Until this very morning, Kim Chomok may have had no criminal record whatsoever.
But before the day was even over, becoming a major criminal who would make most offenders weep was as easy as pie.
“Well, even if getting dragged off again pisses me off... considering it’d be my first offense, the moment I wrote one letter of apology and re-enlisted, they probably wouldn’t even have indicted me.”
The first charge, rebelling against a national summons, would at most have ended in a fine.
But after that came skipping past the “troops sent to capture him,” fleeing, and in the process, the whole “he split... a human wave...!!” situation.
Even then, with an excuse along the lines of “I did it because I was scared,” the solemn majesty of Korean law would probably have given him a suspended sentence ending.
After all, serving in the military twice was easy enough to say, but it was exactly the kind of case that would draw petitions full of Korean men’s rage.
- Someone who knows all that so well is currently kidnapping a general officer and doing a live broadcast...?
But at this point, there was nowhere left to retreat. Kim Chomok was, without question, going to have a criminal record.
Once he used force to flip a car and kidnapped a brigade commander, it could no longer end as a joke.
Some people might look at it and say, “No, couldn’t you have just openly refused military service and held out?”
“I’m telling you, once they start making cases like mine, there’s no end to it. You have to cause a problem at least once before people realize.”
He had already been dragged in against his will to do something he didn’t want to do, then, unlike ordinary soldiers living ordinary military lives, he had been rolled around on the front lines.
And now they were telling him to do that hellish life again, for that pay, where reconnaissance-in-force inside a den of monsters was his mission.
Every religion out there says not to force onto others what you yourself don’t want to do, doesn’t it?
“Society only seems to learn something through labor pains, so if it doesn’t want to get beaten up, it’ll learn a thing or two after this.”
Before they did something similar to someone other than him and caused an even bigger incident, there was a need to teach them a lesson.
“Still, because it’s me, the damage is only this much. What were they planning to do if it was someone in the status-effect category?”
Why would they make a law like this when someone capable of area-wide damage could start bearing a grudge against this densely populated city?
So far, the only injuries amounted to two nutrient suppliers for Cheonggyecheon.
The lament of a professional protester who had not even created any serious casualties—
- What’s so scary about status-effect types? Isn’t a human tank like you, who doesn’t die or get hurt, scarier?
—came back as the innocent question of a young man who had found it difficult to look up proper information.
Since, after the initial Gate period, most ability users had been soldiers serving right in front of the Gates.
Just listen to that carefree tone, unaware of what a dangerous line they had crossed.
“Sorry, but if you can make a truck driver feel like the world is spinning, that’s enough to create a major accident.”
The larger the city, the more sufficient it was to push over one tiny domino.
If an ability user that strong hid inside a building and dyed the nearby roads with their ability, a thirty-car pileup would be created in no time.
- Oh, shit. Are people who use dangerous status effects like that over a wide area common in the unit?!
“No? Do you think someone that strong appears easily? For now, the limit is putting it on one person, maybe two.”
- “For now”...?
“When I first started, I was only a little more energetic and could move a bit faster... that was about it.”
What Kim Chomok had realized as he kept sucking the life out of plants was that the more you used an ability, the more proficient you became.
“And well, it’s rarer for ability development to be linear.”
Surviving a near-death crisis once made the body tougher the next time, and when attacks wouldn’t land on an opponent, strength entered the fists, and so on.
Whether it adapted to each person’s situation, or whether it judged that they had accumulated a certain level of proficiency.
Every now and then, cases occurred where abilities changed in diverse ways.
“Conversely, there are cases where, in order to survive right then and there, people drag out all their future growth potential and everything else to break through the situation.”
The more desperate they were, the more desperate their hearts became... and though rare, there were cases where they grew in grotesquely twisted ways to match.
And the one who had experienced those situations the most was Kim Chomok, the first person in the military inside the Gate to successfully achieve a “normal discharge.”
“In the very beginning, there were a few people who manifested their abilities right before they were captured by monsters and eaten alive...”
-- One of them once turned the trauma of having his flesh torn off and eaten in real time into reality across his entire surroundings.
The problem was that when an ability manifested in such an urgent situation, it was usually no different from a bomb that could not distinguish friend from foe.
The victim, who happened to be within the radius unintentionally and had his insides gnawed out by illusions, unfortunately had his eyes as the affected body part.
“Like someone with cataracts, both his eyes turned white... and he screamed that he couldn’t see.”
In exchange for saving his life, the exposed victim who had lost the light in both eyes forever disappeared from the unit at some point.
- Wow, that’s horrifying. They’re sending someone who came back alive from that shit back into hell?
Some felt anger and sympathy at the reality of the unit where such things were happening.
- So? What happened to that... “unintentional perpetrator”?
Others grew curious, asking him to tell them the proper conclusion to what happened next.
“Ah, that person? Right now...”
Baaang--!!
As if there was no time for that now, Kim Chomok’s head jolted violently.
It was a sniper shot.
***
“Target, hit in the head... he’s falling to the side... no, he’s getting back up!”
