The Chicken Coop

I met Dr. Myeong again in the exam room to hear the results.

"You been eating anything good lately?"

Straight to my diet.

"Even if I ate well, you think I'd eat better than you?"

"Then what is it? Regression?"

"What kind of nonsense is that."

"Your biological age has started counting backward."

"It was always young. You're the one who runs every test."

"It dropped even further. And your last exam was the end of last year. A change like this, in that short a span, doesn't make sense."

I'm twenty-eight. I've lived a little past ten thousand days.

"What age did it come out as?"

"Early twenties."

Even before, my biological age had always read about three years young, so I used to say that in body-years I was the same age as Dr. Myeong, who really is three years younger.

"No wonder I've been feeling light when I wake up."

"What did you do?"

What I ate was poor, and I hadn't exactly been training hard. Nothing about the usual had changed at all. Except the evolution of my ability.

"What would I have done. Anything else, besides that?"

"Anything else?"

"Something wrong with your body, for instance."

"This is already abnormal enough."

"I mean besides that."

"Not really. You got some symptom in mind?"

"Not exactly."

So using a Core hadn't caused any problems. A relief, for now. Of course there might still be a change even Dr. Myeong hadn't found. If it was that sort of thing, no other doctor was going to uncover it either.

"Anyway, I'm perfectly healthy, right? I'll take your word and go."

"You're really not going to tell me? If you took some drug recently—"

"You already guessed it."

"Huh?"

"Regression."

"Don't be ridiculous. Regression changes what's inside. The shell — the condition of the body — is supposed to stay exactly as it is."

"Don't explain it with a straight face."

She'd gone and asked one question too many. Hard to shake her off.

"I'll tell you when the time comes."

"Just trying to dodge it for the moment?"

"When I go this far, doesn't it occur to you that I am never going to tell you?"

"Honestly."

"Save your strength."

There was one thing Dr. Myeong knew for certain. I never let myself lose.

About time ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I paid for the exam.

If it were Dr. Myeong, she'd treat me even if I showed up empty-handed. But this was far better than carrying a debt in my chest. She, for her part, had never once refused a fee. She worried herself sick over the state of my pockets and still collected, every single time.

"This is for the exam."

Half a pack of military cigarettes.

"Look at you, actually getting these."

"The black market's swimming in them these days."

It was true. The price had dropped because of it, so they were easy to come by. At the same time, it was an ominous sign. Whatever the reason, soldiers don't put goods on the market for nothing.

"Yeah? You know today's air raid was the biggest on record, right?"

"Heard it from some unlucky bastard."

"Monster sightings are up, too."

"Hm?"

"Casualties are piling up in the military. That's why they're conserving medical supplies more than usual. Operating rooms are short, too."

"So that's why military goods are flooding the black market?"

"Probably. Sell off whatever's useless, buy up survival supplies."

No wonder the black-market crowd had been paying well for antibiotics. I should have squeezed them for more.

"Thanks for the news on how the world's turning. I'm off."

"You're not even worried?"

"Worried about what."

"Anyone can see this isn't normal."

"Sometimes the rainy season just runs long. Don't go assigning meaning to it."

What mattered more was that there was no way to make the rain stop.

"How is a man who wanders around outside Headquarters this easy in the gut?"

"Thanks for the compliment."

"Go on. Get out."

The moment I turned my back on the exam-room door, I heard her draw a cigarette behind me.

"Ease up on those."

"Mind your own business."

"Like you said, I'm the one who goes outside Headquarters. Desk staff who'll never set foot out there can spare me the useless worry."

I'd said it without any particular meaning.

But—

"……Whether desk staff will really never have to go out, that we don't know."

"Hm?"

Something off in Dr. Myeong's reaction. A dissonance I couldn't name.

"Forget it. Hurry up and go."

"What a fizzle."

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last thing I heard before leaving the exam room was—

Chk.

A lighter.

I reached the residential quarter.

On an ordinary day, once a delivery was done and I was back at Headquarters, my entire job was to sleep through the day. I'd never been this busy.

That musty smell. The smell of the residential quarter. I'd grown fond of this one, too.

Click. Open the door to Room 202 and the bed is right there — a modest bed that can barely take the one body I have, and still it occupies half the room. My room.

