NOVPUBThis was a deeply personal journey.
That’s why I had decided to go alone.
If, by any chance, my group was attacked while I was away and our territory fell, the responsibility would rest entirely on me.
I couldn’t justify risking everyone’s safety over nothing more than a bad dream.
“I’ll go with you this time.”
Even though I had resolved to go alone, Defender insisted on accompanying me.
“I know that place well. I did some scouting there recently, back when I was under Kim Daram.”
He was adamant, so I allowed it.
Before heading to Incheon, Defender suggested we stop by a hideout he used to live in.
“I stashed a ride there.”
Turned out, it was barely more than a pile of scrap metal—a rusted-out SUV.
The thing tilted left, looking like it could tip over at any moment. It was a miracle it still ran at all. But Defender vouched for it.
“If we’re going there, it’s better to leave the vehicle with the refugee camp. We’ll have to go in on foot.”
Back in the day, the docks had been one of the most sought-after locations in Incheon, a city that had essentially turned into one massive refugee zone.
They used to call it ‘the high-rank zone.’
Even after the world collapsed, people clung to their old habits—just like how they once ranked neighborhoods and apartment complexes by prestige, they now assigned grades to refugee camps to feed their fragile sense of superiority.
But now, those docks had turned into a land of corruption, crawling with the walking dead.
“Think of it as a completely blocked-off area. It’s a zombie nest, but there are also cultists hiding there.”
Defender insisted on using the SUV because he didn’t trust the refugee camp.
“If you roll up in a truck as nice as yours, they’ll stash it somewhere and pretend they don’t know a damn thing. Those bastards would do it without hesitation.”
The massive region now known as the Incheon Zone was a fragmented warzone. Countless factions had carved out their own little territories, each claiming their own domain in a chaotic feudal era.
There were coalition forces like Penguin Park’s Alliance, but their influence was limited. Most of the region was dominated by territorial warlords who controlled their land with an iron grip.
The latest trend among these factions was something called ‘Complexes.’
“They used to organize by subway stations, but nowadays, they set up bases around mid-to-large apartment complexes. Those are easier to defend, plus they can use the infrastructure inside. That’s why they call them ‘Complexes.’”
Defender claimed to know someone from the Complex closest to the docks.
The SUV managed to keep moving.
According to Defender, despite its exterior, the car’s internals weren’t as bad as they seemed.
It lurched slightly to the left, making the ride feel like a seesaw. Sitting in the passenger seat, gently swaying like a wooden horse at an amusement park, I drifted into thought.
“......”
When exactly had I lost contact with Jang Ki-young?
The final straw was his turbulent downfall.
He had struggled in vain against the unstoppable tide of the Awakened, resorting to increasingly reckless moves.
Media manipulation, lobbying, anonymous reports, lawsuits—
He hadn’t personally embezzled any money, but he had funneled an absurd amount of funds, engaged in accounting fraud, and granted illegal favors in pursuit of his delusions.
The so-called ‘indomitable hunter’ was torn apart by legal battles and administrative penalties. When the media smelled blood, they ripped him apart. And when there was nothing left for them to scavenge, he became nothing more than a toy for YouTubers to mock.
I had known what was happening to him.
And yet, I never reached out.
It wasn’t a matter of liking or disliking him.
I simply had nothing left to give.
After breaking nearly every bone in my body and spending a month in a near-death state beyond the Rift, even someone with an iron will would have cracked.
Add to that my deep-seated inferiority complex, my overwhelming sense of helplessness, the realization that I was powerless to change anything—
All of it merged into one suffocating despair.
Even taking care of myself had become difficult.
Jang Ki-young had reached out first.
I saw the call.
And I didn’t answer.
By the time I finally went to see him, he was a completely different person from the man I had once known.
In that moment, I had decided—on my own—that his story had «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» reached its conclusion.
But apparently, it hadn’t.
That was why I was here, in this city.
“You know, dead people can’t talk.”
Hong Da-jeong’s voice crackled through the radio, her tone amused.
“In ghost stories, spirits always show up, staring silently at the living, right?”
She liked urban legends.
She was clearly entertained by the nightmare I had told her about.
“It’s the same in dreams. Their souls are tied to the afterlife. They want to speak, but they can’t.”
“Hmm...”
