GoldenGate (2)

Not everything can go well all the time. However, as 「After the Apocalypse」 repeated, fatal failures became rare, and Gyeo-ul had become habituated to that.

By surpassing human limits, people overcome situations that ought to be impossible. It was a pleasure he hadn’t expected while alive. A story from a time when he understood his desires even less than now. Back when he tried not to hate the world, it had almost become habit due to the passage of time.

That’s why April Pacific feels sticky. A tar-like disappointment. It had been a while since he’d faced a failure of this magnitude.

Joanna put on a wry smile.

“We may not have saved anyone, but there was still something gained. We confirmed special mutants that hadn’t been reported before, didn’t we? And there were those people whose humanity or mutation is unclear. The samples you brought will be useful to the health services unit. There’s also political significance in this.”

“Political significance?”

“Should we call it a safeguard just in case…? Politicians are always wary of the threat of exposure. The current containment strategy is, from a humanitarian perspective, seriously problematic. Even civilian vessels are being actively attacked.”

She asked, almost as if thinking aloud. Just how many civilians has the navy drowned so far? The question was outside the scope of reasoning supported by the intelligence correction. The margin for error was unacceptably large.

‘A hundred thousand? A million? … Or ten million?’

Numbers that felt unreal. But it wasn’t a joke. Even a ship under ten thousand tons, if the intent is there, can hold over ten thousand people. Sink ten of those, and it’s already a hundred thousand.

He remembered the start of this world’s reality. Refugees escaping from the camp had been fired upon by machine guns. Behind the need to gather refugee support troops were US military personnel who had grown psychologically destitute. As Elliot had said, it wasn’t just because they’d lost family. What effect had the massacre of unarmed civilians had on their psychology?

The carrier task force commander, admiral Kitchener, had also complained of manpower shortages. There had to be a connection, including the refusal of pilots to obey orders.

“The presidential election is approaching. The politicians are full of schemes to tear each other apart. In our line of intelligence work, we hear stories that you, Gyeo-ul, probably can’t even imagine. Though I’m used to it, I don’t get it. Is changing the administration really more important than humanity’s continued existence?”

She muttered, almost with a sigh. The attitude of those “high” people is so different.

“We’re living in different worlds. If the world you live in is different, your life becomes different, and if your life is different, your thoughts naturally change.”

Joanna frowned at Gyeo-ul’s reply.

“You think we live in different worlds? Not a single world on the brink of collapse?”

“Well… I think a person’s world is just the collection of fragments they’ve seen and felt. So maybe everyone lives in their own world, and only becomes similar to others to the degree they empathize.”

At this point, Gyeo-ul recalled his psychotherapy. Even if it’s the same color, what people actually feel might differ from person to person. That’s what he had said to the woman masquerading as a counselor. Color was a symbol—the perspective through which one viewed the world. People and essence are separated by the boundary of the senses.

Everyone lives painting the world in their own color. The act of reducing that gap is called empathy. That’s what had felt like a long lesson in his short life.

“Hm, I’m not sure I get it.”

The FBI detective shook his head at the abstract discussion. His ambiguous expression was proof of his incomprehension. There was a hint of caution too—a desire not to treat Gyeo-ul’s words as mere adolescent rambling, or perhaps a desire not to show that he felt that way. Gyeo-ul, having become used to reading this, didn’t mind it.

The detective brought the conversation back to reality.

“In any case. All the records from April Pacific will serve to justify the current containment policy. They’ll be enough to persuade the public. More than anything, you’re the main actor in this.”

Gyeo-ul produced a faint smile.

“A hero’s tale. Just like he said.”

A story of a boy hero defeating flesh-eating monsters. The Odyssey of the Pacific.

The detective scowled.

“… Annoying as he was, he was no fool. Gyeo-ul, let me repeat: forget what’s happened. If you call this a failure, the primary responsibility is mine.”

“Because you couldn’t persuade the governor?”

“No. Because I’m the supervisor.”

Joanna spoke firmly, as if hammering in a nail. Don’t forget the authority was hers. It felt a bit forced, but if she had objected to the very end, he would never have boarded. They would have been blocked from proving identity when communicating with the destroyer USS Higgins.

