Grrrr—
And so, before my eyes, consumed by fear, a weasel monster the size of a wild boar appeared. It seemed the situation wasn’t satisfied with just stimulating me through my internal fears.
“I don’t even have anyone to receive my pension if I die.”
In other words, if I died here, I’d become a corpse frozen on a snowy mountain.
If no one found me, I’d just become part of nature like that. Or maybe I’d become that bastard’s dinner.
“Either way, fuck that.”
I gripped my greatsword in my left hand and faced off against that creature.
“Kiyaaak—!!”
Clang!
Intense sparks flew from my greatsword as I deflected the creature’s teeth. From that single exchange, I clearly felt that I could never defeat this thing. It felt like my wrist had broken.
“Of all things, to awaken as a fucking Guide…!”
I turned my back and ran desperately from a creature I couldn’t even shake off. You’re not supposed to show your back to a beast, but showing my front would result in death all the same. It felt like I had to run with all my might or I’d regret it.
Wandering through the cold, foggy forest, I thought about where I should direct my resentment.
Should I blame the world that suddenly turned upside down?
Should I blame the country that dragged me here like an animal?
Should I blame those perverted bastard Esper fuckers?
Should I blame my body for not being able to withstand even a low-level monster like that?
Swoooosh—!
In the midst of all that, I failed to watch my footing and rolled spectacularly down a hill. The moss-covered rocks, soaked with the moisture of the damp forest, continuously pulled me downward, leading me to who knows where.
Crash!
“Ugh, grgh!”
I desperately wedged my unbroken hand into a gap between the rocks.
I held on like that to avoid falling any further.
The slope was getting steeper, and it seemed I was getting close to the cliff I’d seen in the terrain briefing the platoon leader gave in front of the model board before the operation deployment. The fingernails on the hand I’d shoved into the rock crevice must have broken, or I’d gotten injured somewhere—I could see blood flowing over my military uniform.
“Kyaaak!!”
Having caught the scent of blood and finally succeeding in pursuit, the monster poured down from above my head.
Smack!!
“Motherfucker!!”
“Kiyak—!”
I swung my broken-wristed arm and struck the creature’s black nose as it came down toward me. Fortunately, I seemed to have succeeded in changing the trajectory of the falling creature, as it missed me and disappeared below the foggy cliff.
“Haah, haah…”
One ordeal had passed, but I was already in terrible shape.
Strength gradually drained from my arm, my body became heavy as a thousand pounds, and my eyelids kept trying to cover my eyeballs.
“I won’t die. I’m not dying.”
Still, I held on to the end. No matter how shitty the situation was, no matter how deep in the mud I was buried, I’d continued to live.
There were countless choices before me, and though I didn’t know where their ends led, death could never be one of my options. I never cultivated that kind of choice.
***
Quite clichéd as it was, I woke up looking at an unfamiliar ceiling.
“…I’m alive.”
When I came to, I was admitted to the Management Bureau’s direct Awakened special hospital. The biometric imprint and mana detection satellite—shackles to control the Awakened—had saved my life.
“Soldier Ha Seongho, are you conscious?”
A nursing officer who had come to check on me after receiving a report that I’d woken up spoke to me. I reported something more important than my physical condition to that nursing officer.
“I want to file a complaint against an Esper.”
Screwing over the Esper bastards who’d given me a big middle finger.
The moment I woke up, without even drinking a sip of water, I reported those bastards to the military police.
However, rather than an investigation proceeding for quite a long time, it petered out and eventually the case was closed without even being passed to the military prosecution.
It seemed that because the other party was an A-rank Esper, the complaints of a mere E-rank Guide were dismissed. Instead, I ended up in the guardhouse for insubordination.
“The waste-tier who stabbed an A-rank Esper.”
When I returned from the guardhouse, I’d evolved from a lunatic to a crazy psycho lunatic, and further to an insane waste-tier reactionary bastard. Silent surveillance and ostracism came as a bonus.
This kind of isolation in military life wasn’t a good sign. Especially in a wartime situation directly connected to survival like now, social isolation was no different from a death sentence.
“Private First Class Ha Seongho-nim, eating alone again today?”
“Get lost. You’re ruining my appetite.”
Still, the camaraderie of the ‘Guide Infantry’ unit didn’t leave me lonely. Our unit, which was already in the position of a punching bag that got beaten up by other units whenever they were bored, was sticking together tightly with the surviving members to endure the harsh military life.
I was grateful for the fact that I wasn’t sharing barracks with those high-and-mighty upper-rank Espers and Guides, but living together with guys treated as deficient and inadequate.
