Chapter 77

Tap— tap— patterpatterpatter—!

「Blood Rain」 began to fall.

It was rain of blood, exactly as the name said.

As red, sticky blood poured down in the form of fierce rain, the stars disappeared without a trace.

The transparent floor-to-ceiling window was also struck by drops of blood and became stained.

It was a much more frightening sight than I had expected.

I had thought, even if it was called 「Blood Rain」, it would merely be rain that happened to be red.

But the drops of blood hitting the glass window contained sticky viscosity and unknown lumps.

So I had to watch, with a clear mind, as pieces of flesh slid down the glass surface.

Wondering whether 「Big Cat」’s shadow might fall across those streams of blood.

Had about 30 minutes passed like that?

“……They said Type 1 Special Zones imitate wars that took place in those spaces, right?”

I looked at the window covered in blood and opened my mouth as if sighing.

“Then did blood rain down like that here?”

“In reality, it must have been worse.”

At my groan-like question, Cha Si-eon answered in an indifferent tone.

Like the other Type 1s, this place too was a space engraved with memories of war.

It had been the dawn of June 28, 1950.

As the North Korean army pushed south, Seoul citizens set out on the road as refugees.

But at the time, there were only 5 bridges over the Han River, and among them, the only one people could cross on foot was the Hangang Pedestrian Bridge.

Thousands of refugees crowded onto the pedestrian bridge.

But when the crowds were filling the bridge, the bridge exploded.

With a powerful flash, flames surged upward, and the people on the bridge were blown to pieces and flung into the air.

Then they fell in showers onto the river water.

That explosion had not been an attack by the North Korean army, nor a mistake by American aircraft.

It had been done by our own military to prevent the North Korean army from crossing the river.

People who were cast out by the state without knowing why.

The bridge that had devoured countless of them was the Hangang Bridge that crossed this island.

“It feels strange somehow. That there is a café like this in a place where people were blown apart.”

“A considerable amount of time has passed.”

Cha Si-eon was right.

The Korean War was something from long before I was born, around the time my grandparents were born.

Those who died back then had no voices, and most of those who remembered them had left this world.

It was now an old event.

But it was probably not an event that had completely passed.

That event remained in the world as a story, and we were now trapped in a space that imitated that story.

“What would you do if you were the soldier who had to blow up the bridge?”

Cha Si-eon suddenly asked me.

“Would you follow the order from above as given?”

This bastard, why is he making me imagine something this painful……?

Hm, well. What would I do?

Of course, soldiers had to follow orders.

But there were a lot of people on the bridge.

Disobedience during wartime was grounds for execution by firing squad.

But the bridge was full of people.

If the bridge was not blown up, enemies would come down.

Then, at the very least, could I try to buy some time for the people to evacuate……?

“You would simply do whatever you wanted. Orders and principles be damned.”

When my thoughts grew long, Cha Si-eon murmured.

“Am I wrong?”

“I cannot say you are wrong.”

At my confession, Cha Si-eon snorted as if he had known it.

Yes, I admitted it.

I could never be a good soldier.

I was a human being with too many questions to move according to orders.

It was fortunate I had become an editor instead.

If I had become a soldier, I would have been the worst of the worst, the kind of deadweight who made his superiors’ insides burst.

Newly aware of my own looseness, I returned the question to Cha Si-eon.

“What would you do, Team Leader?”

“I do not know.”

The answer came immediately.

But it did not seem like insincere evasion.

Rather, it felt like the kind of answer he had already worried over for a long time.

And yet the answer was “I do not know.”

It was not an answer that suited Cha Si-eon.

Perhaps he thought so too, because he added belatedly.

“I would probably follow the order.”

At Cha Si-eon’s confession, I was a little surprised and asked back.

“You want to massacre civilians and be tormented by guilt for the rest of your life, or devote yourself to self-justification?”

“Do you think that would be the case?”

At my question, Cha Si-eon flared up and refuted it.

So I looked at him with eyes that asked, Then what do you expect me to do?

“Without obedience to orders, a military organization cannot function.”

“That is when the order is normal.”

“Judging that is the role of the one with command authority. What the one receiving the order must do is believe that command staff is making the correct judgment and respond accordingly.”

“What if that command staff is a hairless dictator ordering you to open fire on citizens? Would you follow it unconditionally because it is an order?”

“I would not. Attacking the people in peacetime to reinforce one’s own power is a self-coup, so it is not a lawful order to begin with.”

“Then what about blowing up a bridge where those people are gathered?”

“That is an order given in wartime for the purpose of stopping a hostile force, and…… why are you already treating me like a war criminal?”

Cha Si-eon flared up again after seeing my expression.

Thinking I had done it again, I quietly covered my face.

But perhaps he had already been somewhat scratched by it, because Cha Si-eon added in an displeased voice.

“I am not affirming the order itself. I know that the command staff at the time was irresponsibly and incompetently beyond measure, and I know how enormous the aftermath was after they cut off the bridge without countermeasures.”

