Tatatatatatatatang──
Tang- Tang -Pyeeing- Pyeeeing!
“Khalid! Get down! Stay right there! Don’t come out!!”
As a hail of bullets pounded the ramshackle building, a man crouched tightly behind a wall shouted at a child in the corner of the building.
Whether the child called Harir understood him or not, he curled himself up even smaller, hiding in a more secluded spot beneath the concrete.
Before long, the gunfire began moving away from the building, growing more distant little by little. When it could be heard only from quite far away, the man lowered his stance and ran toward the child.
“Harir, Harir. It’s over now. You’re all right.”
“Ah...?”
When the child, who had been crouching with both hands clasped over his head, raised his face, it was drenched in tears.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
The child nodded, then flung himself into the man’s arms and burst into tears.
He was patting the child’s back when—
“Khalid! Khalid! There’s someone here who’s been shot!”
Two or three people came running with a middle-aged woman lying on a makeshift stretcher. Though everyone had been hiding inside the building, it seemed not everyone had escaped the bullets that had pierced through the flimsy walls.
The woman was bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound in her leg, but there was nothing they could do for her immediately.
Riiip—
The man called Khalid tore the sleeve from his arm and began tying the woman’s leg to staunch the bleeding. Before he could even finish administering first aid, another man came running toward him, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Khalid! We need to get out of here, now!”
“Ayan, calm down. What are you talking about? Tell me exactly what happened!”
“Al-Shabaab has spread throughout the entire upper part of the village! They say at least a regiment’s worth of troops is coming down! They have mortars. They’re going to bring the buildings down with mortar fire first!”
“My God...”
“Damn it!”
Despairing groans rose from all around, and Khalid clenched his teeth.
No matter how hard they tried, there was no way out.
The federal troops, Al-Shabaab, and the various militias—they were all the same. They cared only about their own interests and victory in battle, not the safety or survival of the villagers.
And how many wounded people and children without guardians were here now?
Even if they abandoned all of them, even if they abandoned this village they had struggled so hard to build and fled—where could they go in this desolate land?
“Khalid! Come on!”
“We’re not going.”
“What? If we stay here, we’ll all die!!”
“Where are we supposed to go?! If you’ve got eyes, look around! How can we leave all these people behind? And where is safe, anyway?!”
“Damn it... We don’t have time to argue like this...”
Their dispute lasted only a moment.
Whooooooosh────
A sound like something cleaving through the air, like wind escaping, rang out, and then—
KABOOM! KABOOM!
Tremendous explosions began reverberating one after another.
“They’re here! They’re here! Al-Shabaab is here! Damn it... I don’t know! Deal with it yourselves!”
The man who had come to take Khalid away turned his back on him and began fleeing outside the village.
But—
KABOOOOOM!
He did not even make it out of the village. A bomb fell near the square, and he vanished without leaving behind so much as a corpse.
“AYAAAAAN!”
As Khalid screamed until his voice went hoarse at the man who had exploded before his eyes, the sound of something continuing to fall overhead could be heard.
Wheeeeeeeuuuu────
Krrrrrrrshhhhh──
“...?”
Thinking it was all over, Khalid opened his eyes, which he had squeezed shut at the strange sound.
Krrrrrrsh─ Krrrrrrrshhh────
It was a peculiar and mysterious sound, neither an explosion nor the sound of impact.
Only then, upon hearing the strange noise continue, did he look up at the sky.
“Wh—what...”
A large, transparent dome-shaped membrane covered the building where the wounded had gathered, centered around Khalid.
It was something he had never seen in his life, yet the membrane was so powerful that it effortlessly blocked the bombs raining down upon them.
Many of the people inside the building emerged and stared blankly upward at the spectacle, like fireworks exploding against the transparent membrane as shells fell upon it.
But one disaster followed another. It was not over yet.
Just when it seemed the bombardment had ended, the soldiers of Al-Shabaab, Somalia’s most dangerous and powerful armed group, came marching into the village with rifles in their hands.
There were easily several hundred of them.
There were no federal soldiers here, yet the men seemed to have mistaken this building, containing nothing but civilian patients, for a federal military outpost.
Would this transparent membrane that had blocked the bombs stop bullets as well? As Khalid absently wondered this, three robots descended from the sky before him.
They were enormous.
Each was three to four meters long, with six legs, making it resemble a gigantic spider.
