Chapter 24: The Reckless Hero

Meanwhile, inside the shelter, Kustik, having come out from under the table, was desperately holding onto Cheche. She argued that if Cheche went out too, the child would be punished even more cruelly for lying.

Around that time, Yeosu was squeezed in among the pulled-in people. Close to twenty individuals, men, women, children, and elderly alike, stood in a neat line at the guards’ command.

Yeosu stood in the middle. On her left was a boy two or three years older than her, trembling, and on her right stood a middle-aged man. Both were strangers to her.

Among the guards, the bushy-bearded captain scrutinized the refugees one by one. On either side of him stood two men with knives, frowning. Yeosu swallowed hard, unable to take a single comfortable breath.

Then, the captain bellowed in a gruff voice.

“From now on, introduce yourselves in order! We don’t care about any damned unregistered names, so state your place of origin, age, how long you’ve lived here, and what you do!”

The man then gestured with his chin to the middle-aged woman at the front of the line.

“You start.”

The middle-aged woman shrieked and trembled her shoulders. She was visibly overly nervous. As she only gasped for air, the captain cursed and drew a knife from his waistband.

Her stomach was stained with blood in an instant.

He coldly glared at the middle-aged woman who had fallen backward and said.

“Next, you!”

The old man standing second in line was singled out. He calmly opened his mouth, though his hand gripping his cane trembled.

“My name is John… my place of origin is Incinerator 201 Shelter… I’ve lived here for almost 10 years. And what I do is… I-I pick up stones and sell them.”

“I don’t want to know the names given by low-intelligence unregistered individuals, I clearly warned you!”

The man sneered and this time gestured to his colleague on his left. The colleague, as if on cue, stepped forward and stabbed the old man in the neck.

The old man, instantly rigid like scrap metal, fell sideways without a scream. His self-introduction was perfect, and he had only stated his name. The faces of those in line turned pale.

“Next!”

Despite the old man’s death, the self-introductions continued. A young man and woman, a girl who looked about fifteen, a middle-aged man tightly gripping a shabby hat in his hand…

As her turn approached, Yeosu’s hands trembled. Inside the shelter, she had thought she could manage somehow, but seeing people die right before her eyes, her mind went blank.

What was the self-introduction again? Name, was I not supposed to say my name? Place of origin… What was he saying?

Meanwhile, a middle-aged man who stammered and involuntarily cursed was stabbed in the stomach and fell. A boy who looked about ten or so was next. He was directly to Yeosu’s left.

“My place of origin is here… hic, I’ve lived here for eleven days, n-no, twelve years. My job is… sob, helping Dad, hiccup, digging the ground for the dead, hiccup!”

The boy had been brought in with his father, and his father was the middle-aged man who had been standing next to him just moments before. And he had just died.

The guard listened calmly to the boy’s tearful self-introduction, then burst into laughter, pwahaha. He threw his head back in laughter, then wiped his tears and said.

“Burying corpses! Then you’ll earn some money today!”

At those words, the boy finally broke down. The guard spat at him and kicked him as he sobbed, hugging his father.

Aaaaaargh! Even as he screamed, he couldn’t let go of his father. As if there was still a slight chance of him living, even though he was already dead.

Yeosu’s teeth chattered. Her whole body trembled, even though it wasn’t cold. She repeated what she had to say in her head. Place of origin, what she did, name, oh, no, not name…

“Alright, kid. Your turn.”

The captain’s eyes turned to Yeosu. Yeosu, her chest heaving as if she would gasp for breath, opened her pale, almost blue, lips.

“I-I was born in Incinerator 92. What I do is… just, when Mom goes out, I w-watch the house. I-I can clean too!”

‘Uh, what, what was next?’ Her mind was blank. The man watching her narrowed his eyes. ‘It’s right. It might be a hit.’

But she still couldn’t remember what she had to say. Hmph, the man snorted, his hand going to his waistband. At that moment, a very faint whisper reached Yeosu’s ear.

“Period.”

“Ah! Yes, that’s right! How long I’ve lived here! The word was difficult, but she had already grasped its meaning from what the people in front of her had said. Yeosu quickly continued.

“[One year!]”

But somehow, the guard’s reaction was strange. He frowned deeply and tilted his head as if he didn’t know what he had just heard.

When the other guard standing next to him also frowned, Yeosu finally realized her mistake.

It was a barbaric language. The ‘1 year’ she had hastily blurted out.

Yeosu’s expression turned to despair. The man was approaching her. Yeosu squeezed her eyes shut and again mumbled, “I-I’ve lived here for 1 year,” in the common language, but the man’s steps didn’t stop.

It was when a large hand, the size of her face, reached out to her. The middle-aged man who had been waiting for his turn on her right side shouted loudly.

“That kid, what a loud sneeze! My head’s ringing, I forgot everything I was supposed to say for my self-introduction! Damn it!”

Yeosu’s eyes flashed. The man who had been about to grab Yeosu by the collar stopped his hand.

All the guards’ attention turned to the middle-aged man. He scratched his neck as if embarrassed by the attention and said.

“I just can’t concentrate. Hmph, how was I supposed to know this kid would sneeze so loudly?”

The guards let out hollow laughs. The middle-aged man was utterly nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just witnessed someone dying in front of him.

But Yeosu, who saw him up close, knew it wasn’t true. His hand was faintly trembling.

“Is this bastard crazy?”

The attention that had been on Yeosu now shifted to the middle-aged man. The man calmly continued his self-introduction, even seeing the fist that seemed ready to strike him at any moment.

“My name is Samuel, named after my grandfather, by myself. I’m on a different level from you guys, who get called by numbers, confusing who’s who. My birthplace, well, I can’t remember now after wandering from incinerator to incinerator. My job is catching edible bugs. I’ve lived here for a month.”

The guards were speechless for a while. The first reason was that they had never expected to hear such insolent words, and the second was that the middle-aged man’s eyes glowed differently from ordinary refugees.

The captain was the first to regain his composure. In his mind, Yeosu’s [one year] was long forgotten. His face turned crimson red as if it would burst, and he raised his fist high.

“You impure breed bastard!”

The middle-aged man did not passively take the punch. Unlike the previous people who lacked the energy to resist, he dodged the captain’s punches repeatedly.

While a fierce fight ensued, those waiting for their turn glanced around and began to flee.

However, none of the guards thought to chase them. They joined in trampling the middle-aged man to help the captain.

From then on, the tide turned in favor of the guards rather than the middle-aged man. The fallen middle-aged man coughed, spitting out blood. Yeosu stood frozen in place, even when everyone else chose to flee.

Extreme fear swallowed her. The fear that the middle-aged man who had helped her would soon die, and the guilt about it, bound her feet.

Did the middle-aged man know that too? Even as his stomach was being savagely mutilated by the group of guards, he held his head up straight and looked at Yeosu.

“Go to your… mother…”

Her tears wouldn’t stop. Her vision was completely blurred. He looked at her again, his eyes wide, as if urging her. Yeosu’s feet slowly began to move backward.

And the moment she turned her head, she saw her mother, anxiously watching her from a distance. The moment she saw that terror-stricken face, Yeosu instinctively began to run.

The middle-aged man’s faintly smiling face, as he watched her, was the last thing Yeosu saw.

“Gasp, gasp…! Gasp!”

Yeosu, along with her mother and Kustik, entered the exchange manager’s shelter, where people had taken refuge. In front of it, burly men with metal tools stood guard.

Now, the guards would not be able to harm them. Cheche continued to pat Yeosu, who was gasping and clutching her chest. But her trembling wouldn’t stop.