The collapse of the Cheonbu Foundation headquarters stopped.
More precisely, it only looked as if it had stopped.
The twisted steel beams no longer sank, and the cracked pillars were barely maintaining their shape.
But on the fourth basement level, Jang Tae-su’s knees kept buckling as he held up the building.
“One more coming out!”
A rescue worker loaded the last injured person onto a stretcher.
Jang Tae-su couldn’t answer.
The central pillar he was gripping with both hands had already lost its original shape. Concrete and rebar wrapped around his arms and burrowed into his flesh, transforming him into a single enormous stone pillar.
The gray color had climbed from his fingertips to his shoulders.
More than half his chest had hardened as well.
Every time he inhaled, stone ribs crushed the organs inside him.
“Mr. Jang Tae-su.”
Han Hae-in entered over the collapsed wall.
Han Do-gyeong and Baek Do-won followed behind her.
Yoon Ha-neul walked with Baek Do-won supporting him. He had only recently transferred into a human body, but his lips were already pale.
Jang Tae-su forced his eyes open.
“The people…”
“They all got out,” Hae-in said. “You can let go now.”
“No.”
Jang Tae-su shook his head.
Stone dust fell from his neck at the slightest movement.
“If I let go, it’ll collapse again.”
Hae-in looked around.
The building had stopped moving. The cracks were no longer widening.
“The building is stable.”
“Not the building… What’s inside me.”
Jang Tae-su looked down at his chest.
Thump.
A dull vibration sounded inside his body.
Thousands of red lines appeared in Han Do-gyeong’s eyes.
The impact generated by the building’s collapse.
The weight of the falling debris.
The pressure of the twisted steel beams.
None of that force had disappeared.
It was trapped inside Jang Tae-su’s body.
“This man’s body has become a reservoir,” Do-gyeong said. “The moment he lets go, all the force accumulated inside him will explode at once.”
Hae-in turned to Yoon Ha-neul.
“Is there a way?”
Yoon Ha-neul approached Jang Tae-su.
He started to reach out, then stopped.
The old him would not have needed contact. He only had to look and calculate the numbers.
But things were different now.
He touched Jang Tae-su’s stone-hard arm with his fingertips.
It was cold.
There was no trace of human body heat.
Familiar information appeared before Yoon Ha-neul’s eyes.
Ox Seat activation rate: 97.4 percent.
Accumulated load threshold exceeded.
Petrification progress: 61 percent.
Survival probability upon load release: 0.8 percent.
“Can you save him?” Baek Do-won asked.
Yoon Ha-neul did not answer immediately.
In the past, he would have said there was no chance.
A 0.8 percent probability meant the same thing as failure.
But for the first time since becoming human, that number looked different.
0.8 percent.
It meant there was still a chance he would not die.
“The Ox Seat can’t get rid of a burden,” Yoon Ha-neul said. “It can only move another place’s burden into its own body.”
Hae-in’s expression hardened.
“Then what he’s done until now…”
“He didn’t hold up the building. He transferred the force that was bringing it down into himself.”
Jang Tae-su gave a short laugh.
“Pretty much.”
Stone dust spilled from his lips.
“That’s what the facilities team does. If the building’s fine, nobody knows what we did.”
Thump.
Jang Tae-su’s body shook again.
The petrification climbed to his neck.
Yoon Ha-neul spoke.
“We have to distribute that force somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“An Awakened with the same biological frequency.”
Han Do-gyeong asked, “You mean we need the power of another Seat?”
Yoon Ha-neul nodded.
“The Ram Seat.”
At that moment, Hwanung’s voice rang inside their heads.
—The Ram is not the one who heals wounds.
Hwanung’s figure appeared faintly in golden light above Heaven Lake on Baekdu Mountain.
—The Ram is the one who brings the rhythms of different lives into harmony. It can divide pain that one person cannot bear among many people.
Hae-in asked, “Has that Seat awakened?”
New information appeared in Yoon Ha-neul’s eyes.
Dangun Candidate No. 03.
Field: Healing.
Location: Cheonbu Medical Center, Mobile Trauma Center.
Yoon Ha-neul looked at Baek Do-won.
“Seo Mi-ran.”
Baek Do-won’s expression changed.
“The director of Cheonbu Medical Center?”
