The clouds in the sky vanished in an instant.
Before long, something will begin to appear in the empty sky.
It starts as a black dot, then grows longer as it gets closer.
There’s a comparison that everyone who’s seen it for the first time seems to agree on.
– It looked like God was cleaning his ears and dropped a cotton swab.
A giant rod.
Soldiers and hunters call it by different proper names depending on their affiliation.
But for ordinary people who never interact with them, “a giant rod” feels much more fitting.
It was made of a material not found on Earth and flew in from deep space before slamming into the ground.
That’s the true nature of the air raids that have continued for decades.
Even if it simply free-falls from space without any propulsion, the impact would be enormous.
But for some reason, the giant rod drastically slows down as it passes through the atmosphere.
Almost as if it’s deliberately decelerating.
Because of that, it causes relatively less damage compared to the distance it traveled. But only relatively. It’s still devastating.
Even after decades since the fall of the previous era, civilization hasn’t recovered, all because of these air raids.
Whether they precisely target their marks or not, they relentlessly disable key facilities.
Communication networks are especially the top priority targets.
There have been continuous attempts to build large settlements or factories, but without fail, an air raid arrives before they can recoup their investment.
People’s lives too have lost any sense of stability because of the air raids.
Even insignificant-looking settlements are sometimes struck.
No matter how long people spend building them up, a single air raid can wipe them out.
Within this country, the only place free from the threat of air raids is the headquarters and the geofront constructed beneath it.
“Kid, you might get hit by debris if you keep looking outside.”
“I won’t look when it actually falls.”
“Three minutes left.”
“…And I’m not a kid. I’m almost an adult.”
“Don’t look outside even after it falls, not until things settle down.”
An air raid is a disaster, but at the same time, it’s a spectacle.
Maybe that’s why people often try to watch when they encounter one for the first time.
And then, if they’re unlucky, they end up becoming part of the spectacle by getting hit by debris.
Of course, judging by this kid’s personality, it’s probably not curiosity that’s making him look outside.
“There’s no chance the shelter will hold, right?”
“Who knows.”
“I could tell from how the captain was trying to force me outside the walls no matter what.”
“Is that so.”
“But… there’s always that one-in-a-million chance, right?”
“Of course there is. Like the one-in-a-million chance where you don’t listen, stick your head out like that, and get hit by debris.”
A brat like him, already talking about “one-in-a-million chances”.
He hasn’t even lived ten thousand days yet.
I only just passed ten thousand myself.
“Thanks for keeping your promise.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought you might just take the ammo and ditch me.”
“What is there to ditch? You’re the one following me on your own. I don’t care.”
“Still, you were worried I might get hit by debris, weren’t you?”
“Did you get any food from the captain?”
“Huh? J-Just a little… not much though…”
“Tch, 30 seconds left.”
A familiar sound of wind cut through the air.
Finally, a black dot appeared high up in the sky.
The kid ducked behind the wall, lowering his head.
His shoulders trembled.
It made sense. It was his first time.
“Cover your ears too.”
The shockwave could temporarily take your hearing.
After a few times, you got used to it. If it became routine like it had for me, you could endure it even without covering your ears.
Still, this was one thing that was better never becoming routine.
Screeeeech.
A spine-chilling sound, like space itself was being torn apart.
The giant rod.
It’s here.
In an instant, the sky turned a deep violet.
A visual signal that it had struck the ground.
Darkness spread everywhere, like night had fallen.
Beep.
The damage measurement data came in,
Boom.
Followed by the impact and shockwave.
My body lurched forward violently.
Even at that distance, the impact made my hips jolt.
My ribs felt like they were about to burst outward, barely held in place by my chest muscles.
The next moment, my body whipped backward just as hard.
Like something behind me had yanked me.
The giant rod, made of some unknown material, crashed into the ground and triggered a powerful explosion.
At that moment, a massive pressure wave formed, pulling in the surrounding oxygen.
Thankfully, the wall at my back was holding up.
“Ugh…”
“Keep your head down. There’s another one coming.”
Once again, my body was shoved forward.
A second shockwave.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from up ahead.
When I lifted my head, I saw a building that had been barely standing collapse.
Trash scattered across the street was swept up like it was caught in a typhoon.
Tat-tat-tat. Tat-tat.
Something began flying in and striking the wall I was leaning against.
That didn’t mean debris from the point of impact had made it all the way here.
