Chapter 15. Was It Bullshit?
Chapter 15. Was It Bullshit?
Back when I was a kid and my parents were still alive,
I’d been to psychiatric appointments several times.
The diagnosis I got there was antisocial personality disorder. Psychopathic tendencies.
But that wasn’t necessarily all bad.
I didn’t get shaken by emotions often. That didn’t mean I had no emotions at all. But rather than getting swept up by feelings like ordinary people and doing something foolish, I tended to judge situations rationally and coldly, and respond accordingly.
I thought that was my strength.
But what Bella said as she dragged her slippers out made my head go blank in shock.
“Chan! Chan, this. Nuke. North Korea nuke. Shoong! Coming now. Fired.”
Bella shouted that and shoved her phone at me. In her memo app, it said: “North Korean nuke launch 9:00 a.m. 9:05 a.m. Seoul impact. Scheduled. All Seoul citizens predicted dead.”
Then she showed me a photo—trajectory and distance from Pyeongan Province to Seoul, and the missile type.
What the hell…
Is Bella messing with me?
Why would she pull a prank out of nowhere, for no reason?
Pranks are usually between people who are close…
This didn’t feel like something I could treat as a joke.
And considering how loud the North Korea nuke issue had gotten—enough that the President gave a special address yesterday—it was more convincing that it was real…
All Seoul citizens dead?
Then I’d die too, since I’m in Seoul.
So I just die like this?
A life that wasn’t that great, but wasn’t that bad either.
Long if you say it’s long, short if you say it’s short.
But it’s frustrating to end it like this.
Can’t I stop a nuclear missile?
I think I’d heard you absolutely can’t stop it once it drops from the stratosphere…
Stratosphere—does that count as space?
Can’t I just fling it into space?
I expanded my telekinesis field.
I’d never tried this before because I’d never needed to.
But my telekinesis range was wider than I thought.
It kept expanding without end.
It went past my neighborhood, covered Seoul, and expanded across all of Gyeonggi Province.
I heard Seoul’s diameter is about 40 kilometers—so did I cover a hundred kilometers?
This time, I expanded the hemispherical field upward. My field, which covered Gyeonggi, the West Sea, and part of Gangwon, stretched long and thin upward, like a bullet.
Then something registered inside my field.
A long, thin thing that had arced upward and was just about to begin its descent.
So this is the nuke.
I shrank my field—needlessly huge—and focused on the nuclear missile, grabbing it hard.
The missile that had been about to drop froze in midair.
Holding and stopping a missile in the sky tens of kilometers away wasn’t that difficult.
Sure, it took a bit more effort than cleaning rooms, but I didn’t get dizzy or get a nosebleed.
I checked the time: 9:02 a.m.
The world was still quiet.
I went into the office and turned on the TV. The channel was airing a morning drama.
Then suddenly the drama cut off, and the screen changed to a few lines of text.
[9:00 a.m. North Korean missile launch! Approx. 9:05 a.m. Seoul impact scheduled! Citizens should evacuate to air-raid shelters or inside buildings!]
Maybe they slapped it together in a hurry—just red letters like that.
The broadcast called it breaking news, but that was all. Maybe even the anchors ran off to evacuate.
In movies, people desperately keep doing their jobs in moments like this. Reality was a little different.
Outside, sirens started wailing.
[Air-raid alert! Air-raid alert! This is not a drill! Not a drill! Evacuate! Evacuate!]
Where the hell were those speakers installed?
The whole world suddenly got loud.
I seriously thought about what to do with the nuke I was holding.
Dropping it somewhere like a desert with no people would be best…
But the problem was, I didn’t really know where deserts were.
The ocean would get contaminated, so no. If it gets nuked, you can’t eat fish.
I wanted to send it back to the bastards who fired it, but if it explodes, a lot of people will die, and I didn’t want that.
Fine. Let’s send it into space.
But will that work?
I rotated the missile 180 degrees—its warhead was aimed at the ground—and pointed it into the sky, then shoved with all my strength.
But no matter how much I pushed, there was no end in sight. How far is it to break through the atmosphere and get into space?
But the more I pushed, the more it seemed to gain momentum.
