NOVPUBNot everyone tells the truth.
Especially in a battlefield where life and death intersect, the truth becomes even more obscure.
Because even what the speaker believes to be the truth may not actually be true.
"I swear, it was a monster! They brought a monster with them!"
The man's pupils were dilated, and his body trembled violently at irregular intervals.
He looked like he was on stimulants.
His intentions might have been pure, but his words had lost their credibility.
In cases like this, cross-verification was necessary.
If there was only one witness, there was no way to be sure, but when there were multiple, all testimonies had to be checked.
Though even cross-verification wouldn’t necessarily lead to the correct answer.
"The cultists brought a monster. I saw it too."
"Rather than ‘bringing it,’ they ‘led it.’ It was like they were giving it orders."
"They were definitely leading it. I hid as soon as I saw them."
Madness spreads easily on the battlefield.
But what stood out was that most of the witnesses had not taken stimulants, and their statements remained consistent.
"My name is Kwon Chan-young."
The one leading the Complex now was a young doctor named Kwon Chan-young.
His discolored white coat was still stained with dried blood.
Among everyone we had met here, he was the most stable, both physically and mentally.
If anyone could confirm the truth, it would be him.
I asked, "Did the cultists really control a monster?"
Kwon Chan-young fell into deep thought.
"They were together, that much is certain. But I never saw them commanding it. Still... when they left, they were together. They razed our Complex to the ground and walked away with their followers."
A difficult story to believe.
But when so many people say the same thing, at the very least, it had to be considered.
We still knew nothing about monsters.
That fact must not be forgotten.
It was possible that everything we thought we knew was wrong.
Defender handed Kwon Chan-young a small gift.
Alcohol, cigarettes, and ammunition.
In exchange, Defender asked about his inside contact in the Complex.
Perhaps it was thanks to the gift, but even in his exhausted state, Kwon Chan-young answered sincerely.
"Lee Soo-chil died fighting bravely. He was trying to kill the cultist who was controlling the monster, but he was caught in the reflective force field and perished. That cultist was an Awakened."
Then, Kwon Chan-young spoke about the cult.
"They... demand children.
"Especially those with the potential to become Awakened. They will do anything to take them.
"No one knows what they do with those children... but everyone here knows that not a single one has ever come back."
I never believed in geomantic principles, but maybe locations do have meaning.
The cultists, settled around the docks, were doing the same thing Woo Min-hee once did with her research lab.
The cult had sent envoys to nearby communities, demanding children.
And if there were no children, they demanded young women capable of bearing them.
The Complex had suffered under these demands for a long time.
They had handed over children in the past.
But the cultists were never satisfied.
If you gave them one, they asked for two.
If you gave them two, they demanded everything.
"Everyone opposed fighting them.
"'Even if we fight, only our neighbors will benefit from our downfall.'
"Most people agreed that it was easier to just hand over the children and reduce our numbers."
Kwon Chan-young slumped to the ground, shaking his head.
"It was bullshit. We should have fought."
A frail, middle-aged man who had been watching us suddenly screamed in a shrill voice.
"Fighting wouldn’t have changed anything! Look at what happened! This is what fighting got us!"
He clearly didn’t like what Kwon Chan-young was saying.
Kwon Chan-young ignored him, but the man kept ranting, trying to justify himself.
"At least by not fighting, we lasted this long! At least we’re still alive to complain! You don’t even know what’s what, and yet you act like you understand everything!"
I glanced at Defender.
There was nothing more to gain here.
Defender sighed, scanning the area.
"Not the best place to leave the car."
"Then?"
"We’ll park it as close as possible before heading in on foot."
"That’s probably the best option."
It didn’t look like we’d be getting any fuel here either.
But at least we had confirmed the presence of several factions along the way.
One of them would «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» be willing to trade.
It was time to leave.
Defender took care of the farewells.
"We’ll be on our way now. We’d like to help, but as you can see, our situation isn’t much better."
"I understand. Take care."
Defender headed toward the car first.
I looked around.
Towering apartment buildings lined up like a backdrop.
The ruined park beneath them.
Before the war, how many people had lived here?