It seemed more like the small pebbles scattered around the area had been pushed by the shockwave.
“Ugh……”
“Stay still.”
Things harmful to the bronchial tubes must have clouded the area around the strike zone.
We had to wait until it all settled.
Of course, postmen are issued gas masks and filters to allow quick work after an airstrike.
But naturally, it’s only enough for one person.
So I didn’t take it out.
After the airstrike ended, I kept my eyes closed and sat there, conserving my strength until two hours had passed.
“That’s enough. Once we finish up here, we’ll head straight back to headquarters.”
“Yes……”
As I rounded the wall, I saw, far off on the ground, a giant rod stuck in at an angle like a gravestone.
Around it were remnants of what looked like a settlement.
Not every airstrike drops something as absurdly large as that.
If it’s small enough to ignore, sometimes they don’t even sound the air raid siren.
Either way, the kid’s settlement had been unlucky.
I roughly fashioned a hood from my clothes to cover my nose and mouth and stepped into the ruined settlement.
There was no need to check whether the leader and the officers were alive, and no way to do so anyway.
A one-in-ten-thousand chance?
That meant nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine out of ten thousand you’re dead.
Beep…… Beep……
The reason I came back here was to retrieve the measuring device.
But nothing was showing up on the scanner.
Beep……
In an age where building a communications network is impossible,
Equipment like the damage measurement device, which carries a “communication core” is valuable.
The reward for retrieving it is substantial.
Beep……
But no matter how thoroughly I scanned, nothing showed up.
The device must have been destroyed.
I was about to give up and turn back when the kid started pretending to look for something as well.
“What are you doing?”
“Just in case……”
Was he looking for traces of the captain?
Strange that he wasn’t crying.
It must be the shock.
Even if you’re not directly hit by an airstrike, the first time you witness one, it leaves you stunned.
“Let’s go.”
The kid fell back into his habit and didn’t follow me right away.
It looked like he had found something.
But when I started striding off at a near run, he slowly began to follow.
To reach headquarters, we’d have to travel for over twenty hours, not counting time for sleep.
In a straight line, it’s not that far, but where in this world can you actually travel in a straight line?
On top of that, I have to take the kid with me, so it’ll slow me down even more.
The extra risk that comes with having a companion is just a bonus.
“Worth 29 rounds, huh.”
Maybe I made a bad deal.
Honestly, I already let it slide that one round was missing.
The leader must have filled the magazine with all 30 before handing it over.
He wouldn’t have given it to me one short.
The missing one was probably pocketed by the kid as an emergency reserve.
For a brat who’s managed to survive this long, he’s got at least some basic instincts.
Still, it looks like the leader and the kid weren’t just casually acquainted.
For the first few hours, he was unusually quiet for a kid.
But once the sun went down, he started sobbing.
I figured it was better that way, but his recovery was annoyingly fast.
Maybe he wanted to show he was fine again, because he suddenly started talking to me.
“Earlier, I saw you just put the magazine I gave you into your bag. If you don’t have a rifle, you should’ve just asked me for one.”
Or maybe this was his way of coping.
“I hate carrying heavy things.”
“Mhmm!”
“If you’ve got nothing to say, stay quiet. You’ll just burn calories.”
“Why do you do this job, Mr. Postman? Like, do you have a dream or something?”
What a pointless question.
“What’s so special about work? People do it to make a living.”
“But being a postman isn’t exactly a normal job, right?”
Does this kid have some strange fantasy about postmen?
“You do dangerous work, don’t get treated well, and people look down on you all the time. Then again… if you were really capable, you’d have become a soldier or a hunter.”
So much for any fantasy.
“Anyway, it’s a government job.”
That unnecessarily honest answer came back to bite me.
“Oh! So your dream is to get into the Geofront?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You think being a postman will get me there?”
“Why not? If you don’t die and keep working hard, you’ll eventually rack up enough points.”
“That’s what you call false hope.”
“I still think it’s your dream…”
I just don’t like calling it a “dream”.
Maybe “goal” would be acceptable.
Like the kid said, getting into the Geofront is indeed why I work as a postman.
Normally, it’s nearly impossible to rack up that many points doing this job, but I’m not exactly normal.
Still, that’s just a goal for survival.
There’s nothing more to it, nothing that makes your heart swell.
You wouldn’t call scratching an itch a dream.
And besides, if I make it into the Geofront, I’ll have to see that old man again.
