The Elevated Railway
The elevated railway station they had reached sat at a considerable height.
“…….”
“What? Something wrong?”
“It has been a long time since I was somewhere this high.”
“Yeah, I guess that would be true.”
Yu Seong-un nodded.
A portrait wouldn’t have much reason to climb somewhere this high, after all.
But the fact that Ji-oh had said “a long time” suggested he had left the painting and climbed up on his own at least once before.
Or maybe, somewhere in his human memories, he’d climbed a mountain or a cliff.
Given that the kid could move around by himself, there were any number of possibilities. He might even have been carried while still a portrait.
Unaware of Seong-un’s thoughts, Ji-oh was busy taking in the station around them.
…I didn’t notice from below, but the whole place is covered by a transparent membrane. Probably to prevent falls, or to cut the fierce winds at this height. What material is it, exactly? It looks far more transparent and far harder than glass or plastic.
Ji-oh took a keen interest in growing things and making things. A cutting-edge material straight out of a science-fiction film was more than he could resist asking about.
“What is this wall made of?”
“Hm? The wall?”
“Yes. It’s sealed off by a wall so transparent you wouldn’t even know it was there unless you touched it.”
“I’m no expert on this kind of thing, but… it’s probably Formless Crystal.”
“Formless Crystal?”
“I know it as a component extracted from a certain type of monster that shows up pretty often.”
Even Seong-un didn’t know the monster’s actual name. Unless a creature was particularly dangerous or unusual, it wasn’t worth remembering.
“I heard most of the transparent windows installed around the city are made of this.”
“I see.”
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
Seong-un’s expression went flat.
“You can’t take it. It’s public property.”
“I am aware.”
“That’s not the face of someone who’s aware.”
“Yes. You are correct.”
“…If you really want some, I’ll get you some later. So just hold off.”
Formless Crystal was used across a wide range of industries, but for all its versatility it wasn’t especially expensive. The monsters that yielded it weren’t particularly rare, and each specimen produced a generous amount of crystal.
“What would you even do with something like that?”
“It seemed like an interesting material. I wanted to examine it and try putting it to use.”
“Your curiosity really is something else…”
Seong-un smiled with a faintly complicated look. Showing interest in the rules and objects humans created was a classic trait of beings that came from the Source.
While they were talking, the train pulled in.
“Looks like we’ve got this car to ourselves.”
Just as Seong-un said, car number 6 held only the two of them.
Ji-oh thought quietly to himself.
There really aren’t many people riding this.
It was a little sad.
Such a magnificent piece of modern engineering, and people can’t even ride it because it’s too expensive.
When he’d tapped his card at the elevator on the first floor, only a green light confirming entry had appeared—no information about how much had been charged. So he still didn’t know the exact fare for the elevated railway, and that left him oddly bitter.
It feels like the gap between rich and poor has only gotten worse over the last thirty-one years. Is that just my imagination?
Ji-oh asked,
“Is it usually this empty?”
“Ah, no.”
Seong-un shook his head.
“Normally there are more people than this. At least ten per car, usually. Today’s just weirdly quiet. Maybe because we’re riding in the middle of the workday… I’m not sure. It’s been a while since I’ve taken this line at this hour myself.”
“…….”
Hold on.
Something was off.
“The middle of the workday?”
“Well, it’s 8:38 right now.”
Checking his watch, Seong-un continued.
“It varies a little by company, but the average start time is seven.”
“…….”
“Ji-oh?”
“People go to work at seven in the morning?”
“Mostly, yeah?”
Did people simply not have human rights here?
As far as I remember, the typical office start time was definitely nine a.m.
In an instant, Ji-oh lost all confidence in his ability to survive this harsh reality. Watching even what little hometown pride he’d had evaporate, he had to admit the portrait lifestyle might actually suit him better.
“…….”
What on earth had become of this country? He soon arrived at a reasonable explanation—one he could only think of because of the thirty-one-year blank in his life.
“Is it because of genetic factors, or cultural ones, that most people wake up before dawn, and that’s why they set the time this way?”
“Uh… no, not really. If they didn’t set a time at all, a lot of people would sleep until lunch. This is just a rule people agreed on among themselves.”
“I see.”
It was a clean answer, but it left him unsettled. Ji-oh fixed Seong-un with a long, steady look.
Does this man occasionally forget to treat me like a human being?
It felt exactly like a butler patiently explaining human society to a talking cat.
“…….”
“Hm? What is it?”
“I am an ordinary human being.”
“Uh… right.”
Even scrubbing his face clean of expression and analyzing every micro-reaction the way a senior prepping for the college entrance exam would parse a reading passage, Ji-oh could not find any sign that Seong-un actually believed him.
…Well. If I were in Seong-un’s position, I probably wouldn’t feel like a haunted portrait was the same species as me either. In a world like this, I should just be grateful I’m not being treated as a monster outright.
And that monster treatment did come with certain perks. Even when he had no money and no common sense, people seemed to wave it off with a well, he’s not really human, so it’s fine.
His pride as a human being took a small, undeniable dent—but he still believed living as a portrait was better for body and soul than returning to life as a dutiful slave of capitalist society.
