Free Web NovelThe final Shangri-La was located in the ancient capital known as Seorabeol.
We had seen many Shangri-Las so far, but this one was unlike anything we’d encountered before.
Unlike other lands barely maintaining their state or steadily shrinking, this Shangri-La’s borders were so violently expanding and contracting that they could be recognized from afar.
Like crashing waves, the ashen-colored region would invade the full-color territory, only to be pushed back again, and then soon encroach upon the vibrant domain once more, as if nothing had happened.
“That’s the real Shangri-La, right there.”
It was the first time I’d seen Pyo Won-sang this visibly excited.
“The last refuge of humanity!”
I knew what his plan was.
He intended to seize this Octo with force, taking it from those he deemed unworthy.
But could that really be so easy?
Indeed, in terms of sheer power, the train had more than enough force to dominate this region.
But everything had an expiration date.
Firepower relied on shells.
No matter how powerful the cannons were, once the shells ran out, they were just piles of scrap metal.
And we weren’t the only ones.
There were others who sought to steal this last land of life from Jeong Dae-kyung.
The reconnaissance drone sent back footage of countless tents, vehicles, artillery, and soldiers lining the edge of the erosion zone.
Not one or two factions.
At least fifteen different armed groups of various sizes were prowling along the borders of Shangri-La, their eyes fixed hungrily on the paradise dyed in full color.
In such a situation, it was only natural for the train to halt. But what I didn’t expect was a visit from someone younger than me, someone I knew but couldn’t exactly call a friend.
“I think I know that person.”
Go Jun-hee was one of the four Regular Awakened assigned to me by Kang Han-min.
Extremely aggressive, yet surprisingly weak in real combat and full of gaps—nothing particularly noteworthy beyond that. But she held information no one else knew.
“That person. That person.”
She pointed to the family depicted on the massive billboard stationed at the entrance of Shangri-La, captured by the reconnaissance drone.
It was a family photo of Lee Haeng-taek—now known as Jeong Dae-kyung—the Awakened and warlord.
When Go Jun-hee first brought it up to me, I didn’t think much of it.
Though Jeong Dae-kyung covered his face, he had been active inside the rift for a long time, so it was entirely possible that some Regular Awakened had seen his real face.
But Go Jun-hee knew something from before he ever used the name Jeong Dae-kyung.
“He used to be a porter.”
Ding—
Coincidentally, a message arrived at that exact moment.
Message from PROPHET: Seems like you’ve arrived.
Prophet.
Message from PROPHET: Mind having a quick chat?
Go Jun-hee glanced at the message.
“Oh? Am I interrupting something?”
I looked at her.
“No.”
* * *
Choosing to talk through an internet game was something I could hardly imagine, but apparently, among people my age or slightly younger, some still shared childhood memories of the game Prophet suggested.
Merry World.
It was the flagship game of the same company once affiliated with Foxgame—now better known by the alias “The Fox.” Merry World had stolen the dreams, fun, and even lives of countless boys. And not satisfied with that, it continued to drain the wallets of teens transitioning into adulthood right up until the war.
Revived as one of the ambitious new projects from the resurrected Foxgame, thanks to Necropolis, Merry World lived up to its reputation as a national game by being damn near impossible to log into.
[ Queue: 13,821 people ]
[ Please wait a moment for a smoother login ;) – by the fox ]
Now that messages were open to everyone, you could just use the chat room feature or even a user mod to talk. I couldn’t understand why he insisted on speaking through this nostalgia-ridden game.
Message from PROPHET: Your train’s stopped anyway, right? Looks like it’ll be a while before it moves again, so let’s talk somewhere I like.
I asked why.
SKELTON: (Curious Skeleton) Seriously?
Message from PROPHET: Meeting face-to-face would be ideal, but I can’t exactly yank you out alone from there, and there are security issues.
Message from PROPHET: Viva! Apocalypse! has garbage security, right?
SKELTON: (Skeleton never heard of this) ?!
Message from PROPHET: They say it’s ridiculously easy to crack. Can’t have important talks in a place like that.
