Everyone’s probably had the experience of regretting something the moment they said yes.

Meeting Keystone was like that.

As soon as I agreed to meet this guy I wasn’t even friendly with—someone I actually disliked—that buried resentment immediately rose up as if it had been waiting.

But to go back on it now? No. The social weight of the nickname Skelton was too heavy.

Maybe the word “last” simply carried too much power.

Humans have a tendency to become endlessly forgiving at the word “last.”

Which might be why con men use that word so often.

But I’m no con man, and I’m not nameless trash either.

I was the user entrusted by VivaBot with delivering the end of Viva! Apocalypse!’s Korean board.

“Where are you going?”

While I was packing, Mark Two came up to me with John Nae-non III.

Because they were facility-born, their emotions were faint, but «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» now and then something would peek through.

They looked uneasy about me going out so often.

I felt a little guilty.

If it had been Sue, she would’ve been more caring and attentive. But I’d been handed these kids against my will, and with all kinds of circumstances, I hadn’t been able to pay them the attention they deserved.

Even if she was Woo Min-hee’s clone, in the end a child is still just a child.

Woo Min-hee herself hadn’t been like this when she was young, surely.

“Sorry. I’ve got a promise outside.”

“When will you be back?”

“Today. Oh, and when I come back tonight, let’s eat that.”

“What?”

“Meat. Charcoal-grilled meat. You like meat, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll make it when I get back.”

“Take care.”

Mark Two liked meat.

Come to think of it, I’d heard Woo Min-hee liked galbi, standing at the grill.

Since I had charcoal, maybe if she ever showed up, I could try that once.

Stepping outside, the cold knife-wind made me shrink.

“······.”

I didn’t want to go.

I really didn’t want to go.

Why the hell had I said I would?

Regretting it wouldn’t help.

Once I decide, I do.

I mounted the motorcycle and rode down familiar roads.

I’d already learned back during the last cold wave that even freezing weather had its upsides.

When it’s this cold, the risks moving around outside are cut down.

Unless it’s some desperate scavenger on the verge of starvation, anyone with even a scrap of leeway will stay safe and warm, conserving energy.

Which, in this marathon of a doomsday life, is actually the rational choice.

I’d never had frostbite myself, but plenty of people had. Enough that they had to cut off fingers and toes.

Frostbite is quick, easy, and forever—it robs you of body parts permanently. Leave your body out in the cold just a few hours and it freezes, function lost, left to rot while still frozen.

I’d been to Keystone’s bunker before.

Ganghwa Island.

A coastal base remodeled into a fortress.

Impossible to reach without a boat.

That was why I asked where exactly he wanted to meet—pretending to ask his location, but really checking his intent.

If he’d told me to sail over, I’d have cut him off right there.

Because that was how badly I didn’t want to go.

But to my surprise, Keystone said he’d wait for me at the dock.

And that was how I ended up on this trip.

Vrooom—

I entered the area where Keystone had said we’d rendezvous.

Sure enough, I saw the sign of a resort, one letter missing: “?pensia Resort.”

At first it seemed new, but then I remembered—I had been here.

Yes, when I’d scouted places for a bunker, this was one of the spots I had my eye on.

Good conditions, good routes for resources.

Getting weapons was the sticking point, but back then I had rated this area even higher than my own.

As always, if I like a place, so do others.

No wonder Keystone had suffered neighbor trouble.

Good view, solid ground, close enough to Seoul. Plenty of people must have flocked here.

As I compared Keystone’s photos with the site, I thought about him.

Nam Deok-young, wasn’t it.

The guy from the movie scene.

Even the one time we met before, he hadn’t left a good impression.

And that dirty impression wouldn’t have improved with time.

But this was the last.

Breathing in the magic of that word “last” with the cold winter air, I stared toward Keystone’s bunker.

Probably over there, down the side road looping back to the golf course.

Not the main road, but a small bypass carved out for farm use.

The snow had buried it, but the old utility poles from before the war told me the road was still there, so finding it wouldn’t be hard.

Or so I thought, as I went to turn the handlebars.

Bang!

A gunshot.

