Chapter 1146

In a dark, narrow room, a man stood before a full-length mirror, silently staring at its smooth surface.

Tall and slender, with sharply defined features.

He had seen his reflection countless times over the past thirty-odd years. But what gripped him now was not familiarity. It was bitterness and anger.

“Why did it have to be you?”

The faint words slipped from his lips without warning.

Normally, he would never have muttered to himself. This time, he didn’t care.

“You’re not the one who should be here.”

Every word felt like breathing fire.

It ached deep in his chest, as though an invisible awl were digging into him. Beads of sweat had gathered without his noticing and rolled down his cheeks.

Like his heart. Endlessly.

“You’re not qualified.”

It was true.

Unlike the handful of people with the necessary “qualifications,” he had neither overwhelming strength nor the experience of a battle-hardened veteran.

But acknowledging that was one thing. He knew better than anyone how heavily this responsibility weighed on his shoulders, and how much this mission mattered.

That was when his trembling eyes suddenly flashed.

Crunch.

A sickening sound of torn flesh, and the taste of blood filled his mouth.

He spat out a mouthful of blood and faced the mirror again.

A man with a deep, unwavering gaze stared back at him now.

He looked uncannily like someone bound to him by the longest and closest of ties—and yet someone who had felt farther away than anyone else in the world.

But even that brief thought was a luxury for the man. For Choi Minwoo.

Crack.

A faint tremor traveled down from the ceiling, and hairline fractures spread across the full-length mirror like a spiderweb.

Sensing that the time had finally come, Choi Minwoo turned his back on his distorted reflection and flung open the rusted iron door that had briefly kept the harsh reality outside at bay.

Creeeak.

In the middle of a corridor barely wide enough for two grown men to stand shoulder to shoulder, a hulking figure wrapped from head to toe in a military poncho gave Choi Minwoo a nod.

“Right on time.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I needed a moment to prepare.”

“No need to apologize. You’re in charge here. Though…”

The figure glanced at the dust drifting slowly down from the ceiling, stirred by a tremor that had grown slightly stronger.

“Any later and we’d have been in trouble. Let’s go.”

As if they’d planned it, they quickly set off, trading words as they made their way through the winding, ant-nest-like corridors.

“What happened?”

The hulking figure answered Choi Minwoo in a subdued voice.

“I’d like to say it’s just a sandstorm…”

“It’s them.”

“Damn it. Yeah.”

Why did his worst suspicions never turn out to be wrong?

But Choi Minwoo had left his self-reproach and complaints behind at the broken mirror. He steeled himself and asked another question.

“How many?”

“From what we’ve been able to tell, at least several thousand.”

Several thousand.

It sounded like an absurdly broad estimate, but communications and every radar network had been down for some time. Choi Minwoo accepted the figure without question.

The hulking figure’s abilities were unlike anyone else’s in this old, worn-out underground bomb shelter. He was also someone Choi Minwoo trusted enough to entrust with his own life.

“…Several thousand?”

If there were already several thousand as far as they could tell, the number could exceed ten thousand, depending on the situation.

At Choi Minwoo’s darkening gaze, the hulking figure made an effort to shake his head.

“They might just be a scouting party. Those guys always move around in swarms like ants.”

It was a reasonable guess.

The enemy had already swallowed up a vast stretch of desert. Their numbers were terrifying, and growing by the day.

Even if they aren’t here to attack, they could simply be passing through on their way to another city. Our routes might have crossed by chance.

Choi Minwoo walked on in silence, lost in thought.

They were staying in an underground bomb shelter secretly built by the US military during the Gulf War. It had been abandoned for more than fifty years after the war ended, and the Great Cataclysm had reshaped the land so thoroughly that even its existence had been forgotten.

Until a group hurrying across the desert happened to find its entrance beneath a sand dune.

If we only found it by luck, what are the chances the enemy knows it’s here?

Slim to none.

The only thing that bothered him was the communication Magic they had barely managed to establish not long ago. But given who had sent it, the chance of the enemy detecting it was close to zero.

Which means…

At last, Choi Minwoo reached a conclusion.

This was a coincidence.

As the hulking figure had said, they were probably a scouting party, or their paths had simply crossed.

All Choi Minwoo and the others had to do was wait.

They could hold their breath in this old, musty shelter, let sand and dust rain down on their heads, and prepare for a fight just in case. Before long, peace would return.

The uninvited guests would pass right over them without ever finding the doorbell to their hidden home. Choi Minwoo could lead the others out of the shelter without a single casualty.

