Before the internet became a common part of everyday life, prominent scholars and influential futurists spoke with hopeful anticipation, predicting that it would bring about a grand unification of humanity—something that until then had only existed in imagination.

According to them, the internet was a starting point for human evolution: a borderless space without race, without wealth disparity, without physical appearance or any other external barrier—where human beings could communicate purely and internationally with one another.

But reality is always a sewer.

We’ve watched the internet ruin the world.

Inequality has only grown worse, and we’ve seen, in real time, people like Kim Daram creating “company name” badges next to their nicknames, and asset management apps adding features like “Show Off My Wealth.”

Geographic boundaries may have faded, but in their place, generational and even tribal conflicts have flared hot across the Korean Peninsula.

Parents obsessed with their children’s education cut off their kids’ internet access entirely.

In the West, some countries proposed laws banning anyone under sixteen from using social media.

For them, the internet was poison—and they treated it like poison.

But I believe in the internet’s positive function.

I’m not from the PC-communication generation, but my old mentor, Jang Ki-young, used to lament how the world wasn’t what it used to be, speaking fondly of the polite people from the PC-communication days.

Of course, considering the man kept that “Windows genuine copy” watermark stuck at the bottom of his screen forever, maybe that nostalgia wasn’t entirely accurate. Still—whatever the case, I believe in the internet’s positive function.

Yes, the negative incidents and influences caused by the internet that make the news are undeniably serious—but away from the media spotlight, we know there are men and women who met online, dated, and went on to build happy families, complete with love stories that became their foundations.

The fact that the internet has provided revolutionary convenience in everyday life is a truth that internet abolitionists—who, ironically enough, use the internet to write their abolitionist arguments—will never mention.

Above all, the internet is, in the end, a human game.

And humans are fundamentally altruistic and social creatures.

I believe in the internet’s positive function.

I believe in the miracles that positive function can bring.

Our board has created such miracles more than once.

Even I, a pure-blood, first-generation oldbie, admit that the board’s decline isn’t far off—but I want our board to perform one last internet-born miracle.

The spark for that wish came from a rare message from my junior, Woo Min-hee.

*

Message from gijayangban: Logged onto the board for the first time in a while, and what do I see? A photo of the VK bunker plastered right there.

As I always say, someone’s malice doesn’t necessarily lead to a bad outcome.

That post came from some one-day-fly—someone who barely showed up before disappearing again. Maybe it was Anonymous5023, though he doesn’t post anymore.

But that one photo made Min-hee send me a message.

Message from gijayangban: Out of the people still alive, the only ones who know that bunker’s location are me and Na-sunbae. I once joked that if the world really went to hell, the two of us should hole up there together.

Message from gijayangban: Originally, I was the only one who knew. Back when I was a nominal lab director in Incheon, I stumbled across it while poking around a classified folder.

Message from gijayangban: So if a picture of it’s floating around, it means Na-sunbae must have told someone else about it. And if that “someone” clearly isn’t him but has taken the place over? To me, that looks like a sign Na-sunbae is still alive.

SKELTON: Your reasoning’s unique, but yeah—he’s alive. The circumstances when he moved in weren’t exactly great, though. The place was a field of corpses.

Message from gijayangban: Really? There were bodies inside? So someone had been living there. I was sure it was abandoned. Never went myself—living in a bunker sounds worse to me than dying on the roof of a luxury hotel.

She said that the moment she saw the bunker we’d abandoned, she thought of me.

She had her reasons—and they were sharp ones.

Message from gijayangban: If Na-sunbae told anyone about that place, it’d be me or you. His human connections are... abnormally sparse. I guess mine are too, looking back—but even I had a few dozen people I kept in touch with, at least on the surface.

Message from gijayangban: I knew it. Na-sunbae always thought you were special.

Message from gijayangban: You could just tell. For someone who never talks about other people, to bring you up... even the densest person would notice something was different.

I asked her:

SKELTON: Where are you now? Jeju?

She’d be in Jeju, of course.

I told myself that, but some part of me hoped she was closer.

Message from gijayangban: Jeju.

So she was in Jeju after all.

Message from gijayangban: Things are getting interesting here.

She sent me a picture.

Another big development I had half-suspected became crystal clear in that photo.

The island once called “paradise” had turned into hell.

The rift was closed—but because it was closed, the island had become a battlefield that would never end.

Japanese refugees and the warlords and entrenched elites who’d fled to Jeju were waging battles that came close to full-scale war.

Refugee or not, the Japanese weren’t easy opponents—not when they’d absorbed the Self-Defense Forces’ soldiers and weapons wholesale.

Above all, they had the most primal motivation of all: the will to live.

The soldiers allied with Kim So-uk were piling up mountains of corpses along the coastline to block the Japanese landing, but the Japanese, knowing there was no rift on Jeju, surged forward like the tide.

Message from gijayangban: The navy’s out of shells now, I think. Heard they’re ramming ferries with ships—what was the term? “Chung-gak”? Like, sinking the ferries the Japanese came on by smashing into them.

Message from gijayangban: But they’re low on fuel too. The naval base has facilities for producing synthetic fuel, but only enough to keep their warships running.

Message from gijayangban: Now, with over ten thousand new people here, guess what happens? Jeju may be warmer than Seoul, but it’s still cold in winter.

Jeju’s end was near.

