Career Counseling
Won-goo was handing out coins to his crew.
In this world, you paid gold coins at the Altar of Survivors at the center of the Shelter to acquire abilities. There were countless abilities to choose from, and only those who combined them well managed to stay alive. Viewed that way, what Won-goo was doing really was career counseling — he was pointing each person toward the path that fit their Gift with absolute certainty.
"Hyun-sung, you're reinforcing the ability I told you about, same as before. All you have to do is hold out a little longer. And remember — never, ever pick up a sword. Got it?"
"Understood, Hyeong-nim!"
"Same goes for you, Jo Mu-sa. Su-won, keep upgrading what you've been working on. Old-timers, stick to the plan as well. And our weather man, Geum Chul-soo."
"Yes, sir."
"You're putting your first points into Poison Resistance. Without it, surviving gets a lot harder."
Geum Chul-soo nodded. Won-goo waved a hand through the air, and the others took their coins and disappeared toward the Tower.
Next was Jeon Hye-ji. Won-goo was reviewing her abilities on paper.
"Jeon Hye-ji, you're missing way too much. Long years inside a cult, I suppose. You never built up even the basics."
"I know."
"But we're not footing the bill for all of that for you. It'd cost far too much. So those things get handled exactly as written in the contract. You'll pay us back later."
"How many will I need?"
"If you want to travel with us, you need at least three. All basics for living out in the field. You'll need to raise your stamina too, at least to a baseline."
"I'll earn them."
"And you..."
"Yes?"
"Your Gift draws cards? Based on color? Or what?"
"I can get information about a person. I draw the cards and..."
"An information type, then. But you said a person?"
"Yes."
It wasn't a bad ability. In a world without a single trustworthy soul, information that let you judge character was precious in its own right.
"How far does it go right now?"
"Whether someone can be trusted... or not. About that much."
"Then down the road, we'll steer your build toward making the most of that Gift. For today, go put points into the abilities we discussed. Hye-ji — don't forget to bring back the confirmation receipt."
Jjalkkeurak.
Won-goo handed over the gold coins. Anyone watching might have wondered what he was trusting to give away gold like that, but it didn't matter — the contract had already been drafted through Sanghae.
The gold coins Gong Won-goo had earned while operating alone in the apocalypse were at an absurd level. Judged purely by the number of coins he held, he didn't fall behind anyone. No — it went beyond that. He could have chewed through several whole factions single-handedly.
And yet Won-goo knew his own limits well.
'I'm not a combat type... so that much has to come back around.'
Using his nature as a regressor, Gong Won-goo had claimed a great deal early on. He'd secured numerous items and perks, and amassed a fortune in gold coins. But to seize the early apocalypse, he'd had no choice but to sink coins into combat-oriented abilities — and those coins had added up fast.
Since he wasn't a natural owner of a combat Gift, his efficiency could only decline as time went on. Eventually, the moment would come when a survivor with far fewer coins could push him aside.
So Won-goo was raising his crew. Preparing for the day his own weaknesses came to light.
Right now it looked as though Won-goo was carrying everything on his own with future knowledge and skill, but the crew would surely repay his investment with growth to match. He knew exactly how to allocate abilities for maximum efficiency.
30.
100.
200.
300.
The coin thresholds at which Milestone Traits were granted.
That information was still unknown to the survivors — because not a single one had yet reached even a second Milestone Trait.
Special abilities. Traits, for short.
The powers they granted were rare and devastatingly strong. Naturally, the road to earning one was anything but easy.
This was a world where merely covering living expenses was hard. Pushing through that hardship to stockpile abilities was an enormous undertaking — which made the reward called a Milestone Trait worth a great deal.
The catch was that once a Trait was chosen, there was no undoing it. Even survivors with the identical Gift would diverge enormously depending on how they'd built their Traits.
Which abilities you picked up along the way mattered, but the choice that mattered more was the Trait. Some Traits even chained into one another.
