Before departure, a small disturbance broke out.

At about 1km ahead, a small group lingered.

They seemed to be a band of small-time raiders from Legion territory.

Even when we made a show of force by revealing the men armed with rifles, they didn’t budge.

In the end, when we fired warning shots, they finally and reluctantly backed off a little.

During that time, I managed to get a moment with Kim Min-young.

Even though he had shown a disgraceful sight in front of monsters, when it came to driving off raiders, Kim Min-young displayed the courage to step forward toward an armed raider and fire warning shots.

Well, it was 1km away, so the chance of actually getting shot was low.

“Let’s just say that’s typical of Academy punks. Isn’t it something we’ve seen plenty of times, them acting out because they’re eaten up with inferiority complexes?”

With a cigarette in his mouth, Kim Min-young looked calm and composed, but when he struck the lighter, I didn’t miss the slight tremor of his hand.

It must have been clear even to his own eyes that he had no choice left but to join up with me.

His group had long enjoyed a semblance of autonomy and peace under the relatively stable banner of a Legion warlord, but now they were leaving the nest they had settled in and trying to start fresh in unfamiliar ground.

The slightest shock could bring down all the agreements and rules that had kept them together until now.

The Academy showing its teeth felt late, in my eyes.

No doubt the Academy had intended to serve Kim Min-young loyally after all this time.

Looking at him and his crew’s behavior, the Academy had the potential to overturn the board whenever he felt like it.

But Kim Min-young’s disappointing display had ruined everything.

His excuse was trite.

“I just ended up with too much to lose.”

Rubbing his rough beard, Kim Min-young began to speak.

“Didn’t you notice earlier that our family has a lot of women?”

“There did seem to be quite a few.”

“Every single one of them has a story. Women who, if it weren’t for the war, you’d never even get to look at. Women [N O V E L I G H T] who could’ve lived decently somewhere else but fell into ruin because of the war and ended up here. If you strip them, you’d see they’ve been forcibly tattooed...”

“You need to show something here.”

I cut him off.

Listening to long-winded sob stories was something I had declined before, and I decline now.

What matters is the cold reality.

Most things in this world move the way water flows downhill—by each one’s interest.

“You won’t be able to stop Academy from leaving. Chief Choi, the one Park Penguin sent, realized that he and his team have real skill. Even from my perspective, if they’d gone to China back in the day, they’d have scored well.”

“Really? Academy?”

Kim Min-young looked like he didn’t want to admit it—or rather, couldn’t bear to.

He turned to me.

His awkward smile, strained at the edges despite his feigned composure, made me guess what he was about to say.

“About that report.”

“Reports are to be made accurately.”

“But we’re from the same school.” 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

“Precisely because we’re from the same school, I have to judge him all the more coldly. Didn’t Instructor Jang Ki-young say that?”

“Say what?”

From his expression alone, I knew.

Kim Min-young knew exactly what I was getting at.

I fixed him with a glare and pronounced each word.

“The only ones who can evaluate us are ourselves. That’s why we have to be objective—so no outsider dares to pass judgment on us.”

Kim Min-young let out a sigh.

“That bastard.”

He wouldn’t know.

That the reason I gave him a chance was because of memories with the very Jang Ki-young he despised so much.

“A washed-up bastard who nearly went to prison for embezzlement—what authority does he have?”

I let him rant.

But when he was done, I informed him calmly.

“In fifteen minutes, we begin.”

“If I die, my family will scatter. They’ll all live miserable lives. Half of them won’t make it through the spring, let alone the year.”

That’s none of my business.

That’s just the common fate of humans in the apocalypse.

I have no duty to support them.

Perhaps out of whim or goodwill, I could help a little. But that’s all.

I can’t save everyone.

I’m not a savior. I’m merely another witness enduring this age of ruin.

“You’d better go out there and show them something. Even if Academy leaves, there are still people left. You need to give the impression that you can lead well without Academy.”

In the end, each person carries responsibility for their own life.

