The monster was about 1 kilometer away.

Judging by its sluggish pace, it would arrive in ten minutes at the latest.

If that monster reached this place, the transport train would suffer catastrophic damage.

Even if not everyone died, the losses would likely be enough to make pulling the train impossible.

“What are you going to do now?”

I didn’t particularly want to show emotion, but my tone came out more emotional than intended.

I was being sarcastic—uncharacteristically so.

From my point of view, where monsters are defined as irreconcilable enemies, humans who submit to monsters appear as less than human.

That was true of the fanatics, and it was true of these people too.

No, these people were worse than the fanatics.

At least the fanatics had some self-justifying motive, like salvation or ascension through the monsters.

Desire is the bare minimum required for someone to still be considered human.

These people didn’t even have that.

That’s why I despised and dismissed them even more.

Now, the end was approaching.

I don’t know what exactly they’ve witnessed here so far, but they still didn’t seem to grasp that the Crack harbors a clear hostility toward humanity.

Maybe those ridiculous monsters were clowns sent by the Crack to mock them.

I glared at the woman.

She, too, seemed rattled by the emergence of multiple monsters.

But only for a moment.

“What else is there to do? There’s only one way to survive in this world.”

She raised her voice, calling out clearly to the laborers.

“Everyone. This too shall pass. Be patient. Like we always have.”

She tried to rejoin the laborers.

I grabbed her shoulder and stopped her.

I must’ve used some force—her face twisted in pain.

Just for a brief moment, I saw that her body was all skin and bones, practically skeletal.

“Wouldn’t it be better to run?”

A sincere piece of advice.

That group of monsters was slower than a person.

If they abandoned the train and widened the distance, their odds of survival would improve.

Like she said, maybe it would pass like the wind.

The transport schedule would be delayed a little, but that’s still a far better outcome than suffering casualties that make hauling the train impossible.

Is there anything more frustrating than trying to reason with someone who won’t listen?

“No.”

The woman responded flatly.

“We’ll do things our way.”

“So your plan is just to die, then?”

“As an outsider, you wouldn’t understand us. But we’ve survived like this for three years.”

The woman tried to brush past me.

I pushed her down with force.

She seemed to have expected some resistance and tried to cling on, but I kicked her away again, throwing her back onto the dirt.

Violence isn’t my preferred method, but with lunatics like this, there’s no need to hold back.

In fact, pain hits harder than words when it comes to zealots like her.

But part of me wondered about myself.

Why was I going this far?

Wouldn’t it be in my best interest to just let these people die?

Even knowing that, I was doing something out of character—trying to stop her.

Maybe this was due to a “change” in me that had begun long ago.

With my face emotionless, I stared down at her while the contradictions in my heart collided in a quiet storm.

She brushed aside her tangled hair and looked up at me.

Pain had worked, at least a little.

Her smile was gone, and faint anger flickered in her eyes.

It was a positive development.

“...It senses emotional disturbance.”

She said, staring at the approaching monsters.

Finally, she was trying to persuade me.

I relaxed my posture slightly to show I was willing to listen.

In the midst of dozens of stares, in that ominous silence, the woman’s voice rang out beneath the ashen sky.

“If we don’t look, don’t think—they can’t see us. When we gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back. The moment we think about °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° them, they feel us too.”

For a moment, something stirred inside me.

An interesting hypothesis.

Not because it was new, but because it bore similarities to reports I’d read and heard before.

The claim that monsters wouldn’t harm us if we didn’t resist—those words came from the infamous founder of that cult.

Survivors left behind in erosion zones had given similar testimonies.

Unfortunately, such claims had never been fully theorized.

Humanity’s division triggered by the Crack had spread across the globe.

While Korea and its allies fought China, Europe descended into civil war-level strife due to refugee and political clashes, and nations that couldn’t handle the Crack were swallowed by it.

There hadn’t even been a proper chance for discourse.

Now, I think that hypothesis has a somewhat credible foundation.

If this were outside the Crack, if I were the Professor, and she were an interviewee recounting her Crack experience—perhaps we could’ve discussed this academically over fragrant coffee and snacks.

War ruined everything.

No, the all-out collapse triggered by the Crack had turned what could’ve been a refined, elegant connection into one smeared with dirt, violence, and killing intent.

She looked me straight in the eye and continued.

“You’re not the first who couldn’t understand us. But we’ve seen hell outside this place. There are those who lost their entire families before their eyes, barely surviving after being assaulted and left for dead. Some went over a month without food, whispering for help in mosquito-like voices until they were rescued right before starving to death. Others were traded between raiders like dolls and forced to live as sex slaves before barely escaping or being discarded. There are many women like that.”

She added, with certainty.

“We’re people who went through that—and still didn’t die.”

People who couldn’t die.

It was probably the most fitting description of this bizarre group.

She glanced at me, then began walking back toward the others.

“Yes. We’re just people trying to live. And if we die? Then that’s that. We don’t expect you to understand. We’re not asking for your help either. So go your way. You won’t be hearing from us again.”

She walked toward her group.

I didn’t stop her.

I’d decided there was no need to.

They were different from me.

If that woman died—well, that would be that.

But what would the others think?

I sat at a distance, atop a gentle slope, and watched the situation unfold.

The monsters were approaching.

They didn’t appear to be fully functional monsters.

Judging by their movement, speed, and visible hardpoints, they were subpar.

Even the early-generation monsters, now almost extinct, weren’t this shoddy.

Like the humanoid giant I’d seen before that crawled on all fours, they were probably part of the Crack’s trial-and-error process.

The group was nearly here.

The woman stood at the front and said:

“Just like always, this too shall pass. Just like always.”

Same as before.

But there was a subtle change.

The people’s reactions.