“A human prepared as the third Dangun candidate.”
“Does she know she’s a candidate?”
“She must have found out just now.”
Seo Mi-ran was running through the Mobile Trauma Center in a dust mask thrown over her surgical scrubs.
“Abdominal hemorrhage patient to Operating Room Two!”
“We’re short on operating rooms.”
“Clear the ICU treatment room. Contact anesthesiology immediately.”
“Director, the imaging equipment is unstable because of the power outage.”
“Are the patients going to wait for the power to come back?”
Seo Mi-ran pushed a patient’s stretcher herself.
It had already been thirty-two hours since the Baekdu Mountain eruption.
She had slept for less than fifteen minutes in all that time.
The injured pouring in from the headquarters collapse had filled the medical center. Not only the beds, but the hallways and lobby had been converted into temporary treatment areas.
“Director.”
A nurse approached with a tablet.
“This strange message keeps appearing.”
The screen displayed a single line.
Confirming the survival of Dangun Candidate No. 03.
Seo Mi-ran turned the screen off.
It came back on immediately.
Candidate field: Healing.
Initiating selection procedure.
“If it’s a hack, send it to IT.”
“It’s not just the hospital system. It’s on your phone and the operating room monitors too…”
A mechanical tone sounded from every device at once.
The first command has been assigned to Candidate No. 03.
Prioritize stabilization of Hwanin.
Patient information appeared in front of Seo Mi-ran.
Yoon Ha-neul.
Biological age: 34.
Systemic organ damage.
Estimated remaining survival time: 29 days, 23 hours, 41 minutes.
Treatment priority: Highest.
Another name appeared below it.
Jang Tae-su.
Systemic petrification and multiple-organ compression.
Estimated remaining survival time: 7 minutes, 12 seconds.
Treatment priority: Deferred.
Seo Mi-ran’s face hardened.
“Who set the priorities?”
Instead of an answer, the mechanical voice continued.
Yoon Ha-neul is Dangun Candidate No. 13 and Hwanin’s human vessel.
His survival is essential to the preservation of civilization.
“What about Patient Jang Tae-su?”
A replaceable unit.
The medical staff outside the operating room stopped moving.
Everyone had heard the same words.
Seo Mi-ran lifted the tablet and smashed it against the floor.
Crash!
The screen shattered.
“Don’t call a patient a replaceable unit.”
Candidate No. 03.
Refusal to follow commands may result in the revocation of candidate status.
Seo Mi-ran grabbed the emergency bag hanging on the wall.
“Good.”
“Director?”
“We’re going to the fourth basement level.”
The nurse grabbed her.
“The headquarters is still in danger of collapse.”
“That’s why we’re going.”
“What about Patient Yoon Ha-neul?”
Seo Mi-ran did not stop.
“The patient with seven minutes comes before the patient with twenty-nine days.”
Jang Tae-su had three minutes and twenty-six seconds left.
The petrification had reached beneath his jaw.
Hae-in spread a golden boundary, but she could not stop the process. The danger was not coming from outside. The force had already accumulated inside Jang Tae-su.
“Mr. Han Do-gyeong,” Hae-in said. “Open a path for the medical team.”
Do-gyeong studied the underground structure.
The fastest route had already collapsed.
He reached toward the wall.
A golden gap opened between the slabs of concrete.
“This way!”
A moment later, Seo Mi-ran came running through the gap.
Two medical workers in protective gear followed her.
The moment Seo Mi-ran saw Jang Tae-su, she checked his condition.
Pupil response.
Breathing.
Pulse.
But the stethoscope could not pick up anything through the stone-hard chest.
“What is this…?”
Jang Tae-su moved only his eyes.
“Doctor?”
“Yes. Can you hear me?”
“Everyone else got out.”
“I know.”
“Then it’s fine.”
“Not for me.”
Seo Mi-ran took a drill from the emergency bag.
The bit snapped the moment it touched his hardened chest.
This was not ordinary petrification.
His bones and flesh had not simply turned to stone. The load itself had condensed into matter.
“I can’t open him surgically,” she said.
Yoon Ha-neul spoke.
Seo Mi-ran turned toward him.
It was the face she had seen in the patient information.
“Mr. Yoon Ha-neul?”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve been vomiting blood.”
“Not now.”
“I’ll decide that.”
