55. The Jackpot
The mercenary band had vanished without a trace under the artillery barrage.
Hunters or not, not a single one of those standing on the surface had survived.
And yet, not everyone had perished.
Those who had stepped into the seed vault before the follow-up forces swarmed in — the ones Oh Hyeon-seong had dealt with — were still alive.
Of course, the shelling had brought the entire facility crashing down, and under normal circumstances, no one inside could have survived it.
But Oh Hyeon-seong had made sure in advance that they wouldn't be crushed to death in the underground levels.
If they all died, there would be no prisoners left to open their mouths.
The surviving mercenaries were dug out from deep beneath the earth, and the first of them to come to his senses was given a conversation with Oh Hyeon-seong.
Not a conversation, exactly. An interrogation.
Mercenaries moved by money could hardly be expected to keep faith with one another, and with no time to think about consequences, prying the information he wanted out of them was no trouble at all.
With the right blend of coaxing and menace, he extracted everything he wanted to hear without laying a finger on them.
"Thanks for giving me the time."
"Not at all, sir."
As he stepped out of the vehicle and spoke, the soldier standing guard outside replied.
Oh Hyeon-seong had finished his interrogation ahead of everyone else. Afterward, he handed the prisoners over to the military.
They would escort the men back to base and investigate everything on their own — why they had come here, who was behind them. They would make the prisoners talk, smoothly and willingly, without him needing to lift a finger.
"All done?"
"Yeah. Got everything I needed."
"We just finished sweeping the area. We were worried there might be another unit that slipped off in a different direction, but the ones here were all of them."
It was Kang Seok who walked over and said this.
It had truly been a long time since Oh Hyeon-seong had seen his face, but the man was already turning to his subordinates, barking out orders.
"Everyone withdraw, then. Take the prisoners and head back first."
"Sir? You mean... without you?"
"That's right. I'm going to take a stroll, then head in."
The subordinates exchanged glances.
Under any normal circumstances, it would have been unthinkable.
Leaving the commanding officer behind in the heart of a danger zone while withdrawing? In any army in the world, that would be called insanity.
But this was hardly the first time, so they quietly fell back.
"When will you return, sir?"
"Won't take long."
"Understood."
The hunters began preparing to withdraw. Then Oh Hyeon-seong turned to Lee Gil-sang.
"You head back too. I'm not going to catch you and lock you up at this point."
"You intend to find your way back alone?"
"Yeah. This is more than enough."
"... If you ever need me again, please call on me at any time."
Lee Gil-sang bowed deeply and withdrew. If he traveled with the soldiers, there was no chance of him pulling anything on the way back.
His role was complete. He was free to go.
"I never expected to run into you in a place like this, Sunbae. What are you doing here?"
"Personal business."
"What kind of business?"
"That I'd rather not say."
"Fine, whatever. I can overlook a little lawbreaking. Even crossing the border while trailing some shady criminal — you used to pull stunts like that now and then, so it's nothing new. But this is an operational zone. Coming this far without authorization as a civilian — no longer even a hunter — is something we can't tolerate. Turn around and go home."
"Can't you look the other way, just this once, for the sake of our long mentor-and-junior history?"
"Don't try to be cute. If you genuinely have business here, get the proper clearance from the government. I'm a soldier, not a permit office."
Kang Seok replied stiffly. Exactly the reaction Oh Hyeon-seong had expected.
He'd known from the moment he headed beyond the border that they might cross paths, but he hadn't thought the odds were all that high. And to think it would happen because he got tangled up in an incident like this.
"To begin with, the reason we mobilized this much manpower wasn't the mercenaries. It was you, Sunbae."
"Because of one washed-up, retired hunter?"
"I'm not fool enough to let my guard down around someone whose past I've seen with my own eyes — and who knows what he's been up to these last five years."
Oh Hyeon-seong glanced around at the surrounding hunters.
So they hadn't just reacted to a sensed S-Rank gate fluctuation after all — that would have been overkill. They had known he was here from the start and moved accordingly. Apparently the report from the gate had made its way all the way up the chain.
He turned the situation over in his head for a moment, then spoke.
