NOVPUBThroughout my school years and my time in active duty, I faced numerous criticisms and slanders, but the hardest thing to endure was the misunderstanding of my relationship with Jang Ki-young.
"Isn't Jang Ki-young actually Park Gyu’s real father?"
"I’m not the only one who thinks that."
"It could be a smokescreen."
"If Jang Ki-young had given just half the attention he gives Park Gyu to the other students, there wouldn't have been so many dropouts."
I was his top student, monopolizing his support and attention.
Someone’s attention often leads to someone else’s jealousy.
It’s a very natural flow, but deep down, I was reluctant to let Jang Ki-young become a father-like figure to me.
In reality, I was his student, but I didn’t like him, and over time, I even came to hate him.
The feeling of hatred grew in proportion to my rising fame, the increasing number of monsters I defeated, and just before I left China, I even mentally branded Jang Ki-young as a complete fraud.
However, despite that deep-seated hatred, there was one unchanging fact.
Jang Ki-young liked me.
He genuinely depended on me and hoped I would achieve even greater accomplishments.
My success was his pride.
I won’t deny that sincerity.
"Park Gyu. Your posture is off. Some people say that a rigid and disciplined posture doesn’t help much in real combat, but posture is the mirror that reflects your heart. When you are lost, it will be the reference point that sets your course."
After work, my mentor’s image suddenly appeared in my mind, forcing me to relive the harsh personal lessons he made me endure.
That image was soon replaced by a living corpse, an emaciated figure with pale, lifeless pupils, dragging a cart like a mummy.
"Ugh... nozzle... nozzle... jet spray..."
The fact that Jang Ki-young still had some awareness was true.
But in this state, wouldn’t it be better for him to just remain silent, like a normal zombie?
A chill ran down my spine, and I felt an eerie sense of dread.
"..."
I wasn’t in good shape.
I could feel the disturbance in my emotions.
"Skeleton."
Defender looked at my face.
"Your expression isn’t good."
I responded with hand signals.
It meant I wanted to proceed.
We decided to bypass the fanatic.
We were cautious, keeping as much distance as possible, taking a route that would lead us away from the potential sensory-equipped enemies, while still heading towards Jang Ki-young.
Avoiding the fanatic meant we would encounter other enemies.
There were a group of zombies stumbling behind a warehouse that had been eroded by time, where even the moonlight could not reach.
They noticed us and sluggishly started walking toward us, one of them sprinting in our direction with surprising speed.
Defender stepped forward.
Bam!
Blunt weapons are extremely effective when dealing with zombies.
Human bones and tendons are sturdier than they appear, and blades dull much more quickly than expected.
Snap!
Defender, merciless as always, crushed the running zombie's head with one strike, then quickly advanced, knocking another zombie down with a swift blow and then slamming its head down with his front paw.
I followed close behind and dealt with the zombies trying to attack from the sides.
Crack!
In an instant, the zombie horde was cleared.
Most of the work had been done by Defender.
He approached me, wielding a club dripping with slimy blood.
"Are you okay? You seem to be feeling worse all of a sudden."
"I’m fine."
I wasn’t fine.
The truth was, I was shaken.
The problem was the cause.
I wasn’t shaken because of Jang Ki-young's changed appearance.
I already knew the reality of him, and I had been prepared for even worse outcomes.
What truly shook me was the surprise.
The fact that Jang Ki-young, the old man I despised so much, could still shake my emotions just by appearing in front of me was something I couldn’t bear.
"Let’s go."
Had Jang Ki-young really been that important to me?
From the start, he didn’t like me or choose me as his successor.
In fact, during our first meeting, he had shown his usual, condescending attitude when dealing with students who didn’t meet his standards, much like how he treated Kang Han-min.
He only began to treat me as his true student after I excelled in various tests.
That was when I took the top spot for the first time.
From that point on, I became Jang Ki-young’s disciple. Before that, I was just another student he had hoped would drop out.
In other words, Jang Ki-young only saw me as a tool.
"There’s another group up ahead. Their numbers are few, but it looks like they have a lot of runners. What should we do?"
I continued to respond with hand signals.
We would push forward.
Taking a different route would only bring us into contact with zombies that the fanatics hadn’t dealt with.
"What about the fanatics?"
"There’s been no reaction. I can still hear the whistling from afar. At least 300 meters away."
