“......Since when has it been like this?”
“It seems it’s been about half a day.”
After arriving at the 423rd Battalion,
the first thing I saw was Sergeant Park Taejun sitting near the radar, trembling.
“Guhk.”
Eyes closed.
His body shaking, blood running from his mouth.
“Is it okay for him to be like this? He needs treatment—!”
Unlike before,
our unit had gained some breathing room, and we’d dispatched a few personnel to the 423rd Battalion too.
There was even a therapist here to treat Taejun’s leg, but.
“You can’t touch him right now!”
“What?”
“Sergeant Park Taejun told us again and again. He said he might get a little strange, but we absolutely must not touch him......!”
Even the therapist couldn’t do anything,
only staring at him as he shook.
“What the hell is this all of a sudden.......”
“We don’t really know either. He said a guest would be coming today and we needed to get ready «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» to receive them...... and then suddenly he became like this.”
As I stood there flustered by what I was seeing,
soon.
“......Hack.”
“......!”
He vomited blood once, heavily.
And then.
“Ah.......”
The guy who’d been trembling with his eyes shut opened them,
saw my face, and smirked as he said.
“Long time no see.”
“You bastard......!”
*****
Released from that bizarre state, Sergeant Park Taejun was immediately dragged to the infirmary.
I followed him there and, watching him get treated, asked.
“You...... are you okay?”
“For now.”
He says he’s okay,
but he’s still pouring cold sweat.
“What happened all of a sudden?”
“It’s nothing, really.”
He took a sip of water and said.
“I used my ability a bit.”
“Astrology? Using that made you like this?”
At that, I frowned.
It’s true he’d been sickly for a while,
but that was his leg—he’d never looked like this just from using his ability.
If anything, before his leg got like that, he exercised fine and his health wasn’t bad.
“Just think of it as I pushed myself a bit. I knew it could turn out like this.”
“You knew...... what did you push yourself doing. No, to begin with.”
Those soldiers said it.
That a guest was coming, so he had to prepare.
Which means.
“You knew I was coming...... and you pushed yourself like that?”
He predicted my visit and overdid it.
And that’s why he ended up like this.
When it clicked that far,
I couldn’t help frowning.
‘......Well, I did have a reason for coming here on purpose.’
The wall blocking each region had opened.
What would happen from now on.
There wasn’t a single thing I could predict.
‘Until recently, he was pulling off astrology that was basically prophecy.’
With Sergeant Park Taejun’s ability,
I thought I might be able to get some kind of hint about what was coming.
But.
“That doesn’t mean you had to push yourself until you ended up like this.”
“I didn’t do it just for that.”
I never wanted him to force out his ability until he collapsed.
When I spoke with a frown,
he gave a bitter chuckle.
“Do you remember what I said before?”
“What.”
“That when that wall disappears, my astrology would get weaker.”
“......You did say that.”
His astrology,
despite the name, is heavily affected by geography.
Sergeant Park Taejun is one of our unit’s executives,
but his level is honestly lacking for a Squad Leader.
He couldn’t move properly, so it was hard for him to earn experience in the first place.
Even so, the reason he could display such overwhelming ability was largely because of this location.
While that wall kept what he had to see limited to Gangwon,
the fact that our unit was stationed on one of the tallest mountains in Gangwon was a huge advantage.
But once that wall disappeared,
and he had to look across the entire Republic of Korea, he said that advantage would disappear.
“So? What does that have to do with this situation.”
“It was worse than I expected.”
“What?”
“The truth is...... until recently, I couldn’t even use astrology at all.”
“......!”
That was the first I’d heard of it.
I’d heard his ability would weaken when the wall opened.
But there was no reason he should be unable to use it at all.
“Right after that wall disappeared, I tried to look at the stars like usual. But.”
And.
To me, that reason wasn’t unfamiliar.
“There are too many impurities in that universe now.”
“Impurities?”
He looked up at the sky,
then frowned as he spoke.
