I had a dream, something I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

As someone who strives for short, perfect sleep without interruptions, dreaming felt like a humiliating anomaly. Still, the dream itself was intriguing.

In the dream, Park Gyu wasn’t preparing for the future in Korea but in the United States.

He had easy access to firearms and built a colossal fortress deep in the vast wilderness—one that could rival the estates of billionaire conglomerates.

From the tallest tower of this fortress, he shot down invading Yankees, cowboys, superheroes, and even a deranged mouse. With an eighteen-wheeled trailer, he crushed monsters under its weight, and somehow, he ended up dining with the President of the United States.

At the climax of the dream, I was about to say something to the President.

But no words came out.

I knew what I wanted to say, but I wasn’t familiar with his language, and doubts about whether my phrasing was correct stopped me from speaking.

In that moment, I realized I was a stranger in that land. That realization deflated me, and I woke up.

There’s nothing more to add or subtract.

It was a pointless dream—a strange yet entertaining one.

Still, the dream’s setting and events felt like a hazy glimpse into my future.

Thinking about the people I would soon meet gave me that impression.

Lately, gunfire has become more frequent.

The pattern suggests it’s not a battle, as the shots are one-sided, but the frequency is unnervingly high.

Could something have gone wrong?

It doesn’t feel like the right time to make contact, so I’ve just been observing, though a sense of worry looms over me.

Perhaps these repeated gunshots aren’t just about intruders—they could be signs of growing madness.

It’s already been two years since the war began.

That’s more than enough time for someone to lose their sanity.

The sniper had always asked me for drugs.

But what drug could possibly fill the void in her empty heart?

Maybe if there were some kind of magical cure-all…

But where would I even begin to find such a "magic drug"?

*

Reputation is everything.

Even now, people on the forum were searching for Kyle Dos.

Anonymous848: Kyle Dos! Are you alive? Where are you?

Anonymous458: Kyle Dos! I’m sorry, man. I made fun of you when they said you’d be a webtoon protagonist. Please forgive me and come back!

Today, DragonC uploaded the latest chapter of Remnant.

It depicted the final story of Kyle Dos, fighting desperately to protect his wife from invading deserters.

In the climactic moment, realizing he couldn’t win, he held his wife’s hand and shared one last kiss before pulling the pin on a grenade as the enemies stormed into the bunker.

BOOM!

An explosive ending.

The response was overwhelming.

Anonymous458: ㅠㅠ

roka3218: ㅠㅠ

keystone: ㅠㅠ

THE_LAST_MAN: ㅠㅠ

Anonymous848: ㅠㅠ

kimcic: ㅠㅠ

gijayangban: ㅠㅠ

Defender: ㅠㅠ

James_Catterer: TT
James_Catterer: Can somebody translate this to English? :)

Everyone cried over their keyboards.

Even Defender.

But not me. Not me and one other person.

SKELTON: Hmm...

unicorn18: Was she a virgin?

Objectively speaking, we were the perfect pair to hate on.

One was a humorless buzzkill, Defender’s so-called "friend." The other—a lunatic who had lost it a year into the apocalypse, turning into the literal unicorn his nickname implied.

Anonymous848: Skelton, don’t you think that’s a bit much?

Anonymous458: Bad choice of persona this time, buddy.

DragonC: Skelton?

roka3218: ...

kimcic: Here he goes again with his “Hmm.” That’s all he ever says.

As expected, the backlash came in full force.

Oddly enough, though, it felt like I was the only one being targeted.

Even Defender, who usually had no shame, messaged me privately.

Message from Defender: (Gasp) Skelton… are you a psychopath?

Though I was unjustly labeled, I stood by my convictions.

After all, I had visited Kyle Dos’s bunker myself and tried to uncover the truth.

Let’s be honest—it wasn’t a “grenade ending,” was it?

Still, I didn’t share what I’d found with the forum.

I saw no reason to ruin the romanticized version of Kyle Dos. Leaving him as the protagonist of a grenade-fueled blaze of glory seemed fitting.

As if the universe was balancing things out, a pleasant surprise appeared in the comment section of the new chapter:

Gijayangban, the long-lost "Reporter Guy," resurfaced.

Presumed dead since the start of the civil war, he had returned, casually leaving his thoughts on the latest chapter.

gijayangban: Lucky break. The Parliamentary Faction abandoned our apartment complex and pulled their defensive line further back.

gijayangban: Couldn’t log in for a while because of the drone jammers below. Plus, the command post was right under my floor, so if I’d turned on a generator, a few Panzerfausts would’ve come flying through my balcony.

Reporter Guy’s comeback, after being presumed dead, shook the forum like a storm.

He didn’t just return—he made up for lost time by sharing a treasure trove of updates sourced from PaleNet.

gijayangban: Destroyed tank.jpg
gijayangban: The massive monster spotted near Dongducheon.
gijayangban: (Bad news) The Hope still hasn’t fallen.
gijayangban: Current situation in Gangdong-gu.jpg
gijayangban: Recently launched cargo ships heading to Jeju.jpg

For those of us trapped in stifling bunkers, it felt like the world had suddenly opened up again.

While all the updates were fascinating, one story stood out.

gijayangban: The current state of the Seokju Group chairman’s mansion.jpg

Even the wealthiest weren’t immune to the chaos of war.

The once-fortified estates of conglomerates, built to withstand the future, had become targets.

Chairman Park Cheol-joo’s mansion was a prime example.

The elegant helicopter perched atop its helipad? Gone.
The greenhouse reminiscent of the Louvre? Smashed.
The mini-golf course that looked like a luxury country club? Obliterated.

