EP 10 – The End of Winter (2)
“Hey, what does that mean!”
[The gate is open! f**k!]
“Why is the gate open in Gangwon-do!”
[I don’t know! Anyway, Mom and Dad are tangled up and are bouncing around, saah!]
Shattering sounds and screams are mixed here and there. It was natural to infer that Yeo Do-yeon was filming acrobatic action over the phone.
“Where-”
Kwajik. There was the sound of something crumbling.
All of a sudden, a thought came to my mind.
Was the monster crushed, or was the person crushed?
“……”
[……]
…the cell phone seems to have been smashed.
* * *
It feels familiar. Something is sitting in my chest and I want to cry, but no tears come out.
I calmly returned the phone. Everyone looked at me without saying a word.
Judgment was quick.
I turned my head to the veranda and looked up at the sky. There is no gate in this vicinity.
At least in my eyes.
“…Jiyoon-ah?”
When I reached out my hand, he ran at a trot and grabbed my hand,
As soon as I came into contact with him, I felt like I was being swept away by a torrent. It feels different from other Hunters.
the world feels
A huge vortex over Uijeongbu.
That magical wave swept through this area. The little gates could not withstand the storm and were scattered.
“……”
As he was still feeling the magic, Yang Il-ho turned on the TV sensibly.
than in the news. I couldn’t understand the context of the words because I checked the anchor’s report from the middle, but the intuitive subtitles underneath the screen caught my eye.
[Near the metropolitan area, sporadic gates occur]
After waiting for a while, the subtitles changed.
[A large number of small gates, 200 or more] […I’ll say it again. Small gates have occurred in large numbers throughout the metropolitan area. All the people, please hide at home and nearby shelters-]
I checked the gate map in the upper right corner of the screen. And I took it with my cell phone.
It won’t be a perfect map. Because there was no word that the gate was opened in Gangwon-do.
Considering that the media and the Ministry of National Defense are closely cooperating, it may sound natural, but it seems that the situation has not been fully understood yet.
“……shit.”
Still, one thing was certain.
“There are no gates near Uijeongbu.”
The red dots on the map were strangely written near Uijeongbu.
the problem is,
“The closer we got to Uijeongbu, the tighter the gates opened.”
It reminded me of the eye of a typhoon. Uijeongbu was the eye of the typhoon.
Even though there was an undiscovered vortex in the middle of the eye of the typhoon.
There were so many red dots that marked the location of the gates, and at first glance it looked like only gates that were open throughout the metropolitan area, but I could see a ring of blood wrapped around Uijeongbu.
A huge magical vortex over Uijeongbu. And a small gate clustered around it.
I see a terrible future.
If this continues, millions of people will die.
Uijeongbu itself was a large city with 450,000 residents, and there were many military sites used by the US military, so it was used as the core HQ for the Seoul restoration operation.
That is, there are many soldiers.
Therefore, Uijeongbu was the place where most refugees from Seoul lived.
In addition, millions of refugees from the metropolitan area were expected to avoid small gates and flock to the safe Uijeongbu area.
“……”
If the super-large gate opens in that situation.
If the magical vortex that covered the city turns into a gate.
There would be casualties of a different scale than before.
…a lot of thoughts ran through my head.
family missing. millions of deaths. Priority. utilitarianism. gate situation. representation. Pi Chaewon. Ho-Jeong Lee. Uijeongbu refugees. catastrophe.
what to do
Judgment was quick.
I spoke bluntly and resolutely to my companions.
“……Let’s start with what we can do now.”
“……”
“Lee Ho-jung, Pi Chae-won. Does anyone have more to take care of?”
Gamja’s family gathered in front of the prison to commemorate Cheon Hwa-ran’s release from prison.
Yang Pan-seok’s family had vested interests and had no filial piety, so they fled to Jeju Island, leaving only Yang Pan-seok.
therefore.
Yang Il-ho, whose stomach was burning in real time because he left his lover in the middle of the gate, was the first to wake up with red, bloodshot eyes. Then he immediately opened the front door and ran. Everyone was trying to follow me, so I reached out and stopped them.
“…I don’t think I need to go out.”
People’s judgments were clear. Hide at home or run away.
Roughly half of them opened the front door and ran out to escape or, like us, go to rescue their people.
That alone would have made the apartment complex a melting pot of chaos.
Unsurprisingly, the emergency stairway was filled with people, and the screams of those who fell could be heard, and no one tried to get off the elevator in the yard that was over the garden.
Yang Il-ho returned and expressed his displeasure.
