This eruption didn’t contribute much beyond raising the monster population density in eroded zones.

But if such a large-scale eruption has a clear intent, we can’t just sit and watch.

Unlike the past, I’m just a lone survivor without government support or military cooperation, but even so, I think we have to try everything we can.

I tried contacting Woo Min-hee.

“Ah. Hunter Park.”

One of Woo Min-hee’s subordinates answered instead, like last time.

That clinched it.

Woo Min-hee was right next to her.

She was either picking her words right by that woman’s side or listening to what I said.

I don’t know why she didn’t answer me herself, but let’s put that under the category of “Min-hee being Min-hee.”

The important thing is that I need her help for what I’m about to attempt.

“...For these reasons, I’d like to run a check.”

I explained my plan and what they needed to do—brief and clear.

“Ah, yes, one moment.”

Adding to my certainty that Woo Min-hee was beside her, the subordinate hesitated a beat.

“So what you’re asking is: if we try to slow monster generation on our side, you want us to verify the effect, correct?”

“Exactly.”

“Excuse me, but by what method are you going to block monster formation—from outside the Crack, not the Crack itself?”

“After putting our heads together—me and my classmate Gong Gyeong-min—we believe the current mass spawning has, outside the Crack, a kind of radio tower that stimulates the Crack into thinking the population is high. We intend to mess with that and observe any changes occurring inside the Crack.”

“You’re saying there’s something on the surface that stimulates the Crack?”

“Yes. If our attempt proves meaningful, we remove the cause.”

It’s only a hypothesis, nothing more.

Unlike scholars proving a hypothesis through formal academic means—grounds, falsification, notes, interpretations—our method of proof is results, and that’s it.

The subordinate went quiet for a while, but I was confident a positive answer would come.

“...Understood. Is there anything we can do to help?”

I thought a moment, then answered.

“Tell Min-hee not to overdo it.”

“Huh?!”

“Why?”

“N-no, it’s nothing. I’ll pass that along to Director Woo!”

As the transmission ended, I muttered,

“Knew it—you were right there.”

*

Policy set.

Next comes execution.

Shake the Tower, affect Jeon Si-hoon inside it, and dampen the current population amplification effect he—or that thing—is producing.

The plan is simple, but anyone who knows the Tower will agree that executing it isn’t.

120 floors, 580 meters, an estimated 750,000 tons.

How do you shake this hulking building—one of prewar Korea’s wonders, built by Korea?

For now, the method we considered was a physical strike on the topmost section, where we expect Jeon Si-hoon to reside.

Bombing would be perfect for this kind of job, but the Republic of Korea Air Force is under Kang Han-min’s control.

A second-best option would be the true monster butcher—artillery—but that’s not easy either.

With Sejong’s help it might be possible, but right now Sejong is riled up from the recent large-scale eruption.

Unlike Seoul, Sejong doesn’t have ample tubes and ammunition, and from their position they won’t buy our hypothesis—much less accept striking Jeon Si-hoon directly. It’s awkward for them.

Plenty in Sejong’s upper ranks still believe Jeon Si-hoon is the boss of Seoul, and they think if we shell Seoul, an airstrike will come as retaliation immediately.

If IAmJesus moved, maybe it’d be doable, but he’s only our last card.

From our last meeting it became clear his political footing isn’t exactly solid for a “king.”

In fact, IAmJesus agrees with my plan but was cautious about opening fire.

iamjesus: Hm. I talked with the generals, and it won’t be easy. Our guns are stashed in hides; if we roll them out somewhere strange, there’s a good chance they’ll get bombed to scrap right away.

iamjesus: We’ve got plenty of monsters loose already; losing the artillery hurts even if it’s just one battery. Plus, each piece has its own “owner.”

While King was around, Sejong ran in something like a monarchy, but when the charismatic King vanished, the city shifted to a collective system.

If not for IAmJesus, the city might not have held together.

Judging from how things have gone, if anyone other than him had inherited the throne, Sejong might have fallen apart before Seoul attacked.

I found myself admiring King’s vision, and considered the next move.

Nothing particular came to mind.

“It’s pointless. When they reinforced the Tower, they scraped up every remaining beam and made the topmost floor the most solid. I don’t know the details, but I heard they even put in the kind of armor used to build tanks. Maybe Air Force missiles; with normal weapons, you won’t do a thing.”

