Free Web Novel“Well. How should I put this? Yes. Life. Life itself was a stage for me.”
That was something Shin Sang-jin had said during an interview with some media outlet before the war.
With a strange gleam of exhilaration in his eyes, he looked straight at the reporter and continued fervently.
“As long as I’m alive, I’ll never stop acting. Why? This wide, vast world. This long, drawn-out life. It’s all a stage, and I am an actor who’s stepped onto that stage.”
The audience who heard him clapped as if genuinely moved, their eyes sparkling—but I wasn’t so sure.
There was something about what he said that rubbed me the wrong way.
As is always the case with these things, the exact reason for that discomfort is vague.
Shin Sang-jin flatly refused to hand over the capsule.
“I don’t know. It was definitely behind the house before. Then suddenly, it was just gone.”
A lie so flimsy, you’d know he was full of shit just by turning on your phone and reading his posts.
And honestly, it’s not like I couldn’t understand why he’d try to hide it.
Among the many posts Shin Sang-jin had made, the one about the capsule had nearly made it to the top—amassing a flood of views and upvotes.
Most of the comments were mocking, sure, but even those jabs were like rain in a drought to someone like him.
“Mister. How many hits do you want?”
Eventually, Defender’s team took appropriate measures, recovered the capsule, and called in a Registered Awakened to deal with it.
And just like that, the incident seemed to wrap up.
But the moment I saw that same gleam of pleasure in Shin Sang-jin’s eyes as he looked at me, I had a gut feeling we’d be seeing repeats of this sort of thing again and again.
*
Sure enough, Shin Sang-jin quickly resurfaced within our line of sight.
But it wasn’t online or out on the streets this time.
[ Citizen Council Candidate No. 172, Shin Sang-jin ]
He had entered the political arena.
Since I wasn’t well-informed about the current election process, Kim Daram—now technically a council candidate himself—gave me a quick explanation.
“There are no constituencies anymore, and obviously no political parties. That might change someday, but under current rules, you first have to register as a preliminary candidate. Even that’s not easy. You have to submit proof to the Election Management Division that you’ve got at least 100 supporters and the structure or personnel necessary to run a campaign. Once that’s approved, then you become an official candidate. Though honestly, no one knows when or how they’ll change the rules again.”
One hundred supporters. A functioning campaign organization.
These are rare commodities in today’s world.
Especially the 100 supporters requirement—it’s a major hurdle.
It’s probably symbolic too.
A message: if you can’t scrape together that many people, don’t even think about running.
For the record, I’m one of the 100 registered supporters for Kim Daram.
Anyway, Shin Sang-jin somehow cleared that daunting hurdle and became an official candidate.
“Something’s not right. That guy’s got nothing. Even I barely managed to scrape together a hundred signatures, had to go bowing my head to academy Hunters I don’t even like—so how the hell did he get a hundred? Did they pop out of the ground or something? I mean, come on... how many fans could he even have left at this point?”
Trying hard not to curse in front of his kid, Kim Daram clearly didn’t see Shin Sang-jin as your average candidate.
“A puppet candidate, maybe?”
There were plenty of those.
According to Kim Daram, over 100 out of the 181 official candidates so far were believed to be puppet candidates.
More than half.
In his words, “everyone but me is a puppet.”
Then a familiar name caught my eye among the list of puppet candidates.
[ Citizen Council Candidate No. 151, Ha Tae-hoon ]
I assumed it was just someone with the same name, but I checked the profile just in case.
“?”
It was him.
Definitely Ha Tae-hoon.
The single line about his experience as a Hunter erased all doubt.
Ha Tae-hoon, who was supposed to be in my bunker, was suddenly running for council.
“Huh. This is weird. I’m pretty sure that’s Ha-sunbae.”
He’d mentioned maybe coming to Seoul, but I hadn’t heard anything about him actually arriving.
And we definitely hadn’t heard anything about him running for council.
We only found out when the candidate list went public.
“He’s a puppet too.”
Woo Min-hee said coldly, having somehow slipped into the office.
I had a way to confirm.
Tap tap tap.
SKELTON: Long time no see! Quick question—urgent!
I messaged Rebecca and her daughter. If anyone knew what Ha Tae-hoon had been up to lately, it’d be them.
Soon, a reply came from Sue.
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: SKELTON! Long time no see! How’s our juicy man doing?
