Surviving in the 121st Century - Chapter 107



Only Krnovel

Episode 107

*

An unknown comfort enveloped my body as if I was sinking into a deep sleep. However, the comfort was not comfort, but rather a sense of distance, as if I was sinking into death. The old past was calling me.

“River snake. Wake up, river snake. How long are you going to sleep?”

I opened my eyes without moving, just moving my eyelids. I rolled my eyes and saw Seungwook looking at me with slightly displeased eyes. He must be looking at me like that because I stole his dry bread yesterday.

I rolled my eyes and saw the surroundings. We were huddled together in an abandoned building in the city. I was also napping with my back against the wall. The magazines hanging from my tactical vest and the gas mask bag on my side were rustling.

In the corner of an abandoned building that used to be a house, my squad members, including myself, were gathered together and killing time in a haphazard manner. I was starting to feel like shit.

“Wake up. The platoon leader said he’d contact me by 10 p.m. If that bastard doesn’t respond, he’ll come back and make a big fuss.”

“···”

As I rolled my eyes, Seung-wook spoke again. He seemed to think I was out of my mind. But now, my mind was clearer and more vivid than ever. These ruins, this situation, this conversation. I remember it all. It was a moment in the war when everyone was happily dying. It was a fragment of the past that I could not forget.

But since I didn’t answer, Seungwook’s expression, which had been staring at me with a grim expression, slightly relaxed. He’s such a gentle kid. He can’t even get angry properly.

“···What is it? There’s still time left, so would you like some crackers? I have a bag right now.”

“What? You ate all that yesterday and you still have leftovers? How much of this kid’s food has he embezzled? He’ll be dragged off to the military police for embezzlement soon.”

It wasn’t me who answered Seungwook’s words. It was Yeongsu who was sitting next to him. He spoke a bit harshly, but he had a sense of duty, so everyone in the squad liked him. Seungwook also laughed heartily at Yeongsu’s words.

“Please take me with you. If you can get me to the rear, I’ll have no more wishes.”

“Really? Then should I report you? I’ll look good to the higher-ups, and you’ll get to the rear. This is killing two birds with one stone, killing two birds with one stone, damn it. But why do you like hardtack so much, you punk? What does that gritty stuff taste like?”

Seung-wook took out a bag of crackers while making a noise. As he opened the crumpled bag and started to chew on it, the squad members who were lying around like corpses in the abandoned building started to approach him and take a few pieces each.

“Damn it. I thought I wouldn’t have to eat this after I was discharged from the army···”

Jaehyuk, who came up next to me, muttered something like that and put the dry crackers in his mouth. The other squad members also thought that I really didn’t eat dry crackers, but I liked it anyway, when you go to the reserves, don’t you eat a bag every now and then? It’s delicious if you eat it sometimes, etc., and they added things like that.

As I distributed them little by little to the squad members, Seungwook had only three or four pieces and crumbs left in his bag of crackers. He grabbed the bag and sneaked up next to me.

“River. But there are still star candies left. Please eat some.”

The bag of biscuits that the guy held out was filled with crumbs and white star candies. I stared at it blankly, then met Seungwook’s eyes again.

And then I said what I really needed to say.

“This time, I’ll go in first.”

Seungwook’s eyes widened as he held out the bag of crackers. The guy who had been blinking with his eyes wide open soon smiled. And without asking what he was talking about, he continued talking naturally.

“That won’t work.”

“It won’t work. I’ll go in first.”

The guy slowly shook his head at me as I spoke softly.

“No, snake. Snakes need to live a long time.”

“Don’t be a jerk. You’re better off than a brat like me. So I’ll go in first. You follow behind me.”

“I told you not to. The river snake must live. Only then can we show off Captain Korea’s power to the 121st century’s uncivilized techno-barbarians.”

I gritted my teeth. Seriously, don’t be so annoying. Who asked you to do something like that? Captain Korea, who the hell asked you to send me to that kind of future?

“I should have gone in first then. You have parents waiting for you, and a younger sister too…”

“If someone had to wait here and live, there are many friends who wouldn’t be able to return. Don’t you remember? Many of them left when the nuclear bomb exploded.”

“That’s why you should live even more! Rather than a kid who lost control and fell off a cliff because no one was waiting for him! Rather than a kid who couldn’t get out and ended up in a strange world that was either fantasy or science fiction! You should have lived more than that idiot! Of course you should have lived!”

