Chapter 18

Apocalypse

I stared at the letter in my hands and took a moment to collect my thoughts.

After hearing about Syngman Rhee's "attack," my father had immediately sent back a reply—one that practically radiated anger just from the handwriting alone.

Rhee's influence within the Korean community had been growing day by day, but my father must have judged, "At this rate, that bastard might grab hold of my son and do God knows what."
I didn't hear exactly what happened afterward, but at the very least, Rhee's rise in San Francisco was checked. A born politician like him would surely realize that that "check" was my true answer.

Here, even Rhee had no choice but to step back.
Try to undermine my father's influence in the Korean community? The moment he did that, it would be all-out war.

The letter I had just received from Rhee was filled with empty phrases—things like, "I thought this would be a good opportunity, what a pity," and "I'll always be willing to help."
In other words, let's end this here.

I hoped he'd at least learn not to throw casual jabs at people out of habit, lest he add a thorny path to his own life—but if pushed into a corner, that bastard would even drag in President Woodrow Wilson if he had to.
Throwing him to the sharks in the Pacific would have to wait another eight years.

I wrapped things up around there and moved on to the next step.

"Hey, Yujin. Hard to see your face these days."
"Apparently he's been busy writing love serenades in letters to Miss Dorothy every night."
"That's not it. Kids, scram~"

These bastards. I was already skilled enough to finish those in thirty minutes.

"I'm four years older, so I don't have to leave, right?"
"Mentally you're still a kid, so maybe—ugh! Stop!"

Caught in Ike's merciless headlock, I flailed like a chicken in front of Seoul Station.

That sneaky bastard. His personality keeps getting worse.

Still, Ike had improved a lot.

The guy who once looked like the world had ended because he couldn't play football anymore had, by his third year, fully shifted into something like a coaching role. Apparently, he'd been impressed by how I used to stand with my arms crossed and give orders like a smug commander every time I swung a bat.

"Anyway, show us what you've been scribbling every night."
"Fine… don't just mock me. Let's hear the critique of West Point's finest."

I pulled out a thick stack of papers from the drawer.

This was the complete collection of everything I'd been struggling to write over the past few months.

"Title: 'Predictions on the Nature of Future Warfare and Recommendations for Preparation.' Wow, what a grand title."
"Forget the title's literary flair—read the content."

Ike released the headlock and flopped onto the bed, starting to read the first page.

"—!"

"Hey, let us see too."
"Yeah, me too."

And the crime of lying on someone else's bed proved far too great.

Soon Omar, James, and Anastasio piled on top of each other like a stacked hamburger, and Ike's face turned bright red.

"Get—get off, you idiots."
"What are you doing on my bed? Damn it, now it's all dirty."
"We washed, so it should be fine?"
"If you washed, then okay."
"I'm not okay with it, you morons!"

Seriously… these guys were supposed to be the shining stars of the future?
Sometimes I wondered if that title wasn't actually that impressive.

"As the great powers of Europe approach a full-scale war, their leadership will be unable to resist the pressure for total mobilization. The fear of falling behind the enemy in mobilization strength and timetable will be the very trigger of a continental war…Yujin?"

Ike twisted his stiff neck to look at me.

"What is this?"
"What do you mean? Just a light report."
"What the hell do you mean 'report'? This isn't a report. This is—this is the Book of Revelation, you lunatic!"

That was a stronger reaction than I expected.

Whether it was from reading or from being crushed under the others, his face was flushed red.

Without waiting for my answer, Ike buried his face back into the papers.

"The German Empire and France, upon full mobilization, will field millions… Alsace-Lorraine's narrow front… the threat from Russia in the rear… Germany, seeking a short decisive war, is highly likely to violate Belgian neutrality to expand the battlefield… German advance into the Low Countries would inevitably pose a grave threat to the British Empire's security… What the hell is all this? Did you mix something into your food?"
"I ate the same thing as you guys."
"We don't think like this, you psycho!!"

Psycho? That hurts.

Anyone with decent insight could predict this much.
Of course, I had basically copied what I'd read from history books—so in this era, anyone reaching these conclusions would probably think, No way…

"Surely they wouldn't invade a neutral country."
"Surely other nations would mediate."
"Surely they wouldn't start a war that destroys everyone's economy and finance."

But they would.

And we hadn't even gotten past the opening pages yet—so yelling like that already was a bit inconvenient.

Ike tossed the pages he'd finished onto the pile of bodies stacked on the bed and kept reading frantically.

I'd added a bit of embellishment, but this "report" was really just a dressed-up plea for investment.

I'd wanted feedback on that part—but it seemed the introduction alone already contained ideas too hard to accept.

