Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For some reason, even though I’d half-expected it, the train was surprisingly crowded.

It was the crush of the evening rush hour. Office workers were finally coming off from work, school children were going home from tutoring just in time for dinner, and damn near everybody in Seoul was packed in on the subway. There was barely enough space to stand, let alone sit.

I was one of the luckier ones, having snagged a seat off of an early leaver. I’d had to cut in front of several businessmen and sideswipe a particularly bleached highschooler to do it but in the end I was the one sitting and they were left standing, so I did not consider myself the loser in this scenario.

Thud.

The train shook a little as it passed over some uneven tracks and my neighbour’s wheeled shopping bag slammed into my knee again. I smiled through the pain as the highschooler sniggered at me.

Not that he had much to be smug about. At least I didn’t have the fashion travesty that was his hair. I didn’t think anybody actually went for the fully bleached-white look nowadays, but anecdotal evidence proved me wrong.

The train jostled again, but before the trolley could barrel into me once more, I caught it by the handle, stopping it abruptly. The old lady next to me startled, now fully roused from her exciting round of whatever game she was playing on her phone.

“Sorry,” I said, still smiling, pushing the handle into her hands. “Your cart keeps crashing into me.”

She took it from me, and without another word, promptly turned back to her game.

Rude.

Across from me, two coworkers chatted. In the corner, a little boy swung his feet rhythmically to the passing stanchions.

It was currently exactly seven minutes to seven p.m. In between the outlines of the bridge’s struts, the sun slowly sank down past the horizon.

My phone had no new messages. I tapped it against my knee in the hopes that some data would shake loose and grant me some service.

Ah, no such luck. My inbox remained depressingly empty, the loading circle disappearing from view without any new popups.

A shadow flitted past the window of the door connecting the cars. Reflexively, I checked the number, glancing upwards at the plaque.

3807.

Some tension eased out of me at the confirmation, that I hadn’t tripped up at the starting line. Of course, it was impossible that I would have made a mistake with something as simple as this, but some things just had to be double-checked.

I resisted the urge to glance at my watch, to stare at the seconds hand ticking over.

It was too loud in the train car to hear the mechanical gears clicking, but if I closed my eyes and really tried, I could almost imagine the steady, predictable tick.

One minute, twenty seconds.

To my right, the old lady was poking geriatrically at her phone once more, playing some sort of matching game. It looked like a painfully generic Candy Crush clone, replete with annoying dings and flashing transitions. The cart was once more precariously swaying, the colourful candies obviously more important than my knees.

I surreptitiously wedged a foot against the rubber wheel of the cart.

Being the nosy kind of person that I was, I squinted a bit to try and catch a glimpse of what level she was on—probably some ridiculously inflated number—

Then the lights cut out. In the space of a single moment, Seoul plunged into darkness. The train screeched, metal shrieking against metal, people screaming, the train car jerking and rocking as it lurched to a sudden stop.

The passengers were in a flurry of confusion, a myriad of lights flickering on from various phone screens. The faces of the crowd turned ghoulish in the half-light, shadows thrown strangely and their expressions twisted towards fear.

Theoretically, there were perhaps only a few other people in the entire world that knew precisely what was happening at this exact moment in time. Two were even on this very train.

I was sure, however, that I was the only one to feel relieved.

Step one complete: obtain a seat on the 3434 train to Bulgwang, train car 3807. The current time: seven o’clock in the evening, August 3rd.

There was a pop and a flash, a sparking. Something moved in the darkness, alive and heaving. For a singular moment the only thing to be heard was the quiet hush of frightened breath, the passengers almost in complete unison, an amalgam of collective terror.

For a moment, the atmosphere was thick with an almost narrative tension.

The first minute past the hour ticked over quietly, with a tock.

As the free service of planetary system #8612 ended, I moved onto step two: prove my worth.

To be completely honest, most humans aren’t really all that bad. Contrary to most apocalyptic novels, movies, games, what-have-you, people do tend to band together in a time of crisis. There’s a reason why after natural disasters, there’s a sudden onslaught of news stories about heroic deeds and humanitarian acts. For every ‘villain’, there are at least three people all helping each other. And even then, at the very bare minimum, the worst the average person would do is watch apathetically as disaster strikes.

This is all, of course, predicated on the idea that there isn’t a clear incentive to do harm.

The promise of a life longer than thirty minutes was probably one of the clearest incentives one could get to commit cold blooded murder.

What a pain.

It was such a shitty concept.

A world mired in creature comforts, pretending at civility and order, only to be thrown into chaos when the apocalypse comes, ripping away the false mask of humanity and revealing the animal beneath.

What lengths would that beast called man go to, just to simply survive?

What feats of greatness could he achieve in the absence of limiting chains like the law and basic human decency?

Find out next time, exclusively streamed via DokkaebiTV!

Ugh. It was a thoroughly cynical, provocatively sardonic cliché.

I grimaced. In any case, this was still the story being told right now. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

Perhaps a couple sections downwind of me, the old lady lay crumpled to the ground, groaning. Her patterned padded jacket was dirtied and torn, a few cloud-like wisps of hair coming loose. Her arms shook as she tried to push herself up, and failed.

Previously, she’d gotten up when the train had stopped, then had gotten swept along with the crowd when the dokkaebi had made his speech.

It seemed as if some things really were destined to occur, no matter what happened.

That white-haired kid, the one whose seat I had stolen, had taken charge like a pro, whipping up the other passengers into a lynching. Most had gathered around him, like moths to a flame, nodding along.

“That old woman, hasn’t she already lived long enough? Her death can save the rest of us!”

The rest of the passengers echoed the sentiment, a perfect call and response. Already, they started glaring at the old grandmother, for the sin of living. I could see many already visibly tensing, taut as a bow at full draw.

It would perhaps take only a couple more sentences to drive these formerly law-abiding citizens into whole-heartedly remorseless murderers. If I wanted to, I could try and predict the lines that they would say in self-rationalisation after the fact.

And I was still seated, looking at that scene.

Eight minutes until the scenario ended. I could see the timer clearly in the corner of my vision, ticking down by the second.

Her phone was by my foot, face up, screen cracked.

She was three moves from losing the game.

I could see the level she was on.

9, 291.

I turned it off.

For a perfect interjection, one had to wait for the perfect moment. At ten minutes, fifty-eight seconds, a certain someone decided to indulge in their pyromania.

The train shook, the burning heat rushing past. As the passengers stumbled and screamed, I saw him move as if he had been waiting all his life for this opportunity.

The first murder was achieved. Insect guts dripped down Kim Dokja’s sleeve, black and glistening and viscous.

It had been exactly two seconds until the time limit. Although I almost didn’t want to, I felt some admiration in my heart for his sense of timing.

He was almost grinning.

The rest of the car scrambled like children for the last piece of candy after dinner. And so, for a brief moment, nobody was looking.

The old grandmother and I, we were the only two who were not distracted by unnecessary theatrics. She by necessity and I by design.

“Halmeonim,” I said quietly. “Would you like some help?”

After a brief, trembling moment, she nodded.

I bent down by the grandmother, taking hold of her by the arm and setting her upright. In turn, she grasped my hand tightly, fingers digging into my wrist.

I pulled her along, dragging her to the priority seating area right by the train doors at the end of the car. Behind me, Kim Dokja stalled Kim Namwoon with philosophical debate. The rest were mostly too preoccupied with bug catching to even give the pair of us a second look.

Shrieks, curses, sobs. Grown men and women clawed at each other for even that scant chance to live. Some might have called the scene pathetic: adults led around by the nose with such simple manipulations but—

They just didn’t want to die.

Any sort of contempt just sort of collapsed under its own weight when confronted with that fact. Like a sandcastle perched precariously at the shoreline.

“Young man,” the grandmother said to me, her voice startlingly steady. “Are you not going?”

Ah. She had paid more attention to everything than I had thought. For some reason, I really hadn’t thought that she would have even noticed.

I hadn’t even really thought that she’d be an annoying commuter with a loose hand on her shopping bag, but here we were.

“No,” I said, taking the seat next to her. I had already reached into my bag, pulling out an overpriced bouquet. With my other hand, I fished a lighter out of my pants pocket, pulling it out with a flourish.

I was somewhat gratified that I had stuck the timing. Then, I indulged in my own inner pyromaniac.

As the lilies burned, along with all their complimentary accoutrements and hangers-on, I handed an extra stalk to her. She took it, expression unreadable.

Or at least, I didn’t understand her well enough to read it.

If she was suspicious of me, it was a good instinct to have. Although, perhaps a little annoying since I was on the receiving end of it.

I decided to prompt her a little. It would be a great shame if I went through all that effort to save her life, only for time to run out before I could reap the rewards of that decision.

I smiled, “Time’s running out, Grandmother. If you want to live, you will have to make it quick.”

I kept an eye on the time. Two minutes until heads went ‘asplode.

That white-haired kid, Kim Namwoon, was nearly at his end. I looked at him.

That office worker I had sat across from a scant few minutes ago, Kim Dokja— I looked at him.

Two paths seemed to unspool before me at that moment. I attempted to balance the scales in my head. Make a list with two columns: for or against.

One minute, fifty-two seconds. Fifty-one. Fifty.

…weighing a life? Judging its importance?

I stood up, suddenly, a little unsettled, ignoring the almost indignant buzzing of my phone in my pocket, the irrelevant mutterings of the people around me.

Then, because I could, I stepped closer. Closer. Closer still, breaching the gap they had carved out for themselves amongst the rest of the people in the train. I walked past a small boy whose hands were already wet, a businessman crawling underneath the seats, an office worker desperately throwing themselves against a soldier just to grasp a grasshopper.

The shrieks only grew louder with the ticking of the timer. A lady bashed the head of a fellow coworker with her high-heeled shoe, knocking them both into the crowd. The rest ignored them both, scrambling over each other to keep searching for insects.

Nobody gave them a second glance.

Nobody here wanted to die.

And who could blame them?

“—now, there is one minute left.” Kim Dokja was saying. Then suddenly, he glanced at me, Kim Namwoon following his gaze.

“Sorry,” I said, reflexively. “Am I interrupting?”

Kim Namwoon recognised me instantly. “You—you’re the one who stole my seat!”

“And you’re the kid who nearly started a lynching,” I said. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Jung Hyunwoo.”

I glanced at Kim Dokja. His expression was eerily blank, staring almost through me as if he were assessing me. I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking.

Tadak, tadak—!

[Exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ has blocked the exclusive skill ‘Character List’!]

Kim Dokja’s gaze grew more and more strange.

I talked faster. Fifty-five seconds.

“I couldn’t help but overhear.”

In my hand, I had a final stalk of lilies. White and bulbous, the fat petals drooped down with their own weight. The yellow-green leaves spread wide. It was truly an unattractive plant, too full of holes to be considered pretty. It had really cost too much.

Small black dots crawled over and under the petals and leaves.

“If you really want, you can keep trying to kill each other. I just thought I’d remind you of an alternative instead of going on and on about killing human beings.”

Fifty seconds.

Kim Namwoon reflexively clutched his knife, fingers trembling. His arms were shaking with exertion—it was truly hard to be in a life-or-death battle.

He kept gasping for breath, white-bleached hair pressed slickly against his skull. His eyes, nearly glazed over, kept trying to focus on me. He licked his lips, trying to size me up, trying to decide whether or not to believe me.

He wanted to live. He desperately wanted to live, more than anything. I could recognise that look in his eyes.

I was a possible foothold. Seemingly defenseless, close enough that one quick strike could tear my throat out before anyone else could respond. Stupid enough for kindness, nobody would blame him for seizing the opportunity.

Forty seconds.

I sympathised. But not to the extent that I would die for him. Instead of possibly dealing with all that messy knifework, I decided to force the decision.

I tossed the last stalk of lilies at him, in a high arc.

…

[The given time has run out. Paid settlement will begin.]

Kim Namwoon’s knife had clattered to the ground.

And on top of it, the lily lay crumpled, the leaves twisted and bent.

Kim Namwoon wiped his black-streaked hands on his jacket disgustedly, making a face as he did so.

I couldn’t help but throw him a sidelong glance. Would have killing a human being been that much cleaner?

Behind me, the rest of the train car died screaming. Resentful and unresigned.

…

Whatever.  

I took the moment to read my notifications, surreptitiously raising my scanty stats by a few levels. One really could never be too careful in the apocalypse after all.

The rest of the survivors were also probably reading. I counted them off as I looked about the carriage, stopping only on the last: that old lady with the shopping trolley.

[A few constellations are impressed with your scenario. The constellations have gifted you 200 coins.]

I immediately put it towards agility, already feeling a little faster. And, a little more patient with that grandmother, who had already achieved a 100% return on investment.

Kim Namwoon, however, was a pitiful second place.

Outside, the sun was still setting the Yellow Sea ablaze with gold fire. The dying light illuminated the headless corpses scattered like abandoned dolls, limbs akimbo and askew as if they had been dropped in the middle of play.

Almost automatically, I began counting. One, the actor. Two, the schoolgirl. Three, the lady with red-heeled shoes.

Four—

[Oh wow! Eight whole survivors, I’m impressed with the standard of new incarnations nowadays! That is certainly a departure from the norm, don’t you think, dear constellations?]

Bihyung was certainly happy. He was lit up with a sparkling cloud of stars, the twinkling lights of the constellations gathered around him like the world’s shittiest sha-la-la effect. I counted twenty-three, which I supposed wasn’t too surprising, considering the usually relatively terrible pass/fail ratio of this scenario.

[Survivors from the 3434 train to Bulgwang, carriage 3807: Kim Dokja, Lee Hyunsung, Yoo Sangah, Han Myungoh, Lee Gilyoung, Kim Namwoon, Im Jungsook, Jung Hyunwoo. A total of eight survivors.]

I supposed then, that the name of the grandmother next to me was Im Jungsook, by process of elimination.

Courteously, because it seemed that the others were gathering towards the centre of the cabin, I offered Im Jungsook an arm.

After a moment, she took it, whereupon we both went together to pick up her walking stick.

[A few constellations are impressed with your good deed. 100 coins have been sponsored.]

Im Jungsook was now at 200% ROI. She rose a few notches in my good opinion.

My Sponsor Selection window came and went, flickering by almost instantly as the rest deliberated on their choices. Meanwhile, I took stock. My bag was now empty, the flowers having served their use. I folded it up and stuck it into my jacket pocket.

Throughout, my gaze kept drifting to the door separating 3807 and 3707.

Behind that door, blackened with soot, I thought I could faintly see a shadow. Flickering. In lockstep with the mounting tension, I also found I had a sense of anticipation, much akin to the few tottering steps before a sheer drop off a cliff.

Soon. Very soon. I double-checked my pockets, making sure I still had everything I needed for the next scenario.

I set my watch.

Meanwhile, the Sponsor Selection ended.

[Oh? Well, one of you has certainly made an interesting choice… In any case, if you regret it, there will be another chance.] Bihyung looked out upon us all. [Now, since you’ve crossed this hurdle, wait a moment. The next scenario will be coming shortly.]

Haha. Yes. But before that, I would have to first successfully pass a very different sort of trial: social activity.

Kim Dokja was the one who took charge, and Lee Hyunsung was the first to reciprocate.

“Hey, wait, why’re we all listening to this grasshopper-ahjussi?”

But some people didn’t get with the program. I was suddenly reminded of all the reasons why I found teenagers annoying.

“W-what? If it weren’t for Dokja-ssi, we’d all be dead.”

Kim Namwoon snorted, “And in spite of that ahjussi, I’m alive.”

The atmosphere got a little complicated with that declaration. I wanted to check everyone’s expressions, but held myself back from that urge.

“And in spite of you, young man,” Im Jungsook said, “I am alive, so let’s not quibble over small details.” Decisively, she introduced herself to me.

“I am Im Jungsook.”

She grasped me by the hand. Her palm was rough but warm. I could clearly feel the bones of her fingers.

I shook her hand gently.

“Jung Hyunwoo,” I said in return.

‘Im Jungsook’. I rolled the name around on my tongue. It was a stranger’s name. But even as I was grasping her hand, she seemed to become more defined, more real, after naming herself.

“Thank you,” she, Im Jungsook, said. The distinction felt important. “You saved my life.”

“You saved your own life,” I said, a little uncomfortably. All that I’d really done was give her a chance.

A hand clapped onto my shoulder. “Thanks, Jung Hyunwoo. That ahjussi really would’ve just let me die, but thanks to you, I’m still alive.”

I turned to see Kim Namwoon grinning at me, fully bounced back with the help of Unusual Adaptability.

This brat. Since when did he have the wherewithal to stop speaking formally? Perhaps it was something to do with the method, but I was sure that if I had saved his life in a more bombastic way he wouldn’t be so relaxed in speaking to me.

Damn, if only I was cooler. Or wore a black trenchcoat.

“So, next time, could you choose a less depressing plant? I felt like I was attending a funeral back then.”

…I really wanted to hit him. Just once. But for the sake of my image, I strangled that urge in the cradle.

[Due to your involvement in Kim Namwoon’s survival, two constellations show a faint approval of you.]

And because of that, of course. But, instead of vague words like ‘approval’, I would have liked it so much better if they had expressed their friendliness in cold hard coins.

Meanwhile, Kim Dokja was getting his own thanks and looking just as uncomfortable. Having saved so many people, he was directly thrust into the spotlight and thus the centre of attention.

I sure was glad I wasn’t him.

Then, I saw Han Myungoh sauntering up behind Kim Dokja to make an ass of himself. So, to save myself from witnessing such a disaster in motion, I made an executive decision.

“Did you hear that?”

Instantly, the train car was dead silent. Everyone’s gaze turned to me.

