When things don’t go well, or when people feel their current approach isn’t working, they tend to revert to the methods that once led to success.

This is what’s commonly called regression.

Personally, I don’t consider it a particularly wise or valid strategy.

Even objectively, going back to the past isn’t easy.

People age.

And aging doesn’t just mean physical deterioration.

Day by day, slowly but surely, stains of thought creep in and settle deep, becoming grime that can’t be scrubbed out no matter how hard you rub. Your thoughts and patterns become fixed around those stains.

You often hear stories about former pro baseball players who once batted .300 in their prime but, after repeated slumps, decide to “go back” and revert to their old swing. But follow-up articles are hard to find.

A few years later, you might see a short blurb about their quiet retirement.

More than anything, success is never the product of just one factor. It’s a complex outcome of numerous elements working together.

The world has changed—can you really expect the same results by going back alone?

Maybe, if you cut yourself to the bone, you might claw your way back.

But the odds of that golden heyday returning are slim.

That’s why I don’t recommend regression.

Even on the battlefield, I advised improving the current situation—not returning to outdated tactics.

Unfortunately, a friend I really care about made a pretty lousy choice.

 Bang! Tatatatatatang!!!

A fierce gunfight has been raging since dawn.

It’s not our neighbors this time—the sound’s coming from the city center about 3 kilometers away.

This isn’t just some light skirmish or pro wrestling match. It’s a full-on war.

The shooting started two days ago, and it’s only gotten more intense.

But that aside, I want to talk about my friend.

When things don’t go well, or when people feel their current approach isn’t working, they tend to revert to methods that once led to success.

That’s regression.

And again, I don’t think it’s wise or valid.

Even objectively, going back isn’t easy.

People age.

And aging doesn’t stop at the body.

Thoughts get stained over time. Those stains sink in deep and don’t wash out. Your patterns and mindset congeal around them.

There are always those stories about ballplayers reverting to their old swing form, hoping to recapture their prime, but rarely do you hear what happened after.

At best, you’ll catch a brief note about their lackluster retirement.

Success is always a composite result. Many variables intersect to create it.

The world’s changed—can you still perform the same if only you go back?

Maybe, if you’re ready to bleed for it.

But that golden age you’re chasing? Probably not coming back.

So I can’t recommend regression.

Even in war, I urged adapting—not reverting.

Sadly, a friend I really liked made a bad call.

 Bang! Tatatatatatang!!!

Gunfire erupts at dawn.

Not from any of our neighboring factions—but from the city about 3 km away.

This isn’t a turf skirmish. It’s an all-out confrontation.

It started two days ago and only keeps escalating.

Even the public frequency, once filled with insults and taunts, has gone silent. Neither side says a word now.

This won’t stop until one side retreats or gets wiped out.

It’s a grim situation, but here near the golf course, things are relatively peaceful thanks to a loose, tacit understanding that’s held up.

We’ve never made formal agreements, but each group has roughly defined their minimum allowed zones, and there are shared corridors for moving or working.

Of course, no one knows when that’ll fall apart, but for now, there’s unlikely to be conflict within our sector.

The temperature’s dropping fast.

Daytime still flirts with 25°C, but it dips to 10°C at night.

Unlike in the old days back in New Seoul, we can’t count on the blessings of a district heating plant anymore. This winter, it’s all on us.

And the most crucial thing for surviving winter?

Fuel.

Humans can survive on minimal food for a month, but one cold snap can freeze you to death overnight.

Sadly, there are no trees left around here worth chopping.

When the first cold wave hit, people even stripped buildings of insulation and burned it all.

They even burned old tires to keep ondol rooms warm. No need to explain just how bad it was.

Still, things here are better than south of the river.

Just the fact that the north has only 10% of the south’s population is a massive advantage.

Fewer people mean less competition. Fewer chances that someone got here first and claimed everything.

Plus, when it comes to scavenging, I’m a proud disciple of Defender.

“...Hup!”

I tied a grimy, sun-faded rope that had emerged from the dirt to another rope using a fisherman’s knot, then heaved together with Cheon Young-jae.

Crack!

Something inside the dirt snapped. Soil burst up, and something opened.

“Oh.”

We checked the contents together.

“These are briquettes, huh?”

Fuel.

Someone had buried these old barbecue briquettes—used to roast meat in peaceful pre-war camping trips—underground.

