“Just what the hell......!”
“You’re the one who said cooperation among survivors is necessary, aren’t you!”
The government-side people’s gazes snapped toward First Lieutenant Kim.
Their faces were steeped in anger.
“I didn’t say we wouldn’t cooperate.”
And under those anger-soaked stares—
“Just whether the Legion enters under the government’s command or not...... that’s what we decide.”
First Lieutenant Kim continued without the slightest sign of shrinking back.
At his confident posture, the government-side people’s momentum visibly faltered a little.
‘First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok......!’
And just like those government people—
I, too, stared at First Lieutenant Kim with stunned eyes.
‘I haven’t given any order yet. What the hell is he doing?’
Whether we would cooperate with them or not—
I still hadn’t decided.
“From the start, I doubt all that talk about a president and whatever. Are you really a vice minister?”
“I am! I have documents I can prove it with as much as you want......!”
“Documents, sure. Those can be forged as much as you want.”
But then.
First Lieutenant Kim brought it up first like that,
and started arguing as if joining under the government was absolutely unacceptable.
‘This is clearly overstepping.’
I had intended to leave the conversation in the meeting room to First Lieutenant Kim’s discretion to a certain extent, but
there was no way he could decide something as important as this—something that determined the Legion’s future.
First Lieutenant Kim should understand that too, and yet there wasn’t a trace of hesitation in his attitude.
Even setting aside the fact that this was overstepping,
I couldn’t help finding that attitude strange.
‘First Lieutenant Kim...... didn’t he want to cooperate with the government?’
If anything, he was the type who would try to persuade me if I declared we wouldn’t go under the government.
Even if I acted impulsively, it would have been normal for me to do it in the direction of cooperating with them.
“Did you really think you could move the Legion however you please with no proper proof? For people calling yourselves government officials, you’re laughably sloppy.”
“Y-You......!”
What he was doing right now
was exactly the opposite.
“Your words have some reason to them. But if you just give us time, we can prove we’re a proper organization.”
As First Lieutenant Kim openly showed a defiant attitude toward them,
the one who stepped in to persuade was Lieutenant General Kim Myeonghwan, the man who had guided us here.
“Think about it, First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok. The Awakeners who appeared in this world hold extremely powerful strength. For now, it doesn’t show because there’s a bigger enemy called monsters. But once we overcome this crisis, the fighting strength called Awakeners will become a great threat. Such a danger must be managed by the state.”
“......”
“One year is a long time. Even if we were cut off for that long...... that doesn’t mean our essence changes.”
Lieutenant General Kim Myeonghwan looked at First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok as he spoke.
“We are soldiers. Loyal to the state’s orders!”
“......”
He was Lieutenant General Kim Myeonghwan—the man who had been endlessly kind to us.
Even when I looked at his conversation with Jo Beomseok, that Lieutenant General Kim Myeonghwan was definitely a real soldier.
And toward him—
“Then you should’ve prepared proof that you’re in a position to give me orders before you called me here. What are you bragging about when you call yourselves the government without even preparing that!”
“Watch your mouth! First Lieutenant Kim! I am your superior!”
First Lieutenant Kim—
spat out his rebuttal without the slightest hesitation.
“Do you think I’m going to believe you just because some guy I’ve never even seen claims he’s my superior!”
“Didn’t you hear Colonel Jo Beomseok say he knows me!”
“How do you know you two didn’t come in together and set it up?”
“Colonel Jo Beomseok arrived in Seoul today from Gyeonggi Province. Are you claiming he made up a story with me in that single day......!”
“Even if I concede a hundred steps and say you really are my superior, you still have no right to give me orders because you aren’t my direct superior. The 423rd Battalion our unit belonged to was a unit directly under the 12th Corps. If you want to give me orders, then bring the Commander of the 12th Corps, or do something like that. Not some ridiculous self-proclaimed president I don’t even know is real or not!”
“Th-This, what......!”
At First Lieutenant Kim’s attitude,
the government-side people were visibly flustered.
“W-We......!”
“After becoming the owner of a large force, did he go blind with power...... First Lieutenant Kim......!”
“I definitely heard he was a patriot......!”
In the middle of that, I flinched at the word I heard.
‘They heard he was a patriot?’
Like
they already knew First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok in advance.
“Think carefully, First Lieutenant Kim. Right now, it’s a crisis of the nation’s survival. If you don’t cooperate here, the Republic of Korea as a nation could disappear......!”
Without even having the leeway to think deeply about that,
the argument between First Lieutenant Kim and the government-side people continued.
“First Lieutenant Kim, are you going to disobey the government’s orders?”
“Surely...... you’re planning a coup, or something.......”
And.
As I listened to what they were saying, I felt a strange sense of dissonance.
That the state had to manage Awakeners.
A coup, government orders—
‘They’re acting like.......’
Strangely unfamiliar words.
I could catch the reason for that dissonance.
‘They’re saying things you’d only hear in society before the collapse.’
Things you’d only hear when the world was still intact.
To be honest.
For us, who had gone through a year-long collapse,
those were words that sounded far too awkward.
And I could guess the reason, too.
‘Their civilization didn’t break down as much as ours did.’
Seoul had endured this collapse fairly intact.
Their civilization hadn’t changed much from before the collapse.
Their way of thinking, too, was keeping the shape of society from before the collapse.
“The Legion is an organization separate from the government. I’d appreciate it if you kept that in mind.”
......Unlike us.
A group far too different.
First Lieutenant Kim’s abrupt action wasn’t my will, but
in this moment,
just like First Lieutenant Kim, I started thinking we must not go under them.
Their strength might help our survival, but
......they were a group different from us.
“From the start, don’t you think the situation itself is ridiculous.”
“And what do you mean by that!”