In just a few hours.

Yes.

That was the best choice.

…Then why?

The hulking figure’s eyes widened when Choi Minwoo suddenly stopped walking.

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

After a brief silence, Choi Minwoo answered.

“No. There isn’t.”

“Damn, you scared me. We’re almost there. Let’s join the others before they start chirping like frightened chicks.”

Shaking his head, the hulking figure started down the final corridor to the central chamber.

That was when Choi Minwoo noticed how his back bulged beneath the poncho, as though he were a hunchback.

And at the same moment, his tightly shut lips parted.

“What do you think the best choice is?”

“What?”

The hulking figure turned at the unexpected question. Beneath the hood pulled almost to his nose, hair the color of molten gold spilled out.

“What’s brought this on all of a sudden…?”

“I can’t tell what’s right or wrong. What’s the difference between the best choice and the worst?”

Choi Minwoo continued in a hoarse voice. His eyes had begun to tremble, just like the ones he’d seen in the mirror.

“Even now, more than ten times our number are coming this way. But if we keep quiet and wait, there won’t be any unnecessary casualties. They don’t know we’re here.”

Rumble.

The growing tremors shook the ceiling. The rumbling had grown stronger with every step they’d taken down the corridor.

“If we wait just ten more minutes, it’ll all be over. For us, at least.”

The last words came out weakly. The hulking figure’s gaze deepened.

“Say what you want to say.”

“Whatever they’re after, blood is going to be spilled somewhere nearby. Even with their numbers, they wouldn’t move thousands of troops for no reason.”

“Now that you mention it, you’re right. So?”

“Once we’re through this corridor, I’ll give the order as their commander. If they want to make it home alive, they’re to hold their breath and wait. They’re not to get involved, whether the enemy is chasing helpless civilians or Hunters.”

The words poured out of Choi Minwoo like water through a broken dam. He drew a deep breath.

Then he saw the hulking figure’s mouth in the dim light of a bulb nearing the end of its life.

“Yeah. I see what you mean. So…”

He was smiling.

“If you’re done talking bullshit, tell me what you really want to say.”

“…!”

“Come on, say it and get it off your chest. Like that guy we know so well.”

With the rumbling growing louder by the second, the hulking figure dropped onto the shaking floor, as if he wouldn’t move another step until Choi Minwoo answered.

“What, can’t you do it like him?”

Choi Minwoo clenched his trembling fist instead of answering.

He knew exactly who the hulking figure meant without hearing his name. He had watched Jin Taekyung from close by for a long time. He knew that, whatever crisis Taekyung faced, he always took responsibility for his actions.

And that was a gap Choi Minwoo could never close.

“Hunter Jin Taekyung… is different from me.”

“How?”

“I’m weak. I can’t compare to him. And I have a mission I absolutely have to succeed at, as the commander here.”

“Responsibility matters. But that’s got nothing to do with it.”

Before Choi Minwoo could respond to the cryptic remark, the hulking figure added quietly:

“The others still here are already planning to rush out and fight. Every last one of them.”

“…!”

“I stopped by on my way here and told them how many enemies there were. First thing they did was grab their equipment. They said there had to be a reason that many bastards were swarming around. Know what’s even funnier?”

The hulking figure let out a short laugh.

“I told them to wait for their commander’s orders. They said you’d be thinking the same thing anyway.”

He rose and approached Choi Minwoo, who stood frozen like a statue.

But he wasn’t the only one to move.

“Uh…”

“When are we heading out?”

Hunters had appeared at the far end of the corridor, their heads poking around the corner. The hulking figure shrugged at Choi Minwoo.

“There you have it.”

Choi Minwoo looked silently from him to the Hunters, who had already finished their preparations.

Then, slowly—

Very slowly, as a thunderous rumbling shook everything around them, he drew the sword at his waist.

“This is my answer.”

At that moment—

Hiss. Slash!

The aura surging fiercely along the blade split the shelter’s concrete wall like tofu.

KABOOM!

The explosion sent debris flying.

Beyond the shattered wall came blazing sunlight and the blood of cursed monsters.

“I like you. For a human.”

The hulking figure—the Skeleton King—laughed aloud and patted the large backpack hidden beneath his poncho.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe, you human who sleeps too much for no reason.”

And he shot toward the enemies.

Or he was about to.

If not for the answer no one had expected.

“Dad’s not sleeping.”

“…Huh?”