Chapter 71
Chapter 71
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: 42. Paradise (4)
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*Click.*
All things come with a price.
The era of fighting for grand causes like the fate of the world had long passed, or so I felt. But if that trajectory tied directly to my survival, wasn't it still fighting for a greater good?
I checked my weapons and confirmed the traps.
I'd cleared out the star maps and other items to leave everything in a state identical to the star map hideout, while digging lethal traps into my bunker.
I had to prepare for combat.
Not that I planned to turn my base into a defensive stronghold.
If the incoming National Assembly faction forces failed to drive out that horde—likely Legion faction—they'd splash back onto me, plain as day.
When that happened, no amount of smooth talking would fool them.
They'd come at me hard, search everything, maybe even torture.
As I applied lime to the stairs leading down to the main bunker, Ji Younghee came looking for me.
I headed to the camouflage house to greet her.
"Blood test results are in. I tried radioing, but no response."
"Suddenly felt under the weather."
"A cold?"
"Something like that."
"You need to recover quick. Oh, by the way, Hunter Park, you planning to keep staying here? It bothers me that someone as capable as you is holing up in a place like this."
"I'm fine. My knee's bad. Can't walk much."
I lied as naturally as breathing while studying her face.
Still that clerical, mechanical expression.
Beautiful, but like a doll devoid of humanity for some reason.
The human touch from before—the subtle resentment toward her father—had diluted away.
Even without suffering horrors, this was war's mark on her.
Ji Younghee peered at me from the shadows.
"Interested in the Legion faction?"
"No. No interest in any group. I'm worn out, you could say. Not cut out for organization life."
"I see. I'm thinking of going."
She handed me the blood test results.
Normal for everyone.
Rebecca and Suu were fine too.
Just Rebecca's liver values were off, so she'd enclosed a bottle of pills to improve them.
One a day after meals, with a warning label.
Moments later, the trailers and trucks departed the site.
The big rigs were gone, but the runway swarmed with workers repairing it and technicians fixing the plane.
Crowds of people, but what caught my eye was the white plane—absurdly beautiful amid this hellish world.
With its twin wings, it looked ready to soar gracefully at any moment.
A thought struck me.
If I could board that plane, where would I go?
A question I'd traded with Chairman Park Cheol-ju.
India, maybe.
They'd sealed the rifts there.
But even there, I'd be a foreigner.
A caste system as brutal as any monster divided people by rank.
An outsider like me? Probably treated like a talking monkey.
What about the Ogasawara Islands?
No interest before, but Chairman Park's words piqued it.
Still, no real difference.
I couldn't speak a lick of Japanese—still an outsider.
An outsider even in Korea—did I have anywhere to go?
I stared at my fortified bunker, then spotted the laptop shoved in the corner and flipped it open.
I scrolled through the trivial posts popping up.
"...Hmm."
Yeah. Here.
This was my paradise.
Or something like it.
Overthinking it would just drive me mad.
*
Early dawn, the radio blared noisily.
"This is Colonel Jo Seong-yong of the 21st Pioneer Unit. Do you copy? This is Colonel Jo Seong-yong of the 21st Pioneer Unit. The area you've occupied without authorization has been assigned to our unit. All rights excluding use, profit, and disposal belong to us. Once more..."
I quickly washed my face and checked outside.
"...Fuck."
Disappointing forces had arrived—enough to curse involuntarily.
The Pioneer Unit.
Woo Min-hee, any brains at all?
Sending trash like this once we pegged them as Legion faction.
Legion's core wasn't gear.
Seasoned soldiers who'd seen it all—that was their heart.
The bodyguards I'd seen with Chairman Park were all battle-hardened vets.
Not mere bodyguards, probably.
Legion faction.
Kim Pilseong and everyone—Legion.
How does a chaebol with a trashed house and beggar looks keep elite guards?
Was that why he played crazy?
Various thoughts swirled as I observed.
Jo Seong-yong brought about ten vehicles, including one armored car.
"We're commencing search now. Your cooperation, please."
Pioneer Unit members with armbands advanced on the old U.S. base.
Bang!
A sharp gunshot rang out.
A death scream echoed.
"Aaaargh!"
A high, tearing wail of agony.
"Aaaargh!!"
Chillingly shrill and prolonged.
The sniper might've drawn it out on purpose.
I climbed the hill.
Sure enough, a man writhed on the ground, screaming horrifically. Blood pooled beneath him.
"Get lost."
Kim Pilseong's voice boomed over the radio.
"We'll just fly the plane and go. Our chairman wants to head to Japan—why make it so hard? No fun."
The K-walkie-talkies buzzed nonstop as workers at the airport loaded a massive nuclear warhead into the fuselage.
The nuke now bristled with electronic detonators it hadn't before.
Techs seemed to be briefing the pilot.
Their busy, orderly response made Woo Min-hee and my assumptions feel all too real.
