Kim Chomok had been awake for roughly twenty-four hours straight while carrying out the series of events.
"Ugh, getting my criminal record wiped and my discharge guaranteed in a day's wages is all well and good... but I'm so exhausted I can't walk."
Even with all the energy remaining from draining an entire mountain peak and helicopter fuel dry,
the amount left at the time he'd beaten up the reporter was in a precarious situation!
On top of that, his physical condition was utterly shattered, so the young man wanted to get home sitting down if he possibly could.
Kim Chomok stood waiting at the bus stop for a moment, and finally, the bus to take him home stopped in front of him, but...
"Are you crazy!? Get off right now, are you... a student? Or something?! Anyway!!"
"The hell."
For the young man who had literally been awake for so very long, what came back to Kim Chomok was the cold reality of being denied boarding.
Seoul's public transportation stripped this exhausted young man of his right to travel near his home.
"Why not! This is discrimination against humans!"
"No, think about it logically... anyone can see you look like you've been shot full of holes, so how can I let you on?!"
Of course, the reason was rational enough that no one could argue with it, but.
"Ah. Right, I look like a beggar..."
If the condition for refusal had been 'the customer looks unable to pay,' he would've flipped the bus,
but hearing "No, fuck... those are bullet scars, right?" right to his face, he couldn't help but understand.
The daily life of tired people sneaking out right before overtime and smirking, thinking, 'I got lucky today'—a 'Misaeng'-like existence.
If you board a bus packed with people wearing clothes that are rags rather than a T-shirt, the genre suddenly changes, doesn't it?
"Damn, it's useless until the very end. I'll go take a piss back at my unit, see if I don't."
The saving grace was that today he had a document that would prevent him from being indicted simply for being filthy, so long as it wasn't something truly serious.
Today was a day he could be forgiven even for racing down the sidewalk 'faster than most motorcycles'!
Shwoooom...!!
"Uwaaah, what the hell?!"
"Where does a beast bastard think it's going on a public sidewalk...!!"
A kickboarder¹ panicking at the human figure brushing past while riding on the sidewalk, falling over while trying to make an emergency evasion, or,
"Oh my, oh my!! No, where do you think you're going!! Oh my, why are you walking around in torn clothes?!"
"Ah, you're hanging laundry. Sorry. I'm a bit too sturdy."
though there was the mishap of hopping across the rooftops of the studio complexes near his house to reach his home,
the most important thing for him now was rest.
He needed quality rest where he did absolutely nothing, rested deeply, and ate well.
After all, committing a certain degree of minor crimes to survive is something the law takes into account, isn't it?
"One forest took at least two days... shit, how long do I have to lie down this time?"
Power without a price does not exist in this world.
The promissory note he'd cast into the future, prepared for a massive rebound, telling them to go to hell rather than be a soldier again.
The time to pay off that amount had come for Kim Chomok, who had barely washed and collapsed onto his bed as if passing out.
***
Using a ton of strength, not sleeping, and on top of that the calories burned by someone with nerves on edge are enormous, but.
They say sleep drive comes before appetite and libido. No merchant in the world can keep their eyelids open.
No matter how hard a person tries to stay awake, at some point they automatically slump like a blown fuse.
Not long after Kim Chomok's control over his entire body passed into dreams,
he began to realize that his cheek was being lightly scratched by something with an odd texture.
Hee-hee-ing...!!
The source was the tongue of a teacup-sized foal, as small as a toy dog, black-in-color, that should have been much larger.
"...Wow, fuck. Anyone can tell this is a dream. Dreams with dogs or cows are common, but a black dog-horse is a first... ack!!"
Thwack--!!
Watching Kim Chomok's speed of recognizing reality—thinking at first it was just a dog dream, 'So I've fallen asleep and I'm dreaming some shitty dream'—
the black horse, fuming with anger, charged at him with a face like 'What the hell is this bastard?!'
and kicked the face of the heavily indebted debtor with its right hind leg, ferocious as a tiger.
- Hey, you crazy fuck, do you think all humans are made of rubber? No, what kind of insane bastard has no middle ground!
"...Oof, fuck. Now it talks too. Must be because it's a horse..."
Thwack!!
"Ack! Don't put your foot in my mouth, you dirty bastard! A hind leg counts as a foot for humans too!!"
As a bonus, while spouting such useless bullshit, he even gained the information that the left hind hoof tasted like ground grain!
"Damn, this crazy foal bastard... you enter someone else's body and live there without even paying rent, and this is what you do?!"
- Oh ho, now you're getting angry in return? I'm the one who should be angry, you crazy bastard!!
The loser who failed to prove the basic premise of the lord of all creation—superiority over all four-legged beasts—
after being thoroughly beaten, it didn't take long for him to be sprawled out on all fours just the same.
- Damn, to think I'm of one body and one mind with this crazy bastard! A community of fate! Heaven help the laws of the universe!
"...Ah, I get it! I'm sorry!"
Honestly, if you listened to the words, he was clearly in the wrong.
- Are you some fucking pink monstrosity?! All you can do is devour one forest, so why the hell were you trying to chew up a mountain peak?!
"Ah, I had to show you something big so you'd never bitch at me again!!"
- Aah, I see! So you were planning to show your friend a death certificate! Do you have an incense fetish or something?!
Looking around, the structure was a white room with cracks running in every direction.
Kim Chomok sighed as he took in the precarious state of the room, held together by black substances patched up here and there.
Thanks to the beating, nothing good came out of his mouth, but by this point, he knew whose help he'd survived by.
It was obvious why this Maltese-sized black horse in front of him was angry.