The nuke started accelerating, and then it began rising on its own even when I stopped pushing.
And finally, it escaped Earth and flew far out into space somewhere.
Success.
Ah… I just stopped a nuke. Doesn’t that make me a hero?
Urgent messages had been coming nonstop from Russia since before 9:00, but Bella wasn’t worried. In the future she’d seen with her precognition, as long as she stayed in Korea, nothing dangerous would happen to her.
But now she was curious.
All she did was tell a motel employee that a nuke was incoming—so how did the missile not explode?
If she didn’t tell him, the nuke would hit Seoul. But if she told him at exactly 9:00, the nuke wouldn’t fall.
No matter how she thought about it, Bella couldn’t understand the connection between the nuke and the motel employee.
The man was just an ordinary Asian man.
Kind and always smiling, but nothing special.
He didn’t seem impressed by her looks, so maybe he wasn’t interested in women…
When she acted exactly as her precognition showed at 9:00, the man went blank for a moment, then closed his eyes by himself.
Then he turned on the TV news and thought about something for a long time. That wasn’t how someone would act after being told they’d die in a few minutes.
This man definitely had something.
What was it?
Bella got curious.
A few more minutes passed, and sirens started blaring everywhere.
She checked the time: 9:06 a.m.
The nuke was definitely dealt with.
Bella lost interest and dragged her slippers back to Room 102. She was going to finish Squid Game. Whatever the man was, she stopped caring.
“Assistant Manager Kang. They say North Korea fired a nuke!”
The elevator doors opened and the cleaning ladies ran out shouting.
And guest room doors burst open here and there—naked guests rushed out.
Ah… I already handled it.
But it wasn’t something I could explain.
Outside, the sirens were still screaming, and the guests were panicking and running into the lobby.
“Aunties, don’t worry. Time already passed and nothing happened. It’s stopped.”
I checked the time: 9:08 a.m.
The news still hadn’t said the missile was neutralized.
The big caption had changed from “9:00 a.m. North Korean missile launch” to “North Korean nuclear missile launch.” There still weren’t any anchors, so the station must’ve been in chaos too.
“Alright, everyone, don’t worry! Nothing’s going to happen!”
I climbed onto the counter and shouted at the guests who were trying to bolt outside in the nude.
So many people stampeded down the stairs at once they nearly fell, but I caught them with telekinesis.
I also prevented people from getting crushed at the entrance when they started shoving each other.
But people gripped by panic and frenzy only wanted to run outside.
“Outside is more dangerous!”
That at least got through. The people who’d been trying to flee like mad stopped and looked at me.
“Alright, don’t worry! It’s 9:09 and nothing happened, right? The U.S. intercepted it!”
I kept the peace, but I was a hero hiding my identity.
I decided to give the glory to America, the guardian of peace.
“The news said it would hit at 9:05, but it’s 9:09 now. It’s not coming!”
When I repeated myself, people finally started calming down.
“The U.S. blocked it with that thing—Star Wars defense? Nuclear umbrella? Something like that. Everyone, don’t worry!”
Talking my head off from on top of the counter started to work.
People calmed down little by little, went back up to their rooms to grab clothes and belongings, then left.
“Don’t worry, aunties. Go eat.”
“Assistant Manager Kang, how can you eat right now? They say North Korea fired a nuke.”
“It didn’t come. Either it was a lie, or it got stopped. Calm down, and go eat slowly.”
But the aunties said they had no appetite and went back up to the rooftop.
I got worried they might refuse to work today.
But today was my day off. Not my problem.
“Master… did North Korea really fire a nuke?”
Cheolmin hyung had come out at some point and asked while watching the news.
The screen still had only huge text: “North Korean nuclear missile launch. 9:05 Seoul impact.”
What irresponsible bastards…
And it reminded me of the President, who’d confidently declared last night that nothing like this would happen.
As expected, the correct answer is to interpret politicians’ words in reverse.
I searched internet news, but it was full of “a nuke was launched” stories, and there was nothing saying the situation was over.
“Don’t worry. It’s stopped.”
At my words, Cheolmin hyung looked shocked, then naturally made himself a cup of mix coffee and slurped it down.
