NOVPUBThe refugee camp system was originally designed as a tool of exploitation—a means for the government to quickly identify and recruit Awakened individuals as human resources.
By manipulating Koreans’ natural sense of unity and obedience to authority, the government successfully gathered a significant number of young Awakened in Jeju.
But when the Incheon government abandoned its responsibilities and fled, the entire system collapsed.
Under Kim Byung-cheol’s rule, the military pretended to value the autonomy of the refugee camps but, in reality, saw them as a threat and worked behind the scenes to dismantle them.
However, the repeated betrayals had taught the refugees a hard lesson—no one in power would take care of them.
Many of the displaced who had fled to Seoul eventually returned to the refugee camps, electing their own leaders and spreading out across Incheon and the outskirts of Seoul.
Refugee Camp 73 was one of them.
But it seemed things had changed without us knowing.
"Hm? What’s that?"
At the wheel, Ha Tae-hoon noticed a flag fluttering in front of the camp.
One was an old, tattered flag with the number "73" printed on it.
Judging by its design and material, it was issued back when the government was still intact.
Next to it, a crudely drawn, ridiculous-looking penguin flapped in the wind.
"That’s not... Park Penguin’s flag?"
On the watchtowers surrounding the wooden palisades, armed guards glared down at us.
Ha Tae-hoon picked up the radio.
"This is the vehicle that requested entry earlier. Confirm the plate number."
A moment later, a massive steel gate—likely salvaged from a factory—began to open.
Before it even fully opened, Cheon Young-jae jumped out and sprinted toward the gap.
Watching him, Ha Tae-hoon muttered,
"That’s definitely not like him."
"Yeah."
It wasn’t.
Normally, Cheon Young-jae would have noticed the ambush before Ha Tae-hoon even had to react.
Right now, his emotions were so unsettled that he wasn’t functioning at full capacity.
That meant this was important.
While Cheon Young-jae spoke with the armed men guarding the entrance, we slowly drove into the camp.
After parking in the designated area, he returned to us.
"Looks like they’re under Park Penguin now."
According to him, the worsening conditions had led to mergers and takeovers among the refugee camps.
Four major refugee camps had emerged as dominant forces, and Camp 73 had chosen to align with Refugee Camp 13, led by a man known as Park Penguin.
Park Penguin had already absorbed five other camps.
Now, over 20,000 people lived under his banner.
"...We might be witnessing the birth of a new nation," Ha Tae-hoon remarked.
I agreed—to an extent.
The reason I wasn’t fully convinced was simple: I was a doomsayer among doomsayers.
I believed most of them would die before they could ever establish a proper kingdom.
War, Mutations, natural disasters—so many calamities had struck, yet the real catastrophe hadn’t even begun.
The true apocalypse would arrive with the Monsters.
Humanity’s natural predator.
Bang Jae-hyuk’s tent was at the heart of a settlement made of tarps, wood, and various plastic scraps.
In front of the tent, an elderly woman sat, slicing something.
A closer look revealed it was a plant stem—probably sweet potato vines.
Ha Tae-hoon and Cheon Young-jae greeted her.
"Introduce yourself, Park Gyu. This is Jae-hyuk’s mother."
Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother had a stern, stubborn face.
She didn’t scan me like she was sizing me up, nor did she shower me with forced pleasantries.
"Nice to meet you."
She seemed like a quiet but strong-willed woman.
Not long after, Bang Jae-hyuk emerged from the tent.
His left knee was braced with a steel and plastic walking aid, giving him a slight limp.
Seeing me, he nodded in greeting.
We exchanged a few words.
"Life here isn’t bad. But I’d rather be with comrades. Honestly, things are getting worse by the day."
The collapse of the Legion faction had immediate and widespread consequences across the metropolitan area.
Armed deserters and rogue soldiers, some in small groups, others whole companies, began raiding refugee camps indiscriminately.
Some even tried to take over the camps entirely.
But the refugees weren’t easy prey anymore.
Deserters who underestimated them ended up hanging from makeshift gallows.
Even so, some camps had fallen to particularly brutal deserters.
And then there were the fanatics.
Their corrupted ideology was spreading rapidly, infiltrating settlements in secret.
"Anyway, I’m glad I get to work with you, Park Gyu. I was worried you wouldn’t take in a cripple like me."
"You’ll have to help us hunt a cat."
"A cat?"
"Yeah. A real crafty one."
"...I think I already have an idea of what kind."
We kept the conversation brief since we planned to leave the same day.
Using a shared handcart, we loaded Bang Jae-hyuk’s belongings onto the truck.
"...Huh."
I wasn’t one to comment on other people’s belongings, but he had an unusual number of shoes.
