Chapter 56
Chapter 56
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: 37. Immortality (2)
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It's been a long time since I've seen the ocean.
Especially the ocean cradling a sunset.
I sat in the camping chair, staring blankly, endlessly, at the red sun sinking into the sea, dyeing it in its own hue.
As twilight began to blanket the fields, Dragon appeared with a fragrant aroma.
"Have a cup of coffee before you go."
Dragon was a well-prepared doomsayer.
His bunker wasn't as overwhelming as mine, but it was wider and more comfortable than any I'd seen so far, with plenty of food stocked as well.
The interesting part was his weapons.
Like me, Dragon had a Chinese-made rifle.
"Not long after the war started, Chinese soldiers' corpses washed up on the shore. A ton of them. Our navy submarines smashed their fleet to bits. Two ships right out there in the bay got sliced in half and sank. That's when a few bodies drifted in, and I snagged a couple."
The most impressive thing was the coffee.
Two and a half years since the war began, and he still had coffee beans.
"Half my soul is booze and smokes, the other half coffee."
It wasn't just the coffee.
He even had an espresso machine like you'd see in a pro café.
Savoring the rare luxury, I felt a smile tugging at my lips as I eagerly awaited a cup from our barista.
While he roasted the beans, I looked around his bunker.
It was spacious and desolate.
Not like mine with the toilet smack in the center, but the cracks in the roughly finished concrete, the condensation stains, and patches of mold here and there made it clear that building a bunker was no easy feat.
Dragon had tried to dispel the gloomy air by pasting up webtoon posters in his familiar art style—probably his own work—but the piles of empty booze bottles and cigarette packs in the corners evoked a chill, mingled with pity.
Not just the smokes, but the booze—all hard liquor over 40 proof—left a strong impression.
He'd already polished off hundreds of those.
Maybe that's why his complexion was so poor.
"How's your health?"
"Me? Do I look bad?"
"A bit."
"I'm on meds, so no worries. Anyway, check this out. This is my workspace, Dragon's lair."
In one corner of the bunker were wooden mannequins, various technique books and anatomy texts, a printer, multiple lights and auxiliary monitors, a tablet, and a workbench. The scattered notes and storyboards on the desk screamed professional mangaka.
Tucked in one corner of the desk was a cute little prop.
A tiny fish tank with a goldfish the size of a thumb floating aimlessly inside.
The plastic fish mindlessly turned its dopey face this way and that, mimicking life, but it was just so lightweight that it bobbed with the slightest vibration.
As I stared vacantly at the drifting goldfish, Dragon handed me a cup of coffee.
"Oh."
Delicious.
Real coffee after all this time.
My eyes widened involuntarily as I gazed anew at the dark liquid steaming in the warm cup.
"Plenty more, so drink up. Compared to dragging yourself all the way out here through danger, this is nothing."
Dragon gestured for us to head outside.
The sea was already cloaked in darkness.
Two community users sat side by side, gazing at the pitch-black ocean and the stars emerging one by one above it.
"...I wasn't a late bloomer mangaka."
Gazing at the stars, Dragon began his tale with a faint smile.
"If anything, I was the reckless fool who jumped into manga before even graduating high school."
Back when Dragon was a kid, Korea still had weekly anthology mags like Champ keeping the flame alive.
Hard to believe now, but print manga was seen as superior to the nascent webtoons—top-tier stuff.
Dragon was one of them.
"The thrill of turning pages. That's why I loved manga. Scrolling just doesn't give that."
Dragon's first impression was of an older, prickly guy tough to warm up to.
But he was a manga man through and through.
"You plant this untouchable aura on the villain in the previous page, screaming, 'This guy's the real deal!' Readers get hooked: 'How the hell do you beat this monster?' That impatience, curiosity, craving to see him get pummeled—they flip pages like mad!"
The way he regressed to a boyish kid talking manga, just like some punk.
"At least with a print volume, I can unfold and close that world on my terms for its full length. Webtoons? Maybe. But handheld vs. clicky—something's off. Can't quite pin it."
His life story, starting a bit rambling, flowed naturally into the crux of his struggles.
