NoveLight ™
Since I hadn’t shared my name and neither had the siblings, I decided to classify them simply as Defender and Defender’s Sister for convenience.
“SKELTON.”
Defender’s sister called my name in a soft voice, gesturing toward something.
I looked over and saw it was none other than the community.
She was in the middle of drafting a new post.
Defender:
(Breaking News) SKELTON came to our house!
Her mouse cursor hovered over the Post button.
“No, no, no! Don’t. Don’t post that.”
“...Why?”
“Why write this kind of nonsense? What’s the point?”
She pouted, then suddenly opened a notepad and began typing furiously.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Helping with what?”
“Your reputation isn’t exactly great, either.”
“...”
“Can’t we just talk instead of writing posts?”
“And typing them out works better?”
Who would’ve thought I’d meet someone who communicates with others via notepad while sitting right in front of them?
“That’s just how my sister is,” Defender chimed in as he stuffed fully loaded magazines into his pockets.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some dark story behind this habit, but Defender noticed my gaze and chuckled.
“Nah, there’s no deep reason. She’s just always liked typing more than talking, even as a kid.”
Click.
With skilled hands, he locked the bolt of his rifle and checked the chamber.
“You’re really planning to kill them all?” I asked, recalling the group of men in red pants.
There were about twenty of them, all armed with automatic rifles, and they even had an armored vehicle.
Their equipment was far superior to the group led by Lieutenant Colonel Choi, who had previously ventured into my territory.
While their individual skill levels were unknown, their numbers and firepower made them a significant threat.
“First, we kill the kids,” Defender said without so much as a flicker of hesitation.
“Killing the kids will force at least a few of them to come check what’s going on.”
He was dead serious.
“Then we pick them off one by one, thinning their numbers. If it looks like they’re grouping up, we hit their camp and wipe them out.”
“What about the armored vehicle?”
“My sister’s a drone expert. She’s especially good at dropping things from the air. She once killed someone by dropping a brick instead of a bomb.”
Defender’s sister proudly pointed at herself with both thumbs.
“That’s the plan so far. What do you think?”
“Impressive plan, but it lacks an exit strategy.”
“That’s just how fights are, right? Especially against grunts like these. Planning doesn’t mean much when they’re so unpredictable. As long as you set things up well in the beginning, they’ll fall apart on their own.”
“Do we really need to kill the kids?”
“And what? Let them live?” Defender smirked.
His sister turned her chair around and stared at me, her gaze heavy with silent pressure.
I opened my mouth under the weight of that stare.
“Maybe it’s better to spare them.”
“Why? They’re not my kids.”
Defender looked at his sister, who nodded with a faint smile, and then turned back to me.
“Unless, SKELTON, you want to take them in and raise them?”
“...That’s...”
“If you’re willing to take them in, I’ll reconsider.” Defender grinned, and his sister calmly kept her gaze fixed on me.
Together, they were silently asking me: What’s your move?
I caught myself wondering how much a child weighs.
I had no childhood memories to draw from, nor had I ever raised a child, so I had no idea what a young child’s weight might be.
But their weight, figuratively speaking, wasn’t light.
The heaviness of that question left me unable to answer right away.
“See? Even you can’t answer,” Defender said, arranging his weapons on the table before turning to his sister.
“What do you think?”
As if she’d been waiting for this moment, she replied in her soft, almost whispery voice:
“The moment those kids lost their parents, they were already dead. Just unlucky. The times aren’t on their side.”
In that moment, I fully understood: Defender wasn’t one person.
It was the two of them together—siblings—who combined to create the horror that was the Human Hunter.
After a brief silence, Defender offered an alternative.
“We could just ignore them. This place is steep, and there’s no proper path. The kids can’t climb up here. They’ll stick to the road.”
“Then isn’t fighting unnecessary?”
Avoiding unnecessary fights was my usual policy.
“Maybe, but eventually, we’ll have to fight. You can’t hide forever. And before that happens...”
Defender’s gaze shifted to the monitor.
“Our friends would die first.”
His sister pointed at the screen, adding, “Our community friends.”
“The community, huh...”
It made sense. Even if they posted warnings about the danger, how many people in the community would have the hearts of snakes like Defender?
I didn’t even have that much confidence myself.
“What about combat experience?” I asked.
Defender’s eyes lit up as he caught my drift.
“You planning to join the fight?”
I nodded.
“We have to protect the community.”
That was the main reason, though not the only one.
The methods of the red pants group were despicable, and seeing Defender’s setup and gear made me realize this could be an easier battle than expected.
If I had to fight anyway, better to do it with allies than alone.
