Chapter 43: The One Who Survived

Everything went dark before his eyes.

A scream with nowhere left to go churned inside his throat, alongside the suffocating pressure clogging his chest.

Thud—

The moment he finally escaped the concrete tunnel and left footprints across the white snowfield, his body, already reduced to a powerless wreck, refused to obey him.

Now that contact with the informant had been severed, there was no way for him to confirm whether the people at the shelter were alive or dead.

But even so, he did not possess the courage to risk the fragile thread of his life just to chase after those men.

He simply sat down on the roadside, staring blankly at the rising sun while wasting away the hours.

“H… hahaha….”

Where, exactly, had everything started going wrong?

Was it because he had been too consumed with surviving his own reality to properly ask after the shelter residents?

No—was it because he had blindly trusted their words and reassured himself that they were doing fine?

Or because he became obsessed with the responsibility of merely sending money, while neglecting everything else?

What was it?

“…I should’ve just died with them. I should’ve stayed at the shelter instead of leaving. Then at least… at least….”

‘At least I wouldn’t end up alone like this….’

The regret was unbearable.

From the moment he awakened as a Guide, from the instant the Center suddenly interfered in his life, everything had gone wrong. Horribly wrong.

He had endured his entire life relying on nothing more than the sense of belonging somewhere.

Now even that sense of belonging had become a thing of the past.

He had lost the will to keep living.

He had lost his family.

He had lost everything.

‘Is there even any meaning left in continuing to live?’

As the blue dawn slowly brightened and the bloodstained snowfield glittered beneath the light, he suddenly remembered the bag hanging from his shoulder.

‘…If I’d known it would come to this, I should’ve bought a gun instead of medicine. Something that could kill me painlessly in one shot.’

He had spent an enormous amount of money on those supplies so he could at least live the rest of his life comfortably.

But now, all of it felt meaningless.

Since he did not have much time left anyway, anything that could send him to the shelter residents sooner felt far more valuable than the drugs and envelopes of checks currently in his possession.

Crunch. Crunch.

“……”

As morning fully arrived, the national anthem echoed from the loudspeakers installed around the plaza.

Though “national anthem” was an exaggeration. It was merely a folk song arbitrarily selected by an international organization.

Still, the sharp resonance of the string instruments jolted his senses awake.

And only then did he notice the uninvited guest slowly approaching from behind, deliberately suppressing their footsteps.

Gulp—

If the figure behind him was a rebel soldier, striking first before they noticed him would be far more advantageous for someone physically weaker like himself.

Drawing upon years of training at the Center, he instinctively searched the ground for a sharp piece of metal and gripped it tightly.

Across the snowfield illuminated by sunlight, the shadow of a massive figure stretched long.

Thud—

“Urgh…!”

One hand held the metal shard while the other scooped up snow piled thick overnight.

It was cowardly, but when one’s life was on the line, there was no helping it.

Like throwing sand, he hurled the powdery snow directly into the other man’s eyes.

The large man instinctively lowered his head with a shallow groan.

Not missing the opening, he thrust his leg between the man’s legs and kicked upward at full force.

He thought he felt something soft collapse beneath the tip of his foot, but he ignored it.

“You crazy bastard, going straight for the balls—!”

The man swung his heavy arm, attempting to stop him.

Even after taking a direct hit to such a vital area, the man still stood firm. Clearly not an easy opponent.

Readjusting his stance, he swung his fist toward the man’s face this time.

His target was the bridge of the nose.

Human or animal, once the nose bone caved in, normal thinking and movement slowed dramatically.

Recalling the combat techniques drilled into him at the Center, he resolved to end this tiresome fight as quickly as possible.

Grab—

“The more I look at you, the more I wonder what the hell you think people are!”

“……!!”

Damn it.

He had missed the timing for his painkillers, and now unbearable agony shook him to his core.

Just as he threw his punch toward the man’s nose, his strength vanished and he collapsed onto the ground.

The man, still huffing furiously, seized the opportunity and tightly restrained his wrist.

His grip was so strong it felt as though his bones would snap, forcing him to kick backward with all his remaining strength.

“Whoa—!”

Thud—

The man lost his balance and fell directly on top of him instead.

First, the man kicked away the metal shard still clutched in his hand.

Then he paused, breathing heavily while enduring the lingering pain between his legs.

