Chapter 139: To the North!

I gathered the returnees, including Ttaengchili.

I explained everything about the direction we needed to move forward.

Battle mage, Cheonma, the slave, and the others all listened seriously.

Then I asked Ttaengchili to tell me about the North Korean region right away.

“The Baekdu mountain range was basically shattered in the Cataclysm. That had a huge impact on North Korea’s collapse too. Surprisingly, that Cataclysm even made all the North Korean nuclear facilities just vanish somewhere.”

“I’m not curious about that. Do you at least know the map roughly?”

“Hmph. You must not know who I am. And I don’t move that easily. Unlike that slave girl over there.”

“Hey! Why are you suddenly attacking me?”

Sure, the slave didn’t have anything to say, but that was her issue—not ours.

The returnees and I laughed at Ttaengchili.

“Ttaengchili, right?”

“Right. Ttaengchili.”

“A tin can that’s not even aluminum grade.”

All the returnees took turns roasting him in perfect unison.

Ttaengchili the Tin Can—affectionately nicknamed 072.

Ttaengchili frowned at our words.

“Seriously, you bastards? I may look like this, but I’ve got incredible scouting capabilities, okay? I can even hack satellites in space!”

“Oh really?”

“And I already launched my own satellite. For a tiny land like the Korean Peninsula, scanning it is a piece of cake. Here you go.”

He puffed out his chest proudly.

Then, right in front of us, Ttaengchili generated a holographic map of the Korean Peninsula.

Not just a flat map, but a 3D one—with mountain ranges and city names marked in a very futuristic style.

The interesting part was how the mountain ranges were clearly distorted and fragmented compared to the map I knew.

“Wooooahhh!”

The returnees gasped.

They hadn’t expected Ttaengchili’s capabilities to be this high.

“All the red dots on this map are high-risk zones.”

“Dungeons?”

“More accurately, places with monsters. Some are even bizarre like roguelike bosses.”

“I see.”

“There are other monsters too. And these blue lines? Those mark magic stone veins. There are also mining sites.”

Whoa, this is amazing.

This would be perfect even for war.

Ttaengchili’s tech is truly the best in the world.

“Can you see anything with this?”

“I can even track population numbers. Though people take a little more time to scan.”

“If we really go all-in on this, Hah Sang-jae’s magic-stone economy dream would flourish big time.”

If this succeeds, South Korea could become massive—economically.

Not only recovering from the post-Cataclysm damage, but surpassing previous levels.

“It’s not bad for us either.”

“What about the risk of being used and discarded later? Say, by the president?”

That won’t happen.

“Pfft! Orc, you serious right now?”

“What’s so funny? It’s dangerous if we get entangled with politics.”

Yeah.

I clutched my stomach laughing at the orc’s comment.

Of course.

Sure.

Getting involved in politics is annoying.

But there’s zero chance of that happening.

The president is clever and cunning.

She knows how to draw lines and recognize people’s strengths.

That’s why she gave me the authority to try establishing Kanoraism as the official state religion while keeping a watchful eye.

Once Kanoraism is rooted, the president won’t be able to touch me.

And from my end too—as someone managing a religion—it’d be bad to get politically entangled.

“That’s why the president shackled herself voluntarily. By telling me to spread Kanoraism. She’s not dumb—she knew exactly what that meant.”

“Ooh… So that’s how it is.”

“Yep. She’s quite intelligent. And honestly, not a bad person for this era.”

“But hey, now that I think about it, I’ve got a question for Ttaengchili.”

It was Battle mage, who had been quiet until now, who spoke.

She looked pretty serious.

Maybe she had something to say.

“What is it?”

“You said you lived as an android in a world without humans—specifically, an apocalyptic world where humanity had already gone extinct, right?”

“Yeah… yeah, but so what?”

What was Battle mage suddenly trying to ask?

“You said there were no humans, so how can you track their locations? Your abilities must’ve originated in that world.”

“…That’s true. Now that you mention it… That is strange. Why would you need the ability to find humans in a world without them?”

Cheonma sharply followed up on Battle mage’s point.

It was weird.

If it were early in the apocalypse, maybe androids were trying to find surviving humans.

But if what Ttaengchili said was true—if humans were already extinct—why even include that kind of feature?

Everyone turned their gaze toward him.

“Uh… um… well…”

“You can scan geography and danger zones, and even locate humans. Isn’t that a skill made for tracking people during urban warfare?”

“Wait, no—come on! Is that really important right now?”

Ah.

He dodged the question.

Well, whatever.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter.

Even if what he told us was a lie and he’s actually some kind of viral cyborg that ended humanity in that world—

It doesn’t change anything here.

I don’t ask more than I need to.

And it’s not really my place to press him on it.

“It probably doesn’t matter. After all, that world and this one are completely different.”

“True enough. Then shall we head out tomorrow?”

“No, wait. Before that—”

Suddenly, the adult-loli interrupted like a kid barging in while grownups are talking.