A rookie with a .22 caliber rifle was watching us suspiciously from afar.

He probably couldn’t hear a word of what we were saying.

Glancing sidelong at the rookie, Kim Min-young muttered:

“I’ve hated that little shit from the start.”

*

After the first defeat of the new type—what we came to call the “Dungeon”—all the monsters that had been approaching us from every direction abruptly retreated back to their original lairs as if nothing had happened.

In that process, the most threatening medium-type Trooper couldn’t withstand Earth’s retaliation and dissolved into golden particles.

A perfect success.

I discussed the case briefly with Academy and recorded it down.

For the sake of the next hunters who might one day face this new type.

That these records gave me reputation—well, even Dongtak knew that by now.

One surprising fact: Academy had gone to a good school.

S University, in fact. Engineering.

At first glance, he didn’t look smart, but watching him apply things like vectors and functions in reality, crunching numbers on the fly, was something I’d never seen before, and it let us sort through everything with ease.

Just as we finished up the work, gunfire echoed.

It sounded like a firefight, shots ringing out from different distances.

Soon after, Kim Min-young’s corpse was found.

Cause of death: gunshot wounds.

Three bullets had struck his chest, neck, and lungs.

He had left the tunnel ahead of us during battle, and while we were still inside, he picked a fight with some wandering raiders—and paid the price.

“Just unlucky.”

A soldier collecting the body clicked his tongue.

“Who could’ve guessed one of those dirtbags would be a sniper-tier shooter, with a properly zeroed rifle and even a compensator?”

Everyone seemed stunned by the sudden death.

Even Chief Choi, who had always been openly hostile toward Kim Min-young, revealed a different side.

“...I was harsh on him, but I knew. That Kim Min-young had faced the General-type that appeared in Sokcho all on his own. That thousands of lives were saved thanks to him. The cross-checked evidence was too much to deny. But that kind of courage only happens once. And he had to live off the dividends of that one-time courage for the rest of his life.”

I asked about how they’d handle the remaining members of his group.

“We’ll take them all in, of course. Captain Park Penguin intended that much anyway. But we won’t accept them on the unreasonable terms he demanded. They’ll live as ordinary members of our group, with their own share of the burden.”

Whatever his final appearance, he was remembered as a hero of the group.

The many followers he had led—especially the young and beautiful women—wailed as though their own family had been taken from them.

There were no flowers, but withered wild grass was laid before his corpse.

The mourning didn’t last long.

Academy, who had become the new leader after Kim Min-young, gathered the party and prepared to leave for Park Penguin’s territory.

While they dug the grave for Kim Min-young, a small incident occurred.

Someone had rifled through the belongings.

The sunglasses he wore hooked on his shirt, his outer garments, even the white shirt itself—all stripped away.

“This really isn’t right.”

An older man, who had served as a laborer in Kim Min-young’s group, clicked his tongue and shoved the body into the grave with his foot.

Unintentionally, the bullet wounds on the body were revealed.

“This...”

One of the men nearby spoke.

He was a guard who had come along with Chief Choi.

Introducing himself as a veteran soldier, he squatted down in front of the stiff corpse like a coroner, peering closely.

“Doesn’t look like rifle wounds. Looks more like a pistol. Small caliber. Of course, you’d have to dig out the bullets to be sure.”

At those words, one face flickered through my mind.

The rookie with the .22 caliber.

The one who had supported Kim Min-young more than anyone else—that boy on the boundary between youth and adulthood. At some point, he had disappeared.

He wasn’t at the funeral either.

That closed one story. But the story itself wasn’t finished.

In New Seoul, a man appeared claiming to be Kim Min-young.

Wearing the same kind of luxury coat, sunglasses stylishly perched on his face.

Though his skills were poor, he threw himself into fights as though scorning death.

But such men always die quickly, and are quickly forgotten.

His corpse, along with dozens of nameless bodies, was tossed into a mass grave and covered with grayish dirt.

Without any respect. Without any reputation.