The rest of the space, where the bed doesn't sit, is given over to issued supplies. The largest is the issued desk. They don't issue a chair. You perch on the edge of the bed and drag the desk over to use it. On top lie issued paper and writing tools, which is why so many people keep diaries. There's nothing else to do. Now and then someone writes a poem or a novel, and they pass the pages around among themselves.

Nothing but issued goods may come into the room. Get caught bringing in outside items and you're thrown out. That's why a personal cabinet matters. All of this is the story of living in the residential quarter.

They call it a residential quarter, but the only people who live here are those of low standing, like Postmen. Soldiers get the barracks, Hunters get apartments, and the other VIPs get private rooms matched to their rank. Up through last year, everyone called the quarter the chicken coop, but recently the phrase was designated a forbidden word.

So what if it's a chicken coop. There are times a chicken's lot is better than a person's.

Thump. Lie there long enough and sleep comes. Sleep long enough and morning arrives.

That is how life passes in the residential quarter.

Skrr. A single set of orders slid in through the gap under the door. A new delivery job. A note was stuck to it as well.

The handwriting was familiar — that cute script I'd seen on the envelope I delivered to Jo Shin-hye. I'd thought someone else had written it for him. Apparently it really was Jo Yong-han's own hand. He does have a gift for choosing the most unbecoming things to do.

So they want me working two jobs.

How considerate.

The orders listed a handful of deliveries and one air-raid warning. Every destination lay along the road to Geumcheon District. Mail can go slowly. An air-raid warning has to arrive on time.

Fast, when it comes to getting the work done. I like that.

Obviously.

There's plenty to do, but food comes first. All of it is just so we can eat and keep living.

Lively in here.

The residential quarter comes with its own cafeteria. Two meals a day, free, eaten here. It's easy to assume the quality must be poor when they're only feeding the people who live in the quarter — and you'd be right. The amount they ladle out, though, is staggering. Eat your fill, then work. Packing up leftovers and walking out with them is not allowed.

The cafeteria doubles as a meeting ground, so it's always noisy. I don't know anyone, though, so I get to eat in qui—

"Suhnbae!"

"……."

"Hope you slept well, I tell you, sir!"

First time I've seen Hocheol in a Postman's uniform. Suhnbae — his chewed-up version of sunbae, senior, and he still hasn't fixed it. He probably isn't wearing the uniform because he has a delivery today. Training clothes, more likely.

"Training bearable?"

"Way too easy, sir! They said they're throwing me onto deliveries right away, I tell you!"

Tsk. Showed them everything he had, by the look of it. Once they judge your ability already outstanding, they don't bother continuing the training. Every bit of that is a drain on resources. Living takes a little knack — the knack of pretending, now and then, that you can't quite do it.

"Keep on with training and I can't earn money or points either, I tell you. Getting out fast suits me just fine!"

Hocheol had always been like this. Overflowing energy is fine, but the kid only has one life.

"Money I understand. Why the points. You heading to Geofront too?"

"Of course, I tell you, sir! You know me."

True enough. Hocheol had been in the same unit as me, back in the military. Our code name was the Lemming Unit — the rodent said to throw itself into the water and commit mass suicide. The name stuck because the missions were harder than any other unit's. Well. The commander used to tell us a different story, to put us at ease.

Listening to the commander, I knew one thing for certain. We had taken the wrong road.

"My old status got wiped, so the points start over from zero……. But what can you do, sir! Work hard from here and it'll be fine!"

The members of that Lemming Unit were, astonishingly, one hundred percent volunteers. Ah — except me. I'd been assigned by force. The unit did have one advantage. You could earn high points, nearly as many as a Hunter. Of course, not a single member had ever survived long enough to gather the points for Geofront. Not one, in all of history.

Naturally, men who were already civil servants didn't volunteer for a unit that insane. Every volunteer was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a drifter barely clinging to another day of survival outside Headquarters. Hocheol had been one of them.

"So, sir — got any tips?"

"Tips?"

"Tips for working as a Postman, I tell you!"

"How to stay alive, or how to stack a record?"

"Nothing that does both, sir?"

Hocheol of the Lemmings, who used to throw his life around like that, took a conveniently placed wound to the leg. Thanks to it, he was transferred to another unit. In truth, injured or not, the usual thing is to stay in the Lemming Unit until you die. But on the last mission, the one where he was hurt, a Hunter whose life he'd saved put in a word. That was Min Yeo-jin.

A Hunter I trained.