“Hey, you don’t think this can go down?”
“……Open the window.”
“!”
As soon as I finished my words, Yang Il-ho went out to the veranda with gleaming eyes and opened the window. Guessing what he meant, he quickly ran to the kitchen, took a knife, and ripped off all the screens.
As I went out to the veranda, lame, my bangs fluttered in the wind. I put my hand on the railing and checked the ground.
and instructed.
“Fly down. Everyone put on your shoes.”
Ga Ji-yoon worked as a heavy machine on a construction site.
How many times did they clear up the rubble of the building and carry tons of iron from the ground to the roof, but seven people couldn’t lift it?
and.
“…Jiyoon-ah, will there be three oppas?”
“Uh, uh! no! I’ll take four!”
“Jiyoon is good at math.”
It is multiplied by 2.
*
The fact that the feet are not touching the ground scares people.
Holding each other’s hands, we descended very slowly over the exterior wall of the apartment.
Because he has strong superpowers, he goes down in an instant, and if even the spine breaks, he goes to the goal, so he had to be careful when carrying people.
A cold, strong winter wind blew past us. We held each other and trembled, crushed by something we didn’t know whether it was fear or cold.
feel each other’s fear. From the clasped hands, from the tightly closed eyes of the opposing person. We shared our fears.
and.
A few minutes like hours pass.
Two telecasting magicians landed seven people on the ground.
“Whoa…!”
“Ahhh…!”
“Huh…! Heh heh…!”
They all fell to the floor with their legs weakened.
Among them, those who did not tremble in fear of heights of height did not know what a newborn baby Gamseok was. And there was only Yang Il-ho, whose eyes were reddened by Lee Ho-jeong’s worries. Even Yang Pan-seok’s face turned white and he grabbed my hand and trembled, but none of us whined about being afraid of being tall.
Wouldn’t your life be worth it?
Anyway, little gates started to appear around here as well. I looked at the blue dots floating in the cloudy sky and said hello.
“…Dr. Chun, are you okay?”
Cheon Hwa-ran barely smiled with the body of a full-term pregnant woman.
“…yes!”
No more worries. The time for that was scarce.
There were two cars in the underground parking lot,
Now I had to travel by car.
I checked to see if there were any large vans nearby. I limp with my hiking cane and look around.
OK. I found a big, clean Starex.
“Let’s ride that.”
I grabbed Gam Ji-yoon’s hand and operated the lock by sticking to the translucent windshield.
click. The door opened.
Half a year ago, when passing the Shinbundang Line, the magic control that Hong Seon-ah held and raised did not rust.
There was no laughter in the yard, but he smiled to relieve the tension of the party.
“Does anyone have one?”
A person with a cold, whose daily routine was to steal an African rebel truck, took the steering wheel in a hurry.
I and Yang Pan-seok supported each other and guarded the four pillars, and Cheon Hwa-ran got into the car with the newborn Gam-seok in his arms. Ga Ji-yoon was floating on it with a worried expression on her face.
When the party was all in the car, Yang Il-ho, who was constantly calling Ho-jeong Lee, started crying.
“Hey, the power keeps turning off…!”
“……”
We were located in Dongducheon, the center of northern Gyeonggi-do.
There is Yangju under Dongducheon,
Uijeongbu is under Yangju.
There is a whirlpool above Uijeongbu.
and,
There is Lee Ho-jeong near Yangju City Hall,
There is a Pi Chae-won at Uijeongbu University Hospital.
The Cheonhwaran’s family and Pi Chaewon lived in the hospital’s VIP ward, and it was only natural that the laboratory attached to the hospital was used as a research institute for the foundation. Even the area around the hospital, including the neighboring apartment complex, is the Han Seung-moon Foundation’s support center for minors.
Anyway, it was a situation where we had to pick up one by one as we went down south.
The problem is that Hojeong Lee’s cell phone is off.
“…the battery wouldn’t have run out during this time.”
If the phone was off, I would have done something to turn it on. Or have you borrowed it?
“Then it means that you have to turn off the power.”
“……”
“Isn’t that a situation where the ringtone shouldn’t be ringing?”
Yang Il-ho’s face turned white. I wouldn’t look too different either.
“…I, that’s it.”
The cold person sitting in the driver’s seat expressed his displeasure.
“If you can’t start the car, you can’t drive…?”
“Oh my gosh!”
Yang Il-ho, whose eyes were half-turned, spit out swear words.
What would you do if you opened the car door? I can’t start the car because I don’t have the key.
