I once visited a funeral hall when Lee Sang-hoon’s father passed away.

    It was a peaceful death.

    He had lived a long life, having had Lee Sang-hoon at an older age. After being diagnosed with cancer, he endured three years of grueling treatment, confined to a hospital bed.

    The funeral hall was packed with mourners.

    Adjacent to the VIP suite that housed Lee Sang-hoon’s father’s memorial was a small, ordinary room.

    Unlike the VIP room, which was bright and bustling, the regular room was dim and sparsely populated.

    The sounds of revelry from the neighboring room seeped through the thin walls, amplifying the stark contrast.

    At the center of this ordinary room stood a portrait of a young man who still looked vibrant. Below the portrait sat his grieving wife and children, heads bowed, listening to the noise from next door.

    The disparity left a strong impression on me.

    This memory resurfaced after something Kim Daram said.

    “They’re holding the memorial until dawn tomorrow. As cold-hearted as it may sound, hosting a memorial in a university hospital during times like these could be considered a privilege.”

    “Are you going?”

    “Of course,” Kim Daram replied with a sigh.

    “I don’t want to, but I have to. He was my senior, my team leader, and a department head. And hey, he even gave me 30,000 won as a wedding gift. How could I not go?”

    “Was 30,000 won the minimum back then?”

    “No, even then, it was 50,000.”

    “Classic Lee Sang-hoon.”

    “Exactly. That’s so him.”

    For a moment, we indulged in reminiscing about the past, each wearing a faint, bitter smile.

    The silence that followed was broken by Kim Daram.

    “Are you going to go?”

    “Me?”

    Refusing would’ve been the logical answer.

    It would’ve been reasonable, and I had my reasons.

    Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I couldn’t give an immediate reply.

    “Well, it’s just that...”

    “I get it. There’s a capsule on the way, right? It’s night, too. No need to risk creating a double funeral. Just send your regards from afar.”

    Though I wanted to say more, the conversation naturally ended there.

    After ending the call, I sat in the stillness of my bunker, lost in thought.

    Many thoughts came and went, but it was like trying to grasp a rope made of sand—nothing clear or tangible emerged.

    I focused on the most recent past.

    Lee Sang-hoon had invited me for a drink.

    Perhaps that was his way of extending an olive branch.

    Or maybe it was a plea for help.

    And what about the last thing he said—“The back of your head”? What did he mean by that?

    The dead don’t speak.

    Lee Sang-hoon wouldn’t answer my questions now.

    Despite that, I decided I would go to him.

    It felt like going to his memorial was the only way to untangle these unanswered questions—no matter how futile it might seem.

    *

    In the pitch-black darkness, I relied on nothing but a bicycle to move forward.

    I could have used a vehicle, but the roads were blocked by barriers I had built myself.

    To move silently and avoid detection, a bicycle was my only option.

    But my intent was thwarted by the roaring engine and bright lights of an approaching motorcycle.

    “What are you doing out here?”

    The man called out sharply, his tone cautious. As he removed his night vision goggles, his face became visible.

    We recognized each other almost simultaneously.

    “What the... Park Gyu? Is that you?”

    It was Baek Seung-hyun, a freelancer hunter who often handled the dirtiest and most dangerous tasks for the National Crisis Management Committee.

    Although a year my senior, he worked as a glorified errand boy, always sent to the rear lines.

    “Where are you headed?”

    “Seoul.”

    “There’s somewhere I’d like you to come with me first.”

    He glanced toward some distant lights.

    “Can’t you just let me pass?”

    “Well, I’d like to, but...”

    Baek Seung-hyun gave a bitter smile and lit a cigarette.

    “...I’m not the one in charge.”

    His radio crackled with noise before a voice, sharp and youthful yet full of latent aggression, came through.

    “Who’s that guy? What’s going on?”

    I stared silently at Baek Seung-hyun.

    “A hunter?”

    He nodded toward the distant lights while readjusting his triple-lens night vision goggles.

    “One of the rookies caught wind of you.”

    “Caught wind, huh...”

    Baek Seung-hyun snorted.

    “They’re the real hunters. Not relics like us.”

    In the end, I had no choice but to approach the barricade I had been so intent on avoiding.

    I wasn’t here to pile up more bodies today. I was here to pay my respects.

    Under the distant glow of floodlights stood a group of people.

    At the forefront were soldiers and police officers, but they were just set pieces in this encounter.

    The real issue lay behind them: three figures, standing arrogantly, each wearing jackets adorned with a patch of a roaring tiger—a symbol of the Roaring Tiger Corps, the new generation of hunters trained under the latest doctrine introduced six years ago.

    To these new hunters, relics like me were labeled simply as:

    “Old men.”

    A young man, barely in his early twenties with bleached blond hair, addressed Baek Seung-hyun.

    “So, who’s this guy?”

    Behind him stood a man with a large shield slung over his back, yawning lazily, and a woman engrossed in her phone.

    “A former hunter,” Baek Seung-hyun replied.