I wouldn’t deny that some part of this decision also came from a shallow desire to feel morally superior.
Yeah, maybe I was getting old.
*
A drone soared into the dark night sky.
It was piloted by Defender’s sister.
“My sister’s gonna take out their armored vehicle. Those guys always leave the hatch open.”
Defender’s combat skills were no joke, something I’d already guessed during the Demian04 incident.
Though he didn’t say much, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were a former hunter.
His habits and actions, subtly ingrained, weren’t much different from what was taught in training schools.
He was likely from the cursed 17th or 18th class—the groups whose futures were stolen while still in training. If so, that might explain at least part of his twisted personality.
“That’s where they’re keeping the women,” Defender explained, pointing toward one of the buildings.
“The building has the weakest security. There are guards, but they’re focused on keeping watch inside rather than outside.”
Defender was a meticulous killer.
He had already memorized their layout, weak points, and even small habits.
As we prepared for the assault, Defender gave a slight shiver.
“Ah, look at this thrill running through me. This is my favorite part.”
Through my earpiece, I could hear his sister’s uneven breaths.
She didn’t say anything, but she was clearly feeling a mix of tension and excitement.
“Well then, shall we get started?”
Defender signaled with hand gestures.
It had been a long time since I’d seen combat signals, and for a moment, they transported me to the battlefields of China.
Thousands of corpses lying sprawled, comrades shooting at the ruins with expressionless faces, Chinese soldiers setting bodies ablaze while shouting in languages I couldn’t understand, and the faint outlines of medium-class monsters emerging one by one in the dim haze of destruction.
More than anything, I felt a slight headache and a wave of apathy.
“...”
Many of my comrades hadn’t succumbed to the dangers of the battlefield alone.
We were trapped in a sluggish hell, slow and tedious enough to make you yawn.
“SKELTON?”
Defender’s voice snapped me back to reality.
“Let’s go.”
The Plan
The plan was simple: two trained killers with concrete intel and a clear strategy launching a night ambush on an unorganized group of goons.
The outcome was already decided before it began.
Of course, chance might intervene and change fate, but I wasn’t about to let chance be the thing that killed me.
The Pioneer base was an abandoned theme park.
While the rides no longer operated, the area still offered plenty of empty buildings, roads, and resources to repurpose.
We approached the staff dormitory, where they had locked up their female captives.
The sound of women sobbing and men shouting echoed from the building.
We scoped out the guards patrolling the perimeter.
Defender raised his gun to take aim, but I shook my head, drew my two axes, and moved toward the sentries.
I didn’t crouch or go out of my way to muffle my footsteps.
Soon, one of the guards noticed something and turned toward me.
Thunk!
An axe buried itself in his neck.
As he staggered and began to fall, another guard turned to investigate.
“What the—?”
Thunk!
Two bodies hit the ground.
I stepped on one guard’s temple, yanked out the axe, and wiped the blood off on their clothes.
Defender approached, giving me a thumbs-up and whispering, “SKELTON, double kill.”
No sooner had he spoken than his sister’s excited voice came through the earpiece.
“SKELTON took them out? Really? Two of them?”
Her voice was louder and more energetic than when she spoke in person, brimming with an almost childlike enthusiasm.
“I’ll handle the inside,” Defender said, drawing a dagger.
“You sure you can do it alone?”
“Trust me. They’ll be too busy having their ‘fun’ to notice. I’ll be fine. Just keep watch outside.”
I nodded and scanned the area.
Under the pale streetlights, the armored vehicle stood in plain view.
Moments later, I heard a woman’s scream and Defender’s calm, measured voice.
Defender soon emerged.
“They’re there. The kids. Five of them, actually.”
“...”
“There are two options.”
“Two options?”
“One, we let the women escape and cause chaos.”
“And the other?”
“We quietly kill them all.”
“The second option.”
“Don’t you think you’re being too self-righteous?” Defender asked, his tone sharpening slightly.
“If I’m going to act self-righteous, I might as well commit to it,” I replied.
“You’re already halfway there,” he smirked.
In hindsight, my method was smarter.
The Pioneers, overconfident in their setup, had gathered in one building, drinking or sleeping without any proper guards or dispersion.
The old armored vehicle parked out front seemed to be the source of their confidence.
After taking out the sentries, we prepared for the assault.
As the faint hum of the drone reached us from above, we launched the operation.
Defender tossed a grenade into the building while smashing a window, and we unleashed a barrage of crossfire from two angles.
Tat-tat-tat-tat!
The gunfire was accompanied by the drone dropping a grenade directly through the open hatch of the armored vehicle.
The explosion rocked the area, and the vehicle began to lurch forward uncontrollably.
