In the meantime, Kim Seokju — who had been briefly stunned — burst out loudly.
“What happened? What do you mean everyone left?!”
Seo Wonil turned to Kim Seokju, who had grabbed hold of him, and began to explain in a calm, measured way.
To summarize what Seo Wonil said:
Not long after Kim Seokju had gone out to look for the food procurement team, the two members who had been part of that team returned. They were the ones who had thrown Jeong Iseul and Woo Jaekyung to the monsters as bait and fled.
They wiped their tears and claimed that Jeong Iseul and Woo Jaekyung had already been torn apart and killed by the monsters swarming the shopping complex streets, and that they themselves had barely escaped with their lives.
On top of that, with Kim Seokju — who had a Stealth Skill — also failing to return by midnight, certain influential members began voicing their opinions one by one.
Since the monsters were packed into the shopping complex streets, the surrounding area had become unusually safe — so they proposed taking this opportunity to leave Zone 2 and cross over into Zone 1.
The dominant faction of Zone 1, “Libra,” was said to sweep the area near the border clean every single day, so the argument was that if they could just cross that line, they could secure a safer position than the one they were in now.
Believing there would never be a better chance to move all the non-combat members together, the group didn’t wait any longer. Despite the late hour, they moved quickly, packed their things, and left the hideout before sunrise, heading for the border.
The result was the now-empty hideout before them.
Come to think of it, I didn’t see a single monster beyond the border.
In fact, yesterday I had walked along the border where Zone 2 met Zone 1 all the way until sunset, and not even a shadow of a monster was visible on the other side. It seemed to be true that the faction called Libra — or whatever it was — swept through near the border.
Hearing the story, Kim Seokju’s expression turned bleak.
“Even so, just like that… based solely on what those two said……? They didn’t even think to wait for us?”
“There was no guarantee the same anomaly from yesterday would happen again today. And you know it yourself — there were quite a few people who had been testing the waters, grumbling and complaining constantly.”
Seo Wonil patted the back of Kim Seokju’s hand in quiet comfort.
“By the time you two didn’t come back, leadership had already changed hands.”
Seo Wonil glanced between Kim Seokju and Jeong Iseul, both of them wearing troubled expressions, then added in a flat voice,
“I noticed it yesterday. Go Hyeongjun and Gwak Daegon had been quietly pulling people to their side behind our backs, one by one. They must have been waiting for a chance like this to push you two out and take the lead themselves.”
“Those bastards who used us as bait……!”
Jeong Iseul, trembling with rage at the mention of the two names, seemed to finally put the pieces together and sucked in a sharp breath.
“They didn’t throw us to the monsters just because they panicked. They did it because they had already decided to do things their own way.”
Hearing that, Kim Seokju’s and Woo Jaekyung’s faces went pale. Seo Wonil, who seemed to have already suspected as much, steadied Kim Seokju in silence as he wavered.
A brief silence fell, after which Kim Seokju dragged a hand across his face. True to character as someone who had led a group, he didn’t stay shaken for long.
His expression settled into something more composed as he looked at Seo Wonil.
“…Why did you stay?”
“I didn’t like those two acting like big shots the moment they smelled an opportunity, and I didn’t like the people who only cared about saving their own skins without a single thought for any of you either.”
Seo Wonil shrugged and looked over the group one by one.
“And I didn’t think you lot were dead.”
“Then why didn’t you stop them?”
At Jeong Iseul’s sharp question, Seo Wonil was quiet for a moment.
“There’s no use trying to hold back people who have already checked out. If I had, it only would have ended in bloodshed right here. More than anything — I didn’t want to leave your spot empty.”
His eyes were expressionless, but within them lay a trust directed at each of the three.
I don’t know about the others, but these people are close.
I got the feeling that among themselves, they would hold on to each other without ever turning their backs on one another.
As the mood settled slightly, Seo Wonil glanced around at the wreckage surrounding them.
“They swept the hideout clean — Coins, items, food, even the spare weapons. All that’s left is the water in the subspace bag Woo Jaekyung brought back. …Should we go find those people now and just join them?”
“Are you insane?! Absolutely not!”
Jeong Iseul snapped. Her eyes were still blazing with fury and disbelief.
“I’m not fond of those two, but I’m not fond of the people who just cheerfully followed them either. I get it, I do — but I still……”
Her feelings made complete sense to me.
According to Kim Seokju, the small number of fighters had been practically pouring themselves out to earn Coins and handle food procurement.
