The Railroad Inside the Gate
Not underground—a railroad inside the gate is what we need. Everyone has a plan that sounds perfectly reasonable on paper, but the wall of reality is pretty damn thick.
"P-please, Chief of Staff...!! I, I think it'll take a bit more time..."
"Haha. Do you happen to remember what you said just a moment ago about how long you had?"
"...We thought with our full force, we could gobble up the monsters in no time and reach Pyongyang..."
The people delivering the reality check were high-ranking officials, and among them were even higher-ranking ones. Ugh! Gah...!! Can't even stand up straight?! How the hell am I supposed to file this report...
The staff officers, getting beaten senseless after years of aging, stumbling with tear-blurred eyes—when they left the chamber of truth with dejected expressions, a certain thing happened naturally.
"Hm. I don't understand what your regiment is even doing. Or rather, is this supposed to be difficult?"
"Get up to the top! Stop covering it up!! Can't you tell the difference between up and down?!"
The military tradition of "you're above me, I'm below you" isn't exclusive to soldiers. Since I got hit, it's only natural for the blame to roll downhill—flamboyant blame-storming!—but that only happens to units with zero results.
"It's not difficult. So does that mean we can just ignore civilian casualties and fire missiles in the remaining zones?"
"What?! Wait, did you just say what I think you said?!"
"The reason it takes time is because we're sending scouts out one by one to prevent casualties. If we just accept a million-plus dead, it's over."
—Somewhere, the senior said, "Could you take responsibility just once?" Then we'd just ignore civilians, push forward, and reach Baekdu Mountain by today. The results are results, and all the bullshit has already been transferred to the fainting or PTSD-riddled shitheads.
The field commander who'd been working hard getting intel from the ability user unit could be snapped at with "Why are you so good at this but such a mess?"
"No, no! That's not—" The other guy, flustered.
Unlike other places, they'd actually managed to create a salient and push all the way to the outskirts of Pyongyang. At this point, the shoulder of Jeong Chorong's father—Major General Jeong Byungsu—had enough momentum to earn four stars. His shoulder was Mount Baekdu itself.
Any attempt at political maneuvering? "I was doing so well, but the higher-ups pushed too hard...!" One round of victim cosplay and you're dead.
When you think about the nature of people who aim for the top of the military—politicians—the crazies are obvious. Anyone who picks a fight with that momentum can't earn stars.
"Ah, the missile unit—all lunatics, every last one of them!" And the place where he'd actually been stationed was infamous for its corruption. The final bill for those corrupt bastards would either be getting killed or becoming a butcher of a different kind—impossible otherwise!
"Ah, nothing, nothing! It looks like you're working hard, which is nice to see! Let's go play golf sometime—!!"
The staff officer, who'd turned away when he saw the look in the man's eyes, thought "better not to touch this" and hurriedly fled.
"Phew. Yeah. This is fucking life. Ah... one more hit and I'm done."
Since his daughter had told him to cool it with the acting, the commander took out a candy instead of his fake performance and let out a thin smile.
A miracle where the daughter-stealing bastard suddenly looks like a son-in-law candidate, and the lunatic looks like the fiancé's friend...
"No, that still pisses me off... Wait, there was a phone call?"
Not quite, but enough to think it was time to stop eating cold rice with that look.
"The reconnaissance drone you sent came back as a bomb?! The entire squad wiped out?! Wait, what the hell are you saying?! We're going right now!"
The next problem was delivered to them face-first. A hellish land where solving one thing makes another appear. The appearance of hostile aliens that had burst out from the gate in Namho, southwest of Pyongyang.
No matter how many times the military thought, "How the hell does this structure work?"
"So. It's better not to bring basic electronics, and most 'machines' too?"
"Yes. If the enemy even has a one-in-ten-thousand chance of seizing them, we can't know what kind of trap they'll rework them into."
Anyway, they were people who'd passed through promotions until they looked as incompetent as possible—so they had abilities. But wasn't that the guy who'd gone up against a Private and made several people disappear? The dead can't talk, so the guy with no abilities gets treated like he rode a silver spoon to the top.
"But even so, the guys we can send are limited, aren't they right now?"