Yeom Dda-wan, who knows the Tower well, deepened my dilemma.

It isn’t easy to even make him twitch.

So do we go into the Tower after all?

I don’t think we’re ready yet.

To enter the Tower, we need IAmJesus with us.

But right now Jeon Si-hoon isn’t Sejong’s main concern.

Our eyes are on Paju, but Sejong knows there were large eruptions at the other two southern Cracks as well.

Monsters are popping out everywhere, blanketing the land.

In this situation, someone who locked himself in the Tower—like Jeon Si-hoon—can’t be the issue of the day.

For IAmJesus to step up, we have to demonstrate a correlation between Jeon and the current anomaly in monster numbers.

“Still stewing over it?”

Gong came up and handed me coffee.

Warm, sweet coffee.

It tasted like prewar coffee mix.

I gave a nod and we stood for a while, facing the same view, letting the wind pass.

We say we reconciled, but no one knows better than we do that we can’t go back to how we were.

Wounds of the heart don’t heal.

We were both driven into a corner, with no other way left, so we looked past the old rift and joined hands.

So things were awkward, and times when it was just the two of us talking were rare.

In that moment, Gong spoke first.

“Yeah. Poking that thing isn’t easy. The Tower’s solid already, and Jeon Si-hoon probably reinforced it even more.”

Gong gave a twisted smile and muttered,

“You know what’s funny about that idiot Jeon Si-hoon?”

“Dunno.”

“He hates Kang Han-min more than anyone, but the way he acts, he moves exactly how Kang wants.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s Kang for you. If you barely know him, you like him or even worship him, but anyone who knows a bit of what he really is hates him. As for Jeon—he used to be a fanboy on the level of a zealot. Then he realized what Kang really is—how petty he is, how often he lies, how he never shows a shred of sincerity and acts like a machine—and he turned anti. But you know that thing?”

I think I know what he means.

The types who think they’re clever and try to hurt someone, only to get used in return.

I’ve seen plenty.

Jeon Si-hoon is certainly foolish.

Shallow {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} education and impulsive.

“...The exact opposite of Jeong Dae-kyung. Jeong used Kang to the end. Whether it was age or IQ, I don’t know.”

“How do we pound that idiot?”

Artillery won’t work, aircraft is a pipe dream.

Drones? The payload’s too small to matter to an Awakened target.

Getting close to the Tower isn’t easy either.

Yeom says Awakened who follow Jeon still patrol around the Tower, along with “weird things.”

Firepower itself is the key to proving this hypothesis, and yet we don’t have a delivery method.

But there was one thing we’d overlooked.

“Then why don’t we build one?”

On the internet, I show quirky, mysterious charm, but in reality I think in a ruthlessly realistic frame. Gong, on the other hand, always tried to do something new and outlandish in the real world.

That image had been diluted by his bouncing through high posts, but the Red Archive game patronage and all that—this friend was a wild card by nature.

The operation he proposed was, frankly, in the ridiculous category.

In a word: drag a tank all the way to the Tower and fire point-blank.

“I know where they store those ‘dumb tanks’ we used for anti-monster work. The technical term is war reserve matériel. If we had a mechanic, they’re probably runnable.”

We don’t have an engineer and we don’t know how to drive a tank.

There might be shells, but he doesn’t know if there’s fuel—the lifeblood of a tank.

We don’t have route planning, which is essential for tank ops, no concrete plan of where to set up a killbox and fire.

We also don’t have a plan for after the main gun goes off.

I mean a survival-and-exfil plan.

That’s the core of Gong’s ridiculous operation.

As a “Professor,” I’d never sign off on it.

But the truth is, nothing else is coming to mind.

Time isn’t on our side.

Above all, I have people that fate put around me.

“In that case, good. I’ll send people.”

Nam Ban-jang from Sejong agreed to help.

Not for free, of course.

In exchange for obtaining the government’s hidden ‘dumb tank,’ a precious asset, he’d attach people to us.

“A tank? I doubt pounding it will do anything, but since this is our first plan to hit Si-hoon since we formed our bond, we’ll help. I’ll send the best guide who’s been active in Seoul lately.”

Fixated only on Jeon Si-hoon, Yeom Dda-wan assigned a guide.

There was another unexpected help.