Whenever you find a rope like this poking out of the ground, Defender’s long-disconnected advice rings clear: Never ignore it.

“One thing this hellscape’s taught me is how much banks used to simplify our lives. There’s a hard cap on how much stuff a person can carry—and that cap’s way lower than you’d think. So when you have to move in a hurry, what do you do with stuff you can’t carry? You wouldn’t just give it away, would you?”

Minimizing your load when you’re forced to relocate is apocalypse etiquette.

If you see a helpless family dragging a cart piled with belongings, even the kindest survivor feels the temptation to rob them.

I know—I felt it when I first saw Rebecca and her daughter.

Not giving is also part of the new etiquette.

So, what do you do with stuff you can’t carry?

Hide it. That’s the simplest and most secure answer.

Defender taught me the common patterns and tricks for hidden caches.

Tying one rope to another and pulling is a way to avoid booby traps meant to catch other scavengers like us.

Especially in the first and second years after the war—when gunpowder was still plentiful—these traps were everywhere.

Thanks to Defender, today’s haul was solid.

We divided the loot between our packs and prepared to head back.

According to Defender and other scavengers, the most dangerous part of collecting isn’t the search—it’s the return trip when your bags are full.

Especially under watchful eyes, you need to be cautious about how much loot you’re visibly carrying.

“You remember those old men in parks who just stared holes into people? This place is full of those types now. You can't ignore them. They’re calculating everything—your gait, your pack’s bulge, your face, your injuries. All of it.”

A group next to our territory has someone like that.

He looks old with his graying hair, but he’s probably in his early fifties. Seems to have a bad leg. Sits on a camping chair all day, a rifle across his knees, keeping watch.

From at least 80 meters away, he watches everything we do.

“That bastard. Really gets on my nerves.”

Cheon Young-jae muttered, spotting him from afar.

“What can you do? Gotta live with it.”

Killing someone like that doesn’t improve anything.

It’d just start unnecessary fights.

You’d waste ammo. Draw attention.

So far, these lukewarm neighbors haven’t attacked us because no one among us has shown visible weakness.

That’s why this goddamned golf course sector is still holding its peace.

The old saying—enduring is winning—still applies, even after the world’s gone to shit.

“Oh.”

Back at our territory, the Kim Daram family greeted us.

It felt different from when Da-jeong or Sue used to greet me.

Didn’t feel good at all.

Still, there was one bright spot.

“Wow! Director Park, did you find all this out there?”

It was Kwon Dongtak, the child of Kim Daram and her husband.

Not especially handsome or pretty, but sharp, polite, and cheerful—pleasant to be around.

More than anything, he hadn’t inherited any of his parents’ shallow materialism. As someone without children of my own, I found that particularly memorable.

“This is the stuff you use for grilling meat, right? Amazing that you found it.”

Surely he wasn’t switched at birth at the hospital, was he?

No, he looks a lot like his mother.

Somewhat like his dad, too.

“...I learned online.”

But there’s something I’ve noticed for a while—Kim Daram gets weirdly uptight whenever Dongtak’s near me. It’s like she’s pressuring him to walk away.

Just like now.

“Dongtak, did you finish the questions Dad asked you to solve earlier?”

“Not yet. I’ve still got a few.”

“Dongtak, what’s the most important rule for our family?”

sigh “Handle your own business before helping others.”

Am I that weird of a person?

What the hell did I do?

I’m a mythical internet icon, for god’s sake. Kim Daram? That woman gets flamed online and offline.

She almost got herself killed during the fall of Seoul after pissing off the Old School Hunters—so what’s with the holier-than-thou act toward me?

Sure, I tend to keep my distance from kids. And being her son, I did stay away at first. But after a whole month of this, even someone as tolerant as me starts to feel insulted.

“Why’re you riding the kid so hard? What’s solving worksheets even gonna do right now?”

The words came out sharper than I meant.

Kim Daram’s expression instantly soured.

“...Senior?”

Thinking about how Defender had to abandon his paradise-like territory, I pushed on.

“No, seriously. What’s he gonna do with solved math problems? Shouldn’t you be teaching him how to hold a gun instead?”

“This world won’t stay like this forever, okay? Look at Sejong—it turned from a gangland into a proper city. This coup is temporary. Once the dust settles, everything will go back to normal. And when that happens, the ones on top will be the educated. You know this, too, don’t you? No matter how much shooting you do on the ground, what do you really get from it...”