From the rendezvous point.

I had no radio or other comms.

He’d sworn he’d greet me himself.

I looked toward where the shot had rung, but saw no one.

Clack—

I drew my weapon and slowly rode the motorcycle closer.

Riding a bike put me at a disadvantage in a firefight—and made me a target.

But speed is the greatest advantage when things go bad.

If his firepower outmatched mine, I’d need to run instantly.

“······.”

What the hell was going on?

Could it be—?

A chilling thought flashed through my mind.

That maybe Keystone had fired at me to kill me.

The word “last” had its romantic charm, but it also held the recklessness of someone ready to throw everything away.

If Keystone had chosen the latter, this meeting was dangerous.

“Keystone!”

I stopped closing in, calling out from a distance.

If he didn’t answer, I’d leave.

I’d done my part, and at my bunker, a kid who wanted meat was waiting.

No answer.

Keeping sharp watch in the silence, I slowly pushed the bike backward with my foot.

“Aaaaaaagh!!!!”

A scream burst from where the shot had come.

Not whining or faking it.

Pure, pained screaming.

And the voice—

“Skelton!!!!!”

He knew who I was.

Nam Deok-young.

Keystone.

*

I’ll skip my usual complicated, meticulous, some would say frustratingly cautious process of confirming the source.

The point is, I found Keystone’s bunker, and Keystone himself, writhing in front of it, blood pouring from his thigh.

“Wait!”

Keystone shouted at me as he clumsily bandaged the bleeding leg.

“Stop there! Don’t come closer!”

The reason soon became clear.

Booby traps.

Simple but effective: grenades rigged with tripwires.

And far too many of them.

I spotted at least four right away.

Once I avoided the traps, I finally saw Keystone up close.

Similar to before, but clearly aged.

The handsome looks that once gave him fame had melted away.

“Ha······.”

Keystone staggered to his feet.

“Wait. Let me go first.”

I had no idea why he was doing this, but I started to get a sense.

Not as Park Gyu, but in the way Skelton would understand.

Inside that cold, shabby, filthy bunker—a place that could only be described as decline—Keystone disarmed trap after trap right before my eyes.

“······.”

I turned my gaze to the side.

There was a woman.

Not the Chinese wife he’d shown before.

Someone else.

From her cowering demeanor, her every move radiating fear, she looked less like someone he connected with, and more like someone kept by force and manipulation.

I knew it.

Plenty of our “cheerful” board friends controlled women this way.

Then what about his wife and kid?

Maybe still in the Ganghwa bunker.

I couldn’t know.

He’d had a younger brother too, but I didn’t see him either.

Maybe there’d been other circumstances.

I gave her a small nod, then never looked at her again.

My eyes were now on Keystone.

I thought I knew why he’d done this.

As he wrapped bandage after bandage around his bleeding thigh, I asked coldly:

“Were you trying to kill me?”

Yes.

Keystone had tried.

Probably planning to ambush me from afar.

And for when that failed, he’d wired the area with paranoid amounts of traps.

But for some reason, he’d stopped halfway.

If my guess was right, he’d even shot himself to stop.

Keystone smiled painfully.

“Haah. Yeah. I did.”

I didn’t ask why.

I thought I understood.

That Skelton-like understanding I’d felt earlier was becoming clearer.

And Keystone explained it himself:

“Right before everything ends, the thought hit me: if I killed you, wouldn’t that get me attention? Not just anyone—you, Skelton, the one who took down a General type. Before the shutdown, I wanted one last big hit to my name.”

I sighed, but he kept talking, breath ragged.

“You know I used to be a film director, right? It was like a revelation: that killing you itself could be my final masterpiece.”

So that was it.

For a moment I felt murderous myself.

But it ebbed away as I watched him shake his head with that same pained smile.

“······I’ve gone mad. In the end. Me too. I knew I shouldn’t, but the fact I carried it through right to the act proves it. I’ve gone mad.”

He hadn’t finished it.

He’d even shot his own leg to stop.

No need for me to hold a grudge.

In this world, people go insane all the time.

A man who had never once made a masterpiece had tried to make one, using me as the subject.