"A tip for stacking a record and staying alive while you do it."

Simple. Catch hold of a line like Director Bae, and take only the safe work. Not a tip Hocheol could actually carry out, though.

"No such tip exists. Unless you're holding one good connection, living comes out the same grind for everybody."

"A connection, sir……."

He seemed to sink for a moment. Then, all at once, he raised his voice.

"Then I'm all set, I tell you, sir!"

"Hm?"

"I've got you, Suhnbae!"

"What kind of connection is one Postman to another."

"You'll go to Geofront first, Suhnbae, and I'll follow after!"

"You don't seem to know this, but nobody has ever stacked enough points off Postman work to reach Geofront. They dole them out in crumbs."

Well. I'll be the first to get there. On that one point, Hocheol has it right.

"Which is why I've got to work hard, I tell you!"

Suit yourself. He's going to need a fair bit of luck.

Hocheol's luck…….

From drifter to the Lemming Unit. From there, a transfer out by the skin of his teeth. Then, before he quite knew it, an armed deserter, and after that a member of AAA, an anti-government settlement. In the end he escaped with his life in his hands, and now he's a Postman. Do I call that good luck, or bad. He's alive, so perhaps the luck is good.

"Anyway, sir, they taught us something strange at the end of training, I tell you?"

"I know what it is without you saying."

The Postman's greeting.

"Do we really have to do it, sir? It's kind of rough, I tell you……."

"You don't have to. Not like you get anything for doing it."

I don't know any other Postmen, so I can't say what the rest of them do. Jo Yong-han had reacted as if he were seeing it for the first time. Then again, he'd said he hadn't dealt with many Postmen either.

"Then you don't do that greeting either, Suhnbae?"

"Sometimes."

"Mostly when, sir?"

"When I'm collecting extra pay? There's nothing else I can do for them, so I offer it as a thank-you."

"I'm the grateful type about most things, I tell you."

"Then you can do it every time."

"Urk……."

"If you don't want to, don't."

I'd said it with no particular meaning.

"No, sir!"

I'd gone and poked the kid's grit.

"I made up my mind to work hard, so I can't very well do that, I tell you. I'll do it every single time!"

Well. No harm in bright manners.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"I will attend a customer full of love! Whatever the mail—"

"Wrong."

"A customer…… I love?"

"With love I serve you, dear customer."

"Ah — with love I serve you, dear customer! Whatever the mail, accurately!"

"Swiftly and accurately."

"Swiftly and accurately! Delivered, give us a week—"

"Delivered within a week."

"Delivered within a week! And……."

Anything he does with his body, he does well. The head, a little less. Hm.

"I'll show you once."

"Yes, sir!"

In the middle of a meal. What am I even doing.

"With love I serve you, dear customer!"

A bright voice is what matters. Start the first note too low and you're finished.

"Whatever the mail — swiftly, and accurately!"

Here, the eyes and the face that can make a person trust you are everything.

"Delivered within a week — a Postman of the Republic of Korea!"

This part can ease off a little. You're saving the dynamics for the finish. Now the climax. Both hands folded over the chest.

"I."

A finger heart.

"Love."

Both arms lifted overhead into a heart.

"You."

Hold the pose for two seconds. Eye contact.

"……That gesture, too — is that part of the original, sir? It's a bit different from what I was taught, I tell you."

Manuals have a way of shifting a little each time they're passed along. But this is the correct version.

"I learned it straight from the person who first made the greeting. This is right."

"……That's really something, I tell you. A Postman isn't something just anyone can be, I tell you……."

Anyway. Hocheol has a job more important than any greeting. Becoming my eyes and ears. I'll have to watch for the right moment and bring it up.

"You have enough survival supplies?"

"Just what they issued, I tell you."

"And the things you already had — stored safe?"

"Ah, yes, sir! Thanks to Mr. Jo Yong-han's help, they're fine!"

Hocheol had escaped AAA with one rifle and a few magazines. Obviously not items you can carry into Headquarters, but Jo Yong-han had been useful in all sorts of ways.

"Bring all of it. Pack it in a bag and hide it so it doesn't show. I need you to come with me."

"Where to, sir?"

"Follow me and you'll see. From the issued gear, bring everything you won't use right away."

"Yes, sir!"

Ah. Forgot something important.

"A gas mask, too."

"Sir?"

Time to visit the dankest place in Headquarters.