When the space age began, humanity encountered things it had never expected.
And many of them left humanity deeply shocked.
However, surprisingly, what shocked humanity the most wasn’t the Mog.
The encounter with the Mog and the war that followed were shocking, but the moment humanity saw their existence, people thought,
‘In other words, what everyone expected to appear sooner or later has finally arrived.’
“Of course! It would be disappointing if there were no monsters in a space age!”
What truly surprised humanity were the Prophet’s artifacts.
The Prophet’s artifacts, discovered throughout space and on numerous planets, weren’t recognized for their true value from the beginning.
At first, they were simply treated as jewels.
Extremely rare jewels that could only be obtained in space and, precisely because of that, were sold at extraordinarily high prices.
However, the moment someone claimed that those jewels had been manufactured through technology by an extraterrestrial civilization other than humanity, mankind was dumbfounded.
“This jewel did not occur naturally. It was created.”
In truth, that was an absurd statement.
Normally, if someone said something like that, rather than being surprised, people would look at the guy saying it and think,
‘Another lunatic who thinks science fiction novels are real is running his mouth again. Tsk, tsk.’
However, the person who said those words was none other than Doctor Space.
“At least, I’m convinced of it. If you want to deny it, try doing so in front of me.”
And that made humanity’s reaction completely different.
His words didn’t end there either.
Doctor Space named those objects the Prophet’s artifacts and claimed that there were people capable of using them.
“People born with a very special ability can use the power contained within these artifacts.”
“So, from this moment on, these will be Prophet’s artifacts, and those who can use them will be Psykers. I named them, so don’t start calling them something else on your own.”
That was how Psykers were born.
Naturally, from then on, Psykers were treated practically as a new form of humanity and received all kinds of privileges.
And they deserved that treatment.
In the space age, the capabilities Psykers demonstrated in the war against the Mog were so overwhelming that they could completely change the course of a battle.
When supernatural powers such as telekinesis, monstrous strength, teleportation, or precognition were combined with humanity’s scientific technology, the resulting destructive power surpassed anything imaginable.
And it was inevitable that this would be the case.
In any case, Psykers were extraordinary existences, and every military granted them an extremely special position and treatment.
For starters, whenever they operated alongside the military, they received treatment equivalent to at least that of a Major.
And that was only the minimum.
Even generals with stars on their shoulders couldn’t casually give orders to a Psyker.
They were existences on another level.
That was why, the moment he heard that word, Private First Class Park Boseop showed an expression of greater surprise than ever before.
“A Psyker?”
To ordinary people, Psykers were something like celebrities.
And it was the same for Space Marines.
Existences who were admired and almost worshiped.
At the same time, excitement could be seen on Park Boseop’s face.
“Is she really a Psyker? One of those Psyker Agents?”
“I’m sure. At that age, there’s no possibility she could have reached Major if she weren’t a Psyker.”
Kim Seojun responded after hearing the excitement in Park Boseop’s voice.
And as he answered, his voice perfectly reflected the stiffness of his expression and the emotions he was feeling.
Park Boseop noticed immediately.
“Uh, Sergeant Kim, sir, is there a problem?”
“Yes?”
Kim Seojun answered without thinking.
“I have good news and bad news. I’ll start with the good news. The reward for this rescue will be much larger than we expected.”
“We rescued a Psyker Agent. That means the first digit of the amount you were imagining for the reward is going to change.”
“Really, sir?”
Park Boseop looked surprised.
He had heard countless times that Psyker Agents were extremely valuable, but to that extent?
“If you consider the value of a Psyker Agent, there’s no way the price of her life could be cheap. They might do whatever they want when it comes to soldiers, but when it comes to the value of a Psyker, they make sure to pay properly.”
“If something happens to a soldier, in the end, he’s still someone else’s son. But if they treat Psykers badly, they change their nationality and join another country without looking back.”
“Ah.”
Park Boseop immediately understood the explanation.
At the same time, he grew tense.
“T-Then, what’s the bad news?”
Kim Seojun explained.
“Psyker Agents are terrifying existences. There are Psykers capable of accomplishing alone what even an entire regiment of Space Marines couldn’t. They completely change the course of a battle. That’s why, every time I saw a Psyker Agent, I prayed that I would never encounter one again.”
“Yes?”
The moment he heard that, any emotion resembling that of someone who had just seen a celebrity completely disappeared from Park Boseop’s face.
“Because encountering one of those extremely valuable Psykers means the situation in that place is bad. In many ways.”
That was how serious the situation was.
Of course, Kim Seojun didn’t simply sink into worry either.
He tried to focus as much as possible on the positive aspects.
‘If we move together with a Psyker, our rescue priority will automatically become the highest. We just have to hold out. And as long as we have a Psyker with us, there’s a very high chance that our next battles against the Mog will be much easier.’
