The Patriot
Jo Yong-han's plan went like this.
"The truth is, there's a project I've been working on quite closely with Mr. Jungkook."
"I figured. So that's why the two of you look so friendly."
"......Do we look that way?"
"Yeah."
"We aren't actually that close."
"At that level, I'd call you close. Neither of you is the type to keep people around."
Jo Yong-han found himself briefly at a loss for words. In any case, he returned to the point.
"What we're working on is a subway reconstruction project. To put it simply—"
This much was a story he had already given Woo Jungkook.
"Mm! I get the gist."
"I was thinking I might ask him to look after Noona and Anna, on the condition that I push things so he receives a favorable evaluation."
"A favorable evaluation?"
"An option is going to be added that awards a large number of points to whoever makes a decisive contribution—"
This was something he had not yet passed on to Jungkook either. He had been saving it, meaning to tell him face to face when the chance came.
"Add that to the points he'll receive when the project is completed, and Mr. Jungkook will be right on the verge of a ticket to Geofront."
"Wasn't that something that took an insane number of points? Just how many are they handing out?"
"If I give you the exact figure—"
Jo Yong-han wrote the number on the paper himself. He could have simply said it, but he thought this would leave a far stronger impression.
"That many!?"
"Only for the person who makes the decisive contribution."
"Uh...... Oppa? That's a huge number of points, but as far as I know you needed way more than that. Didn't you?"
"You're right. But the points Mr. Jungkook has already saved up—"
Numbers filled their whole field of vision. What Woo Jungkook had accumulated was hard to believe of anyone with a postman's rank—the sort of total only a general-grade officer could manage among soldiers, and even for a hunter, a score you could pile up only by grinding the front lines for a long time.
"......That's incredible. How on earth did Mr. Jungkook gather this much?"
"There's a multiplier system. You can receive additional points on top of the delivery-completion score. Put simply, satisfy every condition and succeed at consecutive deliveries, and you get extra points."
"I know that one. It's a setup that whips the people who are already good into being even better, right?"
"Ordinarily the conditions grow stricter as the tiers rise, and sooner or later you fail. Mr. Jungkook always reached the final tier and took the maximum."
"So how much more does he get?"
"Ten times the base reward."
"He stacked them ten times faster than everyone else."
"Of course, even at ten times they're still a postman's points. To reach Geofront he'd need more than five years of dazzling work on top of that—"
What could solve that was precisely the subway project.
"Once the project he and I are running wraps up, Mr. Jungkook could obtain the points he's short all at once."
"A decisive contribution...... Are the competitors formidable?"
"They're all postmen."
"Then what? It's obvious Mr. Jungkook gets it. Do you even need a recommendation?"
"It isn't given to the most outstanding person. If no one makes a decisive contribution, no one receives it."
"Now I get it. From the start it was a carrot they never meant to give anyone."
Jo Shin-hye saw straight through it.
"Wow...... Oppa, you're pretty rotten too."
"It's only the policy handed down from above."
"Saying you were only following orders is rotten too."
"......"
"An-na? That's just how the things adults do always are."
"Is it? So this is what reality looks like."
"......Why don't you call Unni rotten, and only me?"
"You want me to say it to Unni too? Oppa really is rotten."
Jo Yong-han gave up on answering. The true formidable opponent in his mind was not Woo Jungkook.
"So the points were prepared as bait, but if you recommend him, Mr. Jungkook might actually receive them?"
"It has to pass review, but getting his name onto that review is possible with my recommendation."
"And after that?"
"It depends on the reviewers."
"......Then it's something that won't work anyway, isn't it?"
The sisters looked again at the enormous number written on the paper.
"As expected. This is just a fantasy."
"There was already plenty of talk inside the Future Technology Department. With points like these, they said, a postman would be more our master than we are."
"It's a score anyone would covet, so of course...... Huh? Wait a second."
Now that she thought about it, there was a part she couldn't readily accept.
"Even the Future Technology Department wouldn't have the authority to just hand out points like these, would they?"
