“This is why I can’t stay here.”
While everyone stared at him like they couldn’t believe it,
Shin Youngjun shrugged and said,
“I’ve got a place I need to go back to.”
“......”
Only then did the people finally
feel certain about who that young man, who had appeared out of nowhere, really was.
‘An agent the Legion sent.......’
‘He crossed the Wall before that wall even weakened.’
They couldn’t understand how he had crossed it at all, but
if they thought of it that way, it suddenly made sense why he’d shown such a strange lack of interest in status inside the Association.
‘Because he had to return to the Legion someday...... he must’ve stubbornly refused any position that could grab his ankle.’
Once the thought reached that point,
Park Junggu opened his mouth with a cautious expression.
“Can I ask just one thing?”
“Yes.”
“I...... enjoyed fighting alongside you.”
At first, he’d even picked fights on purpose, but
he’d also been captivated by that strength.
“I thought you were...... a comrade I’d keep fighting with. Was that only our side thinking that?”
“J-Junggu, hyung!”
He belonged to the Legion.
Maybe,
the closeness they’d felt toward him wasn’t something shared by both sides.
That was what the Association people were afraid of.
Park Junggu had asked the question, but
the others were too afraid of the answer to even put it in their mouths.
And then—
“No way.”
To their serious question,
Shin Youngjun let out a small snort of laughter and replied.
“Right now, it’s just that the time isn’t quite here yet.”
“......?”
“I still think you’re comrades I’ll fight with again someday when the time comes. No, actually, it’s more like...”
Shin Youngjun asked, looking almost wronged,
“Did I really look like that cold-hearted of a bastard?”
“......PFFT.”
Only then
did people’s expressions soften.
‘Yeah. Where he came from doesn’t matter.’
What matters is the time and experience they’ve shared.
The fact that they’re comrades won’t change.
“Still... if this gets out, it’ll be a mess.”
“Mm, probably, yeah?”
“I just asked you about comrades and all, so it might be a bit much to say this right after... but we belong to the Association in the end. About your identity, I have no choice but to report it to the General... I mean, the Chair. Is that still fine?”
“Well, won’t it be fine? There’ll probably be a big uproar, but cleaning that up won’t be my job.”
“......Then we’ll have to let only the executive-level people know, carefully.”
“Haha, I’ll leave that call to you.”
Just like that,
the conversation ended, and Shin Youngjun turned away toward the soldiers.
A few of the soldiers who’d come to greet him also followed after him as they moved off.
“Ah, right.”
“Hm?”
And then, at that moment,
as if he’d just remembered something,
Shin Youngjun hurriedly turned back and said,
“You can tell people I came from the Legion!”
“......?”
“But instead, please keep one thing secret!”
“A secret? What do you mean?”
Just as Shin Youngjun was about to answer,
the ones who reacted first were—
“ALL PERSONNEL!!!”
—the soldiers who saw Shin Youngjun approaching.
‘......?’
Separate from the escorting soldiers,
there were hundreds of soldiers lined up in formation farther back.
“ATTENTION!!!”
They all
shifted posture at the same time, in sync with the shout of the soldier at the very front.
And then—
“Toward the Legion Commander who has returned after completing a difficult mission—salute!”
“LOYALTY!!!”
All those soldiers
roared in a single unified voice.
It was a short word, but
with the synchronized shout of Awakeners carrying such strong power, the ground shook.
‘......Huh?’
‘Legion...... what did they just say?’
Among the Association people,
not a single one managed to grasp the meaning of those words right away.
They had already been staring like they couldn’t believe it,
and their faces filled with shock.
“......That part is what you want kept secret?”
Shin Youngjun, wearing an awkward smile,
was receiving the salute of those soldiers.
*****
After that,
Shin Youngjun and the soldiers boarded the helicopter that had been down on the ground,
then returned to the fortress in the sky.
“......That... went by in an instant.”
“It really... did.”
As the fortress drifted farther away,
they stared at the empty space where the soldiers had stood just moments ago,
murmuring in dazed voices.
“......What happens to us now?”
“The one we trusted most, Mr. Youngjun, just left like that...... things won’t be easy from here.”
“What are we supposed to do now?”
