A Single Apple Tree

A hillside, set well back from Claw Farm.

This was where he had chosen to watch the settlement's end, together with its people. Fifteen minutes remained until the air raid.

"Official procedure is to sound the air-raid siren, but we had no choice but to skip it. I trust you'll understand."

The settlers of Claw Farm nodded in silence. Sound the alarm, and the raiders would never take the bait he had laid. There had been no other way.

Fail to sound it on time, and I'll be the one facing discipline.

The plan was what the settlers had wanted, too. Siren or no siren, Claw Farm's end was already written. If, on top of that, they could bury the raiders with it, then the justice of the thing was satisfaction enough. The alarm had never actually sounded, but every one of them had agreed to say they had heard it, clear as day. They were in the same boat now.

Clock-out Man was among those who had climbed aboard.

"A plan that wins this clean, this easy—pretty damn satisfying, I'll give you that."

He glanced at the settlers sunk in gloom, then dropped his voice.

"Can't exactly look like I'm enjoying it, though."

Jeong-guk felt the same. Things were breaking his way so neatly he could hardly have asked for more, and he couldn't show a bit of it. Behind him, hundreds of people with nowhere left to go sat slumped on the ground, faces wrecked.

"This is the kind of plan only you could've put together, bro. Being a postman. You already had the air-raid intel."

"Well. Yeah."

"But knowing the intel doesn't mean just anybody can actually do something with it. Seriously, I've never seen anything like this."

From the start, the work had been in putting the pieces together.

It had begun with this map—the one Jo Yong-han had handed over along with the mission brief. A map of the Geumcheon District. At first, Claw Farm had carried no mark at all.

Headquarters makes the maps thin on purpose.

A precaution against leaks. So a postman's day started by writing the contents of the assigned mission onto the map. The red X now sitting on Claw Farm was his own. A scheduled air-raid site.

And then the second map, the troublesome one. He had received it from Director Bae Guk-jang just before leaving headquarters. It had an X as well, and that one Bae Guk-jang had put there himself.

Until he met Bae Guk-jang, he had thought only one settlement in Geumcheon had been hit. The sort of thing that happened now and then. Ordinary. Learning of the second attack changed his mind. Headquarters had felt the shift as well.

What Bae Guk-jang had pointed to was Claw Farm. He had already understood that the place might be hit. The post office's internal analysis team must have reached a conclusion of its own. With attacks coming in a chain, it was the obvious work to do.

The problem was that none of the information was talking to the rest of it.

True to a headquarters that marked its maps with the bare minimum, nothing was ever arranged so a person could take it in at a glance. Headquarters was that closed, and that stingy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about sharing between departments. But information had a way of sparking once it was combined. This was one of those times.

The department that forecast the air raids had not known about the chain of attacks in Geumcheon, and would not have cared if it had. The department investigating the attacks, for its part, would have treated air-raid intel as news from another world entirely. Bae Guk-jang himself had watched only the fraying security situation, and marked nothing on the map but the attacks. Air-raid warnings were a job for the lowest postmen, each of them handling his own, so the director had never bothered to check them one by one.

Then again, neither Bae Guk-jang nor anyone else had any real need to put the pieces together.

What was so remarkable about sweeping a pack of raiders off the map? Jeong-guk had business with them. Everyone else did not. For all he knew, Bae Guk-jang had combined the information just as he had, and then dismissed it as somebody else's problem.

The bomb planted on Claw Farm's northern wall went off with a thunderous crack. The raiders' assault had begun.

The settlers stirred and murmured. No—drifters, now. That was the word for them.

"Hhhk…"

"It's all right. It was going to happen someday."

"I can't watch…"

The drifters answered the blast in every manner there was. The one pouring out tears without end was the same fellow who, only a few hours ago, had leaned over the wall and called down to him with a grin.

He stood watch often enough that Jeong-guk had taken him for a man with iron nerves. Now he was weeping harder than anyone. The tall man patting his back and offering quiet comfort was Tall Jeong, whose ordinary days had been one long grumble.

He wondered whether the letter had reached Little Jeong in one piece. Farther back he could see the man who had tried to sell him seeds.

Not long ago, that face had looked glad to be alive. Now it was empty, and the man did nothing but stare up at the sky. He must have harvested wildly at the end, though. Seeds spilled over the lip of the sack beside him.

A child nearby picked up one of the spilled seeds and at once began scraping at the earth.

The same child who now wore a pistol holster across the chest. They set the seed gently into the shallow hole and began covering it with soil. The mother only watched, and said nothing.

"Bro."

"I know."

It was time.

"It will be here soon."

The hundreds of drifters who had made camp on the hillside began to go down. The distance was enough that shockwaves and debris should not reach them, but there was no sense in trusting should. A few remained on the ridge—the small number who wanted to see the last moment with their own eyes. Jeong-guk and Clock-out Man were among them. He was staying only because the job required him to confirm that the air raid had gone as expected. Clock-out Man, on the other hand—

"If you stay, bro, I stay."

"What kind of reason is that."

Nothing but nonsense.

A shriek tore through the air, the sound of something piercing space itself. It's here. The clouds that had filled the sky scattered in an instant. In the next moment a Giant Rod drove into the settlement, faster than a blink.