Yeah, I can’t win against this woman.

She says a lot of wrong things—but also a lot of right ones. Hard not to sympathize.

I turned my gaze, ready to slink away like a beaten dog.

“Mom, can I talk just a little longer?”

Dongtak lifted his chin and looked his mom dead in the eye.

They say no parent can win against their child.

Even the cold-hearted Kim Daram froze up when her kid, so unexpectedly resolute and upright, protested.

Her husband, busy sorting dried greens, chimed in.

“A few minutes won’t hurt. There aren’t that many of us left anyway. And no one his age to talk to.”

Kim Daram shot her husband a look, but even she seemed to realize she’d gone too far. She relented.

“Fine—but just a little.”

Thanks to that, [N O V E L I G H T] I got to talk to Dongtak.

Not that it was deep—just small talk.

Cheon Young-jae and I were sorting and stacking the briquettes we collected.

“Director Park...”

For some reason, Dongtak always calls me Director Park.

His mom probably taught him to.

“I heard you’re super famous on the internet.”

I nodded.

“That’s what they say.”

Keeping it humble.

I’m someone who draws a firm line between online and offline life.

Still, if your online fame gets big enough, it does start to bleed into real life.

The fact that this boy fought to talk to me—just from what I’ve done online—is proof of that.

While scraping foreign matter off the briquettes with my bayonet, I tried to guess what the boy would ask me.

It had to be that.

The battle with Nemesis that turned Skelton into legend.

A mythological fight—and the myth’s protagonist is sitting right here.

Of course a kid his age would be thrilled.

Cheon Young-jae glanced sideways at me.

Jealous?

Weird.

Why would he be?

How does some L-Miris wannabe think she can sit at the same table as a myth like Skelton?

I’ve seen the world go mad inside the Crack, seen everything twisted beyond comprehension—but even that doesn’t help me make sense of Cheon Young-jae’s weird little rivalry.

But sometimes, the world takes an unexpected turn.

“Do you know M9?”

...Huh?

Why bring up M9 now?

If this boy’s burning with awe from meeting a legendary hero, shouldn’t he be asking about me?

Why’s he bringing up M9—the unlucky friend whose status is still unknown?

I pushed the question aside and nodded.

“I know him.”

Then added,

“He was a fun guy.”

That’s the only compliment I can give him.

Telling a ten-year-old that M9 was a survival genius, agile like a gibbon, or had an unbreakable mental core—no, not the right audience.

Also, the fact that I used past tense—was—shows that deep down, I’ve accepted he might be gone.

I wasn’t there, but during the brief time Defender waged his coup, countless people died.

It wasn’t a planned massacre, but his brutal followers treated Seoul citizens like fanatics—and in that chaos, many disappeared.

M9 might’ve died in that mess.

“I like him the most.”

“Really?”

What I felt wasn’t irritation or competition—but curiosity.

That’s growth, isn’t it?

I asked the boy gently—by my standards.

“What do you like about M9?”

He answered without hesitation.

“He’s so cool and different! Everyone else is busy fighting, but he just quietly went into the most dangerous places and lived in peace. Doesn’t that sound like a fairy tale? I was so excited when I first heard someone like that existed in Seoul!”

Looking at his expression, I could tell he wasn’t lying.

I asked, keeping my poker face to hide the gut-punch.

“Who’s your second favorite?”

He replied.

“Dongtanmom!”

Before I could ask more, his mom stepped in.

“That’s enough. Time to study. Okay? You’re gonna be a great doctor like your dad, remember? If you’re a doctor, you can survive anywhere—even without us.”

And just like that, she dragged Dongtak away.

Honestly, I can’t blame her. From a parental standpoint, you wouldn’t want your kid idolizing someone like Dongtanmom.

Still, it stung.

“......”

I spaced out for a moment.

Cheon Young-jae glanced over—but I didn’t care.

The shock was too big.

Skelton... losing to M9 and Dongtanmom?

The word nightmare never felt more real.

“Everyone’s got their own taste.”

Cheon Young-jae muttered.

“Yeah... I guess.”

I pushed the shock aside and got back to work.

And that’s when, after a long absence, M9 finally resurfaced.

I’d just finished my shower, sitting at the computer in my underground bunker.

Message from mmmmmmmmm:

So you’re alive too, huh?

It was a message... from M9.