“It is a dream, right? It is!?”
“Keep your voice down. What about you? You said you had mail you absolutely had to deliver.”
“I’m not done talking about you yet!”
What an annoying kid.
Better to change the subject.
“I’ll show you something special.”
The Geofront, survival….that stuff isn’t interesting.
There are other things that are.
“What is it?”
A fantasy.
“Ever heard of a subway?”
I took out a small trinket I always carry in my pocket.
A miniature train-shaped ornament that was once attached to a personal communication device from a previous era.
“Sub…way? Iron underground? Like iron ore?”
“If iron ore meets the right owner, it can end up looking like this.”
“Is it made of iron? It’s just the right size to put in your mouth, so I thought maybe you eat it.”
“Of course not. And this is just a miniature. The real thing is enormous.”
Explaining this to someone who knows nothing about it is exhausting.
“So what about it?”
“Forget all that boring ‘dream’ talk. The thing that makes me feel best is imagining myself riding this.”
To escape the stench of death lingering in a bombed-out settlement, you have to leave the place.
If there’s someone you’d rather forget, like that old man, you can just stay away long enough.
But what if the thing you’re dealing with is reality itself?
You can’t leave reality, and you can’t exactly stop seeing it either.
In that case, you fantasize.
“Imagining riding it? Riding?”
“I mean getting on it.”
“Ah! I want to try riding something where the wheels move on their own too!”
“You’re thinking of something running on the surface, aren’t you? That’s dangerous. It’s loud, so it attracts all kinds of trouble.”
“Aw, that’s no fun.”
“The subway is loud too, but this one runs underground. It’s relatively safe. I’ve heard it sometimes comes up above ground, but you can just get off before that. And it can carry over a hundred people at once.”
The kid studied my expression, then broke into a strange smile.
So that was pointless, too.
In fact, this is the first time I’ve shown this trinket to anyone.
Partly because I haven’t had it for long, but also because I haven’t met anyone young enough that I wouldn’t feel embarrassed showing something like this.
Anyway, I’ve shown it enough, so now—
“Why are you putting it away? Keep going.”
“That’s enough.”
“Why? It’s interesting.”
What a hassle.
“Enough. Just hand that over.”
“Huh?”
“I know everything.”
I should pressure him into keeping quiet by letting him think I know he skimmed a round of ammo.
I’m not planning to stoop so low as to take that single round back.
Silencing him is enough.
“The thing the boss gave you. You know I go crazy for that stuff.”
At that, Kyun-gsoo suddenly remembered what the postman had said.
– What is this, a cornucopia? Stuff just keeps coming out. Got any beef jerky too?
“Uh… you knew.”
But Kyun-gsoo had already eaten it as soon as he got it.
“Of course I did.”
“But, um…”
“What, was it too good to give up?”
The kid scratched the back of his head, then reluctantly opened his mouth.
“I already… ate it.”
“…What?”
“I ate it… I’m sorry.”
What is wrong with this idiot?
Why would you eat ammunition?
“Are you insane?”
“I’m sorry! I was so hungry, I just—”
“No, even if you’re starving!”
“I must’ve lost my mind for a moment…”
It reminds me of a hunter who swallowed a battery.
“Of course you did. There’s no way that was sane.”
Come to think of it, he turned on the flashlight earlier over nothing.
He’s got more than a few bad habits to fix.
“Yeah… I’m sorry…”
Tch.
It can’t be helped.
What’s done is done.
It’s a miracle he’s alive without any problems.
If he was hungry, he could’ve just told me.
I could’ve taken the ammo and given him food.
Actually, it didn’t even have to be a trade.
Did I really look like the kind of person who wouldn’t spare a bit of food for someone so hungry he’d resort to eating ammunition?
“Don’t do that next time. Even someone like me shares food. You understand what I’m saying, right?”
“Yes…”
“Good. Keep that up. You could actually die if you keep doing that.”
“Yes! I’ll remember that!”
Just in case, I should ask Dr. Myung to take a look at him when we get back to headquarters.
Not that he has any money to pay for the exam.
I’ll just put it on his tab and collect it little by little.
“What a troublesome guy in more ways than one.”
But in the end, there was no need to find Dr. Myung.
I didn’t have to pay for an exam, and the trouble didn’t last very long.
Geuk. Geuk.
A familiar sound echoed.
“Behind the wall!”
“Yes, yes!”
A monster.
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