The sky washed purple. Light outruns sound. Before the impact could be heard, the sky answered first. An air raid by day darkened the world as if night had dropped all at once, but a raid by night did the opposite. The sky brightened to violet, as if dawn had come.

A thin beep: the reading from the Damage Measuring Device arrived. Then the boom, and the shockwave after it. Every tree in the woods around Claw Farm bent sharply backward, as if bowing to him. No fragments reached this far, but the wind was strong even here. The blast at the impact point sucked the surrounding air in all at once, and the trees bowed the other way, toward Claw Farm.

"You see this every single day, bro?"

"Not every day. Often enough."

"You get used to it, watching?"

"What's there to get used to."

"Look at a thing like that and you feel it, don't you. The end of the world is still going on."

Out of nowhere.

"You need to see it with your own eyes to know that?"

"Isn't everybody just working hard at ignoring it?"

"I don't know. Call it a difference in temperament, maybe. I've never lived a single day ignoring it."

The wind slammed through again. The second shockwave.

"So that's why you're cynical, bro. You're so cynical."

Where Claw Farm had stood, nothing remained but a Giant Rod driven in at a slant. The settlement had shattered and scattered to nothing. The tower raised from claws would have vaporized with the rest. With that, the raiders were finished as well. There was no one to be glad of it with him.

"Quit talking and put your gas mask on."

"What a pain."

"You're not even on the clock right now, are you?"

Clock-out had passed a long while ago.

"It's not work. I'm doing it because I want to."

"I'm touched."

"Heh. Right?"

"If you're doing it because you want to, then don't tell me it's a pain."

"When do I ever get to be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the one who's touched."

They had to go into the impact site. The Damage Measuring Device had to be recovered, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a Core along with it, if they were lucky.

"Everything up to here went the way you said, bro. You really think the core's down there?"

"We can hope."

Of all the equipment headquarters produced, the Damage Measuring Device was the most durable. Thanks to that, it often came through an air raid intact, and bringing one back meant extra pay. A Core was tougher still. It endured bombardments on a scale that would smash a Damage Measuring Device to pieces.

"The raiders will have known Kim-ssi's core was an Ability Core. They'd have threatened him, tortured him, gotten the information out somehow."

That was why a Core might still be lying in that wreckage. If they had known what it was, a leader would have carried it on his person. A thing that valuable was too uneasy to leave sitting in a hideout.

"We still don't know whether the boss actually joined the assault, right?"

"Right. I never caught the client's scent. Not once, right to the end."

Of the two leaders, one was likely carrying the Core. For now, all they could do was hope it was somewhere in the ruins of Claw Farm.

"Seal that mask tight. Carcinogens are coming in."

"My face is small, so it never fits right. Curse of an eight-head body."

"Eight heads, and every one of them an idiot."

They were just about to start for the ruins when a trickle of water tickled his ear. He turned. The child who had planted the seed was watering it now.

"Bro, shouldn't we stop that? Waste of water."

These people were drifters now. Planting seeds and harvesting fruit was no longer the life they lived. Even so, the mother stood beside the child and only watched, silent.

"If you won't, I will."

Jeong-guk caught Clock-out Man's arm as he made to step out.

"Leave them."

"Leave them? The kid's lived in a settlement their whole life and doesn't know any better. An adult's supposed to teach them."

"That's not it."

The child was not watering the seed in order to get fruit.

"Then what is it."

"That much water is plenty for an alien seed to grow."

"What are you even saying. I'm telling you the water's a waste."

"After they're gone, a plant that grows well will still bear fruit. Then whoever comes along next will eat it."

"Are you out of your mind?"

It was as he had thought. Once the watering was done, the child turned away without a backward look. The mother took the child's hand and joined the drifting crowd.

"You know what the Subway is?"

"Where's this coming from."

"They say that in the old days, people who'd never seen each other in their lives used to pack in together, unarmed, shoulder to shoulder."

"That's old-world fantasy. You're not a kid. You believe that?"

A child who had never once held a gun. Jeong-guk had taken one up the moment he learned to walk. They had lived entirely different lives. He could not understand that child all the way through.

"I don't believe it. Not me."

A world like that could not have existed.

"See? I'm the one who stayed up all night, so why are you the one spacing out? Come on. Let's go see ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if the core's there."

No. A world like that had surely never existed. And yet—

A person like that could.

As many as you liked.

"A-an— an air—!"

"Calm yourself, and speak clearly."

Mother had not been idling at the hideout. He had sent a scout out to watch Claw Farm from a distance.

"An air raid! It hit Claw Farm!"

The bad feeling had been right. The assault had failed. Father, and every member of the assault team with him, was already gone from the world. But all of that was past. The dead do not come back. Mother, who kept a cold head, had always been skilled at governing his feelings.

"Hmm."

"What do we do? What are we supposed to do now!"

Even so, there was this mercy: the most precious of their valuables had all remained at the hideout. Everything owed itself to Mother's peculiar disposition.

"Well. What shall we do now, I wonder."

"This is no time to be taking it easy—!"

"A cold head."

"Sir?"

"Keep your head cold."

"I don't… understand what you're saying."

Mother still had room to spare. To keep the mercenary from tracking them by scent, he had even sprayed a perfume said to have been manufactured in the Geofront. The composure had a foundation.

But Mother had overlooked the part of the postman that was truly strong—the part he had heard about from the mercenary. He had overlooked the fact that the postman carried a formidable luck.