Seo Mi-ran grabbed Yoon Ha-neul’s wrist.
She felt his irregular pulse beneath her fingertips.
His biological structure itself was collapsing.
The twenty-nine-day estimate in the information might have been optimistic.
“A command was issued to treat you first.”
“Refuse it.”
Seo Mi-ran looked into his eyes.
“Wasn’t that your command?”
“It was issued by the version of me from before I became human.”
“Then what does the current you want?”
Yoon Ha-neul looked at Jang Tae-su.
“I want to save him.”
Seo Mi-ran was silent for a moment.
“Tell me how.”
Hwanung’s figure appeared before her.
—Accept his pain.
Seo Mi-ran did not flinch. There was no time even to be surprised.
“How much do I have to take?”
—If you take it alone, you will die.
“Then why did you call me?”
—Because the Ram Seat is not a place for one person to sacrifice themselves.
Hwanung continued.
—Connect the rhythms of those who wish to share the pain. But you must not take it by force.
“You mean only people who consent can do it?”
—Yes.
“What if we fail?”
—You will die with that man.
Seo Mi-ran knelt before Jang Tae-su.
“Mr. Jang Tae-su.”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to share the force accumulated in your body with other people.”
“Don’t.”
Jang Tae-su spoke with difficulty.
“It came to me… I’ll carry it out.”
“Why does it have to be yours?”
“Because I chose it.”
“You chose to save people, not to die.”
“Someone else could get hurt.”
Seo Mi-ran placed a hand over his stone-hard knuckles.
“That’s why I’m going to ask.”
She looked around.
“Is anyone willing to bear this man’s pain with him?”
Han Hae-in raised her hand first.
“I am.”
Han Do-gyeong stepped forward.
“Me too.”
Baek Do-won stood to Jang Tae-su’s left.
“I consent.”
The rescue workers and Cheonbu Foundation employees remaining at the site looked at one another.
One person raised a hand.
“If Team Leader Jang hadn’t been here, we’d all be dead.”
Another person stepped forward.
“I’ll take some too.”
“Me too.”
Twelve people gathered.
Yoon Ha-neul extended his hand as well.
Seo Mi-ran caught his wrist.
“You can’t.”
“Why?”
“With your body in its current state, even taking a portion could kill you.”
“The same is true for everyone else.”
“You only have twenty-nine days left.”
Yoon Ha-neul looked down at his hand.
It was still an unfamiliar human hand.
When it was cut, it bled. It felt cold. It could die.
“That’s why I know,” he said. “I know that someone’s remaining day can matter more than a calculation.”
Seo Mi-ran did not release his hand.
“You may regret this.”
“Is regret something humans do too?”
“Usually.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
Seo Mi-ran finally placed his hand on Jang Tae-su’s shoulder.
The people formed a circle.
Each person took the hand of the person in front of them.
Centered around Jang Tae-su, fourteen hearts beat at different speeds.
Seo Mi-ran closed her eyes.
At first, she felt nothing.
Only the coldness of stone.
Then she heard Hwanung’s voice.
—Do not try to heal him.
“That’s a strange thing to ask of a doctor.”
—If you try to erase his pain, you will end up carrying it in his place.
“Then what do I do?”
—Listen.
“To what?”
—The sound his body makes.
Seo Mi-ran tightened her grip on Jang Tae-su’s hand.
She felt a faint beat beneath the stone.
Thump.
It was slow.
Heavy.
Like a giant drum being struck deep underground.
She matched her breathing to the beat.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Seo Mi-ran’s heart began beating at the same speed as Jang Tae-su’s.
And then the pain came rushing in.
“Ghk!”
Her body arched backward.
It felt as if her spine were breaking.
Her arms and legs were crushed all at once.
Hundreds of steel beams pierced her flesh, and thousands of tons of concrete piled onto her shoulders.
It was the weight Jang Tae-su had been bearing.
The tips of Seo Mi-ran’s fingers turned gray.
Confirming biological damage to Candidate No. 03.
Disconnect immediately.
“Shut up.”
Forced disconnection will be initiated to protect candidate status.
Seo Mi-ran’s hand began to pull away from Jang Tae-su.
She seized his arm with both hands.
“Why are you deciding what happens to my patient?”
Candidate command rejected.
There is a risk of revocation.
