Chapter 53
Yeouido safe zone.
Inside one office in a high-rise building that had once been the symbol of Yeouido's bustling financial district, and now served as the Management Department's temporary headquarters.
Behind a middle-aged man who was leisurely looking out over Yeouido from the window, hurried footsteps rang out.
Knock, knock, clack-!
The agent in a suit knocked and, without even asking permission, yanked the door open.
The middle-aged man's brow twisted in irritation.
"What kind of nonsense is this, barging through a door without any respect for rank..."
"S-sorry! But it was such urgent news that I thought I had to report it right away..."
At the agent's deathly pale face and ragged breathing, the man suppressed his annoyance for the moment and his eyes gleamed.
Urgent news.
If it was urgent news that might reach him, there was only one possibility.
"What is it? Did you finally find the Signal or something?"
"N-no, sir."
The middle-aged man's face twisted.
He felt like he'd gotten his hopes up for nothing.
"If not that, then did you at least find someone new with a useful skill?"
"N-no, that isn't it either."
As his expected reports kept missing the mark one after another, the man scowled again and slammed the desk irritably.
"Bang!"
"If it's neither of those, then what the hell are you making such a fuss about!"
"Th-there's... Elder Lee Han-yeon has come."
"What?"
In an instant, the middle-aged man's expression stiffened.
His pupils began to tremble as if an earthquake had struck.
Why was that name suddenly brought up?
"The same Lee Han-yeon I know... right?"
"Y-yes... I think so..."
Lee Han-yeon.
The weight carried by those three syllables was anything but light.
Before the apocalypse, he was a bona fide politician whose influence inside the party was so great that no one dared treat him lightly.
He was someone he himself had only ever spoken a few words with in passing.
That kind of heavyweight had supposedly died, and yet here he was, appearing in Yeouido of all places.
And at this very moment, when the minister's seat in the Management Department was vacant and politicians had already begun jockeying for position.
Moreover, the agent's report did not end there.
"In fact, he didn't come alone. It looks like Elder Lee Han-yeon came to Yeouido with Chairman Park and the Awakeners as well."
"...What the hell is going on all of a sudden...!"
The middle-aged man's lips went dry.
As Yeouido's infrastructure had been restored one by one lately, they had founded the Management Department by riding the goodwill of survivors whose lives had become easier.
And with the Awakeners' Union having gone quiet recently, they were at the point where all they had to do was secure the minister's seat.
But then, at exactly this timing, Lee Han-yeon and Chairman Park had shown up.
The two of them enjoyed the public's support, and both were men who had entered politics and finance from military backgrounds.
Not only the survivors, but even the soldiers who currently made up more than half of the Management Department might line up under them just because they had shown up.
‘They’re throwing ashes on a perfectly good meal right when it’s all done...!’
The man wiped away his cold sweat and roughly loosened his tie with his hand.
"For now, I should at least quietly call just Elder Han-yeon into my office and work out a deal..."
Just as the man was about to give the agent a discreet order...
"Who are you trying to call in quietly?"
"Creak-"
The heavy office door, half open, was pushed all the way back as a deep voice rang thunderously through the room.
At the end of the frozen man's gaze, two elderly men with neatly brushed-back silver hair were walking in with their characteristic rigid posture.
Their clothes were a little worn, but their aura and expressions were exactly the same as before the apocalypse.
"H-how did you get in here..."
The middle-aged man staggered to his feet.
Chairman Park let out a scoff, coolly sweeping his gaze over the luxurious furnishings of the office.
"Did I come to a place I wasn't supposed to? What, does this room belong to you or something?"
"...N-no, that's not it."
When the man averted his eyes and answered in a barely audible voice, Lee Han-yeon added a word as well.
"You've really made it. You even set up a private office on Yeouido's highest floor."
"..."
The middle-aged man could not respond at all, and held his breath.
Was this a habit, or something like an ingrained way of dealing with people?
Keeping quiet and listening whenever someone above him spoke.
And yet, even now, he should not have been inferior to those two in any way—
As he held his breath, the middle-aged man's gaze quietly drifted toward the agent standing beside him.
The meaning of the furtive look he shot at the agent alone was clear.
'Do something about this, fast.'
Of course, what he meant by that wasn't to persuade them with conversation.
It was an order to deal with these bothersome old men right now, by force if necessary.
The agent swallowed dryly.
'Is it really okay to do this? The other side is Lee Han-yeon.'
Of course, this wasn't the first time something like this had happened.
But this time, the opponent was different.
Could they really deal with Lee Han-yeon here, when rumors had already spread just from his appearance?
Though hesitation came first, he was crushed under the enraged stare and slowly moved his hand toward his back pocket.
Then it happened.
"Crash-"
"H-hey, where do you think you're going! You can't go in!"
"Damn it, let go already!"
Suddenly, rough commotion erupted outside the door.
Along with dull thuds of heavy things colliding, several more heavy footsteps rushed in, tangled together with the frantic shouts of Management Department agents trying to stop them.
