The Best Training Is the Real Thing

"Heh heh heh. Don't be so startled—it's something you'll all go through sooner or later anyway. Oh, that's right. The 1st Attack Unit has two cafeterias: one on basement level 4, and one at the very top, on the 50th floor. Basement 4 serves all three meals hotel-buffet style. Lobster, king crab, every kind of sushi and steak laid out as standard fare, so it should be worth your while."

"Ooh!"

The new hires perked right up, their earlier dread all but forgotten.

"And the top floor is divided into Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Italian restaurants, but for now I'd recommend sticking to the basement-4 buffet. The restaurants upstairs are packed with tough old veterans, and they can be a bit much."

"We'll keep that in mind!"

The interns answered in ringing unison. Senior Lee enjoyed teasing people, but her character seemed decent enough, and she passed along plenty of practical information the newcomers actually needed.

"Heh heh heh. Well then, everyone head to your rooms, unpack, and get some rest. Starting tomorrow the training will be brutal enough to make your mouth taste of copper, so do yourselves a favor today—empty your heads and relax."

With those parting words, the senior took her leave.

Haneul and his cohort filed into their assigned rooms and began unpacking their packs. The employee badge hanging around his neck doubled as the room key.

Come to think of it, they said all you had to do at the buffet was tap your badge on the terminal, too? That really is convenient.

Haneul approved of the benefits Shinseung Group provided. The rooms assigned to employees, in particular, were far more spacious and pleasant than he had expected. Honestly, he couldn't understand why they insisted on calling this a "room."

A lavish living room. A bedroom with its own walk-in closet. A bathroom fitted with a marble whirlpool tub and dry sauna, plus a spotless toilet. And though the room sat three levels underground, a bamboo grove garden had been cultivated just beyond the window. This was a luxury suite Haneul had never so much as dreamed of.

Training starts tomorrow, so I'd better rest up properly today.

Following the senior's advice, Haneul drew a warm bath and soaked himself thoroughly before going straight to sleep. The plush mattress carried him off to dreamland.

The next day, May 21st.

BRRRRING! The moment six o'clock struck, a bell went off noisily.

The announcement blared from a speaker mounted at the head of the bed.

"Haah... so it finally begins."

Haneul sprang up at once, showered in record time, and bounded down to basement level 4. His cohort was already queued up and filing into the buffet cafeteria.

Haneul tapped his badge and went in as well, dutifully starting with his vegetables. Next he demolished two cheese-topped garlic lobsters, ladled out a modest serving of soybean paste stew and rice from the Korean corner to fill his stomach, and finished with yogurt and fruit for dessert.

By the time he was done, it was somehow already 7:40.

"Whoops. Can't be late on day one."

Haneul hurried back to his room, finished brushing his teeth, and changed into his combat uniform.

Hold on. Just as he was about to step out the door, Haneul stopped on a sudden thought and layered his A-grade vest underneath the uniform. Not only that—he also hung around his neck a potion crafted in the form of a necklace.

The potion was a miracle elixir that could swiftly heal even the gravest injuries—the treasure Haneul had received as his Outstanding Intern prize. According to what Lee Luin had let slip, a single bottle of the stuff was worth ten years of Haneul's salary.

The training might push me past my limits. And knowing the 1st Attack Unit Commander's temperament, something tells me this won't be any ordinary drill. That was why Haneul had packed the vest and the potion.

And with all that dallying, the clock had somehow crept to 7:53.

Eek. I'm actually going to be late at this rate.

Haneul sprinted at full power for the grand auditorium on the building's first floor. The moment he arrived, the general staff, standing in a long, neat row, began handing out brand-new backpacks to him and his cohort, one by one.

Stuffed to bursting, the pack was heavier than it looked.

What's inside? Training gear? An inexplicable sense of foreboding settled over Haneul.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Sure enough, inside the auditorium, the 1st Attack Unit Commander was raining thunderbolts from a clear blue sky down onto the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠new hires' heads.

"The best training is live combat, no? So this 1st Attack Unit Commander has decided to give you chicks the very best training there is."

???

The new hires stared blankly, dumbstruck. The Commander twisted one corner of his mouth into a wicked smirk.

"Too slow on the uptake, are we? I said we're going to put you through training just like the real thing."

??

"What are you all standing around for? Move, move! From this moment on, you are entering Highland. Everything you need to survive ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is already packed inside those backpacks, so there's nothing to worry about. BWAHAHAHAHA!"

The Commander roared with laughter.

This absolute lunatic! Haneul wanted nothing more than to sew the Commander's mouth shut with a needle.

Haneul and his cohort moved to Gangnam Station, connected directly to the building's basement, and boarded Subway Line 12. This was a special route that departed Gangnam Station and ran nonstop to a secret platform at the bottom of the Han River, north of Yeouido.

Line 12 had opened in Midland Seoul roughly fifteen years ago, by all accounts. Its purpose, naturally, was ferrying Shinseung Group's ability users into Highland, which meant ordinary citizens could never ride it. That Seoul's subway even had a Line 12 was something Haneul learned for the first time that day.

As the train carrying the new hires rumbled along the dark rails, not a soul opened their mouth. Everyone simply chewed at their lips, faces stiff with unease.

Please. Haneul, too, quietly closed his eyes and worked to calm the churn in his chest.

From Gangnam Station to the secret platform north of Yeouido took them less than ten minutes.

