Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 109



Only Krnovel

58. Cosmos

There is a memory that comes to mind sometimes when the season comes when dragonflies fly, cosmos flowers bloom, and sparsely grown rice plants turn yellow and ripen.

It must have been during the early days of my dispatch to China.

It was a time when this world was brighter and more hopeful, and still had a greed for the other world.

He suffered minor injuries during the mission.

It wasn’t a very serious injury.

All he suffered was a few scrapes and a few cracked bones.

But the world at that time was a place worth living in and was comfortable, so even a person with minor injuries like me was transported to the rear and received the utmost care.

For some reason, the Chinese government treated us well.

While the Chinese soldiers who fought alongside me were treated in noisy, dirty, and chaotic field hospitals, we were treated in a modern medical facility with a beautiful garden overlooking an unknown Chinese palace.

The season at that time would have been autumn.

As expected from a Chinese who loves extravagant things, the garden was filled with a variety of flowers that caught my eye even though I didn’t know their names. But what really caught my eye was the cosmos flowers that were blooming here and there on the construction materials, gravel, and unkempt gravel at the end of the garden.

I liked its simple yet elegant beauty.

Perhaps I was drawn to the cosmos because I was tired of the excessive splendor.

It didn’t take long for us to learn why China had sent us to this place.

A Chinese man who spoke fluent Korean and helped me out repeatedly secretly suggested that I convert.

He promised to give me enough money to live off of for the rest of my life, a beautiful wife, a secure job, and even honor that money can’t buy.

I don’t know how many people fell for that temptation, but I have seen several of my colleagues and juniors and seniors whom I only knew by face fall for this irresistible temptation and wear the O-Sung-Hong-Gi flag on their chests and carry out operations with us.

At that time, China was at its most powerful.

Even the United States was floundering as it failed to properly deal with the rift, and its allies, tired of America’s excessive national-first policy, defected en masse.

In particular, the break with Europe seemed to herald the end of an era called Pax Americana.

But it is an undeniable fact that there are more people who do not succumb to that temptation.

As usual, I was hoping to return to the battlefield early after completing my medical check and was heading out to see the cosmos beyond the garden boundary as usual.

A woman I knew well, but had never spoken to in person, was staring straight at the cosmos I was looking at.

I knew her name.

Na Hye-in.

She was a woman whose name was often listed behind mine and Lee Sang-hoon.

She had an appearance that was difficult to approach rather than pretty, and she always had a gaze that looked into the distance.

Even now, I don’t know where she was looking, but she was quite capable.

If he were a man, he might have had the skills and sense to threaten even me.

In a real team competition where we had to compete against each other, she almost eliminated me.

But her luck wasn’t good.

She was the disciple of Ko Jong-beom, who lost a power game with my mentor Jang Gi-yeong and then went over to China, where he sold all his skills and know-how.

You could tell that Jang Gi-yeong was not a nobleman just by looking at the fact that he was trying to destroy not only Go Jong-beom but also that line.

The Ko Jong-beom line – in particular, his disciples were forced to fight in the dirtiest and most squalid areas.

Na Hye-in was also one of those unlucky lines.

I had heard through rumors that before she was admitted, the team she was on was wiped out and she was the only one who came here alive.

In fact, unlike me, she was wrapped in bandages all over her body, and some parts of it were covered in colors reminiscent of cosmos.

When I found her, I turned around.

It was a habitual avoidance rather than a thoughtful action.

“Do you like cosmos?”

An unfamiliar voice stopped me as I was about to leave.

“Not really.”

I remember his posture at the time as being awkward and unbecoming of a professor.

An ambiguous posture that is neither going nor stopping.

“How is it there?”

“There it is.”

“Where you were. Are there monsters swarming there too?”

“There weren’t that many.”

He straightened his posture and turned towards her.

The side of her face was hidden by tightly wrapped bandages, but it was clear that her gaze was directed towards Cosmos.

“There were quite a few here.”

The reason I turned towards her was because she had put the word monster in her mouth.

Even now, the object of my hatred as a monster has the power to easily extinguish such trivial feelings as Jang Gi-yeong, Go Jong-beom, Line, and Dong-gi.

“What happened to you?”

Of course, I lacked the same level of attention to detail when I was twenty.

Even though she knew her team was annihilated, she dug into the details of that time.

Her response to my question was neither anger nor sadness, but laughter.

“you.”

She looked back at me.

“You really like monsters.”

The gaze that seemed to always be looking into the distance was directed straight at me.

That was our first meeting.

After that, she started coming into my sight.

In the restaurant, in the garden, in the rehabilitation facility, and in the gravel patch at the end of the garden.

The reason I avoided her was because I thought meeting her was unnecessary.

All I wanted was a quick return to the front lines.

Killing and eliminating even one monster was the only mission I had to fulfill as I was left alone in this world.

“Just wait a little longer. The situation at the front is good. There is still time. It is not too late to fully recover and be deployed to the front.”

The author, a dispatched commander who was Jang Gi-yeong’s junior at the military academy, did not allow me to return to the front lines.

I soon realized that the consideration was not out of concern for me, but because I was Jang Gi-yeong’s beloved disciple.

I felt such strong anger that I couldn’t control it.

Some of that anger should be directed at Jang Gi-yeong.

