Expansion 4
The drone’s fatal weakness had punched a gaping hole straight through our seemingly perfect “safe route” plan. We sat around the table in the support room, heads bent together, buried in thought.
“In the end… drones alone just aren’t enough.”
Sim Geum-a crossed her arms and frowned.
“Against humans, we have to step in ourselves.”
Everyone agreed with her, yet no sharp solution presented itself.
That was when Kang Po-gyeong, who had been listening in silence until now, finally spoke.
“Um… Yeong-chan-nim.”
She looked at me with a voice that was carefully measured, yet full of conviction.
“Rather than waiting, what if we strike them first?”
At her sudden proposal, every gaze in the room swung toward her.
“From my time inside a survivor group, I can roughly guess a few likely spots. Ragtag outfits like that usually hole up in abandoned big-box marts, schools, or government offices—places that are relatively easy to defend and good for securing supplies.”
With practiced hands she spread the map across the table and tapped several points with her finger.
“If I put on a Foundation Suit, infiltrate their hideout first, and raise hell inside to draw their fire… then, in that opening, Yeong-chan-nim in a Walker Suit hits them from the flank or rear… we should be able to thin their numbers and bleed off the force they can throw at us.”
Her plan was aggressive and yet perfectly logical. For a moment we all simply stared, struck speechless by this unexpected side of her.
“Hey, hold on.”
Sim Geum-a looked Kang Po-gyeong up and down from head to toe.
“Was this kid always like this? Always ‘nim this, nim that,’ so I figured she was just some obedient little maid type….”
At that blunt appraisal, a faint flush rose on Kang Po-gyeong’s cheeks.
“…It’s a good plan.”
Choi Eun-ji was the one who spoke next.
“But there’s one problem. Even if we succeed in picking off the scattered groups one by one the way you say… that will only raise the remaining ones’ guard and push them into an even tighter alliance. Even trash like them know that if they stay scattered, they get taken out piece by piece.”
Kang Po-gyeong fell silent for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes. I thought of that as well. And that is precisely the final objective of this operation.”
“What?”
“I was once among them, so I know. When survivors sense they are about to be hit, they will hide and wait for an opening. To prevent that and bring true stability to this region, we have to wipe them out completely. For that….”
She turned her eyes to Sim Geum-a.
“…Sim Geum-a-nim’s decision for a full-scale assault will be absolutely necessary.”
Sim Geum-a’s expression hardened.
“In the end, a certain amount of damage will have to be accepted by one side or the other.”
Kang Po-gyeong continued without pause.
“We can keep taking small losses and grind ourselves down in a war of attrition, or we can accept one large loss and tear out the root of every future threat at once. In the end it is only a difference of time and method; the result will not be so different.”
“So… you’re saying we deliberately wait until they gather in one place, then wipe them all out in a single stroke?”
Sim Geum-a sank deep into the chair back, stared up at the ceiling, and let out a long breath.
“…You already figured our side’s casualties will be enormous, right?”
Kang Po-gyeong nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“Yes. I am aware.”
She rose from her seat and stood directly in front of Sim Geum-a. Spine straight as a soldier’s, she spoke.
“That is why I will stand at the very front where the attack will be heaviest, and I will be the first to go in.”
At those grim words, Sim Geum-a lowered her gaze from the ceiling and narrowed her eyes at the younger woman.
“That armor of yours. That ‘suit’ thing—you’re getting cocky because you trust it, aren’t you….”
Her voice was cold as ice.
“You can tell it isn’t invincible just by looking at our husband’s face when you said that.”
I reflexively touched my own cheek. Without realizing it, the anxiety I felt about the suits’ limits must have shown on my face.
“I’ll say this up front.”
Sim Geum-a went on.
“If you go in first and get cut off in there, I am not sending a single one of my people to save just you. Every life is worth one. If it were our husband, maybe… but not you.”
At those merciless words I started to say, “Then I’ll go in with her,” but Sim Geum-a cut me off with a firm shake of her head.
“If Seobang goes in, I will never approve this plan.”
She looked straight at me.
“In this room, the most important life is yours—our husband’s. And yet you want to charge into that danger yourself? Not only me—Seo Yeong-ju would never allow it either. Even….”
She jerked her chin toward Kang Po-gyeong.
“…she would oppose it. Right?”
I turned to look at Kang Po-gyeong. She lowered her head apologetically and gave a small but unmistakable nod.
