The Day the Nursery Rhyme Became Reality (Part 2)
Kim Chomok was paying the price for briefly gaining an excessive amount of power with an equally excessive array of side effects inflicted on his body. [...Hmm, my dear. You're finally walking around with a gait that actually resembles a human. I was starting to think you were auditioning to become a horse again.]
"Just because I crawled around on all fours doesn't mean I've given up on being human and qualified as a beast, you know?!"
After enough time had passed at a pension in Paju for him to finally manage walking on two legs again.
"...It took forever. At last...!! Pyongyang!"
"Officially, the unified Republic of Korea has succeeded in occupying the capital...!!"
The ROK military, having successfully pushed northeast from Nampo, was able to occupy Pyongyang with relative ease. After the entire leadership and everyone else had been devoured by monsters, the capital could no longer function as one.
In fact, the only structures still standing were the grotesque Ryugyong Hotel—which even the monsters seemed to instinctively avoid out of unease—and a handful of hospitals and flour mills on the outskirts.
Pyongyang had long since become a living hell: people in hiding, monsters everywhere, and looters more terrifying than the monsters themselves.
"That place is no different from hell on earth. That's why I ran away..."
Even the refugee from Nampo, still picking peanut crumbs from his mouth, looked so gloomy as he testified that it was obvious.
So one might wonder—how could the word "comfortable" even apply to a situation like this?
This is the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. From this moment forward, any armed personnel discovered in Pyongyang will be given one warning and then shot on sight.
Simple. From now on, the only ones who would survive were those smart enough to throw their hands up immediately and run...!!
Grrrr... Kwaaaang—!!
The monsters that swarmed toward the noise like moths to a flame the moment they heard the broadcast were met with firepower from Jeong Il-hwan—who might not have been blond but was definitely well-tanned—and the rest of the troops.
"You American puppets, get the hell out of here right now?! No matter how hard things are for us...!!"
To the residents who had barely endured an already brutal time, and to the "tigers" who had enforced even harsher politics on them...
Bang!!
"Tsk. I absolutely despise bastards who don't know their place. We wiped out every warlord dreamer back in the Joseon dynasty, you know."
—The very bastards who had kept "Joseon" in their country's name until recently somehow failed to understand that.
Even after losing nearly all its strength in the late Joseon period, the nation had always crushed local rebellions without fail. It had been a long time since local lords received a visceral reminder in the form of bullets.
"Come on, everyone! Come get your rations! We've got combat meals and rice! Just don't pick up a gun and start acting crazy!"
"""Waaaaaah—!!"""
All that remained was to offer a single refreshing drizzle of sweet rain to the public sentiment that had been exploited under harsh politics.
It really did feel like a civil-military operation in Africa after clearing out the warlords, didn't it?
"From the start, shit—their pure economic power was already forty-five times smaller. After the gates opened and they lost what little economy they had left, where could they possibly go?"
"They tried to build nukes but the facilities got taken over by monsters, right? People without strategic weapons aren't exactly scary."
The entire country had been mobilized to block an infinite monster influx at seven entrances, only to be breached in the end. They had bet the nation itself and lost everything.
Even in a peaceful unification scenario, North Korea's population would have made up one-third of the unified Korea. The resulting conflicts, internal strife, education gaps, and economic poverty would have required tearing out the very foundations of a country that had only just reached developed-nation status...
"Now that we've taken the capital, the population is roughly two million... Just how many were dragged off and killed?"
"Pyongyang alone used to have close to three million residents... Yet it looks like fewer than eight hundred thousand are left."
The capital should have had more people than any other city. Even after absorbing Nampo—the second-largest city—the population increase was barely enough to fill a single metropolitan district.
"...Still, we did everything we could. The rest will have to be handled by the civilians..."
"In any case, there's nothing more we can do from our position. We'll need to resupply and push forward immediately."
Lieutenant General Jeong Byeong-su—the very picture of universal human decency—let out a long sigh.
"Hoo... Next is the eastward advance. We'll push to Wonsan and then on to Hamhung..."
He marked the objective on the map.
"...Speaking of Hamhung, when the hell is that guy coming back?"
"Who... Ah, you mean the 'Great Troublemaker'? We only received word that he rented out an entire pension."
"Yeah, that guy. I know I gave him a month of leave, but there's been zero contact. He's the literal embodiment of a Hamhung messenger, isn't he?"
The human bomb who had flung wide the bridgehead leading to the very Pyongyang where they now stood—instilling unease and terror in both allies and enemies alike. They had begun to wonder about his whereabouts, but...
Flutter!
The entrance flap of the large, luxurious twenty-five-person tent—fitting for a temporary command post for high-ranking officers—was thrown open.
"C-Commander! It's an emergency!!"
The adjutant burst in at full sprint, panting heavily, practically punching the flap aside.
"What, what is it? You usually walk everywhere—what's got you running?"
"Contact just came in from the troops who entered the Nampo Gate...!!"
The news was like a miracle that made a patient suffering from chronic joint pressure forget his pain and sprint to the finish line.
"They discovered Americans inside the gate! There's even a report that they're operating alongside local insurgents!"
—We need to handle this at our level before it escalates into an international incident!
"...What?! Wait, hold on. What the hell does that mean?! Explain it properly so I can understand, Adjutant!!"
The butterfly effect triggered by Kim Chomok's casual export of revolution had apparently landed on the American continent on the opposite side of the planet. It reached the field commander's ears at the exact moment the adjutant's legs were screaming in agony.
If you walk and walk and walk forward, since the Earth is round, you might one day see the entire world. But that's only in the nursery rhyme. In reality, the sea shows you its salty taste and sends you right back.