I came to know that all the theories made by these humans were nonsense, and because of those nonsense theories, I was leisurely lounging around in this comfortable place.

I went to see Na Hye-in.

I told her what was going on right away.

“You want to change teams?”

She looked quite beautiful with the bandages removed from her face, but at the time, I was okay with that kind of appearance.

“You should join the team I’m on instead.”

“There’s no one else on our team besides me. It’s basically disbanded.”

“Isn’t there going to be a reorganization anyway? I want to join that reorganized team.”

“······why?”

She asked me, then burst into an uncharacteristic laugh and answered herself.

“Because you like monsters?”

At the time, I didn’t give her any answer, which seemed to have caused her to misunderstand.

She started looking for me.

In restaurants, in gardens, in rehabilitation facilities, and on the gravel paths at the end of gardens.

There have been several encounters that were disguised as coincidences.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t hate that meeting.

It was a time when I was fresh and excited about everything, similar to my first year of college in Korean age.

Now, as I was looking at the cosmos flowers that had only a few petals left, I didn’t move away even though she approached me from afar.

“Is winter coming soon?”

She was holding a book in her hand.

I don’t remember the title, but I clearly remember it was Schopenhauer’s book.

One of the cosmos petals, which had been precariously holding on to the light breeze she brought, fell.

“If a person’s fate is determined from birth.”

She opened her mouth.

“How should we live if all fortunes and tragedies, even death, are predetermined?”

I didn’t feel it was worth answering the question, but for some reason, out of character, I went along with her pun.

“So you’re saying we’re like Blu-rays or albums?”

“You could look at it that way, right?”

She looked at me with a distant gaze and smiled faintly.

“Well, if that’s the case, isn’t it our job to play the stored capacity to the end?”

“What if someone else’s content is stored in it?”

She took a step towards me.

She had a fragrance that cosmos could not contain.

For some reason, I avoided her gaze and watched the dragonflies flying around aimlessly.

Monster-like insects with large, shiny eyes, sometimes in pairs.

“What does that mean?”

When I turned my gaze to her, she was looking at the ground.

“If only.”

I thought that Na Hye-in and hesitation were incompatible propositions.

Her voice was shaking slightly.

“How would it feel if our fates were destined to be close from the beginning and we were to live ordinary, normal lives somewhere other than here?”

“······I don’t think that fate will come to me.”

He said it bluntly.

It wasn’t hard to read the confusion and disappointment on her face, but she showed no sign of it.

“Thanks to you, I think I can go to the front line early.”

I was that kind of guy back then.

Even though I knew that I was hurting others, I was still a good person if it was for my own purposes.

I bowed my head politely to her.

“I changed teams. I heard they’re forming a new team.”

“······okay.”

The gaze that had been looking at me was once again directed into the distance.

I suddenly felt her scent, which I had forgotten for a moment, but I didn’t care.

Still, it seems there was a bit of regret.

“······Are you going to quit?”

I see you asked a question that the professor didn’t answer.

She nodded slightly, looking back at the cosmos, perhaps.

I thought that would be my last time seeing her.

Since then, her existence has been completely forgotten.

The battlefield she was in was so fiercely fought that a single Chinese regiment was reduced to the level of a company in just one day.

Then one day, I happened to see a blooming cosmos and I thought of Na Hye-in, whom I had forgotten about for a while, and heard the news that she had not given up.

I hesitated to contact you out of excitement, but in the end I didn’t make any contact.

As time passed, when she appeared in front of me again as my teammate, we greeted each other naturally and business-like without much surprise.

As if nothing happened.

She must have thought the same thing as I did, but she at that time and her past seemed like completely different people.

So, the Na Hye-in of the past and the Na Hye-in of the present, who used to look at the cosmos blooming on the gravel field where dragonflies were flying under the rare blue sky, are completely different people.

I still firmly believe that the feeling of discomfort is not only due to the gaze of others who are looking further than me.

By the way, when I was watching Cosmos with Na Hye-in, I knew that Kang Han-min was looking this way from far behind, wearing a cast and using crutches.

Now the two have awakened and become the saviors of humanity.

The reason I had bad feelings towards her was not because she was the one who suggested abandoning me when I was fatally wounded by the General type in the rift and went missing.

It is said that the flower language of cosmos is order.

Although the image of order may differ from person to person, it is said that people who believe in God think of order as the order arranged by God.

The so-called scheduled thing.

She said that human fate was predetermined from birth.

So, according to Na Hye-in’s logic, she was given the fate of a savior from the beginning, and this Park Gyu was given the fate of a hermit who just watches.

“······.”

This is a story that is difficult to accept and should not be accepted.

Knock knock

I poured out my concerns on the bulletin board.

SKELTON: (Skeleton muses) Is the fate of man predetermined from birth?

Of course, I’m leaving out Na Hye-in’s name and the fact that I was a hunter.

Unlike in the past, this was a bulletin board of a lower standard, and there were no different opinions on my post about my philosophical essay.

But the next day, I found that there was one comment attached.

gijayangban: Um Chang-i?

I quietly pressed backspace and stood up from my seat.

I feel refreshed.

Whether it was fate or not, the feeling of being screwed is so vivid.

“······.”

I felt the rapidly cooling chill as I looked at the cosmos blooming in the field.

Winter is coming.