"It was approved from higher up."
"Geofront?"
"Lower than that."
The place that wielded the most formidable power on the surface. The control tower of the New Government Complex. The Governor-General's Office.
"Even so, points like these would make them wary of Geofront's eyes......"
"Mm. An-na?"
"Yeah?"
"Asking you to step out feels a little much, so—"
"Should I cover my ears?"
"No. Just keep what you hear to yourself."
It was something he could not tell Woo Jungkook, but he did not want it to be a secret from his family as well.
"The truth is, the subway reconstruction project itself is something the Governor-General is pushing. The large quantity of points was also proposed by the Governor-General personally."
"That's unusual. It's a bit awkward to say, but—"
"He's famous for not working."
"That's what I mean. So he isn't always like that?"
"The truth is, he lives quite diligently. But everything he does is done in secret, so nothing of it gets out, and he only looks as if he's loafing."
"Hm."
What mattered was that the source of the points was trustworthy.
"If there's a way to help him take these points, I think Mr. Jungkook would be satisfied too......"
"Of course he'd be satisfied! He's going through all that hardship because he wants to get to Geofront, isn't he?"
"I wonder why he wants to go to Geofront."
"Huh? It's a place anyone would obviously want to go."
"That's true, but Mr. Jungkook isn't an ordinary person."
A place where civilization had developed with dazzling brilliance. And a safe place. People on the surface longed for Geofront for one of those two reasons, or for both. But if it was the Woo Jungkook Jo Shin-hye had in mind, she didn't think the reason would be anything so simple.
"I'm sure there's another reason......"
"Well, that isn't the important part!"
"Mm...... It is something that has nothing to do with us. Still, I'd like to see Mr. Jungkook get his wish. That man hardly ever smiles. Once he's gathered all the points, he'll smile then, won't he?"
The sisters decided to place their hopes on Jo Yong-han's plan, but he himself had no certainty. Wasn't Woo Jungkook someone who had already accepted a person's offer once, gone out with the first wave, and come back? He could not shake the thought that there would be more competitors circling him.
Ding-dong. The current time is 6:30 a.m. This is the recommended wake-up time. Effects you can gain by starting the day early in the morning include......
The worst days are the ones when the nightmare runs right up to the moment you wake. Everything you saw in the dream stays vivid. The one mercy is that dreams evaporate very quickly—provided you don't sit and replay them after you're up. Which means it doesn't apply to me.
Even so, what I'd seen in today's dream was forgotten soon enough, because the moment I opened my eyes something caught them.
A note?
A note slipped in through the crack of the door. Folded with care. I knew at once who had sent it.
Right. Jo Yong-han would already have grasped that I was due to be thrown back into a mission. For the time being I wouldn't be able to spare any effort for the subway reconstruction. Was that what this was about?
No.
Look after the sisters.
So even his reach hadn't been enough to keep them from being sent outside. Figures. Pulling out sisters stuck with a low-grade posting wouldn't be easy. According to him there was a chance at a huge pile of points for a decisive contribution or whatever it was, but that sort of thing is nothing but bait. Cases where they actually hand out points like that are as good as nonexistent. Not my first time getting strung along.
Well. If I really could collect them, Geofront would be right under my nose.
Better to set the fantasy aside and weigh whether taking the sisters out with me actually does me any good. We'd already traveled together once. Both of them still being alive already made them better than average company. I couldn't swear to it, but one of the two seemed to have a protection-type core ability. Surviving anti-aircraft fire was hard to write off as luck alone. Which of them had it, then. If I had to guess, Jo An-na. Didn't matter who.
Anyway. Besides the three Jo siblings, was there another desk worker I knew?
Ah. Director Bae.
The official notice said every post office was going out, no exceptions, but if anyone had found a way to stay alive on his own, it would be that man. And his family?
Something even Jo Yong-han couldn't pull off.
Director Bae's wife and daughter were probably slated to go outside as well. No separate word to me, though, so he must have somewhere to leave them. Just as well.
