Where should I even begin?

How does one explain the situation to a mother who has just lost her son?

I could just leave. Ignoring it and walking away would be simple.

When would I ever see her again? Maybe in the afterlife—if such a thing exists. Even then, the chances are slim. That afterlife would be crowded with unprecedented numbers of visitors.

But seeing the old woman left alone in the dark to grapple with the reality of her only son's death gnawed at me. And knowing that I was the one who had witnessed his death up close, without offering her any explanation, sat heavily on my conscience.

There was time before the armored vehicles arrived.

Whether it was obligation or a moment of whimsy, I couldn't tell. I approached her and spoke.

“...The Assemblyman’s death was heroic.”

Park Sang-min’s mother seemed like a strong-willed woman.

Despite her worn and tattered appearance, her clothes hinted at once being luxurious, and the jewelry she wore wasn’t ordinary.

However, there wasn’t even a trace of elegance about her. Perhaps her personality was too harsh to accept refinement.

“That fool couldn’t possibly have died heroically.”

The old woman glared at me, her eyes wide with accusation.

“You killed him, didn’t you? Huh? It was you, wasn’t it?”

She lunged to grab my collar without warning.

I brushed her hand away with a firm gesture.

“Watch your words.”

“How dare you talk back to me, you lowborn bastard! A wretched, pedigree-less punk!”

“Mind your language!”

Her overbearing attitude made me raise my voice without realizing it.

“A filthy creature who wouldn’t have dared to meet my gaze before the war?!”

She raised her hand, aiming to slap me.

That was crossing the line.

There were other ways to handle this, but I chose to teach her a lesson. I pushed her with my foot, making her tumble backward.

“Ahhh!”

Some people only come to their senses when they feel pain.

She seemed to be one of those.

As she lay sprawled on the ground, her fine clothes now covered in dirt and her body aching, she finally seemed to grasp reality. She sat on the ground, her head bowed.

“Why does everyone hate him? My son... Sang-min, my boy Sang-min…”

For the first time, her eyes glistened with tears.

I hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to tell her the truth.

“...”

Perhaps my decision was already made the moment she called for her son to come back, and I overheard it.

Call it a sense of duty.

Even if Park Sang-min couldn’t return, I felt that I owed her an explanation of what had happened to him.

“...Alright. I’ll explain everything step by step. If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to go into the Assembly and see for yourself.”

And so, the story began, tracing back to the moment we parted ways with her.

"There was nothing else I could do. Honestly, in a situation where the government has fled, and the country is in shambles, what can the National Assembly possibly do? By law, our role is legislation and oversight of the executive branch. But oversight is only possible when the country is on a stable footing, isn’t it? The head of the executive branch—the President—has fled. All that’s left are bureaucrats. What can we possibly achieve?”

I didn’t bother listening to Park Sang-min’s excuses.

I just acknowledged that he had his own circumstances.

"The election wasn’t something I decided. It wasn’t me—it was those higher up.”

He tried multiple times to provoke a response from me, but I ignored all of his attempts.

The National Assembly was just ahead.

He fiddled with his phone before showing me a photo.

The picture depicted several gloomy and disheveled children standing in neat rows. At the center, Park Sang-min stood confidently, his hand on a boy’s shoulder, smiling.

As he looked at the photo of himself, he began to speak.

“I know I’m not likable. It’s a politician’s fate. It’s a profession that naturally invites criticism. But I think it’s better than being a judge.”

“Better? Better than what?”

“No, not better. I mean better, like ‘better,’ not birthing something.”

“Oh, right.”

“This photo is from a private orphanage I support.”

With pride in his eyes, he swiped through more photos.

There were not only group pictures but also snapshots of the orphanage’s crumbling yet somewhat lived-in facilities, along with images of the children.

In every photo, Park Sang-min was front and center, striking a political smile.

“I take pride in saving countless children who have lost their parents. But if I’m not elected as the people’s representative this time, I’ll lose the ability to care for them.”

He looked up at me with sorrowful eyes.

“If I’m not elected, all those children will die.”

I said nothing.

I didn’t even look at him.

His intentions were so transparent that I needed to focus on maintaining a neutral expression.

The Assembly was now directly in front of us.

Once the most powerful and influential individuals in South Korea passed through these doors, which now stood wide open, rusted, and corroded.

A flock of pigeons scattered, leaving feathers floating in the air.

“...For the first time, I’ve disobeyed my mother.”

Park Sang-min spoke.

Unlike before, I turned to look at him.

He was smiling at me.

“Can you believe it? A national assemblyman who’s been a mama’s boy his entire life.”

He opened the door.

“I’m not going in,” I said firmly.

“Couldn’t you at least pretend to go in? My mother is watching.”

“...”

I stepped inside the Assembly.

It was my first time setting foot in the National Assembly, but I felt no sense of awe or thought.

The space before me was nothing more than a dark, chaotic ruin filled with the stench of decay.

What caught my attention was the marks on the floor.

“?”

I turned to Park Sang-min.

“Didn’t you say it was a capsule?”

“Yes, it’s a capsule. Coincidentally or maliciously, it’s sitting right in the center of the Assembly.”

“Do you see these marks?”

I pointed to the floor.

The corridor floor bore evenly spaced puncture marks, as if made by sharp spikes at regular intervals.

“What... what are these?”

As expected, Park Sang-min lacked experience.

I already knew.

Even though he flaunted his Hunter certification to secure his proportional representation seat, it was clear he’d never set foot on a battlefield, let alone completed any meaningful training.

“There’s a small monster type called the Spider Type. It resembles Earth’s spiders but only has six legs.”