- No, you said you hit him in the head! What the hell does that mean?! Do you know how big that bullet is?!
No matter how many of the nation’s most important cultural assets were gathered there, it only meant they couldn’t blow the place away with cannons.
It did not mean they could not launch a surprise anti-personnel attack by means short of that, so they had sent a sniper up to a nearby high-rise building.
The gun they had given him was none other than an American anti-materiel rifle¹, capable of piercing most armored vehicles.
“What if he dies? Then he was unlucky! Have you ever seen anyone negotiate with a terrorist?! Shoot!”
It was a decisive shot that even included a bit of propaganda: after that guy, ability users should not think about getting cocky...
“Aw, shit... I’m gonna get a bump, you bastards!”
Perhaps because, on his way here, he had moved north while draining every tree he could touch dry.
For Kim Chomok, whose entire body was packed full with roughly a forest’s worth of energy,
- Wow, that deformed bullet on the ground... just looking at it, that’s not the size of the ammo I saw in the army?!
- OH, SHIT! .50 Cal...?! Even with a bulletproof helmet, his head should’ve burst like a watermelon?!
- Someone gets hit by an anti-materiel rifle, and all he says is he’s gonna get a bump?!
this was nothing more and nothing less than the level of injury one got from letting their guard down and taking a surprise punch.
“The other side is doing something fun, huh? Can I do a simple counter-snipe too? By tearing off a Haetae statue?”
“Aaaagh, adjutant! Stop him! Stop him! If that gets torn off, the responsibility will fall on us!!”
Whether or not the brigade commander urgently shouted in response to the words of the lunatic, who had grown even more heated after suddenly taking a hit.
“You’re watching the broadcast, right? The bastard who drafted that operation just now, take responsibility and bring him in front of me within fifteen minutes.”
--Otherwise, the mascot on the building that just sniped me is going to be fixed as shattered windows and Haetae stone fragments starting today.
Since by now, they ought to be slowly realizing that once he said he would do something, he absolutely did it.
Not long after, a police officer with both hands raised trudged over dejectedly...
“...I came personally, as you demanded. But if you do not release the hostage, there will be another sni—”
“You must’ve been deeply impressed by some movie² about negotiations, huh? Get a grip, buddy!”
Baaack--!!
“Keurgh...!!”
In a situation where they were meeting for the first time, he was struck on the back of the head for the crime of stating demands faster than a greeting.
Despite being a reasonable age, the fact that he had come dressed quite stiffly meant that anyone could tell he must have walked a splendid elite career path.
“W-what is the meaning of this! To do such a thing to an unarmed person who came here without even carrying a weapon...!!”
Baaack!!
Of course, if a broken TV did not display an image after one hit, you hit it twice.
“Sssuheueh... It seems you don’t understand how serious the current situation is— Ah! No! Please lower your hand!”
“This bastard thinks he’s my superior or something? Should I throw you instead of the Haetae statue? Are you sturdier than stone?”
And if two hits were not enough, Kim Chomok, who knew only the repair method of beating it until it came to its senses, did not care in the slightest.
Baaaack!!
“Kuhuk...!!”
For the crime of firing a bullet at a madman whose temperament was to smack the back of a hated person’s head one more time instead of giving him another rice cake.
“This works out perfectly. You two over there! Start getting ready to go back!”
““...What?””
At the last moment, the two people whose jobs had suddenly changed from hostages to informants let out dumbfounded sounds from their throats.
“On the very first day, when I crawled gloomily into the training camp, the instructor said this.”
--Were you bastards dragged into the army against your will?! Did someone force you to come here?!
The days of swallowing the absurdity of being unable to say anything of the sort, despite obviously having been dragged there, were now goodbye.
“For the finale, let’s work hard and endure together with this damned bastard, who was dragged here just as unfairly as you were, while feeling our shared misery!”
Amid a sea of thumbs instantly rising and emoticons of strange gray faces³ he had never seen before.
- If that guy had just stayed still, this wouldn’t have happened to him. He really brought the beating on himself.
Even the viewers typing proper chat messages were more or less saying things with that nuance, were they not?
“Now then, for the final moment, instead of this crude phone, I’ll see you through the telescopic camera the helicopter is carrying! Bye-bye!”
As soon as he gave that final farewell, the phone screen went dark. Kim Chomok, holding the still-unconscious, limp chosen winner in one hand,
put his phone, which had died from using up the last drop of its battery to keep the broadcast on, into his pocket.
“I’m going to move now, so don’t get caught up in it. Lie down and complain of psychological damage and physical abnormalities. Got it?”
“...Is this right? Maybe I’m actually still unconscious and having some empty dream. I really don’t know.”
Confused by the sudden kidnapping, the fabrication of a hostage pretext, and the even more sudden release, the brigade commander
staggered off into the distance with his adjutant toward the entrance of Gyeongbokgung.
“Aaaaargh---!! Where am I?! No, why am I floating--!!”
“Huh? Huh?! Don’t struggle, you punk! We’re at an altitude where if you fall, you can’t even break your fall!”
The combo of victim and perpetrator on both sides began heading farther, still farther north, above Gyeongbokgung.