The driver had likely died with their foot still on the accelerator.
Boom!
Inside the building, a few men in red pants tried to take cover behind tables and return fire, but the growing flames and smoke quickly overwhelmed them.
With every variable eliminated, all that remained was a monotonous slaughter.
“Hey, SKELTON!”
Defender laughed loudly as a man engulfed in flames stumbled out of the building.
“Not bad, huh?”
He calmly aimed and shot the burning man, who collapsed and didn’t move again.
“SKELTON, you thought I was a joke earlier, didn’t you? Don’t lie—I can tell. This noona sees everything!” Defender’s sister’s voice crackled through the earpiece, just as excited as before.
She piloted the Chinese drone like a gamer, gleefully picking off fleeing red pants one by one.
“Surrender! We surrender!”
A few of the red pants stumbled out of the smoke, hands raised.
Defender laughed as he fired at them, his sister’s laughter echoing in the background.
In the distance, an explosion echoed.
The armored vehicle had crashed into some theme park structure.
At first, I dismissed it as a trivial coincidence.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then, fireworks shot into the sky, bursting into vibrant patterns that lit up the night.
“Whoa! Look at that! Hey!”
“Kyahhhh!!!”
The siblings cheered like children, watching the fireworks with unrestrained joy.
I found myself wondering.
Perhaps the atrocities committed by the red pants didn’t really matter to these two.
Maybe they just wanted to kill them for the thrill of it—and now, with their objective achieved, they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.
In that sense, the theme park had served its purpose.
After all, the visitors came for entertainment, and they’d gotten plenty of it.
As I watched the fireworks, I silently acknowledged the small miracle of chance that had kept me from becoming their next target.
*
The fun had ended, and it was time to face the aftermath.
“What are you going to do with them?” Defender asked.
The women and children left behind—collateral damage of shallow self-righteousness.
“Like I said earlier, I’m not taking them in. Can’t, actually.”
Defender stared at me intently, waiting for my response.
“...I...”
A myriad of thoughts stirred in my mind, but deep down, I already knew the answer.
From beginning to end, my gaze had always been fixed on one inevitable conclusion.
I watched silently as the women and children, clutching awkwardly held firearms, wandered off into the darkness.
One of the children glanced back at me, their eyes briefly meeting mine.
I chose not to dwell on their fate.
Click, click.
Behind me, Defender was busy snapping "proof photos."
“SKELTON,” he called, walking up and handing me something.
“What’s this?”
I took it and saw that it was a drawing.
It depicted an overly idealized version of me, like a handsome protagonist from a shoujo manga.
“My sister drew it.”
Indeed, at the bottom of the picture, in neat, cutesy handwriting, were the words: ‘To SKELTON.’
Now that I looked at it... there was some resemblance, maybe?
“She figured you wouldn’t visit our place again, so she wanted me to give it to you.”
Defender had an uncanny knack for reading people, and it seemed his sister shared that trait.
“Ever wonder why I do all this?” Defender asked suddenly.
“What’s with the self-reflection out of nowhere?”
“I know you think I’m a psychopath.”
He smirked, placing a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it.
The faint glow of the ember reflected in his eyes as he exhaled a plume of smoke into the night sky.
“This park... I came here with my sister as a kid. Holding hands with our parents.”
He blew another puff of smoke.
“Our father... he was a pathetic man.”
“...Yeah.”
Through the earpiece, I heard his sister’s voice.
“That story’s for when we’re closer.”
Defender handed me another piece of paper.
Unlike his sister’s carefully drawn illustration, what he gave me was a crude, hastily made voucher.
<Defender Summon Ticket>
“What the hell is this?”
“If you ever need help, DM me.”
Defender waved casually as he trudged into the darkness.
“No matter where, I’ll come.”
Not long after, his sister’s voice followed.
“SKELTON, let’s be friends from now on, okay?”
Standing there with the drawing and the voucher in hand, I stared silently at the mountain, the park, and the star-filled sky.
A lot had happened, but all I felt in the end was exhaustion.
The kind of tiredness you get after a day of running around an amusement park and heading home.
That night, Defender spammed the community board.
Defender: (Confession) I love SKELTON so much!
Defender: (Confession) I love SKELTON so much!
Defender: (Confession) I love SKELTON so much!
Defender: (Confession) I love SKELTON so much!
Defender: (Confession) I love SKELTON so much!
Defender: (Confession) I love SKELTON so much!
Defender: (Confession) I love SKELTON so much!
...and on it went.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—I wasn’t able to witness his absurd spree live.
“Dammit...!”
I was too busy being chased by those damn zombies!