"The sound travels further and clearer at night. The whistle could be a deception."
We paused and observed the situation.
Creak- creak—
Jang Ki-young was still dragging a cart along the pier.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
His slow, staggered movements with the cart seemed oddly peaceful, though it didn’t fit the situation.
Jang Ki-young soon entered a warehouse by the pier.
It was marked with the name "13B," partially erased.
I remained still, listening intently, trying to pick up any sounds from the surroundings.
A cloud covered the moon.
As the world darkened, the chorus of insects grew louder.
However, it wasn’t enough to completely drown out our hearing.
With guns in hand, we calmly watched the potential areas where enemies might appear, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
In the past, people with sensory abilities were terrifying, but after several encounters, I realized that they were no different from us. They had human limitations and weren’t the supernatural beings they were made out to be.
Fear mostly comes from ignorance.
Once I figured out how to deal with them, I realized that sensory abilities weren’t directly helpful in combat.
Ironically, the first person to downplay sensory abilities was none other than Jang Ki-young.
"If you find a person, what then? Does finding them mean they’ll die? No, right? That’s something you can solve with technology. Just using infrared sensors, you can find almost anyone."
At the time, his words were dismissed as nonsense, but now, after all this time, they seemed convincing.
However, that doesn’t mean Jang Ki-young had foresight.
The main reason he downplayed sensory abilities was because the person he was competing with for resources was a low-level Awakened.
Everything with my mentor followed this pattern.
The reason his words often ended up being accurate was not because he was extraordinary.
It was because he spoke so much.
Rustle—
Someone was there.
A fanatic.
It seemed they had discovered and were following us.
After all, there was a bit of noise when we dealt with the zombies.
"Let’s lure them."
I headed towards the collapsed warehouse with Defender.
Inside the warehouse were countless zombies.
Most of them were standing still, frozen in place, not moving at all.
They were dormant zombies.
When they sense the breath of a human, they react and wake up.
As expected, when we appeared, the zombies started twitching and made murmuring sounds.
They were trying to wake up.
Normally, they would scatter, but here, there was a bit of a gamble involved.
I pulled out a handkerchief and covered my nose and mouth.
According to research, zombies react most strongly to sound, especially gunshots, but they also respond to human breath just as sensitively.
It’s not so much a reaction to carbon dioxide itself, but rather the specific combination of gases that humans typically exhale.
Thus, if you cover your mouth with a handkerchief in front of dormant zombies, you can reduce their sensitivity to your breath.
Of course, entering a space full of zombies is something only a madman would do.
Normally, people would take a detour or use overwhelming firepower to clear them out.
But here, a gamble was needed.
I pulled out a handkerchief and covered my nose and mouth, trying to keep my presence as minimal as possible as I scanned the inside of the warehouse.
Luck was on our side.
There was a makeshift catwalk connecting the assembly stairs, close to the roof.
"Here?" Defender asked.
I nodded at his question and stepped onto the stairs first.
Creeeak—
It was quite old but not decayed to the point of collapse.
The weight of two fully armed adult men would be easily supported.
"Let’s set an ambush here."
While keeping my air supply restricted, I briefly explained the plan to Defender, my eyes on the zombies while simultaneously observing the building structure.
It had been revealed in Jeju, but sensory abilities are not invincible.
A sensory perceiver can only detect where someone is, not who they are.
They can’t tell whether we're scavengers coming for supplies or trained hunters.
Thus, we could trick them into thinking we were nothing more than moths attracted to the flame, not all-knowing trackers who could find anyone hiding.
We dug a death trap here.
"They’re inside."
I could hear the fanatic's voice beyond the wall.
From the footsteps, there were three of them.
They seemed to have underestimated us.
Perhaps, not having encountered proper combatants in this area gave them an overconfidence boost.
The fanatics entered the building.
They most likely encountered a large number of zombies first.
"Hah!"
"These are dormant zombies."
The fanatics mostly carried blunt weapons, with only one of them holding a shotgun.
Was there someone with a shotgun among them?
Bang!
There was.
And they made a mistake.
"Uuuagh..."
"Grraarr..."
Surprised by the sudden discovery of many zombies, the fanatic inadvertently woke up the dormant ones.
There were about fifty of them.
It would be great to deal with them all at once, but a prolonged fight would only attract more zombies.