“Hear what?” Han Myungoh said. “Young man, don’t try and play tricks, the situation’s bad enough as it is—”

Kuuong!

The door between carriages caved inwards. The sound echoed, ringing tinnily. I felt the vibrations under my feet, resonating in my bones.

I stared, a little. Reading all about it was one thing. Bearing witness in the flesh was truly something else.

Once the ringing had petered out, on cue, the door crumpled a little more with another—

Kuuong!

If he was auditioning for a part in a horror movie, he really didn’t need to continue any further. I was certain that he already got the role. Were my hands trembling? I couldn’t quite tell.

“We have to go.”

Kim Dokja’s voice was certain. “If we don’t go now, we’ll all die for sure. We got lucky with our scenario. Since they’re coming from another carriage—”

Kuuong!

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. They’re certain to have killed other people.

“Alright then.” Lee Hyunsung’s voice was a little steadier, a little more sure of himself. “Everyone, let’s try and find a way out.”

Even Kim Namwoon was too in awe of the still further distorting door to argue further. Any other objections were quickly overruled by the concept of an existence who’d survived the first scenario using the conventional method.

As expected, the cabin’s exterior doors were jammed and broken. I would be surprised if they were anything else, considering the abuse they had suffered through since the start of the scenarios. As we made it out anyway, thanks to Lee Hyunsung’s stigma, I began calculating once more.

I’d already sufficiently invested into my agility such that I’d probably make it across without any real issues. The true fly in the ointment was what to do to ensure that Im Jungsook survived this scenario. I’d already taken responsibility by acting in her favour in the first scenario. There would be no point in coming this far just to abandon her now. That would completely ruin my character settings. Especially since there was one more person than I’d previously budgeted for, I’d have to take him into consideration as well.

Eh. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

 As Bihyung carried on complaining above Dongho Bridge, I nudged Kim Namwoon.

“Hey,” I muttered. “Kim Namwoon, invest some coins in agility.”

Not looking away from Bihyung, he shoved me back. “What for, Mister-Seat-Stealer?”

“Dumbass, just do it. I have a feeling we need to start running and I don’t want to have wasted my coins on you.”

Then, because it had been annoying me this entire time: “And if you’re going to keep on speaking to me so familiarly, call me hyung.”

My watch ticked thirty-six minutes past the hour. Four minutes until the ichthyosaur arrived in all its glory. Hopefully, the extra minute would help smooth things along.

I started the timer. Twenty one minutes.

I began running even before the notification was properly displayed, dismissing it with a flick.

[The second scenario has arrived!]

Chapter Text

Coins really were the greatest resource in the Star Stream, especially in the early-game meta. Of course, the best mid-to-late-game strategy was to grind stories for both PvP and PvE, but nothing beat coins for their versatility in levelling up stats, acquiring items, or just plain buying your way out of potential problems.

Which was entirely the reason why I was hauling ass while also hauling Im Jungsook.

[Several constellations that value Confucianism are impressed with your good deed. 200 coins have been sponsored.]

Luckily, Kim Namwoon had listened to my early warning and was nearer the front of the pack, lagging just behind Lee Hyunsung and Lee Gilyoung. Han Myungoh and Yoo Sangah were somewhat behind them, still being in relatively good shape. Im Jungsook and I followed in turn, while Kim Dokja brought up the rear.

It was a bit difficult, since I was running as fast as I could while also being slowed down by Im Jungsook, but I think I still managed to look disappointed in Kim Dokja’s athletic ability. Amongst other things.

[The conditions of use for the exclusive skill ‘Mutuality’ Lv. 1 are no longer applicable! The skill will be cancelled.]

Damn it!

Almost immediately, Im Jungsook slowed down while I involuntarily sped up. 

Then, we both stopped altogether.

“Ah! What the f*ck?!”

At thirty-nine minutes past the hour, Han Myungoh screamed out at the sight of the sea commander ichthyosaur.

…to be perfectly honest, I was ready to start cursing as well.

The least helpful but also the most important descriptor I could give was that it was ‘large’. But it wasn’t just ‘large’. It was huge on a scale I almost couldn’t comprehend. I saw a loop of scales forming in the churning waves and thought that it was its back. Then there were more loops, the jagged part of a fin and I realised that what I had previously seen was only the tiniest fraction of its body.

It was hard to have any sense of scale, when my brain kept insisting that something couldn’t possibly be that big.

But it was.

The bridge started shaking. My ears hurt. Then I realised that it was growling, so bassily deep I almost couldn’t hear it. Over the bridge’s edge, I caught a glimpse of one large, glowing, eye. Its pupil focused on me.

It blinked.

“F*ck me,” I said aloud. Im Jungsook slapped at me reflexively, almost looking like she wanted to scold me for my language.

That was the exact moment when the ichthyosaur decided it needed more minerals in its diet. The ground trembled beneath my feet, the screeching sound of rending metal piercing through my ears.

But, the key point was that it was slow. Even though the bridge started to sway as the ichthyosaur began chewing on it, even though the waters of the Han River frothed up into a whirlpool of scales and bridge fragments, there was absolutely no way we wouldn’t be able to make it safely across. We’d even had an extra minute head start.

Which was exactly the reason why, of course, Bihyung made it worse.

[The scenario’s difficulty has been adjusted! The evil thoughts of the dead have returned and the surrounding earth is filled with black ether. The demonic people rise again!]

And, as if to punctuate the announcement, there was a sudden deep groan, low and rolling. Unsettling, like the off-tone moan of decaying, crumbling scaffolding.

Out of the stopped train, clambering out of doors, even smashing through windows, a horde of zombies streamed out. Unlike the typical movies, they were fast. Very fast, even.

All across the bridge, more zombies staggered up, stumbling out of the shadows of abandoned wrecks and amorphous heaps.

Even though some of them had been nearly dashed to pieces, even though some of them didn’t even have heads, still they moved unerringly towards us.

We needed to run. We needed to outrun the unresigned dead.

[The conditions of use for the exclusive skill ‘Mutuality’ Lv. 1 have been reached! Bringing up the list of applicable subjects.]

1. Kim Namwoon (Affinity 15)
2. Im Jungsook (Affinity 6)
3. Lee Hyunsung (Affinity 13)
4. Han Myungoh (Affinity 3)
5. Yoo Sangah (Affinity 21)
6. Lee Gilyoung (Affinity 12)

I chose Im Jungsook once more. Beside me, Im Jungsook flinched a little at the skill activation, still unused to the sensation.

[‘Im Jungsook’ has accepted the effects of the exclusive skill ‘Mutuality’ Lv. 1.]

[Your affinity with ‘Im Jungsook is low’, limiting the effects of the Mutuality skill.]

[All stat levels will be 70% of the group’s original highest stat level, rounding down, for the duration of this skill.]

In the distance, I saw Lee Hyunsung carry Lee Gilyoung over the finish line. Kim Namwoon, unburdened by anyone else, made it across the safety line as well.

In tacit agreement, Im Jungsook and I ran faster. So long as we arrived at Oksu, the demonic people would no longer be an issue.

We were nearly, almost, practically there. Behind us, the three office workers also ran for their lives.

We almost all made it—

“Get down!”

And then the ichthyosaur finally tore the bridge in half.

Rebar cracked, concrete crumbled, suspension wires snapped and cut through the air with enough force to instantly kill a human on the spot. The world was nothing but dust and noise and screaming, ashy rain and dirt hail.

I’d managed to get down and cover my head, pulling Im Jungsook down with me. When the dust cleared and we got up, we saw what the ichthyosaur had done.

A wide, vast abyss yawned across the gap. Under ordinary circumstances, it was a trivial distance to walk or even run, but utterly impossible to cross with no ground to stand on.

Behind it all, Seoul was on fire.

Also, zombies.

Across the gap, I could see Yoo Sangah, Han Myungoh, and Kim Dokja getting up, relatively unharmed.

Wonderful.

Behind the barrier, Lee Hyunsung and Lee Gilyoung were yelling something, but I was still too far outside the safety zone to hear them, even though I was on the right side of the broken bridge.

But there wasn’t nearly enough time to congratulate myself before, with Im Jungsook’s sudden shout, I had to punch out a zombie.

Luckily, I had leveled up my strength beforehand, otherwise I would have died very quickly. However, I immediately felt the disadvantages of being poor, because the damn thing kept coming back for me.

It looked terrible. Blood had dried whilst dripping down its cheek. Its eyes were glassy even as it glared at me, trying to scratch at me with its black fingernails. Its little pink bobbles were stained red.

Even worse, it was soon joined by a much larger, much fiercer zombie, working together in unnerving concert.

This one was even uglier. Half its skull was caved in by what looked to be a tire iron, the very instrument it held in its hands, still dripping with brain matter and gore. It swung at me fiercely, bits of brain splattering every which way, as the smaller zombie desperately tried to take a bite out of my legs.

I had no proper weapon. I was slower and weaker than these creatures. The maths checked out: my only hope was to escape.

But even if I could run past the barrier for my win condition to kick in, there was no guarantee that it would succeed. And there was no guarantee that Im Jungsook would survive.

I glanced at her.

The smaller one lunged for me, gurgling. Its head nearly wobbled off its neck, gore spilling out of the wound.

“Kuaaack!”

It overreached, and with a swift kick I punted the little bastard backwards towards the edge. It shrieked, wailing, and quick as lightning, the larger zombie caught it just in time.

Damn.

But it distracted them both for long enough that Im Jungsook could swing her cane, sending them downwards. With a roar, the ichthyosaur had dessert, crashing down on the demonic people with a gristly chomp.

The zombies’ last cries echoed through the air. I turned away after a while.

[The exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ has levelled up!]

[The exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ has interfered with ‘Mutuality’!]

[The conditions of use for the exclusive skill ‘Mutuality’ Lv. 1 are no longer applicable! The skill will be cancelled.]

I glanced at Im Jungsook, the woman gasping. Her face had gone pale, and I instantly knew that she would be useless for the rest of this scenario.

“That—” she said, between breaths. “It was a horrible way for them to die.” Her hands trembled, clutching at the handle. The metal cane was a bit dented and banged up, small smears ruining the finish.

I glanced at the group behind the safety barrier and pushed her towards it. “Go sit down.”

Her hand was clammy as she tried to grasp her cane properly. “They screamed so loudly—”

“It’ll all be over soon,” I said. “We’ll get a drink of water then and get you resting comfortably, okay?”

Her hand tightened on my own.

“Have a little more respect,” she said, gaze sharp and tone warning, but before she could say anything more, I cut her off.

“Do you really have any right to complain?” I said. “You helped kill them. Isn’t it a little too late to also pity them?”

And even if she did pity them—what was the point? Nothing could be changed. She couldn’t even guarantee that she wouldn’t do the same thing in the future. All her self-righteous grief and pity would be ultimately only for the sake of soothing her own hurt feelings.

Besides. She’d hardly complained when she’d witnessed a whole train car blow up. Why was she so put out by the deaths of a couple of monsters?

She fell silent. Then, holding onto her cane more tightly, she shuffled behind the barrier, without as so much as a backwards glance.

I guessed that that was what happened when people were saved indiscriminately: sometimes, there were duds.

That done, I checked the scenery behind me.

…once more, it was one thing to have it be described with words, but it was another thing entirely to actually see it in action. Han Myungoh hopped across the Even Bridge whilst Yoo Sangah screamed curses at him, struggling desperately.

Almost instinctively, I nearly moved forward before stopping myself short. Stupid.

I stood still and watched Kim Dokja on the other side alone, fighting against the zombie horde. Even if it had only been a couple of minutes at most, he was still tiring out, still being beaten back.

Even though this was all as expected, I didn’t cross behind the safety barrier. For some perverse reason, I wanted to watch.

My heart thrummed louder. I could feel my pulse in my throat. Even though from this angle the setting sun shone into my eyes, I still wanted to see although I was too far away to make out smaller details.

The sounds of cursing drew closer. Yoo Sangah and Han Myungoh were perhaps only fifty metres from the end, Han Myungoh still hopping faster than most people could run. Yoo Sangah was in the middle of a very impressive censored string of swears, “¡—cara c*lo c*brón, me c*go en tu p*ta madre—!” when there was an abrupt lull in the zombies’ screaming.

And then, there was the loud crunch of fists against zombie flesh. And then, the zombies were screaming for another reason altogether.

Suddenly, I felt a lot better about being on this side of the Even Bridge. I didn’t even really want to cross it anymore.

Kim Dokja could have his meet-and-greet with the cinematic lighting and dramatic wind. Personally, I rather liked keeping the integrity of my neck secure.

The sun set over the Yellow Sea, a high wind blowing. The red glint of dusk glinted off of the broken bridge and rubble. It highlighted Kim Dokja’s profile as he gazed manfully into Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes, convincing him of his absolute sincerity.

“Let me go!”

All things that I assumed to have happened as I tried to squint over the bridge’s length, just barely making out what they were saying.

“Han Myungoh-ssi, put me down !”

“—oo Joonghyuk, I know the future that you don’t know. Make me your companion; I can fill in the parts that you are missing.”

“You pretentious, ungrateful, arrogant—”

“—I will make you my companion.”

“—f*cking b*stard!”

As soon as Yoo Sangah and Han Myungoh made it off the Even Bridge, Han Myungoh immediately dropped Yoo Sangah like a hot potato, sending her crashing against the concrete.

I lunged forward but didn’t quite catch her in time, Yoo Sangah flailing at just the right moment to get me in the stomach and knock the both of us down.

As, rather painfully, I got back up again, I could hear Han Myungoh cursing.

“—really don’t know a good thing when you see it, huh? Sangah-ssi, we’re employees of the same company, but if this is how you treat the people that help you—!”

“Shut up! Dokja-ssi is also a ‘fellow employee’ but you just left him behind! He’s the reason why we all passed the first scenario, so why aren’t you a bit more grateful?”

Han Myungoh sputtered at this, not quite knowing how to react to her glare. He turned red in the face, from anger or embarrassment, I didn’t really know. Nor did I really think I could begin to separate the two.

“That—That’s not necessarily the case! You, student, didn’t you figure out how to pass the scenario without his help?”

Suddenly, I was forcibly dragged into their argument as an expert witness. How depressing.

“Sorry, the only thing I did was realise that the crickets weren’t necessarily the only insects on the train,” I said, shrugging. “I had bought some flowers earlier, and I was very lucky that the owner hadn’t been taking very good care of them.”

I stuck my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “So if I really think about it, I kind of owe my life to him as well.”

“Then you should’ve helped us out rather than lazing about on this side of the bridge!” Han Myungoh cried out, looking unfairly wronged.

“Helped with what?” I asked, sarcastically. “Did you want me to drag that grandmother back over there with her frail body? For what purpose? Exhausting her to death?”

I stared at Han Myungoh, looking him up and down. He wasn’t really that conspicuous of a person. More ordinary than anything, the only striking thing about him was his overly-gelled hair. He was still out of breath, red in the face and heaving, the collar of his dress shirt darkened with sweat.

Frightened. Out of his depth. Desperately longing for an authority figure whilst simultaneously thinking that he should be that figure. What a complex.

I could work with that.

I smiled. “You’re here in the end, aren’t you? There’s no point in blathering on about things that can’t be changed. In any case, if you’re that insistent about having a conversation, we might as well wait for them on the other side of the barrier.”

I gestured at the pair on the other side of the Even Bridge. “If they even finish talking it out in time.”

“What makes you so sure?” Yoo Sangah said, looking in the same direction, voice gone tense. She’d already straightened out her jacket into order, fixing her hair back so it no longer blew into her face. To be honest, she looked like she was half ready to grab me by the arm and drag me back to the other side of the Even Bridge to launch a rescue operation herself.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I asked. “That guy’ll have gotten the same scenario as us. And the easiest way across is by the Even Bridge. Even if he wants to kill Kim Dokja-nim, wouldn’t he at least try to make it a bit easier on himself by doing it after having wrung out that last bit of usefulness from him?”

There was a stretch of silence after that.

I began to think that I had said something a bit wrong.

[The constellation that awakens from the dark abyss has sponsored you 10 coins! The constellation that awakens from the dark abyss encourages the future development of your promising mentality!]

…I definitely said something wrong.

“Anyway,” I said, to escape the awful implications of that damning message, “They’ll definitely come across together, but we still need to complete the scenario. There’s only a couple minutes left, so I wouldn’t really waste any more time.”

I pointed across, at the two figures walking across the Even Bridge together, highlighted by the setting sun. “Look, here they come now. Kim Dokja-nim must’ve convinced him.”

In the distance, Yoo Joonghyuk was dragging Kim Dokja along by the neck.

How sweet.

[You have cleared the scenario! 200 coins have been acquired as a basic clearance reward. 100 coins have been deducted for the channel usage fee.]

[You have 99+ unread notifications!]

Ugh, there was that annoying window again. I dismissed it.

Kim Namwoon was sitting pretty on the other side of the barrier, having already made himself comfortable, flipping his pocket switchblade open and shut over and over again. In contrast, Lee Hyunsung and Lee Gilyoung were practically desperate for news about Kim Dokja.

Given that the barrier was pretty much opaque from this side, I could see the reason why.

As Yoo Sangah filled them in, I checked my watch. Two seconds to go. If I had wanted to make such a close save, I’d have to set my watch and plan it down to the last second. In contrast, he seemed to come by his sense of dramatic timing naturally.

I felt a little annoyed.

Yoo Joonghyuk swept past the barrier just before the scenario ended, scowling at us all as he saw the excessive number of people on the right side of the bridge.

I nearly wanted to say, ‘if you dislike it so much, you can change it yourself’, but then I really would be afraid that he would do just that. Starting with me, of course.