"These guys~. Won't listen. Non-compliance with evacuation order means we're exercising force."
Jo Seong-yong's voice crackled over the radio.
What gave him the balls?
Soon, his confidence showed.
Vroooom—
A helicopter.
A combat chopper flew toward us.
"See it? See?! You fucking bastards? You're done!"
Jo Seong-yong and his men cackled.
A gunship was indeed the angel of death against small fry.
Fast, strong, tough.
But before it arrived, a sharp roar pierced from the eastern sky.
"Ah."
A groan—likely from the Pioneers—came over the radio.
Surface-to-air missile.
It streaked across the sky straight at the chopper.
The gunship tried evasive maneuvers, but the Mach-speed missile hit, exploding it mid-air.
"Force exercised done?"
Kim Pilseong's mockery rang out before the debris even hit.
Confirmed now.
99% before, but these guys were 100% Legion.
An army.
Radars probably blanketing everywhere, SAMs waiting miles out fired the instant the chopper appeared.
Fighters overhead, maybe, beyond sight.
That was an army.
Humanity's ultimate violence.
To fight one, you needed an army.
Simple truth, but Woo Min-hee hadn't.
My fate hung by a thread now.
"Hunter Park~ Hunter Park~."
Kim Pilseong called me.
Suspecting me.
A warning.
Or proof he had leisure to hunt me amid this.
Sure enough.
Whump-whump-whump—
An eerie wail like ghosts from above.
I bolted into the bunker, bracing for the uproar.
Boom! Kwaboom! Boom!
Boom!
Long-range barrage.
155mm smoke rounds hammered the Pioneer positions like clockwork.
Nothing stands against artillery.
Even monsters melt—what chance humans?
"Retreat! Retreat!"
In the inferno, survivors wheeled to flee, but shell clusters cruelly matched their speed, chasing them down.
Of ten vehicles, only two escaped.
Left: countless craters, black ash, unidentifiable corpses strewn.
"Fucking bugs with swollen livers."
Kim Pilseong cleared his throat.
"Park Gyu. You there? Can we talk?"
No answer.
No need.
It'd just confirm I was here.
Park Gyu had left this place.
Slipped away quietly.
Drones lifted into the sky.
They methodically scanned around my camouflage house.
"Park Gyu. If you're listening, come out. You might've ratted us. Forgivable. Just one smack? Yeah? For real. Not killing. Why'd you kill the professor?"
"... ."
"Join us. Legion faction. We get respect there. They got Awakeners here, but they won't hunt monsters. Leaves work for us. World changed like that. Who knew so many North Koreans would flood over?"
Kim Pilseong kept yapping.
I just listened.
Would keep listening.
Until the storm passed.
Soldiers soon entered my zone.
They ransacked the camouflage house irritably.
Things breaking, kicks against container walls.
"Careful. Booby traps around here."
Kim Pilseong's voice from the bugs.
He was close.
My old rival, who'd crossed blades with me, hunting nearby.
No booby traps except the bomb in the decoy bunker.
None visible as traps, at least.
Sneaky ankle-breakers via angles and drops, or thick brush before cliffs for missteps via illusion—but no manmade gear.
My zone's best defense was stealth itself.
Death traps were inside the bunker.
Checked Claymore tripwires, remote detonator connections.
Beep-beep-
Motion sensors flashed nonstop.
All directions. Omnidirectional.
"Nothing here."
"Checked vents—no sign."
"Sewers show no survivor traces."
Bugs relayed their talk.
Then Kim Pilseong.
"Drones?"
"Not found yet."
"Likely hiding in brush. Assume on foot—scan perimeter heavy. Can't have gone far."
Radio buzzed right after.
"Park Gyu. Not Kim Daram, right?"
"... ."
"That arrogant bitch from the committee. Oh, Colonel now."
"... ."
"Kim the Colonel's orders. Her plan. Used us up then discarded—to nuke 'em all, bought from Chinese."
I closed my eyes, deep breath.
Paranoia?
Bad assumptions always proving true.
My junior's face flashed—her family's awe at my bunker toilet.
Why that choice?
No other way?
If my toilet were elsewhere, same decision?
Unknown.
She called me young-looking.
Not dumb enough to miss the barb.
Her in the field suffering crises, me fleeing war to build bunkers idly—easy to see as aged kid.
Not anymore.
No foe this baby-faced.
Kim Pilseong's sharp voice over bugs.
"Patch to Kim Daram. What? Busy? Bullshit—Park Gyu called. Connect now!"
Brief silence, then radio.
"Hey. Park Gyu."
"... ."
"You're here, right?"
"... ."
"Kim Daram says you built a bunker here? Hide-and-seek?"
I exhaled my last lungful sigh, opened eyes.
And spoke.
"...Here."
A Hunter iron rule from Jang Gi-young flashed by.
"Come kill me."
Be serene before death.
I'd say it different.
Won't die ugly.
Not butchered like swine.
Till death, wound and bite one more.