Natural Enemy (Part 1)
A herd of residents shuffling forward like souls stripped bare, and a handful of soldiers marching close behind them. Anyone could see that with such a disparity in numbers, not rebelling would be the odd thing out—but...
"Hmm. A lot of those guys reeking of energy seem pretty sketchy..."
[Yes, most are ordinary. But the ones wearing proper armor—those won't be easy to deal with.]
If you're an ability user, you'd look at the number of soldiers in that "proper armor" and try your best to avoid combat. Because the sheer volume of energy seeping from their bodies was anything but normal. Conversely, if you're not an ability user, you'd think, "Well, we can just fight with numbers," and cling to some shred of false hope.
Tat-tat-tat...!!
"H-Hiiiiik...!!"
Some people manage to bolt once they realize all they need to do is survive, so they try to read the room and then run. It's cowardice, but it's the one thing that can make a person braver when all else is gone. Cowardice is, after all, the one thing that can make you brave.
But a prison where most inmates are criminals and there aren't many guards—and escape isn't easy even there—trying to run from armed soldiers in the middle of an open plaza with zero cover? That's just asking to get shot.
THWACK!! Clang-clang-clang...!!
Most people jump into danger thinking they'll succeed, but reality has always been merciless.
"Kraaaaak...!! My knee...!! My knee...!!"
"You only lost a leg. Want me to break it so you can't even stand? You useless little deserter."
If you can't stop one person from running, the next ones will follow. Those guys have extracted labor forces from people countless times—they know full well what happens when one breaks.
Thwack! Thwack!
"Aaack...!!"
"You stupid bastard—why are you wasting bullets on someone who you know damn well can't escape anyway!!"
You had to show the reprisal as brutally as possible, paint the despair onto the crowd, make sure it's seared into their brains. The reassurance that at least they themselves wouldn't be targeted.
And so the defeated herds began shuffling in a single file line, slowly making their way toward the open Gate.
"Ugh... why do they have to make it so hard...!!"
"Oh, Mama...!! Father...!!"
They stared at the homeland they'd never return to, sighed, and wept. But then—
TOOT TOOT TOOT TOOT...!!
"You rotten brats! You just got out of the political prisoner camp and now they're sending you to the alien detention center?!"
"...It's an ambush by the locals! Hurry, send the labor force through the checkpoint!"
Pulling people out of someone else's land has never been easy, no matter the era. Watching strangers dragged away without even realizing what's happening, and not being able to think, "Next could be me!"—people like that vanished from this ruthless North Korea long ago.
After all, the soldiers had all either died fighting monsters or scattered to the winds.
"We need to protect each other, don't we?! We all received military training, so head for the armory!"
"What... how hard is it to pull a trigger? Alright."
Among those scattered soldiers, a militia formed around the ones with spirit—fighting to protect themselves and to pull people out of the hands of the invaders. They had no cutting-edge weapons, and even if the army's core assets like self-propelled howitzers had been perpetually backordered for Korea—
Personal firearms, the kind handed out to the most essential personnel, weren't bad coming from the red side, at least.
Rushing to defend Pyongyang, they raided the supply warehouse they hadn't even had time to touch, and weapons fell into their hands.
TOOT TOOT TOOT TOOT...!!
"You bastards—stop making me lose my mind! Special Ops! Why aren't you rescuing the captured people instead of just screaming?!"
"Run, run fast! Comrades!"
Even if a bit rusty, they were still proving they were active-duty soldiers—the masterpieces of the Second World. They kept spitting fire.
Watching all this chaos from the highest VIP box, Kim Chomok also turned his gaze.
"Oh. I was only planning recon, but... should I jump in now?"
This wasn't one or two guerrillas—dozens of organized people were fighting aliens. His blood started pumping.
"If at least that one alien gets wounded or pushed back, that's the perfect chance to strike..."
[From the very start, other people's wars have always been the best opportunity for looting. As expected of a reserve knight candidate.]
Just as Kim Chomok was hoping for a bigger commotion—
BOOM! BOOM!!
Whether it was coincidence or whether it was some kind of countermeasure designed to penetrate their unusual armor—
"Wah! They're firing grenades too!! Good job!!"
Kim Chomok realized the incident was escalating into a full-scale clash. The explosions he'd heard in the early monster fights meant things were getting serious.
"The staircase route back down is too slow! I need to go down here and get to the battlefield as fast as possible!"
Instead of the standard route, he started choosing alternative paths. He'd used a quick river crossing before, but...
If he could make "nails" out of energy, couldn't he make other things too? And this time, he only needed to support his own weight—no need to maintain sharpness or exert extra force!
"Let's see... a rope of this size should be able to hold me on the second floor, barely."
He wrapped his energy around the rooftop railing, then descended the building wall like a rappel—
Kim Chomok, smiling with the thought that a simple iron railing couldn't possibly hold his weight—
But that delusion shattered the moment he kicked the next wall.
CLANG!
The idea of rappelling was fine, but the force of a full-grown human body slamming into a wall is no joke. And Kim Chomok's body enhancement was fully active right now—his kicking force was gorilla-level!
[You made a line by thickening your nail—good idea. But it's still just a thin line, isn't it?]
"...Ah."
Making something rope-like by thickening his nail was a decent thought, but the basic width was still just his index fingernail. And he'd stretched it so thin trying to widen it during all this chaos.
Given North Korea's shoddy materials, outdated equipment, and railings made from low-grade coal fuel—there was absolutely no way it could withstand the force.
"Ahh, you stupid idiots...!! Can't you even forge a single proper piece of iron...!!"
WHOOSH!!