Where previously they’d acted with deadened indifference like machine parts, now there was hesitation.

Maybe it was the shock of watching their comrades get slaughtered by an identical monster just a while ago.

In the end, they still laid prone and motionless, but even from a distance, it was clear.

They flinched with every step the monsters took closer.

The lead monster closed in to within 100 meters.

One man lifted his head slightly.

“...”

I stood up.

And walked.

Toward the monster.

I don’t even know why.

I just felt like I had to.

I won’t deny there was a trace of compassion or altruism mixed in.

But the biggest motivator was something else.

I wanted to show them.

That they were wrong.

Watching people die right in front of me isn’t good for my mental health either.

The past few days have been stressful.

The cracks in my tongue are proof enough.

And besides, these weren’t battle-class, mid-tier monsters—ones that make you gnaw your fingers just looking at them.

No, watching these half-baked, laughable failures hurt my fellow species bruised my pride as a human.

“John Nae-non. No—Hayang.”

I set down my partner and drew my axe.

I had a handgun too, but for this kind of opponent, the axe would suffice.

I passed the train and the people lying face down, as if worshiping some unholy idol.

Now I could hear what I hadn’t from a distance.

The sound of prayers, sobs, repetitive, unintelligible muttering.

I let out a shallow sigh.

They acted like their humanity had been castrated—but in the end, they were still human like me.

No species can completely go against its nature.

"People who couldn’t die"—really, it’s just a euphemism for people without the courage to kill themselves.

But who really wants to die?

Some do, yes. But most would rather rot alive than die and decompose.

“...Honey.”

A middle-aged man, still face down, grasped at the ashen soil with both hands and whispered to a family member long gone.

As I passed him, I said:

“Lift your head.”

He raised his head.

He looked at me.

For a brief moment, we exchanged a wordless understanding no language could express.

I moved past him and continued forward.

The monster was right there.

It waddled stupidly, flicking a tentacle with a hook at the end, ready to select its next human victim.

Seven more monsters followed behind it, but the only one I saw was the one in front.

I raised my axe and stepped forward.

My steps quickened, turned into a jog, and then into a sprint.

I felt the wind shear around the edges of my vision as I locked eyes on my target.

It kept waddling ahead, unchanged.

Exactly.

It couldn’t see me.

Jeong Dae-kyung’s gift—blessing or curse.

Right now, it was a blessing.

Fueled by undying hatred and the hunger embedded in it, I leapt.

Thunk!

The exoskeleton’s jump system activated.

Hydraulic springs triggered a powerful rebound, launching me like a bullet.

The ground fell away beneath me in an instant, and I fixed my eyes on its flapping, trunk-like tentacle.

Slash!

I brought the axe down on the tentacle.

It snapped, limp, and I felt gravity—likely mimicked by the Crack to resemble Earth’s—pulling me back down.

I’d leapt over 4 meters, but no worries.

This was what my new gear was for.

Clank!

I landed.

The hydraulic system between my knees and thighs hissed and groaned with metallic friction, absorbing the shock as I glared at the monster.

Its tentacle was still limp.

Only then did it seem to sense something wrong—and began playing a familiar tune.

Boom!

Shockwave.

But it had no effect on me.

If anything, it only inflamed my sadism.

I took a step back and observed its movements.

It tried to move the broken tentacle forcibly, but the sharp hook at the end no longer followed its will.

And that was all.

My guess was correct.

It was a failed creation of the Crack.

No—more precisely, a prototype.

From its body emerged something black.

It moved left and right like a human eye before locking onto me—no doubt a biological eyeball.

Boom!

It charged at me with another shockwave.

“...”

That moment hit me with not just a surge of hatred, but also a spark of insatiable curiosity.

But now wasn’t the time.

First, I had to deal with this thing.

I stepped back slowly, let it pass by, then lunged at it from the side.

Slash! Slash! Slash!

A perfectly calculated dance of death unfolded on the ashen soil.

Slash!

Even as I tore it apart with my axe, I updated intel in real time within my brain.

No change in strength: unidentified new species.

Movement: average.

No threatening hardpoints or observed powers.

Retreating and opening fire from a distance had been my habit since the Professor days.

Bang!

Could there be a monster without a reflection shield?

They did exist, like the threatening Executioner-type—but the more, the better, right?

Even if I’m Skeleton or Park Gyu, part of me still belongs to the Professor.

Ping!

No reflection shield.

Not even equipped with that?

But another discovery overrode that question.

Slash!

With every strike of the axe, it thrashed.

As if it felt pain—as if it were a living "creature."

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Under my breath-paced, calculated strikes, it convulsed and finally collapsed like its own tentacle, limp and lifeless.

Its body began to disintegrate.

“...”

I took a quiet breath in.

Felt a fullness as if something inside me had been restored.

Judging the approaching monsters by sight, I turned around.

Despite the noisy battle, most of the laborers still had their heads down.

But a few had lifted theirs to look at me.

About half turned partially to see the approaching horde.

To be honest, they weren’t even monsters.

A better term might be inferior extra-dimensional lifeforms.

But in a fleeting moment, I had seen something like an eyeball.

That lingering question from earlier—

They were mimicking sensory organs.

The kind we and Earth’s animals have.

Maybe that failure was a prototype built for that purpose.

Combine those eyes with those hooked tentacles and that number—and we might not be able to stop them next time.

Out of the 80 or so, only about ten were looking at me.

To them, I asked:

“Do you want to live?”

The ground gave a faint tremor.

The second one was within 50 meters.

I scanned the crowd slowly.

“?”

A brief wave of emotion passed over me.

Someone was staring at me—someone who looked just like Lee Dong-hyeon.

The one swept away by that ashen sandstorm.