It Went Public on the Gallery

It had gone public on the gallery.

I finished a rough job of first aid. If you meant to survive the apocalypse, that much was mandatory, and as a member of a Raid Team I was plenty used to getting hurt.

"They really beat the hell out of me. No mercy at all."

I checked the damage in the mirror. The face that had taken the beating was a wreck. Both eyes were black with pooled blood, one cheek swollen huge, my lip split and crusted with a scab.

"And this wasn't even a zombie. A friend did this to me."

No—had he even been a friend? There had been a time I thought so. A time we staked our lives side by side and watched each other's backs. A time I slung the wounded bastard over my shoulder and ran straight through a horde.

He used to say things like that, pure as anything. That friend was gone now. He met women. He won honor. He got his hands on money and status, and he changed completely. Or maybe his real character had simply come up to the surface.

"Well. Common enough story."

Nothing worth acting surprised over. How many people in the world never change? It just fucking sucked—the fact that he'd lied to me and siphoned the money, the reality that I'd called him on it and still taken a beating for my trouble, the helplessness of having no choice but to eat it.

"...He's clearly the one in the wrong."

And yet I was the one beaten to a pulp. Because I had no power. Because I was weak. That was what the apocalypse was.

"First things first. I've got work to do."

I washed up in a hurry and stepped outside.

The Association. The body that ran New Seoul. Similar to a government, and a little different—administration, legislation, judiciary, military, economy. Every supply line and every activity was managed here. What I'd come for was the civil complaints desk.

"Been a while since I set foot in this place."

Not somewhere I particularly wanted to be. Showing up meant something had gone wrong. The people who came through that door fell into exactly two types: victims who'd been wronged, and the criminals who'd wronged them.

"Unbelievable. Beaten by a fellow member of an active Raid Team, and here I am."

I'd never imagined I would be the victim. Even less that the criminal would be my friend.

I drew a number, and when it came up I stepped to the counter.

"Welco—!"

The clerk took one look at my face and startled.

"I'd like to file a report."

"Ah—an assault report?"

I nodded and sat. Annoyance was already settling over her face. The feeling coming off her wasn't good.

"Do you happen to remember the assailant's description?"

"Shin Wijun."

"Sorry? Uh, that person is..."

"That's right. Shin Wijun of the Raid Team."

Her expression shifted by the second. Surprise, fluster, discomfort, irritation—every kind of feeling rose and fell, and in the end all she managed was this.

"Ahaha..."

Nothing but an awkward smile.

"Shin Wijun—you mean the Awakened, the one on a Raid Team?"

"Yes. Shin Wijun hit me."

"Mmm, one moment. In a case like this..."

She hurriedly dug through the paperwork. More precisely, she pretended to. She was fishing for any excuse that would send me quietly on my way. That was what the Awakened were.

"For the record, I'm on a Raid Team too."

"Oh, so you've Awakened...! I thought the air around you felt different..."

"No. I operate as Non-Awakened."

"Ah..."

Disappointment flickered across her face. And this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was how the Non-Awakened were treated. The gap between Awakened and Non-Awakened was about the gap between modern nobility and commoners.

This is why I didn't want to come.

Even Association staff looked down on the Non-Awakened without bothering to hide it. Their real clients were the Awakened. The funny part was that they themselves were Non-Awakened—same boat as the rest of us, and still they trailed after the Awakened and sneered at their own kind.

"Then shall we file it for now and have you wait?"

"How long will it take?"

"It's hard to give you an exact date. These things take time."

"Without even hearing my account? Or what actually happened?"

"Ah."

Her face spelled out the word disaster.

"Did you ever intend to investigate this properly?"

"Ahem! Ahem!"

"A person gets beaten like this, comes in to report it, and you're telling me it can't even be properly filed because the other party is Awakened?"

"Once the process moves forward..."

"So you investigate without even listening to the person who filed."

Her eyes wavered. She wasn't hiding how much of a bother this was anymore. She didn't even pretend.

"What's all this noise."

"Ah, Chief."

The clerk shot to her feet and whispered to the section chief. He squinted at me.

"Haa. Just go."

"Excuse me?"

"I said go. You know how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this works. Filing won't do a damn thing."

Climb the ranks and it seemed you grew shamelessness instead of a sense of responsibility.

"The other guy's Awakened, and he's on a Raid Team. And Shin Wijun, of all people? What exactly do you think reporting that man is going to do?"

"So if an Awakened beats you, you're just supposed to sit there and take it?"

"Look at you, catching on."

The chief nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"You're on the same Raid Team, aren't you? They fed a useless nobody and put a roof over his head, and this is how you stab them in the back? That's not a person. That's an animal. You got any conscience at all?"

"The animal was him. I did every part of my job. Something unjust happened along the way, and I got hit. That's it."

"You must've done something to deserve it. Coming in to file a report like some little girl—I can read you from a mile off."

He clicked his tongue lightly and went on.

"You even got any evidence?"

"You can't see my face right now?"

"That just means you got hurt somewhere. How are we supposed to know you aren't taking your anger out on the wrong people? You do know that's false accusation, right?"

