Three Loaches (1)
That evening, I called a few people together.
Kwon Wooseok, Jeon Hyojun, Choi Mincheol, and Jeong Hayun.
Choi Mincheol laid a map out on the table.
It was a map put together by Jeon Hyojun, who handled detection, Choi Mincheol the search team leader, and Jeong Hayun who worked under him.
"As you already know, red means monsters, blue means survivors, and black means impassable zones."
I looked down at the map.
Hanam and Seongnam were off the list of candidates. Getting there meant crossing a Han River bridge. The Han River monster seemed to be in some kind of dormancy — it hadn't moved once since the day I first transformed into the dragon. But that didn't mean the thing was dead. If we carelessly provoked it and it stirred, the whole area would be turned into a wasteland.
That left Uijeongbu and Guri. Uijeongbu was simply too far.
"We'll have to go to Guri, then."
"Yes. I think that's our best option."
"Which route is fastest?"
"The fast route and the safe route aren't the same."
Choi Mincheol pulled out a ballpoint pen.
"The fast route is the Riverside Expressway."
He traced the long road that ran along the Han River.
"It heads northeast like this. The road is simple — you just walk straight along it."
"And the safe route?"
"You loop through Gwangjang-dong and hug the base of Mount Acha."
Choi Mincheol's pen traced a roughly similar arc.
"The direction is nearly identical to the expressway. The difference is that there are plenty of places to hide if we run into monsters."
And it kept us from provoking the Han River monster, too.
The fast route versus the safe route. To be fair, neither was exactly safe, but still. The expressway was simple and quick, but offered nowhere to hide in a monster encounter and carried the needless risk of stirring up the river monster. The route through Gwangjang-dong and along Mount Acha had plenty of cover, but the dense residential complexes meant a high chance of running into monsters.
It wasn't even a close call, risk-wise.
I drew our route with a marker.
"We'll take the detour. Cut through Gwangjang-dong, swing around the south side of Mount Acha, then head east from there."
"There was one monster on this route that looked dangerous."
"That would be this black one?"
"Yes. It looks something like a deer — about the size of a three-story villa. It drags a pack of minions around with it, too."
"Is it something I couldn't kill?"
"Of course not. It's just that the monsters will come swarming. Getting out without losses would be difficult."
"Then we'll avoid that one."
Even factoring that in, it was still less risky than provoking the Han River monster.
I rolled the map up.
"The route's decided. Now let's decide who's going."
I looked around at the four people gathered in the room.
My leg was almost fully healed. Awakened people were simply tougher than ordinary humans by default. It gave a faint twinge now and then, but it didn't interfere with walking or running. No one needed to carry me anymore.
Trimming this down to the minimum number of people was the right call.
"First — Warrant Officer."
"Yes."
"You're coming, of course?"
"Is that even a question?"
Kwon Wooseok fiddled with the camera hanging around his neck. Apparently he was planning to bring that along, too.
"Next, Choi Mincheol."
"Me?"
"Yes. You're the search team leader. You've spent all this time staring at maps, so you know the terrain well."
"That's true of Hayun as well, though... wouldn't it be better to bring Hayun along too?"
"That's right!"
Whether she'd been holding back an itch to jump in, Jeong Hayun, who'd been hiding in the corner, piped up immediately.
"Honestly, oppa's ability isn't well suited to search work anyway! I'm the fastest one here — shouldn't I be the one going?"
"Which is exactly why you need to stay here."
"Huh?"
Jeong Hayun tilted her head.
"You're the fastest one we have. The search team can function without Choi Mincheol. It can't function without Jeong Hayun."
"Ah..."
The reason Choi Mincheol had been the search team leader all this time wasn't that his ability suited the job, or that he had a particular talent for it. It was simply that he had been the leader of the Guui Station survivors. It was also because he'd proven his spirit of self-sacrifice during the escape from Guui Station.
But now Jeong Hayun had earned her own standing by running searches alongside him. Choi Mincheol was under my command, yes — but there were people he'd been responsible for since the Guui Station days. When we made contact with the military, it would paint a perfectly coherent picture for the two leaders of separate survivor groups to show up together.
There was no real need to keep Choi Mincheol here.
"And Hyojun — you're staying too."
"What? Why?"
"The control tower stays here. Without you, who's going to do detection?"
Jeon Hyojun mumbled for a moment, then let out a disgruntled sigh.
I patted the kid on the shoulder.
"If anything happens, tell Jeong Hayun here. Jeong Hayun, please coordinate with the others and act accordingly."
"Okay... please take good care of our oppa..."
Jeong Hayun hung her head gloomily.
I was a little uneasy about it, but I had to trust them. I was the leader of this group, and I was also its strongest awakened. But I hadn't built a group that would fall apart over three people stepping away.
I handed the map to Kwon Wooseok.
