The Two Monsters on Jeju Island
16.
-A lot of people gathered again this year. How many of them will actually make it into Nature? Well, I don’t know. I’m not interested in people who aren’t even soldiers yet.
Three moles glittered in the sunlight.
Even if he took off that hat, the sun would still reflect off his face the same way.
He looked nothing like the man who’d been sweating buckets in front of us a little while ago.
-I won’t keep this long. Everyone, would you tap the band on your wrist twice?
Tap, tap.
When I tapped the band twice, a black, rubbery material spread over my entire body, starting from my arm.
-Ooooh.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
What had first felt like spandex gradually took the shape of a military uniform.
It was a digital camouflage uniform.
-This is a training uniform. Handy, isn’t it? Now! Let me explain why it’s called a training uniform. As you came in, each of you should have received a practice weapon identical in shape to your own weapon.
At his words, everyone lifted the black practice weapons hanging from their right hands.
-This weapon and the training uniform offset each other’s physical damage.
“Then how are we supposed to subdue our opponents?”
Yehwa muttered beside me.
Of course she’d be curious. Probably everyone was.
Armstrong continued his explanation right away.
-You must have many questions. Our central control system has registered each of your uniforms and weapons. The moment you strike, the system calculates the impact and determines the target’s condition. Ah, looks like there’s a question? The red-haired student over there?
-Yes!
A familiar head shot up, bouncing on the spot with a raised hand.
Red hair, huh?
“Oh, that’s the girl from back then. Long time no see.”
Yehwa seemed happy to see her too.
-Hello. My name is Flame.
So that was her name.
I’d never known, since I only ever called her Red.
I don’t know, I don’t remember. You’re Red forever now.
You’re just a traffic light from here on out.
Let me make you an honor traffic light.
I nudged Yehwa.
“What?”
“I just learned her name.”
See? Yehwa was the same.
“Yawn—”
Hwahyang didn’t seem interested at all.
-Yes, Student Flame. What would you like to ask?
-I understand that physical damage can be offset by some method. Then what about magical damage? That isn’t a weapon, is it?
-Ah, excellent question.
Other examinees seemed curious too, letting out murmurs of admiration.
-First, would you all look at the sky?
Everyone tilted their chins and looked up.
“Huh? What’s that?”
A barrier was stretched overhead.
A familiar kind of barrier.
-The moment the last plane arrived, a barrier was erected over Jeju Island. It calculates and reduces magical damage.
And please don’t start wondering what if your magic can pierce the barrier. It was made by Lady Stella in the first place.
Oh, no wonder it looked familiar.
If my mother made it, then that was that.
Red even nodded at that.
-It seems there are no more questions. Good. Then, little by little… it’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-
“It’s starting.”
As Yehwa said, the mana around us began to vibrate.
“See you on the other side.”
“Of course.”
The white cross in Hwahyang’s eyes glowed brightly.
-Now then. Automatic transfer to your assigned area will begin.
The colonel tossed aside the megaphone and spoke with mana laced through his voice.
From now on, kill each other, you little brats.
Ha, look at the way that old man’s lips twitched. He’d been waiting all this time just to say that one line?
Still, “kill each other”?
The system voice rang in my ears.
For some reason, it sounded like my mother’s voice had been mixed into it too.
-Checking the random coordinates of your assigned area.
-Transferring.
-An unfamiliar energy has been detected.
-Partial Awakening confirmed.
-Transferring to a separate exam site prepared for fairness.
Whoosh—
Blue light wrapped around my body.
And then, a slight feeling of weightlessness.
“What the hell is this?”
I opened my eyes at the top of Baekrokdam.
This wasn’t my area.
“Huh? Why am I here?”
Someone else was standing there too, blankly frozen in place.
Blond hair, blue eyes.
I had a pretty good guess who it was.
Demian of Greece.
He looked at me with the same expression, like he was thinking, What the hell?
“Who the hell are you?”
That’s what I should be asking.
***
Demian, a boy born in Greece.
Praised by everyone around him as a genius, he had a secret he could never tell anyone.
What the fuck is going on? Why am I here?
That was the first thing he thought when he was born.
Demian had a past life.
And not just any past life.
He had once lived a life that could stand shoulder to shoulder with Nature itself.
So last time I regressed, and this time I reincarnated? Into a blond, blue-eyed foreigner, no less?
He was a man who had lived before the Great Cataclysm.
In other words, he was someone from a time when nations still held real meaning.
Man, I want samgyeopsal. Wasn’t this region supposed to be the old Greece? Can’t I get back to Korea?
Demian’s previous life had been Korean.
Ymir.
The first SSS-rank Awakened human.
A regressor.
The Saint of Chronos.
Even beyond that, there were plenty of other titles used to describe Demian.
The reason he had come to Jeju Island now was simple.
“What? Jeju Island? Then do they have black pork too?”
“W-well, if by black pork you mean samgyeopsal… you can eat as much as you like in Nature.”
Demian instinctively showed his aversion to Nature.
“That’s the military, right? I’m not going.”
The military. Every Korean man had to go there at least once.
He was a man with a 1997 enlistment number.
The last Korean to complete his service.
If there’s anyone more pathetic than me, a guy whose world ended on his discharge day, then show yourself.
It was his favorite line.
Unless you’d lived a truly miserable life, you couldn’t hold your own in front of him.
The Nature operative who had taken Demian out of the orphanage after seeing his extraordinary talent thought to himself, How do I talk this guy into it?
That was when it happened.
“Ah, life’s boring. Is there anyone strong around here?”
Demian had spent his entire life intoxicated by the dopamine of battle.
He was bored by the peace he’d never known.
“If you go to Nature, there are lots of strong people there, and you’ll run into all kinds of interesting things.”
