Fear and Dread
"When do we begin?" Yeom-gwi asked.
Everyone had already gone over Sanghae's contract with a fine-toothed comb and put their signatures to it.
"Right away, obviously. How much time do you all need? It won't take that long to bring in our gear."
"I can leave this very instant. Kekeke. You're done preparing yourself, aren't you?"
Yeom-gwi laughed. The prospect of earning ten gold coins in such a short span of time had clearly put her in a radiant mood, and she hadn't stopped grinning since.
"I'm done as well. Though I doubt everyone here is quite the machine you are, madam. How long for the rest of you?"
Answers came flying in from every direction, and Won-goo gathered them up and settled on a rendezvous one hour out.
"Let's regroup here in one hour. No one's going to be late, are they?"
With that, Won-goo headed upstairs above Sanghae's establishment. Normally he conducted all business on the first floor, but this was a slightly unusual situation. A few of the Named—Yeom-gwi among them—needed no preparation time at all, which meant they would have to wait around once everyone gathered. So Won-goo went up to the second floor. Sanghae had granted special permission; the second floor was where Sanghae actually lived, and he rarely let anyone up there. While the first floor had the feel of a restaurant, the second felt more like a hotel. The moment Won-goo ascended, a hall smaller than the one below opened up before him, with rooms radiating off in every direction—and Sanghae had firmly warned him not to set foot in any of them.
"You managed to rope them in after all. Impressive."
"Easy for you to say, Director Gong. Plenty of people have had their heads taken off for sidling up to Named with nasty tempers."
"Only because they came at it clumsily, trying to muscle in."
"You never even heard them out?"
"Professionals can always tell whether someone's spouting nonsense or not. That's exactly why reputation matters."
"I'm sure you know best. Oh, and—this came for you."
Sanghae handed over a small slip of paper.
"Who's it from?"
"Came through one of my ttangkkun runners. Wouldn't say who they were, but they claimed you'd know once you read it."
Won-goo unfolded the note, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"What is it?"
"Let's just say the job got a little easier. And since it's been a while since I've come up here—surely you can spare me something for the trouble?"
"Have a beer."
Sanghae went into the back himself and returned with one.
Among survivors, beer was practically a soft drink. Alcohol was classified as a poison by their enhanced bodies, so a single drop could send the hardiest drinker staggering—yet one upgrade to poison resistance turned the same person into a boozer who could down several bottles of soju without blinking. Which, in turn, meant their bodies treated alcohol as a toxin, pure and simple. Perhaps that was why the ranks of drinking survivors kept shrinking, while everything trended instead toward methods that delivered dopamine more precisely and reliably. Cigarettes were one such method. Some went in for techniques far more specialized than tobacco, but no one ever rotted into a husk over it—mental fortification alone handled most of the side effects without much fuss. Above all, the substances circulating among survivors had already been refined to strip out the worst of the harm. With the law dead and gone, there were no regulations left. And the truth was that most survivors lived perpetually on the knife's edge between life and death. The fear of dying, the dread of an uncertain tomorrow—no amount of hardened spirit could fully shake those loose. So every survivor had their own way of burning off the stress.
"Is this supposed to be the character for 'eye'? Huh?!"
The moment Il-chul laid eyes on the signpost, he erupted.
"That's the character for 'day,' you dunce! For 'eye' you'd need to draw one more stroke. No—wait! Why the hell did the idiot draw it vertically?! Ugh. Just write it in Hangul. My bad for asking something so hard. You ignoramus."
"I'm studying hanja because you keep telling me to, hyung!"
"Why now of all times? Hurry up and write the damn sign!"
"Hey, Il-chul. You got nothing on the demons swarming into the area?"
"Demons? You mean the Named?"
Plenty of survivors worked as freelancers, and they had a habit of calling the ones perched impossibly high above them demons. Out in the Field, a monster and a Named were threats cut from the same cloth anyway. In a world where a whole crew could get shredded over a single dispute, a freelancer's life was worth precisely as much as a fly's.
"Yeah. A whole pack of Named have flooded in."
"Enough of them to justify all this fuss?"
"Sounds like every Named in the region showed up. Yeom-gwi the crone is here, I heard."
Phweee! At her name, Il-chul let out a low whistle.
"Yeom-gwi the hag? That's heavy hitters we're talking about."
"Every last one of that caliber has gathered."
"What for? Some kind of association?"
"Association, my ass. Are they handing out licenses? You take an exam and become a Named? You get strong, rack up a record, and people treat you like a Named on their own. How many times do I have to explain this, you illiterate clod?"
Scolded roundly, the dunce scratched the back of his head and grinned sheepishly.
"Anyway—so even you don't know anything about this, Il-chul?"
"Information's my bread and butter, but that? Not a f—ing chance I know about that. I've never once seen three Named gathered in one place. Gangs with three-plus teams? Sure, all the time. Named are a different animal. They only care about themselves, and unless there's work, they vanish—won't even show their faces. You think three or more of them just gather? Can they even gather? You sure you saw this right?"
"I saw it right. Everyone's buzzing about it."
"The Named are? World trying to flip over again? Weird shit keeps happening one after another."
"Don't jinx it. We're barely managing to adapt as it is."
"This isn't living. It's just enduring."
"Suwon. This is the right road, yes?"
"Yes. It is."
"And finding our quarry presented no difficulty, that is the part I ask?"
"There was no need to find them at all, sir."
"And what manner of statement is that, that is the part I wonder?"
"Call it the importance of communication. Or the importance of information, perhaps."
