I’d drifted into talking about Dies_Irae for a bit, but the truth is I oppose Defender coming here.

It’s far too dangerous.

Compared to the start of the war, the gunfire has lessened, the armored vehicles and soldiers fewer, but that doesn’t mean the area has become safe.

On the contrary—only the most seasoned, venomous, and ruthless ones remain, lurking in the silence of the wasteland.

When we say war destroys everything, it doesn’t just mean humans or the civilization they built. It means everything in a battlefield zone must be expected to vanish.

Animals, plants, ancient cultural relics—none are exceptions.

Mutations, of course, become targets as well.

Once, beside my territory, there had been the Land of Dogs.

Strong, intelligent, and powerful dogs ruled that land, and humans had to tread lightly around them.

Nature eventually scattered them. The few that survived became prey for humans.

Even in this apocalypse, this planet is still humanity’s world.

The so-called “Land of Dogs” had been, paradoxically, a kind of privilege—a gift of land only because humans hadn’t found much use for it.

Bang!

A few shots rang out, followed by cheers in the distance.

Soldiers passed through my area with a jeep, a massive dog—tiger-sized—strapped onto its roof.

They were being hunted.

The children and companions of Gold.

Maybe they were paying the price for betraying Gold. But the ruin of a group I’d known, one that connected in some way to me, pressed down and deepened the gloom already settling in me.

*

It’s been about a month now since our area became a battlefield.

Mark Two, taking after Woo Min-hee, has been quiet and spared any serious illness. For us, that was fortune.

To save dwindling fuel, I dusted off an old small generator. It was nothing compared to my fine machine, but it managed to produce some power.

Alongside that little electricity, we endured with heating tents, layering clothes indoors—the traditional yet effective methods.

As for me, I even resorted to cold showers. Uncharacteristic for Park Gyu—plain, austere.

Of course, I gave Mark Two at least lukewarm water.

People say cold showers are healthy, but after actually doing it, I’m convinced: those who like them must enjoy self-punishment.

“Humans are creatures of adaptation”—few sayings ring truer.

People really do adjust to anything.

Even prisoners chained to oars in ships, rowing until death, eventually adapted to that horror.

When our neighborhood first became a battlefield, I just huddled in the bunker, hoping the war would end quickly. But as Mark Two pushed me to admit, you can’t stay in a bunker forever.

In a world of scarce resources, you must produce somehow.

Now, at night, I venture outside to fish.

I don’t feel the bloodlust that Defender does when prowling night roads, but walking alone on dark dirt paths brings its own strange feeling.

That realization—man, supposedly lord of all creation, is just another piece of the ecosystem.

The wind brushing past, the scents catching on the nose, the faint snap of a twig—every little stimulus demands response.

Like our ancestors once lived.

Clang! Clang!

I cracked the ice and dropped a line. The method I’d learned from the board.

No one had fished the reservoir since the war, so the catch was sizable.

I cleaned the fish right there.

Under faint light, scraping scales, cutting open bellies, gutting them, pulling bones where possible.

I could’ve done it indoors, but no sense letting the bunker stink with rotting waste when stepping out was already so hard.

In the bitter cold, after five minutes of work, I had to thaw my hands over a hot pack.

Gloves would’ve dulled the feel.

Tonight I got greedy.

Carp, maybe crucian carp—big ones. Four of them.

Enough to feed me and Mark Two for three days.

But greed always calls forth its opposite.

I’d tossed too many guts aside.

I smelled it first.

Turning toward the wind, two gleaming eyes stared from the dark.

A beast.

Whether Mutation or not didn’t matter.

Clack—

I raised my gun. The eyes vanished.

My dulled human senses couldn’t tell what it had been.

But it wasn’t small. Large enough to pose a threat to a human.

“...”

I hesitated.

Throw the guts into the water? Or leave them outside?

Each choice carried its own consequence.

If I disposed of them, the beast might not return. That meant safety.

But if I left them, the beast would likely come back.

Most animal thought revolves around food.

That would bring risk—but also the chance for me to hunt it.

Gunfire is common enough these days. A single shot here wouldn’t stand out.

But butchering the animal would be another issue. And we were desperately low on resources.

There were rumors Jeon Si-hoon hadn’t gained as much ground as he’d hoped early on, that the war might be over within a month.

I wasn’t convinced. Would Jeon Si-hoon really end this war for us?

That thought lingered.

In the end, I left the guts outside.

By the next day, they were gone.

*

Stay long enough in a battlefield, and you learn things.

For one, soldiers are surprisingly careless with security.

Even during the wars against China and the U.S.—supposedly the strongest nations—communications security was shaky. From what I experienced, even the mighty U.S. never managed perfect comm discipline.

Leave a frequency open long enough, and you catch chatter, the thoughts of soldiers at the front.

That’s normally Defender’s hobby, but now I’ve been forced to share it.

Since Jeon Si-hoon’s troops dominate this area, all I pick up are his men’s voices.

Sometimes, useful ones.

“They tell us to keep at it, but how long’s this supposed to go on?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing’s lining up. Even the bombing’s not landing right. Feels like the bombs don’t even hit.”

“Probably ran out of GPS-guided ones. Just dumping them now.”

“Figures.”

Soldiers, griping over a stalled war.

“They say we’re fighting ex-warlord troops. Some Maker Division.”

