A Desperate Diversion

Seo Yeong-ju opened her eyes — slowly, painfully, with enormous effort.

Her unfocused vision wavered and blurred, as if she were looking up from underwater.

She shook her head, forcing those swimming edges into something resembling clarity.

She must have blacked out for a moment. Her mind felt fogged, thick and sluggish.

Something was coming at me… drawing an arc through the air. I tried to dodge… but then it suddenly changed direction, veering straight toward me…

Ignoring the fog still clogging ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her thoughts, she tried to move.

Her body, however, refused to obey.

As she strained and twisted, trying to force herself upright, a cluster of floating red warning messages finally resolved in the corner of her vision.

"…Huh?"

Only then did she begin to grasp, however faintly, what had happened to her.

She forced strength into her arms and tried to push her upper body off the ground.

In that instant, a hideous agony she had not even registered until now raced along every nerve and drove itself through her brain like a spike.

"What… is this…"

Groaning through the pain, Yeong-ju managed to sit up and look down at herself. A low murmur escaped her lips.

A fist-sized black hole had been punched through the right hip of her Walker Suit. From that wound, terrible cracks spiderwebbed out across the entire armor.

"Cough…!"

A clot of blood surged up her throat before she could stop it, and she spat it onto the floor. She could no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠longer hold herself upright. She collapsed again onto the cold ground.

The consciousness that had been flickering back began to slip away once more under the crushing pain.

…Seo Yeong-chan…

Her final thought cut off.

Clang—!

High overhead, a drone trailed smoke as it fell limply toward the earth.

A roar went up.

When even the steel sentinels that had ruled the sky came tumbling down, the raiders' morale soared. They howled in triumph and pressed forward, and forward again.

The terrifying steel giant that had blocked their path — seeing what looked like its own comrade, a black giant, go down — seemed to panic and began a hasty retreat.

At that sight, the raiders became certain that victory was finally within their grasp.

But their advance was forced to a halt before Sim Geum-a's massive fortress wall.

No matter how much gunfire they poured into it, no matter how hard they threw their bodies against it, the wall of wrecked cars and concrete held firm. Fragments chipped away, but there was no sign of collapse.

In the end, a tedious standoff settled in: the raider coalition outside the wall, firing uselessly into the air, and Sim Geum-a's group inside, crouched low, defending with everything they had.

"Hey! That bazooka thing from earlier! You got any more of those?"

"Yeah! Or a big bomb, anything — you got more or not?"

Raiders who could no longer stand the frustration crowded around Lieutenant Colonel Seo Guk — the man who had distributed their weapons — and pestered him like children.

But that trump card had already been spent. Even he had only been issued a single round of it from the division. It was precious.

He simply shook his head.

"Goddamn it… these useless bastards. They think a Hyeongung is something you just pick up off the side of the road."

As the disappointed raiders drifted away, Lieutenant Colonel Seo Guk muttered curses under his breath.

"At least we can be grateful for one thing, sir. That drone we smashed cleaned out the surrounding zombies for us. Thanks to that, surrounding Sim Geum-a's base hasn't been much of a problem."

One of his loyal subordinates, still disguised as a raider, offered the words like a consolation after overhearing the muttering.

But Seo Guk's expression remained dark. His plan had never been meant to end with simply catching Sim Geum-a.

The ideal picture he had painted was this: the raider coalition and Sim Geum-a's group would tear into each other until both sides were bled dry. Then the division's elite forces would arrive, sweep everything away, and become the uncontested masters of the region — with barely a scratch.

But the drones and those steel giants — variables he had never anticipated — had shaken his perfect plan to its foundations.

The drones and the giants had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been overwhelmingly more powerful than he had imagined, and the raiders' slapdash coalition had been crumbling with humiliating ease.

If things continued this way, mutual destruction with Sim Geum-a was out of the question. The raiders would be annihilated first — and he would be next. That sense of crisis had finally forced his hand. He had played his last trump card: the Cheongung.

The result: the raiders' morale had soared again. At the same time, Sim Geum-a's group had vanished behind their solid walls far too quickly and completely.

"Goddamn it… now what?"

Seo Guk clutched his head as he watched the raiders hurl meaningless curses at the wall and scream for surrender.

"What the hell am I supposed to report to the division? I already used up the Hyeongung…"

His plan had gone completely off the rails in its final stage.

Kang Po-gyeong sat bare-bodied, her suit stripped off, staring blankly at Seo Yeong-ju lying on the bed.

Yeong-ju had been pried free from the wrecked Walker Suit — forced open by the raw power of Po-gyeong's Foundation Suit — and laid here.