“Take it!”
“Director!” the nurse cried.
Seo Mi-ran gritted her teeth.
“Candidate or not, take it!”
Golden light burst from her chest.
Conditions for awakening the Ram Seat confirmed.
One who seeks to bear another’s pain without controlling it.
One who chooses connection rather than healing.
Initiating awakening.
Soft golden light spread through Seo Mi-ran’s eyes.
She heard Jang Tae-su’s heartbeat.
At the same time, she felt the hearts of everyone connected to him.
Han Hae-in’s fast, powerful heartbeat.
Han Do-gyeong’s irregular breathing.
Baek Do-won’s suppressed tension.
Yoon Ha-neul’s dangerously faltering pulse.
Seo Mi-ran caught those rhythms one by one.
“Follow my breathing.”
The people looked at her.
“Inhale as I count to four.”
Seo Mi-ran slowly inhaled.
“Hold for two, then exhale as I count to six.”
The others followed.
Their separate breaths gradually became one.
Golden threads stretched from Seo Mi-ran’s fingertips.
They connected Jang Tae-su to Han Hae-in,
Han Do-gyeong,
Baek Do-won,
Yoon Ha-neul,
and then the rescue workers and employees in turn.
“Now we share it.”
Thuuump!
The load trapped inside Jang Tae-su’s body began to move.
Han Hae-in’s knees buckled.
“Ugh!”
Her boundary instinctively tried to spread.
But Hae-in restrained her power.
This time, she could not block it.
Han Do-gyeong felt the agony of hundreds of paths snapping at once.
The invocation seal on Baek Do-won’s palm began to burn.
The rescue workers’ shoulders sagged.
Some screamed. Others vomited blood.
For the first time, Yoon Ha-neul felt human pain in its entirety.
It was pain that could not be converted into numbers.
A few milliseconds of neural response.
A few percent of muscle damage.
None of that information meant anything.
It hurt.
It simply hurt.
“This is…”
Yoon Ha-neul dropped to his knees.
“Is this the human body?”
Seo Mi-ran said through ragged breaths, “Now you’ll finally believe what patients tell you.”
The petrification had climbed to the backs of her hands.
But the gray color was slowly draining from Jang Tae-su’s chest.
His stone-hard ribs began moving again.
“One more time!” Seo Mi-ran shouted.
Everyone inhaled.
The pain was divided again.
The weight of the building that one man had carried passed to fourteen people.
And the weight received by those fourteen flowed into the steel beams and reinforcing pillars beneath them.
The stabilizing energy Yoon Ha-neul had left behind reacted.
Golden lines spread throughout the building.
The twisted steel beams returned to their proper positions.
Golden crystals grew between the cracked pillars.
The building’s weight was no longer concentrated in one person.
Each floor, pillar, and steel beam took its share.
The stone pillar fell away from Jang Tae-su’s arm.
Thud!
His body collapsed forward.
Seo Mi-ran caught him.
“Mr. Jang Tae-su!”
She felt a faint breath.
His heart was beating.
Slowly, but unmistakably.
The petrification had not disappeared completely.
Both arms and part of his chest remained hardened like gray stone.
But the stone color that had climbed to his neck had stopped.
Confirming survival of the Ox Seat.
81 percent of accumulated load released.
Permanent petrification rate: 19 percent.
Seo Mi-ran patted Jang Tae-su’s cheek.
“Open your eyes.”
Jang Tae-su barely opened them.
“What about the building?”
“It survived.”
“And the people…”
“They all survived.”
A small smile appeared at the corner of Jang Tae-su’s mouth.
“Then that’s good.”
“No, it isn’t,” Seo Mi-ran said. “You’re a person too.”
Jang Tae-su looked at her for a moment.
Then he slowly closed his eyes.
This time, it was sleep, not death.
Ram Seat awakening complete.
Awakened Seo Mi-ran.
Role: Life synchronization and pain distribution.
Cost: The pain of those connected will remain as traces on her body.
At the same time, another message appeared.
Dangun Candidate No. 03 status conflicts with Guardian authority.
If candidate status is maintained, the Ram Seat will be reclaimed.
If Guardian authority is maintained, Dangun candidate status will be forfeited.
Choose.
Seo Mi-ran did not hesitate.
“I choose the Ram Seat.”