“I’ll try. But Anne, are you really all right with this?”

“You grow numb doing this sort of work. Do your best and if you fail, that’s as far as you go. You have to know your own limits. Reaching for anything beyond that, you won’t last.”

To a boy who found his limits constantly frustrating, it was not an agreeable perspective.

In any case, she had done her best. The governor was just an excessive madman.

Gyeo-ul sank into the tar.

Last night, the path into the grand galley ran red with blood. Caution had been required. The corrupt man and his companions must have regarded the governor as an enemy. The reason they hadn’t entered was obvious.

The grand galley had only two entrances, at the bow and the stern. The width was considerable, but it was the ideal bottleneck for concentrating firepower. With a fan-shaped field of fire, even tenfold or hundredfold more enemies could have been easily repelled there.

So, Gyeo-ul had left the next step to the detective. Forcing them to come out on their own was also Joanna’s self-appointed role, using her skillful speech over the public address.

And thus, the citizens of the Cannibal Republic threw down their weapons and walked out. Bringing with them the last stashes of provisions they had hoarded.

A warning from Survival Sense. Crimson trajectories filled his vision.

Kwang! Kwakwakwang! The explosion of claymores swept over the crowd.

When the flames and storm subsided, Gyeo-ul, who had stayed crouched, heard someone humming a tune. He instantly aligned his sights. At the end of it, a man who’d thrown away two detonators now, the lone survivor, waggled his finger.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah. Don’t do that. No need to rush, Lieutenant. Hm? This is the climax. Anyway, I’m unarmed now… More than that, isn’t there something you want to ask before you kill me?”

Bang! Gyeo-ul shot off his fingertip.

For a while, silence reigned. The governor collapsed, kneeling and cringing. He only made very small, strangled noises. Drool ran from his mouth. Not crying was a strong reaction in itself.

Not nearly enough. The goal that brought him this far had vanished right before his eyes. Gyeo-ul spoke coldly.

“One bone for every unasked question. So, how many have you answered so far?”

One, two, three, four, five… Counting without mercy, Gyeo-ul trusted his sensory correction and approached. Just as the man had claimed, he was unarmed. His combat ability was poor. He seemed to have only used two detonators rigged to the claymores earlier. Now Gyeo-ul was within kicking distance.

He kicked him. Ppak! The man’s forehead broke with a loud crash. The ground, blood pooling beneath him, owed its jagged sharpness as much to the shrapnel as to the severed finger.

“Ugh, ah, ouch, ah—it hurts, it hurts so much.”

The governor made odd noises, somewhere between sobbing and laughing.

“F-Fingers… with just one finger gone… it hurts so bad… I was right. I wasn’t wrong. Uhehehehe… Hehehehehk.”

Should he ask anyway? Gyeo-ul hesitated. He wasn’t planning to interrogate. It felt like he was just playing along with a madman. Still, this madness was unlike any he’d seen before. Virtual personalities were fossils of humanity’s accumulated past, but this showcased a new vein of madness.

‘No. Asking wouldn’t produce a proper answer anyway.’

There was never a shortage of madness in the living world either. Instead of questioning, he chose violence against something not quite human. Venting and settling old scores. Even when pleasure lost its luster, it still had a certain meaning.

Even to the end, the madman tried to say something. As if it were a task more important than survival.

“Gyeo-ul? First Lieutenant Han Gyeo-ul…? Your coffee’s going cold.”

Joanna’s weary voice. Gyeo-ul pulled himself from habitual musings back to reality. The sea breeze was unchanged, and the half-empty cup no longer radiated warmth. The aroma at the start was now gone. There was a glance of reproach from the one who had made it. Gyeo-ul forced a sheepish expression.

“Sorry. After promising to try, I was insincere.”

“Just finish it. Don’t let your mind wander.”

He could only comply obediently.

“But this isn’t really coffee, is it?”

“It is coffee.”