Their faces couldn’t stay bright.
Now that they’d lost the Chair and all their elites,
the person they trusted most was gone, too.
That gap could only feel enormous.
......But.
“What do you mean, what do we do?”
“......Huh?”
“He said it, didn’t he? It’s not the time right now, that’s all—someday we’ll fight together again.”
Toward the Northern Branch trio,
the chef, Howard, replied as if they were asking something obvious.
“Then until that time comes, all we can do is work as hard as we can to get stronger.”
“......Ah.”
“Well, I don’t even know how much suffering it’ll take to catch up to that senior.”
If what Shin Youngjun said was true,
then someday they would fight alongside that Legion again.
“We’ve lost too many talented people. I don’t know if it’s even possible to grow that much.......”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that part.”
“Huh?”
When Gang Jaeho muttered in an unconfident voice,
Howard scratched his head and said,
“That senior used to say something a lot. Well, I don’t think he meant it for me to hear, but.”
“What... did he say?”
“That the Association’s potential is enormous.”
The humans of Gyeonggi Province had to endure a brutal winter.
But—
before that winter came, Gyeonggi Province’s environment had been, comparatively, blessed.
As a result of monsters being drawn into the Demon Realm,
areas outside the Demon Realm had an extremely low number of monsters.
They could level up safely, and
gather their forces safely.
“......Come to think of it, I’ve heard Legion soldiers say it before.”
“?”
“That the number of survivors in Gyeonggi Province is unbelievably high.”
The number of humans who survived exceeded tens of thousands, nearly reaching one hundred thousand.
Even if the strongest among them had fallen away,
by surviving a harsh winter,
the survivors had been tempered once,
and above all, they’d become able to unite under one proper organization.
Even if their immediate strength wasn’t enough,
their potential alone might someday surpass even that Legion.
“The road is long, but.......”
The winter that had pushed them toward ruin ended,
and spring arrived.
“It’s not a road we can’t walk.”
Their potential blooming
would also begin now that spring had come.
*****
“Whew.”
Just like that,
I boarded the helicopter that had come to greet me from the Legion,
and—
“How many years has it been since I came back like this......!”
returned to my home I missed so much.
Bimanar.
‘It feels like I barely managed to take leave after months of backlog.......’
I remembered how it felt when I first went home on my first leave.
‘Honestly, I didn’t plan to come back this flamboyantly.’
Since my wounds and the aftereffects of cooking were still lingering,
the Legion side I’d been secretly contacting said they would just quietly come nearby to ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) greet me.
When I asked if that was even possible, they told me Bimanar’s sound-blocking function—the one I’d seen briefly last time—had become usable over a wider range.
‘Never thought Bimanar wouldn’t get found out, and I would.’
Was it because those aftereffects were still lingering?
I never imagined I’d be the one who got spotted by the Association people.
‘And I never imagined these guys would gather soldiers and throw a whole flashy return ceremony...... even more so.’
Ahem.
Honestly, that was really embarrassing.
To the point I wondered if I’d made a mistake allowing them to come greet me.
I glanced down at the ground and thought,
‘It feels like I disappeared too suddenly, but...... those people will handle it.’
There’d be some confusion from my absence at first, but
they would overcome it quickly and stabilize things.
And about my identity getting exposed—
those people were trustworthy, and I also felt sorry that I’d hidden it all this time.
So I figured it would be fine to tell them.
More than anything—
‘My family still hasn’t been transferred to the Legion.’
If I’d forcibly absorbed the Association, it might’ve been different, but
since it’s hard to swallow that massive organization right away, we decided to remain separate forces for now.
In that situation,
the transfer of individuals belonging to the Association was also happening through coordination between the Legion and the Association.
On the Association side, if someone personally wanted it, they might allow that person to move to the Legion, but—
‘My parents can’t express that intention.’
People still unconscious, not yet awake.
They were holding firmly to the position that transferring custody of those people was absolutely impossible.
Well, I get it.
If someone asked me to hand over a Legion member collapsed unconscious, no matter how powerful the other side was, I wouldn’t hand them over either.
‘It bothers me a lot that my family is in someone else’s hands, but...... the Association is a trustworthy organization.’