However, those thoughts didn’t last long.
The moment they approached the supply base where they had left the rest of the unit, Kim Seojun’s and Park Boseop’s expressions inevitably hardened.
“……Uh, Sergeant Kim, sir, the supply base isn’t responding.”
After sending three radio messages without receiving any response, Kim Seojun couldn’t help but reach a conclusion.
“It looks like they were wiped out.”
His prediction was correct.
The moment they reached the bunker, what they saw was a brutally destroyed scene.
The place had been attacked by Mogdogs and Thorn Snakes until it had been reduced to a practically unrecognizable mass of scrap metal.
And everywhere there were pieces of flesh that had once been Space Marines, to the point that it was difficult to find a body that still retained a recognizable shape.
“Ah.”
Park Boseop froze completely.
The grief over the brutal deaths of his comrades.
The fear of imagining himself reduced to that same state.
And the terror caused by the feeling that something incomprehensible was happening there.
All of it left him unable to move.
Tap.
Kim Seojun lightly patted him on the shoulder.
“I know it’s difficult. I went through this too.”
Kim Seojun understood perfectly how Private First Class Park Boseop felt at that moment.
There was no way he couldn’t understand.
After all, he too had witnessed hells like that countless times.
Precisely because of that, he knew.
“And even so, I reenlisted because I want to make money and return to Earth.”
“I’ll do whatever is necessary to achieve that.”
He knew what they had to do there.
“Gather all the supplies we can take with us. I’ll collect the weapons from the bodies of the unit members, so you go into the bunker and gather food, batteries, and everything else we can use.”
At those words, Private First Class Park Boseop weakly nodded.
After that, the work proceeded without any problems.
After all, there wasn’t that much they could take with them either.
And just as they finished loading the few weapons, ammunition, and provisions that remained into the cargo bed of the military truck……
Park Boseop, who was moving the supplies, looked toward the medical suit.
And through the glass of the medical suit, his gaze met that of the Psyker inside.
“Huh?”
In other words, he saw that the Psyker had awakened.
At that moment, Park Boseop flinched and shouted.
“S-She woke up!”
The first thing Major Lee Hyena did after waking up inside the medical suit was introduce herself.
“Major Lee Hyena. I belong to the National Power Institute.”
Kim Seojun responded in the same manner.
“I’m Sergeant Kim Seojun.”
During that brief exchange, Kim Seojun realized something.
‘She’s a veteran.’
Major Lee Hyena, who appeared to be around twenty-seven years old and approximately the same age as his younger sister, was much more of a veteran than he had imagined.
And he had reason to think so.
After all, Major Lee Hyena was currently inside a medical suit.
That meant she had suffered fairly serious injuries.
Furthermore, considering that she had taken refuge inside a shelter, there was a high probability that she had witnessed the entire process of the destruction of the Korean division on planet Amotia.
And yet, as soon as she opened her eyes, she calmly introduced herself to people she had never seen before?
Then there were only two possibilities.
Either she was a veteran with absolute confidence in her own abilities.
Or she was simply a psychopath whose sense of social interaction was completely stunted.
Whichever the answer was, neither option was good for Kim Seojun.
Because encountering a veteran Psyker Agent made it even clearer that whatever was happening on planet Amotia was nothing good.
Regardless of that, Kim Seojun began by informing her of the situation.
“I’ll brief you on the situation. Currently, the Korean division has been completely destroyed. After detecting your rescue request signal, Major Lee Hyena, we rescued you and are currently on the move. The bunker we were previously operating from was destroyed, so we’re heading toward another bunker.”
Upon hearing the report, Major Lee Hyena’s eyes, still visible through the medical suit, began blinking rapidly.
As if she were typing on a keyboard.
Finally, she opened her mouth.
“How many members of the unit remain?”
“Unfortunately, all remaining members of the unit, except Private First Class Park Boseop, our driver, were wiped out. Our supply situation isn’t good either.”
The moment she heard the immediate response, Major Lee Hyena said,
“From this moment on, you will follow my orders.”
Kim Seojun didn’t question the order.
“Yes, ma’am.”
For starters, Lee Hyena held the rank of Major.
She was a superior of such a high level that a mere sergeant like him couldn’t even dare compare himself to her.
Furthermore, the National Power Institute she belonged to was an organization that operated independently even within the Ministry of Defense.
As previously mentioned, Psyker Agents belonging to the National Power Institute possessed enormous combat capabilities.
Kim Seojun had personally witnessed just how terrifying they could be.
‘Colonel Kim Taesu, whom I saw that time, was also…… a monster.’
‘If she belongs to the National Power Institute, then she’s one of the ones who actually fight on the battlefield.’
That was why he had no intention of starting some absurd struggle for authority.
On the contrary, he was grateful that she had decided to assume command.