As chatter about the mansion heated up, Reporter Guy added context:

gijayangban: Looks like a Corps Faction unit marked the coordinates and shelled it. No particular reason—just for fun.

I agreed with his assessment.

The craters bore the marks of 155mm howitzers.

Shelling a mansion in Chuncheon with no strategic value? If it wasn’t for amusement, what else could it be?

The ruined mansion still housed the conglomerate family, but with its walls crumbled and foundations shattered, they wouldn’t last long.

Perhaps Chairman Je Pung-ho’s decision to flee to Jeju had been the wiser move.

Reporter Guy’s return breathed new life into the forum, which had been stagnant for a while.

It was a reminder of the impact a notable user could have.

That said, I realized something about myself.

I was surprisingly envious.

The urge to write about Kyle Dos burned in my fingertips.

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Report) Visiting Kyle Dos’s Bunker (1)

I’d even come up with a headline—one so catchy it was practically destined to be a hit.

But I decided against it.

There was no need to disrupt the forum’s admiration for Kyle Dos’s “explosive ending.”

On second thought, was it really best to hold back such a good story?

Dramatic finales are great, but wasn’t conveying the truth just as important?

Honestly, I wasn’t as well-connected as Reporter Guy, but I was sure my on-site investigative skills were far superior.

My internal debate was abruptly interrupted by a sharp sound.

-Chhhht-

The K-radio crackled to life.

“Skelton.”

It was a familiar voice.

The sniper.

“I need backup.”

Before the transmission ended, sharp gunfire echoed from the south.

*

I’ve always believed that in times of apocalypse, humans remain the most dangerous threat.

Sure, erosion is an inevitable disaster, but Kyle Dos was simply unlucky.

He had built his home too close to a rift.

Erosion, by itself, doesn’t progress quickly. At most, it might spread by a radius of 1 centimeter per day—a slow encroachment.

But there are exceptions.

Sometimes, vast areas are consumed overnight.

Some claim stationary monsters are to blame, but stationary monsters only establish territories—they don’t catalyze erosion.

There must be some unknown factor at play. Yet, the pattern is clear: where there are monsters, erosion spreads faster.

This experiential knowledge was likely why so many hunters were trained in the pre-apocalypse era.

“Don’t leave stationary monsters alive. Don’t wait for them to disappear on their own. Hunt down even the one that got away, no matter the cost.”

This was one of the first lessons we were taught in school.

In the end, some unknown cause overwhelmed Kyle Dos, forcing him to vanish from the forum.

I still have time.

Distance is on my side.

And between me and the rift lies Seoul, a significant buffer.

Even if Seoul falls, there will always be people who choose to live there.

Seoul’s value will only rise—it’ll never diminish.

Even as ruins, everything needed for survival lies beneath its foundations.

If erosion ever reaches my region, abandoning my bunker might be an option.

By then, there wouldn’t be many people left wandering around South Korea.

The most dangerous enemy would have disappeared.

Bang!

Why are humans the most terrifying enemy?

The answer lay with the raiders who had encroached on the sniper’s territory.

Bang!

About 1.2 kilometers away from her building, a group of raiders had camped on a ridge.

Two naked men dashed across the ridge like moles popping in and out of a whack-a-mole game.

Running naked in the middle of winter seemed insane, but they had a reason.

They were mocking the sniper.

Bang!

No matter how skilled a sniper she was, hitting fast-moving targets at 1.2 kilometers wasn’t easy.

Each time a shot rang out in vain, the naked men raised their fists or flipped her the bird, taunting her.

From below the ridge came peals of laughter from their group.

Bang!

Another irritated shot cut through the air, but the bullet vanished into the void.

“...”

From a distance, this might seem like dark comedy.

But to the person involved, it was extreme psychological warfare.

Imagine predators circling a hedgehog, observing it, scheming about how best to kill and eat it.

They weren’t attacking outright. Instead, they were wearing down their prey’s nerves, tormenting her until she broke.

“Yah-ha!”

One of the men leaped onto the ridge, spreading his arms wide and screaming like a lunatic.

Bang!

The sniper fired again, but before the bullet even reached him, the naked raider darted behind cover.

Bang!

This time, the shot found its mark.

“Yeehaw!”

Even as blood sprayed from his wound, the man howled gleefully and dove behind cover. The laughter from the group grew even louder.

Only humans could do this.

Only humans could deliberately kill their own kind with such clear intent.

Monsters lack that purpose.

That’s why, despite their overwhelming strength, I rank them below humans in danger.

Circling around, I approached the sniper’s building.

Three corpses lay frozen at my feet, their armbands marking them as pioneers.

Judging by their state of decay, they’d likely been dead since autumn, when the pioneers had been most active.

“...”

She didn’t even have time to clean up the bodies.

I remembered her constant pleas for drugs.

Perhaps she was at her breaking point.

With this in mind, I waved toward her building.

A mirror flashed from above, signaling in Morse code.

“Wait.”

I stood still, waiting grimly for whoever would meet me.

It wasn’t the sniper.

Instead, her daughter appeared.

Children grow so fast—it was striking how much taller she was since the last time I saw her.

Yet, the military helmet on her head still seemed oversized, and the rifle slung over her shoulder looked even more out of place.

“Skelton.”

She gazed at me with a troubled expression.

Her face alone was enough to show the toll of stress.

While she wasn’t malnourished, she wasn’t thriving either.

“Let’s go.”

I didn’t offer words of comfort.

What they needed wasn’t solace—it was a solution.

That’s why I was here.

But no matter what, I wouldn’t hand over drugs.

After all, drugs aren’t short for "magic medicine."