Because of the development of smartphones and social media, and the existence of online communities, anything that happens somewhere in the world spreads with incredible speed.
It is not conveyed only through text or word of mouth. Photos and videos are transmitted in vivid detail.
So that anyone can understand it with ease.
A man was holding a hand axe, swinging it threateningly.
The way he screamed, “Kkuaa!” was closer to a beast than a human. A hideous, sinister sight.
Then, all of a sudden, he broke into a full sprint. The people watching from a distance, never imagining he would do that, cried, “Aaaagh!” and fled.
However, not everyone ran away.
One man delivered a flying kick to the man holding the hand axe, and the man dropped the axe and collapsed.
Shouts, cries, commotion.
Along with all that, several of the onlookers rushed over and grabbed the man who had been swinging the hand axe.
But the man thrashed his arms and legs wildly, punching, kicking, and clawing at the people trying to restrain him.
In truth, it was not a particularly special video. It was not something one had to pay attention to, either.
Something similar could probably be seen in Hongdae at dawn. Though, of course, a hand axe might be a little difficult.
But the important thing was that this had happened in a village in Brazil.
A village close to the Amazon. A place not far from the village that had suffered attacks by animals.
The next video I watched had been filmed from a bit farther away.
The atmosphere in this one was more serious. Within the video, fear and confusion could be felt in abundance.
And then gunshots. Screams followed. The sound of something breaking.
The video went out of focus, then zoomed in on a man.
A man holding a gun. He looked anything but normal.
The man fired the gun once again. But it did not feel like he was aiming at anything in particular.
The video was not long. The man with the gun was subdued shortly afterward.
America. A country accustomed to mass shootings. A place with manuals on how to respond to them, and therefore extremely skilled at suppression.
The man subdued by the police had been shot. Even so, as if he could not feel pain at all, he let out a monstrous scream.
He was like a beast, too. A beast shot by a gun would probably look like that.
After watching all the videos, I became certain that the time had finally come.
My prediction had become reality.
The nerve-disrupting spores had finally reached humans, and just like with animals, they had given them aggression.
However, there was one thing I had not expected.
The second video. The man had fired a gun. He had not simply charged blindly.
His movements had not been strange, either. He had not been stiff or jerky.
He had merely looked like a man consumed by rage.
That was why he had seemed like a mass shooter, the kind that had existed before.
Not a human infected by spores.
The videos I watched did not have very high view counts.
As expected, people still did not know what was happening.
Even the people who filmed them would only think, Did they take some kind of drug?
They could not possibly think that an unidentified spore from the Amazon was increasing human aggression.
If someone did think that far, that person would be a bit of a problem.
Inferring that much without knowing the foundational facts would be a bit problematic. Definitely.
Because that would not be inference, but delusion.
Using tools, huh. This is a little troublesome.
Operating a gun is not difficult. So they could fire one. It had happened in the actual video, too.
What worried me was that they still had that much intelligence left.
It was not simply that their aggression had risen and they attacked whatever was in front of them, but that they could judge situations with the intelligence they retained.
That was somewhat troublesome. No, it would be extremely troublesome.
What I had been imagining was something like zombies.
Zombies that did nothing but attack blindly. Beings that attacked and attacked, without judgment or anything else.
That level would have been fine. At that level, humans could defeat zombies.
But after watching those videos, it did not seem like it would be that easy.
At that level, they would probably be able to approach without making noise, open doors, and avoid obstacles.
Then the difficulty would shoot up. This was going to become quite exhausting.
In any case, the spores had spread across the world. So now, a lot of humans like that would appear.
A day? Ten days? A month? I did not know. How long it would take was something I would only know by watching.
Fortunately, I had covered all the soil at home.
So even if something happened at any moment, I could deal with it.
A long wait. If I had told others what I was doing, they would have pointed at me and called me a lunatic.
Would humanity overcome this crisis?
Could it be dismissed as a mere incident? Would the intelligence of mankind not even regard a crisis of this level as a crisis?
I would find out by watching. All I had to do was hold my breath and hide well.
“Here. Take this.”
Baek Jin-ho, whom I had not seen in a long time, held something out to me. When I took out what was inside, it was a satellite phone.
“Communications?”
“There’ll be times we need to contact each other, won’t there?”
“Well, true.”
“So take it. You didn’t prepare something like this, did you?”
I did. Of course I did. A satellite phone was essential if I wanted to communicate with the doctor in America.
“I don’t have anyone to contact anyway, so why would I?”
“You should still have one. If you try to get one later, that’ll be a hassle too.”
“That’s true. Even if I don’t use it, I should have prepared one. I was careless.”
At that, Baek Jin-ho smirked. He also looked slightly pleased with himself.
“That one uses regular batteries, so stock up on plenty. Don’t end up panicking because you’re out of batteries when you actually need to use it.”
“Got it.”