“Where’s Dokja-ssi?” Lee Hyungsung said, coming up first to bat. As he stepped closer, he glanced behind Yoo Joonghyuk, as if he expected Kim Dokja to only be momentarily delayed and would appear any second now out of thin air.

Yoo Joonghyuk scowled at the mention of the name, his expression somehow becoming even more thunderous.

Yikes™.

“What did you do to hyung?!”

Perhaps rather predictably at this point, Yoo Joonghyuk did nothing but scowl again before spitting out, “He’s probably alive.”

Okay, and???

Yoo Joonghyuk Byronically set his jaw. If he’d wanted to reassure them, he wasn’t doing a fantastic job of it.

“So long as he has the ability, he’ll survive,” he said ominously, after a long contemplative moment. The atmosphere darkened so suddenly I almost expected lightning to flash. So, I was relieved when a new scenario popped up:

[Third Scenario—Shelter]

Category: Sub

Difficulty: E

Clear Conditions: Enter an undestroyed underground station.

Time Limit: None.

Compensation: 200 coins.

Failure: ???

Immediately, the protagonist of the show took charge of the situation. Rather authoritatively, Yoo Joonghyuk cut a clear line through the group.

“Follow me. That guy won’t come back for at least a couple days.”

Economical as always, Yoo Joonghyuk. But, seeing him like this…

I must have stared for too long, because suddenly, Yoo Joonghyuk returned my gaze.

For the first time, I saw him full in the face.

If I put it simply, he was handsome.

If I said it a bit more long-windedly, he was handsome.

His eyes were dark, set into a face that really must have been obsessively sculpted by a loving god. His brows were drawn together, eyebrows smooth as an inked line, the curve of his cheekbones just catching the light—

This was a man that could inspire art. Suddenly, I understood Kim Dokja a little bit better.

I looked away.

Yoo Joonghyuk, achieving his objective, continued forward, finally turning from me.

What a relief. My heart started beating again, shocked still by the weight of his scrutiny.

“That guy’s pretty cool, huh, hyung?”

Who’re you calling hyung??? I turned to see Kim Namwoon grinning at me, having evidently chosen to stick his little switchblade back into his school jacket pocket rather than possibly give Yoo Joonghyuk the wrong idea.

Not that it’d work. If he’d wanted to appear cool, then he was about a thousand years too early for that.

“If you think so, why don’t you say it to him yourself?” I said, moving along with the others, who were starting to group up while duckling-ing along behind Yoo Joonghyuk.

Kim Namwoon snorted. “Ha! No way! He’d already know that he’s super strong, why’d he need me to say that again?”

“I don’t know,” I said, obstinately. “Maybe he’s the type to like that. You can be the first to find out.”

“Why’re you already trying to get rid of me?” Kim Namwoon said, having apparently woken up this morning and chosen annoyance. “You know, I would’ve thought that you at least would be nicer to me now that I’m your dongsaeng.”

“I only like obedient dongsaeng,” I said reflexively. I then frowned. “Since when were you my dongsaeng?”

I tilted my head to look at him. Even though I was older, we were of a height, Kim Namwoon having already ridden out the last stages of his growth spurt. He wore it well. His short, bone-white hair was messy, as if he’d repeatedly run his hands through it. Through his bangs, I could vaguely see his dark eyes, looking back at me.

Somewhat childishly, in a pouting tone of voice, he said, “When you told me to call you hyung. I can’t believe that you’ve forgotten already.”

…what?

Wait, he’d actually taken it seriously? And accepted?!

I didn’t actually think— I didn’t really believe—

[A constellation that judges harshly demands to know your response!]

Uh??? Should you really be focusing on things like this?

Weren’t there more important things?!

After forcibly calming down, I sighed. “I haven’t forgotten. There would be no point, otherwise.”

His face lit up. I could immediately tell that it was overacted.

[The constellation ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’ has sponsored 100 coins!]

Depressingly, I saw the smile spread wider on Kim Namwoon’s face at the notification.

For the rest of the walk to Geumho Station, he only kept acting closer and closer. And all the while, the coin sponsoring notifications came pouring in.

…

Whatever.

Even if he was only doing this for the coins and to lower my guard, I was still benefiting without having to lift a finger.

I checked my watch. It was one minute past eight o’ clock.

Chapter Text

Geumho Station was as expected, with Cheon Inho also being as expected. I felt a slight twinge of disappointment at the realisation, though I supposed that I really should have already known.

The moment that he introduced himself with that selfsame pugnaciously contemptuous manner,  he’d lost all appeal. If I had to be completely honest: that kind of personality was incredibly boring. That was the true unforgivable sin. Even if I had ten-thousand years to think about it, I’d never work up the interest.

In any case, Han Myungoh had immediately seen his opportunity to go up in the world and took it, joining the ‘mainstream group’ of Geumho station while the rest of us were defaulted to the ‘marginalised group’.

Well.

Most of us.

Yoo Joonghyuk was the type of person that defied boundaries and limitations, so it was kind of hard to classify him as anywhere near belonging to the marginalised group. Evidently, the rest of the station felt the same way as they kept a clear distance away from the man, mainstream and marginalised groups alike.

Thankfully, he decided to leave pretty quickly after that, probably to hoover up some more rare items that were hidden about this general area. That left us, the 3807 gang, to find a place to mark as our own. We managed to snag a prime spot that boasted amenities like a public bench and a bin, so by dint of that we were already more fortunate than 90% of the marginalised group.

…it was really depressing, seeing in real time what new lows people could sink to after the apocalypse.

I pulled out a packet of dried squid from my jacket pocket, ripping it open. Ah, good old seafood. I’d missed that unique salty flavour.

Grr, grr, ggoreureuk ggoreureuk!

I looked up.

Manfully, Kim Namwoon tried his absolute best to not look embarrassed.

Out of sheer pity, I waved the packet at Kim Namwoon. “Want one?”

He took a handful. I supposed that it also counted as ‘one’, but the sophistry annoyed me.

I opened my mouth—

[The constellation ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’ has sponsored 100 coins!]

I decided to let it go. It was past eight at night and absolutely nobody had had any time for dinner.

On that note, I reconsidered myself and conscientiously offered a fistful to Lee Gilyoung, the youngest of the group. “Hungry?”

He took it, chewing slowly at first. Then the hunger got the better of him and he shoved the rest of it into his mouth, jaw moving furiously.

Like that, my packet of dried squid quickly emptied, each member taking their own measure of ‘a little bit’. In the end, not even crumbs were left as I turned the packet inside out to scrape out even the smallest leftover bits and pieces.

How annoying. There was nothing left for me.

[A constellation that likes team camaraderie  has sponsored 100 coins!]

…I wasn’t that hungry anyway.

A tap on my shoulder. I whipped around to see an older woman standing behind me. Her jacket was stained dark and wet. Soap suds still clung to the sleeve.

“Excuse me, student,” she said, voice low and mumbling. “I—my son,” at this, she pulled out the child hiding behind her legs. He looked hungry. Afraid.

Eight years old.

Like any other ordinary boy.

“Do you have any more food to give him? He hasn’t eaten all day.”

Her expression. She looked upon me as if her life and death depended on my word. All around me, I could feel the mood shift. Staring. The atmosphere trembled.

It had been a mistake to flaunt my relative wealth and comradery. The realisation sunk in like a gut punch.

I should have known.

“Sorry,” I smiled. “I only had the one packet.” It crinkled loudly as I threw it into the bin. The motion didn’t distract her at all though, her avaricious gaze fixed upon me instead. “If you need food, you’ll have to look elsewhere.”

She reacted instantly.

“You—! Don’t you know how dangerous it is outside? He’s just a child! Can’t you be a bit more considerate?” She choked on her own indignation, sputtering and tripping over her own words, interrupting her cadence. Her resounding voice cut through the low murmur of the crowd and they began to look even more obviously, drawn in by the drama. “I’m just asking for some food to share with him, and you’re reacting like, like—”

“Ah, Hyejin-ssi, don’t be too harsh on this student,” Cheon Inho said, smiling and conciliatory, swooping in between us. “I know you’re worried for little Minjun, but there’s no need to harass other people for food.”

With a swift gesture, he smoothly turned to address the whole station with the ease of a politician who’d been playing the field for years.

“But this has revealed an important problem,” he announced. “We need to start collecting food, or we’ll all starve.”

That sent the station into a flurry of hushed whispers, anxious tension ratcheting upwards. Cheon Inho caught the flow with a quickstep and a gesture of his outstretched hands.

“How about, starting tomorrow, we’ll start sending out teams above ground to go scavenging?”

He smiled, the upturn of his lips too practised to be real. “Of course, only people who volunteer will have to go.”

He tilted his head to me, smiling as though we were sharing a secret. “And then we won’t have only a packet of squid to share between all of us, isn’t that right, Jung Hyunwoo?”

One hundred points. He was a true master of his craft to have done it this cleanly.

I tapped my fingers on my knee. “Sure,” I said, saying the words he wanted me to say. “That seems like the logical solution.”

He only smiled wider at this. I wondered if his cheeks hurt, or if he was just used to it. Cheon Inho’s eyes flickered over me, then the rest of our group, a freezing chill left over in its aftermath.

He must have been anxious, desperately anxious, after seeing Yoo Joonghyuk to have acted this quickly.

Apparently satisfied with this move, he turned to walk back to the rest of his group, the station still aflutter after his announcement.

Already they were muttering amongst themselves, trying to decide who should stay and who should go scavenging. Whether they could space out the days and keep themselves safer that way. Not a single one entertained the thought of simply ignoring Cheon Inho.

Once more, against my will, I was duly impressed.

He wasn’t even wrong. That was the beauty of it. Stuck in-between scenarios, with neither food nor water, doing nothing at all would lead to certain death. Gifts wouldn’t just fall from the sky. There was nothing of value that could ever be obtained for free.

It just wasn’t probable. Nobody would believe it.

And in this way, even the marginalised group would struggle on for at least little while. The logic followed, clicking together like the teeth of gears in a mechanical watch, spinning around and around. In circles. Until they ground themselves into dust.

There was still a sour taste in my mouth for letting Cheon Inho make use of me, even though it was ultimately necessary. I suddenly wished that I had shoved an extra packet into my pocket, just to have denied him this.

I caught Park Hyejin’s gaze, half-turned back over her shoulder to look at me. And I wondered if, that in the end, she would regret having ever made such a deal with Cheon Inho.

Or perhaps not. It wasn’t a sin to want to survive; I had to remember that.

I had to remember that.

Night in Geumho Station was a lot quieter than I thought it would be, with only a few snifflings and shufflings to be heard. By unanimous decision, Lee Gilyoung had taken the bench whilst the rest of us were left to suffer on cold, hard tile.

I shifted again, minutely, not quite able to find a comfortable position. My watch ticked far too loudly in the silence.

I was in the unreasonable state of being far too awake to sleep, but far too tired to do anything about it. Beside me, Kim Namwoon was rather unfairly fast asleep. Perhaps it was his chuunibyou tendencies that allowed him to fall asleep so quickly.

Or, I considered, looking over the rest of the people, perhaps it was just complete exhaustion and hunger.

I pinched my fingers together, still a bit dusty from the squid.

I stood up, taking care to not disturb any of the others. They needed their sleep.

I followed the signs to the bathroom, then began scrubbing my hands at the sink. Then my arms. Then my face. Then my hands again.

Then my hands again.

And then my hands again.

Eventually, I had to stop because the water ran too cold. How unscientific.

A sudden onslaught of exhaustion had me slumping against the sink, the locking of my elbows and wrists and shoulders the only things keeping me upright.

My hair dripped into my shirt, staining the collar. I had to blink my bangs out of my eyes, the strands sticking wetly to my brow.

A droplet curved its way down my cheek, dripping into the basin below. It swirled down the drain.

My knuckles went whiter.

“Jung Hyunwoo.”

“Lee Hyungsung-nim,” I said to his reflection in the mirror. Then, I turned.

He was stood some distance from me, shirt sleeves bunched up by his forearms. At this time of night exhaustion had slackened his features some, smoothing out the stone-like stoicism he’d put on ever since Kim Dokja hadn’t returned.

“Did I bother you?” I asked. “I’m sorry if I was too loud and disturbed you.”

He shook his head. “No,” he said, voice gone quiet. “I just thought that any one of us shouldn’t be alone.”

I blinked.

“Thank you,” I said, honestly. Then, “You’re very kind, Lee Hyungsung-nim.”

Almost ridiculously, that offhand compliment seemed to strike him across the face, his expression turning nearly stricken.

I half-wanted to take it back—I hadn’t meant it as an insult. Fatigue had loosened not just my mouth, but my control as well.

I really didn’t know how to talk to people. This proved it.

“We don’t know when the next scenario will arrive,” he said, recovering. “We should stay together so we’re not caught off-guard when it happens.”

“And you don’t trust Cheon Inho,” I said, cutting straight to the point. “But you’ll have to stay here if you want to wait for Kim Dokja-nim.”

“You’re not?”

I scrunched up some paper towels, scrubbing the fistful across my face to roughly dry it. Then I threw the wad into the bin.

“I’m leaving in the morning,” I said. “I have to find somebody.”

“Ah?” That surprised him. “Do you need help? No, wait, are you sure you will be able to find them?”

I could guess what he was thinking just by the expression on his face.

“I’m sure that they survived,” I said. “And I have a good idea on where they might be. All I have to do is show up on time before anything happens.”

“By yourself? Jung Hyunwoo, the world has changed. Things aren’t so simple anymore—”

“I know,” I said, cutting him off. A bit rudely, but the alternative was too terrible to imagine. The sheer shame of letting him worry over me would do me in where everything else had failed. “I’m not a child.”

The interjection didn’t seem to soothe his worries. In fact, it just made him look more concerned. Urk.

“Look,” I said. “If you want, I’ll ask the group in the morning to see if anybody wants to come with me. But I have to go.”

Then, a bit meanly, I pitched my voice lower, going in for the kill. “I’m worried that something awful will happen if I do nothing.”

His face twisted, the blow striking true.

“I mean—”

“No,” Lee Hyunsung said. “You’re right to be worried. We have no idea what’s coming next, no clue on how we’re supposed to face whatever challenges are coming.”

“Nobody could have expected it,” I said, my mouth moving faster than my brain. “It’s not as if you made a mistake by being surprised.”

Lee Hyunsung’s mouth drew into a grim line. “I’m a soldier. We’re supposed to be able to act.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that the ROK Armed Forces had a handbook for the literal apocalypse.”

That wrested a half-snort from him, something like humor lighting up his features.

“I think that you’re doing the best you can,” I said. “I think that anybody would agree that today is probably one of the worser days of their lives, and that’s not even counting the zombies.”

Lee Hyunsung finally cracked a grin. “It’s really unbelievable, isn’t it? If anybody had told me about what would happen…”

He trailed off. Cooperatively, I picked it up before he could descend into melancholy.

“I would have told them that they had been reading too many novels,” I said. “Or daydreaming too much.” I repeated myself, hoping that he would listen. “Absolutely nobody in the world could have expected that this would happen. All you can do now is try as best you can.”

Lee Hyunsung’s face finally relaxed, his shoulders loosening. “Thank you,” he said. “I came here to try and reassure you but it seems like you had to do it for me instead. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” I said, feeling worse by the second. “Nobody knows how they’re going to react until it happens. I’m glad I was able to be of some use.”

My watch beeped. Lee Hyungsung checked his own.

“It’s getting late,” he said. “You should get some proper sleep, especially if you’re going to find your friend.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I will.”

Morning came with a crick in my neck and an ache in my lower back. That, and a sense of creeping hunger, one that I was sure the entire station was feeling in full force.

As expected, it was not a restful night.

I hated dreaming.

Already, they were organising teams to go and scavenge, the more reckless volunteering loudly while the more timid were crouching down in their corners and hoping they wouldn’t be picked.

But everybody was quiet when Yoo Joonghyuk came stomping around, complete with his trademark scowl when Kim Dokja hadn’t arrived in the night like the world’s most awkward birthday present.

…I regretted the mental image immediately.

Thankfully, on the subject of other topics, the rest of the group had come around pretty quickly to the idea of me leaving. I supposed that it helped that we didn’t know each other very well. Trauma bonding only went so far in the apocalypse.

To be honest, it wasn’t very surprising that they’d decided to hunker down in a safe and defensible position to wait for Kim Dokja rather than go on an uncertain journey with me to find somebody they didn’t even know. If I were them, I’d do the same thing.

What was surprising was that someone had actually volunteered to go with me.

“Weren’t you going to try and talk to that Yoo Joonghyuk-nim?” I asked, dumbfoundedly.

Kim Namwoon shrugged. “He’s already gone off on his own. Can’t find him anywhere.”

I cast a sideways glance at him. For some reason, I didn’t really believe that. Some things were inevitable. Others were simply logically predictable. In any case, what was he still doing here?

Shouldn’t he be already under Yoo Joonghyuk’s wing? Or what loosely passed for it? Even if he did leave as early as Kim Namwoon suggested, there was no fathomable reason why he would leave such a valuable and time-tested teammate behind. It made no sense.

…

Whatever. People could do as they wanted. Even if it was stupid and inane.

“Alright then,” I said. “Thanks.”

He grinned, the expression sharp and just a bit too full of teeth. “All everybody wants to do here is talk about how they’re gonna scavenge food or talk about how the government’s gonna put things back in order. I’ve already exhausted all possible conversation topics just by looking at themm. You’re the only one doing something interesting.”

“Good luck,” Yoo Sangah said, cutting in, gaze warm and voice kind. “I hope that you find your friend. I’m sorry that I couldn’t go with you, but—”

“Yeah,” I said. “I understand.” Then, I smiled. “And when Kim Dokja-nim comes back, we can all meet up again, right?”

That got a flicker of a smile out of her, the reciprocal faith in her friend’s survival.