Under the blazing sunlight, the face that had remained hidden beneath a thick scarf slowly revealed itself.

“You— who are you? And those people over there, what happened to them? Judging by your appearance, you don’t seem like a looter, so why are you skulking around here?”

“…Ah… ngh….”

His head felt like it was splitting apart.

Kim Kyungwoon’s warning resurfaced in his mind:

If he failed to take his medicine on time, shock would kill him long before the illness itself did.

He twisted in agony, writhing desperately, but the pain only intensified.

“Ah, it hurts. It hurts…!”

“…What the hell? Why are you acting like that? I didn’t even do anything!”

Tears streamed down his face as he cried out in pain, causing the man observing him to hurriedly recoil in alarm.

But his body, already consumed by suffering, no longer obeyed his brain.

Even though it had only rolled a few steps down the slope, the backpack now felt impossibly far away.

“Water… medicine….”

“Water and medicine? Are they inside that backpack?”

Despite the fact that they had been punching each other moments earlier, the man pressed two fingers beneath his nose to check whether he was still breathing before sprinting toward the bag without hesitation.

For someone raised in a war-torn region plagued by food shortages for decades, the man’s size was absurdly large.

The backpack that looked normal on him appeared almost child-sized in the man’s hands.

“First, stand up. I can’t give you water or medicine if you stay collapsed like this.”

The man pulled him into his arms and supported his failing body upright.

A faint grassy scent lingered from the broad, sturdy chest.

With help, he finally swallowed the wing-marked pills along with water.

Almost instantly, nausea surged upward.

Taking such strong medicine on an empty stomach had done it.

Even so, despite the repeated retching, he forced himself to swallow the bitter acid back down.

He desperately believed that digesting the medicine was the only way to escape this pain.

“Hngh… urk….”

“Does something hurt? Want me to adjust your position a little?”

The man was absurdly naive.

Perhaps the suspicion that he was a rebel soldier had only existed in his own imagination.

Despite being suddenly attacked and threatened, the man remained endlessly gentle and patient.

He even offered up his own body to support him.

Not even the teammates he had spent three years beside had ever shown him this level of kindness.

So why was someone he had just met—someone he had punched on sight—treating him like this?

“…Seriously. What a weird guy.”

The man grumbled under his breath, yet reacted immediately whenever he so much as shifted.

“But you… haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Your face looks really familiar.”

“……”

“…Or maybe not.”

“……”

“But seriously, haven’t we met before? I don’t usually say things like this, but you really look familiar.”

How many times had the man repeated himself already?

His deep, resonant voice echoed right beside him, irritating his nerves.

Each time the cold winter wind brushed through his hair, he curled his shoulders tighter and silently prayed for the pain to end sooner.

“This won’t work. If we stay here like this, we’ll both freeze to death. First we need to get somewhere safe—”

“……”

“H-Hey, wait a second. Look at me properly.”

The nausea slowly subsided.

Calming his trembling eyes, he barely managed to steady himself and lift his upper body.

Suddenly, the man beside him grabbed his face.

The rough palms thick with calluses stung against his skin.

“Han Jaeyoon. You’re Han Jaeyoon, right?”

“…What…?”

“Hey, don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Shinwoo. Lee Shinwoo. We lived together at the shelter!”

Hearing his own name from a complete stranger felt foreign.

The man hurriedly tore off the scarf wrapped around his face and shoved himself closer.

His expression, pointing frantically at his own face, looked almost desperate.

Wiping away the tears blurring his vision, he looked again.

“…Lee Shinwoo? You’re really Lee Shinwoo?”

“Yeah, idiot! What the hell happened to you? Why are you here?”

Lee Shinwoo.

The only friend his age back at the shelter.

After awakening as a Guide and being recruited by the Center, Shinwoo had disappeared into training camps, leaving no way to contact him.

It had been nearly seven years since they last saw each other face to face.

Believing that no news was good news, they had comforted themselves simply knowing the other was alive somewhere beneath the same sky.

And now, right before him, Shinwoo stood alive and fully grown.

Unable to believe it, he reached out and repeatedly touched the man’s face, whose features had become far sharper than in childhood.

“What about you? How are you alive?”

“…You’re looking at a perfectly healthy person and saying the worst possible things.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I-I went back to the shelter and everything was destroyed. Nobody else was there, and then….”

“Calm down first. At this rate you’re going to stop breathing.”

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