Everyone has desires. A flashy sports car, a respected profession, or a luxury apartment in a rich district that stirs the soul of any Korean. The problem lies in methodology. Most people crash into the wall of reality and either give up or compromise on their desires.

In my case, compromise is not an option. All signs and circumstances point to my colleague’s wrongdoing. From the days when we were still young and pure, he was already showing glimpses of inhumanity. Now he has moved far beyond the realm of understanding.

To put it simply, the problem is this: how do I kill Kang Han-min?

There are countless obstacles, and each of them is made up of elements so difficult as to seem nearly impossible. Right now we’re already facing the massive invasion of monsters. According to the message Woo Min-hee sent us, an uncountable horde is being spawned at the entrance to the Paju Rift.

I told IAmJesus about it, and he said with a grave expression that he’d think it over carefully. But most of Sejong shows no sign of taking my warning seriously.

I learned that from the intranet message boards, the ones that only work inside Sejong and are known only to those who know someone who knows. For a force the size of Sejong, it’s not surprising to have an intranet. With today’s freedom from copyright restrictions, all it takes is equipment and technicians to set up as many networks as you want, and they’re convenient to use.

But Sejong’s intranet is fragmented, reflecting its fractured politics. Instead of one unified system, it’s a mess of small, scattered networks.

For example, there’s “LoyaltyNet,” supposedly used by ex-military Legion faction members. Just logging in, the stench of army mess hall rice seems to hit you in the face with its crude interface and posts.

20313: Loyalty! Reporting in from Damyang OP.

20312: Regarding the joint drinking party scheduled tomorrow.

20311: Loyalty! From the Sejong Accounting Corps (apologies regarding shortages of daily necessities).

20310: [Must Read] Disciplinary action report on the 82nd Regiment’s AWOL returnee.

20309: Congratulations! Major Kang Kyung-jin of Signals is getting married!

20308: Loyalty! Reporting observation from Ganghwa OP!

...

I’d seen this kind of board back in FailNet. It feels like within the larger framework of FailNet, different social groups created their own pseudo-command hierarchies as they pleased. Since Sejong doesn’t have anything like FailNet, they seem to have cobbled together these small regional networks.

Most of the boards IAmJesus showed me were like that. Posts go up, but there’s no human warmth. Only one board, called “Hae-an” (The Shore), has anything resembling an anonymous community with a human voice. But that human smell is far from pleasant.

Diego_son: Hired a maid, and this bitch is stealing again. Can’t we just cut her hand off without bothering with court?

pingpong32: For real, redeveloping Daejeon, huh? Better than redeveloping a graveyard city. At least zombies won’t lie down demanding compensation.

PungnimHwasan: How did a clueless bastard like this even get in here? You have to wipe out the natives before you can start redevelopment.

WILL-WOLVES: Why’s Daejeon so far?

PungnimHwasan: Daejeon’s still far off.

WILL-WOLVES: Any real chance of Daejeon redevelopment? Seriously, isn’t there a chance?

RoyalSalute23: Isn’t it about time we start filtering who comes from Seoul? Too many low-quality types.

ZombieKS: Any pretty bitches would’ve been scooped up by powerful guys long ago.

DDD: Why do all the bitches rolling in from Seoul have such busted faces?

GoodTag: Where do you think the next new city will be built?

...

Greed stinks off every word. The ones who can use this board are only the established elite who’ve settled into Sejong. Unlike FailNet, where anyone with a cell phone could log in, Hae-an requires physical access to fiber optic lines. Unless you’re one of the privileged few who got a hardwired connection, you can’t get in.

That limitation is deliberate. By tying it to the installation of fiber lines, they control the qualifications of who gets to join. In short: not just anyone gets in.

They may curse and use anonymity, but everyone active on Hae-an lives in Sejong’s most luxurious, powerful districts. Their gaze, like the citizens before the war, stays fixed only on what’s right in front of them. Interests, greed, booze, and women.

I’ve seen countless boards, including FailNet, but Hae-an disgusts me more than any other—soaked through with arrogance and corruption. I’m not planning to participate. I just wanted to confirm what the people currently running Sejong are thinking.

As expected, scrolling through only confirmed my first impression: not a single one of them is thinking about the future. Even with Seoul fallen, Jeon Si-hoon corrupted, and a massive army of monsters from beyond the Rift preparing to invade, they act as if it has nothing to do with them. Their attitude is no different from those “solid citizens” who once mocked us doomsday preppers.

I had no desire to post anything.

“Are you departing?”

Captain Nam offered to drive me back. I didn’t refuse.

In the vehicle heading back to the bunker, I asked casually: “If a large-scale monster offensive comes soon, what will you do?”

“Monsters?” He paused to think. As expected, he’s another so-called realist. Once a situation hardens into place, people assume it’s stable, sustainable, and judge only from the ground they stand on.

“Well... Sejong is in a Shangri-La position. It’s decently far from Paju, and not too close to anywhere else either.”

He’s never once considered a massive assault hitting Sejong. If someone like Captain Nam thinks that way, how much worse must the rest be?

Still, not everyone is blind.

“A monster offensive? Coming again?”

