The final Shangri-La was located in the ancient capital known as Seorabeol.
We had seen many Shangri-Las so far, but this one was unlike anything we’d encountered before.
Unlike other lands barely maintaining their state or steadily shrinking, this Shangri-La’s borders were so violently expanding and contracting that they could be recognized from afar.
Like crashing waves, the ashen-colored region would invade the full-color territory, only to be pushed back again, and then soon encroach upon the vibrant domain once more, as if nothing had happened.
“That’s the real Shangri-La, right there.”
It was the first ti I’d seen Pyo Won-sang this visibly excited.
“The last refuge of humanity!”
I knew what his plan was.
He intended to seize this Octo with force, taking it from those he deed unworthy.
But could that really be so easy?
Indeed, in terms of sheer power, the train had more than enough force to dominate this region.
But everything had an expiration date.
Firepower relied on shells.
No matter how powerful the cannons were, once the shells ran out, they were just piles of scrap tal.
And we weren’t the only ones.
There were others who sought to steal this last land of life from Jeong Dae-kyung.
The reconnaissance drone sent back footage of countless tents, vehicles, artillery, and soldiers lining the edge of the erosion zone.
Not one or two factions.
At least fifteen different ard groups of various sizes were prowling along the borders of Shangri-La, their eyes fixed hungrily on the paradise dyed in full color.
In such a situation, it was only natural for the train to halt. But what I didn’t expect was a visit from soone younger than , soone I knew but couldn’t exactly call a friend.
“I think I know that person.”
Go Jun-hee was one of the four Regular Awakened assigned to by Kang Han-min.
Extrely aggressive, yet surprisingly weak in real combat and full of gaps—nothing particularly noteworthy beyond that. But she held information no one else knew.
“That person. That person.”
She pointed to the family depicted on the massive billboard stationed at the entrance of Shangri-La, captured by the reconnaissance drone.
It was a family photo of Lee Haeng-taek—now known as Jeong Dae-kyung—the Awakened and warlord.
When Go Jun-hee first brought it up to , I didn’t think much of it.
Though Jeong Dae-kyung covered his face, he had been active inside the rift for a long ti, so it was entirely possible that so Regular Awakened had seen his real face.
But Go Jun-hee knew sothing from before he ever used the na Jeong Dae-kyung.
“He used to be a porter.”
Ding—
Coincidentally, a ssage arrived at that exact mont.
ssage from PROPHET: Seems like you’ve arrived.
Prophet.
ssage from PROPHET: Mind having a quick chat?
Go Jun-hee glanced at the ssage.
“Oh? Am I interrupting sothing?”
I looked at her.
“No.”
* * *
Choosing to talk through an internet ga was sothing I could hardly imagine, but apparently, among people my age or slightly younger, so still shared childhood mories of the ga Prophet suggested.
rry World.
It was the flagship ga of the sa company once affiliated with Foxga—now better known by the alias “The Fox.” rry World had stolen the dreams, fun, and even lives of countless boys. And not satisfied with that, it continued to drain the wallets of teens transitioning into adulthood right up until the war.
Revived as one of the ambitious new projects from the resurrected Foxga, thanks to Necropolis, rry World lived up to its reputation as a national ga by being damn near impossible to log into.
[ Queue: 13,821 people ]
[ Please wait a mont for a smoother login ;) – by the fox ]
Now that ssages were open to everyone, you could just use the chat room feature or even a user mod to talk. I couldn’t understand why he insisted on speaking through this nostalgia-ridden ga.
ssage from PROPHET: Your train’s stopped anyway, right? Looks like it’ll be a while before it moves again, so let’s talk sowhere I like.
I asked why.
SKELTON: (Curious Skeleton) Seriously?
ssage from PROPHET: eting face-to-face would be ideal, but I can’t exactly yank you out alone from there, and there are security issues.
ssage from PROPHET: Viva! Apocalypse! has garbage security, right?
