The woman’s movements were strange.
Despite being a soldier, she lacked confidence in her steps. Beneath her rigid expression, clear fear showed through.
The way she constantly glanced over her shoulder was enough to make me suspicious.
She could be bait.
In sudden standoff situations like this, it wasn’t uncommon for the Chinese to send expendable people ahead to gather information on their opponents.
Her unremarkable appearance only reinforced my theory.
Ignore the woman.
Treat her like another drone.
One drone was already hovering overhead, likely watching to see if anyone left the factory.
Which meant my opponents weren’t alone.
I remained silent, waiting on the third-floor window as the woman approached the building.
A low murmur carried up the stairs as she entered.
Her words weren’t entirely clear, but it was closer to Korean than Chinese.
As she moved closer, I was certain.
“There’s... no one here. Really.”
Her unsteady, trembling voice echoed through the factory’s open space.
Creak.
The sound of her footsteps on the stairs.
Quietly, I barricaded the only door with a chair and whatever else had enough weight to block it.
Stacked everything neatly.
Then, I returned to my observation point, using the reflection of a mirror to continue monitoring where the enemy was hiding.
Creak.
The woman had reached the third floor.
There was only one room here—a reception area that doubled as the factory owner’s office.
Soon, she knocked on the door.
“It’s... locked.”
She spoke again.
“It won’t open. Something’s blocking it. Huh? No, I’m serious, it won’t open. Come check it yourself! What am I supposed to do? I can’t do anything about it!”
Her voice grew increasingly desperate, almost tearful.
She was being forced into this.
I didn’t know by who, but I’d find out soon enough.
“No, listen! You hear that? I’m really trying!”
As her shrill voice rang through the room, something flashed in the reflection.
I inhaled sharply and held my breath as I switched my rifle to semi-automatic mode.
Something appeared in the window.
A person.
I couldn’t tell if they were a man or a woman, but they were a target.
Mentally simulating their exact position, I broke cover and aimed precisely where I had planned.
For a fleeting moment, the figure froze.
Then, my rifle roared.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Two shots landed.
The first round pierced their shoulder.
The second, most likely, tore through their throat or a similarly vital area.
There was some return fire, but it was meaningless.
I tore down the barricade and threw the door open.
“KYAAAAAH!”
The woman, who had been trying to force the door open, was revealed.
Late thirties.
No—maybe younger.
People who suffered as much as she clearly had tended to look older than they actually were.
At the very least, she was older than me.
With that thought, I raised my rifle.
“Hands up.”
The woman was too stunned to respond.
I fired into the floor to snap her back to reality.
Only then did she realize her situation and beg for her life.
“P-please! Please don’t kill me!”
She was wearing a Chinese military uniform.
But she wasn’t Chinese.
And she wasn’t a soldier.
A civilian.
I pointed my gun at her head and asked flatly.
“I just killed one of them. How many are left? You have ten seconds to answer.”
I adjusted my grip, making it clear I was ready to strike her with the butt of my rifle if necessary.
Establishing a clear power dynamic was an essential part of battlefield interrogations.
But—
“...What did you say?!”
Her reaction was unexpected.
“He’s dead?! What?! He’s really dead?! That bastard?!”
Joy.
I didn’t know what was going on, but she was genuinely happy.
“That son of a bitch! That fucking bastard! He’s finally getting what he deserves!”
Her barely restrained glee was unsettling.
“Come on! This way!”
She led me to where the sniper had been positioned.
“That bastard sold us to the Chinese!”
The woman’s rambling revealed that several civilians, including herself, had been living in this industrial zone.
And the sniper had been oppressing them.
“Ghhhhh...”
When I arrived, the man was still alive.
One bullet had torn through his vocal cords, while another was embedded in his bronchial tube.
The wounds were fatal.
But he wasn’t dead yet.
Not for long, though.
His bloodshot eyes rolled toward me as I approached, his mouth trying to form words.
But his punctured throat only produced a wet, gurgling noise.
I scanned the area.
Two women were kneeling beside him, as if tending to him.
Three others stood nearby, watching cautiously.
Unlike the woman in the Chinese military uniform, these women were in their twenties.
Their ages ranged from early to late twenties, but all of them wore heavy makeup and impractical, revealing clothing.
The atmosphere was... for lack of a better word, decadent.
Combined with the scattered Chinese goods, the signs in Chinese, and the military gear, the situation wasn’t hard to figure out.
I looked down at the dying man and asked the woman in uniform.
“What is this place?”
She hesitated, but before she could answer, one of the younger women folded her arms and sneered.