And not just any shoes—brightly colored sneakers.
Noticing my gaze, Bang Jae-hyuk chuckled and approached.
"These are Nike Air Cookings. Last imported batch before the war."
"...Okay."
"And this is the Jordan 13 ‘God Game Retro 2019.’ That one’s a Salomon XT18."
"?"
I didn’t know much about sneakers, but his expression told me he cherished them deeply.
Not that it mattered.
"Enough shoe talk. Just load them up."
"If you see one you like, let me know. I’ll give you a pair as a gift."
"Sure. I’ll look later."
But right now, sneakers were the least of my concerns.
A far more serious issue had been looming even before we arrived.
"Cheon Young-jae’s girlfriend. You saw her, right?"
That was the real problem.
"Oh, right. Almost forgot."
Bang Jae-hyuk’s sudden shift in expression told me he wasn’t keen on this topic.
"It’s important, isn’t it?"
"It is, but..."
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
He sighed and stacked another shoebox onto the handcart.
"It’s complicated."
Glancing at Cheon Young-jae, who was happily moving boxes in the back, he lowered his voice.
"She was mixed up with junkies."
"..."
"Says she doesn’t do drugs herself, but what can you do? She’s living in a place crawling with addicts."
Thud.
One of the long-named Nike shoeboxes wobbled and tumbled onto the pile.
"And between us, their breakup wasn’t exactly amicable."
"I heard as much. What happened?"
"She got sick of him."
"Really?"
"She was drawn to Young-jae because he seemed manly and confident. But once they started dating, she realized he was overly dependent and clingy. It turned her off. She wasn’t his mother, after all."
With another sigh, Bang Jae-hyuk pulled the handcart.
Creak.
The old wheels groaned, mingling with his voice.
"Honestly, I only brought her up because I knew he wouldn’t come otherwise."
"..."
"Meeting her won’t do him any good. Besides..."
The cart suddenly stopped.
Bang Jae-hyuk turned his head north.
"Practically speaking, meeting her might not even be possible."
"Why?"
"The northern area suddenly underwent Erosion. Monsters appeared out of nowhere."
He exhaled deeply.
"Rumors say some giant thing fell over with a thud, and the whole area started eroding. No one’s ever seen anything like it before. Either way, a massive area got swallowed up, and now it’s infested with monsters."
"What kind?"
"Small types."
"Spiders? Or..."
"Necromancer types."
"Hordes?"
"Lots."
"...That’s a problem."
"But the bigger problem?"
Bang Jae-hyuk’s voice was grim.
"The junkie town where she lives is now inside that Eroded Zone."
"...So she’s trapped in there?"
He nodded, letting out another long sigh.
"......"
In short, this is a fucked-up situation.
Going to rescue her is fucked up. And even if we do, there's no reason to expect a good outcome.
I consider drugs just as dangerous as monsters.
If monsters destroy human territory, drugs destroy the human soul.
Sure, in controlled medical settings, under a doctor’s supervision, drugs have their place—relieving unbearable pain or aiding surgery. But to an addict, proper dosages and medical oversight mean nothing.
They take just enough to feel good, just short of an overdose.
If they only destroyed themselves, one might argue for the concept of a "harmless addict."
But most addicts don’t just ruin themselves. They drag down the people who care about them too.
The details may vary, but in the end, every case follows the same inevitable tragedy.
What Bang Jae-hyuk is truly worried about isn’t just the fact that Cheon Young-jae’s ex might have changed—it's how much she has changed.
"She looked fine when I saw her. I mean, she looked fine. She wasn’t skin and bones, and her cheeks weren’t sunken in or anything. But... I don’t know. Maybe it was because I saw her from a distance, but something seemed... off. I can’t quite explain it."
Seeing someone you once knew turn into a completely different person—whether for better or worse—always leaves an impact.
Of course, there’s also a chance that this Mun-hee woman never touched drugs at all.
Human willpower has a way of surpassing even our most cynical expectations.
"What are you guys talking about?"
Cheon Young-jae approaches.
His expression is dark.
Judging by his face, he must have overheard at least part of our conversation.
Not all of it, but enough.
Bang Jae-hyuk hesitates for a moment, glancing at me.
After a brief consideration, I tell him, "Tell him the truth."
Bang Jae-hyuk wavers.
But this isn’t something to hesitate over.
This is a matter of trust—the most fundamental aspect of being comrades.
I make it clear.
"Cheon Young-jae needs to hear this."
Since we arrived at the refugee camp, his face had been lit with a rare smile. But now, I can see that smile drying up, cracking apart.
This isn’t good news.
In fact, it’s the kind of news that could shake him, maybe even push him to leave us.
But even that is better than shattering the trust between us.