“A ‘dumb tank,’ huh. If it’s Patton-based, it runs on practically anything, but it still has preferred types. I’ll coach the fueling properly and send them. I owe Skeleton anyway.”

Park Penguin—the deposed leader, now resurrected as IAmJesus’s staffer—gave material aid.

Deposed or not, as the leader of the most successful survivor group left in Korea, no one can dismiss his administrative experience and seasoning.

Others I didn’t know agreed to come when they heard my name.

Dawn at the gates of Seoul.

More people gathered than I expected.

Sejong’s soldiers made up a particularly large share.

Some of them recognized Gong.

“And you are?”

Gong just gave a broad grin and turned away.

The past is meaningless to him now.

He saw Kang Han-min’s madness, fled it into a grave, then learned a grave can’t be a refuge, and crawled back out.

Compared to Kang and Woo Min-hee, Gong isn’t one to be on the surface—he’s the type only those in the know know—so he passed quietly.

In the underground warehouse Gong described, several “dumb tanks” slept in the dark, just as he’d said.

Among them, one of Korea’s proud main battle tanks.

“Hey. That’s a Black Panther.”

Seeing the good gear, Sejong’s soldiers and techs went straight to work without resting.

“Condition’s good. Looks like it’s been maintained.”

“Right? It’s in better shape than what we use. Grade A. Grade A.”

Smiles spread across Sejong faces.

They’d come ready to settle for scraps; finding a bigger windfall than expected, they all looked satisfied.

They did a field service on one “dumb tank” for us, on the spot.

“Do you know how to drive it?”

I raised my hand.

“Turn it kind of like a tractor, right?”

“A bit different. If you’ve worked heavy machinery, it’s easier. I’ll show you real quick.”

While I learned driving from a former tanker, Gong got separate instruction on loading shells from the gunner.

“Ugh. These shells are heavy as hell.”

Unlike the latest domestic MBTs, this one is manual load, so it won’t be easy.

Especially for a man who put himself into a steel coffin for so long.

“I’ll handle loading later. We’re not firing on the move anyway. We’re going to stop and shoot.”

“Mm.”

“You probably don’t have your strength back; just learn how to fire.”

“Got it.”

A nothing conversation—but it was the most personal one we’d had in years.

Awkward, but I could feel the old wounds healing a little.

Training and repairs ran all night.

Of course, monsters still roamed the night streets.

“Medium-class group spotted at 300 meters.”

“Heading where?”

“Not this way. Looks like they’re passing.”

“Sejong?”

“No. Going east.”

Everyone was hardened enough that even with a monster pack nearby there was no fear or shrinking back, just a thin, cynical line at the corner of each mouth.

It meant they’d all accepted—or prepared for—death.

Yeom’s call came just as the servicing wrapped up.

“Sorry I’m late. You must have seen it if you’re there, but there are packs moving around.”

“It’s fine. When can you send the guide? We’re ready.”

“I can send them soon, but...”

Yeom trailed off.

I think I know what.

“Is there a problem?”

I asked immediately.

Sighing lightly, Yeom answered in a bitter tone,

“The area around the Tower is layered.”

“With what?”

“Kang Han-min’s devotees.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know the details, but with so many monsters nearby, it looks like they put them out as security patrols. There might even be a spy on Sejong’s side.”

“Yeah?”

“So, tanks are fine, artillery is fine—but I think it’d be better to delay the timing.”

That’s one way.

It isn’t wise to jump onto a searing hot griddle yourself.

But I thought it through.

Will dragging our feet improve the outcome?

It won’t.

To be sure, I asked the handsome young man with half Korean, half Thai blood.

“That the unit guarding the Tower is really Kang Han-min’s personal guard—are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure. I even recognized faces. I know them well—racist bastard told me to scram with a wink.”

“Good. Send the guide.”

“Huh? Are you serious?!”

The presence of Kang’s personal guard is even more reason to go.

The fact that Kang Han-min’s most loyal soldiers are there is the firmest proof that Jeon Si-hoon is being used for Kang’s purposes.

Time won’t make this better.

The enemy will grow stronger, and we’ll be in greater danger.

I turned to my classmate and long-time teammate.

“Given how things are, what do you think?”

Gong didn’t hesitate a single second.

“Let’s get moving, fast.”