SKELTON: Quit with the weird talk. What happened with Ha Tae-hoon? He’s suddenly listed as a candidate in Seoul.
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: Huh? He went to Seoul, didn’t he? Didn’t you hear? Not in an armored vehicle or anything—just a sedan. My mom said it was a sedan. He took off in that.
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: He even gave us some sugar, a few pieces of dried fruit, and some protein blocks to say thanks. Told us not to tell you—wanted to surprise you.
SKELTON: Really...?
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: ? Why, what’s wrong SKELTON?
SKELTON: No, it’s nothing. You doing okay over there?
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: No, I’m pissed. All those punks from Daegu came here and are driving me nuts. One of them was sneaking around at night and I nearly shot him. Should’ve just shot him, really...
SKELTON: (cold sweat) Hang in there, Sue.
Message from COOKIEMONSTER123: They’re gathering over there and making some weird device. Like, why not just live here? Why go there of all places... (Sue sighs)
It seemed true—Ha Tae-hoon had become a candidate.
I tried the radio. No response.
“Well... people gotta eat.”
Cheon Young-jae said it offhandedly, but there was bitterness on his face he couldn’t hide.
According to Kim Daram, even among puppet candidates, there were nobles and there were commoners.
The nobles were preselected—people chosen by the Jeju government who didn’t have to lift a finger to secure their seats.
The commoners, on the other hand, were those who were pushed into candidacy but had no guarantee of winning. They still had to campaign and fight for votes, even if they were technically supported.
And you could guess what kind of jobs these “commoner” candidates got saddled with.
“So did you rape and murder them? What else could it be? You tracked down a family in hiding, killed all the men, raped the °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° women, sold them off to the organ trade or the brothels, and hauled away all the supplies in your damn cart, right?!”
At a public debate, Shin Sang-jin unleashed a blistering attack on another candidate.
His target was someone I knew—more commonly known by his nickname “Minsik,” but his real name was Lee Do-won.
People had expected Minsik to get elected even before he officially joined the race.
He was the leader of a massive scavenger group, often called thugs, commanding hundreds of members and hoarding a stockpile of war-era resources.
If he felt like it, he could mobilize a powerful military unit in an instant, centered around dozens of elite fighters.
Like many self-made mainland power players, Minsik despised the Jeju government. But his influence and economic clout were so vast that even Jeju couldn’t move against him easily.
According to Kim Daram, even the Jeju officials had purposely ignored him.
They didn’t expect to win every seat, after all. And one of the few citizen slots they were willing to give up had apparently already been reserved for Minsik.
But now Minsik had a challenger.
Shin Sang-jin.
“You thugs like to call yourselves scavengers, but you know what you really are, right? It’s all the same. You kill the owners and take their stuff—that’s not scavenging, that’s looting. Can you really stand there and tell us with a straight face that someone like you deserves to represent the people?!”
Shin Sang-jin’s voice boomed through the entire hall even without a mic, completely silencing Minsik.
And Minsik—slick, but unpolished in public speaking—could only sit there, his face flushed red and blue, unable to say a word.
“That guy.”
Woo Min-hee pointed at Shin Sang-jin on the screen.
“Didn’t he appear in that courtroom drama too?”
“Probably Duck Killing.”
For the first time in a while, Cheon Young-jae answered one of her questions.
Being the kind of guy who’d tried every trend and copied every fad before the war, he had a solid grasp on pop culture.
And if he’d had even a speck of tact, maybe he could’ve found a woman who actually liked him.
“You saw it too, didn’t you? Duck Killing?”
“No.”
“What?! Really?! That film had ten million viewers. You didn’t watch it?”
“I was busy building the bunker.”
“Wow, seriously? You didn’t even watch that?”
“...”
Woo Min-hee was smiling.
That brutal smile she used to wear.
I had to ask what twisted thought was running through her head.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Oh.”
She let out a short sigh and let the smile fade.
“That man... He’s got guts.”
“Guts?”
“You don’t just mess with thugs.”
Woo Min-hee gave a wry grin.
“They say the word ‘thug’ has some old historical meaning, sure, but don’t you think what they’re really saying is: ‘We’re actual thugs, so don’t mess with us’? That’s totally that generation’s vibe, right? Trying to come off light and friendly, but they’ll lose their minds if you challenge their pride.”
