Descent into the Art Village
The view outside the window began to change around that time. The dense forest of buildings and gray roads visible through the visor suddenly faded away, replaced by the undulating ridges of mountain slopes and trees swaying in the wind. Once the concrete-and-glass cityscape peeled away, it felt as if the true face of the Korean Peninsula, long hidden beneath it, had finally been revealed. Scattered mountain peaks passed by with small villages nestled between them, and not a single vehicle could be seen on the narrow roads cutting across the fields.
'Looks like they've already locked this area down.'
I was thinking that while gazing at the eerily empty roads when the helicopter's engine note shifted slightly. The angle of the rotors changed, and the aircraft slowly dipped its nose, beginning a gradual descent. It was a sign that we were nearing our destination.
[Charon. Five minutes to arrival.]
A familiar voice came through the headset from the cockpit. I straightened my back and spoke.
"Five minutes to arrival!"
[Five minutes to arrival!]
The team's crisp echo filled the cramped cabin. The quiet atmosphere from the briefing had vanished completely, and a sharp, battle-ready gleam now lit every pair of eyes. The first to move were Sirius and Pellis. The two sat facing each other, checking each other's gear—Sirius tapping Pellis's magazine pouches while Pellis tightened the chin strap on Sirius's helmet. The dog demi-human's hands carefully pressed the cat demi-human's vest buckles, and the cat demi-human's nimble fingers secured the dog demi-human's glove straps. They looked like beasts grooming each other's fur, and the sight alone made the corners of my mouth twitch upward.
Next to them, Belpe leaned slightly toward Spica, her fingertips straightening the chick's combat uniform here and there. She pressed down on Velcro, adjusted a slightly twisted tactical pouch, and finally tucked stray strands of hair back under the helmet. It was exactly like a mother fox grooming her kit.
'Ah...'
A soft warmth spread through my chest. Whenever I saw demi-humans looking after one another like this, I honestly melted a little inside. Unlike the human teammates who finished equipment checks in a brisk, businesslike manner, these guys inspected every inch of each other's bodies before battle as if caring for family.
'Seeing this really makes me glad I came to Team 1...'
I wanted to smile fondly while watching this beautiful scene, but now wasn't the time. The Baek Myungmin who loved demi-humans had to stay tucked away in her pocket for now. It was time for Charon, the bloodless and tearless Big Mama. I forced a blank expression and lifted the shotgun from my lap. I pulled the bolt back to check the chamber, removed the magazine, reinserted it, and confirmed the load. The metallic click traveled up my palm to my forearm. Then I drew the pistol from its holster and racked the slide once. Click. All clear. I also felt the weight of the shield on my back once more, checking its security.
'Nothing wrong. Ready to go.'
Our altitude dropped further. The treetops outside the window drew so close they seemed touchable, and between them the roofs of the art village began to appear one by one.
'...'
The first thing that caught my eye was a hanok roof with traditional tiles. Beside it stood a gallery building covered in colorful tiles, and shifting my gaze revealed a café with a vibrant mural on its concrete wall and a modern workshop combining wood and glass. Each themed building looked completely different, so from above it felt like someone had plated architectural styles from different eras onto a single dish.
'This really is a nice place...'
Honestly, I wanted to visit on my next day off. Browse paintings at the gallery, buy a pretty piece of pottery at the workshop, sit in a hanok café sipping traditional tea while taking photos—perfect shots for social media. But when I lowered my gaze a little further beneath that picturesque scene, the romantic fantasy evaporated in an instant. Armored vehicles and military trucks lined every road leading out of the village. The heavy bodies of olive-drab armored cars blocked the roads, and military trucks packed between them made the place look like a battlefield rather than a tourist spot. I could see personnel in body armor crouched behind the vehicles, and mobile barricades had been set up near the village entrance in the distance.
'They've completely sealed it off so the monsters can't escape the village.'
That also meant everything inside the village was trapped within that blockade. Monsters, civilians, and soon us as well. Despite its name, people were surely holding their breath and waiting for rescue among those pretty buildings right now.
'I can save the sightseeing idea for after today's mission.'