After I put away the satellite phone, Baek Jin-ho leaned forward, lowered his voice, and spoke.
“Hey. Is it starting now?”
The guy had a faint smile on his face. His eyes were sparkling.
It felt as if he were asking, “Did you do it with her yesterday?”
A guy who wanted the world to end as quickly as possible. Looking at things like this, this bastard was not exactly sane either.
“Probably.”
“Kuh. Then that means there isn’t much time left to enjoy all these good things. Right?”
“Nothing much is going to change for you anyway, is it?”
“What? Why wouldn’t it? Of course there is. It’s not like I prepared every single thing under the sun.”
I shrugged. Then Baek Jin-ho laughed softly and said to me,
“Hey. Do you have anything else to do today?”
“Not really. I should head back now. I need to go and finish preparing.”
“Yeah? Then want to go somewhere with me?”
Baek Jin-ho asked with a face full of mischief.
But I sensed a hint of caution in his tone.
What was this? What was this bastard’s intention?
He gave me information and we seemed to be cooperating in our own way, but I could not fully trust him.
I did not know. Whether this version of me was normal or not.
But there was nothing bad about being careful. I had nothing to say even if someone called me timid.
No. I would probably retort that I was simply cautious.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll know once you come with me. It’s a good place.”
If I were being honest, I wanted to refuse. But that did not seem like a very good choice.
It felt as if these words from Baek Jin-ho were testing me.
Like he was asking, Well? Will you take my hand?
“How good could it be for you to say that?”
I joked lightly. Though I had no social skills whatsoever, I still pretended to be relaxed.
“You’ll probably like it to death.”
With that, I left his office together with Baek Jin-ho.
The sun was slowly setting. The hour when office workers got off work.
I got into his car, which came with a driver, and the car immediately headed somewhere.
The roads were clogged. A great exodus of people eager to get home as quickly as possible.
Amid those people, the car headed toward the city center.
Why go that way at this hour? Was there something there?
At first, I thought of something like kidnapping. But that did not seem to be it. There were far easier ways to do that.
So next, I thought he might be taking me to show off something he had made.
After all, when people make something, they want to brag about it to others. That is what makes the effort feel worthwhile.
But going this way, that did not seem to be it either. Making something in the middle of the city would be a huge loss in terms of cost.
Judging roughly by the signs, we seemed to be heading toward Jongno. What was it? I did not sense anything suspicious.
After quite a while, the car stopped in front of a hanok. And only now did I get a sense of what this guy meant by a “good place.”
“You’re here.”
It was a woman beautifully dressed in hanbok.
First of all, she was not in her twenties. At minimum, she was in her thirties. At most, her forties.
But she was a well-maintained woman. Even if someone said she was in her late twenties, many people would probably just think, I see… and move on.
“Please come this way.”
The woman led us into what looked like a detached building.
This was probably a yojeong. I had seen them in movies or dramas. In other words… a place called a kisaeng house.
When we went inside, the table had already been set. On top of that, the dishes must have just been laid out, because steam was still rising from them.
“Sit. Sit.”
“Haha. It really is a good place.”
“Yeah, you punk. Do you know? This place is over forty years old. A place with history and tradition.”
Once we sat down, the woman who had brought us in looked at Baek Jin-ho.
“Yeah. Send them in. Send them in. You put some care into it, right?”
“Yes, Director.”
The woman bowed gracefully and went outside.
Then, immediately after, two women wearing hanbok entered and bowed prettily.
“Hey. You pick first. Guests first.”
“You look very used to this.”
“I got permission to come here recently. So I’ve been stopping by a lot these days.”
To be honest, I did not particularly like it, but acting fussy about it would be a little ridiculous too.
So I let it pass smoothly. It would be good to experience something like this once.
I raised my hand and chose one woman. At that, the woman smiled brightly, bowed again, and came over to my side.
She was like a butterfly. That thought suddenly occurred to me.
A woman approaching while paying attention to every single movement.
This was probably what people meant when they spoke of a seasoned hostess.
A feeling that was vulgar yet refined. The word kisaeng suited her perfectly.
“My name is Suhyang.”
After saying her name, Suhyang sat beside me and began to attend to me.
A meal accompanied by drinks.
Well, to start with, it was ordinary. The food was delicious, and the liquor was decent too.
I did not usually drink, but that did not mean I could not. I simply did not like it much.
But the alcohol served with the meal was not particularly strong.
Above all, its fragrance was very good. Good enough that there was no resistance to drinking it.
On top of that, having a woman beside me taking care of me felt rather strange.
When my glass emptied, she filled it. When I drained my cup, she picked up a side dish and placed it in my mouth.
A woman solely for the purpose of service. A woman who existed for that.
It did not feel all that bad. Seeing that, I suppose I was a man after all.
Now I understood why Baek Jin-ho liked this place.
There was no way men could dislike this.
As that guy had said earlier, it was hospitality with history and tradition.