There must have been a real sense of bond and affection that made that possible — so having been stabbed in the back this badly, there was no way they could just brush it off.
If those people had been nothing more than dead weight, the betrayal would have hurt less.
The real problem was that Kim Seokju and Jeong Iseul had genuinely thought of those people as their own family.
Kim Seokju patted Jeong Iseul’s shoulder and let out a slow exhale.
“…There’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe this was just the right time for us to part ways.”
Knowing nothing of the others’ true intentions would have been one thing — but now, having heard everything through Seo Wonil, neither of them felt any desire to push themselves to stay together.
Kim Seokju, who seemed to have already gotten his thoughts in order, turned back to look at me.
“I’m truly sorry… but this is how things stand. I don’t know what to say.”
“No, it’s fine. If anything, I’d say this is better.”
“Pardon?”
All four pairs of eyes turned to me at once. Among them, Seo Wonil — who had likely heard about me from Jeong Iseul beforehand — looked particularly intrigued.
“From what I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like this was ever a team that was tightly knit like a family to begin with. If you think of it as having filtered out the unnecessary people, it’s not such a bad thing.”
Only after I said it did I realize it probably came across as quite cold.
Sure enough, Jeong Iseul’s and Woo Jaekyung’s faces twisted in complicated ways. Kim Seokju’s expression wasn’t far off either.
Did you really have to say it that bluntly, with zero empathy, right after we just lost a whole bunch of people we thought of as family? T-type, are you a C or what?
…That’s what their faces seemed to be saying.
Well, what of it.
Yes, I’m a T-type, but why do people look down on T-types? It’s not easy being a T who actually listens.
And strictly speaking, T-types do empathize — we just do it in a practical way.
I’ll admit the words came out sounding a bit cold.
But it wasn’t wrong, was it?
What mattered right now wasn’t lingering over the ones who had left or drowning in sentiment — it was figuring out how the people who remained were going to survive.
“It might not sit well emotionally, but purely in terms of combat strength, this isn’t a bad situation.”
I glanced around the ransacked hideout once and continued.
“Originally, the plan was to use my skill to compensate for the shortage of fighters and cover the non-combat members — but now, we can just shift the angle and use it as a justification to make up for the smaller headcount. I think that’ll be more than enough to get us accepted.”
“Hmm….”
Bluntly put, Kim Seokju’s non-combat members had been far below level and, from what I’d heard, heavily dependent on the fighters. People like that would likely have been of little help even after joining Eclipse.
Of course, from Kim Seokju’s perspective, they weren’t people he could easily cut loose — but thinking purely about getting into Eclipse’s raid team, the current situation was actually cleaner.
Kim Seokju looked around at the others and asked,
“Is everyone alright with this?”
“I’m a bit deflated, but it beats chasing those people into Zone 1 and stirring up trouble over there.”
“I, I just… want to forget about those ungrateful people and… live quietly with just us… Ah, th-that’s not meant to sound weird……”
“I stayed because I was going to move with you all from the start.”
Hearing the three of them, Kim Seokju’s expression eased considerably.
“Thank you, all of you.”
The gaze Kim Seokju turned back to me no longer wavered. It was as if he had made a firm decision — that the five of us still here were a team.
I looked at Kim Seokju and the others, each one in turn.
“Let’s eat before we head out. Everyone must be hungry.”
Every single expression shifted in an instant.
The food that had been in the hideout and everything they had newly procured had all been taken and run off with by the others. There was nothing left to eat aside from the water in Woo Jaekyung’s subspace bag.
Now that we had decided to be a team, I intended to at least fill their stomachs properly. That way, they’d be a little less guarded and awkward around me too.
They probably hadn’t entirely forgotten the ones who had left. Even so, this was the time to distinguish between who to hold on to and who to let go.
I set down the Pet Egg I’d been carrying on my back, rolled up my sleeves, and got ready to cook for them myself.
“Is there anything you want to eat?”
Come to think of it, Kim Seokju had found me in the first place because of the smell of kimchi jjigae, hadn’t he.
Led by Kim Seokju, Jeong Iseul and Woo Jaekyung’s eyes lit up all at once.
“Kimchi jjigae!”
At the answer I’d expected, I let out a small smile and opened my subspace bag.
Starting with the portable gas burner I had packed beforehand, all manner of ingredients came spilling out — and all four of them erupted into cheers at once.