Ironically, there was only one way left for the Koreans still on Jeju to survive—

The rift’s return.

It’s only a theory, but thinking back to what I saw inside a rift, I’m convinced it can be reopened as well as closed.

For humanity, it would be despair—but my instincts whisper that my knowledge is correct.

SKELTON: And you? Are you safe?

It was true that there were few who could threaten Min-hee, but that didn’t mean an Awakened was invincible.

They still needed food, medicine, and fuel for heat in winter.

On an island engulfed in war, getting supplies would be near impossible, and a stray bullet or shell could kill her like anyone else.

Message from gijayangban: Me? Living separately, with other people. Yeah. I swore I’d never live in a bunker, but here I am.

SKELTON: Alone?

Message from gijayangban: Not alone—two of us.

SKELTON: (Skelton Shock) ?!

Message from gijayangban: What’s with that reaction? Who I live with is none of your business, right?

SKELTON: Well, yeah, but—

Message from gijayangban: Ta-daa~

Message from gijayangban: (Attachment)

She sent a picture.

In it, Min-hee looked a little more worn than before, standing with a sullen-faced young girl who looked like a miniature version of her, the dark interior of a bunker behind them.

SKELTON: Is that... did you pull her out of there?

Message from gijayangban: Yeah. Kang Han-min was taking everyone—left her behind. She’s my kid, after all. Or maybe another me? Anyway, she’s the only blood I have left, so I’m not handing her over to him.

SKELTON: I see.

I felt a flicker of relief.

Not so much because she’d saved a girl I didn’t know, but because she still had the will to act on that kind of motivation.

But warmth doesn’t last long in the cold.

Min-hee was still in danger.

She had to leave Jeju.

Leave the battlefield that had once been called paradise.

SKELTON: Can you get here?

Message from gijayangban: Here? Where’s here?

SKELTON: Foxgames’ bunker.

I briefly explained.

Message from gijayangban: Ah. He’s dead too?

Message from gijayangban: I thought he’d never die.

Message from gijayangban: You alone?

SKELTON: Not alone.

SKELTON: Daram, Cheon Young-jae, and one woman you don’t know.

Message from gijayangban: A woman I don’t know?

Message from gijayangban: ???

SKELTON: Picked her up because she could code. Planning to make a second PaleNet. She’s not that good, honestly—I think it was a mistake.

Message from gijayangban: How old? Pretty?

SKELTON: About two years younger than you. Average. But Young-jae likes her.

Message from gijayangban: I see.

Message from gijayangban: But, sunbae—

Message from gijayangban: It’s not easy to get out right now.

She sent another picture.

Several drones, exploding mid-air from anti-air fire, over the thoroughly destroyed Jeju Airport.

Message from gijayangban: It’s safer here, so I’ll hold out.

We exchanged a few more messages, but my mind was already fixed on one thing—

How to get Min-hee out of Jeju.

*

There were two options: by sea or by air.

In peacetime, individuals usually flew.

Now, Jeju Airport was in ruins from drone strikes and bombardment.

Planes in fortified hangars might be intact, but fixed-wing aircraft need stable runways to generate lift.

Helicopters were another option, but the fact she hadn’t mentioned them told me they weren’t viable where she was.

One thing was certain—Min-hee and the Jeju government didn’t get along.

If they did, Kim So-uk would have thrown her straight into the fight against the Japanese.

Knowing that, she would have kept her distance.

She wasn’t in immediate mortal danger—she was a powerful Awakened, after all.

Over level 10, she was a walking tactical weapon.

While Kang Han-min excelled at wide-area monster eradication, Min-hee ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) was famed for telekinesis—lifting steel beams with her mind, twisting them into sculptures. Those who’d seen it called it divine.

In combat, she could be even more dangerous than Kang Han-min.

It was like how Defender might be less effective than me at hunting monsters, but unmatched when it came to hunting humans.

But even Min-hee could die to a stray bullet, or be caught in an unexpected blast.

Jeju was no longer livable.

Even survival struggles between people who spoke the same language were cruel and bloody—war between those who didn’t share a tongue would only end with one side’s annihilation.

But how to get her out?

I couldn’t go to Jeju—physically impossible.

No helicopter, no plane.

I could ask Jeon Si-hoon, but I doubted he’d agree.

The answer circled back to the same source—

The internet.

*

I had a contact in Jeju.

I once thought he was gone forever, but he’d survived.

Would he still be alive now?

The Japanese might have spared him, but that was only a temporary reprieve.

In the end, no matter how strange or fascinating he seemed, to them he was still a Korean-speaker from an enemy nation.

Still, I trusted his people skills—and maybe even his survival instinct, which might surpass mine.

I’d never checked in on M9 before because sometimes an unfinished state is better than a finished one.

It’s like having a box—inside is news about someone you once loved but lost touch with.

It might contain their obituary. Or it might contain a gift from them.

Odds are, it’s the former.

Some people would open the box right away, but others would tuck it away in a storeroom, unopened.

That’s how I felt about M9.

Not checking if he was alive wasn’t ideal, but I’d always hoped my internet friend had lasted as long as I had.

It was time to find out.

“...”

Tap, tap.

SKELTON: M9. You alive?

I wasn’t expecting a reply.

One minute later—

Message from mmmmmmmmm: (Captain M9) Yessir!

The message had arrived.