“You’re taking that boy with you,” Im Jungsook said, her expression strange. We had not parted on good terms yesterday; we had barely even spoken a word to each other after entering Oksu Station.

Maybe I’d judged her too quickly. Even so—

I shrugged. “He’s taking himself.” At her flat expression, I relented. “Let’s wait a couple of days until his gratitude for my saving his life runs out before worrying about anything.”

“Only a couple of days? At least say a week,” Kim Namwoon said. “I can’t believe I have to listen to my own hyung slandering me.”

“Is it slander if it’s the truth?” I said lightheartedly. “My dear dongsaeng, if you want me to have a better opinion of you, then you need to put more effort into it.”

He scowled.

“Ah, don’t frown like that,” I said. “Here’s your first chance—let’s meet up at the tunnel towards Yaksu in fifteen minutes. If you’re on time, then I’ll regard you as a perfectly respectable and punctual young man who’s most definitely not going to stab me in the back going forward.”

“And if I’m late?” He asked, cheekily.

“Then you’re clearly a thug with no hope of redemption.”

Paradoxically, he seemed to brighten up at the thought. I watched as he practically bounced his way into the crowd, off to do—whatever he wanted to do, I supposed.

I would never understand a guy like that. Was this the legendary ‘generation gap’ all the kids were talking about these days?

“By the way,” Yoo Sangah said, “You never said where it was you were heading to.”

“Hm?” I said, coming to attention. “Oh, right.”

I smiled.

“I was thinking of heading up north, where the universities are. Maybe one of the interchange stations. It’ll be a bit bigger and have more people in it. If they aren’t there, maybe some of their classmates will be.”

Yoo Sangah nodded. Then, “And if nobody’s seen them?”

“Then I’ll keep looking,” I said, the words coming out easily. “I’ll follow the trail right to the very end.”

She smiled, though this was a bit thinned and stretched. “You’re a good friend.”

I shrugged the compliment off. Then, to stop any more awkward pity, I turned and left, not particularly caring which direction I was going so long as it wasn’t filled with yet more people.

As I turned the corner, I crashed into someone. A woman, dark hair tied up into a ponytail, dress shirt and slacks somewhat untidily out of place.

“Sorry,” I said, taking the opportunity. “I was in a hurry and didn’t see you, are you alright?”

She brushed herself off at the sleeves, face scrunched in annoyance but stifled by my quick apology. She was somewhat older than me by a good five or six years, beautiful in the way most people are. Her hair curled in front of her ear, framing her face.

“That’s alright,” she said, in a voice somewhat hoarse from dehydration but not unpleasant to hear. “It was an honest mistake—I wasn’t paying attention as well.”

Then she said, somewhat surprised, “Hey, you’re the one Cheon Inho was talking to last night when he made the announcement. Jung Hyunwoo?”

If I’d known that even having a packet of food would make me a target this badly, I would have rather starved.

Somewhat unwillingly, I nodded. “And you are?”

“Jung Heewon,” Jung Heewon said. A beat. “It was a little unfair for him to put you on the spot like that. Sorry you had to go through that show.”

I blinked. Today was full of surprises. “Thank you?”

Jung Heewon waved it off. “No, anyone could have seen that coming. Once he started separating his group from the rest of the station, it was inevitable he’d try something to put himself at the top.”

“But he’s not wrong,” I said, though I didn’t really want to defend him. “And that’s why everybody’s doing what he wants anyway.”

“Sure,” she said, “But not forever. It’s still early in the apocalypse and he hasn’t fully cemented himself as the leader of the New World yet. We have options.”

I squinted at her. “But you’re going out on a food run too.”

“How do you figure?” Jung Heewon asked, though she didn’t really look surprised. More interested than anything else, actually.

Huh.

I shrugged. “You’re up and about with a general sense of purpose. What else could you be doing?”

She laughed, not quite humorlessly, but not out of a sense of genuine enjoyment either. “Not quite. We’re trying to set up a schedule so that the people who really can’t go outside are still able to eat while the people who can aren’t given too much to do.”

“But you are, eventually, still going?”

A frisson of unease passed over her face at my pressing. “I can’t possibly ask other people to do what I won’t do myself. Why are you so concerned about this?”

That caught me. I hesitated.

Kim Namwoon was one thing. Jung Heewon was another.

But nonetheless here she was in front of me, facing me. Did I even have the right to look away? Did I even have the right to speak with her?

I didn’t know. But something, something made me want—

“I don’t trust him,” I said, finally. “I don’t believe that he would set up these food runs just for a consolidation of authority, just to keep things going as they would have been.”

Jung Heewon caught it immediately. “What else do you think he’s trying to do?”

I forced myself to shrug, helplessly. It was my turn to give a huff of dry laughter. “How am I supposed to know?”

Indeed. In a sane world, how was I supposed to know? The most I could do was give her a chance. And even then I wasn’t sure that I was doing the right thing. Or the wrong thing. Or anything at all.

Suddenly, I felt a sliver of empathy for Yoo Joonghyuk. Ignorance really was bliss. Anything more than that just sent me into a hell of my own making.

I just didn’t want to see people in pain. Couldn’t that have been enough?

“Just be careful,” I said. Implored. The naked honesty in my voice caught even me by surprise. “Don’t let your guard down.”

She didn’t know what to do with my sudden intensity, I could tell. The expression on her face was awkward and strange, the typical kind for anyone confronted with authenticity from a stranger. “Alright, alright. I promise.” Then, “If you’re so worried, how about you join us on our rotation?”

I shook my head. “No, I have to find someone—I made a promise. You actually caught me as I was leaving.”

“Where to?”

I thought about it for a while.

“Dongmyo.”

“Good luck,” she said, surprisingly warmly.

“You too,” I said. Then, “I hope your plan works.”

I did. Really, I did. I hoped against hope against hope—

My watch beeped.

“You’re late!”

“Not quite,” I said, lifting my wrist for emphasis. “See, I’m right on time. Looks like neither of us are the irredeemable hooligans now.”

Kim Namwoon looked the same as always, with absolutely nothing changed about him. I wondered what had made him so eager to take the fifteen minutes leave in the first place.

“What made you get so caught up anyway?” Kim Namwoon asked. “I thought that this was supposed to be important.”

“You don’t have to act so invested in my problems,” I said, drawing closer to the subway tunnel, peering down into the shadows. “I know that if we leave the station, there’s a good chance of finding Yoo Joonghyuk-nim acting cool again.”

“Hyung,” Kim Namwoon said. “He has a sword. He has a trench coat and muscles and unnecessary chest belts. I thought that the only cool people were in action manhwas. He’s cooler than cool; he’s awesome.”

Unwillingly, I felt a little jealous that my supposed dongsaeng was in front of me waxing lyrical about another man. Wasn’t I the one who’d saved his life?

I shoved the thought away. What could I do? The worst of it all was that Kim Namwoon was right. And, I’d brought it up first.

Fuck.

Maybe I was, in fact, uncool. Unawesome, even.

Double fuck.

“Alright,” I said, trying to ignore my rapidly diminishing status in Kim Namwoon’s eyes. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

The most difficult thing about trying to be original, was that you had to be—well—original. When it came to engaging an audience, it was best to at least try to put a new spin on things. Nobody liked a plagiarist.

I tried to ignore my faintly twinging conscience as we made our way down the tunnel towards Yaksu station.

The easiest way to survive the apocalypse was to ride a bus. Unfortunately, I’d arrived too early at the stop to just simply hop on.

Or was it ‘too late’, considering that I’d have to wait for the next one on the schedule?

…the metaphor may have gotten away from me a bit. Nobody actually thought about time like that except for the Stoics.

In any case, the point was that there were no convenient corpses for me to scavenge from and fashion weapons from.

[You have 99+ unread messages!]

I ignored the pop-up, taking a left turn into the darkness, my mini-flashlight not nearly bright enough to illuminate much of anything.

I’d had to take it out a few metres in after the ambient lighting of the station faded away, the wiring of the tunnels irritatingly already chewed through by the invasive fauna.

There was a soft sagak, sagak, scrtch, scrtch as Kim Namwoon scraped along the walls with his pocket knife.

“Hyung,” Kim Namwoon said from behind me. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” I said after taking a moment to orient myself. Gracefully, I politely ignored the slightly disbelieving silence and decided to elaborate.

“We’re taking a shortcut,” I said. “I’d like to spend as little time above ground as possible, but going the whole way through the subway also isn’t an option, especially at our level with our equipment.”

“Equipment?”

I looked at him judgmentally. Did he really think that one little pocket knife would be sufficient?

Then I realised his eyes were glittering. Was he excited?

Was this really what the youth was like nowadays? Getting this happy over the prospect of weaponry? What had the world come to?

Ah, right.

It was the apocalypse.

Things such as ‘rationality’ or ‘sanity’ only had meaning when put into a context. Kim Namwoon had simply just adapted even faster than me.

No wonder Kim Namwoon hadn’t many friends before the apocalypse.

But it did mean that he would be exceptional in the here and now.

Just how many people had died in the first scenario simply because they couldn’t self-rationalise quickly enough to accept killing each other for survival? If the dokkaebi had simply allowed the scenario to run for just a bit longer than a measly half-hour, I had little doubt that I’d be seeing a lot more survivors.

Kim Namwoon had apparently bridged that gap in just a few minutes. Perhaps it meant that he was a psychopath that had just been waiting for the perfect opportunity.

Or something else entirely.

I wasn’t quite sure yet. I didn’t know enough about him to say. I could rely on him to act in his own best interests, but for anything more involved than that my guesses would be little better than coin flips.

I didn’t know much of anything about Kim Namwoon. Hell, I didn’t even really know why he’d chosen to come with me in the first place, save for some flimsy excuse even he didn’t particularly believe in.

But that just meant I was getting to know him. And, wasn’t there a saying about men being their true selves in the dark?

After successfully brainwashing myself, I then took a left, stopping just short of the fork to peer into the darkness.

The ground rats had truly been quite industrious these past few hours. Overnight, they had transformed Seoul’s subway into just one minor part of an entire branching underground system of tunnels. It would be nearly impossible to navigate, a modern labyrinth constructed not by human genius but alien instinct.

If I didn’t know better, taking this route would have undoubtedly been my doom. Over the next few days, just how many people, desperate and hungry, would be driven down into the tunnel-riddled dark?

Just how many of them would never come back?

Something skittered, beyond in the darkness where my eyes could not see.

“Hyung?”

“Seems we’re not alone,” I replied, not too quickly, not too slowly. I was perfectly calm. In control. Ninety-nine percent of authority relied upon being able to act the part. The rest was being able to back that up.

“Sounds like trouble,” Kim Namwoon said, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the silver glint of the pocketknife. “Did you expect this?”

“Stick to the wall,” I said. “Right now, it’ll only see the flashlight.”

Slowly, I inched away from the dark hole, keeping the light steady. The scratching, heaving, noise came closer, loud enough that Kim Namwoon, pressed flat behind me, abruptly fell even quieter than before.

If it had been possible, I was certain that he would have attempted to silence the beating of his own heart.

A wet nose twitched and quivered its way into the light, drool dripping down onto the earth.

There was a very quiet, very subtle sound. It was the sound of someone re-adjusting their grip. It was the sound of clothes shifting, shoes smudging dirt.

It was the sound of Kim Namwoon on the verge of making a choice.

Uncharitably, I wondered: was this it?

It was a reasonable thought. A rational question. I did not know Kim Namwoon. Nor did I understand him. For all that I had play-acted at kindness, we had really only just met yesterday—a yesterday that not been under the best of circumstances.

Truthfully, no matter what happened now, no matter what he chose to do, I could live without Kim Namwoon. I had not started out wanting to rely on Kim Namwoon and neither did I need to. He was simply—an addition. Not quite unwelcome but not necessary either.

I did not need Kim Namwoon. Not as a dongsaeng, not as a friend.

And neither did he need me.

He didn’t need me. That was why he had the freedom to make a choice. He didn’t understand me, that was why he had to make a decision.

But also—he didn’t need me. And yet he was still here. Even if he didn’t understand me, he was still here.

The dark didn’t change in its tenebrosity. Neither did I feel particularly enlightened. But nevertheless, there was a slight, almost subtle, change in atmosphere—practically attributable to the imagination.

There was no mutual trust, no mutual understanding. That was okay.

“Kim Namwoon,” I said, “Get ready to run.”

I let myself tilt my head a few degrees, just enough so I could see him out of the corner of my eye.

There was another sound. Another small adjustment. A snick of the pocketknife.

I took a breath.

For better or for worse, I chose to take a gamble.

“Move when I say so,” I said. “Don’t get yourself killed.”

The ground rat was a curious creature. Tough and armoured, fanged and clawed, it was an animal best suited for tunnelling through earth and stone, constructing vast winding tunnel systems that could theoretically extend for miles.

However, that was all generally done underground. Very rarely did the ground rats ever venture out into the sun.

With a quick twist of the knob, I swung my flashlight upwards at maximum brightness—

Right at the ground rat’s eyes.

It shrieked, a great echoing screech of agonised fury.

I slammed myself into the rock wall, dragging Kim Namwoon with me, grasping any part that I could to force him to move. We knocked painfully into stone, but it was better than getting eaten alive, better than getting torn apart by rats.

I switched off the light, plunging us into darkness–after getting blinded like that, it would take a while to get its sight back.

Besides, here, in the dark, the light would only make us more easily spotted. In any case, I knew exactly where I had to go.

“Quick,” I said, not looking back at the rat, bashed silly after crashing into the tunnel wall of the fork, “Run.”

When he didn’t respond fast enough, I grasped his hand and dragged him with me. He flailed for a moment, struggling and surprised, but he followed nonetheless.

My heartbeat thudded in my throat.

I was blind. The only thing I could hear was the harsh breaths of air forces through my nose and mouth, the crunch and slide of dirt beneath my boots. The thudding of Kim Namwoon right beside me.

We sprinted down a left turn and then a right. Anybody else would’ve gotten hopelessly lost.

But I still knew exactly where I was.

Three seconds.

[2,700 coins have been invested into ‘strength’.]

We were barrelling right into an intersection.

[Strength Lv. 1 → Strength Lv. 10]

If we slowed down for even a moment, the ground rat would catch up to us and surely eat me alive.

[Your strength level has increased dramatically!]

And then Kim Namwoon would never think that I looked cool.

[A stronger force will come from your muscles!]

With a running form I vaguely remembered from the Ip Man franchise, I kicked down the wall and threw him in, just as the screeching ground rat rammed into me.

For a moment, I was airborne.

[2,700coinshavebeeninvestedinto‘physique’—!]

Then, I crunched against the other side of the enormous cavern, crumpling into the dirt.

That—That really fucking hurt.

Experimentally, I tried to move my arm and—

FUCKING.

OW.

—immediately regretted it.

For a single second, or maybe just a touch more than that, I was dazed, blinking tearily into the dirt, wondering why I’d decided to do this to myself.

Then I got over it.

Or, at least I tried to. More than a few drops of sweat dribbled down my nose as I heaved myself upright bracing myself against the wall. Luckily, my right hand seemed to be just fine, and in all honesty a single working hand was all that I needed.

Because all around the cavern were heaps and heaps of scrap. Trash, really. But some of it was useful trash—ground rats hardly discriminated when hoarding the abandoned and unwanted, scavenging from the dead.

So long as I had even a piece of scrap metal I’d be able to fight against the monster.

Fixing that thought in my mind, I gritted my teeth as I stared down the ground rat’s own oversized fangs. My one saving grace was that at least the ground rat would have trouble manoeuvring its large size in sharp corners. The downside of that was that it didn’t actually need to be graceful to crush me with its bulk.

It chittered, emitting a loud squeal.

Eugh. I’d never particularly liked rats in the first place, but this individual was thoroughly turning me off from the species entirely. It was just so—ew.

Keeping the ground rat in view, I let my gaze wander all about the cavern, squinting in the low light of the bioluminescent moss the ground rats liked to put in particularly important caves.

I had to be especially genre-savvy about this.

Now, would it be more advantageous or less to grab the shiniest weapon here? Typically, a protagonist in this sort of dire situation would grab a rusty old handle, the audience would think that he was doomed, and then bam! he’d reveal an awesome super powerful weapon on the next page. It’d be a moral lesson on not judging the book by its cover or something.

On the other hand, it was bad optics for the supposedly cool guy whose adventure the audience was supposed to be following to only have a dingy looking weapon on the front cover. The aesthetics wouldn’t match.

When in a dire situation like this, I had to be careful to think through my options; it wasn’t very likely that the ground rat would give me a second chance if my first choice ended up breaking on the first blow.

Or, maybe—

I narrowly dodged the ground rat charging at me, scrambling to the nearest pile. It had shit manoeuvrability, blind rage sending it crashing right into the wall head-first.

That stunned it for a few seconds, paws scrabbling as it tried to re-orient.

In the chaos, slipping on pieces of scrap, I caught sight of Kim Namwoon.

 He was a bit beyond the reach of the moss’ bioluminescent glow, so his face was somewhat indistinct with shadow. In his hand, he was gripping the little pocket-knife tightly, knuckles white and well-defined. He’d relocated himself to be only a little ways away from one of the exits, the dark hole gaping like it was about to swallow him.

The ground rat was squarely in-between us both, and though it knocked a little silly by its two successive head-bashings, it was certainly a dangerous threat.

I couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking. I couldn’t quite tell what he was feeling. In this sort of gloom, with his sort of expression, I’d be able to label it with whatever descriptor I liked and still be half-right.

Then the light shifted—or he shifted—and I finally saw his eyes.

We locked gazes.

For a singular moment, we had the same thought. The exact same thought.