Things even a monkey at West Point should understand:

If I dig trenches and set up machine guns, war becomes very easy. The enemy will practically beg you to come at them.
Then the weaker side will charge first—but can they really break through a trench by just throwing themselves at it?

To push back enemy trenches, powerful artillery support is essential. But the battlefield will be enormous. To observe, you must control the skies—and if you lose the skies, the enemy can watch you unilaterally. Air combat becomes inevitable.

Even if you secure air superiority, how do you relay observations?
How does the very front of a million-man army communicate with headquarters at the far rear? Messengers? You're joking, right?

Charging into trenches with a standard-issue rifle like the M1903 is exhausting. You'd want a pistol.
Better yet, wouldn't it be ideal to have a weapon that sprays bullets right in front of you in an extremely short time? Or perhaps indirect-fire weapons to strengthen small-unit firepower?

Between my trench and the enemy's trench, the terrain would be utterly wrecked by constant artillery fire.
Normal vehicles wouldn't stand a chance—only something like a "tractor" could move through it. But to survive gunfire, it would need heavy armor… and if you're going to move it anyway, why not mount machine guns or even cannons on it?

I filled page after page with ideas like these.

And woven between those "fantasies" were endless descriptions—

of human bullets, of men dying in droves because those tools didn't yet exist.

My original intention had been a kind of courtship dance—to catch the attention of the higher-ups.
But judging by these guys' reactions, it seemed to have turned into something closer to a Maori war haka. Every single one of their expressions was dead serious.

At last, after finishing the report, they all shut their mouths. They had long since climbed off the bed.

"I… don't even know what to say about this."

Omar muttered with an uneasy look.

"Yeah. The logical progression itself doesn't seem wrong. At least under the assumption that the battlefield develops the way you describe."
"But… would it really go this far?"

Exactly. That's how it should be.

"If the war unfolds the way you've written here, Europe would literally lose every man it has and turn into a continent of ghost cities. It'd get politically settled before it ever reached that point."
"That could be true. I didn't think about that."
"Yeah… anyway, what I feel is—this gives me a kind of instinctive rejection."

They understood the logic.
But the moment they accepted it, their faith in humanity itself would start to erode.

At someone's words, everyone nodded.

"You've been thinking about stuff like this all the time?"

James let out something like a sigh, and once again, all their heads nodded in agreement.
That irritated me for some reason.

"What, you think I'm some bloodthirsty maniac?"

"If someone read this and imagined the author, they'd all picture one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—the Red Horse of War. If you submit this, your reputation is finished! Just don't!"

By the end, he was practically shouting.

"Whoa, calm down. That's why I showed you before submitting it."
"So you're not turning it in?"
"Well… I prepared a milder version."

I pulled out another stack of papers from the drawer.
Those bastards—earlier they'd been fighting over who got to read first, and now they were backing away from the pages like they were staring at a corpse.

"Read it."
"This is… a novel? Like pulp fiction?"
"Exactly."

If the 21st century had web novels, this era had pulp fiction.
The content was the same. The difference was that the earlier one dryly listed "facts," while this one mixed imagination with historical truth into a story.

"…It's the same thing, you bastard."
"No, this is just a dark and gloomy piece of fiction."

Ike let out a deep sigh.

"Yeah. This is better. It won't sell worth a damn, but I guess there are people who like depressing stuff like this."
"Right? Then I should submit both."
"What??"
"I'll send the report up the chain. Like you said, it'll probably get cut somewhere and shoved into a drawer. So I'll sell the novel on the market."

Of course, I couldn't use my own name.
Time to borrow my poor younger brother's identity again.

Naturally, even he would use a pen name.

After some very serious persuasion—backed by physical force from my friends—I decided to postpone submitting the report.

Instead, I'd put a bit more thought into how to submit it.

"Yujin, what you're aiming for with this is your reputation, right?"
"Exactly."
"Then do the opposite."

Following Anastasio's advice, I first circulated the report among my classmates.

"So this is the kind of stuff inside Yujin's head."
"Damn… but some of it kind of makes sense—"
"Like hell it does."
"Hey, think about it. If you led a platoon and charged into German trenches, do you think you could break through?"
"…Ah, shit. There's no war anyway, so stop thinking about that kind of crap."

At some point, someone started calling it the "Armageddon Report."
That ill-fated report quickly made the rounds among my peers—and then, naturally, it reached the fourth-year seniors.

"Looks like West Point's biggest psycho has shown up."
"If even half of this turns out right, he's not a psycho—he's Cassandra."

And not long after that—

I was summoned by the superintendent and submitted the report in question.

Without saying much, the superintendent quietly placed the worn-out report into his drawer and waved his hand dismissively.

All preparations at West Point were complete.

Now, all that remained was to wait—

for the gunshot in Sarajevo.