Delivery Complete
The delivery was a single small parcel.
"So what's in it?"
"I don't know either."
"Government mail usually tells you the contents, doesn't it? You have to be careful how you handle it."
"Which means this one doesn't need careful handling."
They hadn't told me what was inside anyway, so I'd given the box a shake. Light, with a dry rustle. A few sheets of paper, most likely.
"I'm more curious about the address. That warehouse, right?"
The destination was an abandoned logistics warehouse. The problem wasn't the warehouse. It was the settlement beyond it.
"That place you can see back there—that's the famous Human Meat Factory, isn't it?"
"Sharp of you."
"It matches what I've heard. Treat enough soldiers and you pick these things up. They explain how they got hurt around here."
The road to the Human Meat Factory was rumored to be thick with traps, and now and then a garrison lay in ambush. The purpose was hunting humans. Just as the settlement's name promised.
"It's a danger zone, so stay sharp. Elder Heo, you'll need your wits about you. Stick close."
"And what's wrong with my wits!"
"Even so, we should be fine as far as the warehouse... right? It's a good distance from the Factory."
"If it were fine, the warehouse wouldn't have been abandoned."
Time to take out the piece of gear I never left out of the bag. Small when it was folded. Respectably long once it opened.
"A metal detector? Why?"
From here to the warehouse was open ground. If there was a trap worth worrying about, there was only one kind.
"To find mines."
"There are mines here!?"
"There might not be."
"No, I mean... we're still pretty far from the settlement, aren't we? They've got something like that out this far already? That's a high-end trap."
"We're loitering in a rich man's front yard."
The Human Meat Factory was known as a settlement far more advanced than the animal farms. You read a settlement's level in its people's gear, and corpses were easier to check than the living. Loot the spoils after a fight and you knew for certain.
I hadn't stripped the Factory's people myself. I'd only heard the stories a few times. They went around hung with high-quality equipment.
Ah. The Special Forces Commander—I'd picked him clean, too. Not that I'd killed him for the gear. Come to think of it, I'd traded body armor with them as well.
Anyway. It wasn't only the quality. The quantity was considerable. Even the spoils off fighters young enough to look like trainees yielded the exact same high-end gear as their seniors, not a single piece missing. At that level, it made perfect sense that they'd manufactured mines by the crate and sown them in every direction.
"We start now. If you're worried, hang back and follow."
"Uh... then exactly three steps behind!"
"Suit yourself."
"Jangchun, what are you and our girl chatting about so cozy? Since when were the two of you like that?"
"Elder Heo, you hang back a little and follow, too. Don't fall too far behind. Just enough."
"And how much is just enough?"
"Dad, just stay glued to me. Don't go making trouble for no reason."
Dr. Myeong slipped her arm through Elder Heo's as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She really did have a talent for acting.
"Aigo! This is indecent!"
"What are you saying? We're family."
"Exactly! Because we're family! That's why it's even worse!"
"Worse how."
"It's taboo, I tell you. Taboo!"
"...Dad, are you secretly reading weird novels behind my back?"
They bickered, but it was a peaceful enough picture of father and daughter. That was the strange part. He had found the daughter he'd searched for after decades, and yet he didn't pour out tears, or ask what she had been doing all that time.
In Elder Heo's memory, is his daughter someone he simply hasn't seen for a few days?
That was why he could talk, tirelessly, every single day, about a daughter from a fantasy who had never once appeared in his life. His daughter was a being who had stepped aside from the flow of time.
"The metal detector isn't broken, is it?"
"Hm?"
"If it detects something, shouldn't it make a sound?"
We had walked a good while without incident, and Dr. Myeong's tension had not only eased. She was getting a little bored.
"You want it to make a sound?"
"Not at all! It's just that nothing's happening, and that makes me uneasy for no reason. Feels like the calm before the storm."
"If you're going to say unlucky things, just be quiet."
"You, boy. Be quiet."