    Although he didn’t bow his head, his demeanor betrayed the deference of someone who’d been humbled countless times.

    “A former hunter, huh? Like you?”

    “Haha, something like that.”

    The man and woman in the back cast cold glances my way.

    I recognized the emotions in their eyes: contempt and disdain.

    A long, humanoid head like an ancient sculpture emerged.

    A Necromancer Type.

    Not the worst, but certainly not an easy opponent.

    If this were a mid-range encounter, I’d need trained allies just to approach.

    But I was already at zero distance, prepared for close combat.

    And that meant the outcome was already decided.

    The monster lunged.

    Its grayish-white arm swung toward me, but my twin axes struck it first.

    Rip!

    It’s been so long since I felt this.

    The sensation of breaking these creatures—it stirred old memories.

    The dance began.

    The deadly waltz I’d once mastered, now nearly forgotten.

    At zero distance, the monster was powerless.

    Slow and clumsy, it was nothing more than an ancient tree awaiting the axe.

    Its final act of desperation came as spikes erupted from its body, aimed at me.

    But my axes had already traced their path, targeting the monster’s head.

    Thunk!

    Both axes sank deep into its skull.

    The creature convulsed, its body trembling through the axe handles before collapsing.

    As white light engulfed its form, the monster disintegrated into fine particles, disappearing into nothingness.

    Breathing heavily, I retrieved my axes and turned around.

    The younger hunters stared at me, their faces frozen in disbelief.

    They couldn’t comprehend what they’d just witnessed.

    How could they?

    They belonged to a different era, raised under different doctrines.

    But now, perhaps, they understood a little.

    That once, there were warriors who defended an age.

    “You’re giving me a ride, right?”

    In the cold darkness, someone who once shared that era awaited me.

    *

    "Ah, goodbye!"

    The woman who had given me a ride hurriedly bid farewell without even glancing back at me and quickly left the area.

    The hallway leading to the mortuary was identical to the one where Lee Sang-hoon’s father’s wake had been held.

    Father and son were laid to rest in the same place.

    But the atmosphere was markedly different.

    There were no wreaths lining the corridor, nor were there mourners filling the space.

    In the dimly lit, half-abandoned room, a young, strikingly dressed woman sat with her head bowed, silently keeping vigil.

    I felt a strong sense of de?ja? vu as I looked at Sang-hoon’s memorial portrait.

    "Sang-hoon-ah."

    At last, the memories became clear.

    So this is what he looked like.

    *

    “It was Lee Sang-hoon’s plan to relocate to Jeju Island.”

    Kim Daram  found me in the funeral hall and called me outside.

    “As his senior, you must have some idea what he was thinking when he set that plan in motion, right?”

    I nodded and recited the theory we’d been taught back in school.

    “The intensity of a rift is proportional to the population density surrounding it.”

    “Exactly. His plan was to deploy the best forces to Jeju, where the rift’s intensity is comparatively weaker, and prepare for the future. After all, monsters are a phenomenon, not an army with intent.”

    “But that’s not something he could’ve pushed through alone.”

    “The president and the top brass approved it. The problem was...”

    She turned her sorrowful gaze toward the echoing streets beyond.

    “Those who weren’t chosen were all abandoned. And when that leaked out, this chaos followed.”

    “Why did he take the blame alone?”

    “When ten million lives are being abandoned, who’s going to step up and take responsibility? In cases like this, it always falls to the lowest-ranking person involved in the decision-making process.”

    “What about Sang-hoon’s wife and son? I didn’t see them at the wake.”

    “They’re already in Jeju.”

    “I see.”

    Kim Daram  lit a cigarette.

    “And, for some reason, Sang-hoon gave the plan his name.”

    “Lee Sang-hoon’s Plan?”

    “Exactly. The ‘Sang-hoon Plan.’ Why would he do that? He must have known it wouldn’t end well for him if he put his name on it.”

    I felt like I vaguely understood, but I couldn’t fully grasp it.

    “Oh, and one more thing. It’s probably nothing, but before Sang-hoon died, he talked about you.”

    “What did he say?”

    “He said your nape kept coming to mind.”

    “My nape?”

    “Yeah. He said he used to always see it blocking his way back in school, and how he’d always wanted to smack it.”

    So that’s what it was.

    I guess he found me annoying back then.

    I had, after all, constantly been in his way.

    “But then, before he died, he smiled and said, ‘Now I finally feel like I can properly whack it.’”

    “Did he discover something new?”

    Kim Daram  sighed and glanced around.

    “Who knows? But after he met Kang Han-min, he wouldn’t stop grinning and suddenly started talking about you.”

    “Kang Han-min?”

    “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like hearing that name.”

    “No, it’s fine. I’ve trained my mental fortitude with the Skeleton Method of Unpopularity Discipline.”

    “Unpopularity?”

    I looked around.

    Beyond us, a crowd moved aimlessly in the darkness, without even the light of a candle to guide them. They roamed, desperately shouting the word “survival.”

    A world was coming to an end.

    And I was standing in its midst.