SKELTON: (Skeleton never heard of this) ?!
ssage from PROPHET: They say it’s ridiculously easy to crack. Can’t have important talks in a place like that.
ssage from PROPHET: Plus, talking over ssages never feels genuine. Childhood gas are the only places I can speak honestly. It’s emotionally comforting, you know? Anyway, I’ll get in fast. I’m a rry World veteran.
I lightly clicked my tongue.
These newcors...
Honestly, Viva! Apocalypse! does have weak security.
From the start, it was a closed platform, used only by a select few. Unlike the public platforms open to everyone, it didn’t prioritize security much.
But who is lon Mask?
A morally questionable genius, sure, but still a genius.
The platform’s general security may be sloppy, but anything requiring real protection—like ssages—is locked down tighter than an iPhone.
I’ve never once heard of a Viva! Apocalypse! ssage being hacked.
But “new friends” like Prophet wouldn’t know that.
They barely even understand it, haven’t paid lon Mask a single dollar, and yet they throw suspicion at Viva! Apocalypse!
It’s a common thing.
Still, in a situation like this, it’s not really a disadvantage.
“......”
Tack tack tack
SKELTON: (Skeleton OK)
“Alright.”
I could focus now on a conversation with this slightly awkward friend.
“You said you knew Brigadier Jeong Dae-kyung, right?”
Go Jun-hee glanced around.
She especially looked toward Woo Min-hee’s private room, but the emotion in her gaze seed more like admiration than fear.
“What’s Director Woo doing right now?”
I’d heard from various sources that Woo Min-hee had been popular back in the Jeju era.
She’s still quite pretty, but definitely even more so before the scars. Though aloof, she didn’t have the shady air of soone like Kim Daram.
She probably was more popular than Kim Daram—and indeed, during her school years, her popularity was beyond comparison.
“Not sure. Doing sothing, I guess. More importantly, you said you knew that person?”
We stood at the edge of Jeong Dae-kyung’s kingdom, but the place was clearly twisted—just the images from the reconnaissance drone told us that much.
It seed Jeong Dae-kyung had benchmarked North Korea from the past.
Portraits of him and his family stood everywhere, displayed on signboards.
Well, it’s probably more convincing than the old North Korean dynasty.
After all, our dear General Jeong Dae-kyung is an over-level-10 Awakened who can do far more than make grenades out of pinecones.
Go Jun-hee discovered the truth that no one else knew through a very trivial trigger.
“There was a base inside the rift. We called it an outpost. It had barracks, a kitchen, toilets, showers... The problem was that, for so unknown reason, vehicles always broke down inside the rift, so everything had to be carried by hand using carts. I heard that guy did that kind of work too. That’s what a porter is.”
At the ti, Go Jun-hee was in upper elentary school, so she didn’t participate in missions.
But she knew Jeong Dae-kyung had been a porter thanks to her peer group.
“Back in the early days of the war, there were still 'failures' mixed into the classes.”
“Failures” referred to people who tested negative on the Awakened evaluation sheet.
Like and Sue.
“You might not believe this, but at the start of the war, the failures had insane pride. Their parents were all big shots. So they’d constantly go on about which billion-won apartnt they lived in, what kind of car their mom or dad drove, which foreign country they’d visited, their parents’ salaries, jobs... They chanted those things like spells, as if those words could protect them.”
Go Jun-hee was still under twenty.
So she had a vivid understanding of the youth dynamics in early-war Jeju.
Childhood mories tend to be more intense than those from other tis.
“...But they were still failures.”
Her quiet scorn gave weight to her words.
“That guy was that failure kid’s dad.”
That’s where I had doubts.
“His dad?”
The second Jeong Dae-kyung had no children.
He never married.
Go Jun-hee soon corrected herself.
“Stepdad.”
“Really?”
“There were lots of cases like that. Back then in Jeju, they didn’t leave singles alone. Unless you were an Awakened like us, everyone else got forcibly tied into families. Failures had no way out.”
It was a fascinating story.
Lee Haeng-taek’s life before taking on the identity of Jeong Dae-kyung in Jeju might turn out to be useful when facing the second Jeong Dae-kyung.
Go Jun-hee, speaking calmly until now, suddenly blushed.