When I stared at him, he made me a cup too.
He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, then put it back.
Good.
Someone claiming they’re training internal energy shouldn’t be smoking.
“These insane commie bastards.”
Cheolmin, who’d trained internal energy until dawn and slept late, hurled a rich, satisfying curse toward the North.
“They say the missile flew into space.”
The Chinese President was left speechless at the absurd report.
“Is that… even possible?”
A missile that rises maybe 50 kilometers and then drops suddenly flew into space?
To pass the stratosphere and fly into outer space, it would have to travel 10,000 kilometers.
Physically, it made no sense.
“The research team is analyzing the cause, but it is a confirmed fact: the missile, which had been about to fall, stopped in midair and then suddenly flew into space.”
“Was it America? Some hidden technology they kept secret? How the hell did they do it?”
America had hidden technologies that already seemed impossible, but this was beyond impossible.
A ballistic missile that flies up to the stratosphere and drops was, with current science, something you couldn’t stop. Yet it was blocked this easily…
That meant every ballistic missile every country possessed had effectively been neutralized.
The other side could hit you freely, while your attacks wouldn’t land.
“What should we do with the fleet that’s ready?”
An aide asked in a gloomy voice—the same hardliner who’d pushed for war more than anyone.
“Are you seriously asking that! Disband immediately and switch back to peacetime posture!”
The President roared.
The Pentagon, which had been preparing to strike North Korea once a mushroom cloud rose over Seoul, had no words either.
They were receiving the missile’s location in real time.
A missile frozen in midair.
A supernatural phenomenon defying gravity.
But what came next made even less sense.
The missile suddenly shot up through the atmosphere, escaped Earth in an instant, and was now receding far away into deep space.
No one could speak.
The President broke the silence.
“Explain.”
But no one opened their mouth.
“What do we do? Do we bomb North Korea?”
What came back wasn’t an explanation, but a question.
The U.S. President, who’d been ready for world war, felt the tension drain out of him.
But a blaze of anger surged up.
He couldn’t forgive bastards who’d dared to do something this insane.
He’d make sure they could never do it again.
“China’s fleet is moving.”
“They’re switching back to peacetime posture.”
But they’d already pressed the button. Backing off now was pointless. They’d taken a swing first, so now it was America’s turn to swing.
“Precision-strike North Korea’s nuclear missile bases, and bunker-buster every predicted location of their leadership!”
The President of the strongest country on Earth gave the order.
Still, the scale was smaller than the original plan.
The original plan had been to strike all of North Korea.
9:04 a.m.
Chae Seorin, after eliminating the Incheon gang members hospitalized and heading toward the motel where the target, Choi Cheolmin, was staying, got stuck right in front of her destination.
Out of nowhere, with nuclear attack sirens, the city fell into panic.
Every vehicle on the street stopped, and accidents erupted everywhere.
For over ten minutes, citizens in a state of mass panic turned the city into a madhouse, and Seorin got swept up in it too.
A wide-brimmed hat, a black raincoat that covered her entire body.
And sunglasses and a mask.
It was an outfit meant to avoid sunlight, but once she got swallowed by the crowd, there was a risk she’d be exposed to the sun. She immediately sprang upward and clung to a building’s exterior ledge.
Even though she’d shown jump power that wasn’t human in the middle of the city, the terrified people didn’t care.
A nuke is coming…
Is it too late to avoid it?
Seorin felt her life—long if you call it long, short if you call it short—flash before her eyes.
But it was unfair.
To vanish this meaninglessly without even avenging her greatest grudge…
Seorin closed her eyes, thought of the many ties she’d formed in her life, and waited for death.
She remembered them all.
There were no more faces left to recall.
And yet the nuke that was supposed to come still wasn’t coming.
Still, she kept her eyes closed and waited a little longer.
But it still didn’t come.
The city was still a wreck, but the nuclear missile that was supposed to arrive wasn’t arriving.
Was it bullshit?
Anger started boiling up.
Either way, it seemed true that it wasn’t coming, but she should still retreat to the outskirts of Seoul until she was certain it was safe, then continue the operation.
In a city center where traffic had completely died, she leapt between buildings and headed toward the outskirts.