Chapter 42
Oh, why again?
There were too many things Min Ahyeon had to tell Shin Hae-jun not to do. No wearing military uniforms, no meeting the mayor, it felt like there were endless restrictions.
With a furrowed brow, Shin Hae-jun looked at Ahyeon with a puzzled expression.
“Why can’t I?”
But that question only puzzled Ahyeon even more. Why can’t he? Doesn’t he have any sense? Ahyeon barely restrained herself from launching into an obvious personal attack and considered her own patience as quite impressive. Then she responded as kindly as possible.
“Well, your face is well known, and there are also past actions to consider. If you enter Gangwon city now, it will cause chaos.”
Ahyeon’s warning made Shin Hae-jun shrug as if it didn’t matter much.
“The people here seem to like me.”
Ahyeon shook her head.
“That’s the result of propaganda. They were young at the time, so they didn’t know any better, but adults are different.”
In simple terms, it meant all the Gangwon people hate you, so you shouldn’t show your face around recklessly.
“Well, that may be the case, but…”
Even though he understood Min Ahyeon’s meaning, Shin Hae-jun felt a bit offended.
“It’s not like I’ll die so easily.”
“General, are you a robot by any chance?”
“What?”
“I asked if your body is made of steel, General.”
Min Ahyeon glared at the unresponsive Shin Hae-jun, then shook her head dismissively. No, even if he was made of steel, this was still a bit dangerous.
“You seem to want to flatten yourself.”
“What are you talking about? Speak clearly.”
“Didn’t you know? There are tanks in Gangwon as well. I heard they scooped them up from the nearby unit.”
After the retreat operation in Cheorwon in the past, Gangneung’s mayor had focused on strengthening its forces. Since they couldn’t trust the government and the military, the most important thing for Gangwon was to maintain its own defense forces. So, the story of sacrificing and raiding nearby military warehouses for weapons, even at the cost of lives, became well-known.
Listening quietly to Min Ahyeon’s serious explanation, Shin Hae-jun burst into a hollow laugh.
“They’re going to use tanks just to kill me?”
Min Ahyeon’s exaggeration seemed unusual, but despite the laughter in Shin Hae-jun’s words, she didn’t relax her rigid expression.
“Yes. You are such a heinous criminal that they would do even that and more.”
“So you’re really making me out to be the worst scum.”
“I’m not the one making you that way.”
Implying that he was already the worst scum even without her making him that way, Min Ahyeon’s words left Shin Hae-jun no choice but to stay silent. He didn’t even feel like refuting it, because she was right—he was a bad guy.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Staring blankly at the Shin Hae-jun lightly nodding his head, Min Ahyeon continued in a detached tone.
“And since you still don’t feel any guilt about that incident, from the perspective of Gangwon, you are the unforgettable, worst scum.”
However, despite agreeing with her, Shin Hae-jun’s expression became subtle as Ahyeon continued her criticism.
“I may be a bad guy, but the one who should feel guilt is the higher-ups who gave that order, not me.”
Shin Hae-jun knew he was a piece of trash. So he could understand if the people of Gangwon resented him or even harbored hatred towards him. He himself disliked himself just as much as they did.
However, the way Min Ahyeon kept casually calling him trash made him want to argue back reflexively.
“I was just doing what I, as a soldier, was supposed to do.”
He was merely a tool of the military—the gun to shatter the heads of the infected, the blade to wield against people threatening the safety of the military authorities, the trash can to swallow the dirty things when needed.
“That’s just an excuse.”
But Min Ahyeon immediately judged his excuse and stuck a red mark on it. Shin Hae-jun’s face twisted in response to her firm words.
Min Ahyeon noticed that Shin Hae-jun’s mood had been greatly upset, but she didn’t stop speaking.
After all, these were all thoughts she had been harboring for a long time.
She had wanted to point these out to him before she left the military, and if she ever met Shin Hae-jun again after she left, she had wanted to confront him about it. She wondered what right she had, what relationship she had with him, to say these things, but Min Ahyeon was the type who had to speak her mind.
No matter how much he was the military’s dog, Shin Hae-jun was overly loyal to the military. In this post-apocalyptic world, loyalty was utterly useless. Especially, how could being loyal to the rotten government and military be of help to anyone?
If he had a brain, he could make his own judgments and move accordingly, but Shin Hae-jun, despite being a human with a brain, would mechanically carry out any orders that came down from the military, as if someone had plucked out his brain.
Min Ahyeon thought it was time to point out the lack of conscience in Shin Hae-jun, and continued.
“General, didn’t you also give orders to the soldiers under your command? To some, you were also their superior.”
Moreover, as a key figure in the military, he was the superior of quite a few people.
“So, what are you trying to say?”
Shin Hae-jun knew very well what Min Ahyeon wanted to say, but he deliberately pretended not to know and challenged her. His face was tightly strained, and his gaze sharply revealed his emotions, but Min Ahyeon as always, steadily met his piercing look and moved her lips.
“They, too, were just following your orders. So they would say the same thing—I was just doing what I, as a mere soldier, was supposed to do. I simply carried out the order from my superior, from you.”
“…..”
“Whether civilians die or the infected spread has nothing to do with me.”
Shin Hae-jun shouldn’t have felt upset by Min Ahyeon’s words. In fact, he really did think it had nothing to do with him, and he had never cared about such things while carrying out the military’s orders.
But.
“I may be the responsible party for a certain order, but even that order came down from the higher-ups.”
Whenever he stood in front of Min Ahyeon, he found himself wanting to justify himself. Despite knowing that his poor excuses laid bare his pathetic facade, he desperately wanted to cover it up with layers of pretense. Just like Min Ahyeon, Shin Hae-jun was also a decent human being. He didn’t want to be portrayed as a bad person to her, no matter how many layers he wrapped himself in.
Why?
He didn’t know the reason.
Shin Hae-jun was suffocated by his own incomprehension.
“You’re a coward.”
As Min Ahyeon’s sharp criticism felt like someone was tightening a noose around his neck, Shin Hae-jun couldn’t speak any further and remained silent. Min Ahyeon, perhaps thinking that he had lost words to respond to her interrogation, sharply rebuked him.
Gradually, Shin Hae-jun’s face cooled down. Although Min Ahyeon’s piercing gaze felt like a spear pointed at his forehead, she continued without flinching.
“Isn’t it your responsibility for what you’ve done, General? You’re an adult.”
“Is there such a distinction between adults and children in this ruined world?”
He looked like he might explode with anger at any moment, but Min Ahyeon didn’t back down.
“It’s important. And there’s a last line that humans should never cross.”
He had long crossed that line. Swept away by despair, facing the end. In a desolate world where only bleak death remained, he chose not to die as a human being. As a military tool, simply striving to survive without becoming infected.
Min Ahyeon had also survived, but unlike Shin Hae-jun, her eyes shone with a clean and pure glow, as if she would forever remain human.
“Isn’t it clear who the victims are?”
She took a step towards him. Startled by her closing the distance to just an arm’s length, Shin Hae-jun unconsciously stepped back. It wasn’t that he was afraid of her, or frightened by her words. It was because he felt like he was exuding a foul stench.
Driven by the ridiculous thought that he might be revealed as something worse than an infected being because of that foul stench, Shin Hae-jun pushed away Min Ahyeon, who had approached him.
“Admit it.”
But the persistent Min Ahyeon spat out each word as if chewing on them.
“It was indirect murder.”
Murderer.
It was a label he had gotten used to, one he never thought badly of, but Shin Hae-jun felt a sense of powerlessness as the ground beneath him crumbled.
🕂
Thank you for reading! ♡