The Al-Shabaab soldiers began firing their rifles at the robots, which had suddenly appeared and positioned themselves in front of the dilapidated building and the barrier.
Tatatatatatatatata────
Pipipiping— Titititing—!
But the robots suffered no damage at all, as if they had merely been struck by plastic pellets. Despite their appearance, they began slaughtering the soldiers with astonishing agility.
It was nothing short of a one-sided massacre.
The moment the massive robots began moving at an invisible speed, people burst apart wherever they touched, and severed body parts flew through the air.
The three robots rampaged through the hundreds of soldiers.
“Ah...”
Five to ten seconds.
That was all the time it took for hundreds of heavily armed Al-Shabaab soldiers to be wiped out without a single one left standing.
Then, yet another unbelievable thing happened.
Ssswish— Ssssss—
The three massive robots that had swept away the entire armed force without leaving a single man behind vanished like mirages.
Then the hundreds of corpses strewn across the ground—the bodies of the Al-Shabaab soldiers—vanished as well.
The only trace that could be called evidence of a battle was the pools of blood covering the ground. Had even those been absent, no one would have believed that a battle had taken place.
“What... What in the world is this...?”
Khalid felt as though he were dreaming. A terribly strange dream.
There was no other way to explain these unreal scenes.
Perhaps because of the countless gunshots, a high-pitched ringing filled his ears, and his head spun. It was a situation in which he could not trust anything he saw or heard.
As he stood there rubbing his eyes over and over with a dazed expression, a clean-cut, handsome young East Asian man appeared before him.
“Hello.”
“Gasp!”
Had he been invisible? Khalid rubbed his eyes again at the sight of the young man who had suddenly appeared from nowhere.
“Are you Khalid? Mr. Khalid Abdi Nur?”
Too exhausted to be surprised any further, Khalid let out a hollow laugh.
The strange man who had appeared out of nowhere knew his full name—even the complete name incorporating his father’s and grandfather’s names—and spoke his native language perfectly.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Jeong Suho. I’m from South Korea.”
One man had emerged from the combined analysis of the information Dr. Daniel had compiled and the data Suho had investigated separately.
The man Suho considered most qualified to govern Somalia was Khalid Abdi Nur.
* * *
Somalia’s federal government, once recognized internationally as the legitimate government of the country, had completely lost the world’s trust through corruption and political division. After it ceased receiving support from the United Nations, the African Union, the United States, and others, it even lost its influence over parts of the capital it had originally controlled.
As a result, the federal government continued engaging in vicious fighting without even the justification to oppose armed groups such as Al-Shabaab. It had long since become an armed group itself.
It did not hesitate to commit acts no different from those of armed criminal organizations, oppressing local residents and obstructing international relief efforts.
The federal government’s army, Al-Shabaab, various minor warlords, and local militias had become entangled in decades of fighting. This was Somalia’s current reality—a wretched situation that was, for all practical purposes, complete anarchy.
Despite being in the midst of the world’s worst hunger crisis, Somalia’s security situation was so dire because of the civil war that receiving international aid was difficult.
NGO relief workers were frequently kidnapped by armed factions and used in ransom negotiations, while aid supplies and food were routinely stolen wholesale by warlords. As a result, international assistance had nearly come to a halt.
Consequently, the number of Somalis starving to death rose sharply.
Even in Somalia, Khalid Abdi Nur had cultivated his qualities as a leader from childhood under the tutelage of a respected local elder.
In particular, Issam Ayub Karim, an elder from his hometown who had taken him in after he lost his parents during the civil war, diligently taught him the methods of mediating peace.
After growing up in this manner, Khalid worked as a young volunteer in a refugee camp during his adolescence. There, he had opportunities to form relationships with United Nations officials who had come to Somalia to provide international aid, as well as leaders of international NGOs. By helping organize food and medical assistance at the camp, he observed and learned much from them.
One member of a UN relief team took a liking to Khalid and personally mentored him, teaching him about the international aid system and administrative procedures.
Through these extraordinary encounters, Khalid developed a global perspective.
He had no proper education or academic degree, but given Somalia’s circumstances, it was exceedingly difficult to find anyone with as much education and awareness as he possessed.
Unlike his peers, Khalid had grown into a man of exceptional self-sacrifice and integrity. Even amid the war, he worked to protect the residents and risked his life attempting to mediate between rebel and government forces.
Moreover, he did not favor any particular tribe or group and possessed an inclusive mindset. For that reason, he had earned the absolute trust and support of the residents.