[Your Affinity with ‘Kim Namwoon’ has increased!]

[The conditions of use for the exclusive skill ‘Mutuality’ Lv. 1 have been reached!]

[‘Kim Namwoon’ has accepted the effects of the exclusive skill ‘Mutuality’ Lv. 1.]

In one movement, as if we’d choreographed it, Kim Namwoon swung at the ground rat, black flames crackling in awesome distraction. Meanwhile, I took one step back.

I had one chance.

From the scrap heap, I pulled out a straight-ish, long-ish piece of metal.

A careful observer would note that it was a metal tube about as long as a ruler, clear grooves marking out where the creator thought the grip should be. A careful observer would also note that where there was supposed to be a blade or a pointy stabby end was only the jarring end of the hilt.

Perhaps they might be disappointed then, aghast at my terrible luck and worse good sense. Perhaps they would contemplate the unfairness of favouritism or the lack thereof.

A careful observer would also be wrong.

The ground rat screamed, flailing, as Kim Namwoon cut at it, forgetting all about me. Its tail whipped through the air, nearly catching Kim Namwoon on the arm, nearly driving him into its claws.

But there was a rhythm to it, a pattern.

Kim Namwoon gave me the perfect opening, cracking open a weakness in the ground rat’s defence. I took it, swinging.

And as I swung, something depressed.

There was a somewhat familiar, distinct humming sound. That, and the smell of burning hair.

The ground rat’s front leg flopped to the ground, neatly amputated at the elbow.

Perhaps if I could read the ground rat’s mind, I’d be able to translate the expression it made on its face then into something like surprise. And pain.

It stumbled on its remaining three legs as it tried to adjust to the sudden loss of its fourth one, scrambling back. The ground rat’s eyes darted between me, Kim Namwoon, and the exits, obviously trying to re-calculate. It had definitely not expected a surprise de-limbing when it woke up this morning. I certainly hadn’t.

But that sort of thing didn’t matter.

Because Kim Namwoon and I had the same thought again.

He swung first, cornering the ground rat with a few quick swipes. Then, I followed, and though I was unpractised with the blade, all I needed to have was one good shot to end it.

It took much less force than I thought it would have to cut through the ground rat’s hide, into its flesh.

And then it was dead, collapsed at our feet, a rather large chunk inexpertly gouged out of its skull. Slightly singed brain spilled out of its broken skull and splashed onto the dirt.

And humming all the while, the lightsaber glowed blue in my hand.

Sure, it was only a replica, but it still counted. A lightsaber! My lightsaber!

I turned, heart thrumming wildly, giddy boyish exhilaration thrilling in my chest. Across from me, Kim Namwoon was grinning the same wild grin that I was sure was splashed across my face.

“Did you see—”

“Look at that—”

We both cut ourselves off, dropping the cavern into silence. A beat. Then. Maybe it was just the suspension bridge effect, but we couldn’t help ourselves: we burst out laughing at the same time, equal parts giggly and relieved.

We were alive! Our first fight with a monster and we survived!

“You were amazing,” I said, when we were finished and out of breath. “How’d you get so good with a knife?”

Kim Namwoon shrugged, though his lips still curled at the corners and there was a self-satisfied touch about how he tilted his head. “Pure natural talent,” he said. “Not something you’d understand.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry; this was a wasted trip for you.” I gestured with my lightsaber. “Clearly, I should just leave you to your trusty pocket knife and stick behind you for the rest of the scenarios.”

His face dropped quickly at that. “H–Hey! You promised me that there’d be cool weapons! You can’t take that back!”

“But,” I said. “Your pure natural talent with your pocket knife has astounded me. I’m in awe of your superior skills. I can’t possibly stall your path to greatness by giving you an inferior weapon so obviously inferior to what you already have.”

Thusly, Kim ‘Pure and Natural’ Namwoon was driven to such great emotion by my effusive adulation that he dropped his great pocket knife and attempted to embrace me solidly about the neck.

Only after I’d laughed myself sick and plied Kim Namwoon with countless (15) reassurances that of course he’d get his sword, did we finally set about searching the many heaping piles of junk that were scattered about the cavern.

Well, it might’ve been junk to the ground rats and incarnations more well-equipped by their sponsors, but this early in the game every little thing counted. Most of the survivors would have to make do with the typical stuff off of the street: knives, hammers, even particularly large rocks. A big sharp thing would be just the ticket to distinguishing oneself from the rest of the competition.

I still had no idea where Yoo Joonghyuk could have gotten his sword from that fresh from the first scenario and suspected that it was probably because he cheated.

That fucker.

Regression was one thing! Keeping one’s memory and skills and such was one thing! Things like dramatic coats and belts and flashy swords was another!

Where’d he get them?? How did he get them so quickly??

There was absolutely no way he’d actually walked onto that train in that outfit. I refused to believe it.

A tiny notification popped up in the corner of my vision as we rummaged through the hoard, the lightsaber held up high as a makeshift lightsource.

[The exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ has regressed due to excessive immersion!]

That message was the metaphorical sprung leak before the bursting dam. All at once, all 99+ ignored messages came barrelling through to unleash their horrors upon me.

Most of them were from the Demon-like Judge of Fire, with a smattering of other constellations providing commentary. But a few of the more recent ones were from the Abyssal Black Flame Dragon.

…huh.

For some reason, I really hadn’t expected it. That he’d be interested. That anyone would be interested, really.

But on second thought: Kim Dokja was currently in the belly of the beast, fighting his own scenario that had been so boring that it got mostly skipped over. Yoo Joonghyuk was certainly doing something more interesting than I was, probably killing scores of monsters in his rush to speedrun any% to the end of the scenarios, but his type of personality didn’t lend itself much to character interaction. And the rest of the group that Kim Namwoon and I had left behind were probably being too much of the slice-of-life-after-the-apocalypse genre.

Holy shit.

I was filling a niche. Of course, it would really only last until Kim Dokja got himself to Geumho and met up with the rest of the A-team, but for now I was the one in the limelight. Well, me and Kim Namwoon.

Surely all of this early stage co-headlining wouldn’t have consequences down the line for my brand recognition? I should probably get a solo adventure under my belt sooner or later, if only to be able to prove myself as someone with real star power all on my own.

What a pain.

And not just metaphorically either. As I shifted in place and tried to keep my lightsaber steady, my left arm ached more and more, clicking concerningly as I tried to relax it and stop it from tensing up. My side was rather uncomfortable as well, dull pain filling in the gaps where adrenaline receded from my system. Also, my head hurt.

Something told me that I wouldn’t be girlbossing my way out of this incident unphased.

At last, Kim Namwoon pulled out a shortsword, a little dinged and scratched but still a gleaming silver with a lion’s face for a hilt.

Fancy.

“Cool sword,” I remembered to praise. Something, something, good for developing confidence?

There was an odd look on Kim Namwoon’s face as he grasped it, probably when he was reading the sword’s description, but I didn’t think too much of it. It was unlikely that it was anything too special, droppable as it was in what was essentially the beginner’s zone.

Actually, we’d gotten pretty lucky with finding two decent looking weapons in this place. We could’ve gone looking for more stashes and found a few more useful items but there was no point in doing that. At some point, the law of diminishing returns would kick in and we’d lose valuable time.

My main goal was Dongmyo station. And since I didn’t really want to go through Chungmuro and deal with all of its associated headaches, that left pushing my way up through Line 6 on foot.

It was an exhausting thought, especially with the poisonous air outside. What would’ve been an easy half-hour walk only just a couple days ago had transformed into an apocalyptic nightmare. Aboveground, it was a poisonous hellscape populated by monsters. Underground, it was a labyrinthine tunnel system populated by monsters.

Guess that was my bad for waking up on the wrong side of the Seoul boundary line.

We’d have to use the underground cave system to avoid Cheonggu and Sindang—I had no intention of joining the losing side of an ultimately useless war—but it was entirely possible to make it to Dongmyo by mid-afternoon at the very latest and most lackadaisical.

I set my watch.

“C’mon,” I said to Kim Namwoon, “Let’s not stick around for one of the rat monsters to investigate where all the screaming and crashing was coming from.”

“Wouldn’t that be your fault if that happened?”

I raised an eyebrow at Kim Namwoon, who was definitely, undoubtedly smirking as he sheathed his sword and put it to his hip.

This fucking brat. I even praised his sword!

See if I ever gave him another sword again, what would he do then? I suppressed the urge to smack him upside the head.

“Ow!”

Whoops.

My self-restraint wasn’t as great as I thought.

“Now it’d be your fault,” I said, as his cry of pain echoed throughout the cavern.

At that, he shot me a truly poisonous glare. One that lasted for a couple seconds too long.

I immediately grasped the shape of his thoughts. Without a second backward glance, I fled into the tunnels, chased by a sword wielding maniac.

Of course eventually we came to a fork and I had to slow down to show Kim Namwoon the way, but when we travelled through dark tunnels illuminated only by my lightsaber and lent-out flashlight, I realised that I was smiling.

Then my watch beeped. We were behind schedule.

Goddamnit.

We didn’t run into very many ground rats after the cavern, ostensibly spooked by the ghostly blue light my lightsaber emitted as we made our way through the cave system.

Of course, it could’ve gone much worse for us: we could’ve gotten lost. Or worse, encountered other people.

Luckily, it seemed that nobody had yet figured out how useful using the ground rat’s cave system would be, so other than a few more close encounters of the rodent kind, we found ourselves stepping out of gnawed through earth into the rather more modern subway tunnel of Dongmyo station.

By an even greater stroke of luck, the underground lights were still working, so that meant I could stow away my lightsaber and stick it into my pocket.

There were many ways to skin a cat, after all.

I dusted myself off a little, trying to get the worst of the dirt off the really egregious parts, but judging from Kim Namwoon’s sidelong glance, I wasn’t very successful.

It wasn’t like he’d fared much better. His school jacket was absolutely filthy, torn and muddied like he’d gotten into an absolutely horrendous no-holds-barred beatdown just like in those high school action manhwas. His hair, bleached white as it was, looked worse than mine, every speck of dust visible even from space.

Nevertheless, he still smirked at me through his tangled bangs.

I resisted the urge to mess them up even more.

After a moment, I slowly, deliberately, smeared a liberal helping of dirt on his name tag.

“What was that for?!”

I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. Paused. “Kim Nam.”

He followed my gaze to his despoiled name tag. He might’ve tried to sputter a response, but by the time he came up with one we were already entering the station.

To be completely honest, one subway station after the apocalypse was pretty much indistinguishable from any other. The only thing that really changed was the station name.

And the people, I supposed.

But it seemed that groupthink persisted across time and space because it looked like Dongmyo had pretty much separated itself into two distinct groups. But in this case, rather than splitting along the traditional lines of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’, Dongmyo’s dividing boundary was a little more esoteric.

I pushed down the lightsaber into a deeper fold of my jacket pocket.

It wasn’t long before someone noticed the new arrivals, the ‘strong’ group sending out a scouting party to see if we were up to snuff.

Frankly, I was a little curious myself to see how they would judge us.

Appearance-wise, we wouldn’t cut it. I probably looked like a half-buried rat, and the less said about Kim Namwoon the better.

The rather average-looking, nondescript man caught up to us in a matter of moments, grinning as nervously as a newbie church recruiter. Something told me that whatever the guy’s job had been before the Star Stream had thoroughly ruined everything, he’d definitely not been a salesman.

[Someone is using the ‘Explore Attribute’ skill on you.]

[The exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ has interfered with the ‘Explore Attribute’ skill!]

[The level of the exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ is too low to block the ‘Explore Attribute’ skill!]

Shit.

Luckily, it wasn’t totally unsalvageable, all I had to do was—

“Welcome to Dongmyo station, what’s your name?”

—not give anything away.

I should really get better about not underestimating people.

Chapter Text

People tend to make snap judgements. They tend to stereotype, pigeonhole, judge a book by its cover. And whatever first impressions they took, it would be difficult to overcome—for good or for ill.

Which was why I had to project an aura of confidence. If I was to have any hope of seeing this one out, I had to start strong and go as I meant to continue.

Inside of my oversized jacket pocket, I let the activator switch of the lightsaber roll in between my fingers. Though it would certainly be a loss to have to retire it, it would be far better than getting down with a case of the deads if I’d somehow read this interaction wrong.

Kim Namwoon looked much more impressive than I did, sword belted at his side, ruffled up bleached-white hair sticking out every which way. Honestly, he looked like one of those good cosplayers, the ones that went all out for authenticity and still carried the costume well.

Perhaps it was the confidence. Something to try for next time.

“I’m Kim Nam—”

“Namseon,” I interrupted, talking over him. “And I’m Jung Hyunmin. Pleased to meet you.”

To his credit, Kim Namwoon didn’t dramatically turn to me in shock. I deliberately didn’t look at him, directing the thought into his head by sheer will alone: roll with it.

The other guy didn’t even blink at our names, instead continuing to look us up and down as a cover for his surreptitious reading of his results from the Explore Attribute skill.

Then his expression turned a little weird.

“Please wait a moment,” he said. “There are some irregularities—”

I folded my arms, deliberately frowning. “What do you mean by irregularities? All we’ve done is introduce ourselves and you already want to turn us away? What gives you the right?”

I pitched my voice loudly, not quite enough to make it obvious what exactly I was doing, but just enough to appear I was getting justifiably frustrated.

At this point Kim Namwoon jumped in, fanning the flames.

“We’ve spent hours trying to make it to this station, fighting monsters the whole way, and you won’t even let us in?”

People’s heads started to turn, looking at us. The guy started to look more and more panicked.

“Now, now.”

A hand laid itself on the man’s shoulder, stilling the surely indignant response. It belonged to a rather serious looking man, his face a little thin like he hadn’t eaten well even long before the scenarios started.

His necklace chains clinked, gently.

If I were to be honest, he kind of looked like a gangster. One that was only found in bad high school fighting manhwas or stereotypical k-dramas. It wasn’t a good look for him.

“What seems to be the problem?”

I immediately took control of the situation, channelling my best ‘frustrated customer’ voice. “What’s wrong is that we want to have a place to sit down for a d*mn second without monsters swarming us or dying from poisonous air! He took one look at us and told us to leave!”

Lee Sungkook nodded absently, a placating expression plastered on his face. His gaze however, was fixed entirely on Kim Namwoon, drifting from his bleached-white hair to his mud-splattered school uniform.

I knew what he was thinking. What he was hoping.

I didn’t like it.

From the tightening tension in Kim Namwoon’s shoulders, I could guess that he felt the same way.

“Ah, Chulmoo-ssi is just a little overzealous, that’s all. We’ve had a little trouble with people making a mess in our station so he’s gotten into the habit of judging people too quickly, but I can tell that you’re just young students trying to survive. My name is Lee Sungkook.”

He stepped forward, grinning a smarmy smile and presenting an outstretched hand.

To Kim Namwoon.

“I can see from your nametag that your name is Mr Kim Nam—”

“Kim Namseon,” Kim Namwoon said, leaning back slightly.

“And I’m Jung Hyunmin,” I added.

That threw him for a loop.

“Ah?” he said, looking slightly lost, as if something had suddenly gone off-script. “Not Kim Namwoon?”

Seriously? What a noob. If he was going to be that obvious about it, then he definitely deserved everything that was coming to him.

“Who’s that?” Kim Namwoon said, tilting his head. “My nametag’s a little muddy, but it definitely says Kim Namseon. Do you need glasses?”

“O—oh,” Lee Sungkook stuttered, looking for all the world he’d suddenly slipped off a moving train.

His fingers trembled, twitching by his side, as he tried to grasp for the words that just wouldn’t come. His expression grew worse and worse.

I let him flounder.

If he wanted the rewards of his ‘foreknowledge’, he should be willing to do the hard work.

“Right,” he said finally, lamely. “I can see that you’ve worked hard to come here and we definitely need strong people for the next scenario…”

He trailed off, his train of thought screeching to a jamming halt.

Heroically, I refrained from making any expression. I was afraid that if I let my control slip, I would end up making a face I would regret.

His hand was still suspended in the air, dangling limply.

…this was just too painful.

I took pity on him, stepping forward to shake his hand. “Lee Sungkook-nim, thank you for extending the invitation to join Dongmyo station. We’ll gladly accept.”

He automatically grasped back, following the social script.

Then, as he was still processing, Kim Namwoon and I entered Dongmyo station.

Multiple notifications popped up one after another, glaring into view.

[Main Scenario #2—Meeting has ended.]

[The compensation will be settled.]

[Please standby for Main Scenario #3.]

[#GI-3642 channel is active.]

[#BI-7623 channel is active.]

It was especially annoying that I couldn’t just ignore it like before. The harsh blue light of the windows burned themselves into my retinas. I couldn’t even close my eyes to escape it.

I dropped my friendly smile the moment we passed out of Lee Sungkook’s view, just barely suppressing a grimace. The aches and pains from being thrown into a wall were especially making themselves known and a throbbing headache was developing behind my eyes.

I rotated my wrist until it clicked. Loudly. Even the movement sent a jolt up my forearm.

“Why did we lie?” Kim Namwoon said quietly, as soon as we were out of hearing range. “What did you notice?”

“Didn’t you hear?” I said shortly, “He was making a big deal out of it the moment he saw you. He even had a whole script planned out—he made that especially obvious.”

Kim Namwoon didn’t look convinced. “You came up with those names even before he showed up. You messed up my uniform before we even walked in.”

“I had a bad feeling. Luckily, we worked it out.”

“Is that your special power? Stigma thing? Bad feelings?”

[Several constellations are very eager for your response!]

[The Abyssal Black Flame Dragon is very curious!]

“Sure,” I said. “Something like that.”

[A constellation that loves gossip is throwing a fit!]