“Can’t you tell? Why are you even asking?”
Prostitutes.
They had been selling themselves to the Chinese soldiers.
That was the only logical explanation for how this group had survived two brutal winters without any productive means.
The man I had killed was likely their pimp.
“We were taken by gangsters.”
The woman in uniform introduced herself as Kim Mi-young.
Her face was still a mix of fear and excitement.
She hesitated, then took out a long cigarette pipe and lit something inside it.
Only then did I notice what was behind the factory.
A sea of bright red flowers.
I asked her while looking at the field.
“How many of you are there?”
“There were five of us.”
The glow at the tip of her pipe flickered as she exhaled a pungent-smelling smoke.
She stared at the air, smiling bitterly.
“At first, he pretended to be a kind man. But one day, he changed. He became a beast. There were other men with us, but he killed them first. Then he showed his true colors.”
Groups formed by strangers, without family ties or deep bonds, always had the potential to fracture.
And when they did, it was never peaceful.
It was almost always accompanied by violence, threats, and murder.
The losing side was inevitably subjugated.
It was a common story in this world.
The only notable detail was that they had connections to the Chinese military.
And the other women were glaring at Kim Mi-young with open hostility.
“You two-faced bitch.”
One of them openly voiced her displeasure.
But Kim Mi-young ignored her and continued.
“They sold the women to the Chinese. They offered them to the patrols.”
“The Chinese patrol this area?”
“Yes. They come often. And they bring supplies.”
She tugged at the hem of her military uniform.
“And the others? You said there were five of them.”
“They’re all dead.”
She glanced back at the factory with a wry smile.
“One died last winter. Two of them killed each other. And one got his head cut off after picking a fight with a Chinese soldier.”
“His head was cut off?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t even a soldier, but some guy—he had this massive sword. What was it called? A crescent blade? Yeah, an ungwol-do. He swung it once and just lopped that guy’s head clean off.”
At those words, I immediately thought of China’s most powerful hunter organization.
China had rejected international hunter regulations and created its own classification system.
Their ranks were divided into five colors:
White - Green - Blue - Yellow - Red.
The Red rank was equivalent to an S-rank in global standards.
And out of the thousands of new hunters China produced each month, only five had ever reached Red.
They were called the Five Dragons.
And among them, one was said to wield a uniquely shaped, utterly impractical, yet devastatingly effective crescent blade.
“...So the only one left was the man I killed?”
Maybe it was that guy who killed Gold’s mate and drove the pack away.
"Yeah. He was the best at speaking Chinese and the best at sucking up to the Chinese army. He was also the best fighter and the best shot, though."
Kim Mi-young stared at me intently.
The moment I saw that look on her face, I had a strong premonition that I was about to get dragged into something annoying.
"Please, save us."
*
The new part I acquired from the industrial complex, a young organ transplanted into my mechanical heart, roared to life as if trying to make up for the unwanted rest. It spread light and vitality throughout my domain.
Watching the battery charge rapidly, I grinned and went up to the first floor.
The once-dark bunker was now flooded with light. Both the air conditioning and heating system ran simultaneously, ruthlessly purging the bunker of its accumulated humidity.
The operation was a success.
But was it perfect? That was another question.
To put it simply, the women stayed in the factory.
"And where the hell are we supposed to go if we leave here?"
"With what? You got a car for us?"
"What if the Chinese come after us? And if we die on the way, who's gonna take responsibility for that?"
"Yeah, that bastard was a piece of shit, but at least he kept the Chinese in check."
"West? You mean where those giant dogs are?"
"Why can't you just take care of it for us?"
They refused to leave.
There were several reasons for it, but one thing was clear: the younger women didn't like Kim Mi-young.
"You were the one who said nothing good would come from leaving."
The sourc𝗲 of this content is frёeωebɳovel.com.
"Wasn't it you who said selling ourselves to the Chinese was the only way to survive?"
"Who was the one who went looking for the Chinese military first? Oh, right, you."
"What? You couldn't handle being the madam anymore, so now you wanna be a housekeeper instead?"
"And where the hell did you bring this guy from? A new sugar daddy?"
Kim Mi-young’s reputation was even worse than the dying man’s.
As the endless stream of sharp criticisms rained down, Kim Mi-young lit her cigarette pipe.
"Bitch can’t even take care of herself."
One of the women spat on the floor, glaring at her with pure contempt before turning away. The others followed.
“....”
I left her behind, frozen in place with white smoke curling around her.
Then, I caught up to the departing women and grabbed one of them by the shoulder.
