"I’m alive," I shouted urgently into the radio.

“There will be an airstrike. If you’re near the U.S. military base, well... rest in peace.”

“Don’t bomb the airport,” I demanded.

“Why not?”

“They haven’t loaded the warhead yet.”

Speaking in a low voice, I kept my eyes glued to the periscope.

“Really? Are you serious? Oh, you’re right.”

Her voice confirmed it. The roar of another jet engine screamed through the sky, echoing like the roar of a beast.

Viiiiiiing—

It was Park Cheol-joo’s plane.

Who was piloting it?

A hired pilot? Perhaps someone he bribed?

No, that couldn’t be it. Among the fallen bodies, one wore a pilot’s uniform.

The elegant plane wobbled as its rudder flaps moved erratically.

“Could it be…?”

Was it Park Cheol-joo himself?

Now that I thought about it, Go Seong-jun had mentioned that Park Cheol-joo had a pilot’s license.

“That crazy old man! Stop him! Quickly!”

As the rumble of vehicles reverberated, the plane began to taxi toward the runway.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunfire erupted between the airport and my position.

It seemed they were attempting to intimidate the pilot, but the plane didn’t stop.

Bullets riddled its sleek fuselage, but the majestic machine continued forward, its engine roaring as it picked up speed.

Viiiiiiing—

Over the cacophony, the radio transmitted a clear, resonant voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Seokju Group Flight One, departing from Korea to Japan. The current time is 12:22 PM, and the weather is a pleasant 15 degrees Celsius, with clear skies.”

It was none other than Park Cheol-joo himself, his voice transmitted across public channels.

“Our destination is paradise~.”

The plane lifted off the ground, just as the fighter jets above scattered in all directions.

Missiles screamed in from the east, streaking across the sky.

The jets released chaff to confuse the missiles, twisting and turning in dazzling evasive maneuvers, while the passenger plane soared, its silver body gleaming in the sunlight.

I couldn’t help but clench my fist.

The sight was absurdly beautiful.

Maybe I felt envious—jealous of the freedom to escape this cursed land of death.

Perhaps it was because of the earlier drowsiness, but I felt as though I were walking through a dream.

“SKELTON!”

The urgent voice jolted me back to reality.

“SKELTON!”

It was Defender’s voice, crackling through the radio.

“Yeah. What is it?”

“Are you alive? What’s going on over there? What the hell is happening?!”

“Well…” I hesitated. “A little skirmish is unfolding.”

“What about you? Are you safe? You’re not under attack, are you?”

“Hmm.”

What should I say?

Should I tell the truth?

But it didn’t seem necessary.

“Just a second.”

“What?”

“Just a moment.”

I set the radio down and focused on the bunker’s entrance.

A man was descending the stairs slowly.

In one hand, he carried a massive ballistic shield, and in the other, a heavy Chinese greatsword.

Kim Pil-seong smiled at me.

For a moment, I recalled the buzz-cut boy from our school days.

It was as if that boy were speaking to me now.

Challenging me to a rematch.

I stood up, gripping two axes in my hands, leaving behind the countless death traps that lined the bunker.

Thud.

Kim Pil-seong tossed aside his shield and shut the bunker door.

“Does this lock it properly?” he asked.

I nodded.

Now, only two hunters with shared pasts remained in the bunker.

The sounds of gunfire, missile explosions, and shouts outside no longer mattered.

Two people who had attended the same school, received the same training, and walked similar paths of fate now stood face to face, holding the same thought.

Kim Pil-seong grinned.

The moment I saw that smile, I couldn’t help but smile back.

This guy…

He really had wanted to fight me at least once.

It seemed this was the true, long-repressed desire he had been holding back.

Well, childhood defeats do leave scars for life.

Seeing the person who beat you rise to near-legendary status must have deepened the wound.

But he had never abandoned faith in his own skills.

It was evident from the engraving on his greatsword’s blade.

“최강” (The Strongest).

Suddenly, Kim Pil-seong took a step back, his expression faltering.

“What… what is that toilet doing here?”

“What? Got a problem with it?”

“Anyway, I must admit,” he said, lifting the grenade net and stepping further into my space. “You’ve built yourself quite the bunker.”

His gaze landed on the intersecting Claymores.

“Corporal Gwon suggested we push through with shields earlier. That would’ve been a massacre.”

He nodded in acknowledgment, clearly impressed.

“You really are the top of your class.”

Almost simultaneously, we wiped the smiles off our faces.

Kim Pil-seong raised his greatsword, and I raised my axes.

“Senior? Senior?”

The radio buzzed.