Right now, 100 coins — let alone 200 — looked impossibly distant, but in time, plenty of survivors would carry far greater numbers of gold coins. If you didn't want to fall behind when that day came, you had to choose your Traits carefully from the very beginning.
Deliberately. Aligned with the path you intended to walk. In the direction that made the most of your Gift.
Which was why the counseling Won-goo had just given truly was career counseling.
Won-goo's own Gift was a support type, one specialized in technology — and so he'd taken Traits tied to the Shelter system. That was precisely how Won-goo's Services had made it this far unscathed. The road hadn't been perfectly smooth, but so far, everything was running according to plan.
Won-goo had picked out the two most reliable members of his team first.
Mu Beob-sa and Lee Hyun-sung.
Of the two, the one carrying the hardest load right now was Lee Hyun-sung. Keep this pace and he'd take his first Milestone Trait without a hitch — and once he did, the things they could do would multiply.
'Get the newcomers, Hye-ji and Geum Chul-soo, properly settled, and we can pick up real speed.'
Won-goo hadn't been wasting his time. He'd never once forgotten his purpose: erasing the factions that had sold off the Earth. He'd simply needed to build up the foundation before executing the plan.
Now the groundwork was more or less complete. All that remained was to accelerate.
'Poke saved us a good deal of time.'
Won-goo tucked the rest of his gold coins away intact into his account — under the label of operating expenses.
Which they genuinely were. Won-goo's Gift, Blessing of Machine Civilization, carried within it the tremendous potential to command the machinery of the cosmos. A rare, special Gift that unlocked more and more as it expanded.
But a Gift like that was hard to survive with, because it lacked a foundation. Unlike other Gifts, it offered no crisp, concrete power — just possibility, stacked to the brim.
The Temporary Shelter Won-goo had created with the Trailer was an especially alien ability.
In a world where the end times had begun, a Shelter was a single ray of light — the bare minimum institution cosmic law guaranteed to survivors. And Won-goo could activate such a space himself, small as it was.
He could render a designated area untouchable by outside interference for a set period of time.
Compared even against abilities regarded as top-tier Gifts, that was unmistakably alien — and unmistakably mighty. The power to create a Shelter.
Precognition, reinforcement, observation, blessing, curse, magic, psychokinesis, qi, summoning, linking, domination — it belonged to none of those categories. A Gift of exceeding rarity.
Its flaw was the staggering cost of using it properly. That was why Won-goo sat quietly swallowing even monstrous coin expenditures.
Ordinary abilities didn't vanish without special circumstances. Even if a survivor's arm was severed, their innate recovery power didn't simply disappear.
The Trailer Won-goo possessed was different.
Though bound unmistakably to Won-goo himself, the moment it was destroyed, it ceased to exist entirely. The gold coins he always kept in reserve existed to prevent exactly that scenario.
Won-goo had always braced for that emergency. And now, with just a little more distance, he'd finally be able to hit full speed.
"Dropped everything off as ordered, Hyeong-nim."
"Good. Appreciated. Is the Trainer keeping the beast well?"
"Yes, sir. He said it looked to be in good spirits."
"Good. That's all I need to hear."
"And here's the access key, Hyeong-nim."
Lee Hyun-sung respectfully handed over the key, and Won-goo took it and pocketed it.
"Did the Trainer say anything else?"
"He says it's still young, so it should tame quickly. He figures a week at most?"
"Is that so?"
"Yes. And he said its spirit's already well broken, so it should be fine."
"A week works for me. Its spirit's broken, hm... so the physical therapy wasn't wasted after all?"
"Seems not, Hyeong-nim."
They'd handed the Goblin Hexer over to the Trainer to make it easier to transport. Given time, Won-goo could have administered physical therapy directly and beaten it into docility, but there was simply too much work piled up. On top of that, goblins were, by their very nature, monsters that refused to be tamed.
Certain monster species tamed easily enough — goblins were not one of them. Which meant that, even at a cost, handing it to a professional with a relevant Gift wasn't a bad choice at all.