"Warrant Officer, please do one final route check with Choi Mincheol before you sleep."
"Yes, sir."
I rose from my seat.
"Then let's sleep, and leave at sunrise."
There was no grand send-off. With only a small nod from the Malbun Elementary guard detail, we slipped quietly out of the TechnoMart.
In over two hours of walking, we didn't kill a single monster. Back in the day, we might have burned them all on sight — but now I understood. What you can kill and what you should kill are two entirely different things.
'How far have we come?'
'We should be leaving Gwangjang-dong soon.'
Choi Mincheol whispered, tracing the map with his finger.
The ruined Seoul was quiet. So quiet that an eerie desolation hung in the air. Cars still clogged the roads, and a few buildings still stood untouched — but the only things moving were monsters.
Beyond the villas and low-rise buildings, the ridges of Mount Acha sloped down toward us.
Guri was just ahead.
Just then, Kwon Wooseok abruptly raised a clenched fist.
'Something?'
'A very faint sound. Metallic — like metal striking metal.'
I strained my ears. I heard nothing at all.
Kwon Wooseok wasn't the type to hallucinate.
Something was out there.
'Detour?'
Kwon Wooseok glanced back at me. Metal striking metal. Not the kind of sound a monster makes.
'Let's check it out first.'
'That's the deer's territory.'
'Even so, let's take a look. We watch from a distance, and if the odds are bad, we pull out.'
I gave a glance to Choi Mincheol trailing behind us. Once I saw him nod, we began to move, slowly.
When we'd advanced another block or two, something snagged on my senses. And then I heard it too.
-KA—ANG!
A heavy, resounding crash, like something colliding.
We crept up onto the rooftop of the nearest building. And we saw it.
Four branching antlers stretched out like bolts of lightning. Beneath them, a grotesquely distorted human face. Herbivore maws studding its body like growths, and seven legs planted like pillars.
Wow. A knight.
...A knight?
-PHRRRT!
The deer snorted violently. Its unpleasantly human-like head writhed, and the maws along its body all gaped open at once.
-HYUUUUK!
-Gahk, gaaaahk...
-Kkeughk! Hgh!
Screams leaked out — half laughter, half weeping.
Beneath them stood a knight in plate armor, wielding a greatsword.
The deer lowered its head. Its hind hooves pawed at the ground a few times, and then it charged like a bull entering the ring. The knight's greatsword lay at a diagonal.
-KWAJAJAJAK!
Steel boots gouged into the asphalt. The knight was driven back several meters — but in the end, he deflected the deer's antlers. And in that instant, the greatsword flared with a silver light so bright it stung the eyes.
-KKIGIK—KANG!
One of the deer's antlers went flying through the air.
I found myself murmuring out loud.
"Wow... a knight..."
No, but seriously, why is this real? He's fighting like an actual knight out of a fantasy novel.
Meanwhile, the knight gripped his sword in reverse and clambered up the deer's antlers. Then, like swinging a pickaxe, he brought it down on the creature's skull.
-CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Blood and shards of bone sprayed in every direction.
-KYAAAAAK!
The deer went berserk, thrashing its head. As the flung-off knight tumbled to the ground far away, the maws on the deer's body all gaped open at once.
-KKEOAAAAKAAAK!!!
A different sound than before. Far louder, far longer. A metallic reek of a scream, like something scraping a chunk of gristle out of its throat.
The monsters my senses had been tracking all turned in unison.
'Choi Mincheol.'
'Yes. Those are the minions. When I saw them last, there were over ten.'
'Looks like about twenty now.'
Choi Mincheol's face hardened.
'Let's get a little closer for now. Warrant Officer, can you carry me and Choi Mincheol across the rooftops?'
'Of course.'
We dangled from Kwon Wooseok's arms as he vaulted across the buildings.
The knight killed three of the monsters that charged him. He cleaved one in half, and the second that lunged from behind he killed by twisting its neck like a wrestler. But numbers tell in the end. On the third monster, the armor on the knight's leg — bitten by a dog-like creature — crumpled inward.
The thing he'd kicked away collapsed with a whimpering yelp, but blood was seeping through the seams of the plate armor.
We'd seen enough.
When we'd closed enough distance to the knight, I tapped Kwon Wooseok's arm.
'Let's stop here. We help.'
'Yes.'
Kwon Wooseok answered briefly and set us down.
Roughly forty meters. The helmet's visor occasionally turned our way — so they'd noticed us over there, too.
The mana I felt from the knight was about a quarter of mine. The first abnormally powerful combatant I'd encountered. Best to make a flashy impression the first time.
I drew up my power. In the breath between gathering air for a shout, a hazy scent of gunpowder seeped out.
"GET DOWN—!!!"
The knight hastily rolled across the ground. Good instincts.
I grinned and took a deep breath.
And was about to exhale... or I would have.
