Even if she’s fallen far, Woo Min-hee was once someone who rose to the very top ranks of South Korea and commanded a faction under her own name.

So it wasn’t surprising that M9 and the other companion he brought along had escorts.

“Hey! Skelton!”

M9, grinning as if he’d just come back from hell, waved brightly.

I noticed anew how the wrinkles had deepened on his face.

Maybe it was just a trick of the backlight from the dawn behind him, but still, I waved back to welcome the new arrival.

Truth is, I already had a guess as to who M9’s guest was.

And when I saw that small frame, barely half his height, my suspicion solidified.

“Hello.”

It was someone I’d seen once before.

More precisely—someone only I had seen.

The child who calmly greeted me and then, with an indifferent expression, glanced around the bunker’s surroundings looked strikingly like Woo Min-hee.

Woo Min-hee’s clone.

She turned her faintly glowing eyes on me again.

“It’s a nice place.”

Then she went back to looking at her phone with the same indifferent face.

“...”

I doubted she meant it, and at the same time I felt I understood why she’d been brought here.

“Yeah.”

Definitely an unpleasant child.

Soon we held a welcome party.

First, M9 handed me a note.

“What’s this?”

“Reporter Guy told me to pass it on to you.”

I read it.

[ Please take care of the child. But I want the decision of whether to stay there or not to be left up to her. In three days, ask for her answer and tell it to M9. ]

A short message.

Short, but filled with consideration for the child.

To say, “If she doesn’t like it, I’ll go through the trouble of bringing her back”—that’s not something one writes unless there’s genuine affection.

I set the letter down and joined the welcome gathering.

At the party, M9 was in the middle of his usual lively chatter, telling stories animatedly among the people.

I sat down at a spot and blended into the scene.

“Woo Director—no, Reporter Guy—he’s got some respect. He doesn’t exactly treat those under him well, but once you’re in his circle, he does look out for you. When I first came here from Jeju, I was thinking, ‘Now what? Is this it?’ and sinking into despair, but before long, cars full of people came pouring in here.”

It felt less like a welcome party and more like a press conference.

The day’s star, M9, happily drank, ate, and boasted of his exploits in front of everyone.

I didn’t like seeing him take center stage, but right now, I needed him.

“We weren’t lacking anything. Plenty of food, plenty of weapons. Sure, the neighborhood looked bleak—it was by the sea. Strangely enough, North Korean territory. Weirdest thing, everything else was washed in ash gray, but that tiny stretch of shoreline still had color. The problem was, corpses and zombies everywhere you looked.”

After letting him finish his little press conference, I guided the two newcomers to their living quarters.

Since our numbers were growing, we had already been expanding housing, and thanks to warmer-than-usual weather, the work had gone faster. We managed to set aside a space for M9 and the new child.

They were assigned a unit in the communal housing newly built outside the bunker.

It was no bigger than a cubicle motel room before the war, but in today’s world, to have your own heated space at all was luxury.

Of course, Cheon Young-jae, the Kim Daram couple, and I used larger rooms—but that could be chalked up to something like “founder’s privilege,” as Dies_Irae once put it.

And rooms can always be expanded.

People’s instincts about others aren’t so different.

“That kid. Don’t you find her creepy?”

Naturally, it was my finicky junior, Kim Daram, who spoke first.

“She’s strange. Not like an old soul or precocious—it’s something else. Honestly. Weird.”

There’s no creature more naturally beloved by adults than a child. But some children earn more suspicion and dislike than even non-humans.

In my experience, the most common reason adults dislike a child is when a child doesn’t act like one.

Just as children expect adults to be adult-like, adults expect children to be child-like.

The girl Woo Min-hee brought—Kim Daram, with her experience raising kids, guessed her age at around ten.

Fourth or fifth grade, maybe?

She might actually be younger.

But she wasn’t a normal child.

Though unconfirmed, the so-called Eden Lab had been accused of using growth-accelerating hormones to throw Kang Han-min’s children into early deployment.

Perhaps that was it.

“My name? I don’t have one. Just call me Mark Two. That’s what they called me there, and I prefer it.”

Where children should be curious and interested in forming bonds, this one was different.

Negative about everything. Eager to sever ties with others.

“Didn’t say a word the whole time, apparently.”

M9 passed on what he’d heard from Woo Min-hee.

Looking at the clone sitting far off by herself, he said:

“The kid’s like that, sure, but Reporter Guy isn’t exactly sociable either. Both of them can go a whole day without saying a single word.”

