As dragonflies soared and cosmos bloomed, and the sporadically grown rice fields turned golden with ripeness, a particular memory came to mind.

    It must have been early during my deployment to China.

    A time when the world was a little brighter, more hopeful, and still filled with greed for the Otherworld.

    I had sustained a minor injury during a mission.

    It wasn’t anything severe—just a few abrasions and a small fracture.

    But back then, the world was still livable, with moments of respite. Even someone like me, with only a minor injury, was transported to the rear lines and given excellent care.

    For some reason, the Chinese government treated us well.

    The Chinese soldiers I fought alongside were treated in noisy, filthy, and chaotic field hospitals, while we were taken to state-of-the-art medical facilities overlooking a nameless Chinese palace and a beautiful garden.

    The season then must have also been autumn.

    True to their love of splendor, the Chinese had planted all sorts of flowers in the garden, drawing attention with their vibrant colors. But what caught my eye was not the garden itself, but the patch of cosmos blooming sparsely at the edge of the construction debris and gravel.

    Their simple yet unpretentious beauty resonated with me.

    Perhaps I was drawn to them because I was weary of excessive grandeur.

    It wasn’t long before I discovered why China had sent us there.

    A Chinese handler who spoke fluent Korean discreetly tried to persuade me to defect several times.

    He offered me a lifetime of wealth, a beautiful wife, guaranteed status, and even honors that money couldn’t buy.

    I can’t say how many fell for the temptation, but I did see a few familiar faces—classmates and juniors I knew by name—switch allegiances. They pinned the Chinese flag to their chests and joined us on operations.

    At the time, China was at the height of its power.

    Even the United States struggled to deal with internal fractures, floundering aimlessly. Their excessive prioritization of their citizens had wearied their allies, leading to mass defections.

    Europe’s split with the United States signaled the end of the Pax Americana.

    Still, more people resisted the temptation than succumbed to it—that’s an undeniable truth.

    On a certain day, as I completed a medical check hoping for an early return to the front lines, I headed to the garden as usual to gaze at the cosmos beyond its boundaries.

    There, I saw a woman I knew but had never spoken to personally, staring straight at the cosmos I’d been watching.

    I knew her name: Na Hye-in.

    She often came right after me or Lee Sang-hoon in name recognition.

    Rather than being beautiful, her features carried an aura of inaccessibility, and she always seemed to gaze into the distance.

    Even now, I couldn’t tell where her thoughts were, but she was undoubtedly skilled.

    Had she been a man, she might have posed a threat even to me, given her talents and instincts.

    In fact, during a competitive team trial where abilities were pitted against each other, she nearly eliminated me.

    But her luck was poor.

    She had been a disciple of Ko Jong-beom, who defected to China and sold all his techniques and knowledge after losing a power game to my mentor, Jang Ki-young.

    Jang Ki-young’s vendetta against Ko Jong-beom was so severe that he sought to eradicate even his lineage, illustrating the extent of his disdain.

    Ko Jong-beom’s disciples, including Na Hye-in, were often forced into the dirtiest and most brutal battles.

    I’d heard rumors before her hospitalization—her entire team had been wiped out, and she was the sole survivor.

    Unlike me, her body was wrapped in bandages, some parts stained with hues reminiscent of the cosmos.

    Seeing her, I turned to leave.

    It wasn’t a calculated decision but a habitual act of avoidance.

    “Do you like cosmos flowers?”

    An unfamiliar voice stopped me in my tracks.

    “Not particularly.”

    I remember my posture at the time being awkward—neither fully leaving nor staying.

    “How’s it over there?”

    “Where?”

    “Where you were stationed. Are there a lot of monsters there too?”

    “Not as many as here.”

    I straightened up and turned to face her.

    Her side profile was obscured by bandages, but her gaze was unmistakably fixed on the cosmos.

    “There are a lot here.”

    I turned toward her because she mentioned monsters.

    When I looked back at her, she was staring at the ground.

    “What if,” she said hesitantly—a rare sight for her, as hesitation and Na Hye-in didn’t coexist in my mind—“our fates were predetermined to bring us closer? What if we were meant to live as ordinary people, in an ordinary place, just like everyone else?”

    “...That’s not a fate I could ever have.”

    I dismissed her firmly.

    Her expression, a mix of shock and disappointment, was easy to read, but I showed no reaction.

    “Thanks to you, I’ll probably get back to the front lines sooner.”

    I was that kind of person back then—someone who could knowingly hurt others and not care if it furthered my goals.

    I bowed politely to her.

    “I switched teams. They said a new one’s being formed.”

    “...I see.”

    The gaze that had been fixed on me turned once more to the distant horizon.

    For a moment, I noticed her scent, which I had briefly forgotten. I ignored it.

    Still, it seemed I had some lingering feelings.

    “...Are you going to quit?”

    It was an uncharacteristic question for someone like me to ask.

    Facing away from me, possibly gazing at the cosmos, she gave a faint nod.

    I thought that would be our final encounter.

    Afterward, her existence faded completely from my mind.

    Her battlefield had become a site of intense combat, where a single day could reduce an entire Chinese regiment to the size of a company.

    Then one day, I happened to see a blooming cosmos and was briefly reminded of Na Hye-in. I heard news that she hadn’t quit after all.

    For a moment, I considered contacting her out of a sense of relief. But in the end, I didn’t.

    Time passed. When she reappeared before me as part of my team, we greeted each other with professional detachment, as though nothing had happened.

    It was as if no time had passed, as if the past didn’t matter.

    I suspect she felt the same. Yet, at that moment, the Na Hye-in standing before me seemed like a completely different person from the one I had once seen staring at cosmos flowers under a rare blue sky, dragonflies darting over a gravel patch.

    Even now, I firmly believe that the sense of dissonance was not only due to her gaze, which seemed to stretch further beyond me.

    A side note: I knew, during those moments when Na Hye-in and I shared the sight of cosmos flowers, that Kang Han-min had been watching us from a distance. He was wearing a cast and leaning on crutches.

    Now, both of them have awakened. They’ve become humanity’s saviors.

    My negative feelings toward her weren’t because she had been the one to suggest abandoning me after I’d been critically injured and gone missing inside the Rift, struck down by a General-type monster.

    The cosmos flower’s symbolic meaning is said to be “order.”

    For different people, the image of order varies. For those who believe in God, it might signify divine providence.

    Predestination, as it’s often called.

    Na Hye-in once said that human fate was determined at birth.

    According to her logic, she had been destined to be a savior from the start, while I, Park Gyu, had been assigned the fate of a reclusive observer.

    “...”

    This is not an idea I can accept, nor should I.

    Tack, tack.

    I posted my musings on the forum.

    SKELTON: (Skelton’s Thoughts) Is human destiny predetermined at birth?

    Of course, I left out Na Hye-in’s name and the fact that I was a Hunter.

    Unlike in the past, the quality of discussions on the forum had declined. Unsurprisingly, my philosophical question received no responses.

    But the next day, I noticed a single comment.

    gijayangban: What kind of nonsense is this?

    Quietly, I hit the backspace key and got up from my seat.

    For some reason, I felt oddly refreshed.

    Whether fate is predetermined or not, the sense that everything is utterly screwed is something you can feel so vividly.

    “...”

    Staring at the cosmos blooming in the fields, I felt the rapidly cooling air.

    Winter was approaching.