Instead, I scattered my power in every direction at once.
-WHEEEEENG!
A resonant tone like a high-pitched organ reverberated in all directions. Violet arcs of extreme heat rippled across a radius of dozens of meters, and everything — from the prone knight up to the creatures at my feet — burned.
The back of my head tingled and sweat poured down. That one blast was worth how many heat-beam charges, exactly? Enough to kill and resurrect the giant dozens of times over.
Still, it felt worth it.
By the time it was over, only the crackling corpses of monsters remained around us. Char-blackened concrete and glowing red rebar. From the middle of the boiling, bubbling asphalt, the knight lifted his visor.
Beneath it appeared the face of a man smeared with soot and sweat. He glanced sharply around, then asked with a hollow laugh:
"Huh — are you people? Actual people!?"
I shouted at the top of my lungs again.
"First, let's RUN!"
More monsters were coming.
The knight was the leader of the survivor group in the Gwangjang-dong apartment complex. Eighty-seven people, he said, most of them residents of the apartments.
We made easy conversation as we crossed the apartment corridors.
"Just call me the Knight."
"...Do your people actually call you that?"
"Yep. Well. Names don't really matter all that much anyway."
...He's a bit of an odd one.
And the moment we followed the Knight into the apartment's living room—
"Agh!"
A woman standing to one side suddenly clutched her eyes and collapsed.
"Heesoo! What's wrong?!"
The Knight rushed over to her. Blood was running down from between the fingers pressed to her eyes.
The woman called Heesoo raised a hand to hold him back.
"Wait. Wait a second. I'm fine."
"What do you mean, fine?! There's blood coming from your—"
"I said I'm really fine, so shut it. It's making my head ring."
The woman rose unsteadily to her feet. She glared at me through bloodshot eyes.
"You."
"Hm? Me?"
"Why did you come here? Where did you come from?"
Her tone was razor-sharp.
Come to think of it, Jeon Hyojun sometimes bled from his eyes too, when he pushed himself. Other awakened people would sometimes get nosebleeds or cough up blood as well. ...That woman just used her ability. The way she collapsed the moment she saw me — it had to be something linked to her vision. High probability, a detection-type.
"We came from the TechnoMart."
"Gangbyeon Station?"
"Yes."
Heesoo's gaze moved past me. Kwon Wooseok, Choi Mincheol — and then back to me.
"All three of you are psychics?"
'Figures.'
"Yes. That's right."
Heesoo said nothing more, scanning me up and down with wary eyes. Instead, it was the Knight who stepped in, looking awkward.
"Heesoo, calm down. These people saved me."
"That doesn't make them safe. You saw what happened last time, when those bastards came trying to gut you for human meat — and you're still saying that? They showed up smiling too, at first. You only survived because you're a psychic. If you hadn't been, you'd have died right there."
Heesoo answered irritably and pointed a finger at me.
"Especially that one. What were you thinking, oppa, bringing that here?"
"What?"
"There's no comparing them to you. If that person wanted to, everyone here could be dead."
"...It's that bad?"
"Yeah. That bad."
The Knight looked back at me. So he didn't realize it, even after seeing that earlier? I'd assumed he was just trusting, letting us in without a shred of suspicion. Sharp in combat, but maybe a bit of a blockhead otherwise.
I asked Heesoo.
"Detection-type? It must be linked to your vision. Can you tell things just by looking? Like a scouter?"
"...I don't know what a scouter is, but yes. That's right. And I'll apologize for what I called you."
"It's fine. It's a fair point."
From everything I'd observed so far, this group had three awakened. The Knight. Heesoo. And a woman with a rather gentle face. Among them, there wasn't a single one at the Knight's level.
Quick judgment. If the Knight was the muscle, this one was the brains.
"So."
Heesoo asked again.
"Why did you come all the way here? From the TechnoMart, all this way?"
"We weren't exactly heading here on purpose."
I pointed out the window.
"We were on our way to Guri."
"Guri?"
"Yes. To meet the military."
Heesoo's expression shifted strangely. The Knight's too.
"...Why?"
"Isn't the military over there?"
"No. They are."
Heesoo glanced once at the Knight. Then she let out a long sigh before answering.
"Because oppa already met them."
The woman with the gentle face was Baek Minhee. And she was a healing-type awakened.
The Knight's shin — mangled down to the bone — was made whole in what felt like less than ten seconds.
A rare ability. A valuable one, too. This group's worth as a recruitment target had just gone up considerably.
Apparently, the military had passed through here two days ago. A search party, to be precise — people who'd entered Seoul from the Guri side looking for survivors, and the Knight, out on patrol, had happened upon them.
We closed the door to the room and gathered, just the five of us.
"So — the rescue team?"
"They said they'd send one."
Heesoo answered, leaning back against the sofa. Dried bloodstains still lingered at the corners of her eyes.
