The War Is Over
The war is over.
Now that I've actually said it out loud, no phrase could sound shallower. And in this South Korea — a mere ceasefire nation, where the very word "war" had long since become a story about someone else's country — it sounded even thinner than it otherwise would.
And yet, among the crowd gathered in the central plaza, not a single soul scoffed at those words.
There was only a strange, heavy silence.
It was the kind of atmosphere where even a single cough would have drawn a hundred accusing stares. On that frozen sheet of thin ice, where a person felt they might shatter through at any moment, people flinched at the mere rustle of dead leaves underfoot, their nerves stretched taut with worry.
Of course, that was only natural.
Just that one sentence.
Just those two words.
They all knew what they meant.
And now, at long last, all that struggle was about to bear fruit.
On the massive screen erected in the plaza, the broadcaster's flushed face glowed red-hot. Judging by the spectacle — spraying spit as though he could no longer contain it, practically launching it at the camera — the man was clearly beside himself with excitement.
But the people huddled together before the screen were wearing expressions every bit as heated, if not more so, their attention riveted on the strike team's exploits within the frame.
······To be perfectly honest, their skills weren't anything impressive.
The broadcaster's commentary was decent enough, but if that were all there was to it, the crowd wouldn't have been whipped into this kind of frenzy.
And yet the people erupted at every single movement the "strike team" made, and whenever the members so much as stumbled into danger, they'd heave out laments of sympathy as if it were their own misfortune.
Even when the situation would normally have earned a bowlful of curses, the reaction was the same.
Even watching a young strike team member trip up his own teammates with clumsy mistakes, the spectators clenched their fists and cheered the oaf on with such fervor that it was impossible to believe this was only a D-Rank gate clearance.
Of course, I understood.
A full twenty years.
Ever since the first gate opened, humanity — defeated again and again — was finally about to score its great counteroffensive victory.
That was why the streets had transformed completely into a festival.
Between the cheers that packed the thoroughfares, cries born of raw emotion leaked out now and then. But unlike any ordinary day, no one clicked their tongue or cast judgment. On the contrary, young men helping elderly citizens who had collapsed from sheer emotion could be spotted here and there.
If anyone had witnessed this scene, nine times out of ten they would have called it a festival.
In truth, it wasn't a wrong description.
Because this scene would soon become a page in history.
The day humanity finally broke free, once and for all, from the terror of the gates — that's the headline it would carry.
A glance, sidelong. The strike team had already set foot in the deepest chamber of the gate. Their grip on their weapons was rather awkward, admittedly, but at this level there'd be no problem at all taking down the guardian lurking in the heart of it.
The moment that thought arrived, the reality of it struck me, unbidden.
Yes.
The war is over.
Truly.
A war that had raged for twenty long years was finally ending in humanity's victory.
······The war is over.
It was as though an invisible wall stood there.
If the cheering streets echoing with celebration in the distance were a paradise for the optimists huddling safely beyond that wall, then this plaza — packed with people trembling in anxious doubt, terrified that touching the dream too roughly might wake them from it — was, quite frankly, a mire for the pessimists.
At the very edge of that divide.
In a back alley wedged between the noisy streets and the fear-stricken plaza, we stood.
A truly exquisite location, I had to admit. The raised stone wall tucked out of sight, the stench thick enough to gag, and the gray lane draped in a single thin thread of shadow above it — from the outside, it looked like nothing more than a forgotten corner no one spared a glance.
Like a prison. Is that comparison a bit too theatrical?
No — perhaps this too was exactly what he intended.
Beyond this fence, where neither those celebrating this event nor those despairing over it paid the slightest attention.
Because this very spot was surely the negotiating table he had prepared for me.
······With the monsters' death throes blaring raucously through the speakers as background music, the streets were already running a parade of their own. The news anchors broadcasting the hunters' every move were still holding forth, and even here in the plaza, hope had bloomed among the gathered crowd — fragrant and radiant, like the scent of spring flowers.
That was surely what he had wanted to show me.
In an era where the word "peace" had become a cruel joke, he apparently intended to speak of peace in earnest.
Yes, it's really over now.
Is that so.
Most of the high-rank gates have already been cleared. The low-rank gates are all but under control. Even the sporadic new openings are nothing more than a manageable nuisance now!
I have eyes. I have ears too.
There's no more need to fight. We really don't have to fight anymore!
You little bastard, you don't know how to listen to a word anyone says, do you.
A sigh escaped me before I knew it. Of course, it wasn't as if I truly didn't understand why he was so desperately earnest.
There's no more need to fight.
It was also true that my feelings about those words differed somewhat from everyone else's.
That was why the man was now working his unfamiliar tongue so hard.
It wasn't a pleasant thing to realize.
In other words, it meant I had been officially flagged as a dangerous element — by this man, or by whoever stood behind him.
I could guess without looking what kinds of conversations had happened back at the table. That I might, say, barge into that "last gate" right now, carve the strike team into pieces, and hole up inside for a siege.
So I'm a live bomb now, am I.
Another sigh broke out of me, unbidden.
My head understood. If that's how they saw me, then the smarter play was to appear relaxed, magnanimous. Judging by how the man was holding his breath and scrutinizing my every move, he'd almost certainly steeled himself for the possibility of trading blows with me here and now.
But I had no room for composure at that moment.
Because a despair far too heavy to shrug off was already spilling over inside me.
······It's over.
Truly.
Humanity has no more obstacles left.
Having finally conquered every gate, mankind has earned the right to welcome a true age of peace.
Yes. You won.
…What?
Yeah. Congratulations on your big fat victory.
A flicker of panic crossed his face for an instant.
But instead of answering it, I decided to rise and leave my seat.
I'm going.
I started walking, ignoring the confusion that rang out behind me a beat too late. Mercifully, no one moved to follow.
Was it after I'd turned down the alley another two or three times?
The next moment, a crushing wave of emptiness crashed over me without the slightest warning.
It felt as though the ground had crumbled away from beneath my knees. As though I'd just realized that the floor I'd been standing on all this time was never solid earth at all — only a block of styrofoam, ready to splinter apart at any moment.
Only then did the truth finally land.
Every gate had closed.
Humanity had won.
And that meant — I would never again be able to kill a monster.
SON OF A BIIIIIITCH!!
······Humanity's resistance. Humanity's counterattack. Humanity's triumph.
On the eve of an achievement destined to be sung in exactly those terms, I alone in all the world was choking down a defeat that could never be washed away.