I pulled my eyes from the window and gripped the shotgun's handle tightly with both hands. The other two helicopters that had been flying alongside us tilted their noses and began splitting off toward their assigned sectors. Team 8's helicopter peeled away toward the traditional district, followed by Team 6's heading for the art district as it descended. Once the triangular formation disbanded, only our helicopter remained in the sky, and the suddenly vast expanse felt strangely lonely.
'From here on, it's just us.'
Once we dropped below the treetops, the village scenery came into view. Gallery windows were shattered, and overturned bicycles and spilled flowerpots littered the roads. The pretty alleys where tourists would have strolled in groups stood empty, replaced by things that were not human.
'There they are, the monster bastards.'
Black shadows lumbered slowly between buildings. Some crawled on all fours, some clung to walls and tilted their heads side to side, and some lay flat on the ground sniffing at something. From above, I could see the artistically ugly creatures at a glance. Roughly counting the visible ones, there were about a dozen. Adding those hidden inside buildings or deep in alleys, the real number was probably several times that.
'Good thing they're low-grade. If they'd been mid-grade, three helicopters wouldn't have been nearly enough.'
Just then, the co-pilot twisted around to look at us and raised a gloved thumb. Descent preparation complete. At that signal, the cabin lights clicked off. The moment the interior flooded with green light, the ramp door began to open slowly with a hydraulic hiss. Outside air rushed in through the gap. It smelled different from the scent when entering bridges or buildings. The scent of grass and earth tickled my nose first, followed by the fishy, musty body odor unique to monsters.
'Means they're close.'
I stood up and spoke.
"I'll descend first. Belpe, provide cover just in case."
[Yes, Mama!]
The team's reliable reply filled the green-lit cabin. I strode to the edge of the ramp and looked down. The rooftops and roads of the modern district where old buildings clustered lay directly beneath us. Cracks ran across the asphalt, and a streetlamp on one side of the road had been bent and toppled. It was evidence that the monsters had already swept through, but fortunately none were currently prowling right below our drop point.
'Now.'
I gripped the shotgun tightly with both hands and leaped from the ramp without hesitation.
"Charon descending!"
Wind slammed into my cheeks, and gravity pulled my entire body downward. In the brief moment of freefall, my fluttering combat uniform the only sound, the cracked asphalt, the bent streetlamp, and the colorful murals on the old building walls filled my vision.
Thud! A heavy landing echoed as a sharp shock traveled up from my feet. My knees bent to absorb the impact, and my boot soles bit into the asphalt. 'Good. Time to work again today.'
Immediately after landing, I lowered my stance and pulled the shield from my back, scanning the surroundings. Front, left, right. No immediate threats. Right behind me came two more heavy thuds in quick succession. Sirius landed first, followed immediately by Pellis. Sirius raised his ears and lifted his rifle the moment he touched down, while Pellis landed as silently as a cat and was already watching both sides. Finally—
Thump! A lighter landing sound, one tone softer than the others. There was a hint of nervousness, but it was the sound of two feet planting firmly without stumbling. Spica.
'She made it down safely.'
I didn't need to turn around to know. There were no panicked footsteps right after landing. For a rookie, it was a pretty clean descent. The team formed up as instructed. Normally they would have stuck close behind me like ducklings, but today they spread out into the V formation, taking positions on either side behind me. Sirius on the left wing, Pellis on the right. Only Spica, the medic, stayed directly behind me at the center of the V—the safest spot. Right in the shadow of the shield, protected by both wings. A position where she could support me, the healer, most closely while also receiving the most protection.
'She said she was confident earlier, so just stay calm.'
The rotor noise above changed slightly. Looking up, I saw Belpe's silhouette at the edge of the helicopter's ramp. She held her sniper rifle in one hand, scanning below, her fox ears moving calmly even through the visor. One glance left, one glance right. She seemed to have finished her final threat assessment. Then, without any warning or sound, Belpe threw herself from the helicopter. Her body twisted once in midair before being sucked toward the rooftop of the building right beside us rather than the road where we stood. A light tap. True to her fox nature, she minimized even the landing sound and took position at the rooftop's edge before immediately lying prone and deploying the bipod of her sniper rifle. The way she pressed her eye to the scope and slowly swept the muzzle left and right across the entire village looked as natural and practiced as I was when doing my makeup in front of a mirror.