Everyone was panicked and didn’t notice it, and naturally got into the car, but I wasn’t.
“Anyway, I can’t go by car because the road is clogged up.”
I took Ga Ji-yoon’s hand.
“I had no intention of driving.”
The van floated in the air.
*
If it flies too high, it becomes a target for flying monsters, and if it flies too low, it gets tangled in the monsters or power pole wires.
It was the first time in my life to operate a flying car, but it wasn’t too difficult as I was holding Gam Ji-yoon’s hand tightly.
The sense of feeling the world itself was different.
He moved naturally as if he were walking.
The vehicle traversed the air very quickly and smoothly, and while exclamation went back and forth a few times inside the vehicle, Yang Il-ho bit his nails until they bleed.
In the distance, Yangju City Hall caught my eye. Soldiers and monsters are fighting fiercely.
I saw several bat cubs sticking to the city hall window and treating people as if they were sucking larvae from a beehive, but they bit their lower lip and sneaked away and headed for the residential area.
There were so many monsters, and when I looked up at the sky, there were two medium-sized gates nearby. Since it is a bit far from Uijeongbu, the gates are closely spaced.
Anyway.
The fact that Ho-jeong Lee turned off the phone meant that he hid away from the monster, and it could also be interpreted that the phone was close enough to be heard by the monster.
Maybe the battery just ran out, but it doesn’t seem to be the case given the situation.
Several monsters lingered near the house prepared by Ho-Jeong Lee and Il-Ho Yang.
Yang Il-ho looked at me with an indescribable expression. He couldn’t even talk to me or even touch me, lest it interfere with his superpower control, and he was staring at me in a panic.
I asked Gam Ji-yoon, who was in my arms. He had his suit jacket on so he wouldn’t watch people die.
“…Ji Yoon-ah.”
“Uh, huh?”
Gam Ji-yoon, who had been fussing about whether she was anxious, raised her head while wearing a suit.
“Did you remove a lot of collapsed buildings from the construction site?”
“no…?”
After all, when you clear a building, what comes out is a human corpse.
“Then, have you done any demolition work?”
“Umm… the most important thing, I only did it once in the Denausi Naga district! Destroying the building!” “Did you knock down a big building?”
“yes! It was big!”
“Is it easy?”
As soon as Ga Ji-yoon nodded vigorously, I lowered the altitude and stuck to the roof of the house where Ho-jeong Lee was hiding.
Yang Il-ho and Lee Ho-jeong said that the land price fell, and a civil servant couple was living in a two-story detached house.
There was supposed to be Lee Ho-jeong and Kang Seok-ho’s younger brother Kang Si-ho. If you’re lucky, there might be monsters. If luck was worse, no one was there.
“It’s Ilho. Don’t you have an attic on the roof of your house?”
“Gee, the houses have come.”
Open the window and reach out.
“I asked because I didn’t know.”
– Quajik!
Just ripped off the roof.
It was a little daunting, but it wasn’t impossible. I poured the ruins of the torn down building into the monster passing by.
Under the vehicle floating in the sky, the scenery of the house caught my eye.
It’s like looking at an anatomy of a building.
On the second floor there was a hallway and two rooms.
In the hallway, there was a monster that looked like a mixture of people and insects, and Lee Ho-jung and Kang Si-ho were nowhere to be seen.
at that time.
From under the bed in the room, Hojeong Lee crawled out with Siho Kang.
I straightened out the monster’s hair in the hallway and pulled it out. Something came out of his head, so he confirmed that he was a vertebrate.
“Open the door behind you!”
Cheonhwaran, who was in the back seat, opened the door wide.
I carefully lifted the two of them into the air. I had no choice but to be careful because I went to the bone if my spine was broken due to improper force control.
the problem is.
It looks like he was making too much noise.
A wolf cub the size of a double-decker bus in the distance began running towards it, dripping black saliva from its two tongues.
“Gee, Jiyoon-ah! that! that! To the left!”
Ga Ji-yoon sticks her head out of her suit jacket.
“Kyaah!”
And hid again under the jacket.
Yeah, what would I want from a 12-year-old? I checked the condition of the wolf, who had rushed to this side with the thought of that.
It was rolling around as a round, hairy piece of meat.
It was hard to see, so I turned my head.
“……”
“……”
“……”
Perhaps everyone felt the same, when Hojeong Lee and Siho Kang barely got into the car, no one said a word.
We regained our consciousness only when a flying monster approaching nearby was sniped by a tank and exploded.
The black Starex flew through the open sky again.
It was not of this world.