Reconstruction

"Shh."

Humanoid monsters. Two of them. Narrow shoulders, long calves—the breed sensitive to gunpowder.

"All you have to do is hold still."

Every monster alive can smell the carbon dioxide on a breath. Hold still all you like; breathe, and they find you. But set a moving body beside a still one, and they always take the one that moves.

Krek. Krek.

That there were only two of them mattered. Monsters act as colonies, and two left standing means the swarm has already been hit—most of it slaughtered. A few more might have been lurking somewhere nearby, but not many. What mattered was that a colony worn down to a handful was still alive and moving. Which means the Core is still in there. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A few monsters in any colony always carry a Core, and the rest survive by sharing its energy. A colony of exactly two, and still moving? Kill one, and the odds of taking the Core were fifty percent at least. A windfall.

Smell gunpowder and they go berserk. Has to be the knife.

I drew the blade and took a single step. A hammer cocked.

Huh?

The shot cracked.

"That idiot!"

The kid had fired out of nowhere. Both monsters lunged for him. I opened one's throat with the dagger before it could close the distance, but that was as far as it went. By the time the second dropped with its neck cut through, the kid had already been bleeding far too long.

No Core.

"I told you to stay still. You really don't listen."

"Hk…… You went in with a knife…… I didn't think that'd be enough……."

Where the hell had the ammunition come from? So he hadn't spent it after all?

"Should've broken him of ignoring his elders a long time ago."

"I was doing…… what the chief said……."

"What?"

"If it looks dangerous, just shoot……. A guy with no experience…… like me…… isn't supposed to think……."

He wasn't wrong. The problem was that this had been the exception. Unlucky kid.

"Still…… that was incredible. Two monsters, nothing but a knife in your hands……. You're not…… an ordinary Postman, are you?"

Nothing had been taken clean off, but there were pieces a moment shy of it, and the bleeding was bad. I could still try to save him. Empty every medicine in the bag into his body. The chance was remote, though. One in ten thousand, if that.

"Hk…… Guess this is…… as far as I go……."

"Shut your mouth and hold still."

I ran my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hands over him, and a blue light began to gather.

If I intervene, the chance he survives……

Too low. And that wasn't the whole of it.

Chance of a severe disability, even if he lives……

The kid had no settlement that would take him. A severe disability, in a situation like his, was a death sentence. On a case like this, you didn't spend so much as a speck of resources. Common sense. Nothing more.

"Don't…… use any medicine……."

"Wasn't going to."

"Heh heh……."

After something like this, my dreams always turned restless for no good reason. That was why. I didn't keep companions. It was for my own sanity.

The blue digits hung in front of me, untroubled, and today they felt especially spiteful. A handful of numbers. What did they amount to.

"Hk…… I'm lasting longer than I thought……."

"Keep it shut."

A delusion drifted in. Those damn numbers. Probability. Could they be turned inside out? If only probability could be inverted—the kind of dream-ability where the harder a thing was, the easier it became. Empty fantasy. A thing that could never happen. Like the Subway running again.

The kid reached back into his pack. Just as I'd expected.

"One favor……."

What came out in his hand was a letter, stained with blood. So obvious it didn't even irritate me. He'd said he was heading for Headquarters because of the mail.

"Mail?"

"Yes……. Could you…… accept this in person……?"

I nearly asked about the fee. If he died here, everything on him would be mine anyway. Not that I expected much. Strip him to the skin and it still wouldn't come close to the delivery cost. The envelope, at least, already carried everything a delivery required.

Settlement names on an address were whatever the writer felt like putting down. The same place often went by one name among the people who lived there and another among outsiders. The kid's settlement, from what I'd heard, was called Ragged. Not that there was a Ragged left to call anything. Either way, a Postman doesn't much care about the sender's address. What matters is the recipient's. Accept mail in person, and the rule is you deliver it yourself.

"Recipient, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul…… Damn it."

A notorious settlement.

"Not there."

"Please……."

A delivery you only attempted if you were ready to stake your life. Not that any delivery could be done without risking your neck—but this one truly left it hanging by a thread. Absolutely not. Nothing mattered more than my own life.

But—

"All right."

A lie, I could spare him.

"Thank you……."

He had reason to thank me. A lie given free of charge, at the cost of my own discomfort—that was privilege enough.

Krek. Krek. A few more of them. Same colony as the last, more than likely. So the Core was with this group. Four, by the sound.

"I hear monsters……. Am I…… hearing things?"

They moved well. Four of them, one carrying a Core, could turn messy. In that case, the easy road was the right one.

"Kid. Awkward thing to offer in place of a delivery fee, but."

He knew what to do with what I'd handed him. Both hands closed around it, and he nodded.

"Heh……."

He still had the strength left to smile.

The monsters came on at their leisure. A few of their own lay dead nearby, but they weren't bright enough to grow wary of corpses. They closed in, looked down at the kid sprawled beneath them, and pressed their heads together.

The grenade went off.

So the shrapnel would punch clean through them, he'd had the presence of mind, at the very last, to set the grenade on his open palm and lift it high. Nothing alive remained where the blast had been.

The Core was there, just as I'd expected. Fist-sized, the surface smooth as glass, glowing red. Tsk. I'd have to get it appraised back at base to know for certain, but if my luck was rotten, it might be a total loss. Cores that looked like this were duds more often than not, in my experience. If it doesn't at least pay for the grenade, the dreams are going to be ugly.

Alone, the way back was easy. I had to hide a few times along the road, but being alone made it simple. I didn't have to open my mouth and speak. I had my routine back.

The New Government Complex, standing over Yeouido. The white building, seemingly untouched by a single speck of dust, felt more alien than usual today. The colossal railguns beside it, thrust up at the sky, were the proof that this place was a safe zone. Soldiers and Hunters both kept their commands here. In practice, everything that ran the nation happened inside these walls.