“Hmm… still don’t like it…”
“Why do you hate it so much?”
“Come on, it’s the military, isn’t it? That means rank and discipline are a given, and there’s probably all kinds of bullshit, right?”
Setting rank and discipline aside, bullshit?
“I’ve never even heard the concept of bullshit in a hundred years.”
In the first place, the risk of petty corruption in a place full of Awakened individuals was vanishingly small.
How could you pull any nonsense when you didn’t know what they might do while you were asleep?
“Huh? No bullshit? In the military? Is that even possible?”
Of course, in Demian’s mind, a military without bullshit was impossible.
“It’s true. That kind of structure can’t exist.”
“Really?”
“And if it’s you, Demian, then rank and discipline won’t be a problem either. Once you go in, rapid promotion is basically guaranteed, so nobody’ll be able to say a word. The moment you put on stars, true freedom opens up for you.”
If he wasn’t especially interested in promotions, then the moment he got stars, he’d gain the right to refuse assignments and could live a very free life.
“Oh… stars, huh… Maybe I should try it?”
Any Korean man who’d completed military service had, at least once, imagined himself wearing stars.
Demian, who had once been a fine young Korean himself, was no different.
“Yeah, sounds fun. Let’s do it. When’s the exam?”
“Next month.”
“You can handle the rest for me, right?”
“Yes.”
And so a month passed.
The plane carrying Demian landed on Jeju Island.
“Oh, ooooh! Palm trees! Jeju Island!! Ha, I can’t believe I’m back here.”
If you counted both his current life and his previous one, it had been around 110 years.
I wonder if that thing is still buried there.
Demian recalled the creature he’d once sealed underground in the distant past.
“Still, this is pretty high-level, huh?”
Compared to the era when he’d been active, the average had risen dramatically.
“The average is around B-rank, maybe? Interesting. Very interesting.”
-This year too…
Even during Colonel Armstrong’s speech, Demian’s bizarre behavior continued.
“Oh? That guy looks like he could hit A-rank.”
He said that while looking at the Red one asking Armstrong a question.
He also calculated the combat strength of countless other examinees.
From now on, kill each other, you little brats.
“Oh, is it starting?”
What Demian expected and what actually happened were a little different.
-Checking the random coordinates of your assigned area.
-Transferring.
-An unfamiliar energy has been detected.
-Partial Awakening confirmed.
-Transferring to a separate exam site prepared for fairness.
“Huh? What the hell is this? Why am I here?”
While Demian was dealing with a bit of confusion, he heard a voice beside him.
“What the hell is this?”
Black hair. Long ears.
What is he? A half-elf? Damn, he’s handsome.
Even after being reborn, Demian was pretty good-looking himself, but this was on a completely different level.
For some reason, irritation welled up in him, and he snapped in a curt tone.
There was another reason too.
“Who are you?”
He couldn’t even begin to estimate the other man’s strength.
There’s someone my age I can’t gauge at all?
Was that even possible?
“You got a problem or something?”
***
What the hell is he talking about all of a sudden?
Some blond bastard suddenly made a weird face and came at me looking for trouble.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Normally, you should be polite to someone you’ve just met.
But you don’t feed a mad dog.
He’d think he was above me.
“What? Nonsense? Ha! It’s been a while since I’ve heard that kind of line.”
Is he even speaking Korean right now?
The bracelet we’d been given had an automatic translation function, so everything was being understood for us.
But the words coming out of this guy’s mouth matched the shape of his lips perfectly.
A blond, blue-eyed guy speaking Korean.
Was that the dignity of a language still doing its job even after nations had vanished?
“Hey, he-hey? What’s wrong with this bastard? Why’d he just go all blank on me?”
The guy’s hand waved in front of my eyes, pulling me back to my senses.
“Ah.”
I drifted off again.
“You’re a weird one.”
“Says you.”
“Why are you talking down to me? You’re younger than me, kid.”
Ha. Including my previous life, I’m old enough to be your parent, you punk.
Of course, I couldn’t say that.
Should I just say it?
I’m the Sword God himself! Bow your head!
Huh?
“You were the one who started talking informally.”
Of course, I couldn’t do that either.
At first, I’d planned to tell Yehwa.
That was my own resolution.
But then why haven’t I said anything yet?
If the chance came, I’d say it. Probably.
Bang—!
At the sudden sound of steel clashing, I raised my sword to block straight ahead.
The sound made when our swords met was like a cannon going off.
“What, you blocked that?”
“Why are you attacking all of a sudden?”
“No reason—just thought you looked pretty interesting. I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do here yet, so let’s warm up a little?”
What the hell is wrong with this mad dog?
Was he born for fighting or something?
The moment his attack failed, the corners of his mouth lifted skyward.
“You’re quite the crazy bastard, aren’t you?”
“Ha. Look who’s talking. Take a look at your own face first.”
At his words, I brushed the corners of my mouth with my left hand.
The corners of my lips were about to reach the heavens.
“Haha, maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I found someone worth fighting?”
This is fun!!
Nature and Demian lunged at each other at the same time, neither willing to yield first.
Clang-!
“Kahahaha!!”
“Kyaahaha!!”
The two men didn’t even try to hold back the laughter that burst out as their swords crashed together.
And the whole thing was being watched by both Colonel Armstrong at the control center and Director Kim Seokhyun.
“Senior…”
“Yeah, I know. You don’t need to say it.”
“...Yes.”
Those lunatics.
By then, the question of why those two had been moved separately had long since vanished from their minds.
They were ecological disaster species.
If those two had been placed together with the other examinees, what in the world would have happened?
“The system really knows how to do its job…”
“Long live Lady Stella…”
“Still, it looks like it’s about to begin.”
The exam will now begin.
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