They must have been happy.
But before long, no one would be left.
I sighed lightly and followed Defender.
Behind me, Kwon Chan-young, still wearing his blood-stained surgical gloves, muttered to himself.
"...If only PaleNet still existed."
I felt no particular sympathy for this group.
This was just another common sight in the apocalypse.
The natural course of extinction for a species doomed to die.
But those three syllables—
PaleNet.
They struck something inside me.
"PaleNet?"
I turned back and spoke to Kwon Chan-young.
Even in his exhaustion, he looked slightly surprised by the sudden question.
I stared at him and asked the question I had already prepared.
"That PaleNet... was it created by John Nae-non?"
"John Nae-non?"
"You don’t know him?"
"Ah... Now that I think about it, before PaleNet collapsed, there was an admin with that name. Never understood why he had to display it so prominently everywhere."
"Ah...!!"
As expected.
People missed PaleNet.
And they missed John Nae-non.
I needed to be sure.
"Do you think things would have been different if PaleNet still existed?"
Kwon Chan-young nodded firmly.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
"It was clunky and chaotic, but it connected people across distances.
"It was a medium that brought survivors together."
He gave a bitter smile and stared down at the dark, inactive screen of his old phone.
"...But now, there’s nothing left. Nothing at all."
"......"
I turned away and got into the car.
Defender asked, "What was that about?"
"Just... some internet talk."
But it wasn’t just idle talk.
It was important.
Maybe just as important as the mentor I was about to find.
***
The chaotic arrangement of buildings, the war-torn debris left abandoned, the gaudy tents scattered across the landscape, and the endless waves of the West Sea.
The docks hadn’t changed much since the last time I was here—whether it was when I stayed near Hunter Street for a while or when I had to stop M9 and Baek Seung-hyun from tearing each other apart.
It was a sad thing.
The landscape was familiar, yet there was not a single familiar person left in it.
The dock was once filled with people. The arrogant and overbearing government agents, my junior Woo Min-hee—they were all gone.
According to Defender, the only ones left at the docks now were zombies and cultists.
Even then, the last time Defender passed through, he hadn’t seen any monsters.
But the Complex’s survivors had spoken of cultists leading monsters around.
Defender and I had worked together many times.
We weren’t exactly a team, but a single glance or a quick hand signal was all we needed to communicate.
Above all, the most valuable thing we had was trust.
I trusted him.
And he trusted me.
Defender went ahead to scout first.
Sometimes, his unnerving tendencies still caught me off guard.
But when I saw him take the lead like this, I found that I didn’t really care.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—Defender is an outstanding hunter.
His overall combat skills were versatile, but in one-on-one fights, scavenging, reconnaissance, and survival tactics, he was even better than me.
Night belonged to the zombies.
But there were things far more dangerous than zombies.
So, we decided to wait for nightfall before making our move.
Soon enough, Defender returned from his reconnaissance.
"The number of zombies has dropped since I was last here. And I don’t mean by half—I mean nearly wiped out."
"Must be the cultists’ doing."
"Most likely."
For the cultists, zombies were a shield, protecting them from the Legion faction.
But now that the Legion was gone, zombies were nothing more than a nuisance—vermin to be exterminated.
Beneath the full moon rising high in the sky, we held our breath and watched the docks.
There wasn’t much we could see in the dark.
But sound told us everything we needed to know.
The most frequent sound?
Insects.
No matter how eerie a zombie’s moan was, it became insignificant before the autumn chorus of insects longing for the season.
We lay there, waiting for another sound to break through the background noise.
"Skeleton."
Lying prone beside me, Defender spoke.
He had something to say.
I braced myself before answering.
"What is it?"
"It’s about my sister."
"...Yeah?"
"What? She’s not your type?"
So that’s where this was going.
"Your sister, huh."
"Yeah."
Type?
She was beautiful, had history with me, and at the very least, she was bright and cheerful whenever we spoke.
As a man, there was no reason to refuse.
But what could I say?
Something about it just felt different.
It was an almost fundamental rejection, as if we were simply too different.
"What?"
Defender smirked faintly as he watched me.