"Ah, I see. So I got the shit kicked out of me somewhere, and instead of naming the real culprit I went and accused my own teammate. That what you're saying?"

For a moment the chief had nothing. His mouth worked.

"Ahem! Ahem! Well. Inferiority complex. People do that."

"One hell of an inferiority complex. Bad enough I'd let some thug rearrange my face like this."

"Kids these days and their mouths..."

"And investigating that, judging it—that's your job, isn't it? Even if I did something wrong, you look into it and then you decide."

At that, the chief let out a short laugh.

"Investigate, and then what? You want us to punish an Awakened for hitting somebody?"

"Sounds an awful lot like you're saying an Awakened is allowed to beat people."

"Yeah. You heard me right."

He grinned and stepped in close, then realized I was taller than he'd thought and eased back a little.

"For crying out loud! The Awakened are modern nobility. Nobility! Some little spat, and you call that grounds for a report? Traitorous little shits like you are the reason the world's in this state!"

"As I said, I'm a member of a Raid Team myself."

"Ha! Look at this idiot. Rolls around on the front a bit and thinks he's the same rank."

A sneer slipped out of him. He glanced at the clerk, and she tittered along with him.

"The Awakened are the reason the likes of you get to eat. So what if a guy like that takes a beating? If it blew off some stress, you ought to be grateful you did your part for humanity."

"I'd love to hear you say the same thing if it was your wife or your daughter getting hit."

"What? You little—!"

The chief ripped his shirt open. Across his skin sprawled a dragon tattoo from another era, the years long past it by.

"You out of your mind? You dare drag my family into this?"

"And?"

"What?"

"You planning to fight me? The way I got beaten?"

He flinched and stopped. I was a lunatic who'd already been thrashed by an Awakened—but I was young, and I'd worked a Raid Team. How hard could it be to drop one office worker?

"You said it was only natural that I got hit. Funny how you can't stand it the moment someone mentions your own family."

"You... you little bastard, I swear..."

He was cursing, but he didn't dare take it any further. Backing down as things stood would look bad with people watching. I wrenched his hand off me.

"Ghk—!"

I might have looked like this, but I'd ground it out in the field with a Raid Team. A human weaker than a single zombie. Did he think I'd stayed quiet because I was afraid of a man like him?

"The Association is just as rotten, I see. I've confirmed what I came to confirm. I'll be going."

"Rotten to the goddamn core! You'd better be ready! I'll leave you to rot in a black cell!"

I ignored him and walked out of the Association. I'd taken every kind of insult, every curse, every sneer. Even the institution was busy ignoring the victim. I wasn't particularly disappointed.

"I did it knowing it wouldn't work anyway."

I already knew how the Association ran. Even when you know it's useless, procedure matters. Every bit of this trouble becomes grounds later on.

"The sad little reality this country has always carried."

School violence. The military. Problems at the company. There was a line you always heard the moment you reported something.

You report it. You beg. You still end up watching exactly that. They hate taking the damage themselves, so they claim they didn't know and dump the whole mess on the victim for not handling it right. And, amazingly enough—

"More often than not, it works."

The one who files is usually the weak one. Solving a reported problem is a hassle. Ignoring the weak is simple. Simple logic. It had always been that way, and this was the apocalypse on top of it. The harm done to me, the truth of it—none of that mattered. In that sense, this had been necessary.

The more justification, the better.

At least I had filed, and filed for certain. The Association was the one that buried it. This nothing of a process would become a weapon later.

"What's left is getting ready for revenge."

It burned, but that man had been right. Getting revenge on an Awakened was hard. Still, it was worth a try.

"All right. I've done what I came to do."

I went home and logged into the Awakened Gallery. As always, countless posts were going up.

Browsing the gallery had become a habit. Yes. The truth was, I wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Main Mod of the Awakened community. I was an ordinary lurker.

"If I were the Main Mod, I wouldn't be living ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like this."

Nobody knew who the Main Mod running the gallery really was. The gallery itself was wrapped in the same unknown. No one knew who had made it, or for what purpose. All that was known came down to two things: someone managed it, and you could connect from anywhere. For now, that was enough. In an apocalypse where the internet had vanished, simply being able to trade information was close to a miracle.

"Gallery's lost its mind again today."

I came in almost every day myself.

"Because it's fun."

Maybe I did it because I wanted to become Awakened too. Or maybe simply because there was nothing else to look at. The information you picked up here was valuable in its own right. Wrong stuff got posted now and then, and you needed the sense to sort it—but it beat knowing nothing. In a world like this, a single piece of information could decide whether you lived. And the place where every rumor and every scrap of intel gathered was the Awakened community.

"Should be up any time now."

On an ordinary day, reading for the fun of it was the whole of it. Today I was waiting with a clear purpose. And at last, the post I wanted went up.

"Good. Knew it'd go up."

There had been a point to kicking up a fuss at a useless Association. An Awakened on a Raid Team had beaten his own member senseless. No way the gallery would let bait that juicy slip past. It was where people bored out of their minds twenty-four hours a day all gathered.

The Awakened community. In a sense, the single most influential place in this world.