KEG 3

Grrr–

And so, a weasel monster the size of a wild boar appeared before me, already consumed by fear. It seemed that stimulating me with inner fear wasn’t enough for the situation.

“I don’t even have anyone to collect my pension if I die.”

In other words, if I died here, I’d just become a frozen corpse in the snowy mountains.

If no one came looking for me, I’d become part of nature. Or maybe I’d end up as that thing’s dinner.

“Either way, I fucking hate it.”

I held a greatsword in my left hand and faced the creature.

“Kiiak–!!”

Clang!

Sparks flew from the sword as I deflected its fangs. From that single clash, I realized I could never beat this thing. It felt like my wrist was broken.

“Why did I have to awaken as a Guide…!”

I turned my back and ran as fast as I could from the bastard I couldn’t even shake off. You are not supposed to show your back to a beast, but facing forward was just as likely to lead to death. I felt like I wouldn’t feel so wronged unless I ran away with all my might.

Wandering through the foggy, cold forest, I thought about where to vent my resentment.

Towards the world that had suddenly flipped upside down?

Towards the country that had dragged me here like a beast?

Towards those perverted psycho Esper bastards?

Or my own worthless body that couldn’t even handle a low-class monster?

Swoosh!

While I wasn’t watching my feet, I tumbled down a hillside. The moss-covered rocks, soaked with the dampness of the forest, dragged me down and carried me to some unknown place.

Thud!

“Ugh, ah!”

I desperately wedged my uninjured hand into a crevice in the rocks.

I held on with everything I had so I wouldn’t fall any further.

The slope was getting steeper. It seemed like I was approaching the cliff the platoon leader had shown us on the model board during the pre-operation terrain briefing. Blood was flowing down my uniform, whether from broken fingernails on the hand jammed in the crevice or from some other wound, I couldn’t tell.

“Kiiak!!”

The monster that had finally succeeded in its pursuit after smelling the blood fell down from above.

Bam!!

“Fucking hell!!”

“Kiiak–!”

I swung my broken-wrist arm and smashed the creature’s black nose as it descended toward me. Fortunately, I managed to alter its falling trajectory. It veered past me and disappeared into the foggy abyss below the cliff.

“Haa… haa…”

The immediate crisis had passed, but I was already a wreck.

Strength was slowly draining from my arm, my body felt like it weighed a ton, and my eyelids kept trying to close over my eyes.

“I’m not dying. I’m not going to die.”

I held on until the end. No matter how messed up the situation was or how deep I was stuck in the mud, I kept living.

There were countless choices ahead of me, and I had no idea where they led, but death was never an option for me. I never nurtured such a choice.

***

In the most cliché way possible, I woke up looking at an unfamiliar ceiling.

“…Guess I survived.”

When I came to, I was admitted to the Awakeners Special Hospital directly under the Management Agency. The bio-imprint and magic-power detection satellite, the shackles meant to control Awakeners, were what had saved me.

“Private First Class Ha Seongho, are you conscious?”

A nurse officer who had been informed of my awakening came to check on me. Instead of asking about my physical condition, I reported something more important.

“I want to report some Espers.”

I wanted to fuck over the Esper bastards who had screwed me over.

The moment I woke up, without even drinking a sip of water, I reported those fuckers to the military police.

But the investigation dragged on for a long time without progress, eventually fizzling out without ever reaching the military prosecutor’s office. It seemed my complaint as a mere E-class Guide was simply ignored because the other party was an A-class Esper. Instead, I was the one who ended up in the brig¹ for insubordination.

“The trash who stabbed an A-class Esper.”

After returning from the brig, I evolved from a lunatic to a weirdo, and further into a crazy, reactionary, trash. Silent surveillance and ostracism came as bonuses.

In military life, this kind of isolation was a terrible sign. Especially in the current wartime situation where survival was on the line, social isolation was a death sentence.

“Sergeant Ha Seongho, eating alone again today?”

“Get away from me. You’re ruining my appetite.”

Nevertheless, the camaraderie of the ‘Guide Infantry’ unit did not leave me alone. Our unit, which was already a punching bag in other units that would get beaten up whenever we felt like it, was enduring the harsh military life by sticking tightly together with the survivors.