Message from PROPHET: Plus, talking over messages never feels genuine. Childhood games are the only places I can speak honestly. It’s emotionally comforting, you know? Anyway, I’ll get in fast. I’m a Merry World veteran.
I lightly clicked my tongue.
These newcomers...
Honestly, Viva! Apocalypse! does have weak security.
From the start, it was a closed platform, used only by a select few. Unlike the public platforms open to everyone, it didn’t prioritize security much.
But who is Melon Mask?
A morally questionable genius, sure, but still a genius.
The platform’s general security may be sloppy, but anything requiring real protection—like messages—is locked down tighter than an iPhone.
I’ve never once heard of a Viva! Apocalypse! message being hacked.
But “new friends” like Prophet wouldn’t know that.
They barely even understand it, haven’t paid Melon Mask a single dollar, and yet they throw suspicion at Viva! Apocalypse!
It’s a common thing.
Still, in a situation like this, it’s not really a disadvantage.
“......”
Tack tack tack
SKELTON: (Skeleton OK)
“Alright.”
I could focus now on a conversation with this slightly awkward friend.
“You said you knew Brigadier Jeong Dae-kyung, right?”
Go Jun-hee glanced around.
She especially looked toward Woo Min-hee’s private room, but the emotion in her gaze seemed more like admiration than fear.
“What’s Director Woo doing right now?”
I’d heard from various sources that Woo Min-hee had been popular back in the Jeju era.
She’s still quite pretty, but definitely even more so before the scars. Though aloof, she didn’t have the shady air of someone like Kim Daram.
She probably was more popular than Kim Daram—and indeed, during her school years, her popularity was beyond comparison.
“Not sure. Doing something, I guess. More importantly, you said you knew that person?”
We stood at the edge of Jeong Dae-kyung’s kingdom, but the place was clearly twisted—just the images from the reconnaissance drone told us that much.
It seemed Jeong Dae-kyung had benchmarked North Korea from the past.
Portraits of him and his family stood everywhere, displayed on signboards.
Well, it’s probably more convincing than the old North Korean dynasty.
After all, our dear General Jeong Dae-kyung is an over-level-10 Awakened who can do far more than make grenades out of pinecones.
Go Jun-hee discovered the truth that no one else knew through a very trivial trigger.
“There was a base inside the rift. We called it an outpost. It had barracks, a kitchen, toilets, showers... The problem was that, for some unknown reason, vehicles always broke down inside the rift, so everything had to be carried by hand using carts. I heard that guy did that kind of work too. That’s what a porter is.”
At the time, Go Jun-hee was in upper elementary school, so she didn’t participate in missions.
But she knew Jeong Dae-kyung had been a porter thanks to her peer group.
“Back in the early days of the war, there were still 'failures' mixed into the classes.”
“Failures” referred to people who tested negative on the Awakened evaluation sheet.
Like me and Sue.
“You might not believe this, but at the start of the war, the failures had insane pride. Their parents were all big shots. So they’d constantly go on about which billion-won apartment they lived in, what kind of car their mom or dad drove, which foreign country they’d visited, their parents’ salaries, jobs... They chanted those things like spells, as if those words could protect them.”
Go Jun-hee was still under twenty.
So she had a vivid understanding of the youth dynamics in early-war Jeju.
Childhood memories tend to be more intense than those from other times.
“...But they were still failures.”
Her quiet scorn gave weight to her words.
“That guy was that failure kid’s dad.”
That’s where I had doubts.
“His dad?”
The second Jeong Dae-kyung had no children.
He never married.
Go Jun-hee soon corrected herself.
“Stepdad.”
“Really?”
“There were lots of cases like that. Back then in Jeju, they didn’t leave singles alone. Unless you were an Awakened like us, everyone else got forcibly tied into families. Failures had no way out.”
It was a fascinating story.
Lee Haeng-taek’s life before taking on the identity of Jeong Dae-kyung in Jeju might turn out to be useful when facing the second Jeong Dae-kyung.
Go Jun-hee, speaking calmly until now, suddenly blushed.