M9 dropped his head and gave a wry smile.

“Honestly, when I was stuck on that boat with the two of them, I thought I was going insane.”

“That bad, huh...?”

“She’s your junior, right?”

“Just because she’s my junior doesn’t mean I know everything. So? Did she throw fits when you were with her? How bad was her temper? Wasn’t she a pain?”

“Hell if I know! And I don’t want to. Really. One thing’s certain, though.”

He scratched his head, glancing sidelong at the clone.

“Reporter Guy told me to bring her here for safety. But if you ask me, she doesn’t like the kid.”

“Feels like looking in a mirror, maybe.”

Suddenly, Kim Daram passed by behind us, throwing out a remark.

We knew she was eavesdropping, but to take the chance to spit out malice—unbelievable.

Couldn’t she pity the child at least a little?

Granted, she was hard to grow attached to.

The official reason M9 gave was that Woo Min-hee was about to undertake something dangerous, so the girl’s safety had to be secured. But I figured the truth was more complicated.

It seemed Woo Min-hee really didn’t like her own clone much.

And the kid probably didn’t like her either.

“Even when we asked her to play, she wouldn’t respond.”

I asked Dongtak and Da-eun, who were the closest in age.

“I don’t really like her. Feels like she wants to be left alone.”

“Me neither. She acts like an adult. Even though she’s smaller and younger than me.”

The children didn’t like her either.

Left like this, she’d remain an outsider forever.

And in a small group, small resentments pile up until they turn into violence.

Besides, what guilt could the child have?

Woo Min-hee’s clone existed only because of adult ambition.

For me, taking in a child even she had given up might look laughable, but I was the leader here.

“So? How’s the food? If there’s anything you want to eat, say so.”

“Not too cold at night? Tell me if it gets cold.”

“Here, an extra tablet. Better than that phone—the screen’s pretty cracked.”

Uncharacteristic moves for me, trying to care for her.

But Woo Min-hee’s blood was no easy thing.

Once, she looked me straight in the eye and said:

“You’re trying to be nice to me, right?”

Her gaze and expression were cold.

“I don’t need it.”

An outright rejection.

Not like a child at all.

Creepy was the right word.

In the past, I would have given up here.

I’d done my duty as group leader, she hadn’t accepted—it would have been her responsibility afterward.

And logically, that’s still correct.

But I couldn’t leave it at that.

She was the child Woo Min-hee had entrusted to me.

M9 said Woo Min-hee had given up on her, but he didn’t know her well.

Woo Min-hee doesn’t express everything in words, and she doesn’t care if others understand her intentions.

Her emotions are like an animal’s—content when she feels good, distant when she doesn’t.

Yet she left me a note.

Written in her own hand.

[ Please take care of the child. But I want the decision of whether to stay there or not to be left up to her. In three days, ask for her answer and tell it to M9. ]

She said the child was hers.

Written by Woo Min-hee.

It didn’t seem lightly written.

If not sincere, she wouldn’t have added that she’d take the child back otherwise.

And yet, at this rate, the girl would be sent back.

No one liked her, and she didn’t seem to like us.

She’d return to Woo Min-hee’s settlement. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

But there must have been a reason she sent her here.

I wanted at least once to have a real talk with her.

“How about a little outing?”

I took Woo Min-hee’s child with me.

Nothing special—just to join one of our routine food-gathering trips.

Fresh protein can be hunted, but hunting requires prey to exist. It’s unreliable.

Stable protein, we get from the reservoir 150 meters from the bunker.

[ Radiation Warning! High-level nuclear waste present! ]

A chilling sign stood before us.

An ordinary person would turn back immediately, but anyone observant could tell the sign was handwritten, recently made.

Cheon Young-jae and his partner made it.

They didn’t need to—but couldn’t resist their little schemes, so they left it by the reservoir.

No radiation here.

The surface was frozen solid, like a mirror.

Not just thin ice—you could walk, even skate, across it.

Though the winter was milder than usual, this was still the capital region, and the reservoir sat in heavy shade.

There were marks where holes had been drilled.

I dropped a line in and waited.

Before long, the ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) line tugged.

Pulled it up—a fish.

The girl, usually so flat and expressionless, showed a rare flicker of wonder, eyes brightening as she gasped softly.

“Wow.”

I silently cast again.

