But that didn’t mean I could bring it up right away.
A suffocating silence swept through the hospital room.
A doctor… If he was a doctor serving in the military, should I call him a medical officer? Anyway.
The medical officer before me was clearly no ordinary person.
No need to nitpick—just looking at the sunglasses he was wearing was enough.
He looked perfectly normal, so why on earth was he doing that?
‘…No, a medical officer is still treated as a soldier, isn’t he? Does nobody say anything to him……?’
No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like someone would have said something… I couldn’t understand it.
What the hell was with him?
The longer the silence dragged on, the more regret I felt.
If I’d known it would be like this, I should’ve asked Captain Kim what kind of person he was.
…That man had just awkwardly brushed it off for no reason.
In the end, unable to endure the silence any longer, I spoke first.
“Um… excuse me? Hello?”
The medical officer frowned when he heard my greeting.
Only a little after receiving it did he belatedly nod.
And only after another long while did he open his mouth.
“…Hello.”
…Ah, damn it.
I could roughly see what kind of personality he had.
Of course, I couldn’t say I’d seen through everything, but at least one thing was clear.
At the very least, he didn’t seem like the type who enjoyed conversation.
“What brings you here?”
I forced myself to ignore the ominous feeling rising inside me and asked his business.
It wasn’t as if I had nothing to ask either, but he was the one who had come to me first.
“Mm, well… I came to perform a light examination.”
Saying that, the medical officer used a cart to bring over several pieces of equipment.
At a glance, they seemed to be devices used for measuring blood pressure.
“Yes, then…….”
The doctor’s words about coming for a light examination were not empty.
With practiced movements, he checked my basic blood pressure and pulse, then through a simple interview, proceeded to check my physical balance and whether I felt dizzy.
Contrary to his somewhat unreliable first impression, once the examination began, it proceeded smoothly and without a hitch.
Of course, not a single personal word was exchanged in the process.
“Mm… It’s finished. Then.”
Most of it had been a light examination, so it didn’t take long.
After finishing all the checks, the doctor tried to leave the hospital room as if fleeing.
“Wait a moment.”
I quickly threw my voice toward his back just as he was about to grab the doorknob.
Flinch.
The doctor’s body trembled faintly at my words.
Like a herbivore whose tail had been stepped on by a predator, his shoulders twitched, and then he slowly turned around like a creaking robot.
Because of the sunglasses he stubbornly wore even indoors, I couldn’t see where he was looking, but his panic was plain to see in the line of his jaw and his tightly pressed lips.
“…I-is something the matter? Are you feeling more discomfort somewhere…….”
“No, my body is fine. Thank you for the examination.”
I tried to speak as gently as possible and raised myself slightly.
But despite my courteous attitude, the doctor still gripped the handle of the cart tightly and did not lower his guard.
“It’s nothing else. I just have a few things I’d like to ask.”
“I am merely a medical officer, so there is little I know…….”
I couldn’t see clearly because of the sunglasses, but from the movement of his chin, I could tell he was avoiding my gaze.
No, was this really something that warranted this kind of reaction?
Feeling somehow wronged, I waved my hand and said,
“No, I just wanted to ask a little about the situation outside…….”
“…The situation outside, you say?”
“Yes. Even an extremely general overview, the kind I could learn just by watching TV or listening to people outside, is fine. I have family too, and I need to figure out how I’m supposed to live from here on, don’t I?”
Whether that little sister of mine was alive or dead could be dealt with later.
For now, I at least needed to know how the world I had to stand in was turning.
The medical officer looked as though he wanted to escape this place immediately, but he couldn’t simply run away.
“…Is there a problem?”
“…No. I am not the type who enjoys conversation, but there are orders from above to accommodate you as much as possible.”
The doctor’s voice trembled as if it pained him to say it.
Aha, is that so.
When my expression began to rot, the doctor finally opened his mouth.
“No… I will tell you
…….”
The doctor swallowed dryly once, then continued haltingly with the expression of someone being dragged to a slaughterhouse.