And so Kim Chomok plummeted from the high-rise to the ground floor at a speed that would make any state-of-the-art elevator jealous.
"...I should've taken my time, but I just came down fast. Ugh..."
He'd paid the price for his safe landing with a crater in the sidewalk block, dug deep by his body.
[A guy who can barely hold up his own fingernail—do you really think he can apply elasticity to energy? Dreaming big, aren't you?]
"Cough, cough...!! Shut up, asshole! Everyone goes through trial and error... Huh?"
After coughing through the concrete dust coating his face, he was busy brushing off the rocks from his body when something caught his eye—
A round, black circle suddenly popped into view.
CLANK!
In a place where the Gate had just opened, there'd be no shortage of patrol soldiers on watch.
"Don't make trouble. Raise both hands. You look sturdy—like you'd be good at following orders."
"...Heh, surrendered already."
The muzzle pushed into his face was apparently here to say hello.
THWACK!
Before long, a gunshot and a muzzle flash filled his vision.
***
Meanwhile, back when Kim Chomok was still swimming across the Taedong River for the crossing—
"Phew... I'll have to climb back up eventually. Wonder if that guy made it into the city."
The human flamethrower had completed his mission and was taking a brief rest. He filled up the gasoline tank while he was at it, and decided to rest his tired eyes since he'd worked so hard.
"Good work, Ilhwan. Take a breather."
"Hiiing. I had too much on my plate..."
He showed his embarrassing side, crying in his girlfriend's arms, while she was being embarrassingly affectionate.
"...Tch."
Her father, too, closed his eyes tightly, seeing a different kind of embarrassment.
"How can you suggest bombing with no intel on the city?! What are you even saying?!"
"Damn it! According to the reports, monsters are roaming in the hundreds! Are you seriously telling me to start with precision strikes?!"
Normally, in any group of ten people, two distinct factions are heavily represented. One: the type that's selfless and wants to help others. Two: the type that prioritizes "our" prosperity first, and will help others if there's time. Those two moving the other eight—that's basically the modern two-party system, isn't it?
"We can't sacrifice civilians!! Let's at least hear the report from the forward-deployed troops before moving!"
That was the opinion that said they needed to slowly push back the incoming monsters while retreating northward.
"There's no time for that!! How are you going to stop the aliens who are even scared of those monsters?!"
That was the opinion that said they couldn't trade the lives of civilians for the organization's safety.
From the perspective of the person on top who has to hear all the staff officers' opinions and mediate—both sides were right. Every single one of them was right.
"Alright, everyone be quiet! Let's start by organizing things."
So it was impossible to lean too far to one side. What he had to do was struggle to save as many people as possible from the middle.
"First, sacrificing civilians 'unfairly' is out of the question. The post-war situation is one thing..."
"The citizens would hate it most. Who would trust the army that came to help us if we did that?"
The moderate staff officer had a bad habit of interrupting the commander mid-sentence, but in any case, he wasn't wrong.
"More precisely, even the people who are 'about to become our citizens' would hate it. Without a legitimate reason, we can't launch."
How could you trust a government that fires missiles without caring about your safety, even when people come to protect you? If you let them in, they'd be an enormous destabilizing factor no matter what.
"I miss the old days. I can't trust this government or this military anymore... if people start saying that, it's over."
"But if we go head-on against that monster horde, we'll suffer even more casualties!"
The hardline staff officer grabbed the commander, who had been slowly leaning toward the moderates.
"I know, I know. But how is locking the present in hell supposed to help when the future is scary?"
Full-scale war against monsters that can decimate an entire platoon? That's a situation where casualties would come in the dozens. Best case is everyone survives, but you can't afford "greater losses."
"That guy went up for the reconnaissance mission. When he comes back and says, 'Uh, this isn't working...'—then we fire."
That's why they waited for a "legitimate reason." Among the ability users they had, not a single one could fight a whole army alone? Even if they fired some artillery and sent armored troops charging, it would only be a losing battle at best.
"B-But not all the members of parliament would agree with that..."
Ah, those terminal-stage vampire politicians who have to suck the blood of votes—don't you think they'd throw a fit?
"Soldiers are dying! Even if we frame the ones opposing missile launches... if it's a family of four, that's negative eight votes, right?"
Whether politician or not, the moment you start freely needling the other side, you've got an election that's basically a knife fight.
"My son came back half-dead because of the commanding officers' stupid decisions! I can't stand it."
Actually, even before the election—families consumed by rage would be a threat to your life.
"If you have no family left, you die and there's less fallout, right...?"
"Isn't that why conscription doesn't apply if you have no relatives in the military?"
"That's right? So they'll be even more cautious. Let's wait about seventy-two hours for the reconnaissance report..."
If it takes longer than that, the monster is either captured or killed—either way, they'd have to fire. The commander and the staff officers didn't know.
They didn't know that the person they were waiting for was the one who'd lost his only family after his conscription.
And—
"Kkkyaahhh...!! Aaahhh!! Please... take your hands off—!!"
"Hehehe, hehehe!! Scream louder! Suffer more! Who asked you to stab a gun into my head?!"
[...My lord, I don't understand why you're the victim and yet I'm the bewildered one.]
Those alien slave traders, currently in the process of getting their comeuppance from an even crazier bastard, were taking the full brunt of all the world's suffering.
"Is... is this really what's happening? Something feels off..."
"Ah, shut up, you little punk. We're already free, so what's the problem?"
All of this—the freed slaves, no, the North Korean residents—were watching with a strange mix of contempt and respect.
Not a single person sitting in the temporary command post knew about any of it.