"There was a time I thought drawing that kind of manga made me superior. And honestly? It did. My senpai and peers in the studio thought the same. But talent—you can't fight it. Tools and styles differ, but nothing shows talent gaps like art. I wouldn't know music, but drawings? You see it."
Dragon's gaze drifted past the sea, to the man who'd flushed his face red with humiliation.
"Webtoon or print, the good ones are good. Pilcrum's that guy."
"He draws decently. Especially women."
"Born in Japan, he might've sold ten million copies."
"That good?"
"You see it in the lines. And those types draw easy. A panel I'd slave over—sketching, inking for hours—they glance and scribble, done. Simpler strokes, higher polish than my hours of grind. Not just art. Composition flows naturally, directing shines. That's the gap. Plus, my hands were slow. Workflow too fiddly."
"How so?"
"I needed words to spark ideas. Even storyboards—text first, then visual."
"Tedious."
Dragon downed the rest of his coffee with a heavy sigh.
"...Talent gap."
Nothing much to add there.
Everyone knows abilities vary; I feel it in my bones more than most.
But Dragon had a tougher spirit than me, at least.
"Still, manga isn't just art. Mangaka are storytellers, broadly."
"True."
"Storytelling? I'd put myself above Pilcrum. Plus."
Thwack.
Dragon lightly smacked my arm.
"I've got the perfect model."
"My callsign's Dandy, not Professor. D.A.N.D.Y."
"I know, I know. But it'll stay secret. Gotta protect my cooperative model's identity."
"Dandy of you."
"How about Typhoon?"
"...Typhoon?"
Pretty cool, I thought.
Thousands of times cooler than Dandy.
A pro mangaka's sharp naming sense.
"Typhoon, active Guard hunter operating in China. I'll pack it with realism and psych depth."
Dragon clenched his callused right fist tight.
"Battling on their home turf. Flatten their noses."
"Oho."
"Wait, hold on! Agh! Urghhh!!!"
Dragon, radiating confidence, suddenly clutched his stomach, writhing in agony.
Intense pain, from the look of his trembling toes.
"...Fuck."
His face paled whiter than the moon as he muttered.
"What is it?"
"...Nah, just a flare-up. Chronic thing."
The mountain of liquor bottles in the bunker loomed in my mind.
All that rotgut.
Might've been the fuel keeping a man in endless mediocrity afloat, but poison eating him alive too.
"Isn't it pretty bad? You looked rough from the start."
"I'm fine. Still kicking. Got pills. Won't make sixty, but if I last five years before croaking, everyone else'll be dead by then, right?"
"You won't even make three."
"Me?"
Dragon bristled.
I cleared it up quick.
"Nah. All of us."
"Coming from an ex-hunter, that hits harder."
Dragon forced a smile over his grimace, staring at the distant sea.
Lights flickered on a small island far off.
Chinese military?
Anyway, time to part.
Dragon chewed a few pills dry and thumbs-upped me.
"Thanks, Skeleton. You got my pen moving again."
He handed me a crumpled sheet.
A synopsis scrawled there—for his showdown short with Pilcrum, starring me as model.
"Failnet hot board. Make sure to check it!"
He waved.
I thumbs-upped back.
"...My callsign's Dandy."
"Cut it out!"
*
A while later, Dragon returned after swallowing his pills.
Face bright as ever, despite the agony, he handed me a thick envelope.
"What's this?"
"My little gift. Prop collection."
"Prop collection?"
"Short story anthology? Ideas too. Read when bored. Not fun, but kills time."
"This is precious."
"Copy."
"Digital would've sufficed."
"Told you before? I love flipping pages by hand. Print or screen, same diff."
"Oh, thanks."
"Ah."
Dragon exclaimed suddenly.
He turned to me with a boyish, mischievous grin.
"Sorry, mind if you look later?"
"?"
"Feels like spoilers now."
"Hm."
"Please, Skeleton."
Older named user asks? Can't refuse.
"My callsign's..."
"Dandy!"
*
"Hey, Skeleton. See Dragon's new comic?"
Defender messaged me.
I wondered what made someone "Mr. S" or Skeleton material as I replied.
"Yeah."
"100%. Knows a hunter for sure. Bit old-school, but only field vets know this stuff."
I just smiled faintly.
Dragon wasn't the only one who'd sworn secrecy.