I'll Remember It

Norway is such a distant country that it doesn't really register for Koreans, but internationally speaking, it's a strategic partner that maintains fairly close ties with the United States.

Since Norway established diplomatic relations when it gained independence from Sweden in 1905, the two countries have maintained an extremely friendly relationship. Both are founding members of NATO, and under the U.S.-Norway Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA), the U.S. military also wields considerable influence within Norway.

That is partly because the number of Norwegian Americans is comparable to the population of mainland Norway, so civilian ties run deep, and partly because Norway is geopolitically in a threatening position from which it can keep Russia in check.

In that sense, Russia's unusual developments are always closely watched, and reports about them are usually sent to the United States immediately.

Even as the Russian authorities try to keep it hidden, information about the erosion terrain that appeared on the Kola Peninsula is being transmitted to the United States through Norway.

“What on earth are you talking about? Hundreds of high-grade hunters gathered in Andreeva Bay?”

“To be precise, I think they're golems..? There are a few humans too, but they don't seem to have any special quarantine measures, as if they had some skill that grants immunity to radiation.”

“What in the…."

In other countries this wouldn't be much of a concern, but Andreeva Bay can be considered the largest radioactive danger zone left on Earth. For Awakened people, whose bodies absorb ambient mana to recover mana, radiation is a fairly deadly factor.

At the CIA in Langley, Virginia, they had been hoping that the erosion-terrain incident in Andreeva Bay would keep draining Russia's treasury and leave the country bogged down...