I was grateful that I lived with these lacking, underperforming guys instead of sharing barracks with the high and mighty high-class Espers and Guides.

Thud!

However, that did not mean it defended against all violence and retaliation.

“Military discipline is a complete mess.”

“Sergeant. Ha Seongho.”

Whack!

“Did you do wrong or not?”

“Sergeant Ha Seongho. I did wrong.”

Whack!

“Can’t hear you. Again.”

“Sergeant Ha…”

Whack!!

I got beaten regularly in the supply warehouse behind the parade ground. Even while getting hit, I felt relieved that these Esper bastards were only using their fists and combat boots instead of their abilities. I was used to enduring beatings, so as long as I didn’t end up crippled, it was fine.

“Louder! So I feel like forgiving you!”

I screamed my name and rank at a level that satisfied them. More than the physical pain, what angered me was that these guys were praised and revered as heroes outside.

It was true they killed monsters and saved many people, but it was also true that they enjoyed beating up a lowly Guide they didn’t like for fun.

But what the world needed wasn’t me, getting trampled like a bug on the dirt floor. It needed those cruel and violent Espers.

“Sergeant Ha, did you get passed over for promotion again this time?”

By around my third year, I had become a monster-like existence, an E-class who neither died nor went insane, surviving systematic ostracism and abuse from other units.

Of the Espers who had beaten me, two had died in battle, and one had gone berserk from lack of proper guiding and had his head explode.

The average lifespan for infantry here was six months, and for Espers and Guides below S-class, around two years.

“You should just discharge soon. The officers are wary of you, Sergeant Ha.”

Officially I was treated as a problem soldier or promotion-ineligible troublemaker, but in reality, people feared me and wished I would go crazy, cause an incident, get locked up, or just die on the battlefield.

I had simply remained silent and survived, yet I became someone to avoid. It was absurd.

“What would an E-class Guide even do for a living after getting out?”

It hadn’t even been five years since the Dungeon Break, so society was still chaotic. I had no home or family waiting for me, so I postponed my discharge.

As I continued enduring, the military stopped trying to pressure me with skipped promotions and instead promoted me to staff Sergeant and placed me under management.

‎

‎

“Sergeant Ha Seongho, you are to participate in the Jeju Island Sector 4 operation.”

After promoting me to staff sergeant, the military started assigning me only the dirtiest and hardest missions.

Jeju Island Sector 4 was a hellhole where A-class Espers had been carried out one after another, driven insane. Sending a mere staff sergeant like me there was basically telling me to go die this time.

“They’re trusting me again this time.”

But the commander’s expression and tone were not those of a superior sending a soldier to his death.

Rather, an attitude of certainty.

“Yes, understood.”

No matter what death trap I am driven into, I return alive. No, it would be more accurate to say that I somehow manage to cling to life and make it back. The commander trusted this tenacity of mine.

“Are you that famous Sergeant Crow?”

A staff officer from another unit sneered. It seemed to be the nickname given to me, the unkillable soldier in our unit who cleaned up corpses and dismantled monsters.

I guess digging through the remains of the dead made me look like a crow.

“The boss monster that fell in this battle is making everyone go crazy just by getting close to it. There’s no one else who can handle it, so you’ll collect the mana stone alone.”

The operations staff officer ignored the officer’s taunts and gave me an order. It seemed there was no suitable person to dismantle this monster and extract the magic stone, as it had barely been defeated with the deployment of three S-class Espers and five A-class Guides.

They couldn’t entrust it to the precious high-class Espers and Guides, but they also couldn’t just abandon the mana stone, so they called me.

“Go ahead.”

“Yes, understood!”

I left the briefing room and boarded the military transport ship heading to Jeju Island.

“Fuck… seasickness…”

As the military transport ship departing Mokpo Port cut through the waves and swayed, my internal organs swayed along with it. The civilian association Espers and Guides inside the cabin were chattering amongst themselves in excited voices, seemingly thrilled about something, which only made me feel more nauseous.

“They say the performance bonus for this Jeju operation is no joke.”

“The boss is already taken care of. We just need to clean up the small fries. It’s free money.”

Since the Dungeon Break incident, the world continued to undergo changes and began to revolve around the rights and interests of the Awakeners.

1. Place of brief incarceration for petty crimes ↩︎