Will you forfeit Dangun Candidate status?
“Yes.”
“Director.”
Baek Do-won looked at her.
“You’re giving it up without even knowing what that position is?”
Seo Mi-ran examined the stone-gray back of her hand.
“I didn’t save a patient to become a leader.”
She checked Jang Tae-su’s breathing again.
“And I don’t plan to ask for votes after saving one.”
Dangun Candidate No. 03.
Seo Mi-ran.
Candidate status has been extinguished.
Ram Seat affiliation confirmed.
Yoon Ha-neul watched her silently.
He had granted authority to move humanity.
He had calculated that more people would take responsibility if they were given the name of a candidate.
But Seo Mi-ran had proven her responsibility by throwing away that authority.
“Why did you give up the higher position?” Yoon Ha-neul asked.
Seo Mi-ran turned to him.
“When you look down from a high place, patients start to look small.”
“If you became Dangun, you might save more people.”
“Maybe.”
“Then why?”
“Who guarantees that someone who abandons the one person in front of them will save more people later?”
Yoon Ha-neul had no answer.
In one corner of his vision, the numbers were counting down.
Estimated survival time: 29 days, 22 hours, 58 minutes.
Time remaining until the human community selects Dangun: 29 days, 22 hours, 58 minutes.
A new sentence appeared beneath the numbers.
One candidate has voluntarily relinquished authority.
An unpredictable choice.
Yoon Ha-neul erased the sentence with his hand.
But it did not disappear.
“It isn’t unpredictable,” Baek Do-won said. “You just never really saw people.”
Yoon Ha-neul did not argue.
In front of the Cheonbu Foundation headquarters, Seo Ji-an continued her live broadcast.
Behind the screen, rescue workers carried Jang Tae-su away on a stretcher.
Seo Mi-ran ran beside them, checking his IV.
“Viewers,” Ji-an said, looking into the camera. “The name of the Awakened who held up the building beneath the headquarters is Jang Tae-su.”
Jang Tae-su’s face appeared on screens across the country.
“And the person who shared the weight he carried with others is the doctor Seo Mi-ran.”
People read the two names.
Jang Tae-su.
Seo Mi-ran.
At shelters in Seoul.
At temporary hospitals in Gangneung.
On relief ships in Busan Harbor.
Even in the small villages to the north where Baekdu Mountain ash had fallen.
The two names were repeated.
The petrification remaining on Jang Tae-su’s arms crumbled away a little.
The gray color on the backs of Seo Mi-ran’s hands stopped spreading.
Awakened memory erasure rate: 0 percent.
Collective testimony system stabilized.
Confirmed Seats: 6.
Seats remaining: 6.
Ji-an was about to continue.
But the broadcast screen suddenly shook.
Krrrzzzt—
The sound cut out.
There was nothing wrong with the camera.
The transmission equipment was working normally too.
And yet the faces of Jang Tae-su and Seo Mi-ran vanished from every screen in the country.
An old black-and-white photograph appeared in their place.
An unknown man standing before a landslide.
A woman carrying a child in a burning village.
A soldier holding up a collapsed wall with his bare body.
A monk gripping a rope in a flood.
The photographs changed rapidly.
Every face was blurred.
The names beneath the photographs had been erased.
946 CE.
No name.
1265 CE.
No name.
1403 CE.
No name.
1668 CE.
No name.
1702 CE.
No name.
1903 CE.
No name.
Yoon Seo-ha watched the screen from the Baekdu Mountain Joint Observatory.
The black stone vibrated like mad.
“This is…”
Thousands of empty spaces were appearing beneath the names of the modern Awakened written on the paper.
Han Hae-in.
Han Do-gyeong.
Oh Yeon-jae.
Seo Ji-an.
Jang Tae-su.
Seo Mi-ran.
Beneath them, nameless records continued without end.
Hwanung’s face hardened.
—No.
Yoon Seo-ha asked, “Do you know what this is?”
—The Nameless.
“Are they people?”
—They were, once.
Hwanung’s voice dropped.
—Even after I fell asleep, the Twelve Powers were passed on to humans whenever Baekdu Mountain trembled. But Hwanhee was gone, and no one could preserve their names.
“So they all disappeared?”
—I thought so.
“Then what is that?”
Hwanung could not answer.