"Well, can't be helped. I came here to visit my old comrades' graves."
"... What kind of lie is that?"
"It's the truth."
"If you were headed to a gravesite, why did you come all the way up here?"
"Took a wrong turn. That jamming signal the mercenaries were broadcasting earlier knocked my GPS out. But if you think I'm lying... well, perfect timing, actually. You can just come with me."
"...?"
"Follow me."
Leaving the soldiers to their withdrawal preparations behind them, the two men made their way out through the flattened forest, where a single military vehicle sat parked off to one side.
Thankfully, the car he'd brought hadn't been caught in the blast and remained perfectly intact. The distance had been cutting it close, but counting it a stroke of luck, Oh Hyeon-seong climbed in first and took the wheel.
"What are you waiting for? Get in."
Creak.
The vehicle came to a stop halfway up the mountain.
The two men got out and began climbing along a narrow, barely-there path.
Surrounded by an environment teeming with monsters, this was no place for any proper construction work — and yet a stairway of stones continued upward, still standing sound after all these years.
Because a powerful barrier warded the place, one that kept every monster in the vicinity from coming anywhere near.
And judging by how it had held that kind of strength for years on end, anyone could tell whose handiwork it was. This barrier, too, was one of Han Su-yeon's creations.
Along the ascending path, swords stood driven into the earth. Broken and worn with age, perhaps — but still sharp, every one of them. Masterless blades.
At the top, the two men came face to face with a long, stretching row of graves.
"... This is my first time actually coming here."
"That goes without saying, for you."
Five years ago, this was where the comrades who fell in the subjugation of the Queen had been laid to rest. Not all of them, but the great majority of those who died in that battle slept here.
Oh Hyeon-seong, however, had never been able to come. The location's accessibility was the worst imaginable — never mind that — and after the battle ended, he had spent all his time in hospitals, only recently managing to get out at all.
He walked slowly, reading the names carved into each gravestone, one by one.
Just three syllables apiece — yet faces, voices, and memories flashed vividly before his eyes with each one.
These were people he had never once let slip from his memory. But coming here in person, standing before them like this, stirred things that memory alone never could.
"Like I thought — moping around in front of gravestones isn't really my style."
He had lost comrades countless times over more than a decade of service in the unit. Death was an old acquaintance. And still, this place alone made his throat go tight.
"Has anyone come by here lately?"
"No. No one's visited recently."
Kang Seok lit a cigarette and leaned in beside him. The man gazed at the graveyard in silence for a while, then finally spoke.
"A secret government organization that doesn't even exist in the official records. Because of that, hundreds of thousands saved by a single operation couldn't so much as be buried at the National Cemetery. We were all so naive back then."
"You've gotten awfully cynical since I last saw you."
"Sunbae, when I first entered the military, they pinned a single star on my shoulder. Back then and now, the post of commanding the Special Operations Command is exactly the same. And yet today I wear three stars. But somewhere in the process of earning them, people started calling it the mutated ambition of an awakened — sudden hunger for power and influence."
Kang Seok let out a bitter smile.
"At first, I figured I just needed to do my job well and that was enough. But the ceiling hanging over my head was blocking the road ahead of every junior coming up behind me. The only way for the treatment of other awakened to improve was for me to climb higher. Took me far too long to realize that."
"Is that why you ended up brawling with Baek Ji-soo?"
"... It isn't the Management Bureau or the Security Bureau that keeps this country standing. It's us — the ones who hold the line against the monster hordes right here, right now, guarding the Northern Defense Line. Every comrade sleeping here gave their lives for it, and it's us who carry on defending the line that Sunbae completed."
Crack.
Kang Seok's brow furrowed, and he pressed on.
"Do you know why the people here stayed on the front instead of taking rear postings? Because they know that if it isn't them, the country falls. They cast aside more money, more comfortable lives, and stayed at the front anyway. And I have no intention of leaving people like that out in the cold."
"Hmm. I think you've got the wrong idea about something. I'm a retiree. This isn't the days when you'd fight it out and I'd tell you who was right."
