I turned the TV off at once.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t sympathize, but honestly, it wasn’t the sort of atmosphere where I could keep watching.
I had turned on the TV in the first place to lighten the mood.
I’d just look up the details on my phone later.
“…Ah, if you’re tired, should we head back first?”
“…Yeah, sorry.”
Min Aji’s drooping ears perked once, then she carefully closed the hospital room door and left.
Click.
When the door shut and perfect silence settled in, I pressed a hand to my forehead and let out a deep breath.
‘Haa, what an atmosphere.’
I turned my gaze to the delivery box sitting forlornly on the bedside table.
The invoice read [Clothing/Miscellaneous Goods].
The sender was indeed the online shopping mall I had wrestled with on my phone a few days ago.
‘If I heard right, the NIS agents who wanted to meet me brought it here.’
Unfortunately, I had headed to Gangnam before they arrived, so we missed each other.
Back when I ordered this, I had no pants to wear outside right away, so I’d been shivering in nothing but boxer shorts and a long padded coat.
It had only been a few days ago, but it felt as distant as if it had been ages.
In that short span of time, I’d gone all the way to the front of the blackout zone, cut down monsters, caused a miracle, and even negotiated with the military, so I suppose it made sense.
The density of time was different. The density.
“Let’s see……”
I roughly opened the box and checked the clothes that had arrived.
The distinct fabric smell of new clothes.
Leaving behind that scent, which even felt faintly like perfume, I held up a hoodie against myself.
‘…Mm, it came in about right.’
The size seemed right by eye.
The only problem was whether I’d ever have a chance to wear it from now on.
‘…Well, the military provides most supplies anyway.’
I clicked my tongue bitterly, folded the hoodie roughly, and tossed it into a corner of the bed.
“I’ll just throw it on when I sleep later or something.”
Once the desperation was gone, the joy of opening a delivery package was gone too.
I stared blankly at the black screen of the wall-mounted TV, then opened my phone.
‘…Ugh, what the hell, why are there so many notifications piled up?’
Still, after excluding things like game stamina notifications, only the important ones more or less remained.
For example……
‘Mom contacted me a lot.’
Even Dad had contacted me.
He was usually a blunt man, so it was almost unheard of for him to reach out first like this.
…I had already given my parents a heads-up about my situation.
I hadn’t told them everything honestly, only enough that I could gloss over the rest.
But since I had told them that much, it seemed they’d worried a lot because they couldn’t reach me for a whole day.
After taking a short, deep breath, I pressed the call button.
The call connected before the ringtone had even sounded twice.
[Yujin!]
At Mom’s urgent voice coming through the receiver, I reflexively pulled the phone a little away from my ear.
“Yeah, Mom. Why did you call so many times?”
[Why weren’t you answering your phone! Do you know how worried your father and I were, thinking something had happened to you?]
“No, nothing happened. The training was just a little intense, so I slept like I’d passed out. This is the military, you know.”
It was true to a certain extent. I had passed out.
It was just that the cause wasn’t training, but an overload of divine power.
[Military or whatever, I saw the news and Gangnam is in complete chaos right now! You haven’t been deployed somewhere dangerous, have you?]
I leaned back against the head of the bed and replied, pretending to be calm.
“Why would I go somewhere dangerous? Would they even send me out when I’m in this state? I’m waiting in the rear. The food’s good, the bed’s comfortable, and I’m living the easy life.”
[……Really?]
“Would I lie to you? Is Dad next to you?”
[Yes, yes, I’ll put him on. Honey!]
There was a clattering sound, then soon Dad’s blunt voice came through along with a cough.
[…Did you eat?]
“Not yet. Did you eat, Dad?”
[Yeah. You said training is hard. Be careful not to get hurt, and don’t show off. Hide in the back.]
I chuckled and nodded.
“Got it. Oh, right. That bitch…… still hasn’t contacted you, has she?”
[…No.]
Dad’s voice grew noticeably heavy.
The moment Yuri came up, I could feel the air beyond the receiver sink coldly.
[Your mother’s been crying every day because of that. We filed a missing person report with the police too, but with Seoul in the state it is right now, who knows what’ll happen……]
“Don’t worry too much. Is she the kind of girl who’d die easily wherever she goes? She’s probably holed up in some shelter somewhere, eating the food they give her like a pig.”
[……Yeah, I hope so.]
“I’ll find her.”
The words slipped out before I knew it.
Realizing my mistake too late, I hurriedly glossed it over.
“I mean… I’ll ask around and drag that bitch back by the hair, so don’t worry.”
[……Yujin. Don’t push yourself.]
“I won’t. I’m hanging up.”
I hurriedly ended the call. If I kept talking, they might notice my voice trembling.
Looking down at the call-ended screen, I bit my lip hard.
‘I’ve gotten awfully good at lying.’
Living the easy life, staying in the rear.
But if I didn’t make excuses like that, the two of them might collapse from heart trouble.
I shook my head to dispel my thoughts, opened the internet browser, and checked the news.
The anchor’s words that had been cut off on TV earlier, and the voice of the bereaved family member screaming.
I needed to find out what exactly was happening outside.
[Breaking News] Boundary of Gangnam Blackout Zone, 2,000 Civilians in Standoff with Tanks… Why Are Martial-Law Forces Deploying Tanks Against Citizens Instead of the Blackout Zone?