“What’s that, Skelton? You sound annoyed.”
“I just remembered something a dead subordinate of mine said in a dream, back when I was in China.”
“Oh? What’d they say?”
“‘Give me back my leg.’”
“...Ah.”
I didn’t believe in ghosts.
If spirits existed and they had the ability to harm the living, there were far too many people in this world who should have been dead by now.
And yet, we all knew—
How many criminals had lived long, prosperous lives despite their sins?
I wanted to believe in Hell.
But no one had ever proven its existence.
“About Jang Ki-young...”
Defender spoke up from behind the wheel.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
I looked at him in silence as he turned the steering wheel.
“I saw him on a livestream.”
“Yeah?”
I hadn’t watched it.
I knew he’d been dragged into those trashy online broadcasts.
But I had no desire to see my old master reduced to a laughingstock.
“I don’t particularly like Jang Ki-young, but watching our former headmaster get mocked by scumbags like that... I wanted to kill them.”
The so-called ‘content creators’ who had filmed him should be grateful they did so before the war.
Not that it mattered now. Most of them had probably been wiped out, not even their bones left behind.
“He was different. Out of it. Maybe senile. He didn’t even seem to understand if people were mocking him or not. Just rambled nonsense...”
“That’s enough.”
I didn’t want to hear any more.
I had already seen him at his lowest, in that tiny, squalid rental apartment.
I didn’t need anyone else to tell me how pathetic he had become.
“Fine. But the weirdest part was when he started talking about building robots. Even while I was fantasizing about murdering that wreck of a man streaming him, that part stuck with me.”
“...Robots?”
What the hell had he been planning?
Hadn’t he learned from China that robots were useless against monsters?
As the head of The Guard, Korea’s only hunter training institution, he had received just as much practical combat data as any government official.
“Not full robots—more like those robot suits people wear. What do you call them again? Power suits?”
“Ah.”
Yeah.
The U.S. had tried that.
Until monsters developed the ability to interfere with electronic systems.
The so-called power suits had become death traps, their joints forcibly twisted in the wrong direction, snapping their wearers apart like brittle straws.
“That’s not gonna work.”
We passed by an abandoned apartment complex.
A light flickered on one of the mid-level floors.
A mirror signal. 𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒑𝙪𝙗.𝙘𝒐𝙢
I didn’t know its exact meaning, but it was clear that someone in that building was trying to communicate with someone else nearby.
Defender slowed down.
“Should we turn back?”
“How’s our fuel?”
“Hmm. If we take a detour, we might not have enough for the return trip.”
“Then let’s try trading at the Complex you mentioned. They should have at least a barrel of synthetic oil.”
“Alright.”
As the SUV adjusted course, Defender returned to the earlier topic.
“About that robot thing...”
“It’s nonsense.”
I dismissed it outright.
“It is bullshit. But the thing is—Jang Ki-young always had a way of making bullshit sound convincing.”
“...Hmph.”
I had to admit.
My old master was a man with a silver tongue.
“The robot idea was crazy. But the reason he wanted to build one? That stuck with me.”
“What did he say?”
“He said—monsters are terrifying enemies, but each one has limits, like a machine.”
“...Hmm.”
"If you take the reflective force field as an example, it perfectly redirects all projectiles below a certain strength, but if a projectile exceeds that threshold, the field shatters, right?"
"Like artillery fire?"
"Yeah. Jang Ki-young’s claim was that every monster has a limit like that."
"That’s not exactly a groundbreaking theory."
"True. But he added one more thing."
"What?"
I turned to Defender and asked.
"That the limits of a monster’s abilities might actually be lower than we think."
"What the hell does that mean?"
I raised my voice without realizing it.
Defender looked a little surprised at my reaction but continued speaking calmly.
"He was saying that maybe monsters are equipped with just enough power to be optimal for fighting humans. And that’s why he wanted to build those robot things."
"Is that so?"
I scoffed.
"Yeah. If monster abilities are specifically tuned to counter human beings, then wouldn’t the simplest solution be to create humans with power beyond their data range?"
I wasn’t convinced.
Monsters were strong.
Too strong.
Jang Ki-young had never faced a monster’s wave force head-on.
He had never blacked out from the sheer impact of it.
He had never witnessed firsthand the miracles that force could create.
