This bizarre man managed to throw me off balance in less than a minute after we met.

“I was in Pohang. Under the Marine Division. Stayed there the whole time until I came here.”

I asked if he’d ever operated inside a Crack, but he shook his head.

“Are you nuts? Why the hell would I?”

He’d never even been to Paju, not to mention Seoul.

He’d never set foot inside a Crack.

That meant he could never have met Kang Han-min.

From what I knew, ever since Kang Han-min became a Savior, he’d only ever operated in Paju, Seoul, and the metropolitan area.

He sometimes traveled abroad, but there was never a single report of him working outside the capital region.

If he’d gone somewhere like Pohang, it would have made the news.

So this man had never met Kang Han-min.

It was physically impossible.

But I didn’t even need to think that far to know this Park Ha-eun character was out of his mind. A minute of observation was enough.

“Got any smokes? How about a hit?”

Every five seconds, he begged for cigarettes or drugs.

His eyes were bloodshot, bruised-looking. Every three seconds, he blinked furiously and clawed at the back of his head.

The hair there was long gone, the scalp torn open and bleeding from constant scratching—like he’d been digging into his own skull for years.

He was broken.

Not living, just existing.

Men like that usually don’t last long. The only reason he survived this far must’ve been natural toughness.

Tall, early 180s, straight back, posture that showed he’d trained hard once, before he shattered.

And then—

Clack.

I drew my pistol around the corner.

We were being tailed.

A woman in a black padded jacket, ear muffs, and a baseball cap pulled low.

Someone who worked nightlife? I snapped sharply:

“Why are you following us?”

And she wasn’t alone.

At least four more lurked behind the corner.

They’d been trailing us since I took the broken man, shadowing us from different angles. By the time we neared the exit of Gangnam, they numbered five.

In a danger zone like this, mugging people with numbers is as natural as the sun rising east.

One of them might even know my face.

So I deliberately drew them into a quiet spot.

I could have rushed out of Gangnam, but I didn’t want to start trouble under Sejong police eyes.

If I was going to deal with this, it would be here.

This place had walls on three sides. No sniper angles.

They’d have to come at me from one direction.

Numbers meant nothing when I had guns.

Five or more—it made no difference.

If it were hundreds, maybe I’d bow out.

I leveled my pistol at the woman again.

“Answer.”

She took off her cap.

Late twenties, early thirties. Pretty face, but faint lines around her mouth that looked unnatural, forced.

“Got a cigarette?”

The broken man mumbled again, ignored as the woman said:

“You shouldn’t take him.”

Her accent was odd. Northern. Strongly North Korean.

I looked into her eyes.

Hazy, but burning with strange conviction.

I’d seen eyes like that before.

Right—Fanatics.

No matter how thoroughly Defender had purged them, some must’ve slipped into Sejong.

I asked to be sure.

“A believer?”

She nodded.

“We manage him.”

“Manage?”

That word didn’t belong anywhere near this wreck of a man.

I didn’t forget about the men behind her. Keeping my gun steady, I demanded:

“Explain clearly.”

“It’s true. We manage him. That man.”

“...”

I braced for a fight.

Better to end it quick.

Kill the woman silently with an axe, then shoot the other four in their blind spots.

Done fast enough, no commotion.

I was reaching for my axe when she said:

“We’re punishing him.”

“Punishing?”

Wait.

Still made no sense, but at least it sounded consistent.

Fighting was always the surest path, but avoiding battle was the golden rule of survival.

“That man. He killed too many Messengers.”

Messengers—the Fanatics’ sacred word for monsters.

“So we brought him here from Pohang. To punish him.”

“Punish?”

I glanced at the man.

He still stared at nothing, babbling nonsense.

I glared back at her.

“So you made him an idiot?”

She shook her head.

“We didn’t do that. He was already like this when we brought him.”

One mystery cleared.

A man that broken shouldn’t live long. A week, maybe a month at most.

So his survival wasn’t luck.

These Fanatics kept him alive.

“What kind of punishment?” I asked again.

I had a suspicion, but I wanted to hear it.

“Life,” she said.

I looked past her around the corner.

Killing them would be safer. Tie off loose ends.

But life doesn’t always go as planned.

“Gggrghkkk!”

The broken man suddenly collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

The woman rushed to him, face pale.

“Move!”

She pulled something out and poured it into his mouth.

“...”

I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but clearly she was tending to him.

Another figure appeared.

One man.

A shabby coat, hood pulled low.

He glared at me.

“Put the gun down. We don’t want a fight. And you don’t look like an organ harvester.”

The others behind stayed quiet.

He was unarmed.

I lowered the muzzle slightly, still watching him.

He pulled back his hood.

Beneath were broken glasses, a plain face—but eyes that shone with a different light from the usual Fanatic dullness.

This one was their leader.

He wasn’t the average zealot.

“Why do you want to take him?” he asked, studying me like I was just as curious a specimen.

Maybe I could actually talk to this one.

“Got a special reason? If it makes sense, we’ll back off. No point in us fighting when the world’s already like this, right?”

At least he spoke like a human. Unlike the others I’d dealt with.

There was a word for it, but it wouldn’t come.

I kept sharp and said:

“He claimed monsters couldn’t see him. I wanted to confirm it.”

He grinned.

“Gukwiwon? One of the research crowd?”

I didn’t answer.

He turned away.

“Fine. Do it.”

He gestured around the corner.

The Fanatics melted away.

Killing them here would’ve been the clean option—leave no risk behind.

But I looked at the broken man and the woman tending him.

“...”

I’d tolerate it. For now.

I’d already taken on the risk.

In fact, I trusted them more for it.

If the Fanatics kept this man alive, maybe he really wasn’t ordinary.