"Then an explanation comprehensible to me would be the part I request."
"After the beastmen attacked Hyunseong-i, word was they went looking for a ttangkkun. Not just any pathfinder—a ttangkkun who guides people to the Black Shelters."
"Weren't there only one of those in Sabbath?"
"That's right. Seokbong. And Seokbong was kind enough to send a note."
"Didn't they say the beastmen took Kim Hee-jun with them?"
"They did take him. But he's dead. Apparently the area had been barbecued far worse than anyone expected."
"That is not an unwelcome development, that is the part I judge. Hm? Then... the beastmen remain ignorant of the affair with Kim Seok-bong, that is the part I conclude."
"Exactly. If they knew, why would they come looking?"
"Kim Hee-jun dying—that was a stroke of divine luck, that is the part I say."
"You could call it that. A mercy for Seokbong, too. Had he been alive, he'd have recognized Seokbong on sight."
"Then why go after Seokbong in particular, that is the part I ask?"
"You're a fugitive Shelter Administrator on the run—where else are you going to go? The Black Shelter's the only option left."
"His ties to Cheonmok are out in the open now, so he must have intended to join forces with them, sir."
"Likely so."
Won-goo nodded along to Jeon Hye-ji's reasoning and let it stand.
"W-we do keep getting te, tied up with the Black Shelter, don't we."
"It's about time we did something about the Black Shelter."
"The Black Shelter, you say?"
Mu Beob-sa reacted with a note of surprise in his voice.
"Why so startled? The Black Shelter and the Shelter have never gotten along. If the Black Shelter grows too large, the Shelter's influence shrinks."
"Even so, the Black Shelter is not a thing to be handled lightly, that is the part I caution."
"I'm saying their numbers need trimming."
"And it must be we who step forward for it? The Black Shelter people are tenacious ones. That would mean putting all of our necks on the line, that is the part I point out."
"Honestly, old man... You think I'd pick a fight without thinking any of that through? I've got something planned already, so just watch."
"It is that your plans of late all seem to be tightrope walks over an abyss, that is the part I worry. Director Gong's plans. You are aware of how badly they keep going off-script these days, that is the part I ask?"
"Where in this world does everything go according to plan? You patch and mend as you go—that's living. Well. Here we are. Mandeok Forest."
Mandeok Forest was a wood of reeds that grew taller than five meters. It had once been troll country, and the gang that led the hunt against those trolls was called Mandeok. It all happened in the earliest days of the apocalypse, and from then on, this place was known as Mandeok Forest.
The moment they stepped down from the Trailer, the Named began drifting toward where Won-goo stood.
"Everyone knows this place, right? Mandeok Forest—where the trolls used to hole up. Visibility in there is terrible, which makes it perfect for ambushes, so stay sharp. Ghost?"
Won-goo gestured toward a man standing off to one side, wearing a robber's ski mask with crudely cut holes for his eyes, nose, and mouth.
"Far as I'm concerned, pointing you here was my whole job. Anything else is your problem."
"Then do your one job properly."
"Nothing gets in my way, I find them. Every time."
With that, Ghost closed his eyes and began chanting.
"Like I said before, everything else you can be careless about—but watch the one carrying that nasty blade. He's the reason we lost the Trainer, so keep your guard up. Ah, you may not know who the Trainer was. He used to run the Field as a duo with me, back in the day. Man had an uncanny knack for dodging anything."
Some of the Named did remember the Trainer. There were faces among them who'd known Won-goo even before he'd started posting jobs.
Whoooooiiing!
Ghost's chant cut off. He stared into empty air, and a sphere of blue light the size of a soccer ball bloomed into being, gradually taking on shape and form.
A ghost hound.
Ghost was a summoner with a name for himself around these parts—and his ghost hound in particular was superb at tracking.
A hound with the look of something painted on an Egyptian tomb wall emerged into view. Ghost pointed a finger at the forest, and without a moment's hesitation, it streaked into the reeds.
"No need for me to tell you all to sync up, so—"
Won-goo stopped mid-sentence.
The Named, who had been giving him lukewarm responses all this while, had snapped into motion with startling crispness. Without so much as a pause, they plunged straight into the forest. Only a handful remained behind.
"Honestly... I was still talking."
"If they were the type to listen, they'd all be traveling solo, no?"
"Fair point."
"Appreciate the easy work, Director. The older I get, the harder the jobs wear on me."
"You're good for another hundred years of work, madam, so what's with the sob story?"
"Cheeky brat, saying something horrifying with a straight face. Regardless—settlement will be exact. Even for easy work. Understood?"
"You think my credit runs that shallow?"
"It does not."
"And it isn't easy work, mind you. Beastmen, after all. One careless moment and you're sliced to ribbons."
"We're all professionals here. What's the concern?"
"'Professional' hasn't saved anyone from dying, has it?"
"I meant that I won't die. Kekeke. See you inside, brat."
With that, Yeom-gwi too entered the forest. For all her shuffling gait, the way she moved at speed was indistinguishable from a young person—faster, if anything.
"Sh-she's fast."
"Fast, all right. That old bat's the one who makes you doubt her age. Old woman's face, but who knows—maybe the real her is young. Unlike some people, that is."
"Eh? Why are you looking at me, that is the part I wonder?"
"Just two old folks, so the comparison writes itself."
"F—! I am not old, I have merely suffered greatly, how many times must I say it?!"
"Shh! Keep it down. You haven't noticed the incident's already begun? Why are you both acting like amateurs?"
"......."