While the number of zombies in this pier didn’t seem to be that high, it would still be a daunting number for five fanatics, especially since they were lacking automatic firearms.
"Let’s run."
Still covering my air supply, I quickly ascended the catwalk and walked briskly.
There was a ladder leading to the roof at the midway point.
Once on the roof, I would observe the situation and head directly towards Jang Ki-young’s warehouse.
"Grraarr!!!"
The zombies were waking up.
They immediately went after the ones who ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) had woken them up.
Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
"Damn!"
The fanatic’s exclamation echoed from beyond the wall.
Seizing the opportunity, I moved swiftly along the catwalk towards the roof.
Standing on the steep sloped roof, I watched the situation below.
Boom!
I felt a shockwave.
One of the fanatics who had tracked us down was apparently an Over 5-Level Awakened.
Crisp crack!!
With a flash of pale light, I could hear the sound of something burning, which suggested they had gained some offensive powers as well.
But the zombies’ momentum was not to be underestimated.
Wooo—
Wooo—
The response of the zombies echoed from all directions.
They had realized their kin were under attack and were showing signs of trying to rescue them.
The fanatics weren’t fools, so they started retreating.
I quickly descended the ladder with Defender and rushed toward the target warehouse.
[ 13B ]
There.
There, my mentor Jang Ki-young was.
The closer I got to the warehouse, the heavier my footsteps seemed to get.
"..."
Was this really how it was?
Despite all my denial and disregard, was it that in the end, connections, love, and the magnitude of attention couldn’t be easily dismissed with a single cynical thought?
I had been a tool for Jang Ki-young.
That was a fact.
Let me add one more thing.
I was also his pride, his bragging right.
I know that.
Every time I discovered and defeated a new monster, identified new weaknesses, or patterns, Jang Ki-young was genuinely happy, as if it was his own achievement.
I hated that.
But why?
Because he was a snob?
Because he was a fraud, pretending to know things he didn’t?
I was getting closer to the warehouse.
The sound of a dead person’s breath could be heard so clearly it almost stuck to my skin.
Taking one more step, I heard the voice I knew all too well, a voice I thought I would never hear again, coming through the open warehouse door.
"Herzenfrey’s method relied too much on machinery. My approach is much more tailored for humans. Machines are simply tools for the population. Tools presuppose humans. If you forget that simple fact, you’ll make the same mistakes again."
It was Jang Ki-young.
My mentor Jang Ki-young.
The very one who used to talk nonsense so seriously.
"..."
I felt Defender’s gaze on me.
He spoke softly, his voice low.
"Go in. I’ll keep watch."
I nodded to thank him and entered the warehouse.
And I saw it.
A mountain of discarded junk, too overwhelming to describe.
The large pier warehouse was filled with piles of scrap metal and equipment that made massive mounds scattered throughout the space. At the center of it all, an aging man, his hair mostly fallen out, leaned unsteadily in front of a workbench, swaying like a person having a seizure.
"..."
No words came out.
Back when he was still human, he could talk just fine in that small rented apartment.
But now, my mentor, with his signature absurdity, continued talking nonsense nonstop.
"The invincible, Kraken-type thick gloves that were supposed to be impervious to human technology, they got pierced by non-stop artillery fire. Monsters are like that. I am, too. Woo Min-hee, she’s the same. Should’ve expelled her. Kang Han-min. You’re a bad guy. You’re such a bad guy. Don’t curse me. I haven’t done anything wrong."
For a brief moment, I had hope.
Maybe my mentor wasn’t entirely insane.
Maybe, just maybe, he, who had even gained Awakened powers, would give me a new lesson he hadn’t taught before.
I thought of the black sheet next to Suu's in my room, gathering courage, pushing away the waves of emotions I couldn't even understand, and opened my mouth to the back of my mentor, who was still muttering.
"Instructor."
Jang Ki-young stopped moving.
The zombie slowly turned to look at me.
I was curious about what he would say.
He spoke.
"What? Is that you, Park Gyu?"
My mentor turned back towards his workbench.
"Remember what I said the other day?"
"Huh?"
"I told you I would make a secret weapon for you! That general-type bastard! I’m going to give him a good lesson!"
"......"
"I’ve almost finished it. Yeah, it’s almost done!"
Jang Ki-young laughed out loud.
I couldn’t say anything.
It had happened.