So the idea of meeting every child in the world is literally nothing more than a child's fantasy, but...
"Ahem... Sorry, but could you repeat that? Where did you say you were taken from?"
"Tennessee! Damn it, it's great that you speak English, but why can't you understand what I'm saying?!"
This particular gate seemed to be a giga-gate that understood a child's romantic dreams. It had created a direct walking path to the American continent, if not Europe.
While Kim Chomok was busy twisting his body after single-handedly turning both Nampo city and the Nampo Gate into a wasteland, the vanguard had advanced into Pyongyang, sweeping away countless monsters and humanoid ones alike.
The main force—primarily focused on civil affairs and providing temporary shelters—had naturally sent reconnaissance teams into the gate as well.
"...Wow. What the hell is this? It's literally hell."
"I thought Nampo outside was pretty wrecked... Turns out my imagination was way too limited."
They had finally realized that the endpoint of a domino lightly flicked by one finger was total urban collapse.
In what had once been a prisoner camp still bearing traces of the abducted North Koreans, the former guards were now...
"Hurry up and work, you lazy sons of bitches! Just thinking about how you beat me makes my teeth grind!!"
Slap!!
"Kuuuugh...!! You damn slave bastards...!!"
They were paying the full Hammurabi's Code price for their human rights violations.
"...This place that's nothing but dust and rubble... used to be a city?"
"Well, the building debris suggests it was a city, but... everything's burned or collapsed."
The places where they had once lived their lives had long since become scattered debris dotted with rotting matter.
Still, hoping for any news, the soldiers approached a farmer who was poking a peculiar long-eared donkey with a gun and whip.
"...Excuse me. Do you know where all the North Korean people who were brought here were taken?"
The soldier's eyes widened as if he had suddenly been transported to 1810 instead of the 2010s. He asked for information on the North Korean residents—who were now supposed to officially become citizens of the Republic of Korea.
"Uh... Ah, you mean the comrades? They... all scattered to the nearby cities."
The sad news struck their eardrums like a hammer.
Of course, some people might have been satisfied with a single uprising, like the locals using the long-eared donkey to dig the ground. But others were not content to stop at simply changing their status from slave to free citizen.
"The world is wide, and there are still many more comrades living in situations like ours!"
"Their chains will be broken too! Revolution export—!!"
Those who refused to settle marched off in groups, saying they would meet again someday. Before long, smoke and flames began rising here and there from nearby cities.
The North Koreans—who had been sent there at some unknown point—either attempted to regroup or seized the massive opportunity to claim their own land in the ruined cities. However...
"Ah, aren't they coming this way? Hey—!! Comrade!! People have come from outside—!!"
"Existing comrades" sitting on the rear seat of an obviously stolen hover bike.
"...Hey! Are you South Korean?! If you're South Korean, please—I'm begging you! Send me back home!"
White men, clearly sunburned, were shouting at the top of their lungs in English the moment they saw the military uniforms.
Normally, joining the military implied at least a basic education. But in a country where it was common for university students to take leave and enlist, the soldier who heard them was a former leave-of-absence student.
"...So he says he's one of the many Americans who were abducted from Tennessee."
"Wow, how does a guy who can't even memorize basic firearm specs understand this so perfectly?"
Not only that, he was one of the personnel who had completed overseas training and could speak English with proper local pronunciation.
"Damn it, I've lost one hundred forty pounds—about sixty-four kilos—and my clothes won't stay up anymore!"
He had been severely obese back in America, but constant whippings and hard labor had changed that.
"Um, here. Peanut butter... By the way, what have you been eating to survive while we weren't here?"
"Well, I'm the idiot for thinking these damn bastards would send even one thing that humans could actually eat."
Or perhaps for Americans who lived on fast food with zero healthy options—where losing employer-provided insurance meant shouldering the full burden themselves—life with only one egg a week as a protein source must have been brutal.
"W-we fed you the best we could! It's really good for your body—ack!!"
Smack!!
No matter how much the other side tried to wrap their crimes or guilty conscience in pretty packaging...
"Who the hell eats that garbage!! I thought they were making something like tofu at least..."
In the middle of all this, he even snatched the whip from the farmer beside him and lashed out with it. The plant-based diet favored by the machine elves might make you lose weight, but it couldn't plant any majesty in your heart.
As they continued trading various trivial stories, a sudden electric current shot through the soldier's mind.
"...Wait a second? These people were kidnapped from Tennessee? Then where exactly did they arrive from inside the gate?"
"Um, right next to here... On the map, the gate we were dragged through is roughly this distance..."
A human abducted to a gate on the opposite side of the Earth—ten thousand kilometers away without exaggeration—was connected to the gate right in front of their noses. The soldier's head spun.
"...Wow. This is not the kind of thing a guy like me should be thinking about."
A mere soldier who never stepped forward in any matter that might threaten his own safety. Having survived multiple battlefields, he had no interest in staking his life on "how to live as long as possible." In times like these, the correct move was to toss the problem upward so it wouldn't become his responsibility.
After passing through himself, the squad leader, platoon leader, and command center, the written report finally reached the commander, who clutched the back of his neck.
Even after losing half the country, elections still had to be held. In a nation that had replaced its president less than six months ago in a state of urgency...
By the time that article had been transmitted to news outlets around the world and translated into countless languages, a young man stared up at the sky that had already grown dark.
"...What exactly do you take me for? It's a shame, but... after resting a whole month, that's more than enough."
He began a casual chat with the virtual friend inside his head (who actually existed).