“But if it was an order, you would follow it?”

“That is the only way even the form is maintained.”

At my counterquestion, Cha Si-eon answered in a hard voice.

“Whether it is the state or the military, there must be a form for the lowest line to be defended, and only when that lowest line exists can the next thing be planned. That is why soldiers must follow orders according to principle, even if they have doubts.”

Cha Si-eon’s tone was firm.

But was it just my imagination?

This sounded to me like Cha Si-eon’s self-justification. No, like self-suggestion.

Cha Si-eon’s base was as a soldier.

I had heard that Manager Kwon Mu-seop had picked him out from special forces and brought him here.

But Cha Si-eon, speaking of a soldier’s duty, did not look very proud.

Was it because he was ashamed of the mistakes of the organization to which he belonged?

Then he should answer that he would not repeat the same mistake.

Not that if it was an order, he had no choice but to follow it.

Or he could even simply feign ignorance and play dumb.

After all, no one was ordering the current him to blow up a bridge full of people.

So why was this guy deliberately bringing it up himself and tormenting himself?

I could not understand it.

If he was going to reflect, he should reflect properly.

If he was going to blow it off, he should blow it off perfectly.

Thinking about it, this seemed a little like the same pattern he had shown me yesterday.

My editor’s intuition sensed something.

……But well, Team Leader Cha Si-eon was not an author I was in charge of.

He was even less of a friend.

“I understand what you mean. Still, let us not go too extreme. It is not wartime right now.”

“…….”

Since this was not the time to dig into his true thoughts, I glossed over it moderately.

Perhaps Cha Si-eon noticed my intent, because he also closed his mouth.

It was when I was looking at him, thinking Team Leader Cha’s mood was indeed strange.

THUD—!

The floor shook with a loud sound and a heavy vibration.

“……!”

Cha Si-eon and I were startled and guarded our surroundings.

THUD— THUUD—!

The sound of something colliding strongly.

Perhaps the epicenter was quite far away, because it came faintly.

What is this noise?

Is 「Big Cat」 making it?

Or another entity?

It might even be a kind of trick, like making noise in the east to strike us from the west.

We held our breaths and focused on that unidentified impact.

The roar and vibrations transmitted from far away continued intermittently.

Yes, for 5 straight hours.

---

It seemed the roar had stopped completely.

And 「Blood Rain」 had also stopped.

“The rain has stopped.”

I said this while looking at the clear sky.

“But nothing came.”

As I said, we greeted the morning peacefully without any event.

This was extremely fortunate for us.

However, instead of purely rejoicing over it, I chose to use it impurely.

“I was very tense because you said 「Big Cat」 was targeting us.”

“…….”

“But in the end, it did not come.”

“…….”

Cha Si-eon said nothing.

Right, he probably had nothing he could say.

When 「Blood Rain」 fell, he had said 「Big Cat」 would appear, getting furious on his own and making a huge fuss besides.

In the end, it had not come, so he must have no words.

“Team Leader Cha, how did this happen?”

“……We got through it safely, so is that not enough?”

Wow, as expected of Cha Si-eon. Even in this situation, he was brazen.

If it were me, I would be so embarrassed I could not lift my face.

When I snickered at Cha Si-eon’s indomitability, Cha Si-eon flared up and opened his mouth.

“There may have been some variable. For example, the sound that rang all night…….”

BANGBANGBANGBANG—!

At that moment, a roar rang out, cutting off Cha Si-eon’s words.

We stopped speaking and sharpened our nerves.

Damn it, what the hell is this sound?

It had only kept us tense all night, but the actual thing had not shown itself.

On top of that, the sound just now was closer than the ones we had heard all night.

After focusing our nerves for a while on the sounds reaching us.

Cha Si-eon murmured lowly.

“It seems the rescue team has arrived.”

The rescue team?

Half in doubt at Cha Si-eon’s words, I listened to the sound that kept ringing.

BANGBANGBANG—! BANGBANGBANGBANG—!

Is this gunfire?

“Communications still do not work.”

I said while looking down at my smartwatch.

“They probably forced their way in. Because they cannot lose Seo Do-un.”

“Then was the sound all night our rescue team too?”

“That is probably not the case. They would not have entered at the time 「Blood Rain」 was falling.”

Right, that was true.

「Blood Rain」 was not something one could block with an umbrella or the like.

And A Area, where the Bureau passage existed, was an outdoor space, so there was also nowhere to avoid 「Blood Rain」.

So it would be reasonable to think they had waited for 「Blood Rain」 to stop and then entered immediately.

Then what was the identity of the roar that had echoed all through dawn?

No, more importantly.

“Then what do we do now? Do we wait here?”

If one became lost, the best move was to stay in place and wait without moving.

But was it truly right to respond that way in this situation too?

“For now, we…….”

It was when Cha Si-eon had just opened his mouth.

SHATTER—!

Something pierced through the glass window and plunged down in front of us.

It was a bird.

……A crow.