“Yes, Adult-Loli-nim.”

“Wait, even Pixie’s dropped from your name now? You can’t be both adult and loli in the first place.”

“Anyway, go ahead, Adult-Loli-nim.”

Whatever.

That sort of nitpicking doesn’t matter right now.

The question is—what does she want to say now?

Maybe she wants to cross-verify the map herself since she can make maps too?

And then she said something surprising.

“Do I even need to be the mapmaker anymore?”

“Well, from the looks of it, yeah, kind of.”

Ttaengchili’s map was clearly more advanced.

He could zoom in and out across the entire Korean Peninsula with ease.

“Hmph. Looks like you don’t know, Adult-Loli.”

“You tin-can b*tch? Want me to really turn you into aluminum?”

The angry Adult-Loli threatened Ttaengchili, pointing at him like she could actually do it.

Ttaengchili glanced at a toy horse quietly shaking in the corner and shook his head.

“Pixie, you and I are a little different.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t see the inside of dungeons in detail.”

“Ah.”

The giddy smile she had from thinking she could ditch her mapmaker duties twisted beautifully.

“My info’s all based on satellites.”

“So our Ttaengchili here handles the big-picture overview.

And our Adult-Loli here knows the detailed insides of the dungeons, huh?”

“Exactly.”

“So please continue doing your job as mapmaker, Loli-nim.”

“Goddammit.”

Adult-Loli let out a cry of despair.

But what can you do?

The gap in their specialties is huge.

Even Ttengchili doesn’t have her level of dungeon-mapping skill.

Anyway, Loli, you’re our eternal mapmaker now!

***

The returnee party headed north.

This time, they had a lot more people.

—Stay back and guard again, okay?

—Hey, are you treating me like a fence post?

—Well, you do hate going anywhere.

—Of course.

I left the guild in the hands of that damn pigeon and also contacted Lee Si-yeon.

This time, the majority of the returnee party was mobilized.

“Everything’s been wiped out so badly I can’t even tell what’s what.”

“It is North Korea, but… it’s hard to even pin down old place names.”

Seems like even in the distant past, no one really knew much about North Korea.

Even though it’s just a country up north, no one really knew what was going on there.

“Where are we roughly now?”

“Since we passed through North Hwanghae Province heading east, we should be near Wonsan.”

Kaesong, then North Hwanghae, then Wonsan.

Even if it’s technically south of the DMZ, getting to Kaesong was relatively easy under current conditions.

To most South Koreans, anything past North Hwanghae was uncharted territory.

Heading to Wonsan meant we were entering the Gangwon-do region.

So wouldn’t it have been better to just go straight from Kaesong to Gangwon-do?

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just go directly into Gangwon-do?”

“That’s not a bad idea either, but I figured we might as well check out the inhabited areas along the way.”

“How kind of you, Ttaengchili.”

Ugh. I shook my head and looked around.

North Korea… really wasn’t a place for people to live anymore.

What looked like civilian houses were all wrecked in one way or another.

Not a single building seemed untouched by raids, and even structures from the past had been completely destroyed.

There were places that had been flattened completely.

Fifteen years since the Great Cataclysm had turned everything north of the DMZ into a wasteland.

No intact buildings, probably lots of people dead.

No human remains were visible, but that was probably due to time passing and monsters roaming freely.

No way any human remains could still be left in this environment.

“Besides, even if this isn’t a designated high-risk zone, the place is crawling with monsters.”

Exactly.

You could see them right away—those things called “aberrant monsters.”

Pitch-black creatures resembling tigers or wolves.

They charged at us.

I was reminded of that criminal bastard we fought once—he transformed into a wolf and attacked us, too.

“KYAAAAAAH!”

KRAAAK!

I grabbed the jaw of the charging monster with both hands and ripped it apart.

Crunch—Crack—Rip!

The grotesque sensation of tearing something apart pulsed to a rhythm.

So arrogant.

Even with its jaw shattered, it was still trying to bite—honestly kind of disgusting.

Its eyes were still locked on us, hunting.

This one had tasted human flesh before.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t be targeting us like this.

Actually, more than that—they looked like they were starving.

“Hmph. What an arrogant monster.”

Snap! CRACK!

I grabbed the neck of another monster lunging from the side and smashed it immediately.

“But… it doesn’t feel like we’re the only ones here, does it?”

“Right? It’s weird how these monsters popped out all of a sudden.”

“Normally there’d be more humans around here.”

Yeah, there were definitely traces of people.

Looking a bit farther, even among the ruins, you could see makeshift wooden homes where people were trying to survive.

Or busted-up charcoal wagons.

All sorts of signs.

And then, they appeared.

Some freaky-looking guys wearing masks.

“They seem to be decently skilled, huh?”

“Still, even they can’t handle numbers like this!”

“Who are you people?”

“We are the North Koreans—abandoned and left to rot by your South!”

…Uh, I’m from Yukran though.