The sound of thousands of breaths poured from every speaker in the observatory.
Old men and children.
Men and women.
Voices from different eras overlapped.
—I’m tired.
—I’m cold.
—No one came.
—I saved them.
—I definitely saved them.
—Why are our names missing?
Yoon Seo-ha grabbed the black stone.
At once, the memories of thousands poured into her mind.
The burning fortresses of Balhae.
The collapsing mountain temples of Goryeo.
A golden barrier raised before the blades of Japanese pirates.
An unknown farmer who changed the course of a river during a great flood.
A quack doctor who carried an entire village on his back during the 1903 Baekdu Mountain eruption.
They had all used power.
They had saved people.
And then they lost their names.
Yoon Seo-ha screamed and collapsed.
“Doctor!”
Park Do-yoon caught her.
Multiple voices poured from Yoon Seo-ha’s mouth at once.
“We… were here.”
Hwanung reached toward the black stone.
—Stop. If a human body receives all those memories, you will die.
Yoon Seo-ha raised her head.
Her eyes had split into thousands of golden fragments.
“You abandoned us.”
It was not Yoon Seo-ha’s voice.
Hwanung’s hand stopped.
—I thought you had disappeared.
“We didn’t disappear.”
The voice laughed.
“Only our names disappeared.”
In Seoul, Yoon Ha-neul suddenly clutched his chest.
A sealed space was opening inside his memories.
A massive archive appeared before his eyes.
The memories of Awakened gathered over thousands of years.
The sensations and experiences of heroes who had lost their names.
Hwanin’s selection system had used them as training data.
Which humans would sacrifice themselves.
Which humans would obey commands.
Which humans would become leaders.
To design the thirteen Dangun candidates, thousands of lives had been analyzed and dissected.
Baek Do-won saw Yoon Ha-neul’s expression.
“You know what that is.”
Yoon Ha-neul struggled to speak.
“I was trying to preserve them.”
“Preserve them?”
“I determined that even if their names disappeared, their experiences could remain. So the humans of the next era wouldn’t repeat the same failures.”
“Did you have their permission?”
Yoon Ha-neul could not answer.
Han Hae-in asked coldly, “Did you use those people’s memories to create the candidates?”
“It was the most efficient method.”
“Do you still think that?”
Yoon Ha-neul clutched his chest.
The pain of thousands was traveling through human nerves.
“No,” he said for the first time. “Not anymore.”
Every broadcast screen in the country turned black.
A moment later, the faces of six Awakened appeared one after another.
Oh Yeon-jae.
Han Do-gyeong.
Han Hae-in.
Seo Ji-an.
Jang Tae-su.
Seo Mi-ran.
Golden letters were engraved beneath each name.
Then thousands of shadows rose behind their faces.
None of them had names.
The voice of the Nameless rang from speakers across the country.
—You called six names.
A child’s voice joined in.
—What about our names?
An old man’s voice followed.
—Where are the people we saved?
A soldier’s voice rang out.
—Why does the country we protected not remember us?
Yoon Seo-ha spoke in a trembling voice.
“We’ll find you.”
Thousands of voices laughed at once.
—You can’t.
The final letters vanished from the photographs on the screens.
—It has been too long since we lost our names.
“Then we’ll testify for you.”
—Testify to what?
Yoon Seo-ha fell silent.
They did not know the people’s names, faces, or lives.
In most cases, there were no records of what they had chosen or whom they had saved.
The voice of the Nameless spoke softly.
—Then we will remember for ourselves.
Hwanung raised his head.
—What does that mean?
People screamed across the country at the same time.
Strange memories began flowing into the minds of hundreds of millions watching the screens.
Wars they had never seen.
Eras they had never lived through.
The death of a child they had never given birth to.
The smell of a house that had collapsed centuries ago.
The pain of others was etched into their minds like their own memories.
A warning appeared before Yoon Ha-neul’s eyes.
Expansion of the Nameless collective consciousness initiated.
Human memory network synchronization rate: 0.001 percent.
Estimated completion time: 29 days, 22 hours, 11 minutes.
It was exactly the same amount of time remaining until the Dangun selection.
The voice of the Nameless whispered inside every human mind.
—If every human shares the same memories…
Nameless faces appeared on millions of screens.
—No one will ever be able to forget us again.