Woo Min-hee was predicting retaliation. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
Based on data.
And I agreed—scavengers and looters are basically the same thing.
But Woo Min-hee knew what those scavenger groups had done.
Brutal acts, meant to intimidate rivals, send messages, enforce control.
And yes—just like Shin Sang-jin said—scavengers could easily become looters or slavers when it suited them.
“...Don’t mess with thugs unless you absolutely have to. That’s just common sense.”
Hong Da-jeong offered another perspective.
Message from Defender: The Jeju guys... maybe they knew exactly what they were doing.
Message from Defender: They gave him a spot, said if he sinks Minsik’s campaign they’d give him a seat. But they didn’t mention what kind of monster Minsik really is.
Message from Defender: So what they really want isn’t for Shin Sang-jin to win. They want Minsik to go after him. Hurt him.
Message from Defender: They don’t need to reward a nobody like Shin, and they get to undermine Minsik at the same time. Two birds, one stone. lol
As much as I didn’t want to believe it, that explanation felt closest to the truth.
*
When I met Shin Sang-jin for the second time, I revealed who I was.
I told him clearly: I’m Skelton. I’m Park Gyu.
Shin Sang-jin looked appropriately surprised, but there was a flicker in his eyes like he’d already guessed.
“Oh, is that so? Somehow I figured. You know, some people just have... that extraordinary aura?”
Maybe even that was part of the act.
I talked to him about how dangerous what he was doing really was.
On the surface, it was about protecting Shin Sang-jin, but underneath, it was also about protecting Minsik.
For all his complications, Minsik was still one of the few real power players resisting the Jeju government.
I couldn’t let him get taken down because of something like this.
Meeting him directly was an option, but being well-known isn’t always a blessing. Every one of my moves could end up in a report to the Jeju Committee, used as pretext to intervene.
“I know. Of course I know. I’m not that stupid. You may not know this, but you don’t survive long in the entertainment industry if you’re dumb.”
Shin Sang-jin spoke as if he already knew everything.
The kettle on the stove in the narrow room was boiling.
“Actors have to memorize scripts. We memorize them until we die. That’s what we do. And if you spend your whole life memorizing things, how dumb can you really be?”
The faint scent of hibiscus tea rose from the steam.
“I know I’m the clown the Jeju folks set up. I know exactly how dangerous someone like Lee Do-won is.”
“Then are you going to drop out of the race?”
Shin Sang-jin shook his head firmly.
“Why not?”
He shot back with a blunt, unmistakable tone of resentment.
“I’m going to keep going.”
“They’ll drag you off and no one will even know. You won’t leave a body behind. And they won’t just kill you. It’ll be slow. Painful.”
“That sounds fun.”
There was a strange gleam in Shin Sang-jin’s eyes.
“Tell them to go ahead and try.”
...
Just for a moment, something surged up inside me.
It probably came from that vague discomfort I’d felt around him before.
And now, I thought I might finally understand why.
The knot was still there, but it was slowly loosening.
“No one’s going to protect you.”
Shin Sang-jin said,
“That might just make for an even better performance.”
“A better performance?”
“You asked me why I live so hard, didn’t you? I have no choice. I see the entire world as a stage.”
...
So this was what it was.
“On a stage, the only things that don’t move are props and backgrounds. As long as someone is moving, they’re an actor. And the scriptwriter—life—assigns a lead role to one of those actors.”
But the things I learned from the Fissure were still weighing on me like a lump.
“No matter what role I’m given, I’ll move from the center of the stage. I’ll move, and I’ll speak my lines. No matter how I end up, even that’s part of the play called this world. Even if the ending is a tragedy...”
Caught between half amusement and half frustration, I asked him,
“Have you ever thought that someone might not want to see your play?”
Shin Sang-jin’s smile vanished.
I kept going.
“Do you really have to live as an actor? Is it so wrong to live as a background or a prop?”
Shin Sang-jin gave a dry chuckle.
Then he looked at me.
And the moment I realized the look in his eyes was pity, I knew there was no more point in talking.
Not long after that, Shin Sang-jin vanished—like a magic trick.
*
A body floated up in the waters off Incheon. freeweɓnøvel.com
The head was missing. All the fingers were cut off. It was so mutilated there was no way to tell who it had been.
What was even worse was that no one tried to find out.
It was just another common, nameless prop in the age of collapse.