"...Damn, fine. So, the side effects? How badly did I mess up?"
- There's one good piece of news and one bad piece of news... which do you want to hear first?
"Oh, then definitely the good news..."
- Of course, whatever a bastard like you says, I'll say what I want first.
Even though it was a creature he'd never seen before, this foal resembled his own personality more than anyone else, so he felt he knew what it was.
"...This damned little..."
- At minimum, for a month, you'll fall into a state below that of an ordinary person, unable to use any abilities.
"I know."
- ...Know my ass, you didn't know anything before getting dragged here, dumbass!
Kim Chomok was able to accept the karmic retribution for his actions quite calmly.
- If that crazy doctor were here, I could've at least cut the period in half...
"...What?! No, that crazy torture technician bastard² really had skills?!"
Unless he re-enlisted, he'd never see someone who treated others' pain as completely unimportant again.
"No, before that, being treated by that bastard was so hard I was practically foaming at the mouth—how could that be good news?"
Given Kim Chomok's nature of placing unattainable things on the same level as meaningless trash, this was not welcome news.
Seeing things from the same perspective meant thinking similar thoughts.
- That's right. Congratulations. In a month, you'll be able to devour as much as you just stuffed down without any rebound.
The black foal twisted its muzzle, and the good news it conveyed was 'the potential for ability development.'
"...So those patched-up things mean I can't use my abilities until I'm fully healed?"
- That's about right. I tore my body apart to patch it up... so I'm telling you to think before you use it.
Just as a stretched stomach³ can hold more food,
it meant he could stuff a bit more into this room that was currently patched up with temporary fixes.
"...Oh, then?! I just got a good idea—"
- It's obvious what you're thinking, some trash-tier thought like 'the more you eat, the more your stomach stretches.'
Ba-aaam--!!
Kim Chomok, who'd been thinking 'Then once that's healed, a whole mountain...' the moment the thought crossed his mind,
paid the price for not thinking like a proper human being until the very end, getting his head kicked in by the room's owner and neatly knocked out.
***
Kicked out of the refuge called dreams like that, Kim Chomok returned to miserable reality.
"Uwaaaack...!! It hurts, it hurts so much--!!"
"Shut up, bastard! What kind of racket is this at 3 a.m. when everyone else is sleeping!!"
Rolling on his bed from the agony wracking his entire body that wouldn't even let him scream properly in his room.
While feeling the flow of time in pain, which felt 'even longer than that military service.'
"...The era of forcibly containing ability users is now impossible."
At the Ministry of National Defense press conference, the scene of the Minister of National Defense bowing his head while calmly briefing the results of this incident.
Reporters were frantically pressing shutters to capture it on camera.
In a situation where a day had passed since the massive disaster in which the military had deployed and failed to capture just one person,
it was a declaration of surrender that ability users could no longer be bound under the state.
Of course, the state abandoning such enormous military power was impossible for a centrally governed nation.
"...Since we've clashed with this generation, we have no choice but to secure the next generation of ability users!"
Other than the active-duty soldiers who would've been split off receiving beggarly amounts from stingy bastards their whole lives if he hadn't openly clashed with them,
the strategy was to somehow tie down the future generations—who had done nothing yet—by treating them well.
Literally a case of 'fixing the barn after losing the cow,' but investing in facilities was better than doing nothing.
"Of all things, that crazy bastard ended up representing all ability users..."
The moment he sought even a little personal gain, they could've said, 'He sold ability user treatment for personal advancement!'
and attempted to drive a wedge between them and the future generations who hadn't yet grabbed much in their hands.
What he wanted was discharge and amnesty for himself, and even the results of his actions ended favorably for ability users?
The next generation would at best remain neutral, if not favorable; it would be difficult to openly show hostility.
'What can you even do? If you couldn't crush us in one go, quietly accept the market's evaluation and hire us at high prices.'
Was it his imagination that he seemed to see the sneering young man mocking the silent, non-ability professional soldiers?
This was already enough to sour the mood, but the problem was that things had exploded chain-reaction-style elsewhere too.
"It's a good thing Kim Chomok was kind... we almost all died!"
"No, whether ability users are bad guys or whatever... does it make sense to throw grunts in front of such a monster?!"
The hostages who'd been dragged away, did a bit of labor, ate, played, and gotten a disbandment ending,
colluded with their parents and hired lawyers for the 'mental and physical compensation of the soldiers who gave unreasonable orders.'
"...Your discharges are practically guaranteed now! Let's just do it like before, like before!!"
"Yes? No, we really are doing our best? That's hurtful of you to say."
Along with complaints about not being discharged, the work-to-rule that ability users who didn't want to die had staged to refuse suicide missions—
had become the default of moving 'only to the extent that military law wasn't violated,' raising the blood pressure of the officers.
Once someone has tasted sweetness, they can never return to the time of eating bitter and astringent things.
The ability user units that had diligently run around receiving this kind of treatment were now disappearing into the back pages of history.
"Those crazy bastards are hopeless; we have to target the next generation. If we give them wads of cash, they'll listen, right?"
"...Where does that money come from?"
"Well, if they don't want to die, they'll arrange tax support themselves. You have to be alive to enjoy power, right?"
What can you do; only if the treatment and pay are good will many future comrades volunteer, right?
One not-so-good Samaritan who had truly moved purely for his own discharge,
had succeeded, after countless butterfly effects, in turning the arrow slightly more in a direction for the sake of humanity.
"Uuugh... please, even though it hurts, I have to crawl to the bathroom..."
Of course, that very person, in order to preserve his human dignity amidst the agony wracking his entire body,
was desperately crawling to the bathroom of his studio apartment⁴.