Chapter 48
Chapter 48
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Survivor I
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shin Noah
1
Excuse me, but when the words “student council” or “student council president” show up in a work of fiction, what kind of impression do you get?
Wondering why this random question out of nowhere?
Because it’s relevant to this episode.
As I mentioned at the end of the last one, the martial world is full of utter weirdos.
The person I’m introducing today is just as much of a freak as the Sword Marquis. In other words, a total lunatic who could proudly carve their name into the ranks of “the great figures who illuminated the Korean Peninsula.”
Way back in the day, South Korea got its national pride fix from having this soccer player or that idol.
But even after civilization collapsed, history marches on. Now people from each country compete in national pride by bragging about how badass their Awakeners are, and on this new scale, the Korean Peninsula never fell behind.
The “great witch who holes up in a train car 365 days a year and forces her minions to wear dunce caps,” the “marquis who turns Mount Hua the volcano into Mount Hua the flower mountain,” and so on.
What a lineup—it couldn’t help but make your chest swell with pride. Is the Korean Peninsula for real?
It’s a land so blessed you could call it a buffet for lunatics—no, great figures. And there were still more I hadn’t introduced yet.
Her name: Cheon Yo-hwa.
Occupation: These days, with the trend that you can’t make a living sticking to just one job, she’s a multi-Awakener juggling multiple gigs.
First job: high school student.
With the country gone, public education went down with it, so kids suddenly became unemployed in the eyes of internet communities—unable to pick “elementary/middle/high school student” in the occupation field when signing up.
In that sense, Cheon Yo-hwa was one of the last high school students left on the peninsula. By grade level, she’d be around 6th year high school, give or take.
That alone was SSR-rarity in game terms, but her other jobs were even more unique.
Second job: necromancer.
Cheon Yo-hwa was the one and only summoner on the peninsula.
2
Speaking of high school, there’s no such thing as school ties on the peninsula anymore.
Couldn’t be helped. What good is graduating from a top university with a shiny pedigree when monsters don’t check your diploma before eating you?
But human systems don’t change easily. No bread? Eat cake. No soccer stars? Suck up national pride from Awakeners instead. With school ties deleted, a new brand of cronyism installed itself right away.
“Hm?”
One day, while wandering around the guild, I witnessed something shocking.
“Whoa, for real?”
“Y-Yeah, really. Ahaha.”
Seo-gyu and Sim A-ryeon (villain Goryeo Jang) were eating lunch together at the restaurant, laughing.
As everyone knows, Seo-gyu has anger management issues. Sim A-ryeon’s a severe community addict.
Both had a few DNA glitches when it came to forming close bonds with other Homo sapiens.
It was like watching a hippo and a crocodile peacefully sipping from an oasis spring, and like any sane person witnessing a miracle, I couldn’t help but feel intense curiosity.
“How long have you two been buddies?”
Blink, blink.
At the guild master’s question—like the heavens themselves—they glanced at each other.
“Uh, us?”
“W-We just... are...”
Are these two dating or something?
Two souls clashed inside me. The boomer side that frowns on guy-on-guy romance, and the boomer side that coos happily at young love.
“No, boss. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s absolutely not that...”
“Then how’d you get close?”
“Why not?”
Seo-gyu said it like it was obvious.
“We’re all from ‘Busan Station,’ right?”
“What.”
That’s right.
These days, Awakeners don’t care about school ties—they judge based on which “Void” they Awakened in.
If you had to name it, maybe “Void bond.” Location-based, so you could call it regional ties too.
Seo-gyu, Sim A-ryeon, me—we all Awakened at Busan Station. The guy you don’t name, the hypnosis brainwashing master “G,” is Busan Station too. Later, by the 555th round, O Dok-seo joins the Busan Station Awakener family.
“No way... Busan Station gets treated like an Ivy League among Awakeners?”
“Why not? Of course it does. Boss, we’re number one in Void bonds.”
“......”
I was shocked.
Hey, without me, you punks would all be lost at Busan Station or digested in a monster’s gut within three weeks!
In fact, up to the 3rd round, all Busan Station folks died. Seo-gyu, the fastest guy, managed 50 deaths by the 50th round—all record shortest escapes.
These little shits... Ivy League?
“Hey, you greenhorns with no blood dried on your heads yet. What the hell’s this Void bond crap? Instead of wasting time on that, train your aura more—you’re embarrassing yourselves.”
“Boss is so young, how do your words always drip with age...”
“Yeah. It’s weird. Without that, you’d probably be super popular...”
Even as the heavenly guild master scolded them, their faces stayed blank.
Like, “Ugh, gramps is at it again.”
My head spun, breath caught. I’m an infinite regressor. Destined (or not) to save the world. This how I get treated?
“Um, Guild Master... But I think sorting by Void bonds is natural.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? A-ryeon, A-ryeon?”
“......”
Sim A-ryeon’s face shifted to “Ugh, gramps butchering old memes again,” but wilted under my death glare.
“W-When you first drop into a Void, it’s super scary, right...? Phone’s dead, anomalies popping out everywhere. People dropping like flies... Void bonds are comrades who survived the same hell together. You can’t help but feel deep bonds... right?”