Seung-wook’s smile did not disappear even at my shouting voice. After a while, the radio rang, and he smiled as we moved through the darkness of the city, entered a new abandoned building, engaged the enemy inside, and were shot and fell to the ground in the process.

“I think it’s lucky that Kangbaem is alive. Because he’s Kangbaem, he clenched his teeth and followed Sangcheol hyung, saying he’d get revenge. If it were me, I wouldn’t have done that. Even if he had followed him, he probably wouldn’t have been able to open his parachute when jumping out of the transport plane, and he would have fallen to his death in a panic. But because he’s Kangbaem, because he’s our great Captain Korea, he was able to endure until the end between those special forces with great experience, and he was able to shoot the mad scientist.”

“Don’t be a jerk… I wish you had just lived. I wish I had just died…”

“River snake. River snake must live. Only then can there be people who remember us ten thousand years from now. In a world where the past has been forgotten and erased, River snake is the only one who can remember us. That’s why River snake must live.”

I felt a great sense of helplessness, a sense of emptiness and weakness, as if all my internal organs had disappeared. It was as if a huge hole had been opened inside my body and everything inside me had poured out through it.

After a while, the radio came. Orders to move. We stood up and started to move. The entire city was dark, and only the gloomy red lights of the flames illuminated the sky. My squad and I walked silently through the darkness, and soon we reached our destination.

I didn’t say anything, but Seungwook naturally took the lead. He smiled at me and went inside the door. A moment later, a gunshot rang out. I knew the whole process, but I couldn’t stop it. It just happened that way. It was a fucking nightmare.

I quickly dragged the guy who had fallen backwards out and threw a grenade inside. A deafening roar erupted, and this time I took the lead and ran inside. Inside, I could see the enemy soldiers who were bewildered by our sudden appearance.

They also reflexively fired their guns at Seung-wook who suddenly opened the door and appeared. When we look closely, their faces are no different from ours.

I aimed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger.

The squad members, exhausted and stretched out from the long fight, now entered the abandoned building with half-turned faces. They obsessively emptied their magazines at every corner they turned, and started to put grenades in places that looked a little narrow and dangerous. Gunshots and explosions erupted from the previously quiet abandoned building, making their earsplitting sounds.

Only after the building was completely cleared out did I run down to the first floor. Yongjun, who was acting as a medic, was holding Seungwook’s hand with sunken eyes.

As I knelt down in front of him, Seung-wook looked at me with a smile, even though he was bleeding profusely. He held out his hand, and I took it.

“···I should have checked the inside first.”

“Everyone was tired and in a difficult situation. On top of that, the platoon leader told us to go here. It was an empty building, so we were to occupy it and wait for a moment before joining up with them. It was a situation where anyone could have made a mistake.”

You died because of that mistake. It was an unforgivable mistake. Then and now, I am a human being who makes mistakes. I am no better than you in anything.

I lowered my head, clutching my hands that were slippery with blood.

“···I’m sorry. Really.”

“If you’re really sorry, Kang-baem. You must live. You must live for a long time so that we can be remembered. Do you understand?”

The hand I was holding tightly suddenly melted like water. I raised my head in surprise and the scenery had changed. The city that had been like a burning hell was no longer visible. Instead, what appeared was a barracks that was a mess with blood, corpses, and scattered entrails.

And among the corpses of my squad, there was a guy. A guy with bloodshot eyes staring at me. A crazy guy who had torn all of my squad members to pieces with his bare hands.

He looked at me and laughed. He said.

“You’re the only one left?”

I laughed at the guy’s voice. In fact, I didn’t understand what he was saying at the time. It wasn’t Korean, and I was out of my mind because all my squad members had died. So what he was saying now was something I made up.

“Yeah. I’m the only one left. Everyone else is dead, and I’m the only one. Just a cripple like me···”

I straightened my knees and stood up. I saw the bloody guy looking at me with interest. I gritted my teeth, straightened my back, and rushed at him.

My fist hit the bastard in the jaw.

“···Hahahahaha-!”

But my fist was so weak right now. To be exact, compared to the superhuman soldiers who could tear people apart with their bare hands. At that time, I was just a normal human. The crazy guy who got hit in the jaw laughed as if it didn’t even tickle. Then he stretched out his hand and slammed it into my chest.