The FBI detective replied with a straight face. Gyeo-ul gave a half-hearted smile and sipped from the neglected cup again. A shift in temperature brought a shift in taste. The imbalance of sweetness and a foul whiff of alcohol colliding awkwardly. Not quite as inedible as combat rations to his rough, gourmet palate, but close.

“They say, if there’s no stage, there are no people.”

Joanna tilted her head at Gyeo-ul’s words.

“Is that the bastard’s last will?”

“Yes. To be precise, it was one of them. He recited a bunch of other things too. I’m not sure what it means.”

“Sounds like the sort of intellectual vanity an asshole would spout.”

“I’m not sure that’s all it was, though.”

“You don’t need to understand it. Even the fact that he hid his real name to the very end proves what a contemptible bastard he was. That’s pure self-preservation.”

On that, he agreed. From the very moment he declared his name would not go down in history, it was hard to see it any other way. All the mention of ‘stage’ was in the same vein.

Joanna spoke up.

“Human sociality is nothing more than acting out assigned roles on a given stage. Society has many layers and aspects, and when the stage changes, people rapidly change themselves. They learn and internalize the roles required by the stage. Therefore, people have no essence. Only roles and the play itself exist…”

She snorted after saying so much.

“That’s the kind of logic commonly cited—or invented—to justify criminal acts. He was certainly crazy, but there are plenty of intellectual narcissist criminals who say much the same. The moment they start talking about the ‘stage,’ you can guess what comes next… Without a grand, macro self-rationalization, those weaklings can’t permit themselves to exist. They’re not like the petty criminals who just act on impulse. But, well—having profiled for years, I can at least say this much.”

“You think not revealing his name was a way of separating his real self from his role?”

“Nine times out of ten… It’s surprising you’d jump straight to that question. Gyeo-ul, you’re not exactly ordinary either.”

Gyeo-ul forced another awkward smile at the detective’s suddenly fresh gaze.

He felt he could understand a bit more of that night’s madness. Roles required by the stage, huh. No matter where you went, people adjusted themselves to suit that stage.

The person you were at work. The person you were at home. The person you were among friends. Sometimes those selves collide and come apart.

Now he thought of the passengers of the April Pacific, who had turned to cannibalism.

If the stage changes, do people really change so easily?

What about that outside world?

————————— Author’s Afterword —————————

#KakaoTalk

Tunguska: So there are people bombing the rating system on Naver as well.

Tunguska: I plugged the scores into an equation as the number of people rating went up, and sure enough, a few always gave it a zero.

Tunguska: For example, that 46th rater’s going to see me in their dreams tonight.

Cartoonist friend & programmer friend: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

#Q&A

Q. MasterKalsolum: @ with innocence alone, it’s hard to survive this tainted world. After collapsing at work and being taken to the hospital, I was diagnosed with hypertension (198/120) and haven’t eaten meat for two months, so life is drier than chicken breast. I need deeper childlike innocence… enough to forget this reality…

A. A life without meat… Maybe some beef bone soup infused with cosmic energy could help? But it’s hard for me to supply any more innocent cheer…

Please look after your health. ;ㅅ;

Q. kaley: @4003 It hit me in the knee right at page 30 lol have an innocent day today too

A. Yes, start your day with some innocence from me today.

Q. BlueCrystal: @Author, I was always curious about the cover—wasn’t Gyeo-ul just a brain? Is the person on the cover really Gyeo-ul??

A. If you look, both jars just contain brains. So it’s not an actual body, just a kind of metaphor.

… But actually, as the author, I’m not sure what I meant myself. Hehe.

Q. Guaaaaak: Oooh!! The cover Oooh!! On Naver it’s pay-per-episode, here it’s a subscription. Wasn’t that a problem with the contract?

A. I bet the editor had a rough time because I said I’d stay on Noblesse.

Q. goDE: Wow… binge reading, and the innocence… the innocence is welling up. Maybe because I haven’t touched innocence in a while, it’s kind of overwhelming! Are the chapters uploaded to Naver uncensored?

A. All except chapter 24 went up unchanged. Chapter 24 was edited a bit… but I tried to keep the actual content intact, either by rephrasing or deleting just the explicit parts/context.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep