Free Web NovelDespite his grotesquely twisted appearance, Yoo Jung-woo lived with an air of ease—leisurely, even luxuriously.
His residence might have been in a place for the forsaken, but the camping chair he was sitting on was a high-end imported brand, well-maintained. The clothes he wore, his cleanliness, even the scent he gave off—none of it was something you'd expect from an average person.
I’d heard a story from Defender before meeting him.
“He mainly operated around Gangwon, Sokcho side. He was famous as a back-alley Hunter. He did anything as long as it brought in supplies. Mostly hunted Mutations, but acted as a hitman now and then, even took down a few monsters. The monster part might be exaggerated, but if he’s that skilled, then yeah—people who can't turn to the government would be scrambling to hire him.”
If you have skills, you find a way to live.
And Yoo Jung-woo was special in that regard.
There was once a time when people split into academy Hunters and school Hunters, but ability isn’t determined by background alone.
There were academy Hunters better than their school-trained counterparts.
Maybe his terrifying appearance left more of a lasting impression than disgust with his clients.
Of course, having that kind of background alone doesn’t get you to sit comfortably in a premium camping chair at the mouth of a hellhole like this.
As shown by his connection to Defender, Yoo Jung-woo had formed ties with powerful groups in the area. He guarded himself with layers of loose alliances.
He had one assistant.
“Boss. Your tea.”
A young woman with visibly impaired eyesight.
She had a pretty face, but the tattoo on her exposed arm and the scar—likely what blinded her—hinted at a rough life after the war.
She didn’t rely on a cane or tool, and her pupils still reacted to objects, so she likely retained minimal sight. Still, the way her hands groped around out of habit, her overly cautious movements, and her slightly misaligned gaze made it clear her vision was severely compromised.
“Right. Put it over there.”
She set the tea down on a makeshift table.
The fragrance was pleasant.
“It’s chamomile.”
Yoo Jung-woo was the first to raise his teacup.
I followed, savoring the aroma and flavor.
Not quite a luxury product, but in these times, it certainly counted as one.
As we quietly drank our tea, a shrill yell rang out not far away.
A woman’s voice laced with curses.
At least two women yelling at another, with a man trying to break them up.
But with the distance and the annoying layout of the terrain distorting the echo, it was impossible to make out what they were actually saying.
“A common sight. Prostitutes fighting amongst themselves.”
Yoo Jung-woo gave something like a smile.
“Don’t get any ideas about blowing off steam here. Syphilis and herpes are just the basics—AIDS is widespread. You know, these days, even syphilis is incurable.”
“Is that so.”
“There’s some quack in that shack over there claiming he’s cultivating penicillin from blue mold himself, but come on. No one’s been cured by that stuff.”
It was about time we got to the point.
While Cheon Young-jae kept watch, I asked the real reason we came here.
“Ah, that.”
A surprisingly sharp man, despite the looks.
Calling the capsule “that thing” instead of naming it outright showed tact.
Naturally, someone like him would understand the value of the information he held.
“Then let me cut to the chase. What kind of story do you want to hear? The free kind, dull and empty? Or the kind worth paying for, the kind with substance?”
“What’ll it cost?”
I never expected this to be free.
“How about 50 rounds of ammo? Don’t care if it’s American or Chinese. If you hand it over now, I’ll give you a discount—say, two magazines’ worth.”
I nodded.
Felt like I was being gouged a bit, but it wasn’t an absurd request.
Strangely reasonable in a way that rubbed you the wrong way.
I gave Cheon Young-jae a glance and then handed over a magazine from my Chinese rifle. He reloaded while I signaled Cheon to do the same.
Given the danger of the area and the chance of ambush, we stayed alert while swapping mags, then handed over the removed ones to Yoo Jung-woo.
He didn’t even look inside—just weighed them roughly and handed them to the woman with impaired vision like she was a servant.
Moments later, with everyone watching, Yoo Jung-woo began recalling.
“It was a rainy day. Visibility wasn’t bad since the ground hadn’t fully soaked. Someone appeared from the darkness. Looked like a motorcycle at first, but more like an electric bike. ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) Next morning, it was there in the street. That’s all I know.”
A suspicious account.
But it was close to what I’d hoped to hear.
After parting with Yoo Jung-woo, I requested every piece of surveillance footage from the village of the forsaken.
An unexpected hit.
There was someone riding an electric bike that night.
Most of the cameras were trash in the dark, but one was a high-end military-grade night camera—and it caught a fairly clear image of the rider.
Still blurry, but the rider’s distinctiveness was enough for us to confirm their identity with little trouble.
It was Yoo Jung-woo.
*
“The guy’s insanely selfish. His face? Might as well be his personality.”
“Doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Always flaunts his food in front of others like a dick and never shares. Fucking obnoxious.”
“No one touches him because he’s got too many people watching his back. Not like anyone dares mess with him to his face, anyway.”
These were the impressions gathered by Defender’s teammate.
Yoo Jung-woo wasn’t dangerous—just insufferable.
He didn’t cause harm directly, but he never helped anyone or tried to get along either.
Apparently, his hobby was grilling meat over charcoal once a week in full view of others.
The type of meat varied, but in a time where chronic protein deficiency was common, it was enough to stir envy and resentment.
“The Undead’s the culprit?”
Defender looked genuinely surprised by Yoo Jung-woo’s actions.
“I thought the guy was pretty sharp and reasonable. Didn't expect him to pull something like that.”
Defender frowned, then his expression shifted—something had clicked.
“Actually... maybe...”
He looked me straight in the eye.
“He might’ve teamed up with a group strong enough to disregard us completely.”
In the footage, Yoo Jung-woo was definitely on the electric bike—but it carried nothing.
Chief Kim guessed he might’ve used a different route to return from the destination.
Only Yoo Jung-woo knows the full truth.
That night, there was a brutal battle in the village of the forsaken.
Four dead, five wounded.
Yoo Jung-woo was among the survivors.
*
According to the soldiers and police who cleaned up the scene, Yoo Jung-woo wasn’t seriously injured.
Just torn clothes and a scratch on his forearm.
The fight had been started by the village residents.
For some reason, some residents had turned on Yoo Jung-woo, and he had shot down the attackers with ghostlike precision using a rifle and handgun.
When we visited him again, he was silently standing in front of a freshly made grave, coat flapping in the wind.
I assumed it was the grave of his blind assistant.
It wasn’t.
She peeked out from the truck when we approached, frowning and glancing our way.
“...We meet again.”
Cheon Young-jae and I walked toward him.
Yoo Jung-woo remained silent, gazing at the graves.
“Whose are they?”
He answered.
“The kids who used to mock me.”
“Were they caught in the fight?”
“No. I killed them.”
“...”
“I didn’t have a choice. The ones who wanted me dead paid the kids to attack me.”
I stood beside him and looked at his face.
Still unreadable.
But even so, I could tell—what he felt wasn’t satisfaction or vengeance.
It was sorrow. The kind of grief that anyone human would recognize.
Then Yoo Jung-woo, eyes still fixed on the graves, spoke again.
“Let’s make a deal.”
Truth, in exchange for absolution.
A fair price.
Once we agreed, he told the truth.
He was the one who moved the capsule.
A dangerous deal.
Someone he didn’t know had approached him and proposed it.
He knew it was risky, but accepted.
Because while the Incheon folks were incompetent overall, they were good at monster extermination and mutation control. Since arriving here, he had fewer jobs and his supplies were drying up.
“They asked me to move the capsule. It was risky, sure, but they showed a demo to prove they weren’t dangerous. And, well, I couldn’t really sustain my lifestyle otherwise.”
He didn’t sound regretful.
Just... flat.
Cheon Young-jae muttered sarcastically.
“You used to be a Hunter. You should’ve known how dangerous those capsules are.”
If a monster had emerged from the capsule, this barely-standing refugee camp would’ve been obliterated.
Even if nothing had happened, most people panic at the sight of a monster and unleash all their firepower in a suicidal frenzy.
Monsters respond in kind, turning aggressive.
That’s how so many villages and districts disappeared.
Just because we can handle them easily doesn’t mean infiltration-types are weak.
They’re the most effective killers among the riftspawn.
At Cheon’s jab, Yoo Jung-woo gave a short laugh.
“Sure. Could’ve been dangerous. But does that matter?”
Cheon’s face tightened.
I stepped in to defuse it.
“You said they showed a demo. What kind of person was it? What kind of demo?”
Even showing that a capsule is “safe” is a risky stunt.
I, too, had to take a gamble to understand its true threat.
“An Awakened.”
Yoo Jung-woo replied.
Cheon Young-jae, who had been flustered, looked at me with surprising calm.
“Young guy. Early twenties, maybe. His face was hidden by a mask, but his skin was pristine. Not tanned. Probably from Jeju. I think.”
A precious lead.
Exactly what we needed.
“That’s all I can tell you. I could give you the location of the handoff, but I wouldn’t recommend going. It was an unused building to begin with. They probably booby-trapped it, just in case.”
I nodded.
The deal was complete. freёweɓnovel.com
Moving the capsule was a serious crime, but since he gave us the intel, we’d overlook it.
One thing still bothered me.
A question someone as raw as Cheon Young-jae might also ask.
“Just out of curiosity. Don’t you think it’s reckless to bring something like a capsule into a place where people live, knowing the risks?”
I asked gently—less confrontational than Cheon.
Yoo Jung-woo seemed to take it that way.
“Eh, who cares.”
He answered immediately.
“Didn’t I already say it?” ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
“Say what?”
“That it doesn’t matter what other people think of me.”
“And that means...”
“You know why I don’t bother covering this messed-up face of mine?”
He turned his head.
Familiar, but still hard to look at directly.
He began.
“Living like this, I learned something. How people look at me doesn’t really matter. Right? Kang Han-min, Na Hye-in, Skelton—all those people see the world in first-person. Books preach empathy, but who the hell can really live in third-person? Unless you stick an eyeball on a selfie stick and strap it to the back of your head, I mean.”
I had a lot to say, but stayed silent.
Yoo Jung-woo continued into the silence.
“In the end, what matters is me—how I see the world. The rest? Doesn’t matter. That’s how I survived in this dogshit world.”
When we came back, Yoo Jung-woo was gone—like a ghost.
The fancy chair he’d been sitting in, the truck behind him, the house attached to the truck, the blind assistant—everything had vanished.
“Selfish bastard. Always thinking only of himself. And proud of it.”
Cheon Young-jae muttered.
“I hate people like that. The ones who only look straight ahead.”
Somewhere along the way, too many people started seeing the world only in first-person.
Yoo Jung-woo was the extreme version of that.
But across from where he’d been sitting, a new grave had appeared.
A crudely made one.
On a concrete block acting as a headstone, carved by hand, were two names:
[ Min-jae, Chan-hyuk ]
“...”
Yoo Jung-woo’s words weren’t always honest.
But I tried to reconstruct the emotion I saw in his eyes when he looked at the children’s grave.
There were a lot of mixed signals, but I believe it was sorrow.
He had no choice.
His face was too far gone to look in the mirror.
So he chose to live in a world viewed only through first-person.
Before he vanished, an anonymous letter arrived.
No name, no sender—just written in pen.
[ Capsule. Demo. Jeon Si-hoon. Or Jeon Ji-hoon. ]
“...”
I stared at the letter.
Sometimes, maybe it’s not so bad to live in first-person.
This world is just too damn complicated for third-person thinking.