He had only just passed thirty, but not a single villager dismissed him as young.
Jeong Suho was now so famous that there was hardly a person in the world who did not know of him. But Khalid, who had never had access to television, a cellphone, or the internet, knew little about him.
When introducing himself elicited no reaction, Suho awkwardly scratched his head and asked,
“Why are you still in a place this dangerous?”
Khalid answered without the slightest hesitation.
“I have work to do here, and there are people here I need to care for. My entire family was killed in this war. But I survived. The reason I survived is to help others so they do not have to suffer like this anymore.”
“Hmm... You’re exactly as I heard.”
As Suho stroked his chin with a satisfied expression, Khalid, unaware of what he meant, kept his guard up before the suspicious stranger and asked in return,
“You... what... kind of magic did you use? Summoning those strange monsters and causing all the soldiers to die—was that you as well?”
“Uh... yes, that was me. But they aren’t monsters... Hmm, explaining it would take too long, so let’s skip that for now. More importantly.”
When Suho took a step closer, Khalid flinched and retreated a step.
“Khalid Abdi Nur, I need your strength to change this country. Please become the leader of this nation.”
“......”
Was he mocking him? But a more rational suspicion soon arose. ‘Did this stranger really come all the way to this remote place for something like that? Just to mock one man like me?’
That was impossible, so Khalid briefly shook his head.
And he could not possibly regard the mysterious, transparent membrane that blocked the bombs, the unidentified monster robots, and the annihilation of the Al-Shabaab forces as unrelated to that suspicious man.
If so, then the man was unquestionably a human being with incomprehensible and tremendous power.
Why would someone with such power speak to him about becoming the leader of a country?
“You seem to have a lot on your mind. I can tell by the way you’re thinking so hard.”
At Suho’s repeated words, Khalid finally opened his mouth after a long while.
“I do not know why you are saying such things to me. I am an ordinary man. I know nothing of politics or military affairs. I have never attended school, nor have I received a proper education.”
But Suho merely smiled.
“Yes, yes, I know that. But things like that aren’t a problem. I can help you. I can provide you with at least the basic training through a short-term leadership program, and as for introducing a modern administrative system, I’ll provide you with an AI-based governance system. I’ll also dispatch androids equipped with the latest expertise in politics, economics, agriculture, and military affairs to offer the advice and assistance necessary to run the country. On top of that, I’ll provide you with all the food, resources, supplies, and money you need. Ah, and I’ll put an end to this disjointed war, too.”
“......Just what are you... How can you speak of such things so casually... And why, of all people, are you saying this to me...?”
Without answering Khalid’s question, Suho continued.
“There are many things I can help you with, but even I found there were exactly two things I couldn’t provide. The first is your own will to rebuild the country and help its people—especially that extraordinary spirit of self-sacrifice of yours. That isn’t something I can simply instill in you. And the other is earning the trust of those around you, the people of the country. That, too, is no easy matter. You already possess both of those things. That is why I chose you.”
Swish— Swish— Swish— Swish—
Suho successively brought out high-end androids, each updated with the latest information in their respective fields and trained with the highest level of knowledge, and gave them their orders.
“From now on, follow this man’s orders. Answer anything he asks, and help him with whatever is absolutely necessary.”
““Understood.””
The androids answered in unison and went to stand beside Khalid.
“Oh, and you’ll have these as well.”
Fwoosh— Fwoosh—
What Suho brought out next were one Super-Enhanced Android and five Enhanced Android Ascends.
In truth, that alone represented enough military power to hold its own against fifteen S-rank Admiti, while even an ordinary army—no matter how many armored divisions it sent—could be swept away with ease.
“You will also protect that man at all times from now on, and engage in combat only under his orders.”
““Understood.””
The combat androids answered in the same manner and took up positions beside Khalid.
Still wearing a dazed expression, as though he were wandering through a dream, Khalid slapped both cheeks hard with his hands.
The blows were so painful-looking that Suho grimaced.
With his face flushed and swollen, Khalid spoke.
“It seems this is a dream that won’t end easily. Whether this is a dream or reality, helping the people and restoring the country have always been things I dreamed of doing. Then let me have this vivid dream properly, just once. What do I need to do? If there is anything I can do, I will do it.”
“Haha, now we’re finally getting somewhere.”
Suho smiled brightly and extended his hand. Only then did Khalid, wearing a faint smile, firmly clasp it.