Kim Pil-seong seemed to recognize the voice instantly but said nothing.

Instead, he lunged at me with his greatsword.

His speed was like that of a leopard, his force as overwhelming as a mountain.

Clang!

The axes and the greatsword collided midair, vibrating violently as we clashed.

Through the shaking weapons, Kim Pil-seong’s piercing gaze locked onto mine.

He retreated swiftly, then launched another flurry of attacks.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Three rapid exchanges lit up the air with sparks.

“Oh my.”

Woo Min-hee’s voice came through the radio.

“Senior, you seem busy.”

She began humming a cheerful tune, the melody eerie and whimsical.

The bunker was soon enveloped in an unsettling atmosphere—a mix of grimness, cheerfulness, and something almost deranged.

Within it, two hunters unleashed the culmination of their lifetimes of training, their deadly dance uninterrupted.

Kim Pil-seong gained the upper hand first.

Clang!

One of my axes flew out of my hand, arcing through the air.

Without hesitation, he drove his greatsword toward my exposed left side.

I feigned a dodge to the left, baiting him into overcommitting, then quickly stepped back.

His blade barely missed my neck.

Through the gap, I saw his burning eyes, tinged with frustration.

In the momentary pause after his strike, I flicked my remaining axe with a wrist motion.

Thunk!

The axe embedded itself in his knee.

Though the wound was shallow, the location was critical—his knee.

“Grrrgh!”

I lunged, retrieving the fallen axe as I charged forward.

Kim Pil-seong, now like a wounded tiger, swung his greatsword wildly, but the effectiveness of even the best swordsman depends on a solid stance.

Thunk!

My axe buried itself in his elbow, forcing his joint into an unnatural angle.

“Gah!”

Clang!

The greatsword fell from his hand.

I instinctively glanced at my watch.

30.7 seconds.

That’s how long it had taken me to disarm him.

He had improved, but his dirty temper hadn’t changed at all.

“Park Gyu!”

Kim Pil-seong tore off his jacket, revealing the bombs strapped to his chest.

He reached for the detonator, but…

Thwack!

My axe cleaved into his skull faster than he could react.

His hand twitched, losing its purpose, before collapsing alongside his lifeless body.

Thud.

Another hunter fell.

The humming on the radio stopped.

“Who won?”

Woo Min-hee’s voice came through, curious.

I responded, a hint of irritation in my voice.

“Sorry to disappoint. Still alive.”

I yanked the axe from Kim Pil-seong’s head, wiping the blood and brain matter on his clothes, and sighed.

“I was rooting for you, senior,” she said, her tone teasing.

“By the way, could you let me live for once?”

I replied, quoting her own words back at her. “If you’ve got bait, use it.”

Woo Min-hee’s laughter echoed, mimicking the grave, merciless tone I’d used during our time in China.

It sounded eerily like the old Park Gyu, back when I was all cold efficiency and zero compassion.

She chuckled again. “It’s the way you taught me, isn’t it? Back in China, when you used human shields to clear the way?”

“...”

“Stay hidden. Don’t move. A helicopter will arrive soon, and they’ve been ordered to kill anything that moves.”

In the distance, the sound of artillery echoed.

Could it be an airstrike?

It was likely that the National Assembly faction’s fighter jets were obliterating the Legion faction’s artillery.

Using the Pioneer Corps as bait to uncover enemy forces and locate key threats, then deploying their main forces to silence them—it was a solid strategy.

Soon, helicopters appeared from the west.

As Woo Min-hee had warned, they tore through anything in their path, shredding, smashing, and burning indiscriminately.

Once the helicopters had departed, I emerged cautiously from the bunker to survey the surroundings.

“…”

Everything was destroyed.

There were likely no survivors.

I perched atop the scorched bunker, lighting a cigarette scavenged from the body of the dead.

Fwoooosh.

Exhaling a long puff of smoke, I thought to myself that this long, grueling day was finally drawing to a close.

My gaze drifted southward.

There, a pristine, innocent contrail stretched far into the sky, reaching toward the horizon.

*

Among the Legion faction members dispatched to the airfield, no one survived, except for Ji Young-hee and a technician who had departed the previous day.

The attack helicopters pursued not only those who had been in my vicinity but also vehicles attempting to flee, turning them into flaming wrecks.

When it was all over, the helicopters collected the nuclear warheads and calmly headed north.

I scoured the area, looking for any hidden survivors, but aside from a body at the bottom of a cliff, there was nothing new to discover.

“You could’ve called me,” Defender said, wearing an expression of mild disappointment.

“I didn’t think it was necessary.”