But the only man in Sim Geum-a's territory who could call himself a doctor had taken one look at her condition and simply shaken his head.

"…I suspect organ rupture… There's no way I can perform surgery under these conditions. I'm sorry."

That was all he said before leaving the room.

Kang Po-gyeong could only stand there, staring at the horrific wound on Yeong-ju's lower abdomen — blackened with bruising as if a giant soccer ball had been driven into her flesh.

This helpless reality was enough to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drive her mad.

"Yeong-ju… how is she?"

Sim Geum-a entered the room, her face drawn with exhaustion, and asked.

Kang Po-gyeong looked at her and spoke in a sudden, hoarse voice.

"…I am sorry. All of this… is my fault. Everything you said to me before… in the end, every word of it was right."

She spoke as if she were about to cry.

"I am… nothing but a worthless bitch who got full of herself the moment she put on a suit…"

Sim Geum-a stared at her as if she could not believe what she was hearing. Po-gyeong went on.

"My half-baked plan… ruined everything. I am sorry…"

At that, Sim Geum-a finally let out a sigh.

"I thought you were a maid, then started thinking I might actually like you… Cancel that. You stupid bitch."

She stepped close, seized Po-gyeong by the shoulders, and shook her as she spoke.

"Your plan failed?

Hey! I sure as hell didn't expect those bastards to show up with firepower like that either!

Whether they stole it from the 50th Division or those 50th Division sons of bitches handed it to them themselves — none of us saw a weapon like that coming!"

She shouted down at Po-gyeong, who had staggered back as if shoved to the floor.

"Get her to the Shelter. Now!

They fixed your severed arm there, didn't they? Then they can fix a wound like this too!"

"…We are surrounded right now. How are we supposed to get out?"

Po-gyeong said it hollowly, then looked at Sim Geum-a and raised her voice.

"Do you think any of us are sitting here because we do not want to go? The suit Miss Yeong-ju was wearing is already scrap, and if their attacks concentrate on mine, mine will end up the same way."

She looked back at Yeong-ju.

"…There is no safe way to move Miss Yeong-ju."

Kang Po-gyeong's voice was pure despair.

Once again the room filled with nothing but Yeong-ju's faint breathing and the deep, heavy despair of three women.

"…Listen carefully."

After a stretch of silence, Sim Geum-a looked at Yeong-ju on the bed and spoke — quietly, but with absolute resolve.

"In thirty minutes, we open the gate and attack."

"What?"

Po-gyeong asked, startled. Sim Geum-a turned to face her.

"By then, every one of those bastards will have their eyes locked on the front gate.

So going out over the opposite wall should be possible, right?"

Po-gyeong started to say something. Sim Geum-a cut her off.

"Just go."

Her voice carried a weight that allowed no further argument.

"Don't worry about it. All we're doing is drawing their eyes and buying time!

And if we stay trapped in here, we're dead either way — whether they break through or we run out of water and food. That's basically a guarantee.

If we're going to die anyway, we might as well go out swinging once, right?

So… you just take Yeong-ju and get her out of here safely."

And with that, she left the room without another word.

Alone, Kang Po-gyeong felt a faint thread of hope in those final words — and at the same time, she could not stop the tears of guilt from falling.

"That's insane!"

At Sim Geum-a's declaration of an "attack," Dima and Choi Eun-ji shouted in unison from the conference room.

"With the forces we have right now, a frontal fight is basically suicide!"

Dima said.

"Right. It would be better to hold out as long as we can and wait for their supply lines to break…"

Choi Eun-ji started to continue, but Sim Geum-a shook her head firmly.

"And if we wait, what changes?"

Her voice was cold as ice.

She glanced once toward the room where Seo Yeong-ju lay.

"I don't like our people getting hurt either… but that woman has to live."

At those words, Dima and Choi Eun-ji fell silent for a long moment.

"I'm not saying we fight them head-on."

Sim Geum-a tapped the table with one finger as she spoke.

"The plan is simple. In thirty minutes, I take some of the remaining combat personnel and open the front gate.

We go outside, open fire, and pull every last one of their eyes onto us — for five minutes. Hell, even three.

When that time's up, we shut the gate without a second thought and come back inside."

"…That's it?"

Dima asked, puzzled.

"Yeah. In that gap, that Po-gyeong girl slips out the other side in one piece. That's all."

"…And you?"

Choi Eun-ji asked, her voice trembling.

Sim Geum-a gave a short, dry laugh.

"Me…? Eh, I'll figure something out. Close the gate in three minutes, get back inside, and hold. That's all there is to it."

Beneath those final words lay the resolve of someone prepared to gamble her own life.