"..."
The truth was, I was uneasy too, though not for the same reason as Dr. Myeong.
Traces of digging.
Fairly recently, someone had turned the earth in places all over. They had covered it again, trying not to leave a sign, but look closely and the color of the soil wasn't even. Judging by the spacing between the traces, it was exactly where you would plant mines.
"You pulled out a metal detector and got me all jumpy for nothing. Anyway, we made it in one piece."
"Jangchun, let's finish the delivery and head back. I'm chilled through. My body's not right at all."
No need to make these two anxious as well.
"You're right. Safer than I expected."
Right up until the warehouse was under our noses, the metal detector never sounded once. Not a mine. Not even a common scrap of iron. An empty field.
Either way, we had reached the delivery point.
"This the place? I don't see anyone come out for the mail."
"Don't tell me we have to wait until someone shows..."
"We just leave the parcel and go. Nobody ever said anyone would come out to receive it. There's a designated spot inside the warehouse. We put it there."
"That's a relief, at least. Dump it and let's get out of here."
There was plenty about this delivery that didn't make sense, but it wasn't as if I'd never had a job like it. When you had to pass something to intelligence agents working in the shadows, it was always this way.
Still. No letting your guard down.
"Now what?"
"Have to make sure the warehouse is safe, too."
You couldn't see inside from out here. I circled it once, checking carefully for anything off, and put the metal detector to the wall where I needed to. It could sense past the wall, to a degree.
"Your work's a lot more complicated than I thought. Must've been hard on you, Jangchun."
"Dad actually said something right for once. Even if it's work out in the world, I figured delivery had to be better than what the soldiers do. Turns out this is no ordinary job either."
Everyone thinks their own work is the hardest, and everyone else's looks manageable. Spend a single day stuck to someone, watching them work, and you would never be able to get the words looks manageable out of your mouth. Work, whatever it is, is shit.
But right now was the worst possible moment to start understanding a postman's job. That would mean things were going exactly the way those bastards underground had spouted their nonsense.
The purpose of this operation is as follows. To address the various problems arising because office-bound civil servants remain ignorant of conditions outside headquarters……
The guidance broadcast that had rung through Headquarters the moment the operation began. It was, without question, bullshit.
"If you start reacting like you've come to understand the hardships of my work, that's exactly what the bastards underground wanted."
"Eh? What's this underground?"
"A place full of idiots."
"You mean that thing, right? Ignorant of conditions outside headquarters, whatever it was."
"You remember well."
"That was just them screwing around."
"A minute ago you sounded like you agreed."
Dr. Myeong clicked her tongue and narrowed her eyes.
"What are you talking about. I meant I understood you. What do I care what the outside world's like? I'm not interested."
"Jangchun's had a hard time of it, truly."
Not the world. Me.
Right.
"Anyway, the warehouse looks fine. Opening it."
"Want help?"
"I'd appreciate it."
A massive sliding iron door. Dr. Myeong reached for the edge without hesitation. The rusted metal surface crumbled and flaked away at a mere touch. Her hand was filthy in an instant, but her face stayed calm.
"Let's do it together!"
"Dad, stay out of it. Unless you want your arm to come off."
A long, grating rumble.
And when the warehouse opened—
"...Woo Jungkook. Does the ground feel like it's shaking?"
A vibration started, tickling the soles of my feet. At first I thought some machine inside was running, but there was nothing in the warehouse.
"Don't panic. Everyone stay still."
I had checked the surroundings thoroughly. I had two slow-reflexed people in tow, so I'd inspected even more carefully than usual. And still I'd missed something?
No. Impossible. There was no way I had missed it.
Which left only one thing worth considering. This vibration had started from very far away.
"W-Woo Jungkook! Over there!"
"I see it, so put your hand down. No big movements. Stay still."
A machine approaching from the distance. And that wasn't all. Look around, and living things stood in ranks on every side. I would have been glad if they were zombies or monsters, but unfortunately every one of them was unmistakably a living person. Combat troops, most likely.
