leisurely moved forward.
The second was bolder.
"Elders, head to that house over there."
The leader was a family man with two daughters.
A doting girl dad, but ruthless to the old folks.
"Go on! You geezers. Fuck! Move your asses!"
They dumped ten into an abandoned apartment and kept going.
At that point, the elders sensed their fate, exchanged glances, and started plotting survival, but they didn't know.
There was a traitor among them.
The squad left an out-of-fuel bus for the elders to claim and drove off again.
Only twenty elders remained.
"Squad leader, shouldn't we wrap this up around here?"
The sole woman, Kim, who was driving, checked the fuel and asked Cheon Young-jae.
"Just a bit farther."
Literally.
A little more, and they'd reach Park's bunker.
At that point, I threw in a question.
"That Park guy didn't seem like a pushover. You were planning to live with a guy like that?"
Cheon Young-jae shrugged.
"He had diabetes. Hadn't taken meds in over a year. Plus a bunch of other chronic illnesses. How long could a guy like that last anyway?"
Knowing even hidden conditions like diabetes suggested they were pretty close.
But it was questionable if that alone made Cheon Young-jae trust Park's words.
Was a secret bunker even real? Did he really need to sacrifice multiple people—and risk his own life—on such a gamble?
It didn't fit Cheon Young-jae's usual cautious, suspicious nature toward people.
Now the bus reached the bunker.
The first sacrifice was Park, the driver lady.
Bang!
A single shot pierced the back of her head.
As she slumped onto the steering wheel, the bus veered toward the cliff on the winding mountain road.
In the chaos, Cheon Young-jae grabbed Park's arm and jumped out together.
The bus plummeted to the bottom in seconds.
A clean, efficient solution, just like Cheon Young-jae.
Now it was time for the reckoning.
The old man, doomed to die soon, climbed the rugged mountain path with unbelievable vigor for his age.
"Here. This is it."
They arrived at the bunker entrance.
A secret fortress hidden by natural rock walls.
"Jeong-hoon and Jeong-hee should be inside. You met them once as kids, right?"
With a satisfied smile, Park pressed the hidden intercom.
But no response came from within.
Park opened the door with some method Cheon Young-jae didn't know.
The moment it opened, a foul smell assaulted their noses.
The stench of rotting human corpses.
"No...!"
There were seven bodies.
Four adults, three children.
"No...! Jeong-hoon. Jeong-hee. No...! Oh god. Chung-ho. Chung-woon...!"
The bodies were too damaged to determine cause of death precisely, but scorch marks and unused flare guns suggested suicide.
In front of the corpses, Park knelt and was speechless for a long time.
The bodies needed to be moved.
Even with good ventilation in the bunker, rotting corpses inside were unbearable and risked disease.
Cheon Young-jae hauled them out.
Clearing bodies was tedious and messy, but it was a boon for him.
They were awkward people.
Including the dead kids.
Plus, their deaths might present him another opportunity.
"He was my father."
At that point, Cheon Young-jae solved the biggest mystery himself.
"A bastard child. He probably made me a hunter partly because I wanted it, but mostly hoping I'd die quick. Had to be, since I'm a year older than my 'stepbrother.' You'd know as a senior, right? How tough that is?"
As he moved the last body, Cheon Young-jae mulled over words of comfort.
About how to face this father he'd never spent time with—excited, scared, expectant.
But reality was always cold, as usual.
Thud!
The bunker door shut.
"...Chairman?"
He knocked.
No answer.
"Chairman Park Young-chuk!"
He kept knocking.
Still no reaction from inside.
"What the hell? Huh? What about our deal?"
Darkness fell.
Even in early autumn, nights on the mountaintop were chilly.
He pounded until his fists hurt, but no response.
Dry pleas turned emotional.
"Why are you doing this? I did everything you said, right? Huh? Killed who you told me to, dumped all those old folks who trusted only you off that cliff. I went this far—why? Why?!"
Silence.
Finally, he appealed to family ties.
"Father...!!"
But even that desperate cry went unanswered.
In the eerie silence, Cheon Young-jae slid down against the blood-smeared iron door.
"...Fuck."
He muttered.
"How much longer could he even live anyway...?"
Right after the mutter, a chilling voice echoed from beyond the door.
"That's your true heart, isn't it."
Cheon Young-jae's biological father spoke for the first time.
Cheon Young-jae whipped around, eyes wide.
Only then did he realize.
His father had been standing motionless beyond the door from the start.
Exercising damp, tenacious patience to catch that one slip of the tongue.
"Those words that just came out of your mouth—they're your true feelings!"
With whip-like fury, Cheon Young-jae spotted the camera beaming down on him from a corner.
Bang!
He shot it out in one go.
Rat-tat-tat-bang!
He unloaded on the door too.
Dents formed all over the steel plates, but the sturdy door showed no sign of opening.
After emptying the magazine, Cheon Young-jae turned away.
He'd known before even firing.
That door would never open for him.
Even if the old man died inside from illness or old age, he intended to leave him nothing.
"..."
550km, mutations, raiders, cold and starvation, legal consequences and investigations upon return.
The looming realities draped like storm clouds beyond the fading light, but Cheon Young-jae stepped into the darkness without hesitation.
"So, that's the story."
Cheon Young-jae spoke nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened.
"That guy? Probably dead by now. But even if you go there, it's just a hideout with no meaning. From what I saw, barely any stockpiled food or fuel. Built the bunker big and fancy, but hollow inside. That's why the idiot killed himself."
"..."
Maybe that's when his chronic suspicion took firm root.
"Get out here, you bastard! Come on out!"
Reality wrapped up too.
The old man who'd harmed us was dragged out by another elder.
A dignified white-haired man.
His face twisted into ugliness.
"Kah! Ptui!"
The moment he spat on the other elder, Cheon Young-jae shot.
Bang!
One knee.
Bang!
The other knee.
The old man toppled forward, legs bent in opposite directions.
"Aaaagh!"
Cheon Young-jae put the final bullet in the screaming man's mouth.
He wore a satisfied smile.
"No point talking with old geezers. That's why they say generational gaps exist. Different mindsets. Can't communicate at all."
Flame flickered from the match.
"I'll be the bad guy."
"..."
I said nothing.
Truth is, I knew.
This was the cleanest, surest solution.
The fire caught quickly.
"What the hell are you doing!"
"Aaaagh!"
Amid the chaos bursting out, I suddenly glanced at the mirror on the wall.
Whether from the blazing flames, the spreading darkness, or the cracks and stains etched into the mirror—I couldn't tell—but our reflections looked different from usual.
That fractured, blurry image wasn't so different from the old men beyond the inferno.