I couldn’t even let out a groan. Then, the bastard lowered his hand down, splitting the front of my upper body open, and all my internal organs poured out.

The unbearable helplessness and emptiness I had been feeling for a while now had grown even stronger. It was natural. There is no one who is okay with pouring out everything that was inside their body.

I suddenly lost all my strength and fell to my knees. At the same time, I felt my muscles and blood drying up. It wasn’t just a feeling, it was real. I instinctively raised the synesthetic vision I had maintained before I passed out and looked inside my body, and soon I knew why.

I fell asleep ten thousand years ago and was injected with the medicine of a super soldier through an unknown route. After enduring that long period of time, I woke up and was able to move right away without any special rehabilitation. Even my physical abilities at that time were easily superior to those of the camp members I was with.

The body awoke once more when it was shot while rescuing children.

After waking up from a long sleep, my body, which had been well rested and nourished, was already ready to generate new strength. Then, after experiencing a strong shock, the changes I had been preparing for began, and I became a super soldier who could easily shatter Olog’s head with my bare fists and ignore bullet wounds.

The body that had changed greatly continued to develop afterwards. The five senses became more sensitive, and physical strength and reflexes developed. It was not for nothing that Ai said that I was the only one who could not adapt to that body. The extent of the change was beyond the level that an ordinary person could control.

But as my body changed, so did I, and I was getting used to my new body to some extent. If only I had had a little more time, the discord between my mind and body that Aiman ​​had been talking about would have become one again. But then this happened. Avaganth. That crazy fake Hulk bastard.

The strength of the bastard, which was incomparable to that of Special Envoy William, and the injuries he incurred, reawakened his body that was stabilizing. It was a drug from a super soldier who had been sleeping for ten thousand years to survive. During that long time, it wanted a stronger body, something that was either instinct or will. A body that was faster, stronger, and more excellent than Avagant. A body that was stronger than anyone else.

However, there was a shortage of materials to make that body. The nutrients supplied before were not enough. While buried underground, it was possible to absorb organic and inorganic nutrients from underground through its skin, but now even that was impossible.

Eventually, my body tried to burn itself to create a stronger body.

Of course, this is nonsense. It is like a tree trying to bloom by eating its roots. In the end, it is a vicious cycle in which the flowers, roots, and stem all die.

The power that had kept me alive for ten thousand years was now killing me. An unbearable sense of emptiness and helplessness came over me. In front of me, the madman who had torn open my heart was standing there, looking down on me. I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or if it was real. The synesthetic vision I had created to examine my body added to the confusion. Am I really dying? Or is this just a moment in a nightmare?

Hahahahaha-!

The laughter of a madman. I raised my hand. Even when I go, I will tear that snout apart. No, if I cannot tear it apart, I will leave some kind of trace. I will leave behind the fact that I lived and that I remember my old friends.

As I lifted my hands with such difficulty, I suddenly saw my left arm. I saw countless solid lines engraved on that arm, a tattoo that looked like a barcode. Was this it?

The next moment, the tattoos surrounding his arms in a circle began to burn.

Strength returned to the limbs that had been eating themselves. Amazingly hot heat continued to pour out from inside the tattoo. The heat flowed through the blood vessels and spread throughout the body. The unbearable feeling of weakness disappeared.

The muscles that had shrunk so badly quickly swelled again, and the veins that had been dry began to pulse vigorously. A power incomparable to that of before surged through my entire body. The power of the sun spread out to every limb, breaking the vicious cycle that had been eating away at me and opening a new path.

Hahaha…?

The madman’s laughter subsided as he looked down at me. It must have been because of the way I slowly got up. I straightened my back once more and reached out to him.

Oh my…

He couldn’t dodge. His eyes were distorted with surprise, bewilderment, and fear. With a thud, the madman’s head was shattered. Crushed skull, flesh, and pale brain fragments fell to the ground.

I lifted my head after blowing off the bastard’s head. All around me was darkness. I looked into that darkness and spoke quietly.

“This isn’t the end, is it?”

Then, as if waiting for those words, the image of a barracks in disarray appeared from beyond the darkness. Also, there were crazy guys swarming around the barracks. They were all covered in blood and flesh and had smiles on their faces as if they had gone crazy. Their faces were the same as mine. Crazy superhuman soldiers. So I laughed too.

