“Have you ever rolled around like a dog here and smiled sweetly at those Esper bastards?”
“I’d smile if there was something to smile about, sir.”
How could I smile while rolling around like a dog? If I felt pleasure while teetering between life and death, wouldn’t that be horror in itself?
“In my memory, you always just shot guns and sliced open monster bellies, I never once saw you hold anyone’s hand.”
“I went there to work, so I had to work.”
“That’s because you’re a Guide. Holding hands is what a Guide is supposed to do.”
“If they wanted Guiding, they shouldn’t have thrown me into an infantry unit and made me slice open monster bellies.”
Unable to find a logical hole, Sergeant Major Kim-nim apparently decided to appeal to emotions and launched into a whole speech about love.
“Even with dating and love, someone who’s experienced it does it better, and you have to meet a lot of people to distinguish which bastards are good ones!”
“It’s not that I won’t do it, it’s that I couldn’t.”
“No! You just won’t do it!”
We weren’t communicating.
I pretended to listen appropriately while looking at the fluffy clouds floating in the sky. The weather was nice today and my cigarette tasted good, so it would be perfect to take a nap later.
“Hey? Are you listening? What are you going to do if you get led around by the nose by some weird person?”
“If I get led around… I’ll just live with them.”
If I like them, wouldn’t it be fine to just live with them? In the first place, I’m a brat who doesn’t even properly know what an ideal family is.
“I’ll sit them at home and let them play around with the money I earn.”
If they’re willing to lead around a guy like me, they should obediently let themselves be led.
Sergeant Major Kim-nim kept chattering away beside me non-stop as if exasperated by my response. The sound was quite pleasant to hear, so I just left it alone.
***
“Fuck… Look at that body…”
Year 5, I was still rolling around at the front lines.
When I entered the frontline base shower room used by regular soldiers to wash up, the chatter rapidly decreased and the atmosphere sank. Having rolled around roughly for many years and even frequently facing off against monsters, my body was full of large and small scars.
“He’s carrying a monster on his back…”
The yaksha tattoo on my back had become so brutal due to scars that it seemed like it might be cursed.
Actually, the scars were worse on my hands than my back. Because I had to handle rough and dangerous equipment for dismantling work, calluses and scars were densely packed like a zebra.
I knew better than anyone that this appearance of mine drew attention, but.
“Everyone look down below me, you motherfuckers. You want your eyeballs to burst?”
I wanted to burst all those rude eyeballs.
If there was something convenient about becoming a Warrant Officer rank, it was probably being able to torment the kids. Whether my thug-hoodlum nature didn’t go anywhere or because I wasn’t naturally a good person, stepping on someone with rank didn’t weigh on my mind that much.
At least I didn’t commit harsh treatment, so I think I’m on the conscientious side.
A gentlemanly piece of trash. Yeah.
“Warrant Officer Ha-nim, are you there?”
Just as I was making the kids line up in the shower room and making them look down, a captain’s voice echoed inside the shower room.
“The brigade commander is calling for you.”
It was news of a summons from the brigade commander, whose face I usually found hard to see. I quickly dried my body, changed into my dress uniform, and headed to the brigade commander’s office.
When I opened the door, the brigade commander commanded me to sit while maintaining his dignity.
“I’ve reviewed your mental contamination data.”
The brigade commander, whom I’d never once had a conversation with during my entire military service, suddenly brought up my mental contamination level and started talking.
“Your mental contamination level is 96%. Did you know that?”
“Is that so?”
My mental contamination level was being managed by some donation or whatever it was.
So the number was just like that, but I was fine. Of course, if I rolled around too harshly at the front lines, I occasionally vomited blood, but as long as I paid money, I survived.
“So you did know…”
The brigade commander muttered with a rather serious face.
I was regretful that I couldn’t prove with visible data that I was fine. How could I explain without being treated as a crazy bastard that I had some strange divine protection?
“Warrant Officer Ha, this isn’t discharge, it’s expulsion. If we keep you here any longer, we can’t guarantee what might happen.”
Finally, ‘expulsion’ was mentioned from the brigade commander’s mouth.
This was an order to go crazy outside even if I went crazy, and to die as a civilian even if I died, before harming anyone within the unit.
“96% sounds nice, but it’s a number close to almost 100%. How can this be called an E-rank Guide? It’s at a level where you could be considered a walking Gate.”
The brigade commander picked up the discharge certificate on the desk and indifferently held it out.
“Any last words?”
I received the discharge certificate and was reading the written letters when I thought of cigarettes and raised my head.