***
“This is driving me insane. It’s good that the brigade commander and adjutant came back, but...”
While a helicopter chased and filmed the figure disappearing above Gyeongbokgung.
The people who had been tracking his location in real time through the cell phone of the captured police officer
realized just how disadvantageous the place Kim Chomok was headed to this time was for them.
“This is insane. This is another place where we don’t know what will happen if we fire artillery...”
In the worst case, with Gyeongbokgung, they could at least fire and then rebuild.
But the place Kim Chomok was headed to this time was terrain where all kinds of natural disasters would occur the moment they fired artillery, wasn’t it?
Expected destination: the famous mountain north of Seoul. Bukhansan!
“From Gyeongbokgung to Palgakjeong, from Palgakjeong toward Doseonsa⁴... he is ascending in a straight line. He’ll reach the ridge soon.”
If the location information was accurate, it had become certain that Kim Chomok was heading toward the mountain’s summit.
“When day breaks, he can just hide among the citizens again... Why is he going somewhere people don’t often visit?”
At the staff officer’s question, unable to understand what he was aiming for by giving up a situation that was advantageous to him,
“...It’s as if he’s provoking us, saying, what can you do even if you surround me?”
the most perfect answer popped out of the profiler’s mouth.
“...Provoking us? No, if he wanted to provoke us, he could do it in the city too, couldn’t he?”
The dumbfounded military and police officials asked again what that meant, but.
“Since we can’t fire explosives for fear of a landslide, what can ordinary troops do after climbing up a mountain?”
Ordinary troops, exhausted from the climb and barely able to hold their rifles properly, versus a compact human tank who had rested to his heart’s content and even had hostages?
Anyone could see the latter held an overwhelming advantage, and once the special nature of the mountain was taken into account, it would turn into a small-scale melee.
“He’s a monster who only finds sniper rifles painful at best. I can’t even imagine how much our assault rifles would tickle him.”
They could think of throwing grenades, but they also had to consider the possibility that he would catch them and throw them right back.
Even if they all gathered and concentrated their fire, their opponent was a human who had blocked a sniper round with his head.
If they fired every bullet they had at someone they might not even be able to wound, he would leisurely pick them off one by one, and total annihilation would be waiting at the end.
The ROK Armed Forces were not so incompetent that they couldn’t think that far.
“…Then what are you suggesting?”
“To fight a monster, you need to send a monster. Don’t you have a whole unit full of them? Monsters on a similar level to that one.”
Unlike the profiler, who strongly insisted that they should deploy the ability users since it was do or die anyway,
‘…Haa, from what I hear, those bastards are deliberately dragging their feet…’
‘But there’s no way to coax them… If we lay on enough sweet talk to use them just this once, will they fall for it?’
Those who knew that, under the policies they had pursued so far, they would have to make even more concessions just to get them to sink a blade into him felt like they were dying inside.
“What? You want us to go fight Corporal Kim Chomok? After seeing that shit? Forget it.”
“One hit and I’ll be going to the Lord before I can even use my ability. What kind of damn draft is this?”
Naturally, the soldiers, already annoyed at being called in the middle of the night, shook their heads when they were told to risk their lives as well…
“These bastards?! Tell them all to crawl out in full combat gear unless they want to be thrown in the guardhouse for disobeying orders!”
Of course, a general of the Capital Defense Command, outranking the brigade commander, did succeed in using his rank to drag in a few low-seniority soldiers…
Shhhhrrrrrrk…!!
But the meaning of that sound, faintly audible throughout Seoul,
“…Oh, God is enraged…!!”
“Ah, if only I had more time in service, I’d have been standing my ground inside my beloved unit washing rice…”
And the pillar of energy surging from eight hundred meters above sea level made everyone’s legs give out.
“You brought in ability users? Then now it’s all-out war.”
No matter how rocky the mountain was, the things Bukhansan had the most of were trees, grass, and other plants.
When the monster who normally drank down entire forests began driving his straw into the mountain and inhaling vigorously,
Flutter, flutter…!!
“Aaaagh, birds and rats are coming toward the residential area—!! It’s a plague!!”
“What the hell is this? The migratory birds are already flying off into the distance?! The country’s in great shape, I tell you!! Aigoo!!”
Just because they couldn’t sense energy any more than ordinary people could didn’t mean they couldn’t sense ominous danger.
The animals, the first to realize that staying here meant cutting ties with life itself, were urgently pouring down from the mountain.
Before long, like a single drop of ink falling into the water that was the mountain,
From the place where Kim Chomok stood, a brown, lifeless land spread outward, drained of every trace of vitality.
And the ability users who saw an entire mountain, quite literally, have its essence extracted and turned into one man’s strength and flesh,
“What?! Where are you going! You’ve been ordered to stay here right now!! If you just leave, that’s desertion—aaagh!!”
“You crazy bastard! All my ability does is set things on fire and run away! How the hell am I supposed to stop that?!”
Fragging.
As an added bonus, their minds shattered in an instant, and they were willing to shoot their superiors if that was what it took to escape this hell.