That was Yeom Da-wan, still stationed near New Seoul. He’s a veteran regular Awakened who’s long worked inside the Rift. So he could at least argue.

“It could happen. But hasn’t the population dropped too much? It’s not like in your China days, Hunter Park, when hundreds of millions lived inside a single Rift radius. We don’t even have a million now. You’re saying that many Kraken-types will spawn?”

I had no rebuttal. His words match the accepted truth. Rift strength has always been proportional to nearby population. That rule held all the way through humanity’s collapse.

But recently, especially in the West, exceptions have begun appearing. I told him the reports I’d gotten from the North America boards on Viva! Apocalypse! before the Korean service shut down.

“So you’re saying it might not depend on population anymore?”

“There’s a high chance.”

“That would mean the Rift has a will of its own.”

That could be true. I personally believe the Rift itself has will. But its will isn’t like ours. It’s a matter of scale. I don’t think it literally decides, “Let’s spawn a few more monsters here.” There must be something else we don’t yet know.

The Rift does have will, but it also follows certain laws.

“...Maybe there’s something that calls monsters. Like the old lighthouse in North Korea.”

“The lighthouse just lured already-spawned monsters.”

“Right. But what if there’s something that actually increases the numbers? We’ve seen new types appear—like infiltration types that call in allies.”

“That’s still different from multiplying their numbers.”

We talked at length but came to no conclusion. Everything is speculation. We’ll only know by seeing the results firsthand.

“For now, since Director Woo gave the warning, it’s best to wait and watch.”

“Understood. But we can’t wait forever.”

Not just Yeom Da-wan—I passed my concern to everyone around me. Kim Daram said she understood, and Cheon Young-jae said he’d prepare on his own. I’d already told the Defender siblings long ago. Whether they’ll come to the Tower with me is still unknown. At least there’s a chance.

Kim Daram’s hatred for Kang Han-min runs even deeper than I imagined. Naturally so—she saw both his darkest and his brightest times.

Anyway, I’ve given notice to those around me. But there’s one more. One more person I have in mind: my old colleague Gong Kyung-min.

I want to wake him from his hibernation in Seoul’s outskirts. He’s an excellent hunter and knows Kang Han-min well. It might even have been Kang Han-min who drove him into incomprehensible seclusion. Gong Kyung-min was closer than Kim Daram, right at Han-min’s side when he changed. For such a cheerful, resilient man to abandon the world... it only shows how dark Kang Han-min’s shadow is.

We may be estranged as friends, but I still believe the bond of our school days hasn’t been cut.

“Those kids?” 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

I told Mark Two about Kang Han-min’s children. A terrible story, but one she needed to hear. I didn’t show the photos. No need. I only told her that his children had attacked my friend and died.

“...I wasn’t that close to them. You all knew, right? That I was different. You can tell just by looking. Even dogs shun those of a different breed.”

I’d avoided asking about her facility life, but I knew it hadn’t been happy. Maybe the only reason she survived with sanity intact was because she inherited Woo Min-hee’s genes.

“At the time I kept my distance, but looking back, they weren’t such bad kids. They were like me—afraid to make the first move. Oh, and the teacher didn’t like me. That teacher. He hated me.”

As I thought, the children we saw that day were nothing more than ordinary kids who should have grown up loved. To twist them into tools of murder, then warp them further into monsters by some unknown means—that’s what fuels my resolve to kill Kang Han-min, and why I must face old colleagues I’d rather not see again.

“Are you going out again?”

As I prepared to leave, Mark Two asked with a hurt look. I thought for a moment.

“Want to come with me?”

“Would that be okay?”

It could be dangerous. Sending a child into danger could make me seem no different from the Kang Han-min I despise. But our time is running out. Han-min’s madness runs deeper than I imagined. Woo Min-hee and her allies may be buying us time, but soon we’ll face his true intent.

So I won’t impose restrictions on myself anymore.

“Can I bring Badu-gi too?”

She looked eager. She’s inherited 100% of Woo Min-hee’s love of wandering.

“Yeah. That mutt’s got to earn his keep.”

Vrrroooom—

I rolled out my treasure from the depths of the garage: my buggy car, one of my few luxuries. I filled it with the premium fuel I’d hoarded like a relic, and the engine roared like a beast.

“We’re taking this? Not the little bike?”

“Why, you want something else?”

“No. I like this.”

“I figured.”

“Why?”

“Min-hee liked fancy cars too. She rode in every good one she could, with one man after another.”

Even revealing Min-hee’s truths I’d kept hidden feels like lifting restrictions.

Of course, I still wonder: will Gong Kyung-min open his steel door for me when I arrive?

...He will. I believe he will. I know him well. A man who worried more about the world than me wouldn’t settle for artificial companions—especially Rift-spawned ones.

Our school gathered only those who hated monsters. Otherwise, no one could have endured the brutal training or Instructor Jang Ki-young’s constant abuse.

“Let’s go.”

Smoke rose in the distance, here and there. Each plume meant danger. But I didn’t lift my foot off the accelerator.

I’ll try everything. I’ll lift each small restriction I’ve placed on myself. Because that is the first step to killing the old colleague who has stripped away all his own.