“Are you aware that, at the national level… large-scale information control has been taking place?”
“That much I know. Wasn’t the purpose to maintain society even a little longer and buy time to respond?”
The number of blackout zones that had occurred in the Republic of Korea was not very high.
It was only Seoul, and even then, only certain areas of it.
In other words, it also meant that a lockdown was easier than expected.
Mimic Beasts might be immortal monsters, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be suppressed with firearms.
The soldiers’ casualties were heavy, but for the moment, the reality was that they were somehow managing to hold them back.
Only when society was maintained would chaos decrease and the economy keep moving.
That was how they could endure for a longer time.
“However, a problem has recently arisen.”
“A problem? What kind…?”
“The fact that there are very few countries capable of responding as well as ours.”
This incident was not something limited to our country alone.
The same thing was happening simultaneously all across the world.
Not everyone had been able to respond as forcefully and efficiently as our country.
In our country, as small as the landmass was, the number of blackout zones that had occurred was also low.
On top of that, our military and police forces were quite capable as well.
But what about India or China, whose territories were excessively vast?
There, a number of blackout zones had appeared that couldn’t even be compared to South Korea’s.
So many that even their vast numbers of soldiers struggled to handle them.
Of course, just because a country’s landmass was small didn’t mean it could respond like South Korea.
Developing countries, or places without outstanding military and police forces, would naturally have a harder time maintaining control.
In any case, after all those factors overlapped again and again…….
“Some countries have completely lost their ability to respond.”
“…Did they not have information about the future?”
“That much… I do not know. However, I did hear there had been movements even before the incident occurred, so perhaps they did know.”
“And yet they lost control.”
That was unfortunate.
It wasn’t as if I could do anything grand, so I couldn’t make any major moves.
That was all there was to it.
“But isn’t that something happening across the sea? It’s unfortunate, but it shouldn’t immediately affect our country’s blockade line…….”
As I spoke up to that point, I suddenly realized something and shut my mouth.
Even if there was no immediate blow to the physical blockade line, in modern society, wasn’t there something even more terrifying than physical borders?
Seeing my expression harden, the doctor continued bitterly.
“It seems you have realized it. Yes, the communications network.”
“…….”
“Horrific videos and screams spilling out from countries where the defensive lines have collapsed began crossing borders and spreading indiscriminately through the internet, satellites, and so on. No matter how thoroughly the domestic media is silenced, information flooding in from overseas cannot be controlled.”
No matter how well our country controlled information, this changed the story.
People were surely feeling confused enough about the situation already, and they distrusted a government that refused to explain things properly.
Naturally, they would go looking for information on their own.
Then searching for information about foreign countries where the blockade lines had collapsed would be the natural next step.
Only after my thoughts reached that point did a possibility occur to me.
“…Don’t tell me the reason communications haven’t been working since earlier is…?”
“You mean the shutdown of the base stations? That is not information I am privy to.”
The medical officer answered that way.
But by sheer coincidence, it was undeniably advantageous for information control.
“However, even this astonishing coincidence has its limits. Word has already been spreading among civilians through various channels……. Th-that is all I know.”
“…I understand. Thank you for telling me. You may go now.”
The moment my permission was given, the doctor flung the door open without looking back.
The cart struck the doorframe and rattled, but he paid it no mind and vanished beyond the hallway as if running away.
Click.
The door closed, and suffocating silence once again settled over the hospital room.
I quietly leaned back against the raised backrest of the bed.
‘…Ha, I was trying to find out a little about the situation outside.’
What I actually heard was the situation overseas.
It was somewhat distant from what I had been curious about… but even this alone made my head burn as though overloaded.
What did it matter if South Korea was holding out well? Half the world was on fire.
For now, society was still functioning relatively normally.
Down in the southern regions, people were probably still going to work out of inertia and earning money.
A scene quite different from here, where there were many pessimists, must be unfolding there.
For now—just for now—their lives were probably still a little distant from annihilation.
But after hearing a bit about the situation overseas, why did I get the feeling that it would only be a matter of time?