"...What happened?"
His voice is low—weighted down, uncharacteristically subdued.
Bang Jae-hyuk looks troubled.
It’s an unpleasant topic, an undeniably depressing one.
I step up beside him.
I don’t say anything, but I want to lend him some strength.
I don’t know if my intention gets through, but after fiddling with the screw on his knee brace for a moment, Bang Jae-hyuk starts talking again—this time, in more detail.
"......Mun-hee is in Sanseong. With Yoon Seong-jae."
The biggest difference in this version of the story?
Mun-hee’s man is no longer just a footnote. He’s a central character in it.
"...So she’s still with Yoon Seong-jae?"
Cheon Young-jae barely keeps his voice steady, holding back something volatile.
"Probably. They were together when I last saw them at the market."
Cheon Young-jae lets his arms drop limply to his sides.
He looks too drained to stand.
He slumps down, leaning against the handcart.
Bang Jae-hyuk offers him a cigarette.
Without a word, Cheon Young-jae takes it.
The cigarette isn’t some pre-war, filter-tipped brand. It’s a crude roll of loose tobacco wrapped in paper, burning with thick, acrid smoke.
Bang Jae-hyuk gives me a look.
A silent message: Leave him be.
We step a little distance away.
Then Bang Jae-hyuk mutters, "Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him. Emotions have an expiration date, don’t they? And if you ask me, Young-jae’s are pretty close to going bad."
"Or they could be canned goods," I reply.
"Maybe. But you never know if they’re in a can or just a plastic bag."
"Young-jae... doesn’t trust people easily. Any idea why?"
Bang Jae-hyuk offers me one of those crude cigarettes.
I shake my head.
It’s not just that I dislike smoking.
Right now, with drugs at the root of so many problems, lighting up feels hypocritical.
"You said they broke up badly," I remind him.
"Yeah."
"How bad?"
"Young-jae wouldn’t let her go. She broke up with him, but he didn’t accept it. He literally knelt down in front of her and refused to move. He must have known her feelings were gone, that there was no fixing things. But he couldn’t accept it."
"...He should’ve beatboxed or something," I joke dryly.
"How the hell did you know?" Bang Jae-hyuk’s eyes widen.
"Know what?"
"Yoon Seong-jae—the guy who took Mun-hee—is a former beatbox champion."
"...Seriously?"
"Wait, you were just joking?"
"Yeah."
"Anyway, Young-jae wouldn’t let Mun-hee go, so Yoon Seong-jae stepped in. On the fifth day of Young-jae kneeling there, Yoon and his guys jumped him."
"And Young-jae probably wasn’t eating properly at the time."
"Yeah."
Objectively speaking, if you cut the story down to just this moment, Cheon Young-jae is the villain.
In this slice of life, he’s the bad guy—the one who tried to control and suppress Mun-hee, the one who made her suffer.
Meanwhile, Yoon Seong-jae is the hero—the prince who teamed up with his allies to drive out the tyrant and save the princess.
But real life isn’t a fairy tale.
Life doesn’t pause. It doesn’t end on a triumphant note.
It keeps moving.
And things change.
"People knew Young-jae was dangerous. They wanted to kill him. But back then, murder was still considered a serious crime. There were still police around. So instead, they planned to cripple him—slice his tendons, make sure he could never be a threat ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ again."
"And Mun-hee stopped them?"
"Yeah. She begged for his life."
"So he left? Just like that?"
"He had to. He signed a statement saying he’d never approach Mun-hee again. Then he left the refugee camp."
"When was this? Feels like a long time ago."
"Back when Seoul still had a refugee camp."
I check the time.
Almost noon.
"What now?" Bang Jae-hyuk asks.
I answer, "It’s up to Young-jae."
Slowly, I walk back to him.
He looks up at me.
I ask, "Are you going to save her?"
He nods.
"Alright."
I turn around and call out to Bang Jae-hyuk and Ha Tae-hoon.
Cheon Young-jae looks at me, confused.
"...What are you doing?"
"Why? You don’t need our help?"
I ask with a faint smile.
"T-That’s not—!"
"I’ll ask once," I cut him off.
Cheon Young-jae hesitates, then sighs, shaking his head.
"You really are impossible," he mutters.
I didn’t do this out of kindness.
That’s something I have to remember.
To keep myself from sinking into the bottomless well of blind goodwill.
Which is why I say this next part clearly.
"But there’s one thing we need to settle first."
"...What?"
I watch him, still caught in his emotions.
Then, calmly, I state, "If she’s alive—whether we take her in or not—that’s my decision."
This isn’t arrogance.
It’s responsibility.
If we’re going to do this, then the weight of the outcome falls on me.