The New Government this-and-that was too long, and faintly embarrassing, so Postmen usually just called it Headquarters. Soldiers and Hunters used the names of their own commands, though among themselves they said Headquarters too. I'd seen it myself, back in my active-duty days.

From the main gate to the mission-report window took only an hour and a half. A lucky day. Three fewer body searches than usual, and one security officer, claiming he was busy, had half-assed the biometric scan. The moment I finished reporting my readings, clearance for the residential zone was restored.

My dreams that night were bad.

The next day I went to my personal cabinet in the secure zone. The lock clanked open. I only kept what could pass for money, which meant the cabinet was nearly all ammunition. One of the better things about being a civil servant: a personal cabinet inside a residential zone locked down tight, and the right to pile up property in it.

I took a magazine of twenty-nine rounds out of my bag and set it down at the bottom, where I kept the standard 5.56 magazines. Among magazines that all looked identical, the one short a single round caught the eye. I picked up a loose 5.56 rolling around and nearly seated it in the empty slot. Then I didn't.

Into the wide compartment at eye level, I dumped whatever the survival bag still held after the mission. The bloodstained letter slid out with the rest. For a moment I entertained the delusion of actually delivering it. There was nothing left to do with the letter. I pushed it into the narrow compartment at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very top—the one you couldn't see, only reach—and shut the cabinet.

"Mr. Jungkook!"

Bae Guk-jang.

"Mr. Jungkook! Where are you going!"

"Why."

When that man called for me, it was one of two things. Praise, or a warning. I hated both. Forced to choose, I hated the praise more.

"Hah, that's Mr. Jungkook for you!"

"I'm busy."

"Just listen. I think the higher-ups have their eye on your numbers!"

"Is that so."

"And why do you think that is! Hah!"

I knew the reason exactly. Bae Guk-jang, without a doubt, did not.

"Obviously! Because you took first in performance again this month!"

Wrong, as expected.

"Which is why they invited you to the special-mission briefing! You, Mr. Jungkook!"

"Special mission?"

More points, then. Which meant it was that much more dangerous.

"Sounds like they're only calling the best. Well? You're in, aren't you?"

A share of my results went to Bae Guk-jang. In exchange for staying out of a regular department and reporting directly to the director, I'd agreed to hand over thirty percent. Through his pull, I got to pick only the missions I wanted. We'd made an open promise of it: take from each other nothing but what we needed, and nothing more.

Did that mean trust? Not in the slightest. I'd never said a word about my past. A man at his rank would have decent sources, but even those wouldn't turn up anything on me. Maybe that was why Bae Guk-jang never offered a scrap of information about himself, either. The remarkable thing was that, even so, he could still be perfectly casual with me.

"And if I don't want to?"

"Then what…… can I do about it……. Ngh."

A man of fifty, pulling a pitiful face like a child. It suited him, somehow, which only made him harder to look at.

"I'll go if you stop sticking that lip out."

He sucked it back in.

"Don't suck it in, either."

A special mission. I'd hear it out, at least. If I didn't want to do it, I simply wouldn't.

"It's a briefing. I'll sit in."

"See? You're going to love it!"

He'd like to think so.

The conference room could hold a little over twenty. Counting me, some fifteen Postmen had gathered. While the others knotted into small groups and talked, I enjoyed the privilege of sitting quietly alone. I was the only one without a department assignment. Of course. Not knowing anyone was useful at times like this.

"Then we'll begin the briefing. What you're about to see—"

A waste of time, in a word. The briefing concerned a kind of postal work that hadn't existed before: an absurd plan to haul military supplies for several hundred people through a handful of waypoints, all in a single expedition.

"Uh……. This looks like quite a difficult mission, sir."

Someone asked a question. The waste of time got longer.

"That's why we gathered you. The best of the best."

"And the destination?"

"A good question. The first waypoint is right here."

His pointer tapped the map on the wall. The spot he indicated was an empty lot in Yeongdeungpo District. If my memory was right, a military facility had been built in secret underneath.

"We won't be executing this delivery immediately. A few preparations remain. Think of this as a preliminary selection of who will take part."

He could do as he pleased. I didn't care.

"The points we'll award to those who participate—"

The power of a number, confirmed once again. At the five-digit figure he revealed, the room began to stir. Everyone but me. Not that I failed to understand. Ordinary Postmen, handed missions at random, often drew deliveries they wanted no part of. Men like that had every reason to be tempted by work that guaranteed the points. For someone who could pick his missions to taste, less so.

"Then those who wish to participate, please raise your hands."

I folded my arms and closed my eyes. A gesture that I had no intention of raising one. The rest of them seemed to have raised theirs readily enough. I could feel the shift all around me.

"Everyone except one of you?"

Tsk. Standing out was the last thing I wanted.

"Um……. May I confirm one more thing?"

"Questions are welcome. By all means."

Questions. Always questions. I'd already made it plain I wasn't participating. Could I leave?

"The weight will be considerable……. Will we be using vehicles?"

They would be. Which made it more dangerous.

"I meant to cover that after I'd seen how many of you were in, but very well. Enough hands are up. I'll tell you now."

He tore the large operations overview off the wall, and the map hidden behind it came into view. A purple line stood out in particular—the route to the destination, most likely. Something was wrong with it. The path was so clean it was nearly a straight line. A delivery that large was conspicuous enough on its own. Moving it along a line like that was impossible.

"The delivery route currently ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠under planning."

"That……. That route is absolutely impossible."

"No. It's possible."

The officer in charge was smiling, confident, and I couldn't see why. He had a reason.

A scrape, then a thud.

Woo Jungkook was on his feet.

The chair had toppled, and at the sound of it, every eye in the room found him.