Thud!
However, that didn’t mean it defended me from all violence and retaliation.
“Military discipline is a fucking mess. Seriously.”
“Private First Class. Ha Seongho.”
Thwack!
“Did you do wrong, or didn’t you.”
“Private First Class Ha Seongho. I was wrong.”
Thwack!
“Can’t hear you. Again.”
“Private First Class Ha…”
Smack!!
I got beaten up behind the parade ground in the materials warehouse whenever they felt like it. Even while getting beaten, I was relieved by the fact that these Esper bastards didn’t use their abilities and only used their fists and military boots to torment me. I was used to getting beaten and enduring it, so as long as I didn’t become disabled, it was fine.
“Louder! Do you think that’ll make me feel forgiving?”
I spat out my name and rank at a level almost like screaming until those bastards were satisfied. More than the physical pain, I was indignant at the fact that these bastards were praised and revered as heroes outside.
It was true that they killed monsters and saved countless people, but it was also true that they inflicted indiscriminate violence on lower-rank Guides they didn’t like and made them their playthings.
But what the world needed wasn’t me, treated like an insect being trampled on the ground, but those cruel and violent Espers.
“Private First Class Ha-nim, did you get passed over for promotion again this time?”
Around my third year, I became a monster-like existence who, despite being E-rank, neither died nor went crazy, and survived the systematic ostracism and harsh treatment from other units.
Two of the Esper bastards who beat me up had died in action, and one apparently went into Rampage because he didn’t receive Guiding in time and his head exploded.
The average lifespan of infantry here was 6 months, and for Espers and Guides below S-rank, it seemed to be around 2 years.
“You should discharge soon, sir. The officers are being cautious of Private First Class Ha-nim.”
Externally, I was treated as a troublemaker, classified as a soldier of interest or unfit for promotion, but in reality, I was an object of fear—they wished I would go crazy as soon as possible, cause an incident, go to prison, or die on the battlefield.
I’d merely stayed silent and survived, yet I became someone to avoid. How absurd.
“What could an E-rank Guide do to make a living in civilian society?”
Not even 5 years had passed since the Dungeon Break erupted, society was still chaotic, and there was no home or family for me there, so I postponed my discharge.
As I continued to endure like that, the military no longer gave me hints by passing me over for promotion but chose to make me a Staff Sergeant and keep me under management.
“Sergeant Ha Seongho, you’ll be participating in the Jeju Island Zone 4 operation.”
The military promoted me to Sergeant, then assigned me even more blatantly dirty and difficult tasks.
Jeju Island Zone 4 was hell where A-rank Espers were carried out one after another having lost their minds, and sending me, a mere Sergeant, there meant they were telling me to just die this time.
“I’m counting on you again this time.”
However, the battalion commander’s expression and tone were by no means those of a superior sending a soldier to their death.
Rather, it was an attitude with a certain level of confidence.
“Yes. Understood.”
No matter what death trap I’m thrown into, I come back alive. No, it would be more accurate to say I somehow return with my life barely attached. The battalion commander trusted this tenacity of mine.
“So you’re that famous Crow Sergeant.”
An officer from another unit standing nearby sneered. It seemed to be a nickname attached to me, the undying soldier of our unit that cleared corpses and dismantled monsters.
I guess my appearance of rummaging through the remains of the dead looked like a crow.
“Everyone who even gets near the boss monster defeated in this battle goes crazy, so it’s problematic. Since there’s no one but you to take on this task, you’ll perform the magic stone recovery solo.”
The operations staff officer ordered me while ignoring that officer’s sneering as if it didn’t exist. It seemed there was no suitable personnel to dismantle this monster, which was barely defeated after deploying three S-rank Espers and five A-rank Guides, and extract its magic stone.
They couldn’t entrust it to precious upper-rank Espers and Guides, but they couldn’t just abandon the magic stone either, so they ended up calling me.
“Go ahead.”
“Yes, understood. Loyalty!”
And so I left the conference room and boarded the military transport ship heading to Jeju Island.
“Fuck, seasickness…”
Every time the military transport ship that left Mokpo Port cut through the current and rocked, my internal organs rocked along with it. The civilian association Espers and Guides inside the cabin were chattering away excitedly among themselves about something so exciting, which stimulated me further and made me feel like vomiting.
“I heard the performance bonus after this Jeju Island operation is no joke?”
“They already dealt with the boss and we just have to clean up the small fry bastards. It’s easy pickings.”
After the dungeon gate incident, the world continued to undergo changes and began to revolve around the rights and interests of the Awakened.