"The fuck do you want? What? You want a turn?"
She was still running hot, reacting aggressively.
I fired a shot into the air.
"Get inside that room. All of you."
Gunfire had a way of shutting people up.
Once they filed inside, I locked the door and asked,
"When do the Chinese come? Tell me the truth. If you lie, I’ll set this place on fire. If they come at a different time than what you say, I’ll set this place on fire."
I had no intention of actually burning them or harming them, but my own safety came first.
After subduing the women, I resumed searching the factory.
Since I already knew there were no enemies left, I moved quickly and soon found the part I needed.
Before leaving, I passed through the red flower field.
There was someone standing in the middle.
Kim Mi-young.
She stood there blankly, surrounded by a sea of red blossoms, her eyes vacant.
I ignored her and unlocked the door to the room where the women were kept.
Even with the lock undone, they refused to step outside.
I ignored them and went to check on the man.
He was dead, eyes wide open.
I barely spared him a glance before shifting my focus.
A drone control unit.
I recognized it immediately.
It was a Chinese military-grade drone controller.
As expected of military hardware, it was resistant to jamming and ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ highly reliable.
There were rumors that it had a high defect rate, but since this guy had been using it just fine until now, it was probably a functional one.
Along with the spare part, I took the controller, the gun, and the ammo he had.
The HUD on the controller still showed the drone hovering over the factory where I had been.
A perfect, fully functional drone.
I went up to the rooftop and used my binoculars to survey the Chinese garrison.
Something was off.
Their numbers had increased.
There were more barracks than before, and near the coast, they had constructed something resembling a pier.
In the water, a massive black shape loomed.
A nuclear submarine.
One of the same ones that had rained death upon Korea.
For some reason, the side of the submarine was dented and scarred, as if something had raked it with enormous claws.
“....”
No way.
It couldn’t be.
There weren’t supposed to be mutations in the sea.
Or at least, I thought there weren’t.
Before leaving, I returned to the flower field.
I intended to take Kim Mi-young with me.
She was no longer welcome here.
I wasn’t about to take responsibility for her, but if I dropped her off in Incheon or Seoul, she could at least get a shot at a second life.
She was still standing there in the middle of the field, a ghost among the flowers.
"Hey."
I called her.
She didn’t react.
"I’ll take you to Seoul."
Even if war had twisted her life, once upon a time, she had been a schoolgirl dreaming of her future.
She would have been about my sister’s age.
"You don’t seem to know much about the outside world. The Legion has taken control. Things have stabilized. They’re offering food, housing, and even jobs. It won’t be comfortable, but at least you’ll survive."
But then, she turned to me with a sharp gaze.
"...Can’t you take me in?"
"What?"
"I don’t want to be alone. I don’t have the courage to go anywhere else. So can’t you just keep me with you?"
"The only thing I can do is take you to a safe zone."
"Come on. You’re alone too, aren’t you? Hm? I’ll do anything. Whatever you want."
"No."
I shoved her off as she tried to cling to me.
Firmly.
"Why?"
She asked.
Her face was twisted with resentment.
At that moment, I realized there was no point in continuing the conversation.
I ignored her and turned away.
As I walked toward my motorcycle, a single red flower entered my vision.
On a whim, I plucked it.
A hollow, lifeless chuckle sounded from behind me.
Wiiiiiiiing—
I retrieved the drone and started up my motorcycle.
The Chinese army hadn’t come.
And there were no signs that they would.
I packed up my spoils neatly into a box and set off for home.
Before leaving, I took one last look at the industrial complex under the clear blue sky.
A thought crossed my mind.
The only thing that had broken wasn’t my generator.
People’s hearts broke too.
Not just the ones who were left behind.
Maybe a part of us had already been broken long ago.
I wrote all of this down and posted it on PaleNet.
I could have posted it on our own forum, but a Chinese might read it. I preferred to test it out somewhere with stronger anonymity.
Or maybe it was just because I was sick of how that board worshipped Foxgames.
Since I didn’t use a named account, the response was lackluster.
Nine views.
Not a single comment.
More than that, the overall activity was low.
Even if a lot of people had died, how could a board that used to get over a hundred views per post suddenly drop to barely ten?
After posting it five times in the "Story Board," I finally got one response.
An anonymous user made me an offer.
Anon: Hey, instead of posting here, why not put that on Blinder?
Anon (Not Skelton): Blinder?
Anon: It’s a new anonymous site General made.
ㅇㅇ (Not Skelton): Is it active?
ㅇㅇ : Hell yeah.
ㅇㅇ : It’s the rising sun.