And now,
the friendly humans who knew I was the Legion Commander were sitting in the core of the Association.
Even if something happened to my parents, they’d handle it as best as they could.
......Anyway, like that—
“Congratulations on your return!”
“Yeah.”
After boarding the helicopter that came to greet me,
I was able to return to Bimanar.
“But.......”
And—
I wasn’t the only one who arrived at Bimanar.
“B-B-B-B-B-B.......”
“Who is that person?”
“B-B-B-B-B-B.......”
“Mr. B-B-B?”
“......His name is Kim Jongdu. He’ll be serving as one of our unit members from now on.”
Beside me was a talent I’d recruited from the Association.
Kim Jongdu stood there, trembling all over.
“T-That I’m g-going to the Legion.......”
“......Mr. Jongdu. Are you okay?”
“And on top of that, Y-Youngjun’s identity.......”
He was already registered to the guild.
After staring into the air as if looking at a guild info window for a moment, he looked at me and shouted,
“Youngjun!”
“Yes.”
“When I first met you, I said some harsh things, but it wasn’t out of malice and.......”
“I don’t care at all, and honestly, I barely even remember it, so stop shaking your legs.”
“Yes, sir!”
At that unsteady-looking state,
Corporal Seo Suhyeok frowned and said,
“Private First Class Shin. Is this person okay?”
“He looks like this right now, but he’s extremely capable.”
“Hm. What line of work? Combat?”
“Production.”
“Production, huh. Then he’s the youngest.”
The tone of someone certain he’d be the youngest.
The reason he spoke like that wasn’t simply because Kim Jongdu had joined late.
“Our unit is merit-based.”
The soldiers from the 423rd Battalion were still being called by their existing ranks, but
positions in our unit are determined strictly by ability.
Once a bit more time passes, we’ll have to factor in time served too, but as an organization, we’ve only held together for about a year so far.
Among the ones who joined later, if someone’s ability is outstanding,
it’s common for them to earn a higher position than the unit members from the 423rd Battalion.
And—
“Competition is fiercest in the production side of our unit.”
Because we never held back on investing in production jobs from the early days,
the Legion’s production-side people all had formidable abilities.
“Still, that man will climb to a decent level quickly.”
“Is he that good?”
Kim Jongdu’s ability is similar to engineers’, but
when it comes to building structures,
even combining dozens of engineers couldn’t compare to Kim Jongdu’s level.
‘And he’s got the [Construction Command] skill, too.’
The ability to use others as his laborers.
Until now, it seems he’d just been using ordinary Awakeners as laborers.
With those laborers lacking technical skill, it looks like he could only build simple, large structures like those walls.
‘But if highly skilled engineers work under that command...... the story changes.’
With our Legion, which already possesses overwhelming technical capability,
we’ll be able to use Jongdu’s ability tens, hundreds of times more efficiently.
“B-B-B-B-B-B.......”
“......Honestly, I can’t quite believe he’s really that kind of person.”
“Ahem.”
......He looks like that right now, but.
“Well, we can only hope he adapts quickly.”
I said, looking at
the black wall in the sky, visible beyond the fortress’s outer wall.
“That wall will open soon.”
“.......”
At that,
the soldiers’ expressions hardened as well.
‘The wall that began opening because we achieved 100% occupation rate.’
The heat contained within that black wall was weakening with each passing day.
Soon the wall would vanish completely,
and the boundaries between regions within the Republic of Korea would disappear.
And then—
“I don’t think that’ll be purely good news for humanity.”
“I think the same.”
The beginner protection period ended.
And because of that—
[All protective measures affecting the world will be lifted sequentially.]
[Please, survive for as long as you can!]
The System informed us that
the unknown protective measures that had been shielding this world
would be lifted little by little.
“We need to secure as much power as we can to prepare for that time.”
Kim Jongdu isn’t the only talent I want to bring from Gyeonggi Province.
There’s also Jo Jun, the [Strategist], who’s still unconscious and can’t be brought yet.
If there are talents the Legion can use more effectively, I plan to bring them no matter what it takes.
This is just my gut, but—
‘Up until now, it was probably just the prologue of the game.’
Most likely,
the real invasion starts now.