“When I looked up like this, I could see the stars against the black universe. My astrology was built on those stars. And our unit’s location especially made the stars easy to see, so honestly, I could perform ability beyond my station.”
“And now something’s different?”
“My ability hasn’t changed. But now, other things are visible in that universe.”
“Other things?”
“At first I thought they were a new kind of star...... but they weren’t.”
As if it was burdensome to keep looking at them for long,
he pulled his gaze down from the sky and said.
“They were pupils.”
“.......”
“It might sound disgusting, but listen, Youngjun.”
He spoke with his brow furrowed.
“Something I can’t identify. From out there...... is looking this way.”
“.......”
*****
An unknown something looking this way from out there.
Taejun frowned like it made him uncomfortable just to think about it,
but I felt like I knew what it was.
‘The Outside beings.’
And because of that,
I honestly couldn’t help being shocked.
‘Did this guy...... discover them on his own?’
I barely managed to perceive them with Mirinae’s help.
But unlike me,
Taejun succeeded in perceiving them with his own power.
“I don’t know why they’re looking at this place, but it doesn’t feel like it’ll be with good intentions.”
“.......”
“Well, what their intentions are doesn’t even matter. What matters more is that their existence interferes with my astrology.”
“They interfere with you?”
“They’re not doing it with any will. My ability works by observing stars, but those things were so huge they were about the same size as stars. Of course it gets confusing, right? So I had to rework my astrology a bit to account for them.”
With a pale face, he shrugged.
“It’s not like I pushed myself because you were coming. It was something I had to do anyway—I just didn’t want to, so I kept putting it off until now.”
“.......”
“No matter how much I hate doing it, if the Legion Commander is coming, shouldn’t I have it done?”
“......Haa. Fine, so? Did you find anything out?”
When I let out a sigh,
he cleared his throat.
“Honestly, since I’m finally seeing your face after a while, I’d like to talk about this and that...... but my condition isn’t great, so....... I’ll get right to the point.”
He straightened his posture,
took on a pose like he was about to say something important, and spoke.
“You know that radio our unit is broadcasting right now, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That...... it’d be better to hide information about us.”
“......?”
I tilted my head, wondering what the hell he meant,
and Taejun frowned as he said.
“Our fate is leaking somewhere.”
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly where. It’s probably outside the range my ability can reach. But somewhere far away...... there are people getting information about us.”
I couldn’t help widening my eyes.
Even if his power weakened when that wall opened,
it was closer to the density thinning because the range widened.
His ability should now be targeting the entire Korean Peninsula.
And yet.
If information about us is spreading somewhere his ability can’t reach.
That means.
‘A wall that still hasn’t opened.’
In a foreign country.
It meant our information had gotten out.
“How something like this is possible...... I can only think of one thing.”
“The radio.”
A radio that carries even beyond the wall.
Through that radio, there are people collecting information about us.
‘That radio’s broadcast range isn’t infinite, either.’
So.
It was probably somewhere in a nearby country.
“As long as it’s just telling monster weaknesses like we have been, it’s probably fine to keep doing it. But it’s not good for others to get a grasp on us.”
“So?”
“Information about us, and information we know...... it’d be better to hide it.”
He spoke with uneasy eyes.
“I don’t think the intent is good.”
*****
Anyway, like that.
After looking around Gangwon overall, I returned to Chuncheon.
‘Our fate is leaking, huh?’
It’s a fancy-sounding phrase,
but it just means there’s a force somewhere overseas collecting information about us.
It’d be nice if it were human.
But.
‘It might be human, or it might not.’
If Taejun said it like that, there’s a high chance the information-gathering isn’t being done with good intent.
So from now on, delivering information via radio would come with restrictions.
If there was something we needed to pass on about ourselves,
then instead of radio, we’d have to do it by word of mouth.
Meaning we’d have to go directly to whoever needed to receive it and tell them ourselves.
‘This is going to get annoying.’
Thinking that,
the moment I returned to Bimanar.......
“Sergeant Shin?”
“Hm?”
Someone walked up and spoke to me.