Those crazy guys came rushing in like a wave, and I threw myself against the waves as if I was going to block them with my bare body.

When I stretched out my fist, I pierced two or three of their chests, and when I kicked them like a whip, I split the waists of five or six of them. When I got in their way with my movements, the madmen were torn apart like sheets of paper.

Neither they nor I stopped. I killed and killed the superhuman soldiers with my face. I wanted to die even like that.

After a while, dozens or hundreds of them all turned into corpses, and I knelt down on top of the mountain of corpses. Even though I became stronger, my five senses became more sensitive, and my body became more agile, this is what I ended up with. It was a scene that did not match the Captain Korea or whatever Seungwook had said.

The heat from the tattoo and the body that fed on that heat were more energetic than ever, but I didn’t want to stand up anymore. My upper body, which had been split open and spilling out its internal organs, had healed and formed solid muscles, but I still felt like there was a big hole in me.

It was different from the signal of a body starving for nutrients. It was a black hole that could not be filled even by the heat flowing through the veins.

The hole seemed to suck in everything that existed in the country. Before I knew it, even the pile of corpses I was kneeling on was slowly pulling me in. I slowly sank into the corpses. The dead were pulling me in.

Okay. That’s the end.

As my lower body was completely submerged in the corpse, I raised my head and looked up at the sky. There was only a black sky without any stars or moon. The low sky, as if looking up at a pitch-black ceiling. It was the sky of a burning city, and it was the sky I thought I would see for the last time as I died at the end of the war.

But something was coming down from the sky. What was that?

I squinted my eyes and saw a palm-sized ball of light falling down, unsteady on its own. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a small boar. A miniature boar with flames flickering from its four paws like will-o’-the-wisp.

As I was staring blankly at the ridiculous sight, the wild boar that was causing the halo flew towards me. It was funny to see it flailing its legs in the air.

[Jincheol!]

It was a familiar voice. So I asked back without realizing it.

“Stone fist?”

[Yes! It’s me! Stone Fist! Galtharullo! The wild boar that runs like fire!]

“···What kind of appearance is that?”

Stone Fist, or rather the flying miniature boar that claimed to be Stone Fist, continued to struggle and shout as if he didn’t know how to stop in midair.

[I want to explain at length, but even I have a hard time explaining it properly! I just realized a certain calmness when I was almost killed by Avagant! And Snow taught me how to focus on that calmness! Esai’s method! Do you know what that means?]

“What does that mean?”

[I am a wizard now-!]

With that shout, a flash of light spread around the miniature boar.

What the heck… I muttered a curse word without realizing it, and then suddenly a thought occurred to me. When I first met Snow’s mother, Ishanka, she had also invaded my dreams wearing a black figure. Although her appearance was different, her method seemed similar.

[Ah! There’s no time! I said I can’t use magic for long because I have no chakra! Anyway, let’s get out of here!]

“···Where are you going?”

[Where are you! It’s time to wake up from this dream!]

“What? No-”

The stone fist didn’t wait for my words. Suddenly, as if some kind of stepping stone had appeared in the air, it kicked the empty sky and flew towards me. The small boar that had seemed so small suddenly grew dozens of times larger. The flaming boar that had grown so large attacked me.

Aside from the fact that the boar’s expression was full of emotion, it looked like it had been hit by a truck.

*

Jincheol’s eyelids fluttered open. He opened his eyes like that and stared blankly at the tent ceiling for a moment, blinking.

Then, he raised his upper body. His whole body was filled with strength. The change in his dream was reality. In his grip that was clenched tightly, a monstrous strength that could squeeze oil out of a rock was writhing. If it were now, he could easily tear the Avagant apart and kill him.

However, the tattoos on his left arm that had been emitting heat were currently quiet. He could only feel that he could not summon the lightsaber right away.

After checking his condition, he looked up and saw a tent of a suitable size and a stone fist sitting cross-legged at his feet. He had his eyes closed and had a solemn expression, like a monk who had been practicing for a long time. He was holding a chip in his hand, which was placed in front of his lower abdomen.

The chip vibrated and the gorilla monk’s eyes opened. He smirked at Jincheol’s gaze looking at him. Jincheol also let out a hollow laugh at that smirk.

“Don’t laugh, you punk. It’s gross.”

“···”

That once confident face has become drowsy. Now it’s worth looking at.