No More Rations
“Ugh…”
The man who had been about to kick Kang Yeon-sung was no Awakened, but he had hardened himself through years in the combat support unit. He wasn’t so incompetent that he should have been caught so easily, yet there he was, being held in plain sight while his boots were stripped off.
“What the hell are you doing!”
Every time he twisted to break free, Kang Tae-sung’s hands shifted with perfect timing, denying him any leverage. After being flipped half a turn in the air, the man finally regained his footing only once both combat boots had been removed.
The bare ground of the playground was no grass field; small stones and grit bit into his soles. Humiliation burned hotter than the discomfort. Without a second thought, he lashed out with a roundhouse kick at Tae-sung.
Before he could follow through, a calm voice from behind stopped him cold.
“Stand down. He’s an Awakened.”
The speaker was the tall man who had remained silent until now. Nearly one hundred and ninety centimeters, lean and sharp-eyed, he glanced sideways at his fellow Awakened.
The other man only tilted his head slightly.
“Never seen him before.”
“Which team is he with?”
Any hunter permanently attached to the city defense force should have been known to them. If not, he belonged to one of the independent teams. They needed to confirm before acting.
Tae-sung paid no attention to the questions. He simply slipped his hand inside one of the confiscated boots, felt around, then lifted it to his nose and sniffed.
Only after that did he remove his own boots and put on the stolen pair.
“These are first-issue. The insoles were killing me.”
He handed his old boots to his youngest brother, who had been staring blankly at him.
“Want these? The soles are worn through.”
“Big brother, the situation right now…”
“They’re telling you to send some of the kids out to sell their bodies if you don’t want everyone to starve, right?”
Yeon-sung’s face darkened. He gave a small nod.
Tae-sung’s gaze shifted to the man still sitting inside the jeep. The dozen or so people who had been standing nearby all turned to look as well. They didn’t know Tae-sung, but he had already identified the highest-ranking man among them.
“Depends on how you handle it.”
“When even the strong young men are going hungry, there’s no way they’re going to feed old people and children properly. They have even less reason to try.”
After speaking at length for once, Tae-sung slowly shook his head.
“They plan to use the kids to earn their rations through prostitution.”
Even during war, the sex trade never stopped. Men exhausted or wounded from fighting would gladly trade their last piece of bread for a woman. Threatening to cut off rations unless women were sent was nothing but a transparent excuse. Their real goal was to take the girls and profit from their bodies.
Tae-sung had seen plenty of men like that in the other world. Whether war orphans or widows who had lost their husbands, anyone with even passable looks and age was taken and put to work. Sometimes being female was enough. Most of what the women earned went straight into the pimp’s pocket, while they were told to be grateful they weren’t starving. They were fed stories about being protected from monsters, bandits, and deserters, and how lucky they were not to die of hunger.
‘Not much different here.’
Tae-sung glanced toward the gymnasium behind them. From what he had seen earlier, a large number of elderly people were staying there, along with children still in their growth years.
Without relying on rations, it was impossible to support everyone. But would the old people really want to extend their own lives by selling the bodies of girls they treated like granddaughters?
Probably not. That was why the officials were using threats instead of cutting supplies outright—slowly reducing portions while making excuses, keeping everyone desperate.
“Still, it’s better not to touch the children.”
Tae-sung spoke to the man still gripping the girl’s arm so tightly that her skin had turned purple from lack of blood flow. Then he grabbed the man’s arm in the same way.
“Losing one arm would be extremely inconvenient.”
The man understood the threat immediately. The pressure on his arm was already turning into pain. An Awakened’s grip strength was not something an ordinary person could resist.
Without waiting for orders from behind, he released the girl’s arm.
“Stay inside the gymnasium.”
Kang In-hye quickly sent the girl away. A vivid bruise marked her forearm as she ran crying toward the building.
“Can’t be helped, then.”