For someone like him to talk about monster limitations... That, I think, was the core of my cynicism toward him.
It reminded me, once again, of his ignorance.
As these uneasy thoughts swirled in my mind, we entered the ruins of the city.
Naturally, before heading in, Defender pulled down a mask, put on sunglasses, and pressed a worn-out baseball cap low over his face.
*
Just because the city was overrun with fragmented factions didn’t mean they were all constantly at war.
In fact, it was the opposite.
A certain order had formed.
Conquest was an attractive concept, but the battles required to achieve it were neither practical nor rewarding.
Now that every single bullet had become an irreplaceable resource, indiscriminate fighting was the equivalent of handing victory to a third-party faction.
"We’re heading to the Dock Complex."
Standing before a group of armed men blocking the ruined street, Defender spoke calmly.
A man wearing a gas mask turned around, said something into his radio, then waved us through.
"They’re surprisingly polite," I muttered, watching them fade into the distance.
"It’s mutual benefit."
Defender was, without a doubt, a psychopath.
Even in a situation where a betrayal could come from behind at any moment, he didn’t sweat a single drop.
"Mutual benefit?"
"For when their people need to pass through someone else’s territory later. It’s just a beat-up old car, not enough of a risk to bother stopping us."
I had been through many ruins before.
But I had always avoided the ones populated by too many people.
Every high-rise window was a potential sniper’s nest.
And sure enough, every now and then, a shadow with a gun peeked out from the buildings lining the wide avenue.
Defender had been through this area before.
"...I came here once to hunt down a guy named Heo Jun. He was a high-ranking cultist, hiding in Incheon while running illegal conversions and terrorist activities. Kim Byung-cheol personally ordered Kim Daram to take him out, so we were deployed."
"What happened to him?"
Defender let out a short sigh and shook his head.
"We lost him."
"His real name is Heo Jun?"
"No. No one knows his real name. He just got the nickname because he claimed he had the power to heal people."
"An Awakened with healing abilities, huh."
That reminded me—there was another guy, Heo Jong-cheol.
He was an asshole back in the day, but now, he'd be pretty valuable.
"Still no contact with Heo Jong-cheol?"
"I heard he ended up under Kim Byung-cheol."
"Kim Byung-cheol? That guy’s still alive?"
"Who knows."
Ahead of us, a pile of abandoned cars blocked the road.
Another barricade. Another faction.
"Hey. Where you headed?"
A woman covered in piercings and a mask swaggered toward us, her husky voice cutting through the air.
"Dock Complex."
"Oh. The Dock Complex?"
She scoffed.
"You here as customers?"
Defender nodded.
"That place has been bad news lately."
She smiled cryptically and stepped aside, letting us through.
Second checkpoint cleared.
But this was only the beginning.
We still had to pass through the territories of over eight different factions.
The inspections themselves were smooth, but what bothered me was how every single one of them—like that pierced woman—had the same contemptuous reaction to the Dock Complex.
After clearing the ninth checkpoint, we finally saw it.
The sun reflected off the distant ocean, and a tall apartment complex loomed ahead.
"That apartment..."
I remembered it.
I had seen it before—through the window of the research lab where I had stayed overnight.
It had some flashy, over-the-top name. Something like Kaiser something-or-other.
Our rattling SUV spewed black smoke as we rolled into the Complex.
It was obvious even before we arrived—this place was in bad shape.
Traces of battle were everywhere.
Bodies, still uncollected, rotted beneath the rubble.
The stench of death filled the air.
Armed men appeared from the shadows.
Defender removed his disguise and stepped out of the car.
The men lowered their weapons.
They knew him.
Defender scanned the area with a hardened expression.
"Where’s Team Leader Lee Soo-chil?"
One of the men, shoulders slumped, answered weakly.
"Dead. Twelve hours ago."
He pointed toward a corner.
There, rows of bodies lay, their feet poking out from beneath plastic sheets.
Defender showed no emotion.
His voice remained steady as he asked his next question.
"What happened?"
The man with the gun let out a bitter laugh and slumped to the ground.
"...The cultists brought a monster."
"A capsule?"
I asked.
Because what he had just said contradicted everything I knew.
The man shook his head.
"It wasn’t a capsule. No, fuck... They brought a real, living monster. A monster in the flesh."