"It seems it's come to that. Haha..."
If a single lightweight drone could come back as a bomb that blows an entire squad to pieces, these weren't irrational monsters—they were hostile aliens, just like the ones we'd seen before.
"The situation is dire, but do you think that kid will understand?"
A lunatic who declares war by waking himself up and then gives the military command a heads-up? No matter how much his daughter was dating the worm's friend, would explanation even work...
"I guess. Other armies would cause even more deaths. Hey, Ilhwan. Grab the gasoline canisters."
"This bastard?! You need to drink some of that yourself!! Hey! Don't play dumb when it's time to listen!"
...Huh, does conversation actually work? Kim Chomok noticed the commander staring at him in disbelief.
"I hate doing things I don't have to do. If it's a situation only I can handle, I'll do it."
He grimaced, as if to say what do you think I am, and quietly gathered his gear.
"So that's why you burdened me with weight I shouldn't even be carrying, you damn bastard."
Of course, from Jeong Ilhwan's perspective, crushed under a sudden 1.5x increase in fuel pressure:
"But it's not stuff only I can carry! Just grit your teeth and hold on—you're the one who'll use more fuel!"
"When you come back all messed up later, tell the medical officer to treat you as painfully as possible."
He had to grab the back of his neck because of this asshole who wasn't even a friend but a brother-in-law—
"Cancel what I said before we left. For fuck's sake, this 'live and let live' bullshit—what the hell is it?!"
"You crazy bastard, if you have time for such a relaxed speech, go buy some fire first and block them so they can't come!"
Not long after entering the vicinity of Yeongnyeong Station, the negative evaluation of Kim Chomok flipped 180 degrees.
KARAAA—!!
Well, you'd have to be blind not to flip when you see monsters pouring in densely—buildings, nearby plains, even the horizon—packed tight.
Right now, they had to lay walls of fire and oil to block their approach. When you see that, the praise comes out of your mouth automatically—how can you not acknowledge someone who planned ahead?
But no matter how much fire and oil formed the first line against monsters, one ability user had limits.
"Hey, blocking them is good, but with the remaining fuel, how long can we maintain this?"
"Um... roughly a hundred... ninety-nine... about one and a half minutes?"
"You crazy bastard! If we can only maintain it for that long, why the hell did we haul all that fuel?!"
"This is what we've got, you piece of shit! We can't all get unlimited supply like you!"
Good firepower, wide range—the cost would be completely wrecked, that's how the world works. If they hadn't increased fuel by 1.5x, his eyebrows would've been blown off by now.
And even the thing that instills the most primal fear in most living creatures—being caught in a fire.
"...Are you planning to charge in knowing you'll get burned?!"
Seeing monsters that didn't hesitate to leap into the flames even though they knew their flesh would burn—
"Look at those bastards' faces! They're terrified!! They must know something up there is scarier than the fire!"
What was heading up there for "reconnaissance" was no longer something you'd recommend.
The monsters weren't coming to attack Kim Chomok and Jeong Ilhwan. They were desperately fleeing from something in the opposite direction.
"Fuck, is there something scarier than burning alive in this world?! That's napalm, you idiot!"
"Then if you get caught by the guy up there, I guess you'd rather burn than suffer worse!"
Jeong Ilhwan was slightly annoyed that he had confidence in the temperature of the fire he created himself, but—
BOOM...!! BOOM BOOM...!!
"...Huh? What's that sound... Oh, oh?!"
Not long after, they saw explosions and flames spreading from the direction of Anak-gun.
"...Can you do something like that against the ones charging at us?"
"Hmm... if we set a lot of explosives..."
They finally understood why the monsters kept rushing toward them even though they were in danger of burning alive. Not dying at all vs. surviving an explosion that leaves not even a piece of your body. Anyone would choose the former—instinctively, rationally.
And at this point, since the mission was reconnaissance, it was time for them to make reasonable judgments too.
Anyway, they hadn't brought wireless communication gear—because the enemy could rework it or track frequencies.
"You go back and report everything you've seen so far. We need to report the monsters pouring in."
"What are you going to do? Try to get artillery coordinates? It seems dangerous..."
