We talked for a while.

I got an unexpected answer.

Rebecca spoke in a tone that sounded almost like a sigh, revealing what was on her mind.

"I think it’d be better to stay here."

I stayed silent for a moment.

Is there anything that changes a person more than time?

Rebecca, who had once hated Korea more than anyone and loved America, now wanted to stay in Korea.

Sue, on the other hand—who, unlike her mother, had felt a fondness for Korea, actively communicated, and had wanted to live here—now wanted to leave for her hometown, which she could hardly even remember.

The mother and daughter were making different choices, but I didn’t think there was a right answer.

Even I didn’t know what would happen to this world, so how could I interfere with someone else’s choice?

"Skeleton. A friend’s coming by, so I’m going to step out."

Sue got dressed and went outside.

Before going down the stairs that led outside, she stopped in front of a cracked, smudged mirror and spent quite a while fixing her bangs.

Looking out the window, I saw a tall boy with brown hair and gentle, easygoing eyes standing there awkwardly with a gun in his hands, glancing up in this direction.

"That’s Michael."

Rebecca came up beside me and told me the boy’s name without me even asking.

"A boy Su’s been meeting lately."

"He’s got a kind face."

He gave a good impression. He didn’t look like a bad person.

Physiognomy doesn’t always match reality, but personally, I see it as a kind of statistical science. First impressions hit the mark fairly often.

It’s just that there’s almost no way to filter out a swindler who’s determined to deceive you from the start.

"He’s a good kid," Rebecca murmured, nodding.

"Smart, athletic. Especially good at basketball. The problem is, he’s not great at shooting, but my daughter’s the one who’s good with a gun anyway."

Sue came down and joined the boy named Michael.

They didn’t exchange many words, but smiles quickly bloomed between them.

I could feel a warm, lively aura between them, full of unseen life.

Phrases like "unconditional pure love" drifted through my mind, when Rebecca let out a sigh.

"That brat’s egging Sue on to go to America."

It was ironic, hearing that from Rebecca, who had once wanted to go to America more than anyone, but I didn’t bother pointing it out.

Instead, watching the young couple walk off into the distance, I quietly spoke a blessing in my heart and said aloud,

"Children eventually leave their parents. Birds do the same, don’t they?"

"At least she doesn’t seem to be going through a rebellious phase. She’s always been kind and gentle. Still is now."

"Everyone’s different."

I never really went through anything you’d call a rebellious phase myself.

I never had any empty space in my heart for that kind of thing.

But even without such signs, people change.

Haven’t I?

"We decided to vote."

"Really? So it’ll be split evenly?"

"No. It’s a method where everyone accepts the result. If you split in half, you break easily, right? For those who stay, and for those who leave."

"That’s true."

That was wise.

DSRA had shown, in its own ironic way, how difficult it was to form a functioning group of even around 300 people.

Even with only a few dozen, that man had spouted his grotesque, sadistic crap-philosophy, creating hierarchies between people.

Thinking of my own future, it was better for the U.S. group to leave.

For now, I was taking shelter in Fox Game’s bunker, but someday, where I would return to would be the Skeleton House—chosen, designed, and built by me.

Of course, the decision was up to the Americans.

It wasn’t something I could push them into.

While I was there, I asked Rebecca about a few things I was curious about.

After all, it was still a dangerous world.

With Kang Han-min’s experimental new breeds appearing almost daily, this area couldn’t be completely safe either.

It was true my bunker’s location was in a so-called Shangri-La position, at the very edge between rifts, but monsters had the card of infiltration-type small breeds.

It wasn’t proven, but in areas occupied by small breeds, new monsters were produced—either naturally, via warping, or by remote generation.

The fact that there’d been a mid-sized breed "parked" in a small-breed zone was part of the same logic.

If a dangerous monster appeared, even the U.S. group wouldn’t be safe.

But there was an even more serious problem.

"What? The Seoul government is demanding repayment of supplies?"

I’d always said humans were scarier than monsters, and it applied this time too.

"Yeah. They want us to return everything we borrowed from the Seoul government. If that’s too hard, hand over military equipment instead."

Right now, Jeon Si-hoon was throwing his weight around at every group near his kingdom.

From basic demands like tribute payments, to disbandment, defection, or demands for near-total submission.

My forum friend Anon458, Park Penguin, had been getting constant demands to defect.

And not just any defection—threats to send all men and women between 18 and 25 to them.

With the insult that the old ones should just live with other old ones.

That Jeon Si-hoon would pull this kind of crap on our ally, the U.S. military, was entirely possible, but I hadn’t thought of it until now.

No matter what, these were people who had fought with us against China in the last war, and had defended us in the New Seoul Defense Battle.

Yes, they could be overbearing, at times standoffish, and incomprehensible foreigners, but treating allied soldiers like this was hard to accept.

"...They say if it’s not returned by spring, they’ll send people."

Rebecca said it casually, like she didn’t see it as a big deal.

"No, that’s not okay."

I had to set this straight.

Sure, the U.S. group disappearing would make planning my future easier. Ha Tae-hoon hadn’t been able to put up with them, and I wouldn’t be an exception.

But if the remaining U.S. forces stayed here like this, Jeon Si-hoon would attack.

If they still had their peak wartime strength, maybe—but the people here now were those abandoned and left behind by the U.S. military, survivors and nothing more.

They might have more combatants, more discipline, and the shared bond of being American citizens, but facing someone like Jeon Si-hoon’s "kids"—monstrous, terrifying, and uncontrollable—would be impossible.