In the end, after a long and grinding discussion, I had no choice but to yield. No one wanted me on the front line. We finally reached a hard-won agreement: I would take part only through the early stage of clearing a few small survivor bands, and once the full-scale battle began I would fall back.
When we returned to the Shelter and Yeong-ju heard the whole story, she simply nodded as though my decision had been the only possible one.
“Yeah. That’s right.”
If anything, she seemed determined to wrest the entire initiative of the operation away from me.
“Po-gyeong said it well. You don’t get to jump into fights like that anymore. Hell, even cleaning up those small survivor groups—I’ll handle it.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Yeong-ju seized my hand and held it tight. She shook her head and looked straight into my eyes. Her gaze was more serious, more desperate, than I had ever seen it.
“Seo Yeong-chan. When you said you’d lure that crazy mutant before? Honestly I thought I was going to lose my mind, but I held it in. When you said you were going to the Seed Vault? That nearly killed me with worry, but I held it in. When you walked into that bitch Sim Geum-a’s territory? I held that in too!”
Then, for the first time, she made a request.
“But this is different. This isn’t scouting or trading. We’re going to fight. Clear, open combat. Leaving all of us behind so you can stand at the very front—that doesn’t make any sense….”
Her voice trembled, just barely.
“…I’m asking you, Yeong-chan. Just this once… you hold back.”
Faced with those pleading eyes, I could not say another word.
My place was no longer the front line.
An aging cluster of office buildings where convenience stores still stood every other structure. That district was now the territory of a mid-sized survivor group the locals called Sipsai. Living off the stock left behind in those stores, they were scraping by amid the ruins.
That night, as always, they stood watch in shifts, killing the empty hours.
Then it happened.
Kwaang—!
The barricade sealing the entrance to their hideout was ripped apart like paper by something massive, the crash rolling through the night.
“Wh-what the hell!”
“Raid! It’s a raid!”
The men on watch shouted in panic and snatched up their guns. Beyond the shattered barricade, out of the pitch-black dark, a single enormous silhouette of steel stepped into view. In one hand it carried a huge shield shaped like a dragonfly’s wing; in the other, a terrible energy saw that glowed with cold blue light.
“Shoot! Shoot, you bastards!”
Terror-stricken, the men opened fire in a frenzy. Bullets sparked harmlessly off the massive shield and did nothing at all.
“Hit the flanks! The flanks!”
Other survivors leaned from second-floor windows, screaming desperately as they poured down supporting fire. Yet the steel giant simply walked through the rain of bullets as though out for a stroll—slow, unstoppable, coming straight for them.
“Fuck it! Let’s die together, you monster bastard!”
One man lost his mind completely. Grenade in one hand, knife in the other, he charged the giant. A tremendous blast erupted right in front of it, but the giant merely lifted its energy shield once and kept advancing, utterly unharmed.
Seogeok—! Seogeok—!
The energy saw sliced the air with a bone-chilling whine, and the body of the man in front was cut cleanly in two as if it had never been whole. At that horrific sight the rest of them broke. Screaming, they scattered in every direction.
“Fuck! I’m getting out of here!”
But behind them another black shadow appeared. It moved without a sound, cat-like, slipping up on the fleeing men from behind and cutting them down one after another with a massive machete.
One man, still spraying bullets, took a ricochet in the leg and went down. He crawled desperately, begging the black shape that approached out of the dark.
“S-save me… please….”
The shadow gave no answer. It simply drove the blade straight through his heart.
That night, screams no one could believe came from human throats rang through the Viper’s hideout until dawn.
And the next morning, among the corpses, other living things still remained.
In the deepest, darkest corner of the basement, four young women crouched, bound in chains. They trembled violently, still haunted by the sounds that had filled the night.
Then the basement door opened and a huge steel silhouette stepped inside. It was Kang Po-gyeong, wearing a Foundation Suit. She approached the shaking women slowly.
“…It’s all right now.”
She spoke the words, then opened the suit’s headpiece and showed them her face.
“Come with me. I’ll take you somewhere far safer and better than this.”
At the warmth in her voice, tears began to spill from the women’s eyes. She cut their chains with the energy saw and led them out of that hell.
“Only four? Those fucking bastards… how many times did they use them?”
They loaded the women onto the truck Dima was already driving and headed for Sim Geum-a’s Territory.