Chapter 3

Chapter 3
“You fucking lunatic! Urgh!”
The guard cursed viciously as he forced himself back up.
“Quit whining.”
I let out a snort.
It was only three rubber suppression rounds.
They had even hit his body armor—his plate carrier—so there was no way he was actually hurt.
Ring, ring! Ring, ring!
The phone started ringing.
“Answer it.”
With a click, I leveled the muzzle at the guard’s head and spoke.
“What are you doing? Pick it up.”
“......”
“I said answer it. And just so you know, these aren’t training rounds this time, so if you don’t listen, you’re going to end up with a hole in your skull.”
The guard picked up the receiver.
“Yes, this is the security office of Hyeonsan Apartment Complex 2. Yes, yes, that’s right. Right now, we......”
“[Transference] phenomenon observed. Radius: 3 kilometers.”
I whispered into his ear.
“Yes, a [Transference] phenomenon has been observed. We estimate the affected radius to be around three kilometers......”
“Request military and police support. Hunters need to be deployed quickly.”
“Please send military and police support. Yes, yes. We would appreciate it if Hunters could be deployed as quickly as possible.”
The guard put the receiver down.
“Good work.”
Keeping the gun trained on him, I grabbed the microphone.
-Attention, residents. Please evacuate as far away as possible. We strongly advise you to move at least three kilometers away from the area. We repeat. Evacuate as far away as possible....
After repeating the announcement several times, I set the microphone down.
“Hands.”
“......”
“Haaands.”
I bound the guard’s wrists with cable ties and sat him down in a chair.
“If you try anything funny, I really will shoot you next time. So sit still.”
“What the hell are you thinking? Are you some kind of terrorist?”
“Do I look like one?”
“......?”
“Sit still. Later, you can thank me for saving your life.”
After saying that, I spent the time leisurely watching the footage being transmitted by the drone on my phone.
Good. Everyone was getting out just fine.
Bzzt!
My phone vibrated.
The caller was Father.
Since he was a commander in the Regional Defense Force, word must have reached him quickly.
And the moment he found out I had driven off with the truck, he must have called.
Father had probably already been ordered to return at once, but by the time a man coming from Yeongwol got here, the situation would already be over.
“Heh.”
A laugh suddenly escaped me.
The old me would never have been able to act this boldly.
Forget barging into the management office without warning—I would have knocked first.
And then I would have bent over backward trying to persuade the guard.
But not anymore.
Three years ago.
From the moment I swore revenge on those things that hardly deserved to be called human, I had become the kind of man who would stop at nothing to achieve his goal.
“What’s with that look? Why, do I seem crazy to you?”
“N-no.”
As if.
It was written all over his face.
“The world is already insane. If you want to survive in a world like this, you have to go a little insane yourself. Don’t you think?”
“......”
“From now on, you’ll be better off living with your sanity hanging by a thread. Real hell starts this year.”
After saying that, I lowered my gaze back to my phone.
People were still fleeing just fine.
‘They’re coming.’
Police cars carrying armed officers and military armored vehicles were arriving one after another.
“Five minutes left, maybe.”
I could see police and military personnel moving into the complex.
“You should just turn yourself in.”
The guard offered the suggestion.
“I understand that things have been hard for you. The world is insane, after all. But this isn’t right. If you turn yourself in now......”
“And then what? Get life in prison and rot in a cell until I die? Or get sent to a psych ward?”
“That’s not what I......”
“I told you, later you can thank me for saving you. You were supposed to die today.”
“Hah.”
The guard let out a dry laugh, looking fed up.
He clearly thought I was completely insane.
But the truth was that the guard standing in front of me, laughing like that, really had been fated to die today.
I remembered it clearly.
The guard’s corpse, dead after monsters had eaten out his guts.
‘What time is it?’
The current time was 09:59.
About one minute remained.
Slurp.
I took a sip of the coffee the guard had been drinking and waited for 10:00 a.m.
Crackle, crackle!
The moment it turned 10:00, the electronic equipment inside the management office started malfunctioning.
“See it with your own eyes.”
I showed the guard my phone.
Vmmmm!
Ziiiiiiing!
At the children’s playground between the apartment buildings, a pitch-black sphere formed. Then space and time twisted, and the surrounding terrain began to change.
“Well?”
“I-it’s [Transference]......”
“Do I still look like a psychiatric case to you?”
“......”
The guard clamped his mouth shut.
***
I undid the cable ties around the guard’s wrists.
“Urgh.”
The guard frowned as he rubbed his wrists.
“Quit whining and grab your gear.”
“A-all right.”
The guard opened the armory and took out the shotgun stored inside.
An armory in an apartment management office.
Fifteen years earlier, something like that would have been unimaginable.
But now it was an age where no one knew when or where [Transference] might occur.
There was nothing strange at all about an armed guard standing watch in a humble management office with firearms stored inside.