But the attempts to stop them were useless.
The people who forced their way into the room through the open gap bowed their heads to Lee Han-yeon and Chairman Park as soon as they entered.
They were the Awakeners who had come up from Suwon escorting those two men.
They were heavily armed with neatly fitted gear and jet-black firearms, like special forces.
And it wasn't just that their equipment was good; the fact that the agents were clinging to them and still getting dragged along suggested they weren't exactly ordinary in terms of physical ability either.
At that intrusion, the two men smiled and chided them.
"Honestly, now. I told you to wait quietly outside."
"I'm sorry, sir. I got a little impatient."
The Awakeners from Suwon bowed politely, but their eyes flashed toward the middle-aged man and the agent in the room.
"W-what do you think you're doing! How dare you barge in here!"
With his turf being invaded yet again, the middle-aged man shouted in irritation.
At that rebuke, the agent was just about to shoo the Awakeners from Suwon back out.
"Clink-"
The moment the agent's fingertips touched the other man's gun, a cold clatter sounded.
"...This is—"
Lee Han-yeon and Chairman Park smiled faintly and said to the frozen agent and middle-aged man.
"Don't touch the guns carelessly. They're dangerous."
"The guns my boys carry are loaded with live rounds."
"...!"
The middle-aged man bit his lip and swallowed hard.
That statement just now—
'How much do they know?'
An internal secret: they had nearly exhausted all the ammunition they'd had while securing the Yeouido safe zone in the beginning.
They should have clamped down on the rumors when people started saying the soldiers were walking around with empty guns.
Could it be that they even knew that rumor?
"I have just one question."
Lee Han-yeon took a step toward the frozen middle-aged man and said,
"How exactly were you planning to choose the Management Department minister?"
"That would be... decided later after deliberation through an internal Management Department meeting—"
The middle-aged man tried to speak as calmly as possible, but this time Chairman Park cut him off.
"Come on... it's called a minister, but isn't this practically the position of Yeouido's mayor? You were going to choose such an important post by muttering among yourselves?"
"N-no, that's not it...!"
"It should be decided by vote. A vote in which all of Yeouido's survivors participate."
At those words, the middle-aged man's facial muscles twitched.
His original plan had been a thoroughly internal vote.
For that, he had been diligently building his own faction within the Management Department.
"But, sir, it's already been decided. You can't just come in and do this all of a sudden—"
"Should I ask the survivors outside directly? What do they want? Should I put up a post on the Gallery right now?"
"No... wait a moment..."
He didn't even need to ask; the answer was obvious.
Everyone would want a vote.
He didn't want to be dragged around, but—
In the end, the middle-aged man had no choice but to nod.
"...Understood. As you both say, we will hold a vote across all of Yeouido."
Even as he made that forced declaration, the man's mind was spinning rapidly.
'Still, the chance isn't zero.'
After all, it had been the Management Department's own achievements that restored Yeouido's collapsed electricity, water, and everyday infrastructure.
Maybe if they could ride that goodwill and narrow the candidate pool within the Management Department—
***
After dropping off the two old men and the Awakeners who had come up from Suwon with them.
I was standing in an empty lot on the outskirts of Yeouido, face-to-face with the man from the Awakeners' Union who had asked me to transport them a few days earlier.
"Thank you for all your hard work. Thanks to you, we were able to bring those two to Yeouido safely."
The man bowed repeatedly in thanks and handed me the Credits that had been promised as extra compensation.
"I never dreamed you'd even fought in Suwon. The two gentlemen praised you a great deal. They said you saved them."
"I didn't really do much, though. But what happens now?"
At my question, the man gave a faint smile.
"From here on, it's time to wait for those two to bring about change. Yeouido will definitely change."
"I hope it goes well."
"Yes, I'll contact you later."
After seeing the man off, I called someone through the Gallery Messenger.
A reply came back almost immediately, and someone came to meet me at the train.
"Young man!"
The person who walked over from a distance was none other than the siblings' mother.
The train door opened, and Jiu and Sua scurried out and into her arms.
"Mommy!"
"You didn't get hurt and came back safely?"
It was clearly a family reunion, but their mother looked a little awkward.
I had a rough idea why.
Their mother gave an embarrassed chuckle and blushed.
"I thought the kids were going far away by train and that I wouldn't see them for a month... If I'd known you'd be back this soon, I made a fuss for nothing."
Even as she grumbled, their mother kept stroking the children's cheeks and hair without a pause.
I was chatting warmly with their mother and watching the children play when it happened.
Ha-seon's voice rang out from the first car as she tapped away on her laptop.
"Huh?"
"Is something wrong?"
"Th-there's a pretty unusual post that's been uploaded..."
Her voice sounded oddly excited.
After giving their mother a short nod, I climbed aboard the train and leaned toward the laptop monitor where Ha-seon was pointing.
There was a post there from someone using the nickname Magical Girl.
[I found a fascinating dungeon!]