[The Abyssal Black Flame Dragon is nodding in support, expressing that it is always a good idea to keep hidden trump cards.]

I wasn’t even lying. But Kim Namwoon’s face crumpled into a pout anyways, eyes widening as if I’d just kicked his most beloved puppy right in front of him.

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t start. If you want a more honest answer, you can go first.”

“Oh, alright then,” Kim Namwoon said. “If you’d wanted to play question for question, you could’ve just said.”

I rolled my eyes. “Careful,” I said. “Or somebody might actually take you up on that.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Whatever secrets he had didn’t really matter. To me, mine were much more valuable.

And besides, what would I even ask? Anything truly important would either remain unanswered or be met with a useless statement.

It would be a truthful response, to be sure, but that didn’t mean anything. The truth was certainly invariant, but it could definitely be distorted.

Something sparked up my shoulder blade, tingling my fingertips. Heroically, I straightened my back, but that just made my muscles protest even more.

“Does it still hurt?”

I turned to look at Kim Namwoon, startled, and nearly jumped back. We were practically nose to nose, so close I could count the faint freckles on his skin, see the variegated flecks of gold in his dark brown eyes.

“What?” I said.

“You kicked through a wall and got thrown into another one,” Kim Namwoon said.

I rotated a shoulder. It clicked.

“I’ll live,” I said firmly.

Kim Namwoon had an odd expression on his face. I didn’t quite understand it. Luckily, he didn’t seem to hold it against me, only vaguely nodding in response.

“Let’s find a good place to camp out, yeah?” I said, trying to smooth over the awkwardness as soon as possible. “They can’t have possibly taken up all the nice spots, right?”

In fact, they did. We ended up having to carve out a space next to the overflowing bins, stuffed with crumpled cans of soda and crinkled packets of crisps.

That was alright. Initial positions didn’t really matter for long, not in Dongmyo.

Thoughtfully, I glanced around us. Since we’d ended up rejecting our (Kim Namwoon’s) golden parachute into this stations’ ‘mainstream’ group, we’d ended up amongst the ‘marginalised’ instead. Again. It really was becoming a pattern.

A motif, perhaps?

No matter. The point was that even though there were slim pickings for allies in this particular location, so long as we lived we’d naturally find strong survivors.

Simple. Easy. Straightforward.

“Mommy!” A little girl shrieked, held fast to her mother’s side. “I’m hungry!”

Few heads turned at this outburst. Perhaps this was a common occurrence. It must’ve been, for people to be so apathetic.

“I know, I know darling,” the mother soothed, rocking her gently back and forth. “Here, have some more water—”

“No! I’m hungry! I wanna eat!”

Then, with a piercing wail, the little girl began to cry.

It was an annoying sound. Painful to the ear. It shifted up and down the scale in uneven modulation. Even though nobody looked, nobody stared, I could feel the mood shift from feigned ignorance to pointed non-attention.

And from there, a slow slide into disgust.

How dare she be hungry? Worse, how dare she cry about it, making it everybody else’s problem?

In that sense, she deserved to be ignored.

But I was looking. I was paying attention, in spite of myself.

But what did it matter to me that a random child was crying? What did it matter to my goals that somebody else was in pain?

She wasn’t important. I didn’t even know her name. Objectively speaking, it didn’t really matter whether she lived or died. The outcome would be the same nevertheless. I could have arrived even an hour later, when she’d been quieted, and never have realised that she’d existed at all.

I had to think about the bigger picture.

And besides: I couldn’t even help her. I had nothing to give away, not even the smallest piece of candy. What did my sympathies matter? Could she eat them?

And even if I could help: how would I be able to shoulder that responsibility? It was crushing me, even now, to have saved Kim Namwoon from Kim Dokja.

I was simply not the kind of person that was able to be responsible for others.

[The third main scenario is enabled.]

The system message popped up suddenly. I nearly flinched at the eye-searingly neon colour.

[Main Scenario #3—Tricolor Zone]

Category: Main

Difficulty: B

Clear Conditions: Use the ‘red zones’, ‘blue zones’, and ‘green zones’. Survive the monsters that emerge every night at midnight. This scenario will last three days.

Time Limit: 3 days.

Compensation: 1,000 coins.

Failure: ???

I blinked the notification window away. There wasn’t really any point in scrutinising the clear conditions when it was deliberately worded in such a deliberately misleading manner.

Going down that rabbit hole would only lead to despair.

Instead, I took a look around. Maybe I was just generalising or being hopeful, but from the way that Lee Sungkook was acting, there was absolutely no way he and his group had gotten their hands on somebody actually important.

Yet.

But to find such a diamond in the rough, before it would be immediately obvious what his skills were—that would take an immense amount of luck.

Or, just somebody who knew what they were doing.

In the corner, I spied a high-school-aged kid, long dark hair curling to cover his eyes, headphones pressed tight over his ears even though they must’ve been running out of charge.

A flicker of smug satisfaction flared in my chest even as everyone else gasped over the horrendous win condition.

Found you, I thought.

Now, all that there was left to do was to make sure Lee Sungkook never got near him.

With most people having finished reading the notification, the station tiles began to light up with various colours, softly glowing red, blue, or green.

What they did was anybody’s guess. One had to assume that the different colours meant that they had different effects.

Whether they were good or bad…

That was something we would only find out at midnight.

Beside me, I watched as Kim Namwoon studied the arrangement of tiles. He came to the same conclusion that I did.

“There are more red zones than blue zones,” he said.

“And more blue zones than green,” I finished. “Whaddya think that means?”

It was more rhetorical than anything else, but Kim Namwoon answered it anyway.

“Green is best, of course.”

All around us, the people began to come to the same conclusion. It was the principle of scarcity: if there’s only a little bit of it, that must mean that it’s important.

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s find a green zone to occupy.”

“Wait,” Kim Namwoon said, standing up with me. “That’s it? Just ‘let’s find a green zone’?”

”Yeah,” I said. “It’s ‘use the green zones’ and ‘survive the monster horde’ to win. Or are you not that sure of your conclusion after all?”

“That’s not it,” he said. “You’re planning something. You know something.”

Damn. How’d he gotten to know me so quickly?

“What do you mean?” I tried, but my hopes were quickly dashed when not even a hint of doubt entered his expression.

“You’re definitely the kind of person who’d complicate things even when there’s a straightforward path in front of you. Just taking up a green zone and sitting this scenario out is way too passive—you’d never leave anything up to chance when you could simply take control of it yourself. Much less actually risk losing. What’s the plan?”

This fucking asshole. I couldn’t believe the faith he had in me. It was enough to give a guy a complex.

“You’re saying a lot of stuff for someone who’s only met me two days ago,” I said. “Are you sure that you’re not just projecting? In case you haven’t realised, this isn’t some fantasy novel where there’s a mastermind main character that steeples his fingers together, does some weird laugh, and says ‘oh ho ho, just as planned’.”

Despite my decisively aimed cutting blow, rather than looking frightened or disheartened, he smirked.

“You talk too much,” he said. “For somebody who doesn’t have a plan.”

Fuck.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “I do, in fact, have a super-special secret plan. In fact, step one is to mingle with the crowd. Make some friends.”

Kim Namwoon made a face at that, like he was a cat that had accidentally eaten something too sour.

“We’ll probably need more than two people to fill and defend a zone,” I said. “If we start making alliances early, we have a much better chance. Early bird and such.”

I kept saying more random nonsense like that as we wound our way through the crowd, picking through the murmuring throng.

Eventually, we ended up exactly where I wanted to be: right next to the kid.

He seemed startled to see us next to him, pale lips pressing thin as his dark eyes skittered over us warily.

“Sorry,” I said, preemptively. “Did we surprise you? There’re just too many people here.”

He didn’t say anything. That was alright.

We settled in to watch the crowd, people desperately talking to each other, banding together in the flimsiest of alliances by snap judgement alone.

I took a glance down at his sweatshirt. Upon it was emblazoned the logo for Korea University. How weird. He didn’t look like a university-aged student.

“Ah,” I said, the sound slipping out of me. “Your shirt…”

He looked at me, almost questioning, face expressionless. Bound by my earlier words, the start of a sentence, I was practically obligated to continue.

But my mind was blank. A skipping record. It screeched.

“Do you have an older sibling there?” I asked, my mouth running without permission.

And then, entirely without basis, without reason, I said, “My little sister goes there.”

I didn’t know why I said that. But the words dripped out of me, like a cup overflowing, spilling out onto the floor.

“She’s in her second year. Psychology. She wants to go into criminology.”

I didn’t know why I said that either.

I had initially wanted to say something else. Anything else, that I could then capitalise upon to make me sound clever and disarming, to make myself into somebody convincingly charming.

But this came out instead.

“…my brother,” he said. “Engineering. Civil engineering. He thought that it would be a sure thing.”

He shrugged, the motion at once awkward but strikingly artless. “He’s still going through the exams.”

I relaxed into the common, expected response, “And you?”

It was the kind of small talk that nobody would think twice about in everyday life. Veritable strangers could find a comfortable format in it: children would talk about the recent shows, adults would talk about the weather, and one would speak to teenagers about what they wanted to do in university.

And it was the kind of small talk sorely lacking in the apocalypse.

He cracked an ironical grin, one side twitching higher than the other. “Maybe to live through the next few days.”

I smiled. “Speaking of,” I said, “Want to join our team? Three is better than two, especially if we’re needing to use one of the green zones to get through this scenario.”

I inclined my head, bowing slightly. “Jung Hyunwoo. Pleased to meet you.”

He returned it, gingerly. “Han Donghoon.”

“Kim Namwoon,” Kim Namwoon said, following my lead. Then, rather abruptly, after casting a glance up and down Han Donghoon’s form, “What can you do, anyway? Got a sponsor? How’d you get past the first—”

“I believe,” I said, “That our first course of action should be to secure a zone.”

Han Donghoon looked at me with dark eyes, tilting his head demonstratively at the slowly organising crowd. “Before the leaders tell us where to go?”

“Yeah,” I said, already walking. “What are they going to do? Force us to leave? We’re human beings too, you know.”

I drummed my fingers on the collar of my jacket, my other hand fiddling with the slightly-warmed metal of the lightsaber deep in my coat pocket.

On the other side of the brightly glowing green line, stood Lee Sungkook. Behind him were a bunch of other people, some milling around, others simply looking, and a minor few outright glaring.

“What’s this about,” I said, lightly, already bored.

”Ah,” Lee Sungkook said. “Jung Hyunmin-ssi. We meet again.”

He sounded slightly less out of his depth, now that he had the full force of the crowd behind him.

“Hello Lee Sungkook-ssi,” I said. “As you can see, my group and I have claimed this zone. Unfortunately, it’s only got space for three, so we can’t add any more people, but it’s nice to see that you’re helping other people find a zone to stay for the night.”

Helpfully, I moved to show the number emblazoned on our zone. It shone a sans-serif ‘3’.

“I see,” Lee Sungkook said. “But Jung Hyunmin-ssi, you must understand, there are other people who need this space more than you do. We must secure the most vulnerable first; it’s not everybody for themselves. If anything, we must retain our humanity even throughout this barbarity.”

What pretty words. I was sure that he melted a few hearts and minds with that speech.

In that case, I didn’t mind playing the villain.

“Oh?” I said, tilting my head. “Then who were you planning on putting here? Surely not yourself.”

“Shows what you know!” A voice cried out, loud and strident. “Lee Sungkook-ssi hasn’t even stopped for a moment to rest since the announcement came out! He’s been spending all this time making sure that the people are safe, while all you’ve been doing is trying to save yourself!”

A low murmur rolled, filling up every nook and cranny. Then it swelled, other voices joining in the clamor.

“Yeah!” Another person cried out loud. “A coward like you can only ever suspect others of having the same evil intentions!”

The sentiment echoed. Resounded.

I blinked, slowly, tapping my fingers against my collarbone. If things continued like this, I would definitely become the kind of two-bit villain that I’d always hated in apocalyptic stories whether I liked it or not. One person, no matter how powerful, couldn’t ever hope to defeat the opinions of an entire audience once things were framed the opposing way.

“Oh, alright then,” I said, smiling, spreading my arms wide. “I’m sorry, I was too suspicious of you. It seems that I’ve read too many depressing novels to properly recognise reality. Who were you planning on putting here?”

Lee Sungkook didn’t miss a beat, clapping a hand on the shoulder of an elderly man. The old man didn’t quite come up to his shoulder though his thick forearms were clearly visible through his wrinkled button-up shirt, corded with muscle. Every so often, light pink stains streaked through the sleeves’ fabric, still present after having been roughly washed multiple times.

For talking so much about protecting the weak, he sure was devoted to keeping his investments safe.

“That’s only one person,” I said. “What about the other two?”

“Ah—”

Lee Sungkook turned his head, searching through the crowd for his other two candidates. That didn’t matter though; I pointed to a random pair of people in the crowd, near the front.

“How about them?”

They stared at me, the little girl still wiping a little at her snotty nose and tear-streaked cheeks. The mother had an almost disbelieving look on her face, as if she wasn’t quite sure if she was having a fantastic dream to wake from, or a horrific nightmare to sink deeper into.

Lee Sungkook’s eyes flickered between me and them for a moment, gaze surprisingly sharp and considering. Then, after it passed, his face relaxed.

“Sure,” he said. “Everybody is going to get a spot sooner or later. There’s no harm in yielding just this once.”

With a graceful, showman-like gesture, he pulled the mother-and-daughter pair to the front, grouping them with the old man.

“If you would,” he said to me, as pointedly as any concubine in an imperial harem.

“But of course,” I said, looking up slightly to keep an even gaze. “I’m always happy to help a good cause.”

I stepped out of the green zone. After a moment, Han Donghoon and Kim Namwoon followed.

The unlikely trio took our place, the old man taking one corner and the mother-daughter pair the other. The woman kept patting her daughter’s head, eyes darting from one place to the next, as if doubting her good luck.

“I apologise again,” I said, bowing slightly to Lee Sungkook, “For doubting your intentions. You really are saving people.”

He flushed slightly.

“It’s only right,” he said, as self-effacingly as any isekai hero. “What kind of person would I be if I let everything fall into chaos?”

I smiled. He did the same.

“You would’ve been an ordinary person,” I said. “These people are lucky to have such an extraordinary leader.”

Then I walked off, leaving Lee Sungkook to his adoring crowd.

“What was that,” Kim Namwoon hissed, the moment we were out of earshot. “I thought we were supposed to find a safe zone and keep it, not just give it up and thank them for the privilege.”

“Do you think so too?” I asked Han Donghoon, who’d been picking at the collar of his sweatshirt.

He shrugged, awkwardly. “If you think it’s for the best…”

“Oh you’re useless,” Kim Namwoon said. “Hyung, please, what the h*ll, I thought you were cool. I thought you had a plan. Not that you were going to give it up at the first hint of opposition.”

”What would you have had me do?” I asked, going up to the concourse level. “Fight against the entire will of the crowd? Let them judge me and find me fit for punishment? If I pushed any harder, they would’ve lynched me.”

“You have a sword,” Kim Namwoon said. “I have a sword.” He cast a glance at Han Donghoon. “He has headphones.”

“So what?” I said, ignoring the last part. “And with them I should’ve just started fighting the entire station? They would’ve stopped me eventually. For that matter, I would’ve stopped me. I’ve no interest in meaningless mass slaughter.”

“Then what was the point?” Kim Namwoon said, so loudly that it echoed. Up here, amongst the shops and ATMs, it was close enough to the surface that the air was mildly contaminated with purple smoke. It was weak enough that prolonged exposure probably wouldn’t kill me, but it wasn’t a good idea regardless to stay up here for long.

Showing their good sense, nobody was up here except us.

I poked through an overturned storefront, already vandalised and looted, seeing nothing but shattered glass.

“The point,” I said finally, “Is that Lee Sungkook and the rest of his gang want to be heroes.”

“What do you mean?” Han Donghoon said. “Like a ‘good person’ type?”

“Like the ‘main character’ type,” I said. “All that stuff about saving people, protecting the vulnerable… doesn’t it sound just like something out of a manga?”

“That might just mean that he’s read too many webnovels,” Han Donghoon said, “Not that he isn’t sincere.”

I levelled a gimlet eye at him. “Sincerity doesn’t come into it. What matters is how willing he is to continue being that way.”

I drummed my fingers in an alternating pattern. Not to mention, I didn’t say, part of the reason why he was so eager to help everybody occupy a zone was so he would have a pretext to search through the crowd.

A lone man asking people for their names for an unknowable reason was suspicious. A figure of authority asking for their names, ostensibly for administrative purposes, was just business as usual.

Han Donghoon, I thought, really was very lucky I was so much more memorable than he was.

“So what now?” Kim Namwoon asked. “Lee Sungkook wants to be a protagonist—so what? That doesn’t help us pass the scenario.”

“There’s no point in finding another zone to occupy right now,” I said. “All that will accomplish is successfully increasing the hatred of the station to such extreme levels that the worst case scenario would be the only outcome. No, what I want to do is map every zone in this station. There must be a point to it—no way is the only strategy just squatting in a green zone to wait for everything to be over. That’d be incredibly boring. If I paid money to watch a scene like that, I’d’ve sent death threats to the showrunners until I got a refund.”

[The constellation ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon’ nods vigorously in agreement!]

Suddenly, I had an odd, disconcerting feeling. It was as if I had been confronted by the ghost of my childhood self, who had not yet grown up from reading revenge stories and the many vicissitudes of the world, and then promptly congratulated.

[The constellation ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon’ has sponsored you 5 coins!]

I decided that I was okay with it.

“Anyway,” I said, bravely soldiering on, “Once we know that, we’ll be able to pull together a proper plan for the next three days.”