"No. Take out all the remaining fuel. I'll absorb it all at once, strengthen my body, and bypass along the river."
Without fuel, sustained combat was impossible for Jeong Ilhwan, so he'd go back to report and refuel. Kim Chomok planned to ride the river upstream and scout where this attack was coming from.
"There's one voice pipe left, I think. Will that be enough?"
"If it's not enough, there's a reed field nearby—I'll just absorb that too."
With fuel everywhere, volcanic-range attacks would be possible, but—
"...I wish I had bio-fuel all over the place..."
Eventually, the poor young man who'd have to burn each one by hand without fuel bowed his head deeply and left.
"Let's see, there's a river tributary to the northeast... if I follow the water upstream, this should be the Daedong River, right?"
As he dried the sprouts near the riverside, his intended route was obvious to anyone looking.
Kim Chomok began to detour toward the Namho gate.
The Daedong River is surprisingly easy to ford in narrow sections—swimming across is like crossing a public bath. But in wide sections, you should expect at least 500 meters of swimming.
It was the boundary between evening and night, the sun fading into dusk. One of the few cities in North Korea outside Pyongyang that still looked like a city.
Kim Chomok was hiding his body in the reeds near the river, on the city side of Namho Port. Unlike this place where monsters roamed everywhere and bodies lay motionless.
"Looks like there are still people over there? I should go into the city first."
Even after the national collapse, people who were fighting back on their own were holding the city as a barricade. Toward the heart of the city where burning oil drums blazed and gunfire crackled—
SPLASH!
"Ugh, fuck. Why is the river still this cold in summer...!!"
Kim Chomok slipped into the water and quietly rolled his feet toward the riverbed. Once he reached the bottom, he spread his five fingers and plunged them deep.
Normally, a human body floats in water, but—
'...Fuck off, don't talk to me! If you break my concentration for even a second, I go all flat and useless...'
Did the person inside him have a sense of fulfillment from teaching all semester while getting beaten up? Maybe.
He gathered energy at his fingertips like flowing water, locked it in place, then pushed off—repeated the cycle of surging forward and grabbing again. This let him cross faster than swimming.
CLACK...!! SPLASH!
"Pff—!! Ow, that's hard."
The crossing that normally took twenty minutes, he finished in a single breath. He climbed up onto a concrete pier facility³—rare in North Korea, mostly dirt and mud. His clothes were soaked, but right now he needed high ground to hide his body, not fire.
A tall building came into view nearby—couldn't tell what it was, but it was definitely high-rise.
"...Should I climb up to the rooftop and scout the surroundings?"
Whether it was survivors' rescue signals or where monsters were gathering—rough sketches on the waterproof notebook would help.
He didn't even glance at elevators, knowing there was no electricity. He found the emergency stairwell and bounded up.
The rooftop he arrived at was the highest point in the area!
"Oh, the plaza's visible. There were supposed to be two pig statues... half-cut, huh."
Naturally scanning the surroundings, he saw two half-severed statues on a flat area to the north. And around them, emaciated North Korean people in wretched condition—
"...Huh?"
An android weapon, a little over 2 meters tall, wearing strange machine armor all over its body, approached and began swinging something it held in its hand, herding people in one direction.
Anyone could see it—it looked like a kidnapping, or labor abduction.
"...Wait. Didn't I see this on the news when I was in the military?!"
The hostile aliens from the early days of the gates surfaced in Kim Chomok's memory.
"—The first contact with a sentient being at the U.S. gate, in Tennessee..."
"—Major incident broke out... Pentagon..."
The news he'd watched in the infirmary's TV⁴ during his army years, when he'd always been sick. Those bastards who'd come through the U.S. gate wore the same equipment.
"...Wait, so these bastards came here because even the U.S. wasn't enough?..."
Not satisfied with harvesting labor from one region alone, they were diversifying investments to other areas—these stability-oriented slave merchants.
"They couldn't get enough from America, so now they came to North Korea to loot? Goddamn ruthless bastards."
The world has many crazies, but this level made admiration come out before contempt. Kim Chomok, who had gone from a king in a vast pan to a commoner in an instant, stuck out his tongue.