[Belpe, deployed. Mama, no monster signatures detected within a 50-meter radius. You're clear to move.]
Belpe's voice coming through the headset was so calm and steady it was hard to believe it belonged to someone who had just jumped from several meters up.
'Our eyes are in position. Now it's time to move our feet.'
I raised the shotgun to shoulder height and stepped toward the streets of the modern district. The streets of the modern district were a strange place. Low buildings that looked like they had been built in the 60s or 70s lined both sides of the road, and occasionally a freshly painted mural or sculpture jutted out between faded signs and walls yellowed with age. Old and new mixed awkwardly yet somehow warmly. It was the kind of atmosphere tourists would love to photograph, but the people walking these streets right now weren't carrying cameras—they were carrying shotguns. Behind me, the footsteps of Sirius and Pellis followed at steady intervals, while Spica's steps came a beat later from slightly inside the formation. Aside from the irregular rhythm created by four sets of footsteps, there was no sound at all. No birdsong, no signs creaking in the wind, no human voices—the entire village seemed to be holding its breath in silence.
'This kind of quiet is the most unsettling.'
If it were noisy, at least I'd have some idea which direction something might come from, but when it's this deathly still, it means every direction could be dangerous. I kept the shotgun at shoulder height and constantly swept my gaze left and right. Inside shuttered shops, in the shadows between alleys, beyond second-floor windows. Monsters could burst out from anywhere. As we advanced slowly while scanning our surroundings, things scattered across the road began catching at my feet. Fallen easels, red paint spilled from broken paint cans staining the asphalt like blood, and a canvas bag that looked like someone had dropped it while fleeing in a hurry lay in the middle of the road.
'I wonder if the people who were here made it safely to the shelters...'
The bag's zipper was half-open, and a sketchbook peeked out. The pages fluttered in the wind, revealing a pencil landscape drawing. 'They were probably sitting here drawing buildings right before the monsters arrived.' I pulled my gaze away and focused forward again. A very light footstep brushed past overhead. The sound of someone leaping between rooftops. Belpe. She was following along the rooftops at our pace. She would crouch at the edge of a roof, check ahead through the scope, then rise and move to the next building if all was clear. She never stayed in the same position for long, yet she continuously swept the entire path ahead of us.
[Two hundred meters ahead, clear.]
[Left alley confirmed. Clear.]
[Safe until the next intersection.]
Belpe's brief reports came through the headset at regular intervals. While her reports continued, it at least meant there were no monsters ahead of us, so my job was to focus on watching the blind spots on either side rather than straight ahead. We had passed three alleys and turned at two intersections when—
Crack! A dry gunshot rang out from somewhere on a rooftop. Sharp but short. A sniper rifle. I reflexively tensed the arm holding the shield, and I felt Spica swallow a breath behind me.
[Five low-grade monsters ahead. Taking out two.]
Belpe's report came right after the shot. There was no trace of agitation in her voice—it was as matter-of-fact as reporting the weather. Not the tone of someone who had just blown the head off a living creature, but that was Belpe.
"Got it. Leave it to you."
The moment my answer ended—
Crack! Crack! Two more shots rang out in quick succession. The interval between the first and second shot was barely the time it took to draw a single breath. It meant she had retracted the bolt, ejected the casing, reloaded, and fired again in that tiny moment.
'...She said two but took out three, that fox.'
Once the gunshots echoed between the buildings and faded, Belpe's presence on the rooftop disappeared as well. When I turned to check where she had been, the edge of the rooftop where she had been lying prone was empty.
'She probably moved to a safer position.'
If a sniper fires three rounds from the same spot, the sound and muzzle flash will expose their location—that's basic. Belpe would have moved to the next firing position before the last casing even hit the ground.
'Belpe will handle herself just fine.'
Now it was our turn to move. The remaining monsters that heard the shots might rush this way in excitement, or they might scatter in fear. Either way, we couldn't afford to miss this opening.
"Belpe took out three. The remaining two are ours. Maintain formation and advance."
I thrust the shield forward and quickened my pace.