“Didn’t seem like they got along. I didn’t think much of it then, but now that I think about it... it was like two people on totally different levels being forced together.”
Well, I do admit Lee Haeng-taek was a pretty pathetic guy.
Didn’t seem like he had a good personality either.
“That failure kid was especially nasty about it. She tore into her stepdad—said he was worthless, old, ugly, and just a porter. Looking back, I bet so of that ca from her mom too.”
Go Jun-hee nodded, murmuring to herself.
“They used separate rooms. Probably sexless. Just a legal couple, nothing more. I heard they didn’t even talk or make eye contact toward the end.”
“What did the girl’s real dad do?”
“An actor. She said her family had governnt ties and were semi-chaebol, but based on how things went after, I think it was just shallow and temporary influence.”
“I see.”
Interesting as it was, that’s as much as Go Jun-hee knew.
As a young girl, her focus was more on the bratty child than the father, Lee Haeng-taek.
“She vanished when they separated the failures. Never saw her face or heard about her again. We lived in different zones anyway.”
I asked about Jeong Dae-kyung.
“Her dad? No idea. Probably disappeared with her. But seeing soone with the sa face here now... it feels strange.”
Then I asked about the family in the billboard photo.
Go Jun-hee responded confidently.
“No. That’s not the sa failure. It’s soone else. Maybe he remarried. If it were , I would’ve too.”
Go Jun-hee didn’t know anything about Jeong Dae-kyung as an Awakened.
She wasn’t on his level and operated in a different ti.
But she possessed one crucial piece of knowledge no one else had.
She had seen Jeong Dae-kyung’s face from that era.
“It was on a picnic day. He ca to bring a lunchbox to that failure kid. How should I put it... he looked like a scolded, ugly puppy? Even from afar, he had this gloomy, sunken aura. I was too young to really understand life, but even then, I knew—I never wanted to end up like that.”
The failure girl, Go Jun-hee’s peer, reportedly ignored Lee Haeng-taek completely when he brought her lunch.
She must’ve thought that skipping one al on picnic day was better than giving that unwelco stepdad a reason to feel connected.
She probably packed the lunch herself, and Lee Haeng-taek walked away with it, dejected.
“Everyone whispered. Said it was too harsh. But she just scoffed. Eventually, she ended up in the lower district. I think she deserved it.”
Just as Go Jun-hee finished, the ga login succeeded.
The screen, retro yet intuitive, already had a friend request.
[ Prophet94 has sent you a friend request. ]
I t Prophet in-ga, amidst a strange emotional haze.
For so reason, he was using a female character, dressed in a flashy costu unlike my tank-top-and-shorts default avatar.
To describe it briefly: monocle, bunny girl suit, angel wings, devil tail, and even a rat-like pet by his side.
Prophet94: Yo~ Skelton.
Prophet jumped as he greeted .
And every ti he jumped, a ridiculous rainbow effect exploded around him.
I didn’t move.
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: ㅇㅇ
What mattered wasn’t in-ga effects—it was why he reached out.
He was probably part of one of those ard groups spotted by the reconnaissance drone.
He had warned about Jeong Dae-kyung before.
What would he say now?
I waited, leaving every possibility open.
Prophet jumped.
Prophet94: I’ll be honest.
He jumped again.
This ti three tis.
He even blew a hand kiss at the end.
Prophet94: I saw you fight and realized sothing.
Prophet94: Taking down that General-type wasn’t luck. It was 100% skill. I’ve seen plenty of Old School fighters in the US E.G. team, but never anyone as good as you. Even top Raptors back in the States weren’t on your level.
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: (Skeleton embarrassed)
Prophet jumped again.
Five tis now.
After five pointless rainbow bursts, he said:
Prophet94: Want to team up with , seriously?
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: Why would I?
Prophet94: Because only you can kill that monster.
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: Monster?
Prophet’s character blew three more hand kisses, ending with a finger heart.
Prophet94: Yeah. A monster only you can kill.
“......”
In that mont, I found myself imagining the worst possible scenario.
Reviews
All reviews (0)