[Exclusive] Protesters Pelt Troops, Physical Clashes with Military Forces… Casualties Mounting.
[Comprehensive] Martial Law Command’s Classified Control of Internal Blackout Zone Information Sparks Public Outrage.
Just looking at the headlines made me dizzy.
The comment sections were already a battlefield.
Hatred toward mutants, condemnation of the incompetent government, and desperate pleas from people with family inside the blackout zone.
-What’s the military doing? Eating up our tax money and not even shelling it? And where the hell did the tanks go?
-Why the fuck are they using tanks made to fight foreign enemies only against our own citizens? Bring in tanks or the air force or whatever and wipe out that blackout zone or whatever it is! Why aren’t they doing it!
-My daughter is in there please save her please……
-The mutants all need to be hunted down and killed. This whole mess is happening because of those devil bastards.
Some hunted mutants like witches and turned their arrows of rage toward them, while others cursed the incompetent government.
And beneath all that hatred and anger lay the fear that they might lose someone they loved.
I took in all those reactions with my eyes.
I could understand their reactions, and I also could not.
There were some words I sympathized with, and others I could not.
In just a single week, the world had become this chaotic, racing toward extremes.
The fact seemed to tighten around me step by step, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
‘…I’m tired.’
I’d dealt with too much as soon as I woke up.
For now… I think I need to sleep a little.
*
It didn’t take long until I was discharged.
I hadn’t come in because I was injured in the first place. They said there was nothing wrong with my body.
As soon as I was discharged, I headed to the briefing room I had grown accustomed to over the past week.
Then, in an instant, everyone’s gazes focused on me.
Among them, the first to speak was naturally Kim Jihu.
“You’ve arrived. Our……”
“Stop.”
The moment I opened the briefing room door and entered, I cut off Kim Jihu, who had been approaching with both hands clasped together.
“Don’t. I know what you’re going to say.”
“Yes, sir.”
Good. For now, the most threatening enemy had been neutralized.
I looked around at everyone present, who seemed ready to say something to me one by one, and said,
“It’s embarrassing for no reason, so let’s not say much. Just think of it in terms of calculation.”
“……”
“Isn’t it a good thing? At the very least, even if something happens to us… we now have one more means.”
“You are right.”
A faint relief crossed the old man’s feather-covered face.
“Even if I found my grandson and my son, what would I do if they had already turned into monsters… I lost sleep worrying about that. But now, at least I’ll be able to see their faces, won’t I?”
His words were extremely realistic and desperate.
Far more tangible than vague talk of gods or saviors—the most agonized wish of someone who had lost family.
Min Aji and Yu Inha also nodded silently.
At the very least, we had gained one new hope.
Just as I let out a sigh of relief inwardly,
the intellectual orc man suddenly asked a question.
“…For that very reason, shouldn’t you be staying in the rear even more?”
He continued.
“Of course, for us, it would be good to have someone like you with us. Our chances of survival would rise exponentially. But rationally speaking, wouldn’t it be right for you to remain here?”
At first glance, it was a reasonable question.
But it wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought about that myself.
“It takes me a full day to purify a single Mimetic Beast. If I keep doing it, that time may decrease, but even so, can I handle that many on my own?”
“…You mean it would be like pouring water into a bottomless dam.”
“To be honest, I don’t know how long the Korean military can hold out either.”
At present, the Korean military was doing its best and moving in a rational direction. That was a fact I had no choice but to acknowledge.
However, if anything more happened beyond this, the military would lose control of the situation.
Honestly, even holding back the Mimetic Beasts right now looked precarious.
The reason I got angry back then was because the military had made an empty promise, not because I couldn’t understand them.
And even if I stayed in the rear, it wouldn’t mean much anyway.
Because the efficiency would be horrifyingly terrible.
Before I could even try to do anything, the military would exceed the threshold of what it could handle.
That was why, despite all these reasons, I now had one reason to enter the blackout zone.
‘To find out more about my ability.’
Hadn’t they said before that the light I emitted might be able to dispel the darkness of the blackout zone, even if only a little?
In other words, divine power and the blackout zone were capable of some kind of interaction.
More than simply remaining in the rear, I would have to dive in directly to learn how to better handle my power.
Just like when I felt pity upon seeing the Mimetic Beast, and only then did I awaken a new way to use it.
‘Maybe those higher-ups know this too. Seeing as they want me to stay affiliated with the Special Response Team if possible, it seems they ultimately want me to go beyond the blackout zone.’
If I really was the only hope, then we had no choice but to gamble.
Because we didn’t seem to have enough time to simply keep trying to plug a bottomless dam.
Click.
The briefing room door opened, and Captain Kim Hyeongcheol entered.
But he was not alone. Beside him was an agent wearing a suit rather than a military uniform.
With their entrance, the air that had softened just moments earlier instantly shifted into the taut tension of an operational meeting.
“You’re all gathered. Mr. Han Yujin, how is your condition?”
“Well, if you told me to roll right now, I could probably roll.”
“That’s a relief. We don’t have time, so I’ll get straight to the point.”
Captain Kim continued in an even voice, as if nothing had happened.
“From now on, we will be conveying information regarding the blackout zone.”
With those words, the agent in the black suit stepped forward.