The voice came from the man in the jeep. His expressionless eyes settled on Tae-sung.
“I assume you can guess what happens next.”
“Whether we send the kids or not, nothing really changes. I can figure that much out.”
“From now on, the 4th District receives no more rations. We’re leaving.”
The man turned away without another word. The people outside climbed into their vehicles. Together with the truck carrying a small amount of preserved food and daily necessities, they drove across the playground and disappeared.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
Tae-sung looked back as he spoke. From their attitude, it was clear they had no intention of using force. That was why he hadn’t killed the man who had tried to kick his brother. He had considered breaking one of the man’s legs, but if he wasn’t going to kill him, there was no point in going further.
“I… kind of expected this would happen.”
“The 4th District was created from the beginning with the intention of being excluded.”
In-hye and Yeon-sung explained the district’s true nature one after another. Some people called it the Death District. It had been established to gather unclaimed elderly and orphans so that, if the situation grew difficult, the central headquarters could cut ties and reduce the consumption of supplies.
Children were the future. But the current circumstances were too harsh to wait for that future. Those too young or too old to provide immediate labor were classified as “useless” along with the elderly.
If any of them had family who could support them, they would have stayed together. Everyone here had no one to rely on. Even people like Yeon-sung who stayed to help were starting to feel the urge to pull away now that things had reached this point.
“It’s not just the rations that are the problem…”
Yeon-sung’s expression grew serious. Authority over the 4th District rested with a man named Oh Sang-man. If he decided to abandon the district, it wouldn’t only mean the loss of rations—protection during monster attacks or rift incidents would disappear as well.
“They never paid much attention to this place anyway, but at least they kept up appearances…”
“Is there no way to ask headquarters for help?”
“Headquarters doesn’t care about this place either. It was originally built outside the headquarters’ range on purpose. Oh Sang-man managed to get some supply authority and said he would manage it himself…”
“So his goal from the start was to run a brothel.”
Perhaps Oh Sang-man had been the only one thinking about the future of these neglected children. Of course, that future meant turning them into prostitutes.
“What do we do now?”
In-hye asked with a tearful face. Tae-sung glanced at her and answered in a flat voice.
“Everyone has to survive on their own.”
“Oppa…”
“If someone has the will to do something themselves, that’s one thing. But does someone without any will have the right to demand sacrifice from others?”
A mother bird feeds her chicks because they open their beaks to survive. The one who wants to live more opens its beak wider, and the mother gives food to the one with the biggest beak.
“Don’t think you can take responsibility for everyone here. That’s arrogance.”
“But…”
“We’ll wrap things up for today. Starting tomorrow, we move.”
Tae-sung continued.
“Being too young or too old isn’t an excuse. If you can’t prove your own value, you won’t survive.”
“But in just two days, we’ll run out of food.”
They were already stretching thin porridge as far as it would go, yet even that would only last two days at most. No matter what value they tried to prove, there simply wasn’t enough time left.
Still, In-hye didn’t cling to Tae-sung any further. She didn’t want to become the kind of person who dumped all her responsibilities onto a stronger adult who had just arrived.
When they returned to the gymnasium, Tae-sung set up his sleeping spot next to Yeon-sung’s. He had no luggage to speak of, but after rummaging in his pockets, he pulled out a half-broken wardrobe and some household items he had apparently salvaged from their old home. Yeon-sung recognized them immediately.
Among them was a mattress, heavily stained and discolored, that he had brought because the tray inside was broken. It was still better than sleeping directly on the floor.
While watching Yeon-sung plug a charging cable into his tablet from the neighboring cot, Tae-sung spoke.
“They’ll cut the electricity too, won’t they?”
“Ah…”
Yeon-sung let out a half-sigh, half-exclamation, as if he hadn’t considered it.
“Probably.”
“So there are no human rights here.”
The world that once cherished children and respected the elderly no longer existed. Or perhaps it was simply that the situation in this city had become too dire.