“And then a zone?” Han Donghoon asked.

Which was fair. I had lured him into our group with promises of safety and security.

“Sure,” I said. “With the way things are now though, we won’t be able to get anything from them until everyone’s settled down—unless we force the issue. And we don’t have the strength to force the issue as we are now.’

“That just means we’re waiting for the leftovers,” Kim Namwoon said in disgust. His hand twitched, possibly to the direction of his sword.

“Only if we let them assign us a zone,” I said. “And only if things remain as they are now.”

The moment hung for a second. Then, Han Donghoon nodded, as if making a decision.

“Alright,” he said. “I get it now.”

He straightened a bit, like he was preparing to give a speech. He even took his hands out of his hoodie pockets. Then, just as quickly, he stuffed them back in, totally unused to the feeling.

“You want to overthrow this station,” he said, looking straight at me nevertheless, unwavering. “You think you can do better.”

For a moment, I wanted to refute it.

I was not the type of person that could be responsible for others. I was not the kind of person who would think of the wider masses first.

Even all of this was done simply because it was the most straightforward option.

So I nodded a ‘yes’, knowing that he would misunderstand it, knowing that he would misunderstand me as that kind of responsible, kind-hearted person.

So what? Sometimes, the ends justified the means.

“Okay,” Han Donghoon said. “I have a couple of skills that should help.”

I squatted in the corner, poking at my phone. It was an old model, the screen protector peeling at the edges and the phone case scuffed at the corners.

I flicked down and watched the loading circle go round and round.

“Jung Hyunmin.”

I looked up. A man towered over me, various things strapped to his chest. A great sword handle loomed from over his shoulder, while a wooden mask swung from his hip.

I blinked at him, once, twice.

After an awkward moment, he introduced himself. “Jung Minseob.”

I stood up, slipping my phone into my coat pocket.

He nodded at it, “Checking for something?”

I revealed an expression of embarrassment. “I was just sitting down for a moment and automatically took it out.”

I sighed. “If there’s one thing that this apocalypse is going to be good for, it’s curing me of my smartphone addiction.”

Politely, he laughed at my joke. I chuckled along with him.

Then, quite abruptly, he grew serious. “It feels so strange,” he said. “It was only yesterday that I was living a normal life. Now, it’s like a webnovel come to life, as if we’re the protagonists of some transmigration fantasy.”

“Or your average cannon fodder,” I said.

“I’d rather not be so defeatist,” Jung Minseob said. “Characters are characters, people are people. They’re designed to be what they are, told how to act, but we can think for ourselves.”

“Oh?” I tilted my head. “That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

“I’m just saying that there’s a difference between characters from a story and real people from real life.”

I tapped out a rhythm on my sleeves. “If you say so,” I said, neither disagreeing nor agreeing.

He kept his expression calm and friendly, but there was a tightening around the corners of his eyes. I was annoying him; somehow, I was not responding correctly.

I let it drag out for a little moment longer. If he wanted to judge me so badly, then I would at least make him work hard for it.

“Do you think you can do it?” He said, finally. “Find a way to survive the apocalypse?”

There was one single right answer to this question and there were a multitude of incorrect answers.

It really was a very good question. He’d worked it into the conversation quite naturally as well.

Unfortunately for him however, he’d also ended up revealing more information to me than I was going to give him in return.

“If I didn’t believe I could do it,” I said, “What would be the point of trying so hard?”

Jung Minseob hid it well, but disappointment flashed across his face. It didn’t mean he wasn’t a good actor; only a person purposefully looking for it would’ve realised it.

“And you?” I asked.

“Actually,” he said slowly, as if he were taking the time to think about it, “Going back to what I said about this being just like a fantasy webnovel, I’ve read a lot of the genre. There was this one story that I was in the middle of reading that this seems a lot like. Eerily so, even.”

Oh?

He leaned in a little closer, like he was disclosing a secret. “If I told you that everything that’s happened since seven p.m. happened just like in that novel—that we are all inside of that novel, or that novel came to life—would you believe me? That this is all a story?”

Jung Minseob said it very seriously, eyes wide and tone hushed even though every word was as if it were ripped from the script of a poorly-written student film.

“A story?” I asked.

He nodded, eagerly. “Yes, exactly. I read that story, so I know what’s going to happen. Jung Hyunmin, you and your friend—you’re strong. If you joined our group, lent your strength, we’d definitely survive.”

Survive? With him and all of his fifty-odd chapters? I wasn’t even a real person to him. ‘Kim Namseon’ was worth even less.

What a joke.

I laughed. It wasn’t the amused kind of laugh.

“Are you serious?” I said. “Come on now, be real. It’s one thing to be surprised by the way things are now—I know I still haven’t gotten used to things like the dokkaebi being real.”

I paused.

“But isn’t it kind of pathetic of you to reject reality to go live inside a fantasy?”

He looked like I had done nothing less than slap him in the face.

“If you wanted us to join you,” I said, “You could’ve just said so. Leave things like ‘characters’ or ‘protagonists’ out of it. No matter how weird or awful things have gotten, it’s still ‘real life’. People have still died. Show them some respect.”

I could have continued, but I suddenly lost all interest in speaking to him.

“Goodbye,” I said to Jung Minseob. “Let’s not talk about this again.”

Anything else I had to say about the subject could be just as well expressed with a fist.

It was only when I had already turned around and was walking away that I realised: now I had two reasons why I wanted to take control of Dongmyo Station.

Chapter Text

In the end, there weren’t enough green zones for everybody, as expected.

I tapped out a rhythm on my sternum, watching as the leaders of Dongmyo station tried and failed to calm the crowd. I’d put myself into a somewhat defensible position: not quite in a corner where there was no space to manoeuvre, not quite in an open space where I could be attacked on all sides. Right in-between a red zone and a blue zone.

The green zones were almost self-explanatory. There was a number inscribed on each one, which seemed to indicate both the minimum and the limit. And being in the green surely meant that you were safe.

What was really troublesome was figuring out the red and blue zones. Neither had a number. And although the main scenario’s text implied that the red zones would be helpful, each glowed a baleful red, nearly the colour of fresh, arterial blood. In contrast, the blue zones seemed nearly inoffensively pale.

People avoided both, just in case.

…actually, the main group seemed to be commandeering the blue zones, clustering around them in what seemed to be a strategic manner. There was certainly a logic to their positioning: close enough so that they could help each other, far enough away that a few swings wouldn’t accidentally become friendly fire.

There wasn’t quite so much of a gathering around the red zones, certainly none of the group seemed inclined to enter them, but the zones’ placement did seem to figure into their formation.

Hmm. Looks like somebody else also knew exactly what the zones did and decided to have the same idea as me. Annoying. It meant I wasn’t half as clever as I thought I was, nor was I as unique.

That meant we could only compete on the execution. 

I flicked a glance to Jung Minseob and Lee Sungkook, who were directing the crowd with growing, but well-hidden unease.

It was about ten minutes until midnight, and they still hadn’t found their silver bullet. If I were them, I would’ve been going crazy from anxiety.

A notification pinged on my phone. It was from an unknown number.

It said:

>Look up.

I did.

Above me, there was a surveillance camera, the lens shifting and focusing. I waved.

After a brief moment, it twitched, waving back.

How awkwardly endearing. Even though I’d talked a big game without much evidence to back it up, Han Donghoon was still proving to be a reliable teammate.

Somebody poked me in the back.

I swung around before realising it was Kim Namwoon, grinning cheekily.

“What are you doing here?”

“Where else would I be?” Kim Namwoon said. “Doesn’t hyung’s plan implicitly rely on you living to enact it?”

I blinked at him. Why would that affect his positioning? Surely he already knew that I could fight well enough with my lightsaber. Hell, I’d saved his life with the damned thing!

“…okay,” I said anyway, deciding to let it go. Then, politely, “Thank you.”

He made a face at my manners, shrugging it off. Then he sidled closer, hovering over my shoulder to peer at my phone.

“Han Donghoon’s gotten all the cameras then?” Kim Namwoon said, though there was a certain tone to it that made it seem he desperately wished otherwise.

For a single, fleeting moment, I resisted the urge.

Then I flicked him on the ear.

Shocked, he jerked back, though he had the good sense to not exaggerate it with a shout and more than a few staggered steps. 

“Careful,” I said, almost smiling. “Wouldn’t want to stumble back too far.”

Kim Namwoon looked around, scowled, and repositioned himself. “I’m not stupid,” he hissed, indignantly.

I did not give a response to that statement.

But out of the sheer kindness of my heart, I decided to return to the matter at hand:

It was five minutes to midnight. The monsters would come soon.

Looking back out into the darkness of the tunnels, I began to tap my fingers again, thinking.

Adjusting for the likely skill level of the local incarnations, modulated by the apparent bloodthirstiness of the current constellations, attenuated by how utterly boring it would be to simply see a one-sided slaughter—

Nothing stronger than a Tier 8 creature should emerge from those depths. Even with all these changes, things shouldn’t have altered that much. 

…that still left a lot of wriggle room for error. 

I glanced around again. The ‘mainstream’ group had undoubtedly done the best effort they could at arranging things so that they would have the best chance of survival. Of victory.

Kim Namwoon nudged me. “You’re muttering again,” he said.

I’d used the same information to do the same.

My phone buzzed. I ignored it. 

So why was I so thrown off by how they’d placed things? 

A lot of the more vulnerable people had been put away into green zones. That was sound: if they were to be useless at fighting anyway, they might as well be out of the way where their bodies wouldn’t get in the way.

But so were a lot of the ‘mainstream’ group. And looking around at the distribution of people around the remaining red and blue zones, there were people with visible weaponry around those, but it was obvious that they didn’t quite know what to do with them.

…ah.

I turned around to see Lee Sungkook and Jung Minseob situate themselves into a comfortably defensible cluster, accompanied by a few of their more prepared looking fighters.

In hindsight, it was obvious. It was even strategic.

But it all hinged on a single important distinction: that a ‘character’ was not a ‘person’.

A dull roar sounded in the distance. Dust shook from the ceiling. Then, there was a curious thudding sound. It grew faster and faster, louder and louder, distinct thumps blurring together into one massive wave of noise.

There was a shrieking rip and crash of metal as a line of subway cars were smashed apart by the sheer force of the stampede.

And then the rats were upon us in a horrific caterwaul of screaming noise.

For the first few moments, I swung on automatic. My lightsaber made it easy, the plasma of the blade cutting through flesh like melted butter. It only took a few swings to turn monsters into corpses.

In front of me was Kim Namwoon, his sword keeping pace. There was a wild grin on his face; his teeth bared a blinding white as he swung deep into the belly of a leaping rat.

We were not doing badly.

But ‘we’ only meant the pair of us.

The moment the clock struck midnight, the boundaries of the green zones became inviolable. Anyone settled inside was then perfectly safe, shielded totally from harm.

The red and blue zones however, remained permeable.

The reason why was obvious, of course.

“Don’t get distracted,” I called out to Kim Namwoon. “You’ll only get a couple of minutes.”

“But until then,” Kim Namwoon said, gleefully kicking a ground rat in the chest. It flew an unfairly good distance away before eventually rolling to a stop in the middle of a red zone. 

The moment that it landed, when all four of its paws made contact with the ground, it collapsed.

Kim Namwoon whooped at the sight, undoubtedly getting a hefty chunk of coins with that kill. 

“Until then,” Kim Namwoon said, flashing me the kind of grin that would get its own splash page in a manga, “I’ll be the one keeping us alive.”

He punctuated that by slashing through another rat so hard that its body bounced.

I narrowed my eyes, frowning. “You’re putting too much effort in looking cool,” I said. “Tone it down a bit; we’re going to have to do this all night.”

Of course, saying it, I felt a little bad. Clearly, he was trying very hard. And, of course he would have to put more effort into his blows: not everybody had my lightsaber that cut through flesh as though it were water.

Was I being too harsh?

Kim Namwoon sliced through another rat, sending it stumbling into a second and third rat, the group eventually landing in the red zone.

“Triple kill!”

Never mind. 

Kim Namwoon shouted again, barely able to be heard over the din. He looked gloriously exhilarated, lips pulled back to expose his teeth in a savage grin. He was bathed in the glowing light of the blue zone, firmly positioned in its center.

But he was tiring quickly. Sweat beaded on his brow and stuck his shirt to his back.

Every movement was too graceful, too fast, too powerful. Kim Namwoon was in constant adjustment, never quite modulating his movements to be just right. He always went a bit too far a bit too quickly, and it was only by the saving grace of his heightened reactions that he was able to defend himself in time.

My watch beeped.

At that same moment, Kim Namwoon stumbled, his sword swing going wide and leaving his back wide open. 

A ground rat leaped, teeth gnashing, spittle flying.

I beheaded it.

“Sit down,” I told Kim Namwoon, not daring to glance away for a second. 

“It’s only been five minutes,” Kim Namwoon said, though he couldn’t quite inject any emotion into it. Mostly because he was almost entirely preoccupied with gasping of air.

“Exactly,” I said. “Sit down, will you? I’ll be counting on you later.”

I heard a thumping sound as he flopped to the floor. Finally reassured, I turned my full attention back to the onslaught.

Most of the regular people were in the green zones, that much was true. But there were even more that had not been so lucky and unluckier still to be quite unnecessary to the ‘mainstream’ group.

They were the ones dying. 

A man gasped as a bat swing glanced off of a column and went wide, the ground rat taking the opportunity to tear out his throat. Another woman stumbled, her stamina fully drained by the blue zone’s buffing effect, leaving her to be swarmed and trampled. And unluckiest of all, a man simply wasn’t looking and dropped the moment he stepped into a red zone.

It was so… disorganised.

I ducked as I heard the pounding of feet behind me, the great dark body of a ground rat sailing over me before turning on the spot to snarl.

I felt my body drop into a wider stance, my hand angling my lightsaber in front of me.

It charged.

I dodged right, pivoting, slashing my lightsaber. The blade seared past skin and fat into bone, the ground rat shrieking as the lightsaber cleaved right through its forelimb.

Beholding the second ground rat I’d disarmed in just as many days, I had a strange feeling as I adjusted my grip on the handle. 

Was this going to turn into a habit? Did I somehow have a subconscious desire to dismember arms from bodies?

I cast an accusing glance at the lightsaber before refocusing. Blame could be assigned later, when the night was over.

The ground rat limped around me, barely compensating for its missing limb. Warily, I turned at the same pace that it did, unwilling to let it have a clear shot at my back, no matter how buffed I was by the blue zone.

It was an all-around general increase in strength and speed. Reflexes too. No matter what I did, my body responded as easily as breathing. Overall, it certainly seemed a must-have for anybody trapped outside of a green zone.

But it took a tremendous amount of energy to sustain it. Already, barely having finished one fight, I was already starting to run empty, my limbs powered less by muscles firing and more by sheer will alone. On second thought, five minutes had been far too long. 

Just how had Kim Namwoon done that and still want to keep going?

I took a quick glance to see Kim Namwoon slowly starting to sit back up, stretching his arms and legs, hair drenched in sweat. He was already getting ready to head back in again.

I returned my attention to the ground rat, who’d evidently called for help. Now, it was three ground rats encircling me, large black eyes carefully watching for any weak spots in my guard.

I had to end this quickly.

I faked a stumble, lightsaber drifting wide. Then, in the moment of the rats' hesitation, I struck.

Stronger than what was warranted, quicker than I’d ever expected, I cleaved through the first rat’s skull. The excess momentum sent me turning, but I managed to correct it into a backhand slash, slicing a second across the jaw into its eye.

That left me face-to-face with the third.

My lightsaber was out of position, my arm having swung much too far to the right. My chest was defended by nothing except my jacket and shirt.

It leapt, snarling.

I kicked out at its face, hopping backwards, but unused as I was to my newfound strength and speed, I did it too early.

Fuck! Now I really was overextended!

But luckily, it was too late for the rat to change course to my all-too-vulnerable leg. And luckily, it had gotten slightly distracted, flinching from the almost-blow.

That left it entirely blind to my lightsaber, already on the downward swing.

In the space of a moment, the rat crumpled  to the ground while I nearly collapsed to my knees.

Sweat was pouring down my brow, sticking my hair to my head.

I was gasping for air. Behind me, Kim Namwoon was not nearly as recovered as I would’ve liked, still too red-faced and heaving.

This was unsustainable.

If things continued like this, the only survivors would indeed be the people in the green zones. Nobody could sustain this kind of overpowered exertion for eight hours, even with intermittent breaks. 

The only thing the blue zones were good for was to showcase a momentary blaze of brilliant glory before dying to the rat horde. The drawbacks for using the damned things were just so devastatingly severe that it was hard to imagine any reason why anyone would want to use it.

On themselves, that is.

Time to switch gears. I disengaged from the blue zone, the buff instantly dissipating, but I also no longer felt like one wrong move would spill my insides to be outsides.

That is to say: I still nearly fell flat on my face and would have if Kim Namwoon hadn’t grabbed my arm at the last possible moment. 

“Thanks,” I said, being polite.

He huffed out something that I was sure was going to be perfectly sarcastic if only he had the breath for it.

The half-hour mark was approaching. That would bring a short lull in the waves and waves of rats.

And then Han Donghoon and I would finally be able to coordinate.

That was the first point. Han Donghoon would help with that, strategically returning the internet and cellular communication to whoever decided to opt in.

The second was surviving until the half-hour lull. That was neatly aligned with the third: proving that my strategy would work.

That meant I had to prove my worth.

I spied a thicket of people huddled around a blue zone, totally exhausted and perfectly desperate.

They weren’t too far away and there weren’t too many of them.

In short: just right.

And better yet: the rats had smelled weakness.