“Suhyeok? What is it.”
One of the few Squad Leaders in our unit.
Corporal Seo Suhyeok.
“Could you come with me somewhere for a moment?”
“Huh? What’s going on.”
“Actually.”
Corporal Seo Suhyeok opened his mouth with a tense expression that didn’t suit him.
“After that wall opened, there was something I really wanted to check at least once.”
“Hm?”
“I want to check it now...... and I’d like you to come with me, Sergeant Shin.”
I didn’t know what it was.
But it wasn’t just anyone—Suhyeok asking me to go somewhere was pretty rare.
“......Alright.”
Now that I’d returned to Gangwon,
there was a lot to do,
but it wasn’t like I couldn’t spare a little time to go along with him.
A short while later.
I got into a vehicle with Corporal Seo Suhyeok,
and we left Chuncheon, starting to move somewhere.
‘......This car. It doesn’t vibrate for some reason.’
We had an engineer drive as we traveled.
I looked at Suhyeok and spoke.
“So where are we going, exactly?”
“.......”
Then,
with a very serious expression, he spoke.
“As you know, Sergeant Shin, depending on the conditions, I can see beyond that wall.”
“Yeah. You could.”
[Marksmen] basically have vision that can see far away.
It’s not only marksmen—most sniper-type jobs are like that.
And.
After going through my cooking, Suhyeok’s senses became even sharper.
His visibility range was at a level no one in our unit could match.
‘The Wall of Fire only appears if you approach it.’
If you stay at a distance where the wall doesn’t appear,
he can see beyond it.
That’s how he’d been able to communicate between Gangwon and Gyeonggi Province.
“After you crossed to Gyeonggi Province, Sergeant Shin, as the Legion secured Gangwon’s territory...... I tested that power in a lot of ways.”
“Tested it?”
“Not just Gyeonggi Province—lands bordering Gangwon too. Chungcheongbuk-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do, I checked those as well.”
“......!”
At those words,
I stared at his face, eyes wide, and asked urgently.
“So!”
Thinking about it, it was obvious.
There was no reason his vision would only work toward Gyeonggi Province.
“So what happened!?”
When I crossed to Gyeonggi Province, we still hadn’t occupied southern Gangwon.
But now that the Legion had succeeded in occupying Gangwon,
it was normal that he’d be able to check the southern regions too.
......But.
“Unfortunately, there were no major discoveries.”
“.......”
“Near the wall, the heat is too intense—an environment where people can’t live. Since it’s an environment where people can’t stay in the first place, I couldn’t confirm what happened to the people over there.”
“I see.”
“If there were survivors, I considered telling them through the radio to come near the wall...... but I judged it could create needless victims, so I gave up.”
Even our unit, which had developed a certain amount of resistance,
basically struggled to approach that wall unless it was someone like me, with innate fire resistance.
Gyeonggi Province had Belsnickel’s cold mitigating the wall’s heat.
But humans in other regions likely couldn’t even get close enough for Suhyeok’s vision to reach.
“Instead—well, it’s not really ‘instead,’ but.”
“Hm?”
“There’s one more place I haven’t been able to check.”
What?
“Even with my vision, I couldn’t confirm that place. The wall’s power seems stronger there than in other regions.”
“......?”
“So I thought. Now that [Beginner Protection] is over, and the wall’s power has weakened...... maybe I can see it.”
He continued as if it were obvious.
But.
I could only tilt my head at what he was saying.
‘The lands bordering Gangwon are Gyeonggi Province, Chungcheongbuk-do, and Gyeongsangbuk-do. That’s it, isn’t it?’
A place he couldn’t check?
What else was there to check here?
Then.
“Not below...... I mean above.”
“Above?”
Only then did I realize
where this car was heading.
“You...... don’t tell me!”
“Yes.”
Gangwon is the northernmost part of the Republic of Korea.
If you go further north than here,
there’s only one place it can be.
“I’m going to try to find out what North Korea looks like.”
Because there’s only one option.