“Didn’t seem like they got along. I didn’t think much of it then, but now that I think about it... it was like two people on totally different levels being forced together.”
Well, I do admit Lee Haeng-taek was a pretty pathetic guy.
Didn’t seem like he had a good personality either.
“That failure kid was especially nasty about it. She tore into her stepdad—said he was worthless, old, ugly, and just a porter. Looking back, I bet some of that came from her mom too.”
Go Jun-hee nodded, murmuring to herself.
“They used separate rooms. Probably sexless. Just a legal couple, nothing more. I heard they didn’t even talk or make eye contact toward the end.”
“What did the girl’s real dad do?”
“An actor. She said her family had government ties and were semi-chaebol, but based on how things went after, I think it was just shallow and temporary influence.”
“I see.”
Interesting as it was, that’s as much as Go Jun-hee knew.
As a young girl, her focus was more on the bratty child than the father, Lee Haeng-taek.
“She vanished when they separated the failures. Never saw her face or heard about her again. We lived in different zones anyway.”
I asked about Jeong Dae-kyung.
“Her dad? No idea. Probably disappeared with her. But seeing someone with the same face here now... it feels strange.”
Then I asked about the family in the billboard photo.
Go Jun-hee responded confidently.
“No. That’s not the same failure. It’s someone else. Maybe he remarried. If it were me, I would’ve too.”
Go Jun-hee didn’t know anything about Jeong Dae-kyung as an Awakened.
She wasn’t on his level and operated in a different time.
But she possessed one crucial piece of knowledge no one else had.
She had seen Jeong Dae-kyung’s face from that era.
“It was on a picnic day. He came to bring a lunchbox to that failure kid. How should I put it... he looked like a scolded, ugly puppy? Even from afar, he had this gloomy, sunken aura. I was too young to really understand life, but even then, I knew—I never wanted to end up like that.”
The failure girl, Go Jun-hee’s peer, reportedly ignored Lee Haeng-taek completely when he brought her lunch.
She must’ve thought that skipping one meal on picnic day was better than giving that unwelcome stepdad a reason to feel connected.
She probably packed the lunch herself, and Lee Haeng-taek walked away with it, dejected.
“Everyone whispered. Said it was too harsh. But she just scoffed. Eventually, she ended up in the lower district. I think she deserved it.”
Just as Go Jun-hee finished, the game login succeeded.
The screen, retro yet intuitive, already had a friend request.
[ Prophet94 has sent you a friend request. ]
I met Prophet in-game, amidst a strange emotional haze.
For some reason, he was using a female character, dressed in a flashy costume unlike my tank-top-and-shorts default avatar.
To describe it briefly: monocle, bunny girl suit, angel wings, devil tail, and even a rat-like pet by his side.
Prophet94: Yo~ Skelton.
Prophet jumped as he greeted me.
And every time he jumped, a ridiculous rainbow effect exploded around him.
I didn’t move.
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: ㅇㅇ
What mattered wasn’t in-game effects—it was why he reached out.
He was probably part of one of those armed groups spotted by the reconnaissance drone.
He had warned me about Jeong Dae-kyung before.
What would he say now?
I waited, leaving every possibility open.
Prophet jumped.
Prophet94: I’ll be honest.
He jumped again.
This time three times.
He even blew a hand kiss at the end.
Prophet94: I saw you fight and realized something.
Prophet94: Taking down that General-type wasn’t luck. It was 100% skill. I’ve seen plenty of Old School fighters in the US E.G. team, but never anyone as good as you. Even top Raptors back in the States weren’t on your level.
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: (Skeleton embarrassed)
Prophet jumped again.
Five times now.
After five pointless rainbow bursts, he said:
Prophet94: Want to team up with me, seriously?
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: Why would I? freewёbnoνel.com
Prophet94: Because only you can kill that monster.
DescendantOfJohnNaeNon: Monster?
Prophet’s character blew three more hand kisses, ending with a finger heart.
Prophet94: Yeah. A monster only you can kill.
“......”
In that moment, I found myself imagining the worst possible scenario.
