A Long-Awaited Reunion
The door creaked open with an unpleasant screech.
If it had been any other time, he might have felt a bit irritated, but the man was in a considerably good mood right now, so he paid the sound no mind.
However, he could not help but look thoroughly displeased at the news the visitor had brought.
“They’re still holding out after a whole week?”
“It seems an Awakened is staying with them.”
“What can a single person even do?”
“Even if he hunts alone, at best it would be rats or stray dogs.”
Oh Sang-man.
Since he himself was an Awakened, he prided himself on understanding better than anyone what it meant to hunt alone.
There were hundreds of people living in the 4th District.
It was impossible for one person to feed all of them. Even an Awakened would struggle with that.
At best they would be making thin porridge, probably by digging up roots and weeds from the surroundings to throw in.
“They won’t last long no matter how hard they try to hold out. Just leave them. If we move first before they come to us, we’ll have no justification.”
They were minors.
Even though the law had become little more than a name, they could not completely escape public scrutiny.
Therefore, the girls had to come begging first so that it would appear they had no choice but to provide them a way to survive. If it looked like they were the ones pressuring the girls, the surrounding opinion would turn ugly.
“It would be more than just ugly. There are plenty of bastards already eyeing the distribution rights.”
Oh Sang-man controlled nearly twenty percent of the total supplies. It might seem like a small amount, but there were many desperate to seize even that much.
If any bad pretext appeared in the current situation… it would not be good.
Vrrrrrrrr—
While he was pondering, a sudden ringing echoed in his ears from somewhere.
“What is this?”
“I’m not sure either…”
He walked over to the open window and saw a large helicopter landing beside the headquarters building.
“A helicopter?”
Its shape was that of a long, thick transport helicopter, yet something that should clearly have been there was missing.
“I should go see for myself.”
Missing out on something new meant falling behind everyone else. Oh Sang-man roughly brushed the few stains off his pants and left the office.
“Helicopter?”
“Yes. They say it landed at the headquarters. A transport helicopter without propellers.”
“……”
Kang Tae-sung had received the same news. The moment someone told him, he headed straight for the gymnasium. Kang Yeon-sung, who had already been waiting there, waved at him urgently, urging him to come quickly.
“So this is what the kid meant?”
He had exchanged brief text messages with Kang Han-sung over the past few days, but the younger man had said nothing was finalized yet. Then yesterday he suddenly mentioned he would probably return tomorrow—today.
When asked how it was possible, the kid had answered “from the sky,” but Tae-sung had not imagined it would be in this manner.
A transport helicopter without propellers, in particular, gave him a glimpse of just how far the fusion of magic and science had progressed.
Now that his younger brother and the rest of the family were coming this way, Kang Tae-sung felt the need to slightly adjust the attitude and behavior he had maintained until now.
He was especially concerned about a few individuals and groups he had judged could become potential threats.
One of them was, of course, the man called Oh Sang-man.
He had no way of knowing how that bastard had been negotiating with the headquarters these past few days.
But the barricades, obstacles, and makeshift checkpoints that symbolized the headquarters downtown—which had been encircling the 4th District—were being rearranged to stand between the 4th District and the remaining districts. In other words, the layout was changing to one of exclusion and division.
Seeing that, he could guess the man had no intention of stopping at simple threats.
Whatever justification he had used, the fact that the headquarters had accepted the exclusion of the 4th District was equally clear.
No, from the very beginning, the 4th District had been created with exclusion in mind.
As he was thinking he might need to take some action, Kang Tae-sung felt a light tap on his forearm and turned to see his youngest brother.
“What are you thinking about to make such a scary face?”
“It’s nothing.”
This was not the time to worry about such things. Even if he did worry, he would keep it to himself. It was right not to let his family share the burden.
Kang Tae-sung ran at a pace that matched his brother as they headed for the headquarters downtown.
Barricades and checkpoints blocked the middle of the road, but they had not yet completely cut off communication between both sides, so they were able to enter after only a cursory face check.
When they ran down the road and reached the city hall building, they could see the large transport helicopter that had landed in the distant parking lot.
Whether it was a remodeled existing model or newly built, he could not tell, but its exterior was painted in camouflage patterns as if insisting it was military. The side door was already open, and many people and supplies were being unloaded.
In one corner of the parking lot, verification of the newly arrived outsiders was underway. They were taking photographs of faces and recording basic personal information, apparently intending to add them to the database.
“Entry is currently restricted to authorized personnel. Can’t you see this sign?”
However, when they tried to go inside, two rifle-armed men blocked their path.
One of them pointed at a makeshift signboard standing beside them as he spoke, so Kang Tae-sung shifted his gaze in that direction.
It clearly stated as much.
They were probably blocking the area for now in case anyone tried to steal the various supplies being unloaded from the transport helicopter.
Perhaps for that reason, temporary troops had been deployed at various spots along the city hall’s outer fence.