At those words, Kang Seok — who had been reacting with surprising intensity — faltered. Oh Hyeon-seong chuckled softly.
"Honestly, with a stiff old head like mine, big-picture issues like hunters' authority and treatment are beyond me. But... there is one thing I can do for my junior Kang Seok."
Oh Hyeon-seong picked up the plastic bag he'd brought along, pulled out a bottle of makgeolli, and poured a cupful.
"Here. Take it."
"... I quit drinking five years ago."
"You'd make me hold it all the way up here? My arm's killing me."
Oh Hyeon-seong waved his arm as if it ached.
Kang Seok stared at the cup, hesitating.
Ordinarily, he wouldn't have given it a second thought. Once counted among the unit's most dedicated drinkers, he hadn't let a drop of alcohol touch his lips since that day.
And yet somehow, today, an impulsive feeling came over him.
Was it because of the old bond he was seeing for the first time in far too long? Or because he had come to his fallen comrades' graves?
He couldn't say which — but with an emotion he couldn't suppress, he took the cup and drank.
A single cup, for the comrades sleeping in this earth.
The soft, smooth white liquid went down with a clean, gentle kick, warming his throat.
That one cup hit Kang Seok like a blow to the head. Had five years of abstinence really done this? It was an absurd flavor.
No — no matter how long he'd craved a drink, this went far beyond simply tasting good.
"What are you doing? Aren't you coming down?"
"Ah—"
Kang Seok, who had been standing there dazed, snapped back to his senses.
Without realizing it, he'd let his mind drift completely away, and he followed Oh Hyeon-seong back down to the vehicle at the mountainside.
Moving at night beyond the border was suicide — and night had already fallen, so they would have to spend the day here.
"... What's all this?"
The luggage Oh Hyeon-seong had loaded into the trunk. When it was transferred to the military vehicle, there had been a whole mountain of camping equipment.
To the man staring at it, wondering what on earth he'd packed so much for, Oh Hyeon-seong answered without a trace of embarrassment.
"It's my hobby. Figured I'd better prepare properly so I wouldn't suffer out in the field."
Whoosh!
Water geysered up as Oh Hyeon-seong settled himself in the back of the vehicle. With the spacious rear compartment and the roof of the trunk overhead, it made for a surprisingly respectable setup.
Inside the barrier, no monster would ever come sniffing around, so for all that it was car camping, it was perfect for spending the night.
And then he brought out his trump card.
Several bottles' worth of makgeolli — brewed with his own hands.
Makgeolli made from rice grown from original heirloom strains, touched by the hands of spirits. The pinnacle of its kind, boasting a flavor beyond comparison with any liquor anywhere in the world — an absolutely definitive makgeolli.
"Here. Drink up."
Before he knew it, Kang Seok accepted another cup.
He had no choice. Makgeolli had been the drink he loved most in the world.
He liked all alcohol, true — but he'd held a particular love for the taste of makgeolli, and it was tangled up with more memories than he could count.
As if under a spell, the two of them knocked back cup after cup.
"Come to think of it... we drank makgeolli the first time we met too, Sunbae."
"Ah, that was the welcome party, right? New recruits normally wouldn't have gotten within a mile of the stuff, but your batch was something special."
"The senior classes back then really were a mess."
"No argument there."
With every cup they shared, bouts of pointless laughter spilled out. Trashing the fossilized old-timers of the senior classes to their hearts' content, the two stayed up through the night and finished off every bottle he'd brought.
And then — the next morning.
"... Huh?"
Kang Seok woke half in a daze and looked around.
Empty. Oh Hyeon-seong was nowhere to be found, and the man who'd been sleeping off his hangover so happily clutched his forehead in his hands.
"Sorry about that, junior. Naive then, naive now. And still a pushover for a drink."
Oh Hyeon-seong gave an awkward laugh and pressed onward.
Since the old days, Kang Seok had always been remarkably easy to fool — but only when it came to him.
Thanks to that, he reached his destination without a single soul to stop him.
Krrrrsh!
Oh Hyeon-seong stepped over the entrance he had torn open.
Before him stretched an enormous quantity of seeds, piled high in every direction.
"... Found it."