‘For now, we can move together, so there’s absolutely nothing bad about this.’
From the perspective of a Psyker like her, a sergeant and a driver were, honestly, practically irrelevant presences.
It wouldn’t have been strange for her to simply tell them,
“Survive on your own.”
Then gather some supplies and leave on her own.
And they wouldn’t have had any way to stop her either.
In any case, from Kim Seojun’s perspective, it was as though, in the middle of the worst possible situation, he had at least managed to grab onto a rope he could rely on.
He let out a sigh of relief.
“From this moment on, we’ll have to carry out an operation.”
However, the moment he heard those words, Kim Seojun’s expression changed.
At that moment, a disaster had occurred, and what they were supposed to do was control and deal with its aftermath.
It wasn’t a situation where using the word ‘operation’ made any sense at all.
And yet she had mentioned an operation?
‘Fuck. Seriously.’
The moment he heard Major Lee Hyena’s next words, Kim Seojun squeezed his eyes shut.
He unleashed a string of curses inwardly.
“Do you know about the incident on planet Killmas?”
“What was the incident on planet Killmas, sir?”
Kim Seojun knew perfectly well what the answer to Private First Class Park Boseop’s question would be.
Because Kim Seojun knew.
So it was Kim Seojun himself who answered.
“It was the planet where a Queen was born.”
Upon hearing that, Park Boseop remained stunned for a few moments before reacting and exclaiming.
“Yes? A Queen?”
“Yes. That Queen. The one that can create legions of Mog.”
“T-T-That……”
Queen.
It was one of the types of Mog and, just as its name indicated, possessed both powerful command abilities and an extraordinary reproductive ability that allowed it to create Mog.
Furthermore, the moment a Queen was born, the Mog began an extermination operation to eliminate absolutely everything on that planet in order to protect her.
‘Now I understand. I know why the Mog started going completely insane. They started wiping out everything to protect the Queen.’
And the even bigger problem came afterward.
‘If the Queen manages to take control of the planet, from that moment on, that planet becomes a factory that produces Mog nonstop.’
From the planet conquered by the Queen, the Mog would begin spreading throughout the surrounding areas.
It was no longer simply a matter of losing that planet.
In other words, from the perspective of human civilization, a Queen was like a cancer cell.
A cancer cell that, the moment it appeared, began metastasizing in every direction.
Naturally, the moment humanity discovered one of those cancer cells, it had to eliminate it with the highest priority.
And that wasn’t something for which they simply mobilized Psykers.
Rather, the Psykers were only the beginning.
If the situation couldn’t be resolved, from that moment on, the higher-ups would take every possible measure.
“When is the deadline?”
“Deadline? Sergeant Kim, sir, what’s that?”
“There’s a time limit for eliminating a Queen. If the deployed forces fail to eliminate her before that time runs out, then support arrives from outside.”
“Support? More troops, sir?”
“No. Nuclear missiles arrive.”
It was then.
Beep, beep, beep, beep!
Suddenly, an alarm began sounding inside the stopped military truck.
The moment he heard that alarm, Kim Seojun immediately stood up and looked at the truck’s instrument panel.
Then he saw it.
One of the needles on the panel had begun trembling like crazy.
It was a detector.
Just as special individuals such as Psykers existed among humans, special individuals also existed among the Mog.
Those special individuals emitted unusual waves, and humanity had installed detectors capable of sensing them in most of its vehicles.
“Fly-class! A Fly-class individual has appeared!”
Furthermore, the one that had just appeared belonged to the Fly-class, the lowest rank among those special individuals.
Of course, that didn’t mean it was an enemy they could casually think about fighting.
There was only one reason humanity had installed those detectors in most vehicles.
So they could flee without even looking back.
‘We can take this one.’
However, at that moment, Kim Seojun had forgotten something.
He was no longer in command.
“Soldier Park Boseop, we’re getting the hell out of here!”
“We’ll engage in combat.”
And the person who now held command had decided to fight instead of fleeing.
Kim Seojun didn’t question that decision.
This was the military.
A place where, if a superior ordered you to do something, you did it.
And there was even less chance that Kim Seojun would commit insubordination when the person giving the order was a Major and, on top of that, a Psyker.
Furthermore, Kim Seojun trusted the capabilities of Psykers.
The presence of one meant that the battlefield was hell.
But at the same time, they were precisely the ones who survived in that hell.
His survival instinct wasn’t that weak.
So Kim Seojun simply prepared himself.
‘If necessary, I’ll inject myself with a Stimpak.’
It was then.
Just as Kim Seojun mentally prepared himself, he heard a series of notifications in his ears.
[An event mission has been generated!]
[A powerful Mog individual has appeared!]
[Points obtained during this battle will be doubled.]
[If you hunt the powerful Mog individual during this battle, you will receive a Gold Ticket as a special reward.]