“Hmm.”
“I think every guild does it, not just ours...”
Hearing her out, Sim A-ryeon’s logic wasn’t total nonsense.
“I didn’t suffer.”
“......”
“What? Got something to say, A-ryeon?”
“No, Guild Master...”
I said it like a joke, but I meant it. That’s the real reason I couldn’t vibe with this latest Void bond trend.
Yeah. I didn’t feel like I suffered in the same place, same time as these kids.
I suffered with Old Man Show.
To me, the Void wasn’t “Busan Station”—it was this “world” itself.
Challenge, die, regress, challenge again. A dungeon you repeat endlessly to somehow clear.
So naturally, I felt strong camaraderie only with Old Man Show, who had the same regress coin.
Of course, now that camaraderie’s gone. When’s this no-show geezer coming back from vacation? Might just punch him.
“Just curious, but what’s the most prestigious bond spot among Awakeners?”
“Huh? Busan Station.”
“No, besides that.”
“Besides that? Hmm...”
Sim A-ryeon groaned, then spoke.
“...Then, probably Baekhwa Girls’ High School...?”
“Ah.”
Baekhwa Girls’ High School.
Baekhwa Girls’ High School.
There was a private school by that name.
Some of you might’ve heard of it. Whenever some dumb post popped up on communities like “schools with the prettiest uniforms in Korea,” Baekhwa ranked high.
No idea if they’re objectively pretty. I’m not into uniforms.
But objectively, they were unique.
Their uniform: one of the rare traditional sailor outfits in Korea.
“Our ribbon is the pride of Baekhwa!”
Ridiculous lines like that got passed down through seniors and juniors like some weird tradition.
Next door in Japan, sailor uniforms were still going strong, but this navy-style getup couldn’t even cross the Korea Strait despite the sailor fad.
Still, the reason Baekhwa adopted the J-uniform (strictly, British origin) was surprisingly simple.
The school was built back in the 1920s during the Japanese occupation.
Baekhwa had a long history. Like most such schools, grads treated it as “prestige high,” but outsiders went “Eh, that’s it?”—a super ambiguous spot.
In short, excluding the sailor uniform and dorms, it was your standard humanities high school A in Korea.
A totally ordinary school. Dorms exist, but seniors warn you not to unless you have to. History long for its prestige, short on top uni admits. So every exam season, the granite school gate gets plastered with banners like “(Seoul National U admit: So-and-so) Congrats!”
On one utterly ordinary lunch, in the middle of the courtyard.
-Huh? Why won’t the school gate open?
-No security guard uncle... Tell a teacher.
The Void descended.
-Huh?
-Wait, no teachers either?
-What’s going on...?
The school gate shut.
A classic enclosed Void.
The enclosure wasn’t classic. Baekhwa’s gate stayed shut for 11 months.
That year, Baekhwa produced zero exam admits.
3
What tragedy the Baekhwa students endured in nearly a year of lockdown, I don’t know.
I was an outsider.
All I could glean were outside observations: “numbers.”
Students: about 750.
After 11 months: 19 survivors.
After 12 months: 17 survivors. 2 suicides.
“Ah, not exactly 11 months—it was longer!”
I didn’t talk to a survivor till pretty late, but here’s what she said, verbatim.
“Longer?”
“Yeah! Like, time flow gets weird, right? Space warps all over. Ahaha. Guess that’s what happened to our school!”
The survivor’s face showed no wrinkles. I’d heard somewhere that people accept misfortune either with their face or their heart.
“So, how long did it feel like to you guys... trapped in school?”
“Oh, 4 years!”
Some would call it tragedy.
750 trapped, only 19 crawl out alive, 2 more suicides.
But I dare call it a “feat.”
In my 3rd round, first to clear Busan Station, I was the sole survivor. Total wipes in Voids were common.
Ordinary high school girls, sealed in isolation like a poison jar, enduring 11 months—or 4 years—and saving double digits? That’s closer to miracle.
“Psh, miracle? You’re exaggerating, Senior Undertaker—”
And at the heart of every miracle is a protagonist.
In this case, the peninsula’s one-and-only, world’s finest necromancer—the Awakener we’re spotlighting today, Cheon Yo-hwa.
“Aja aja! Baekhwa Girls’ High! Fighting!”
“Fighting!”
The 17 survivors rallied around Cheon Yo-hwa.
...Or, more objectively, more precisely: Cheon Yo-hwa made the 17 survivors rally around her.
I’ll get to it in another episode someday, but she had that talent.
Interpersonal skills. Organization-building. Reading human psychology and exploiting it. Tearing down emotional walls. Picking the right time and place. Mediation. Resolving internal conflicts—or projecting the unresolvable outward.
She wielded all these like a natural from some divine possession.
The result?
“President.”
“Student council president.”
“Student council president Cheon Yo-hwa.”
To Baekhwa’s survivors, “Baekhwa” was no longer just alma mater.
It was school ties, regional ties. In the latest trend, Void bond. Thicker than blood, maybe.
Over 4 years, Cheon Yo-hwa secured 17 Awakeners who’d toss their lives for her like trash on the roadside.
And emerged with them into the world.