No bait needed—the hooks were struck the moment they sank.

To conserve the stock, I stopped after about ten fish.

While I was packing them into a box, she spoke first.

“Can we eat these?”

“Yeah.”

She pointed at the sign.

“That’s fake.”

“Fake?”

“Yeah. To keep people away.”

I slung the gun, loaded the box of fish onto a sled.

She stared at the sled, hesitating.

Without thinking, I asked:

“Want a ride?”

She looked at me, then climbed up as if she’d been waiting for the offer.

A child is a child.

I wondered if she’d ever ridden in a supermarket cart.

Probably not.

Even I, Park Gyu, had that experience—something she lacked.

That thought made me want to treat her better.

“Hey, Hunter.”

As I pulled the surprisingly heavy sled, she spoke again.

“Yeah.”

I dragged it slowly, scanning the surroundings with unblinking eyes as I answered.

“You don’t need to be nice to me.”

“Why not?”

“I won’t live long.”

“Why not?”

“The people at the lab said so. That I’m unstable. That I won’t live long.”

So that was it.

If a child grows up hearing she’ll die young, no wonder she keeps herself guarded.

But I didn’t think it mattered.

“You look healthy enough to me.”

We Hunters live closest to death.

Living long isn’t even a concept in our world.

I can’t even guarantee I’ll survive the next battle—what meaning does talk of the far future have?

So my answer couldn’t be like other adults’.

“You’re fine right now, aren’t you?”

“They were the ones who said it. People in white coats, the smart kind.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They’d know better than you, wouldn’t they?”

I glanced back.

She looked at me with a defiant little smile far beyond her years, as if daring me to argue.

“...”

If nothing else, Woo Min-hee would’ve lost to this child.

I can’t claim to know her through and through, but in this match-up, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

Because this girl was her child.

However she was born, Woo Min-hee acknowledged her as her own.

They say few parents can win against their children.

But Park Gyu would be different.

Smiling faintly at the little Woo Min-hee, I asked back:

“Does living long even matter?”

“What?”

“Even if it’s just a single day—you have to live it well.”

She looked startled, but only for a moment.

“How?”

Her eyes glittered as she probed me, testing.

I laughed lightly and answered.

“I’ll show you.”

What I showed her was nothing dramatic.

“...”

Tap, tap, tap.

“...What’s this?”

I brought up the screen of Viva! Apocalypse! in its prime, showing my old posts.

SKELTON: (Skelton Daily) Tried making a wool-felt doll~

SKELTON: (Skelton Cooking) 5-minute ramen

SKELTON: (Skelton Humor) When a crocodile cries? Croco-dile~

SKELTON: (Skelton Editorial) Why go into The Hope anyway? Anyone can see it’s shoddy construction.

SKELTON: (Skelton Nostalgia) Truth is, I had my good days too.

...

...

“What is this?”

She looked at me with incredulity, but I now enjoyed that look.

“This is how I lived. Posting things like this.”

“...Ah. Internet, right? Director used to do that sometimes.”

“What do you think of it?”

“Doesn’t look very fun. The posts are childish. Like a little kid wrote them.”

“Everyone wants to be a kid again.”

Closing the window, I looked back at her.

Her eyes shone with curiosity.

“But people like us—we can’t go back. Our grown bodies demand grown responsibilities.”

“...I know you defeated a Nemesis-type.”

“That was important, sure. But listen.”

I stood, looking at the things hung in my room.

Two axes, freshly sharpened, gleaming faintly in the dark.

“You need a goal.”

“A goal.”

“Child or adult, it doesn’t matter. Life is sailing across a dark, unseen sea. A goal is like a lighthouse. By its light, we steer our course.”

“What’s your goal, Hunter?”

I slowly stepped over and picked up one of the axes.

Still as comfortable as part of my own body.

But just gripping it rekindled that flame of hatred I’d forgotten for a moment.

“To finish them.”

I hung the axe back and looked at her.

She looked shocked.

Must’ve caught the murderous glint in my eyes.

I laughed it off lightly.

“I hope you’ll have a goal too.”

Whether my intent reached her or not, I couldn’t know.

Maybe I was asking too much of a child.

But soon she smiled mischievously, just like Woo Min-hee once would.

“Call me Mark Two.”

“No other name...?”

One thing was certain.

“No. I like it just the way it is.”

She carried Woo Min-hee’s blood.

“I really like you, Director.”

Mark Two joined our settlement.