They noticed this with much horror, shouting frantically for the rats to go away, to simply disappear, for someone—anyone—to help them, please, please, please—

At the last possible second, I stepped in.

The rats snarled, sensing a threat. However, it was mostly posturing, with the rats quite unwilling to abandon their prey in favour of hunting down the new variable for no reason.

So, I decided to give them a reason. 

With a swing, I strategically de-limbed a nearby rat, drawing a squeal of pain. As it snapped at me, I leapt backwards at the last moment, opening up some distance.

As they ran at me, I dodged, letting them past. That brought me one step closer to the hostages, still clustered next to the blue zone. 

“Move!” I yelled, “Get out of the way!”

They hesitated for a moment, but not for long, especially with Kim Namwoon shoving them out of the way just in time for me to refocus on the rats, already on their return pass.

To piss them off even more, I dodged again, this time taking yet another limb off of another member of the pack. And then there were not only squeals, but roars.

A massive paw lashed at me, quicker than before, nearly taking my face off. I managed to dodge it, but that only neatly put me into the path of gnashing teeth, drawing blood. 

Worse, it was my sword arm. 

“F*ck!”

I had never quite realised it before, but the space between seconds was truly an eternity. 

Fuck. My arm throbbed. I nearly regretted having used the blue zone earlier.

But simply knowing something wasn’t the same as experiencing it.

And it was because of that, I recognised the precise moment the ground rats’ exhaustion overcame their artificial strength.

As limbs went flying, I turned to the survivors, who looked at me not as if I were a fellow man, but a saviour sent from on high.

Perfect. Shock and awe was indeed the best way to seize control. 

“Hello everybody,” I said. “If you want to survive tonight, please pay attention.”

Come the half-hour, everything had gone as I’d dared to hope. Between the voluntolds’ efforts and Kim Namwoon’s own special brand of charisma, we’d rallied nearly all of the ‘marginalised’ group to what was becoming very clearly an alternative to Jung Minseob and Lee Sungkook’s agenda.

It helped that I was able to give practical demonstrations every so often of what exactly was possible in this scenario.

In all honesty, the plan was really very simple in the end. Almost impossible to fuck up.

Rather than letting the ground rats dictate the flow of the scenario, wouldn’t it be better to control it instead? 

With the security cameras, Han Donghoon would be able to keep track of the entire station. With the newly reconnected phones, he would be able to direct all of my volunteers.

And with that knowledge in hand, so long as their courage held and they didn’t break against the horde, they would be able to funnel the ground rats into kill zones. 

I’d noticed it as I was fighting that the ground rats in this scenario hadn’t seemed particularly intelligent, mostly running on instinct and chasing after the nearest moving body at any given time. Perhaps it was due to the limits of the scenario, perhaps we’d just caught a lucky break and been attacked by an especially dim colony, but I would take full advantage of it.

The red zones would kill the ground rats instantly; all we had to do was give them no choice but to run into it.

As for the blue zones, that would be left to the more able volunteers including myself and Kim Namwoon. All we would have to do was to bait the ground rats into the trap. But even then, we only needed to be able to hold out against the buffed rats for the few critical seconds it would take for them to exhaust themselves and for us to strike the fatal blow.

It was a perfect plan. Detailed enough to cover the necessary issues at hand, flexible enough to stretch for unaccounted problems. 

That was why I also wasn’t surprised that something immediately happened to fuck it all up.

“What are you doing?”

Jung Minseob frowned at me, his followers trailing behind him like bizarre ducklings.

“Making things work,” I said shortly, poking at my phone as more messages flowed in, nearly overwhelming me.

Luckily, I was not a child of the Internet for nothing. I responded to each and every one as Jung Minseob tried to reorient himself.

“You should know that coordination is the key to our survival,” he said. “Splitting our group’s focus like this is only going to splinter us and make things more confusing when the next wave of monsters come.”

My face twitched. 

“Yeah?” I said, finally looking away from my phone to look at Jung Minseob’s ugly face instead. “The same ‘coordination’ that’s going to get all of us killed?”

That struck him deeply, I could see that clearly written across his face.

“The blue zones are slowly killing us,” I said. “Your idea of rotating people around in them was never going to work—not in the small numbers that everyone was grouped up in.”

He flinched at that statement, looking as if he wanted to make a rebuttal but I pushed on.

“If you want to keep using your plan, that’s fine by me,” I said. “It seems like it was working out really well for you.”

I leaned in closer, glaring him down despite the height differential. “But otherwise,” I said, “Don’t get in my way.”

At that moment, my phone buzzed insistently and I had to look away to check my messages.

Unfortunately, Jung Minseob heard it too and was nosy enough to stick around.

“Your phone works?” He asked, face confused. “I thought…”

Then his face drained of all colour, his lips going grey. “Wait, you—”

I scowled, supremely annoyed. “What now?” 

I was going to say more, but I got unfortunately distracted. That was because, quite suddenly, a ground rat tried to bite my head off.

Luckily, I managed to duck in time but that somehow didn’t even phase Jung Minseob, who’d apparently decided that talking was a free action whenever I was around.

“Who are you?” he said. “I don’t think you’re a named character; I would’ve remembered that much at least.”

The fuck?

“Or maybe from even later on?” Jung Minseob muttered, “D*mn, this is why I should’ve been more patient. Sh*t!”

What was this moron even trying to do? The legendary ‘baffle them with bullshit’ technique?

It didn’t matter; I had a job to do and no half-wit was going to stop me.

I chopped off the ground rat’s head before it could chomp on Jung Minseob’s, lacking in nutrients as it was, before turning to him to say with surprising levelheadedness:

“What the f*ck are you doing?! Trying to get yourself killed? Do it elsewhere and don’t drag everybody else down with you!”

I punctuated the statement with the body of yet another ground rat, who’d obviously seen the weak link and sought to take advantage of it.

“Get out of the way!”

He blinked once, twice, then shook himself as if returning to reality. In the middle of a battlefield. 

Dumbass.

But it wasn’t like I wasn’t slightly distracted myself. I kept turning my head, trying to peer above the backs of the ground rats and the heads of the various survivors.

I kited a ground rat into a blue zone and killed it the moment its movements faltered.

I caught the arm of a fellow volunteer before he could fall into a red zone, righted him, and moved on.

In fact, it was embarrassingly long before I realised I could simply pick up my still buzzing phone to ask Han Donghoon about it.

Navigating directly to the text chat I asked:

<Where is he? Do you see him?

>At the far-side escalators.

And after a moment, almost like he had hesitated:

>He’s alright.

I blinked for a moment at the extra text message. Had I asked???

In any case, I headed over as fast as possible, dodging a few more ground rats on the way. 

I had a bad feeling about this. 

Things were going far too well. 

Sure, some people had died and that was sad and all, but it should have been more. At the very least, the people of Dongmyo station should have been more resistant, more suspicious. 

And though some part of me was glad for the increased number of survivors, another, much larger part was waiting for the other boot to drop. 

The third scenario was meant to last for three days. 

What fun would it be if everybody overcame their problems on the first day, on the first hour, and things proceeded smoothly from there?

No way. 

There were a few ways things could go. The first, a slow death from exhaustion, was slightly more unlikely than before. Our new configuration was designed for easy substitution. 

Second, ill-conceived revolt was rather unprobable for now. The first half-hour had convinced everyone of the futility of ignoring me, and the second half-hour was proving my worth. 

The third, a sudden ramp up in difficulty was… annoyingly possible. 

In fact, surprisingly probable. The kind of constellations that would demand such a change to the scenario would also be the type to get bored in an hour or so. 

Fuck. 

Shit. 

I ran faster. 

An explosive jump in difficulty, just as people began to relax again in time for the hour mark would be the most exciting thing that could happen right now. 

If it was compounded by a sudden attack on the two incarnations that had spearheaded the boring change to the scenario, even better. 

My watch beeped. 

My phone buzzed. 

The annoying voice of some dokkaebi sounded in my ear,

[Dear constellations—!]

I forcefully ignored it, pushing away all extraneous notifications as I tried to get there faster. 

Why had I even insisted on being on opposite sides in the first place?!

[The scenario’s parameters have been forcefully changed!]

[Additional monsters are swarming Dongmyo station!]

Somebody screamed at the messages, replete with bleeped out curses. It wasn’t me, mostly because I didn’t have the time to do so.

Once I finished chopping the rats into sashimi however, I was finally free to curse. 

“Ah, f*ck,” I said, tripping the censorship bleep again. It hadn’t been truly on purpose, the words naturally slipping from my mouth when I saw the nature of the monsters in front of me.

A shiver ran down my spine, making the tips of my fingers tingle. My mouth twisted as I gripped my lightsaber tighter.

The wave of monsters roiled closer, creeping, crawling, wriggling—

“Aaagh!”

A scream sounded out at the sight of the writhing insect horde, each member at least the size of a small dog.

A woman ran past me, not much older than I was, holding a metal bat, obviously worn and scratched. As she ran, she screamed, and as she screamed, she cried, shouting out various invectives at the monsters as she beat down on them with her bat.

“I hate rats!” she sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I hate cockroaches! I hate them! I hate them!”

She punctuated each syllable with another downward swing of the bat, sending guts and fluid spraying. Some landed on her face and she only sobbed harder, literally crying from disgust.

[Some constellations that dislike vermin are expressing approval!]

The woman’s muscles bulged, having evidently immediately invested her sponsorship into strength and stamina to hit the insects even harder.

Suddenly, entirely unwillingly, I felt a little bad for the bugs.

The insectoid development apparently handled, I turned my attention back to the search.

Where was he?

Bugs aside, Kim Namwoon wouldn’t be caught dead running away from the thick of the fight. If anything, he should be gleefully swatting a couple more insects.

My gaze turned upwards, at the escalators to the concourse. 

Upstairs was nearly deserted. It was to be expected. The scenario was supposed to be confined to the platform level.

Yet there was no poisonous air here.

What an odd loophole. Obviously, the concourse was part of the station, but to have it entirely devoid of monsters was something that could not be possible. What would the dokkaebi have done if the people below had simply decided to escape to the floor above? Not a single rat nor insect had even attempted climbing the stairs or the escalator. Not a single monster even came barreling in from the exits.

Unless. 

My gaze drifted to a single gently blinking square. It was green. It was empty. It was inscribed with a glowing '1'.

I had walked along the entire floor before. I’d had to do it quickly because of the poisonous atmosphere. And before, I hadn’t seen any zone whatsoever.

The reason must be because the scenario had changed. 

There was no other reason why something like that would have suddenly appeared. 

And then I looked at the Spectre. 

It was far away enough that I didn’t need to do anything. I simply had to walk away. I could’ve even strolled to the green square, still somehow viable, and waited it all out.

But it wouldn’t have stopped the noise. The muttering, mumbling murmur that had rolled on and on without cease ever since I stepped foot on this floor.

Kim Namwoon stared into nothing, eyes focusing too hard into air, hair too wild to be called styled, hands moving in constant motion and pacing without rest.

His voice was too low for his words to be properly heard. Nonetheless, I did not try to hear them. 

He was slightly too close to the Spectre to be saved without injury. If I tried, I would definitely end up falling into the trap myself and then we would both be lost.

…

At least, that was what somebody else would say.

Against all odds, I suddenly began to laugh, overcome with absurdity. What a coincidence! What a ridiculous situation!

What were the chances of the scenario mutating like this! What was even the probability that a Spectre would be pulled into it, in Dongmyo of all places!

And what was the likelihood that I, of all people, would be the one to fight it?

After all, I was probably one of the best people to do it.

I was just a normal person; I didn’t have trauma.

Thus, I heaved Kim Namwoon into my arms, thankful for the extra levels I’d put into strength, and shoved him into the green zone. I had no idea whether it would break him out of the Memory Prison, but it should at least have brought him out of close proximity with the thing. 

Having done my good deed for the day, I flipped out my lightsaber into my hand, ready to take the Spectre out and end this weird side adventure for good, only to notice something odd in the corner of my eye.

[The level of the exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ is too low!]

[Your exclusive skill, ‘(Dis)comprehension’ is partially activating!]

Then a flash of white, thin and gossamer and hazy.

[Due to a conflict error, the activation of your exclusive skill ‘(Dis)comprehension’ is delayed!]

And then:

[Sub-scenario—Phantom Prison has begun!]

.

.

.

Ring, ring, ttareureung ttareureung!

Ring, ring, ttareureung ttareureung!

I sat at the end of the dining table, back against the wall. Above me, the three lights of the ceiling lamp were out of sync, two being a bright bluish white and the other a dim yellow. The plastic, flowery tablecloth brushed my knees.

Somehow, I knew exactly where I was even though I’d never been here before. Somehow, I knew exactly where everything was, where everything should be, even though this place wasn’t real—couldn’t be real.

And somehow, I wasn’t afraid despite knowing all of this. 

Why should I be? It was only a dream. It was only my dream.

Inexplicably, the landline phone was placed as the table’s centerpiece, the same old faded yellow-white-grey that it always had been. Around it, there were perhaps ten, twenty dishes of varying shape and size. Some were jade green ceramic, some were painted colourful china patterns, and some were pastel plastic. They shouldn’t have fit on the table, but there was just enough room. 

My own plate was overflowing. Glistening. Steaming.

I lifted my gaze. 

She sat at the other end of the table, perfect and prim and proper. Her head was tilted to one side, the black mask fully obscuring her face. The mismatched lights bounced off of the sculpted curve of the cheek.

The phone rang again.

The phone rang—

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my smartphone. The display was black, the caller ID entirely obscured in the way words in dreams are always obscured.

I turned my phone off.

The ringing ended.

There was a great, heaving sigh. With the shuffling sound of shifting cloth, she gestured with a single gloved hand at the table.

“Eat,” she said. It was neither particularly melodious nor particularly discordant.

It was simply a normal sort of voice. 

That was what made it so terrifying.

Entirely unwillingly, I looked down at the table again. While the centerpiece of the table was the phone, the masterpiece was clearly the feast.

The white bone of the ribs jutted up towards the sky, a sharp knife interrupting the space between us. Thick glaze pooled beneath it, dark as wine. 

And there was far more than that, besides.

It would be so delicious. It would only take a quick second. All I had to do was reach out and take it.

I wanted it. I wanted it. 

I wanted to eat the thigh and the belly. The ribs and the breast. I wanted to know the taste of the cheeks and the tongue.

Just one bite. My teeth into flesh. The juices would drip from my mouth. The warmth would sink down into my stomach. 

I’d love it. 

I’d been starving hungry my entire life; I knew that if I ate of this feast I’d finally, finally, finally be full.

Just one bite. 

I’d never be hungry again.

I dragged my gaze away, nearly weeping with the effort, forcefully settling it on her mask. Even though I couldn’t see her face, I knew that she was amused.

What a jerk. I knew that she was doing this just to fuck with me.

“Why are you here?” I said.

“A question for a question: why haven’t you been picking up? We’ve been trying to reach you about your extended warranty.”

I stared. “Is that your idea of a joke?”

“No, I’m quite serious. Long-distance calls are quite expensive, you know.”

“If you’re that concerned about money,” I said, “Then you shouldn’t have fucking paid to change the scenario like that.”

She sighed. “Don’t be so obstinate,” she said. “You know it’s for the best. Wouldn’t it have been so perfectly boring to have been stuck in Dongmyo for three whole days babysitting? All I did was speed up the timeline a little.”

“And have us fight more monsters.”

“And add a little more variety,” she agreed. “Isn’t it a fair trade?”

“Now you’re here, talking to me,” I said. 

“Shouldn’t people be rewarded for good deeds?” She asked. “I spent all those coins, typed up so many messages… You’re making me feel like I don’t deserve to have a nice conversation with you.”

“Isn’t this against some kind of rule?” I asked. “It’s way too early—”

She cut me off, waving an exasperated hand. “Everybody knows dreams don’t count. It’s all symbolism and extended metaphors.”

“Stupid ones,” I said. 

The room shook, sending the lights swinging and painting long shadows up the wall. The cutlery clattered and the floor trembled, as if we were in a train car that had just run over an uneven set of track.

A section of thigh quivered on another plate. The juices ran red, dripping. 

“Careful, I think you’ll hurt its feelings,” she said. “Besides, it’s your dream. Shouldn’t you say nice things about your own dream?”

I scowled. “No.”

As if in direct response, my glass tipped itself over, a wine-dark puddle spreading on the yellow tablecloth, dripping smearing stains onto my trousers. 

The garnish rolled out, tumbling onto the floor whereupon it stared blankly up into the ceiling.

“My dear incarnation,” she said, all pretense falling away, the words arranging themselves in a song, in a sigh. “I promised you that you would get everything that you ever wanted, didn’t I?”

Almost fondly, she said, “Jung Hyunwoo. Don’t you remember that you bargained with me?”

“I remember,” I said. “I remember what I promised you.”

“Then why are you acting like a stupid child?” she asked, bluntly. “You are already a damned fool, you don’t need to make things worse for yourself.”

Then she tilted her head, thinking aloud: “Although, if that’s what you really want…”

My temper snapped. I didn’t need this. I didn’t need her. What I needed, what I wanted, was to wake up and get back to my real life with real rats wanting to chew my real face off so I could fucking get on with everything.

“Shut up,” I said. “It’ll all be the same for you either way, so—”

The moment lurched, I blinked, and she was suddenly in front of me, clasping my hands in her surprisingly warm gloves.

“The apocalypse already ruined your life,” she said, more gently. “At least listen to me and wake up from this ruinous dream.”

[Your sponsor has forcibly ended the Memory Prison!]

[The conflict has ended. Your exclusive skill, ‘(Dis)comprehension’ is fully activated!]

Then I woke up. Without having the last word.

.

.

.

And then I murdered the shit out of that fucking Spectre.

Fuck that guy.