Most of them were Awakened, and the security was so tight that ordinary people would not dare attempt to climb the wall.
But Kang Tae-sung was not ordinary.
He did not retreat even a single step and simply glanced at the two men blocking him and his youngest brother.
“Are you the only Awakened here?”
“…So?”
At a glance, unlike the man boldly standing in their way, the other seemed to be an assistant gunner; he stood slightly apart, watching the situation carefully.
That somewhat intimidated appearance was the typical cautious behavior ordinary people displayed when dealing with Awakened.
That was why he had asked, and it seemed his guess had been correct. Kang Tae-sung turned his right palm upward and extended it.
1
A blue number one appeared above his palm, glowing like a hologram.
The temporary guard who looked down at the floating number showed considerable surprise and quickly glanced around.
He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but the decision did not take long.
The man swept the number from Kang Tae-sung’s palm as if snatching it from the air, then gestured toward the inside with a slight nod of his chin without another word.
Tae-sung had thought the man might demand another point since there were two of them, but it seemed he was not that shameless.
Kang Tae-sung and Kang Yeon-sung, who stuck close beside him, quickly entered the parking lot and began scanning the people there from a distance.
Yet the family found them faster than they could find the family among the crowd.
“Brother!”
From among the gathered people, someone’s arm shot straight up. Soon a voice rang out, waving both hands above their head.
“There they are.”
Kang Tae-sung spotted his second brother—skin deeply tanned, wearing a combat uniform with the sleeves completely torn off like a soldier who had been waging war in the tropics—and headed in that direction.
In the area where those whose personal information had already been processed seemed to be gathered, quite a few people stood in small groups. As expected, the somewhat gaunt-looking family members were clustered around Kang Han-sung.
But unlike Kang Han-sung, who was grinning from ear to ear, their atmosphere was intensely emotional.
“What did I tell you? I said they’d definitely be alive.”
“They say you were the first one to give up, though.”
As he drew closer, Kang Han-sung, who had been speaking, stiffened at his older brother’s reply and stared at the youngest trailing behind him.
“How much did you tell him?”
“There wasn’t much to tell. You just gave up.”
“Tsk. Busted.”
Kang Han-sung scratched the back of his head roughly, then looked at Kang Tae-sung standing before him. He suddenly spread both arms and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“What are you men doing?”
The one who spoke was Kang Yu-ri, the third sibling, who had been wiping tears beside them. She took one arm each of their dazed parents and approached, separating the brothers.
“I’m late.”
The moment Kang Tae-sung saw his parents, his throat closed up and those were the only words he could manage.
To them it had been roughly five years, but to him it had been more than a century. Even if he had lost most of his memories, he had not forgotten his parents’ faces.
Those two faces were far older than what he remembered. Perhaps the faces in his memory had been idealized.
No, they must have ended up like this from all the suffering they had endured.
“I caused you so much worry.”
When he knelt on the spot and bowed his head, his mother, who finally snapped out of her daze, hurried over and collapsed against him, wrapping him in her arms.
“My son. Our eldest son.”
“You were alive.”
Unlike his mother, who was hugging her eldest son tightly while shedding tears she thought had long dried up, his father simply looked down at him and spoke those few words.
“It’s good that you’re alive.”
His father’s eyes were already red. Everyone could see his shoulders trembling despite his efforts to hide it, yet he still gently grasped his wife’s shoulder to help her stand.
“It’s embarrassing in front of others. Get up.”
“What’s there to be embarrassed about? What do other people’s gazes matter? Our dead son has come back. Our dead son.”
His wife, who had never once raised her voice in all the years they had lived together, spoke firmly. The father cleared his throat awkwardly and stepped back. When his eyes met Kang Tae-sung’s, he nodded with a similar expression.
“Mom, saying our dead son has returned sounds a bit wrong, doesn’t it? If someone overhears, they’ll think a zombie showed up or something.”
Kang Yu-ri, who had been wiping her tears, forced a smile and joked, but only Kang Han-sung and Kang Yeon-sung laughed.
The person in question, Kang Tae-sung, remained expressionless as he patted his mother’s back.
To be precise…
It would be fair to say he had died several times.
One could even call it forced revival. Yet he had never once regretted it.
Even when the Saintess had cried and apologized several times, he had told her he was grateful she had saved him. They were things he had asked for himself, after all.
There was still some left.
Only then did Kang Tae-sung smile.
After meeting his family, he realized that the same blood still flowed within his body.
The blood of a human he had thought had almost run out—the blood he had inherited from Kang Su-hwan and Yun Seong-hui.
Though it was mixed with demon blood, the blood of various monsters, the blood of his former comrades, and the blood of the Saintess and priests used to purify and control it all until it was nearly impossible to distinguish, that same blood clearly remained inside him.
He had returned to his family, as family.
Kang Tae-sung smiled even more brightly.
Thank you.
See you next time…