That was all.

“Sorry. For dragging you here just to show you this shitshow.”

Keystone gestured toward the woman sitting motionless, staring at us.

“Give it to him.”

She rummaged by the bunker’s vent and brought a Styrofoam box.

“What’s this?”

I didn’t open it.

“Jam, wild grape wine, and pork cutlets.”

“Pork cutlets?”

“All homemade. Killed a mutant pig, butchered it, hammered out the loin.”

“Yeah?”

“I know it doesn’t make up for anything. But Skelton—”

He pointed to his leg.

“I held back, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I couldn’t think straight because it was the last time. Maybe I even felt some jealousy toward you. That’s why I acted like a fool······.”

“No. It’s fine. Good thing you stopped.”

I took the box.

I wouldn’t press it further.

The word “last” had come from his mouth too.

Different as we were, disliking each other as we did, in that word we felt the same.

In the end, he was still a board friend.

But that was as far as our connection went.

I had no intention of staying longer.

“Live well.”

I stepped out of the bunker.

I heard Keystone’s voice following.

“Still, that day—you were amazing! Really! First time in my life I ever cheered for you!”

Even as I mounted the bike, he kept going.

“If you hadn’t stuck to that lame not-funny gimmick at the start, maybe we could’ve actually gotten along from the beginning.”

“······.”

“I’m really sorry. I really did want to make a masterpiece. I wanted to be a name, like you! I was a name in film, but on our board······!!”

Finally I looked at him.

I waved.

His face, twisted in pain, brightened in spite of it.

Vroooom—

I turned the handlebars toward home.

Even as I rode far, Keystone kept looking my way.

I would probably never see him again.

I understood his feelings, but I wouldn’t wish him luck.

Understanding doesn’t guarantee forgiveness.

I took in the endless snowy field.

A world was ending, but the landscape wasn’t much different from before the war.

Under the pale sun, I cut through the cold air back to the bunker.

“Weren’t we going to eat galbi today?”

“Ever had pork cutlets?”

“Yes. At the facility. They were dry and tasteless.”

“Then I’ll show you the real thing.”

If nothing else, Keystone had skill with food.

As I’d known from when he proudly served soy crab, he could cook.

And sure enough, the pork cutlets were good.

Mark Two, who had been whining about galbi, brightened up.

He hid his disappointment at the broken promise, but he was satisfied.

After the meal, I stepped outside and looked around.

Silent mountains, empty, swallowed in darkness.

I looked up.

Something was falling, shining.

A meteor.

At first one, then splitting into many until it became a full meteor shower.

I called for Mark Two.

He loved going outside, and quickly spotted the shower.

“That’s a meteor, right? The kind that grants wishes.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and made one.

I smirked and watched the countless streaks of fire painting the sky.

But those weren’t stars falling.

It was the hundreds of satellites Melon Mask had launched, adjusting their orbits by self-control, burning up in the stratosphere, splitting apart and falling like meteors.

In other words, our despair as Viva! Apocalypse! users.

Our very last.

“I wished the star would keep Hunter Park Gyu healthy.”

Mark Two said behind me.

“Yeah?”

“And I prayed Commander Woo would come back soon.”

I patted his head.

And I made a wish too.

Lowering my head.

Not for humanity’s salvation or closing the Rifts—nothing grand.

When I looked up, Mark Two, a child who looked just like Woo Min-hee, was staring at me, breath steaming from his reddened face in the cold.

I told her quietly:

“I wished for your health. That you’ll stay strong, and never get sick.”

We looked up together.

The Viva! Apocalypse! Korean board’s ending was still underway.

Those falling meteors were certainly our despair.

But someone’s despair is always another’s hope.

“Commander Woo used to talk about you sometimes, Hunter Park.”

“What did she say?”

“She said when it came down to it, the only one we could trust was you. That only you had the right to be our true savior.”

“······That so?”

I sipped the wild grape wine Keystone had given me and watched the shower.

How many would see our end and make wishes?

How many wishes would tie to our last?

Only God would know.

That night, Viva! Apocalypse! service for the Korean region shut down.