One machine coming from the front, and dozens of humans. We were surrounded.
"Stay calm. And stay still."
"I can do still. Calm is too much to ask...!"
"Isn't that a car?"
Elder Heo recognized the machine coming from the front at a glance. Fair enough. He had lived through the days when those things lay scattered everywhere.
The big vehicle kicked up dirt, making a racket. It had a ridiculous look, as if they'd quit halfway through building it—no roof—but a car was still a car. A fast, sturdy weapon. Not on the level of the Subway. Still.
With no roof, the sunlight stabbed straight down onto the crowns of the ones riding inside. Thanks to that, I could see them clearly. Every time the thing jolted, their heads bounced high. Hope their backsides were all right.
"This... could it be a trap?"
"Probably."
"Are you relaxed, or are you calm?"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
"This is not the time to joke."
"Do what I'm doing. In front of them, act like someone they can't read."
Judge calmly. First, grasp the situation.
The delivery had been a trap after all, it seemed. Astonishing, that they'd prepared a trap on this scale just to catch one postman. Well. I could guess the reason.
A veteran postman wouldn't fall for an ordinary trap.
It had been a high-difficulty assignment. They must have expected a skilled postman. The kind who would notice at once any trap laid on the warehouse and its surroundings. So they had decided to prepare a trap that even a veteran like that couldn't slip out of easily.
An encirclement tightening in from a great distance. A trap that left the range of anything you could predict far behind. Pouring this much manpower just to deal with a single postman. Madmen, clean past the edge of common sense.
"But something's... off, isn't it? Behind us is the way we came. There was nobody but us. When did they..."
"We tested the stone bridge and fell into the trap anyway."
"Huh?"
"We moved slow, searching for mines. Then we spent more time checking the warehouse. In that gap they boxed us in without a seam. That's how you should see it."
A trap you fell into precisely because you were a cautious postman. The care they had put into preparing it was no small thing.
If they prepared this much, maybe getting caught is the polite thing to do.
I understood now why the ground had been dug up. There must have been mines in those spots. They had deliberately removed every one of them. So I wouldn't get blown to pieces.
Which told me their objective. Capture the postman alive.
"Well now... this has gotten rather tight, hasn't it?"
Elder Heo was calmer than I'd expected. It was a little tight, yes. Falling into the trap was one thing. What bothered me was that it had been tailored for a veteran postman. A trap dug by someone who enjoyed reading an opponent's moves. He was trying to predict me.
Tsk. This was why I'd only ever taken the easy jobs, slipping between them.
Clunk.
As the net drew tighter, the car's coughing grew louder. Every gun muzzle of the people surrounding us seemed aimed at me. A perfect disadvantage in numbers. No foolish moves.
For now, there was nothing for it but to meet them face to face, up close.
"Shall I help you a little?"
"Leave the handling to me. You just stay calm, the way you are now."
"Let me give you one piece of advice."
"Out of nowhere?"
"Keep doing what you've always done, and it's easy to fall into a trap. You become predictable."
This old man. His mind had jumped off in a strange direction again. Who didn't know that? There were things you knew, and still had no choice but to do.
"The important part comes after. Just because you've fallen into a trap once, you mustn't go changing your behavior too easily. Doing something you don't usually do is far more dangerous."
Elder Heo had turned solemn all of a sudden, and was pouring out things that were actually correct.
"Who's possessing you?"
Had his mind suddenly cleared in a moment of crisis? Or was some superhuman ability kicking in?
"Handle it well. I'll be watching. Whether you're qualified."
"Qualified for what?"
"To be a match for my daughter, Chunjang."
"Dad, what nonsense is that in a situation like this!"
"I'm Jangchun, not Chunjang."
"Don't you go matching with her!"
Thud!
The shock of the car coming to a stop. The sound of time stopping.