"......Then, Director, I'll be going."
The secretary had finally calmed. At the thought of having to go out into the world beyond, she had let go of the reins of reason, but thinking it over after the fact, she couldn't help worrying about what came after she made it back alive.
"Once I return, I'll go straight back to work. Then, goodbye......"
At first she had clung to him on the certainty that Director Bae and his family would never be driven out. Her prediction was only half right. Through lobbying that had cost an enormous sum, Director Bae had arranged not to be driven out himself, but his family was packing survival supplies.
"Your family, that's...... I'm sorry."
It wasn't that the money had run short. Director Bae had side income that made a director-grade salary look laughable. The railgun of the Human Meat Factory was operating thanks to him.
"How do you know an air raid is coming and intercept it ahead of time?"
"Ah, that? It's nothing special. There's an insider at the post office who radios the air-raid intel. This place is close to the Complex, so the radio gets through fine."
The enormous income drawn from the Human Meat Factory. That was the secret to Director Bae keeping his present seat. Beating rivals with every kind of lobbying was one thing; funneling easy work to Woo Jungkook was possible too. All of it was for the sake of points. He needed three people's worth—not only his own, but his family's share as well—so he had to live three times harder than anyone else. Which was why he had needed Woo Jungkook, ten times better than the rest.
If Director Bae strained himself and emptied his entire balance, he could have tried to keep his family from being driven out as well. There were several reasons he didn't.
"Don't worry too much. Going outside isn't necessarily going to your death. You're only accompanying them, so if you follow instructions properly, you'll be able to come back alive."
"......"
"In fact, most of the first wave came back alive, didn't they?"
The first reason was that the odds of coming back alive were much higher.
"That's true. Of course, if they hadn't gone out, they would have been people who all survived, not most of them."
"You'll be among that most, so don't worry."
To pull the whole family clear, even Director Bae, rich as he was, would have had to empty the warehouse completely. That didn't mean money mattered more than family. Without money, survival was equally impossible. Protecting his assets was also a path taken for their sake. A mission from which they might come back alive, set against a warehouse that would have to be emptied for certain. Between the two, he chose the slightly more hopeful option.
And his own spending of money to slip free was, in the midst of all this, also for the future. Unlike his family, if he died, every asset of his would be confiscated. Then his family dying out would come to the same thing either way.
"Then, goodbye......"
Even the director's family was being driven out. The secretary had no means of persuasion left.
"Go safely."
"Yes. You just wait here in comfort, Director......"
There was an important fact the secretary did not know. Her own part in Director Bae reaching this decision had been no small one.
"Director! You have a way to save your family, don't you? Can't something be done for me too? Just one more person—me! Whatever you want—"
The director as he appeared in the secretary's eyes. A man for whom family came before something like national policy. No—beyond that, a man who might look after someone who wasn't family, if only the price was paid. In other words, a man who took the will of the nation lightly.
"......If that is the nation's policy, then it will have to be followed."
Those words of the director's were sincere. The problem was that no one believed them. If Woo Jungkook had heard them, he would obviously have thought, Director Bae on his bullshit again. But no matter what anyone said, those words were sincere. No matter what others said.
"......"
He could not accept that he himself looked like a man who might look after someone who wasn't family, if only the price was paid. In other words, this decision of his amounted to a kind of patriotism. No matter what others said.
I sent a reply to Jo Yong-han. To the effect that I would look after the sisters. Better, I judged, than being paired with some strange desk worker.
If I can get the points that guy mentioned, all the better.
It would take time for Min Yeo-jin to try to get her hands on a Frenzy Round or whatever it was, and there was no telling when Clock-out Man, who was supposed to handle the trade, would come back near headquarters. The mission I'd be redeployed to hadn't been decided yet either, and with no radio from Boss's side, there didn't seem to be any particular trouble.
How long has it been.
A day or two at most, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd been this idle. For once, maybe I'd indulge in a little happy luxury.