Chapter 0 (Prologue): End?

“Tactical nuke drop alert. 10, 9, 8….”

My comrades, paying no heed to the blaring alarm, held their positions.

Any cowards who would cower at the thought of a tactical nuke had all died at the Washington D.C. Gate two years ago.

There were no cowards among those who participated in humanity’s last stand.

Nor were there any weaklings who despaired at becoming expendable pawns.

Dying to buy time for the Awakened to approach the Gate was a glorious honor.

We had to believe that, if only for the sake of the dead.

I saw a fighter-bomber, swaying under the weight of flying Otherworld creatures plastered all over it.

It was the result of sortieing to buy time without securing air superiority.

Something fell from the exploding fighter-bomber, engulfed in Otherworld creatures and flames.

The pilot, whose body would have been cooked and breath extinguished, gifted the trench with a few seconds of silence.

Flash—a cool breeze swept past.

Thud—it sounded like punching a concrete wall with a fist.

Kwakwakwang—! An explosion that ground the earth tore at my ears.

Through the red-tinged vision, the limbs of Otherworld creatures flew into the trench.

The creatures that had charged forward even when staggered by machine gun fire were now minced into pieces, sweeping across the earth.

I wiped the blue blood from my helmet and called out to my comrade.

“Ggrrr… Kkeueok….”

“Jim! What are you do—damn it.”

In the meantime, I grabbed and pulled the trigger in place of the gunner whose upper body had been cleanly blown away.

The bullets pierced through the weakened armor plating from the explosion.

Even when my comrade’s head was smashed by a flying rock, I didn’t let go.

Humanity had lost.

The belief of 35 years after the first Gate had turned into the delusion of a false dreamer.

The birth and demise of countless heroes were repeated.

The saintess, revered as the devotion of the Virgin Mary; the swordsman who performed miracles with outdated cold weapons; the witch who dyed the sky purple and cleaved the earth; the dictator who was called a philosopher….

We endured a reality filled only with despair with just one word: hope.

Humans had overcome epidemics, wars, and natural disasters, and we thought we would do so again this time.

“Elvis Failed”

Five letters that appeared on my tactical helmet around the time I ran out of ammunition.

Operation Elvis, hope.

A total war that gathered all surviving Awakened and soldiers.

In the end, they couldn’t reach Busan.

The sky ultimately pushed away the hand of humanity trying to reverse the future.

“Gonna bum a smoke.”

I stomped on an Otherworld larva trying to hatch while gnawing on my comrade’s spilled organs and took out a cigarette from my pocket.

The blue blood of the Otherworld creature and the red blood of my comrade were mixed, creating a bluish hue.

Liquor and cigarettes were precious luxuries distributed through a rationing system.

I filled my lungs with the smoke from the cigarette that my comrade, who had an officer younger brother, had gifted me.

I spat out the sticky blood and exhaled the smoke high into the sky.

I closed my stinging eyes from the acrid smoke.

I burned the cigarette.

Acrid smoke filled the air.

I was a buffer.

A buff-type who appeared in one out of a hundred people.

A True Name skill that appeared in one out of ten thousand people.

A growth-type trait that was said to appear in one out of a million people.

And a unique ability that had never appeared before.

“Trait: Hanged Puppeteer (H)”

“Stage: Avici”

“Skills: Mental Shard, Miracle”

Only I could manipulate emotions.

“…What a f*cking world.”

If there was a god, it was as if he was reading my life, cutting out and mocking the most painful and vulnerable parts.

Whether you can endure it.

Traits are strengthened the more they are used and the more they clash with strong enemies.

But I had never used a buff even ten times.

The only buffs I could cast were trivial levels of stability, satisfaction, joy, sadness, anger, and so on.

The Gate opened, and my mother and father committed suicide.

The cause was depression, and after that, I was afraid of everything related to people’s emotions.

I vividly remember the short note that read “Sorry” left under the hanged bodies of my parents, their tear tracks not yet dry.

I hid the fact that I had Awakened out of fear that I couldn’t handle it.

I left the Shield with the lie that my trait had disappeared.

I couldn’t bear to stay in the Shield, where only the chosen among the Awakened gathered.

It wasn’t common for traits to disappear, but it happened occasionally, so it was quickly processed with condolences.

It was only after several more years that I realized how childish my thinking had been.

“I should have at least struggled.”

A charging-type Otherworld creature with two legs blown off came running.

Look at how it prioritizes the instincts of the Otherworld even as its bodily tissues slowly collapse from radiation.

I fed the charging creature a bullet.

It only staggered from the bullet that wasn’t even a large-caliber round. I didn’t expect anything.

I took out the energy bomb that was issued to each squad for self-destruction.

I tried casting a buff for the last time before the creature reached me.

It seemed to be slightly reassuring, but I leaned more towards the side that I had gone crazy before dying.

The teeth that could pierce even tank armor bit my arm and were immediately severed.

I swung the arm that had disappeared below the forearm.

I covered the creature’s vision with the blood that gushed out and pulled the pin.

I recited the slogan I had chanted every day and shoved the bomb into the creature’s maw.

“For humanity, you son of a b*tch.”

A fleeting moment felt like an eternity.

The creature’s body swelled from the inside, and flashes of light slowly burst from the torn areas.

My body also began to melt.

If only I could go back.

If only I were given the opportunity not to make the wrong choice.

“If there is a god, please give me one last chance.”

That was my last memory.