Clearing the Game at the End of the World

[DAY-1]

The transport plane had dropped me off ‘near’ the 14 Special Ops Unit’s camp area.

‘Uh, sorry about that. They move around without reporting to headquarters, and the higher-ups don’t care about them anymore either, so it’s hard to pinpoint their exact location. But they always snatch away the supply crates before they even hit the ground, so they’ll pick you up soon enough if they drop you there.’

When I told the supply soldier, holding just a single gas mask with a swollen face, that I was going to the 14 Special Ops Unit, they looked at me with a pitying expression and handed me a small backpack.

And so, with a backpack on the front and a parachute pack on my back, I somehow fell into the jungle.

He spent 30 minutes struggling to get out of the parachute that got stuck in a tree, then another hour barely managing to escape by using the bayonet on his belt and finding the gun that he dropped nearby.

Moving around in the humid jungle in an already exhausted state, it took less than two hours for me to collapse.

“Do I just… need to wait here?”

Thud.

Ziiiip—

Sitting down on what looked more like a small clearing without trees than a supply drop area, I opened the backpack that the supply soldier gave me. I found an assortment of useful provisions inside. Blanket and soap. A poncho and a small sleeping bag. And…

Crinkle—

“Oh, chocolate?”

Even before he could feel the appreciation for the familiar plastic packaging, he heard a low-pitched man’s voice from behind.

Swoop!

“Cough, aghk!”

A muscular forearm snaked around my throat in a flash, and I was knocked out before I had any chance to fight back.

Thick smoke. An area filled with only the sound of artificial gas leaking and yellow smoke.

‘Son. Do not give up.’

And his father’s last words.

It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

It was that dream again. The nightmare that haunted him every night since his father died.

In the dream, his father’s body was melting down from the toxic gas, but his voice was always crystal clear.

‘Do not give up. You cannot die.’

His melting hand wobbled up to my face, then hugged me tight. I knew he was already dead, but I couldn’t stop myself from hugging him back.

‘Promise me you won’t die?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you won’t do anything stupid?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s my boy. Do that, and it will be worth sacrificing myself to save you.’

Ahh, Father.

Watching Father melt down into a thick bloody gunk and slip through my fingers, I could feel my vision darken again.

.

.

.

.

.

Gasp!

“Oh, rookie. You’re a sturdy one, waking up already.”

He recognized the voice. It was the same voice as the one he heard just before he lost consciousness. The owner of the voice was a black man in military pants and a white sleeveless shirt with the body of an underground fighter.

He introduced himself as John and explained that this is the 14 Special Ops Unit.

“Then, is this… a military base?”

“I want to ask what that pause meant, but I’ll pass since I think I know what it is. First of all, we are part of the military. The 14 Special Ops Unit. I’m John Abrams, Squad 3 Leader.”

When the man approached him, Gyosu grimaced at the musty smell that blew toward him and shook his hand. Actually, the smell didn’t come from just the man but the entire barracks.

The foldable beds were not just covered in mold but basically painted black aside from where the people lay down. Guns were just sprawled carelessly everywhere, and their uniforms were patched up with all sorts of colors like a fashion show collection. No matter how he looked at it, this place looked closer to the remains of a retreating troop’s base than a normal barrack.

And above everything else…

“Wahooo! The bulletproof’s a new model!

“It’s a clean blanket!”

“Underwear! There’s underwear too!”

“FUXXXXXXXXXX!!!!! SOCKS! FRESH WHITE SOCKSSSSSSSSS!!!!!”

His backpack was being ransacked by a bunch of hobos.

When I stared at John with a questionable look through the immense headache I had, he just awkwardly scratched his curly hair as he responded.

“Uh… Mmm…… so this is… a resupply. Normally, you have to break in new things like that, or they’ll mess you up at an important moment. So your superiors will break them in nicely, and we give out the amazing supplies of veteran soldiers to new recruits. Got it, kid? You understand? It’s a sort of culture here!”