In places like Gangnam’s luxury apartments, some even maintained armed units of their own.
And since it was a wealthy district where Hunters often lived, Gangnam was safer than other regions even when [Transference] occurred.
Even in this insane era, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer still reigned as an eternal truth, and the myth that Gangnam never fell was still alive.
At least until ‘that incident’ happened.
“Do you have any real combat experience?”
“A few times.”
“When?”
“Back when I was in the military. What about you?”
“I’ve had a few myself.”
A few thousand times, maybe.
“Did you serve?”
“Not yet.”
“......”
The guard cursed me with his eyes.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“We need to get outside. If we stay here, we die.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just hide?”
“Airstrikes are going to fall soon. Look.”
I pointed at the phone.
Centered on the children’s playground, monsters were being summoned without end.
“Jesus Christ.”
The guard trembled all over, clearly terrified.
“That’s why I’m telling you to get out of here now.”
“R-right.”
“This way.”
After moving the drone to the area around the management office, I started walking.
“How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“You knew in advance that [Transference] was going to happen, didn’t you?”
“When did I ever say that?”
“Huh?”
“[Transference] occurred, so you hit the emergency alarm and reported it to the Regional Defense Force. Right?”
“I think you’ve got that backwards.”
“No, I don’t.”
When I played dumb, the guard looked at me like I was unbelievable.
“You were the one who observed the [Transference], hit the emergency alarm, and reported it to the Regional Defense Force. Not me.”
“What kind of......”
Bullshit?
Yeah, it was bullshit.
“You seem a little out of it. It happens. When people panic, their memories get all tangled up.”
“Ugh.”
Apparently overwhelmed, the guard clawed at his hair in distress.
“Let’s move.”
After confirming through the drone feed that the way outside was clear, I carefully stepped out of the management office.
“T-this is insane. It really is [Transference].”
The guard stared at the scene before him and swore under his breath.
The front of the management office, which should have been paved with stone blocks, was now overgrown with thick brush.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Boom, boom!
It sounded like the military and police who had arrived ahead of us were already trading blows with the monsters.
The undergrowth was so dense that it was hard to grasp the situation with the naked eye.
I switched the drone camera to thermal imaging.
“This way.”
Awakening mattered, but survival came first.
I moved in the direction least likely to bring us face-to-face with monsters.
“Fuck. It’s bad enough I got stuck doing weekend duty, and now I’m going to die.”
“Shut up and follow me. Stop whining.”
“Yes.”
After we had moved about a hundred meters, “Aaaaaah!”
“Urgh!”
Screams rang out from nearby.
Checking with the drone’s thermal feed, it looked like two people were surrounded by several monsters.
Damn.
How long had it been since the evacuation order went out?
“What do we do?”
“What do you mean, what do we do? We help them.”
“Ungh.”
The guard did not look thrilled.
Well, of course.
No matter how many guns you had, it took tremendous courage for a non-Awakened person to stand and fight monsters.
“If you’re scared, hang back.”
“Can I do that?”
“Why not? I’m not your superior.”
“That’s true.”
“Decide for yourself.”
Leaving the guard behind, I immediately moved toward the scene.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A middle-aged man was wildly firing a pistol at the monsters around him.
Come on, not a single shot is landing.
He should have gone to a shooting range once in a while.
I raised my gun and aimed at the monsters.
It was a Czech-made carbine called the [Bren 2], chambered in 7.62 mm ammunition.
Against monsters, 5.56 mm rounds lacked stopping power, so 7.62 mm had long since become the standard.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The muzzle spat fire.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
When I glanced to the side at the sound of gunfire, the guard was there, face tense, pulling the trigger at the monsters.
“Kyaaaak!”
“Kehk!”
When only about two monsters remained, I stopped firing and pulled out my hand axe.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!”
Bang!
A bullet grazed past my ear.
Ah, fuck.
I almost died ‘again.’
“Cease fire! Take your finger off the trigger!”
Bang bang bang!
“Take your finger off the trigger!”
“Aaaagh!”
But the middle-aged man had apparently lost his mind to the fear of death and was wasting precious bullets without hitting a thing.
I ducked behind a parked car for a moment, and when it sounded like he had finally run out of ammunition, I sprang out like lightning and butchered the monsters.
The heads of the 1-Star monsters humanity had named [Goblins] split apart one after another, spraying white brain matter and vivid red blood.
“R-reload, reload......”
Trembling violently, the middle-aged man kept fumbling with his pistol, trying desperately to reload even though the danger had already passed.
“Excuse me.”
“Reload, reload......”
“Sir.”
“Reload......”
SMACK!
“......!”
In the end, it took a slap across the face for the middle-aged man to finally come back to his senses.
“Th-thank you.”
“Didn’t you hear the evacuation broadcast? What on earth have you been doing until now?”
“I’m sorry. My wife has mobility issues......”
Damn.
A middle-aged woman was sitting in a wheelchair, trembling.