BLB Chapter 14

I thought I might be a bit late since I was on my phone, but it turned out Yoon had come out a bit early.

But what are we doing starting today? Getting beaten up like last time?

I was worried, but things proceeded in a more reasonable direction.

First, we stretched and ran. Starting from the cottage, we ran a long loop and returned to the cottage. It was a street where necessary things were neatly placed in necessary locations. The city was being baked under the warm sunlight, and Yoon and I kept silent while running.

After returning, we went to a gym located a 10-minute walk away and did strength training. The gym was spacious and equipped with a wide array of well-maintained, state-of-the-art equipment, but there wasn’t a single person.

That point was so strange that I couldn’t help but ask.

“Why isn’t there a single person here?”

“Because this gym is mine.”

Crazy.

“When I’m busy, come and work out on your own. I’ll register your fingerprint.”

This person is really rich.

I had guessed as much when I saw his vehicle, but I didn’t know he was this rich.

Anyway, we worked out here. As if trying to gauge my skills, Yoon had me do a variety of exercises. Lower body, upper body, flexibility improvement exercises, etc.

Strangely, my body isn’t keeping up.

It was the same when we were running earlier. I felt like I should be running faster and farther, but my body couldn’t keep up. It was the same with the weights and number of sets for strength training. My ankle flexibility seems to have decreased too. When I tried juggling, my dynamic visual acuity had definitely declined.

How did this happen…

Like this?

“Were you a trainer?”

I straightened my back.

“Pardon?”

“Even if you can’t work out well, you look like you’ve been doing it for several years.”

Yoon was examining me with narrowed eyes.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his black windbreaker, Yoon slightly furrowed his brows.

“It seems like you took a break from working out for a few months. But no matter what exercise I tell you to do, you maintain the proper form and know how to target the right muscles.”

“Is that so? That’s a relief. I think you’re right that I took a break for a few months. I was just thinking that my body isn’t keeping up…”

“You don’t remember working out?”

Not really.

Whenever Yoon instructed me to do an exercise, I just reflexively recalled how to perform that exercise. How to do a deadlift, how to do a bench press, how to do push-ups or pull-ups, etc.

When I conveyed the truth, Yoon fell into thought and remained silent for a moment.

Then he spoke.

“You naturally used a breakfall technique when you were hit by the mushroom too.”

Did I?

“How much muscle do you plan to build?”

“I don’t want to overdo it. It would decrease flexibility, leading to frequent injuries and limited movement.”

“See.”

Yoon said.

“From what I can tell, you’re not someone who worked out as a hobby. You probably did it professionally, were in the military or police, or were a stuntman.”

Was I?

As expected, I couldn’t remember.

However, Yoon didn’t particularly care about my answer. Instead, after finishing a round of strength training, he simply dragged my exhausted self to the shooting range.

The shooting range was located below this gym.

Just how rich is this person?

“I’ll have to retract what I said about you possibly being in the military or police.”

As soon as I finished shooting, Yoon evaluated me like that.

“You’re good at working out, so why are you so bad at shooting?”

I’m sorry.

Yoon had me practice shooting all afternoon. As if he didn’t care about wasting live ammunition, he had me practice with live rounds without restraint, and after I was utterly exhausted, he dragged me to his house.

To be precise, he dragged me to the spacious lab in the basement of his house.

A chilly place with a faint scent of disinfectant.

There, he showed me a “small core” model.

A glass dome resembling a hemisphere snow globe covered a city model.

“It’s made of the exact same material that protects the Center Core, called Summ.”

“Summ?”

“The original name for the barrier is Summ. Most people call it the Core, but strictly speaking, the Core refers to the entire area enclosed by the barrier. The accurate term for the barrier itself is Summ.”

“I see.”

“John Mühlern created Summ. I commercialized it.”

“Pardon?”

I was so surprised that my pronunciation became a bit strange. I widened my eyes and looked at the man beside me.

“Isn’t that an incredible accomplishment?”

“I suppose it is, if you put it that way.”

He wasn’t a humble person.

But now I could understand why he was so rich. It must be patented. As someone who contributed to the commercialization of a device indispensable to human life, it would be odd if he wasn’t rich.

Yoon looked down at the toy-like small core and pressed somewhere on the pedestal.

Then, a small hole opened up at the bottom of the hemispherical dome. In an arch shape, as if creating a tiny door for little people.

Yoon pointed to the small hole with his finger.

“When going outside the Core, you create a door in the Core like this to exit.”

“Do you go outside too?”

Why go out? Isn’t the purpose of wrapping the Summ around the city to protect it from bizarre creatures like mushrooms and spiders?

A dry voice provided an answer.

“Civilians don’t go out, we do.”

The low voice explained.

“We need to reclaim the land that was taken from us, don’t we?”

Suddenly, I was engulfed by a strange feeling.

I couldn’t tell exactly what I was feeling or why I was feeling this way. I only knew for certain that as soon as I heard the flat explanation, I felt peculiar.

It was as if a brief afterimage flashed before my eyes. As if a forgotten memory surfaced and vanished. It was too quick for me to accurately perceive.

I stared intently at my instructor.

“What’s outside?”

The answer came lazily.

“Creatures.”

In that case, I’ll go outside the Core once I have some experience! Since outside the Core is dangerous.

“You need experience to come inside the Core.”

I beg your pardon?

“The Core is full of civilians, you know.”

That’s true.

Yoon turned on the screen mounted on the lab wall.

Soon, the screen split into multiple sections, as if monitoring surveillance cameras. And it began to display bizarre things. The backgrounds were all different. Some were bluish-green meadows, while others were desolate gray reminiscent of apocalyptic movies.