“Snnnnf— Hahhhhh~ The smell of mass production. This… this is the smell of civilization. New underwear. I can finally escape from the gazes of that homo gorilla that keeps on looking at the holes in my underwear.”

“Hey MJ, sorry, but you gotta hand those over to me. My bed’s right next to Samuel’s.”

“F**k off, Yeti! The rookie’s Asian! You wear this, and it’s a thong! Why don’t you just go up to Samuel and whisper in his ear that today’s D-day instead?”

“…That is?”

“Well, s**t. Welcome to the 14 Special Ops, kid.”

Seeing that his squad members had taken off their underwear to argue about who had the dirtier underwear, John gave up on trying to explain the situation to the new recruit.

From one of the old manhwa, there was a baseball manhwa called the ‘Alien Baseball Team’.

The people in 14 Special Ops were a lot like the characters in that manhwa.

“Hey, sweetie. Don’t be so scared of me. I have standards, you know~ I don’t touch minors~”

The massive man with a small beard just at his chin, wearing pants that look too tight to look at but are even cut short like dolphin pants.

Samuel Marcheti, called Miss (Mister) Marti, was the one that looked after me the most when I first came in, oblivious of everything. Everyone watched with suspicious and incredibly worried eyes, but he claimed that this was tender care that came from ‘maternal love’.

With his hobby of using old, unwearable clothing to patch up other clothes, he was once again sitting next to me today, sewing up the other squad members’ ripped uniforms.

“…Don’t touch me.”

“Aww, don’t be so cold. It really isn’t like that. Although I am odd and am very, veryveryveryveryveryvery starved right now, I’m not crossing any lines. We’re comrades. Gotta keep that respect if I don’t want holes I can’t use to be drilled into my body while I’m asleep.”

“Bulls**t. Is that why you stole all of my stuff and handed me the clothes that not even hobos would think of wearing?”

The reason why Marti was sitting next to me right now was because he saw my abhorring sewing skills and decided to help me out. That day, not only was my bag taken away from me, but they stripped off my entire uniform as well, so I collected the veteran’s worn supplies that the squad members left and was struggling to turn them into a usable state.

“It might look like they took away all of your stuff, but they still were considerate. Can’t you tell just from the fact that nobody touched that gas mask you’re carrying around everywhere? We might take everything, but not the stuff with stories. You get it, kid?”

“Considerate, my ass. In which army is it that taking everything you have and making you do all sorts of chores is consideration? You don’t need to lie, Marti. I heard them say that they don’t need a new guy, so they just want some proper provisions.”

The 14 Special Ops Squads had a tradition of gathering in the Squad 1 barracks and eating together for every meal. I heard the other soldiers talking there, and they said that when they heard the transport plane come by on the day I came, everyone ran out of their tents and looked up at the sky like cavemen discovering fire. Then when they saw that what dropped down wasn’t a large box but a human, they all sighed in disappointment.

When I responded crankily, Marti just giggled as if I was cute and patted my head (I tried to resist, but a construction crane would have been easier to move), then pointed at the Special Ops members scattered around.

“Well~ that’s cause everyone needs to get ready when a rookie comes.”

“Ready?”

“Mhm. We get sad, too, when our fresh buddies keep on dying, you know? Sometimes, we have to kill them with our own hands too. It’s not fun, I tell you.”

“Do they really die that much?”

“Well, of course. There have been eight new recruits sent to us in the past three months, and you’re the only one that’s still alive. That’s why they all swarmed you like hyenas and looted everything. Even our cold-blooded Lieutenant Colonel wouldn’t have the heart to push a bare-bodied kid out into the battlefield when he’s gotten everything stolen from him.”

“So they made me unable to fight… on purpose?”

‘Is that what it was?’

After listening to what Marti said, I started to get the thought that the squad members, who I thought were all just barbarians, might have a warm heart behind their savage looks and speech. Just then, I saw, Luwil, the leader of Squad 1, walk around holding a crumpled-up MRE bag (that was part of my supplies) and ask something to the people, then walk my way with a smirk on his face.

