Even the most irritating bastard is bound to be right sometimes.

In that sense, Dies_Irae’s coaching was a textbook example of the genre.

“You’ve spread out too far for how few people you have. It’s a half-baked number. You need at least ten fighters. Sure, the difference between one and two fighters isn’t huge—but between three and ten? That’s big. Enough of a deterrent to make any attacker stop and reconsider. Naturally, they’ll send out more scouts, which raises the chance they get spotted by you.”

Half measures stand in perfect opposition to the concept of balance.

Balance is finding the optimal compromise between opposing values. Half measures are a collection of bad variables that achieve neither.

Right now, our group was firmly in the half-measure zone.

Kim Daram and Cheon Young-jae were strong combatants, but in human-on-human battles, numbers and firepower often decided the outcome more than skill did.

You couldn’t pull off miracles every time, and you couldn’t count on luck every time either.

Three fighters was too few.

Daram’s husband was a valuable medic, and Dong-tak could be thrown in during an emergency, but Daram would never allow it—and I didn’t want to send him out either.

He wasn’t like his parents—too kind for the battlefield.

Yoo Jeong-min had good survival instincts, but I meant survival in a social sense, not the kind required on a harsh battlefield.

Dies_Irae’s reinforcements numbered over thirty.

He’d sent them within an hour of my call.

That said something about how close his territory was, but it also said something about the skill level—high.

Above all, they were ruthless.

“Let’s see... This guy’s fine. Burst eardrum, but limbs are intact. This guy—mm. He’s done. No hope. Load him with the corpses—he’ll be dead soon enough.”

They sorted through the wounded raiders, picking out who would be useful as slaves and who would be tossed with the dead.

The ones branded as slaves had a miserable fate waiting for them.

“Aaaargh!”

One of Dies_Irae’s men took clippers—what we used to call a barikang—and shaved a prisoner’s head. He must have used a dull blade on purpose, because instead of cutting hair cleanly, it ripped at the scalp, leaving bloody gouges. The more the prisoner screamed, the harder the men laughed.

They took all the corpses too. When I asked, they said it was for “mutation bait.”

At least they weren’t cannibals.

One woman ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) who’d been with the raiders was also taken prisoner. Her future didn’t look bright either.

The guy who’d been playing doctor looked her over, then said,

“What is this, stage three syphilis? And you’ve been dragging this thing around?”

He pulled out his pistol and shot her in the head.

Bang!

When I stared at him, he smirked.

“Treatment complete.”

Cheon Young-jae muttered with a bitter grin,

“Wow. A real medical genius.”

Not long after, Dies_Irae pulled out with his men.

Before leaving, he gave me another piece of advice.

“If you’re going to hide, hide properly. If you’re not going to hide, at least fortify your defenses. You and your friend are strong, but no one knows that until they’ve fought you.”

True enough.

Plenty of people knew I was Skeleton, but anyone spotting me here from afar—through a scope or drone—would just see an armed adult male.

Dies_Irae kept going.

“It’s fine to be picky about who you take in—I used to be like that. But you can’t read someone’s heart just by looking at them, right? Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t wrong.

Not a single thing he’d said so far was wrong.

But the way he said it—condescending, looking down on me from above—was grating.

“Pick people you can use. There’s a reason we set deal-breakers before a war. As long as they don’t trip those, take them. If you don’t like it, smash all that junk you’ve built on top and hide underground.”

He gave Kim Daram’s little house by the bunker a scornful glance.

“That thing is why you got hit with an Arirang Stick-Up. Group survival is a different game from living alone.”

"..."

Yeah. This bastard definitely thought I was a joke.

He respected me as a Hunter, but as a collapse-prepper? He thought I was garbage.

I couldn’t help but feel insulted.

I might be practicing group survival now out of necessity, but I’d been Skeleton—solo survival’s rival to Dies_Irae’s group survival—back on the boards.

Seeing my irritation, Dies_Irae turned.

“Let’s go.”

He and his men loaded the corpses and prisoners onto their trucks and drove off across the snowy expanse back to their territory.

Ugly as the whole scene had been, his words stuck.

Half measures were worse than doing nothing.

I needed to increase our numbers.

And I had someone in mind.

*

First, I asked Dies_Irae for help.

“Think I could borrow Defender for a bit?”

He’d been the one to tell me to increase my numbers, after all.

He couldn’t think my group was worthless.

Monster-clearing contracts—removing entrenched threats from key points—were some of the most valuable services left in this world.

The fact he’d shown up himself within half an hour with top fighters proved that.

Our last hunt had been profitable for him.

Losing us to a sudden raid would be bad for him too.

And I wasn’t asking for Defender permanently—just borrowing him for a while.

At first, his tone was indifferent.

“Defender?”

But Dies_Irae was quick on the uptake. I could almost hear the wicked gears turning.

“I could lend him... but you know how many enemies Hong Jeong-ho has, right? If word gets out he’s with you, Skeleton, your little fam isn’t just going to get wiped—it’ll get annihilated.”

For some reason, Dies_Irae loved the word fam.