"You should leave quickly," I said, looking straight at Rebecca.

"Skeleton?"

"This isn’t a joke. You should go right away. Or at least your family should come here."

"Is it really that serious?"

I told Rebecca about the tyrant Jeon Si-hoon.

He despised the world.

Just as much as he despised the world, he looked down on the people living in it.

The scariest thing was that he didn’t even know what he wanted.

He simply swung the gift—his authority—given to him by the rift, out of ignorance.

Dozens of such blind men formed the foundation of his kingdom.

And above all, there were many Chinese in his group.

They might have been exiled and abandoned by China, but that didn’t mean they liked America.

The rifts had destroyed China, but to the outside world, America was seen as the one that made China collapse.

China had rained hundreds of nuclear warheads on America, but America had responded with more powerful, more precise nukes—impossible to defend against.

That was a truth Chinese citizens rarely spoke of.

More people had died from nuclear strikes in China.

The Chinese government had already been split between moderates and radicals at the time of the war.

Without any proper war plan, the radicals had pressed the button on impulse.

And the ones left to die like pigs were the ordinary people their leaders saw as livestock.

If you were Chinese, you couldn’t help but resent America for evaporating at least a hundred million of your people in nuclear fire.

That resentment was no different from the hatred we held toward China.

Jeon Si-hoon would probably send them.

They said they’d send people in the spring, but who knew?

He could change his mind anytime, and he never punished his subordinates for causing trouble.

"You need to leave right away."

I told her everything about Jeon Si-hoon.

She listened with a face that said she couldn’t believe it, but she paid attention, and asked for explanations whenever something I said wasn’t clear.

After I finished, she organized her own thoughts.

"If Skeleton says so..."

I repeated my earlier suggestion.

If they couldn’t decide, Rebecca and her family should evacuate at least.

"I could take that Michael kid and his family too. They’d have to make an effort to fit in, though."

Rebecca thought for a bit, then shook her head, a lonely smile tugging at her lips.

"Sue and I like Skeleton, but..."

I knew what she meant.

They could be my neighbors, but they couldn’t be neighbors to someone like me.

I’d seen it before in my old group.

If that was the case, there was only one way.

"Can you tell everyone what I said? If you want, I can go there myself and talk to them."

Rebecca shook her head.

"No, that’s not necessary."

"Yeah?"

"People wanting to stay here isn’t because they love it here like I do. It’s because they’re afraid to board the airship due to a technical issue. If that problem isn’t solved, they won’t listen to anything. On the other hand, if it is, they’ll all leave."

I asked what the technical issue was.

Honestly, I didn’t expect her to think I could solve it—I was ignorant of flight and aeronautics.

She gave me a simple answer.

"Propane gas."

It was in an American accent, so I had her clarify, and I understood what she meant.

Propane gas.

It was bizarre to suddenly hear of some old fuel from the past, but I kept a serious face and asked for an explanation.

"They say that gas has the same weight as air."

Her continued explanation made clear the technical issue holding the Americans back.

An airship’s buoyancy had to be constant.

If it was too great, it could rise endlessly toward the stratosphere; if too little, it would crash to the ground.

An airship relied heavily on air currents, but it was actually operated by propellers.

Propellers consumed fuel.

There were eco-friendly ones using batteries, but a large airship carrying 300 people had no choice but to use fossil fuels.

But fuel had weight.

As you burned fuel to run the propellers, the airship got lighter by that amount.

The imbalance in buoyancy could throw the entire flight plan off.

But propane gas, having the same weight as air, wouldn’t cause weight changes no matter how much you burned.

That meant you could sail the skies while maintaining the same buoyancy.

"The ones opposing insist it has to be propane gas."

She shook her head, looking exasperated.

"Where are we supposed to get that?"

Exactly.

Where in the world could you get propane gas now?

If you could get it, you could use it.

Unlike gasoline, propane had a long shelf life.

From what I remembered, it could last a decade easily, and indefinitely in ideal conditions.

But storing it in a bunker was just inviting a possible explosion ending, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

"So if you could get propane gas, everyone would take the airship, right?"

Rebecca nodded.

"Yeah. I told you, everyone agreed to follow the final decision."

We’d have to talk about this part again later.

For now, since Jeon Si-hoon said "See you in spring," we’d have time to discuss it until then.

"I’ll come again next time."

Rebecca gave a faint smile and # Nоvеlight # waved.

"Okay, Skeleton. Stay safe."

The loneliness on her face was probably unavoidable.

In the distance, we watched Sue walk and chat with her boyfriend.

"..."

I didn’t want to see them die in a place like this.

All birds leave the nest.

But I couldn’t just stand by and watch a bird die after leaving.

Down below, Defender was still there, armed and watching the horizon with his usual cool gaze.

"Oh. Skeleton."

He came over.

"I saw her—this house’s daughter. She’s grown a lot, huh? Kids really shoot up fast."

"Yeah."

As I got on my scooter, I thought for a moment.

"Hey."

I asked, without much expectation.

"Do you know anywhere we could get propane gas in bulk?"

"Propane gas?"

"Yeah."

"Why propane gas all of a sudden?"

"Oh, those friends over there—they want to use it for fuel."

"That’s unusual."

That was where I thought the conversation would end.

But Defender didn’t seem to think so.

"There is."

He said.

"It’s a bit of a dangerous neighborhood, though."