"You've been through this once already. Quit dawdling and get in there." The 1st Attack Unit Commander drove the recruits forward relentlessly.

"Going in now, sir!"

Forcing down expressions like they'd just bitten into shit, Haneul and his cohort stepped into the blue mist one by one. Meanwhile, the Commander fired off one last piece of information at their backs—information that would be of no use to anyone.

"The watches issued to you will guide you to Base Camp One on the 8th Continent. The moment you arrive, use your watch's needle as a compass and rally at Base Camp One. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

The forty new hires shouted through gritted teeth, then sank completely beneath the blue mist. Haneul, for his part, merely mouthed the words like a bad lip-sync, letting no actual sound escape his throat. It was his own brand of timid rebellion.

In the middle of it all, a different worry quietly took root in Haneul's mind.

Last time, I was the only one whose Guided Transfer failed and dropped me in the middle of nowhere. What if it happens again?

When they had first been deployed to Highland, Haneul's cohort had all been transferred to comparatively safe areas. Haneul alone had failed his Guided Transfer and landed somewhere utterly unexpected.

They say the odds of a Guided Transfer failing are quite low, but... Haah. Surely I won't draw the short straw twice? I can't afford that. His silent dread swelled and swelled.

Fwiiiiing―.

A vertiginous dizziness shook Haneul's brain. A moment later, he popped into existence in the middle of a wasteland cracked dry as the bottom of an iron cauldron. Across the barren earth, where not a single blade of grass grew, a desolate earthen wind howled.

At his feet, the blue mist had pooled like an oasis, shimmering and undulating.

Haneul hurriedly checked his watch first. Damn it. The curse rose in his mind before anything else—because the watch's needle was spinning round and round, unable to find its bearing.

Once again, Haneul had failed his Guided Transfer and been dropped somewhere random—anywhere but Base Camp One on the 8th Continent.

Why does this keep happening? Isn't there some other cause?

If it were up to him, Haneul would have leapt straight back into the blue mist and returned to Midland Seoul on the spot. But if he did, the 1st Attack Unit Commander would undoubtedly raise holy hell over it.

Haah. Fine. First, let me look around here for anything useful. If I come back having harvested even one kilogram of magic crystals, the Commander won't have too much to bitch about. The Guided Transfer failing wasn't my fault to begin with.

To start, Haneul buried a transmitter at his current position. That way, later on, he could track it with the receiver and easily find his way back to the spot where the blue mist had gathered.

Then he cinched his backpack straps tight and chose a direction. In that direction, a mountain rose faintly against the horizon.

Highland, Haneul had learned during training, was said to hold a mountain of unimaginable scale at its center, with its territories divided by distance from that mountain.

In any case, the mountain was supposedly so enormous that it could be seen from every region of Highland—much like Jeju Island, where Hallasan rose visible from every coast. Then again, comparing Highland to Jeju one-to-one was a stretch. The area of Highland that humanity had explored over the past several decades alone was said to exceed five times the surface of the Earth.

And even then, humanity had charted barely a few thousandths of Highland. Perhaps it wasn't a few thousandths at all—more like a few ten-thousandths, or maybe even a few hundred-millionths.

Still, in the process, humanity had come to understand one thing for certain. First, they had named the donut-shaped continent lying at the outermost edge centered on Highland's central mountain—that is, the region farthest from it—the 9th Continent.

To be more precise, humanity had never actually worked out for itself that the 9th Continent was round and donut-shaped. The territory it had finished exploring was pathetically small next to the continent's total area.

So how did humanity know what the 9th Continent looked like? Simply because, long ago, some ability user had read the memory of a winged magic beast and pieced together the continent's rough outline. And according to what that user learned, the 9th Continent was the safest region in all of Highland: the closer one drew to the central mountain—the 8th Continent, the 7th, the 6th, and beyond—the stronger the magic beasts became.

After that, the cities of Midland concentrated first on developing the 9th Continent. The area Shinseung Group had guided-transferred its interns to when it first sent them into Highland belonged to this 9th Continent as well.

Beyond it, adjacent to the 9th Continent but closer to the central mountain, lay the 8th Continent—still unknown territory to humanity. Of all the great cities of Midland, only a bare handful, five at most, had managed to establish base camps on the 8th Continent. Midland Seoul was one of those five.

Frankly, the fact that Shinseung Group of Midland Seoul had been able to subdue the 8th Continent's ferocious magic beasts and carve out its camps was entirely the achievement of Lee Hyun. Without her, Shinseung would never have dared even dream of advancing into the 8th Continent.

For all its danger, though, the 8th Continent repaid Shinseung Group in kind: magic crystals of superb quality, miraculous new materials, even relics powerful enough to steal the breath from your lungs. That was why, once the group had secured three base camp sites there, it sent its 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Attack Units into the 8th Continent.

This should be the 9th Continent. Don't tell me it's the 8th... Haneul's worry ran ahead of his feet.

Fortunately, the wasteland was merely cruelly hot; no magic beasts were anywhere in sight. Only the occasional dust storm that came barreling through proved an annoyance.

After hours of walking with no beasts appearing, Haneul began to worry about something else entirely.

What if I end up harvesting nothing at all? What usable materials or herbs would grow in a wasteland like this? There won't even be a magic crystal mine. Dammit.

Haneul clenched his jaw.