“Y-Yes, I know. It’s a representative type of stationary monster, right? Once it establishes a base, it becomes harder to exterminate than other stationary types.”

“And why is it harder?”

“Well, that’s because...”

“They create mazes and spawn minions. To be precise, underlings.”

What he said was correct.

Spider Types, once they establish a base, are among the most challenging to deal with.

Like spiders weaving webs, they remodel the terrain they occupy and spawn hundreds of minion Spiderlings, which erase anyone foolish enough to enter their maze-like domain.

“There are traces of those minions everywhere. Besides the capsule, it seems a monster has also appeared here.”

“But I don’t see any signs of terrain transformation.”

Park looked around nervously.

“Spider Types rapidly turn areas around their base into eroded zones, creating fortresses. Isn’t that right?”

“It must have appeared recently, mixed in with larger monsters.”

“But don’t Spider Types only spawn minions after they’ve built their base?”

“...”

He had done his homework.

This time, he was correct.

Spider Types, much like queen ants, only produce Spiderlings after their territory is fully established.

A deviation from this order had never been reported during my time on the battlefield.

Now that I thought about it, Park Sang-min was better educated than I was.

He had graduated from one of Korea’s top universities and even completed graduate school in the U.S.

I had been too quick to dismiss him entirely because of his slapdash Hunter credentials.

“...”

Park Sang-min slumped to the floor.

While fear of being in a monster’s territory was understandable, his face showed something far more overwhelming—utter exhaustion.

“You’re not going any farther, are you?”

“No.”

“Let’s stay for ten minutes. That way, your mother might be convinced.”

A heavy silence fell between us.

There was nothing to say.

We didn’t like each other.

If we were teenage boys, perhaps we could fight it out and reconcile.

But we were adults.

In the adult world, reconciliation doesn’t exist.

Adults know too well how different the positions they stand on are.

“Kim Daram was your senior, wasn’t she?”

Park Sang-min broke the silence.

I nodded quietly.

“She was one of the few reasonable people I could talk to.”

I glanced at my watch.

Only two minutes had passed.

It felt like ten.

“Woo Min-hee is... strange. The way she talks—it’s unsettling. It’s not malicious, but her tone makes people uncomfortable.”

Woo Min-hee did have that effect.

Park let out a deep sigh.

“...Just like my mother.”

I looked at him.

This was the second time.

Coincidentally, both times I showed interest in him were when he mentioned his mother.

His mother didn’t seem like the kindest person.

She was the archetype of a wealthy, imperious madam—the kind you could imagine forcing a young department store clerk to kneel while berating her with cutting words.

Park Sang-min let out a faint laugh, gazing into the distance.

“Well, when you think about it, I might be here because of my mother.”

“She told you not to come, didn’t she?”

“No. I mean, looking at my entire life. It’s like inertia. The inertia my mother created pushed me here.”

“Inertia...”

“From the moment I came out of my mother’s womb, my life was decided.”

Park opened his hand and stared at his palm.

He examined it closely before turning his gaze to me.

“Like the lines on my hand.”

“...”

“Snacks, toys, clothes, school, hobbies, friends, even my wife—all chosen by my mother. Becoming a National Assembly member was also thanks to her.”

“You must come from a good family.”

“Yes, I do. It’s true, whether you like it or not.”

I couldn’t help but wonder.

“What about your father?”

What kind of life could the husband of such an overbearing woman have led?

“He left to start a new family.”

Of course.

“Who could endure her personality? Even my wife couldn’t handle it and left me. My younger brother developed something close to autism. You’d be surprised. The rude and arrogant Park Sang-min has such a shy, awkward brother.”

One thing was clear—this man was acutely self-aware.

He knew how others saw him, what they thought of him.

And yet, he lived his life hurting and exploiting others. In a way, it was remarkable.

Most incompetent people don’t even realize they’re incompetent.

Anyway.

“It’s been ten minutes.”

Park rose from his seat.

Strangely, I was the one who felt a twinge of regret.

I’d found myself drawn to the life story of a man just five years older than me, a man whose life trajectory was entirely different from mine.

Perhaps it was a curiosity fated by our circumstances.

His story of an oppressive parent was an experience I, an orphan, could never have.

“Shall we go a bit farther inside?”

I realized that Park Sang-min hadn’t become a National Assembly member by chance.

This man had a keen sense for reading situations.

Behind his arrogance, vanity, and selfishness, he hid claws of sharp insight.

Recognizing that his politician persona wouldn’t work on me, he had swiftly switched to presenting himself as a human being. It was a commendably shrewd move.

As a result, I found myself heading deeper into the heart of the country’s constitutional history—a place I had no intention of exploring.

The corridor leading to the Assembly was lined with framed artworks.

Amendments, the Four-Six Vote scandal, the gymnasium elections.

These moments, symbolizing the Assembly’s impotence, were depicted in modern artistic styles. Under the roofless ruins, the paintings were left to weather and decay.

“I still remember the day I first entered the Assembly.”

Walking with a steady gait toward the Assembly chamber, Park spoke.

“Everything was astonishing and new. For the first time, I felt alive.”

His steps came to a halt.

His eyes locked onto a round, grayish-white object brazenly occupying the central podium.

“...Even if it was all on a track my mother had laid out for me.”

At the heart of the ruined capital lay a monster’s egg.

“I like it here.”

Park slipped his hand into his pocket.

Before he withdrew it, the outline of a familiar handle made of metal and plastic emerged.

A pistol.

“...”

I had anticipated this.

Click.

“Drop the gun.”

I had already drawn my weapon first, aiming squarely at him.

“I’ll give you three seconds.”