“Hey, kid! You want in?”

“…For what?”

“What do you mean what? A game! You’ll go crazy in no time if you do nothing all day in a place like this. Keeping your mind straight with that mental care is part of a soldier’s job if you want to stay alive!”

‘If you want to stay alive…’

I was reminded of my father again at Luwil’s words. Even in the midst of feeling torturous pain as poison burned down his insides, Father continued to restrain me as I tried to pull off my gas mask to give it to him. I still couldn’t understand completely why Father tried so hard to save me. Because at that age, I was still much too young to understand the astronomical concept of a parent’s love.

But since my life was saved in such a way, I had the idea that I couldn’t let it go to waste.

“Alright. I’ll play too.”

If it’s something that a person that survived long enough to be the Squad Leader in a place where all of the new recruits died has to say, then it should be worth listening to. Let’s be friendly with him. Get friendly, and learn how to survive. Manage to survive somehow, and I’ll meet Mother again.

Thinking about Mother, I already felt better and could feel the energy getting restored in my body. Mental care. It already felt like I had learned something important.

“Great! I like your attitude. Then bet. The game’s a bet.”

“A bet? For what?”

Grin—

“Kid. You. How long you’re gonna stay alive.”

When I looked at the back of the plastic bag that Luwil handed to me, I could see under each squad a list of time spans starting from a couple days to weeks, then the names of the Special Ops members that I’m starting to memorize next to them.

“So… you’re betting on when I’m going to die?”

“Heheheheh. It’s tradition. Squad 3, the squad you’re in right now, are currently the richest guys in 14 Special Ops right now. Since they stole all of your stuff. We obviously can’t just sit and watch them enjoy that, so we’re making a bet. The applying squad calls an all-in to the rookie ‘surviving’. And the rest of us… we bet realistically.”

“Where’d you bet.”

“Me? Two weeks. I like that sharp look in your eye. Doesn’t look like you’re gonna die standing around.”

As I was looking at the names written down on the bag, then turned to look at Marti, I saw him staring out to the distance, avoiding eye contact.

“Two weeks, you say…”

I took a look at the betting board again. Compared to the other squads who had a few empty spaces, every single person had written down their bet in Squad 3.

Shepherd : Survive – Hehim Chocolate Bar

M.J : Survive – One new supply medium tank

Yeti : Survive – One new supply underwear

Dorris

Falmur

Liam

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.

.

.

Chester King : Survive – 30g of Blue Mountain coffee beans that’s been steeped 12 times

My supplies, that they’ve fought over so fiercely to get their hands on, were all listed on the betting items.

And the time span written next to each one were all the same.

[Survive]

“We normally treat it as survival when you survive until we finish one operation and move on to the next. This isn’t just a small game, you know? The Squad 3 guys bet little things like underwear, but the rest of us are betting things like ‘A dreamy one night with my lover back home’ or ‘My entire life savings’. Personally, I think that this is a steal for the guys in Squad 3. You’re gonna regret it if you don’t, kid.”

What do I call it? It wasn’t touched. The emotion felt oddly tickling, but it wasn’t something I could put into words.

“…Not a bad idea.”

“Hm? You’re really gonna do it? I was just teasing you.”

“You said it’s tradition. As a Natural Born Yugyuo-Man, I can’t just ignore traditions like that.”1

Taking the pen from Luwil, who was still grinning at him, Gyosu wrote down his name at the bottom of Squad 3.

Gyosu Park : Survive – From head to toe, everything I have.

“Ha, hahahahahah! All-in! Kid, I like you! This is gonna be a good game, I can feel it! Hahahahahah!”

Luwil’s tanned face widened into a burst of amused laughter.

Standing across from him, Gyosu also had a smile that looked similar to the crooked writing engraved into the crumpled plastic surface.

TL Note : Yugyo, aka. 유교 means someone that has strict and conservative views of culture and morals, usually sticking to traditional Asian views on society. ↩️