“Which one?”

“Not sure—7th, 8th? Rumor is they fought in the North Korean civil war and against China.”

“That explains it. Way tougher than the guys we fought before. Those ones panicked after a few shots.”

“Our brass needs to know we’re only holding out thanks to equipment.”

So that’s how Jeon Si-hoon’s soldiers rated their enemy.

“Heard Leader Jeon is building something at that skeletal tower in Jamsil.”

“That eyesore?”

“Yeah, they say he’s raising something new there.”

“What’s the point? Won’t it just collapse like The Hope?”

“Who knows. If the leader’s behind it, he must have his reasons.”

“Shit.”

A new project, pushed by Jeon Si-hoon.

“This area used to be a paradise for Mutation dogs, they say.”

“That’s why so many show up, huh.”

“Apparently there used to be hundreds.”

“What the hell did they live on?”

“Anyway, they had a fierce reputation. But once humans put their mind to it, turns out they weren’t so much.”

“I heard a Hunter once chopped through them with an axe.”

“That’s impossible.”

My own legend, Skeleton’s deed, tossed around in their talk.

Oddly enough, hearing it lightened my mood, like a healing potion in an RPG.

“Hunter Park Gyu? Why are you smiling all of a sudden?”

“Doesn’t it feel good when someone praises you?”

“So you like compliments? Didn’t think so.”

“Not the ones to my face. I like the kind I hear from strangers, when I’m not supposed to know.”

“Adults really are complicated.”

And then—

“Heard Hyung-wook caught a Mutation dog.”

“Then it’s pork belly time, eh? In this cold, soju and tender meat—hell, I could die tomorrow and have no regrets.”

“No, not killed—tamed.”

“What?”

They’d tamed a Mutation dog.

Even as “Professor,” I found that fascinating.

Mutations are said to hate humans by instinct. The only way to subdue them is violence.

There are exceptions, but so rare they’re almost myths.

If humans discriminate over skin color, religion, nationality, even apartment complexes—what hope was there for different species?

Still, if anyone could shed light on it, it would be Defender’s siblings.

Message from Anonymous2381: Want to try a drone?

Today, the one messaging me was Da-jeong.

For some reason, she changes nicknames often these days.

Everyone knows Hong Da-jeong is a drone expert.

Her interest began before the war, when someone used a drone to spy on her in her high-rise apartment.

Where ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) most would recoil in disgust, she, true to Defender’s bloodline, turned her eye to the tech itself. She studied drone technology, then still unfamiliar to the public.

By the apocalypse, her skills had blossomed, ripened further through countless real-world deployments—not exactly things to brag about, but experience nonetheless.

As the sister of the Skull Brigade’s leader, she’d even earned technical accolades.

Message from Anonymous2381: Should be fine. Outside combat zones, no one cares whose drone it is until it’s shot down.

Message from Anonymous2381: That area’s probably already swarming with drones anyway. As long as you don’t get unlucky and hit with jamming, you’ll be fine.

Typical Da-jeong.

A truly good woman.

More than I deserve.

She liked me, but it wasn’t with full faith.

I’ve never been in a relationship, but I at least know this: love and liking aren’t the same.

Love is a two-way exchange.

I liked her too, but the depth of my feelings likely matched hers—distant, but not cold.

That distance felt right.

And time had shown me something else: Da-jeong genuinely preferred living alone.

I’d thought I was the one who could live in solitude. But no—it was her. She was the real deal.

Her brother was just unavoidable. In this world, everyone needed a bodyguard.

Even before the war, households without a man got harassed and exploited.

The siblings’ shared temperament gave off a chill, like reptiles in a snake pit.

In any case, Da-jeong had helped me.

I had a drone, a new model from the Chinese army, tucked away in my bunker.

Message from DAJUNG!: It’s probably the battery. Try swapping it out. Not hard.

Under her remote instruction, like a well-trained instructor guiding me online, I woke the drone and learned how to operate it.

She even taught me how to evade tracking—something only she could pass down.

The Chinese drone was better than I’d imagined.

It could surveil from three kilometers up.

Not your average toy drone.

Even for us Hunters, detecting such a high-performance drone would be tough. Unless the sun caught it just right, you’d never notice.

Message from DAJUNG!: Working okay?

“...”

Tap tap.

SKELTON: (Skeleton thumbs up!) Thanks!

After that rare bit of service, I stepped outside.

Dawn.

Even soldiers do nothing at this hour. Too cold to move before sunrise.

I launched the drone.

Whiiiir—

The Chinese machine rose smoothly into the sky under my command.

My bunker’s concrete was too thick for radio waves, so I controlled it from a decoy bunker beside the ruins of Ha Tae-hoon’s house—the one he’d built and destroyed himself.

After a month as neighbors, I had a decent idea of Jeon Si-hoon’s troop positions.

Soon, a camp appeared on my screen.

“Camp” was generous—just a few tents and vehicles.

Build anything bigger and artillery would erase it.

Anyway, I zoomed in from three kilometers up.

It worked.

And I found the dog.

“...”

It was there.

And I knew it.

Silver.

But could you call that living?

A Skull Brigade-marked vehicle dragged the huge dog on a leash, yanking it around.

Soldiers beat it with clubs, jeered, tormented it.

And yet Gold’s child wagged its tail, tongue lolling.

I looked closer—one of its legs was limp.