“We were talking about how everyone needs cooperation, and then all of a sudden you proceed as if our Legion has already joined under the government.”
First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok turned his gaze toward another part of the meeting room.
“Aren’t you trying to create an atmosphere where cooperation is ‘obvious’?”
“......!”
At those words,
the government-side people’s expressions stiffened a little.
“If you truly wanted to build a proper cooperative relationship...... you wouldn’t talk like this, as if it’s already done, as if it’s only natural that we cooperate.”
As if their faces didn’t matter to him at all,
First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok looked toward the people who had been sitting in this room from the start—
“you should’ve asked their opinions first.”
He spoke while looking at the leaders of the other forces.
Then—
“Khh...... khhahah!”
Among those who had been sitting there quietly, listening—
one man.
“Well now, you said it real damn well. I like you, First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok!”
That man who said he was from Daejeon—
Gang Shincheol spoke with a big laugh.
*****
“I was listening, wondering what the hell you were suddenly talking about, and you know—just like that First Lieutenant Kim said, I didn’t like it at all.”
“What do you mean by that.”
“Talking like cooperation’s the obvious thing.”
Gang Shincheol tossed down something like the cigarette he’d been smoking.
He spoke as he roughly ground it out under his foot.
“I’ll make it clear. I’m not particularly interested in this whole ‘survivors cooperating’ thing.”
“......What. Then why did you come here in the first place. If you never intended to cooperate, you could’ve ignored the message.”
“Mm, well. It’s simple. I figured I’d at least come see the faces of my benefactors, that’s all.”
“Benefactors......?”
Gang Shincheol turned his head
and looked our way as he spoke.
“Most of my hometown people are dead. But me and about thirty of my friends managed to survive. And this...... wasn’t really something we pulled off because we were great.”
“......”
“If it wasn’t for the information that came out over that radio, we’d have become cold corpses too. I came here to do what’s right for a human being.”
Gang Shincheol gave a light grin.
“Thanks. You soldiers.”
“......It was nothing.”
“Figured I should at least say thanks, since I got help. That’s just what you do.”
I and the soldiers stared at him with widened eyes.
The man who’d been oddly uncooperative from the start of the meeting.
The man who made you think, if he was going to be like that, why did he even come—
‘He came to see us.’
It was a pretty strange feeling.
“With you guys, well, maybe cooperating once wouldn’t be bad. But I’ve got no intention of cooperating with folks I don’t even know. I’m not that friendly. You said you wanted help with North Korea’s threat and all that...... sorry about that. Hyunseok, my man.”
“I understand completely.”
“Then I’ve said thanks, so I’m leaving. If you ever have business later, come find me. You’re benefactors, so I’ll at least treat you to a meal. If we can see each other alive, that is.”
Gang Shincheol said that,
then really did leave the meeting room without a shred of hesitation.
“Th-That......!”
“What an absurd man.”
“Hmph. He said there are only around thirty survivors. Even if they form a cooperative group, it won’t be any help at that level.”
“True. With that uncooperative attitude, it might be better for us that he leaves now.”
Hearing that, I thought—
‘It won’t be any help at that level.’
Gang Shincheol’s level was the second-highest here after me.
The levels of the people who came with him were also considerable.
They were people who had come all the way here from distant Daejeon with only thirty.
Those thirty had to be the very best—elite who could be compared to our unit’s Squad Leaders—for that to be possible.
If we could have cooperated, they would’ve been a huge force.
And—
‘He left the door open to cooperate with us.’
It was a shame we couldn’t form a cooperative relationship right here today,
but for us, there was a next time.
“Hmm.......”
And the next place my gaze landed—
was the middle-aged man who introduced himself as a cardinal.
“Cardinal, a moment.”
“Sister?”
A woman approached the cardinal’s side and whispered into his ear.
The woman who had been stealing my and the others’ information earlier.
“Hooh......! If that’s true.”
As she whispered something into the cardinal’s ear,
the man called the cardinal widened his eyes, then nodded as he ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) spoke.
“We appreciate you asking for our opinion, but...... we, too, will be leaving for today.”
“Cardinal? What are you saying......!”
Even the government-side people couldn’t help being flustered at that.
At least by their words, they were a force that had succeeded in taking control of most of an entire region.
One of the major forces that couldn’t be left out if you were forming cooperation.
“Do you have any dissatisfaction......! If it’s because we created a strange atmosphere.”
“It’s not that. It’s just...... our base in Chungcheongnam-do is quite far from here.”
Gyeonggi Province and Gangwon were right next to Seoul,
but Chungcheongnam-do wasn’t.
“There are regions even farther from Seoul than ours, so there must be survivors from other regions who couldn’t come here because it’s too far. Given that, I believe it may be premature to decide on cooperation with only those gathered here.”
“Th-That......!”
“Once more time passes and our territories reach each other, it would be right to discuss it again then.”
Saying that, the cardinal stood up.
Those wearing priestly robes followed after him.
“W-Wait, really.......”
“You’re just leaving? After coming all the way here......?”
And.
Just before they left the meeting room—
“May I borrow your ear for a moment.”
“......Huh?”
As they passed in front of us,
the woman who had been stealing our information approached me and spoke in a small voice.
“Mighty one. I know my sin is great for stealing your information. Please, forgive it.”
“......Well. It couldn’t be helped.”
“Thank you. And there is another reason we are leaving.”
“Huh?”
“The reason we came here was resolved by seeing you.”
Resolved by seeing me.
What was that supposed to—
“For now, we’ll leave, but I hope you will someday come and find where we are.”
As the Church’s people left,
just before they stepped out through the meeting room door, they turned slightly back.
“We will build strength and wait, to cooperate with the Legion...... no.”
They dipped their heads slightly toward me.
“To cooperate with you, we will wait.”