“I’ll skip the discharge report. There’s no one to see me off anyway.”
And instead of a hand salute, I gave a light bow and turned around.
It was the moment when 5 years of military life were wrapped up in an instant.
***
“I’m a beggar.”
Despite risking my life rolling around here and there, my bank account balance that I checked after coming out to civilian society was hitting rock bottom.
Society after coming out in 5 years had many things changed, and as for smartphones, just how many new ones were released each year—when I enlisted it seemed to be around Gal○xy 8, but now it had become Gal○xy 135.
During that time, many jobs were created and many jobs disappeared, and young people were going to specialized Awakened academies to try to strike it rich by becoming Awakened, engaging in fierce employment competition.
“With my mental contamination level so high, I can’t even dream of regular employment.”
These days, not only when civilian associations hire Hunters, but even ordinary private companies were making mental contamination level checks mandatory for submission. Since I was a time bomb that could go into Rampage at any moment just looking at the numbers, it seemed like it wouldn’t be easy to get employed.
“Loan sharking is tedious so I don’t like it. Should I do manual labor?”
I thought about going to a labor office and moved my feet. Then suddenly, a flyer stuck on a telephone pole caught my eye.
Paradise Hospital
Esper Specialized Hospice Ward Care Worker Recruitment
Care workers and caregivers (0 positions)
Main duties
08:00~18:00 (Break time: 12:30~14:00)
18:00~08:00 (Break time: 23:00~05:00)
Patient care and nursing
2-shift work
Experience not required (new applicants welcome), education not required
Preferential treatment
Care worker certificate holders
Elderly care worker certificate holders
Caregiver certificate holders
Military service completed
Feel free to inquire 000-000-0000
“I don’t have certificates, but I did complete military service.”
I impulsively called the number written there.
And so, while I wasn’t a care worker, I readily applied when they said there was an opening for a janitor position and secured a spot.
Paradise Hospital, 6th floor.
This was an Esper-exclusive hospice ward where heroes who saved the nation came to finish their lives.
An orphan with no education and nothing to my name, I applied here as a janitor simply because I needed money.
***
-Colonel Kim Hanseong, the Republic of Korea’s first S-rank Esper and the reliable shield that protected us, finally entered eternal rest early this morning.
Listening to the news about Colonel Kim Hanseong coming through my earphones, I entered the memorial park entrance.
The neatly arranged tombstones between the forest of buildings busily operating in the middle of the city center were an island where time had stopped, as if unrelated to this world.
-Colonel Kim, who had been continuing life-prolonging treatment in the Esper-exclusive hospice ward while fighting the aftereffects of injuries sustained on the battlefield over the past several years, peacefully closed his eyes while worrying about the nation’s well-being until the last moment, military authorities revealed.
“He didn’t say things like that though.”
I muttered alone and stood before a tombstone with a familiar name written on it. The nation kept its promise, and the honor of the war dead and compensation for bereaved families were guaranteed at a considerable level.
The management of the memorial park was perfect. Not a single weed, not a speck of dust.
That sight seemed to ask if I was satisfied with this much, and it felt pathetic.
“You succeeded.”
The new recruit who used to follow me around calling me Private First Class Ha-nim during my Private First Class days was an orphan like me, and was a guy who sympathized with my words that there was nothing to do and nowhere to go in civilian society.
But now he was lying down occupying a spot in the middle of Seoul. I still had nowhere to go and no one to greet me, but this guy had gained both.
-Today’s news desk begins by honoring the footsteps of a hero who devoted himself to the Republic of Korea.
“I’m going.”
It was approaching time to go to work.
***
“Hello~”
“Hello.”
I bowed to the caregivers who greeted me and slowly pushed a trolley full of cleaning supplies, passing through the smooth hospital corridor.
Since it was a hospice ward, I came prepared for a battlefield where screams would tear my ears, and the smell of death and disinfectant would numb my nose, but this place maintained a peace closer to a cradle than a battlefield.
“Good morning.”
“Did you have breakfast?”
“Oh, don’t even mention it~ I woke up late~”
Even this place, tilted slightly more toward death at the boundary between life and death, was a place where people lived and daily life continued. However, while other things were similar to general wards, the hospital room walls were made of thick special alloy to handle Espers.
“Guide volunteers, please fill out the list over here~”
I occasionally saw Guides who came for hospice volunteering. There were too few Guides to raise hospice-specialized Guides, and their value had skyrocketed due to the development of civilian associations, making it realistically close to impossible.