"Within a week, at the latest."
A week. So the military hadn't fully secured the Guri region yet. And Guri was practically right next door to here.
"Then there's no real need for us to go all the way to Guri."
"That would be true, if meeting the military were your only goal."
Heesoo's answer was odd.
I asked her.
"Was there something more they said?"
"Well—"
The moment she opened her mouth—
"It's nothing."
The Knight cut in.
"I, uh. I've decided to enlist."
"...Re-enlist?"
"Yes. I was discharged as a sergeant after finishing my service."
The Knight gave a bitter smile and went on.
"The country's in shambles and people are dying by the hour. If you have strength, you shoulder the responsibility that comes with it. Is there any reason not to?"
"Oppa."
"Here we go again?"
"Who started it first?"
Heesoo's face twisted hard.
I asked the Knight.
"Did the military order you? Force you to join?"
"No. They proposed it. They said they'd send a rescue team, and asked whether I'd be interested in working with them. Then I said yes."
"Sounds like they want you under the martial law command."
"Yes. Apparently there's a unit that gathers and operates psychics separately."
The Special Operations Force Utilization Group, maybe? Well, to be fair, this side didn't really qualify as an armed faction like ours. Even with three awakened, the group's actual combat power was the Knight alone. He was quite strong, admittedly — but one man is still one man. Not enough to make the military wary.
"See?"
Heesoo said, brimming with irritation.
"This is exactly what I mean. They come promising a rescue, and really it's 'there's a strong psychic here, let's take him with us.'"
"Heesoo."
"Did I say anything wrong? How is that different from a threat? Rescue the people — in exchange, oppa joins the military."
"It's different."
The Knight said firmly.
"How is it different?"
"He said the rescue team was coming regardless of my answer. The military brought it up as a separate matter from the start — rescue first, and only afterward did they ask whether I'd consider joining."
"And you actually believe that, oppa?"
"Believe it or not, what's there to agonize over?"
The Knight let out a sigh.
"I'm the one who said yes. The choice was mine."
"Then why!"
Heesoo's voice cracked sharp.
"Is that even a choice?! You're holding the people here hostage — half-threatened into being taken away! You think they're going to give those people safe work under a bunch of psychics?"
"I'm not joining to do safe work."
The Knight said evenly.
"I'm joining to kill monsters."
"And you knew that, and you're still going?"
"Yeah."
"You're insane. Absolutely insane. Mr. High-and-Mighty Saint, with not one thought for me or Mom."
Heesoo's breath came ragged. The dried blood around her eyes had spread.
"Heesoo."
The Knight smiled bitterly.
"But someone has to do it. And right now, that someone is me."
He wrapped his arms around Heesoo's trembling shoulders.
'Wow.'
The Knight. So he really was a knight.
But that's beside the point. This wasn't the conversation we needed to be having right now.
"You two."
I spoke to the Knight and Heesoo.
"Would you mind if we talked among ourselves for a moment?"
We moved to the apartment next door. The moment the door shut, I turned to Kwon Wooseok and Choi Mincheol.
"Let's bring them with us."
"To meet the military, sir?"
"Yes."
"Is that really necessary?"
Choi Mincheol asked. I answered matter-of-factly.
"They're a survivor group the military has already verified."
That was huge.
The Knight knew we existed. He hadn't yet heard the details about the survivor group at the TechnoMart — but that was something we could tell him starting now. And then at least one person outside our group would know that we'd left Seoul intending to make contact with the military.
From that point on, our story would no longer come only from our own mouths.
That there were over a thousand survivors at the TechnoMart. That they'd spent a week sending rescue requests to the military. And that they'd received no reply whatsoever. A third party would exist who knew all of it.
Better yet — that third party was about to join the military themselves. And he happened to be the most powerful combat-type awakened I'd met so far. At the very least, he was not a card you throw away easily.
It would get harder for the military to pretend we didn't exist, and their internal housekeeping would get a bit more tiresome. Even if none of that proved especially difficult for them.
More insurance is always better.
"For now, let's tell them about our situation too."
Kwon Wooseok asked, sounding puzzled.
"Deliberately, sir?"
"Yes. It's not as if they could harm us — and it's better than being the only ones who know our own circumstances."
I rose from my seat.
"The Knight has to stay here and protect this place."
Kwon Wooseok and Choi Mincheol stood up after me, and I opened the door.
"We'll take Heesoo with us."
After all, she seemed to be the brains of the operation.
"By any chance — are you thinking of renegotiating with the military?"
"Of course I am."
Heesoo nodded immediately.
"Then come with us, Heesoo. Let's negotiate with the military together."
The Knight looked a little put out, but he didn't try to stop his sister.
I shook Heesoo's hand with a smile.
Defending the nation is one thing — but every group needs a union. Those doing the dirty work especially so.