*

Wandering the streets with a half-mad man, scrounging Hunter weapons, fever medicine, checking on my bike, and asking around about nearby monsters—that was all just long, boring filler.

The important part was this: the broken man had seizures that looked like drug withdrawal, and two of the Fanatics nursed him through it.

The woman was the one who’d confronted me earlier.

Fanatics liked to put women up front, especially the pretty ones.

But there was no soul in her.

I’d spoken with Northerners before, and their way of thinking was alien. The gap was wider than most imagined.

The man, though—that one, I could talk to.

Early twenties, plain face, broken glasses taped together, but his voice and composure marked him as the leader.

“Why bother checking something like that? You a Hunter too?”

“Just personal curiosity.”

They carried no visible weapons, but I was certain they had pistols.

I’d glimpsed a .22 on the woman. The man likely had something similar.

And I knew for sure they carried psychoactive drugs.

They’d injected the man with something earlier, which stopped his seizure cold, putting him into a short, deep sleep.

“He’ll be fine soon,” the young leader said, watching him.

“...”

I had nothing to say.

Their logic was alien—and dangerous.

In short: force a sinner to keep living, reduced to less than human, as punishment.

By that standard, this man had already paid.

At least there were no signs of torture, no marks of brutality.

His nutrition wasn’t great, but not life-threatening.

His madness came from drugs, and who knew what else.

Now he slept deeply, as if nothing had happened.

Thick brows, stubborn nose, tightly closed lips—the kind of dignity and presence he must’ve had before he broke.

He hadn’t been ordinary.

The Fanatics had said it: he’d killed too many monsters.

Was he a Hunter?

If he was, his name would’ve spread.

Someone like him wouldn’t have gone unknown.

Which suggested he wasn’t from the Hunter corps.

There were no Hunters in the provinces.

Governors got Hunters sent from the capital, but they rarely came, and when they did, they slacked off.

So local governments—warlords, really—handpicked exceptional soldiers to fight monsters.

Some did remarkably well, but they were never allowed into the Hunter cartel. And their warlord patrons denied them fame or honors, afraid of their egos swelling.

Like the nameless heroes who once threw themselves barehanded at North Korean tanks, modern heroes had faced monsters naked.

It was one of the apocalypse’s unspoken truths.

I noticed something poking from the man’s filthy neck.

A dog tag.

I pulled it free.

Just as I suspected—Marine Corps.

The Marines really had stayed in Pohang for a time after the war, until everything collapsed when the Yangsan Gate fell.

The man suddenly stirred, opened his eyes, and bolted upright.

He stared at us in confusion.

“Where is this? Who are you?”

I was trying to decide how to answer when he spoke again.

“Ah, right. Yes. We were going there.”

He stood, searching around.

“My gun. Where’s my gun?”

The Fanatics said nothing, just stared.

So I answered.

“You’ll get a Hunter weapon later.”

“My rifle?”

“You don’t have one.”

“A soldier needs a gun!”

He suddenly shouted.

Passersby looked over.

Then he leapt to his feet.

“Let’s go.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“You said we’re hunting monsters, right?”

His mind wavered too much. Hard to pin down.

But at least for now, he acted sane enough.

I let him lead, walking beside the Fanatics, almost shoulder to shoulder.

Not out of camaraderie. Just neither of us wanted to show our backs.

I hated talking to Fanatics, but the situation called for it.

“How long have you had him?”

“Eight months,” the woman said.

“You’ve left him like this for over a year?”

“That’s the punishment he deserves.”

Too dogmatic. I looked at the man instead.

“Not much longer anyway. We were doing him a kindness.”

I agreed with that.

The broken man’s soul was collapsing, body just dragging along.

“Ah, I feel clearer now,” the man muttered.

“Without stimulation, I can’t live. It’s true! I know I shouldn’t... but what’s the point? My comrades dead, my officers dead, ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) nowhere to go back to. So I need the jolt, the thrill. That’s what makes life bearable.”

Rambling.

Typical addict talk.

But in this world, calling addicts weak was ignorant.

Loss of family was the default.

Anyone who’d tasted that kind of pain, turning to drugs wasn’t just weakness—it was inevitable.

All I felt was pity.

That once clever, brave warrior had fallen this far.

I asked him:

“You’re Marines?”

He gave me a bright smile.

The first real smile he’d shown me—alive, human.

But the fact even someone with that pride had broken left a stain on me.

We were close now, to the monster’s nest.

A high school gymnasium.

A strangely academic lair for a monster.

The roof had collapsed in the war, but now white-gray structures grown by the monster patched the gaps.

“They call it Elephant-type,” he said.

A rare variant.

Basically a Spider-type, but with an added structure like an elephant’s trunk, used to lash at Hunters.

Just a melee-enhanced spider.

Not a hard fight.

In the past, and even more now, they were nothing but lunchboxes to me.

The broken man was strangely fired up.

“Yes. Monsters. Monsters are my enemy. The nation’s enemy.”

I hadn’t given him a Hunter weapon yet.

Didn’t need to. Soon enough, it would be clear if he was like me or not.

I only had to watch how the lesser minions reacted to him.

Before the fight, I checked the Fanatics’ faces.

After all, this was their “holy Messenger” we were about to kill.

Any true believer would see this as sacrilege.

But the man’s expression was calm, even smiling faintly.

“You’re not going to stop me?” I asked.

The woman glared daggers, but the young man just smiled lightly.

“I admit, I’m curious too.”

“Curious about what?”

He chuckled and turned away.

“I wanted to know myself if what he claims is true.”

The broken man laughed loud.

“A human monsters can’t see? You think that’s possible?”

And at last, the word I’d been looking for came to me.

This man—he was secular.