Amidst the rapidly changing backgrounds, like game stages, creatures wandered about.

Commonly, there were no traces of humans.

So that’s outside the Core.

“The areas near the Core are relatively safer. Because Badgers have cleared the territory. The farther you go from the Core, the more dangerous it becomes, and there are regions where drones go missing for unknown reasons. We classify the areas by danger level. But just seeing it through video like this, you don’t really get a sense of it, right?”

I had a bad feeling.

I promptly gave a polite answer.

“The video quality is excellent, making it as vivid as reality before my eyes.”

“No matter how much I explain it verbally, it won’t stick in your head.”

Yoon had no intention of listening to me.

He pressed the keyboard to change the video. As I watched the rapidly changing footage, I gradually became fed up.

What are those unidentifiable things that occasionally appear on the screen…

Without any regard for my expression, my instructor continued his explanation.

“If the danger level of creatures is divided from 1 to 10, the danger level of areas outside the Core is divided from A to F. A is the farthest Badger members can go, and F is where new recruits start.”

“Aha. Then the area in the top right corner of the screen, swarming with those creatures, is Zone A?”

“That’s the off-limits Zone S.”

“Huh?”

I thought it only went up to Zone A.

Yoon explained without taking his eyes off the screen.

“There are places even skilled Badger members mustn’t enter. We collectively call such places Zone S.”

“Then how was that footage captured?”

“With drones.”

Aha.

“It’s fortunate that it’s Zone S. We’ll rarely have to face it then.”

“Even Zone S will have to be turned into Zone F someday and included inside the Core. That’s why we go outside.”

“I’ll revise my statement to say it’s fortunate for me personally, as it’s a truly distant future.”

“Let’s go outside in a week.”

I knew this would happen!

I knew this was coming! From the moment he said verbal explanations won’t stick in my head, I had a bad feeling.

This person… I’ve felt it since the mushroom creature incident, but he undoubtedly holds the belief that one must learn through physical experience.

Yoon looked at me moving my lips and raised an eyebrow.

“Why does your expression look like that?”

“Are you genuinely asking because you don’t know?”

“No.”

Not Human.

Yoon turned off the screen.

Every action of my instructor gave the impression of efficiency. It felt like there were no unnecessary movements at all.

He took out what looked like a tablet from under the desk.

“Let’s build up your stamina a bit during the week before going out.”

“Is that possible in a week?”

“Your current condition isn’t too bad.”

Really?

I asked in a voice unable to hide my joy.

“That’s a relief. I was quite worried…”

“But you’re far from ready to be sent to the field.”

Giving and taking away.

Once again, my instructor ignored my reaction.

He flipped through the tablet and explained the one-week training schedule.

Exercise from 9 am after breakfast. Lunch. Rest and exercise again from 2 pm. If it ends at 6 pm, study the world through online resources on your own. If there’s anything you don’t know, ask questions via messenger when reporting.

It was more manageable than I thought. It’s nice to have time to legally use the internet after finishing at 6 pm.

Although the thought of introducing myself a week later makes my stomach churn, the week itself seems better than expected, lifting my mood.

“Considering your situation, your salary will be paid a month in advance, so use it to cover your living expenses.”

After leaving Yoon’s house and before returning to the cottage, Yoon handed me a card and said those words.

I accepted the card he offered with a cheerful expression.

“Thank you.”

Having available money put me at ease. I should go to the ATM and check how much is in there. Now that I have a place to sleep and work, I can buy basic necessities like clothing and groceries.

Ah.

I kept worrying, but it seems everything is working out well, so I’m happy…

Kwaaang!

“What the!”

“What else could it be? It’s a creature.”

Yoon said after swatting away a dog-sized creature that leaped towards my face with his cell phone.

The creature smashed into the ground with a thud, along with the cell phone screen.

Using a cell phone instead of a ping pong paddle to hit that? As I stared at the writhing lifeform on the ground with a dumbfounded expression, Yoon leisurely walked towards it.

My instructor bent his waist to examine the creature that had sprung up from the ground.

“Strange. I tried to lure it towards me, but why did it leap towards you?”

It was a creature resembling a whale.

In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to call it a whale.

Splat!

Yoon crushed it to death with his foot.

What a waste.

For a moment, I had that thought.

…Huh?

“Why is that a waste?”

“What?”

I mumbled to myself, not understanding why I found it wasteful, and Yoon asked as he straightened his back.

I hastily shook my head.

“No, it’s nothing. But can this be lured?”

“Yeah. These things operate on frequencies inaudible to human ears. The creature alarm has been going off for a while now, and it was getting closer, so I deliberately made a sound with my phone to lure and catch it.”

Yoon said that while arching his eyebrows.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at me.

“Why did it attack you?”

“It probably thought I looked easier to take on.”

If I were that creature, I wouldn’t have wanted to mess with Yoon either.

Although I haven’t known him for long, Yoon remained a person with peculiarly minimal movements, exuding an intimidating aura, and whose true nature was hard to discern.

“We weren’t even that far apart.”

Strangely, Yoon seemed unconvinced by my answer.

He didn’t say anything, though.

He stared at me intently for a moment before sending me back to the cottage. Saying that if we report the corpse, a cleanup crew will come and dispose of it.

I nodded and returned to the cottage.

On the way back, I kept having this inexplicable feeling of regret that even I couldn’t understand.

The subject of the thought couldn’t even comprehend the content of the thought.

But somehow, I felt regretful.

The thought that it was a rare, sturdy specimen.