I hadn’t used my “Defender Summon” card, yet I ended up calling him.

Handling all these corpses—especially in a season where decomposition happened quickly—was too overwhelming to do alone.

Defender expressed his annoyance at not being summoned earlier but still helped me efficiently and without complaint to deal with the bodies.

As expected, someone who had dealt with corpses before knew exactly how to handle them: how to lift and carry them with ease, how to clean and process badly mangled remains.

Thanks to his help, I managed to clear the area much faster than I could have alone.

With a dull thud, the last body was loaded onto the truck.

It was my comrade, Kim Pil-sung.

“...If you’re in trouble next time, just call me.”

“To be honest, this was on the scale of a war. It wasn’t something that would’ve changed even if you’d come.”

“I get that, but it still stings a little, you know?”

“Sorry, that’s just how I talk.”

“No wonder you weren’t very popular.”

“Not denying it.”

Defender waved as he prepared to leave.

I handed him a few tokens of appreciation—some beef and fuel that Ji Young-hee had provided.

“Thank you.”

I bowed deeply, with genuine gratitude.

“Thank you truly. I won’t forget this favor.”

In this wretched world, how many people would help dispose of corpses?

“...Call me next time.”

Defender accepted the gifts and mounted his bicycle.

“Sure. And you, call me if you’re in danger too.”

That day, our forum was abuzz with speculation and rumors about the thunderous sounds of planes and artillery that had echoed throughout the previous day.

At the center of it all was our very own Gija Yangban (Reporter Guy).

gijayangban: (Photo attached) “Intense Battle Between the Legion Faction and National Assembly Faction at the U.S. Military Base?!”

The post included photos of the battlefield, likely taken from one of the attack helicopters.

The images showed burned-out trucks, wreckage, a crashed attack helicopter buried in a rice paddy, the remains of fighter jets, and missile debris—all vividly illustrating the chaos.

Thanks to these pictures, Gija Yangban’s post became a hot topic both on Failnet and on our forum.

“...”

At this point, it was hard not to suspect that Gija Yangban might actually be Woo Min-hee.

Despite the incident, the ceasefire between the Legion faction and the National Assembly faction hadn’t officially ended.

Neither side made any statements about the events.

In essence, this was treated as a mere “incident”—one with casualties but no clear perpetrator or cause.

The forum buzzed with activity over the event, but I couldn’t fully enjoy the online spectacle.

I had taken considerable losses myself.

One of my dummy bunkers had been destroyed, the ventilation system and other bunker facilities were damaged, and most importantly, my main bunker was no longer secure.

I had made an enemy of the Legion faction.

While no one survived to tell the tale, there was someone who knew of me.

Kim Daram.

She had loathed my sanctuary and left it behind, only to help those who sought to destroy it.

“...”

Even now, I didn’t regret showing my bunker to Kim Daram.

If anything, this incident gave me a strange sense of purpose—a glimmer of hope.

The Rifts could be closed.

I didn’t know if what Woo Min-hee said was true, but perhaps the claim about closing the Rifts held some truth.

I thought of my comrades, chosen by God in ways I wasn’t.

If they, along with newer and stronger allies, supported each other, perhaps they could close the Rift on Jeju Island.

This thought gave me something to wait for.

Not just the day I might die, but the day the Rifts might close—a new goal to work toward.

Living with the hope that the world could improve is far different from living with the certainty that everyone but me will die.

Perhaps this faint glimmer of hope was part of the journey toward the paradise that Park Cheol-joo spoke of.

In that sense, I had found my own paradise too.

Epilogue

Mayuzumi88: “Hey, Korean friends, is this one of yours?”

A Japanese user had joined our forum, sharing a post about a popular thread from the Viva! Apocalypse! Japanese forum.

The story described an impossibly beautiful airplane landing on an abandoned runway of a southern island surrounded by an endless expanse of blue sea.

When the plane was discovered, no one was found aboard.

But I knew that plane.

It was Park Cheol-joo’s.

Where had he gone?

A clue emerged from another post shared by the Japanese user.

In one photo, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses posed in front of the camera with a double peace sign, surrounded by curious onlookers admiring the plane.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

It was Park Cheol-joo.

In the end, yet another corporate magnate had found his version of paradise.

To pay homage to his determination, I broke a long-standing taboo and tried something new for the first time: an MBTI test.

“...”

The result? INFP.

A “Mediator” who enjoys introspection?

An introverted type that gets lost in their own world?

For some reason, it didn’t sit right with me.

I asked Dajeong, who seemed like someone who might know about MBTI.

“INFP?”

She scoffed and said bluntly, “That’s the loser archetype.”