Historian Hong Da-jeong once said the term came from early-2000s Korean internet slang for youth groups. Dies_Irae and I weren’t far apart in age, but it wasn’t a word I used much.

“If he causes trouble, we’ll die alone.”

I said it flatly into the radio.

He laughed hard.

“Die alone, huh... Not a bad mindset. But to pull it off, you need one grenade per person—or sole control over your friends’ lives.”

"..."

“People’s mouths are light, you know. You don’t even need anything that looks scary. A hammer’s enough to get someone talking. Sometimes you just hold it, and they spill.”

I let him ramble.

“Honestly, it’s a hassle for us too. Him, and his sister. They’re... prickly. The type who can’t live in a group unless they’re running it. Come to think of it, Hong Jeong-ho did run things once.”

Yep. I had him pegged now.

He liked teaching people.

A common bad habit of self-made men.

Still, in this world, Dies_Irae counted as successful.

He’d built a functioning survivor group from nothing.

Listening paid off.

“Fine. I’ll send him.”

Defender would come.

But Dies_Irae had a point—Defender and his sister were too abrasive to live well with others.

They claimed they hated the world because of postwar tragedies, but I knew better—they’d hated people long before the war.

You could command people you despise, but you couldn’t live with them.

I’d give them their own space, like before.

While waiting, I prepared for something else—something closer to my vision of a new community.

An Seung-hwan and Lee Haru.

Kim Hanna had given me their address long ago.

I hadn’t had the resources to go then, but now I did.

We had a base—small and vulnerable, but ours—and people to guard it.

As soon as Defender arrived, we’d leave.

The Defender siblings showed up not long after, in a small electric car.

Not the kind of vehicle you’d picture for a supercar enthusiast, but the roof bristled with sensors and antennas—very them.

I was a little tense when they got out.

Defender was one thing, but I hadn’t seen Da-jeong in a long time.

They climbed out.

“Skeleton.”

Defender looked thinner but otherwise the same—just a bit more withdrawn, his eyes shifting more than before.

And Hong Da-jeong...

"..."

She wore a veil over her face.

Was she injured?

A scar ran across her bare forearm.

“Hi, Skeleton.”

She ignored everyone else—Daram, Young-jae—and looked only at me.

Daram’s face twisted, but I’d warned her beforehand.

The real surprise helper here was Young-jae.

“Been a while. How’ve you been?”

He’d hated Defender since they’d fallen out, calling him a psycho after he became Skull Brigade’s leader, but still spoke kindly now.

Defender just looked at him.

He didn’t say thank you—he wasn’t that type.

We had a small welcome, then met privately.

Da-jeong removed the veil.

“Huh?”

“What’s with that look?”

“You’re fine?”

Her face was uninjured—if anything, she’d put on a little healthy weight.

I glanced at her arm.

“Oh, that? Just a scratch.”

Defender explained.

“A bullet went through the car and grazed her arm. Three centimeters lower and... well, you wouldn’t be seeing her face.”

“It stung, but what can you do? We were in full retreat. Could’ve been worse.”

She gave a weary but bright smile.

“I had a good year. Really. Got to live it up. Screwed it up at the end, but that Jeon Si-hoon guy—if you look at what he was doing, he’d have hit us anyway.”

In just a few lines, I could see how the siblings had diverged.

Defender was still stuck in the past.

Da-jeong had changed—she had a calm strength now.

Probably thanks to her improved health—color in her cheeks where before she’d been pale.

“Skeleton.”

Defender met my eyes.

I nodded.

“One month.”

That must’ve been the time Dies_Irae allowed him.

Fitting—he’d never let go of a big fish like Defender.

I told them my plan.

Defender nodded.

“I’ll stay somewhere else. Don’t want to be around Young-jae or Daram. I’ve already got a place in mind nearby.”

As expected, he kept to his way.

I went over the plan in detail.

He coughed mid-way—had something to say.

“That place... it’s dangerous.”

“Where isn’t?”

“No, especially dangerous.”

He looked at Da-jeong, who picked up without missing a beat.

“It’s run by our old goons.”

“Skull Brigade?”

“Yeah. Still sounds lame after all this time. I wanted something simple like ‘Neighborhood Watch.’ Anyway, they’re not in great shape.”

“In what way?”

She sighed.

“They’re fanatics now. What’s the word? Conversion?”

“Indoctrination,” Defender corrected.

“Sorry. Middle school dropout.”

“You dropped out?!”

“Skeleton, that’s a bit rude out of nowhere, isn’t it?”

“I dropped out too.”

“Oh. Well. Anyway, they’re really bad off. They’re the ones who did this to my arm.”

It’s like that saying about the abyss looking back—not poetic, just common.

Cops investigating corruption becoming corrupt themselves. Judges turning political.

Fanatic hunters turning into fanatics themselves—same thing.

When the story was over, the siblings looked at me.

Sometimes I thought they weren’t two people at all, but one split into two bodies.

Da-jeong spoke.

“If you’re going there, take us with you.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“I’ve been living on borrowed time anyway.” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“And you?” I asked, surprised.

Even healthy, a winter trek would be hard for a noncombatant like her.

She smiled brightly and pointed to the car outside.

“I’ll drive.”