"It's fine. Everything's a question of money. The Trainer's fee..."
"Oh, for the love of. Old man, would you shut your money-grubbing mouth? Or you want to be head of this outfit yourself?"
"It's just that the taming fee is steep, is all."
"And the results will be worth it, so drop it. Besides, the Trainer's got to eat too. Hyun-sung — our next heading is Cheonchu Mountain. The school we visited before."
"Understood, Hyeong-nim!"
"Don't we need a pathfinder this time?"
Hye-ji asked.
"We're going to Cheonchu Mountain because of you. To recover the gold coins."
"I know. That's why I'm asking. You said the terrain's vicious. You said the routes keep showing up in different forms..."
"We stashed it near the school, didn't we?"
"Right."
"Then we're fine. Su-won never forgets a road he's walked once."
"That's his Gift, isn't it?"
"Good studying, Hye-ji."
Won-goo smirked. Sharp-eyed, Hye-ji took the remark in stride.
"I wasn't bad at it."
Lee Hyun-sung was out front, digging into the earth. The reason for the digging was none other than to bury Jeon Hye-ji's father.
The body had been badly damaged, but they wrapped it carefully in cloth, sealed it, and laid it deep in the ground. Hye-ji stared at the scene in silence. She didn't shed any tears.
"Light up."
Won-goo drifted over beside her and offered a cigarette. Hye-ji took a whiff of it and wrinkled her nose. It wasn't a foul smell, but it was nothing like an ordinary cigarette.
"It's not some drug. Just heavily laced with a calming agent. A regular person wouldn't handle it, but you can now — you're a modified human."
"That phrasing is disturbing, 'modified human.'"
"Would 'enhanced human' sit better?"
"They're both weird."
"Who isn't an enhanced human these days? It's a world where even little kids get at least one point of toughness as a matter of course."
"Fair enough."
"Smoke it. It was expensive."
Hye-ji took the cigarette and brought it to her lips. Won-goo lit it for her.
"You know the odds of finding your sisters... are slim, right?"
A nod.
"And you're looking for them anyway?"
"Yes... I have to."
"Walk me through what happened that night."
"I don't remember it well. I think there was a raid at night... and when I opened my eyes, my sisters were gone. Only Dad was there, looking devastated."
"You clashed with 3B, didn't you?"
"I think so, yes."
"Then there's a chance they were taken back."
"......"
"Maybe that's why your father told you to forget it all."
"Then... should I be giving up?"
"Didn't we sign a contract?"
"...?"
"We look. Even if it means going up against 3B."
"...!"
Hye-ji's eyes went wide. She knew exactly how vast and dangerous the 3B syndicate was.
"No need to look at it like that. Nobody's marching in today. We wait until the crew's level climbs high enough."
"We'll need a lot more gold coins, then."
"Coins don't solve everything. If they did, how easy would this damned world be?"
With that, Won-goo passed Hye-ji a shotgun pulled from the Trailer.
"Take it. This is the fastest, simplest thing you can learn."
"This is..."
"A gun. Looks it or not, it's no ordinary gun. Get into a stance."
"You mean, like, aim it?"
"You've never watched me shoot? And here I thought you had a good eye."
"Still..."
"Just imitate me, then."
Hye-ji clumsily took a shooting stance.
"No. Narrow your shoulders, lean in a bit more. There. That's your base stance. All that's left is pulling the trigger. Picture a target over there, and twist your body into it from that position."
The lesson was moving at a pace that bordered on absurd, but Jeon Hye-ji did her best to keep up. She knew that in this upside-down world, failing to adapt quickly meant dying.
Nothing lasted forever, and you had to stay ready to answer every change.
"Good. Jo Mu-sa! Toss a rock up there."
"Yes, sir."
"Hit that, and it's ramen for dinner tonight."
"Throw it!"
Jo Mu-sa hurled a rock into the air, and before she knew what she was doing, Hye-ji swung the muzzle up toward the stone hanging in the sky.
"Fire!"
Taang!