Even in the dim light, his sharp, handsome face stood out.
That face was waiting for my answer.
"You really want to make me your ‘Suh-seobang’?"
"Wouldn’t that be nice?"
"...You’re coming on pretty strong."
Unlike me, who was still smirking, Defender’s expression remained blank.
That meant he was serious.
I wiped the grin off my face as well and thought for a moment.
"You know..."
"?"
"The guy we’re looking for—Jang Ki-young."
"The headmaster, you mean?"
"Yeah. You have no idea how hard he tried to get me married. Or, more specifically, to make sure I had kids."
Defender, being a product of the Hunter Academy, instantly understood the historical implications of my words.
"Oh, you mean that ‘Second-Gen Hunter’ plan? The one where they pushed elite hunters to have kids as soon as possible?"
More accurately, it wasn’t just about producing superior hunters.
It was part of a larger experiment—to see how monster exposure and Rift contamination affected future generations.
Either way, Jang Ki-young’s intentions were obvious.
"He tried to set me up with someone so many times."
"That’s news to me."
"Even Kim Daram was one of his picks."
"Wait, seriously...?"
For once, the great psychopath Defender actually reacted.
I could see his expression shift the moment Kim Daram’s name came up.
Now, how much should I tell him?
"She never admitted it, but I had ways of finding out. Another guy told me she was called in by Jang Ki-young before she ever came to me as my first team member."
"You’re saying Headmaster Jang personally sent Kim Daram to you? Professor—no, Skeleton?"
"It’s just speculation. But a pretty damn likely one."
"Man. If we still had Hunter! Apocalypse! boards running, this would be an instant top post."
"Hmm. You think so?"
Honestly, it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Kim Daram and I never had any romantic interest in each other.
It was always a superior-subordinate dynamic—nothing more.
If I were to be completely honest, my type was definitely not a woman as materialistic, relentless, and terrifyingly gorilla-like as Kim Daram.
Judging by the disgrace she was bringing upon herself now, my instincts back then had been correct.
"It wasn’t just Kim Daram."
"Oh?"
"Even Woo Min-hee was one of Jang Ki-young’s match-up candidates."
"Now that I have a hard time believing."
"She never went through with it. But it’s a fact that many female graduates from the Academy—ones who either died in China or disappeared without a trace—were intentionally assigned to me."
My team had a disproportionately high number of female members compared to others.
If we included support personnel, the percentage sometimes reached as high as 60%.
But back then, I was nothing more than a tool.
A weapon forged for one purpose:
To kill monsters.
"...And after all that, do you really think I’d just fall for a pretty girl standing next to me?"
Defender chuckled.
"You’re tougher than I thought."
"Yeah. I am tough."
"Skeleton looks easy to me."
"Skeleton’s even less easy."
We exchanged a few jokes.
Then, as if on cue, we both fell silent.
A dull, echoing thud rang out from across the docks, carrying under the moonlight.
Kaang!
The sound was distorted by distance, but I knew exactly what it was.
The impact of a blunt weapon smashing into human flesh—specifically, a skull.
How did I know?
Because I’d heard it countless times.
When the furious Chinese army lined up rebels, too cheap to waste bullets, and crushed their heads with metal pipes—what they called ‘zombie-breaker rods.’
"Cultists."
We spotted them beneath the moonlight.
They weren’t dressed in extravagant robes like the ones from Yuan Province.
Instead, they wore plain clothes—but each had a white sash, like the ones worn by politicians during elections.
There were five of them.
Only one had a shotgun.
The rest carried heavy clubs.
They strolled casually, smashing zombies' heads as they passed.
"Hahahaha!!"
From their scattered laughter, it was obvious—
They were enjoying it.
We observed their patrol route carefully.
When they stopped in front of a warehouse, they suddenly turned back.
"They’re heading back." 𝔫𝖔𝖛𝖕𝔲𝔟.𝔠𝖔𝖒
Then, we heard it.
A soft chime.
Ding—ding—
And the sound of wagon wheels creaking.
Under the moonlight, a single rickshaw rolled forward.
The man pulling it—
"Instructor."
Jang Ki-young.