Ji-oh asked carefully,
“Do I come across as uncultured? Or rude?”
“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?”
“I do not wish to inconvenience you, so I will be more careful.”
“…I’m not sure how I’m supposed to answer that, but… okay. Thanks…”
“Thank you.”
As expected, Yu Seong-un was a reliable and considerate man.
Sitting down beside him, Ji-oh looked at the elevated train’s doors, which still had not closed.
“They have been open for quite a long time.”
“Subways and buses close a lot faster than this.”
Having casually delivered that bit of basic common knowledge, Seong-un went on about the elevated railway.
“With the elevated rail, people already spend time coming up on the elevators, and there aren’t that many platforms to begin with, so they leave the doors open longer for anyone running late.”
“Even though it’s winter.”
“Well, the cold gets blocked out on its own, so that’s something.”
Yes—it was the dead of winter.
“Ah, come to think of it… if we’re lucky, we might run into some street food while we’re out walking around.”
At Seong-un’s words, Ji-oh’s heart gave a leap. He was a creature faithful to his instincts.
“Street food—do you mean things like bungeoppang?”
“Yeah. Or muneppang, or egg bread, or oden—that kind of thing.”
“I would like to eat some.”
“I’ll look as hard as I can, but don’t get your hopes too high. There aren’t many places that sell that stuff anymore.”
“Why not? Warm street food on a cold day ought to be quite popular.”
“Complaints about how it ruins the city’s appearance. Once a complaint gets filed, getting back into the city or doing business there gets complicated.”
Seong-un shrugged.
“And city people don’t usually want to run street food stalls in the first place. On the other hand, people from the provinces who live far away don’t find it convenient to come all the way here just to sell food either, you know?”
“…….”
Huh.
Ji-oh was taken aback.
“It sounds as though city people and provincial people are being very thoroughly separated.”
“Hm? Well… yeah, I guess they are.”
“Why is that?”
“…Uh…”
Seong-un let out a long sigh.
“I’m not sure how to explain this. The whole climate of people’s attitudes is just like that. I’m not proud of it, but we rank each other and sort ourselves by grade.”
“What kind of grades?”
“For example, someone like me—who lives in the city and works as both a hunter and a curator—is 1st-Class. As far as I know, any hunter B-rank or higher is almost always a 1st-Class Citizen, as long as they aren’t a Red Hunter who’s committed a crime.”
Seong-un took out his ID card and showed Ji-oh the words “1st-Class” printed next to his name, then pointed out through the open window of the elevated train.
“People whose income and jobs are nothing special, but who at least live inside the city, are 2nd-Class.”
“…….”
“The provincial people I just mentioned are usually classified as 3rd-Class. And some of the poor who live in the space between the provinces and the cities—people who can’t even get an ID card—are tacitly treated as 4th-Class.”
“…Is there a 5th-Class as well?”
“From there on down, you’re a criminal. Unlike 4th-Class Citizens, who don’t even have a name on record, 5th-Class people do exist in the administrative system—but only on paper. In practice, they aren’t treated as human beings at all. Measures are in place so that if you run into one, you can kill them whenever you like.”
How could anyone want to live like this?
Soft-hearted Ji-oh felt tears pricking at the unbelievable “progress” of his homeland.
…As long as the Earth outlives any individual human, I always figured a caste system would come back someday. I just never expected to experience it while I was still alive.
Still watching the doors that refused to close, Ji-oh asked again.
“Is there a reason for dividing people so sharply?”
“For one thing, the infrastructure gap between city and province is huge.”
Apparently determined to play the role of tour guide properly, Seong-un answered with patient kindness.
“I mean all the facilities and benefits available in a given area. The cultural and administrative gap between city and province is enormous. In the provinces, people farm and live hand to mouth day by day; city citizens mostly buy the produce that comes in from there…”
“…….”
“The difference is almost a full century, if I had to put a number on it. If you head out into the provinces, you won’t just fail to see elevated railways—you’ll struggle to find a two-story building. People who own cars are rare. At least each village usually has a little rail line running through it… though that might be exactly why no one bothers buying a car.”
If you already had a way to get around, there was no real need to sink money into a personal vehicle. After muttering that to himself, Seong-un went on.
“Anyway… the biggest difference of all is still the defensive line.”
“What does ‘defensive line’ mean?”
“Outside the city there’s a massive wall, like a castle rampart, as the first layer of defense. Second, there are civil servants whose entire job is managing safety inside the city. And on top of that, there are already a lot of hunters living in the city, so even if something breaks out downtown, it gets handled fast.”
Seong-un rubbed the back of his neck.
“In short, it’s a survival benefit. Most 4th-Class Citizens would rather scrape by as slum dwellers than live outside the city. In the same vein, plenty of people want to move in… but not every citizen in the country can live inside these walls. Resources and land are finite, right?”
“So that is why they divided people by rank?”
“Only 2nd-Class Citizens and above are allowed to reside in the city. 3rd-Class Citizens can visit or find work here all they want, but anyone who decides to settle down without permission gets treated pretty roughly.”
“How roughly, exactly…?”
“How do I put this. Well, for starters, their ID gets destroyed, so they can’t get a job… They’re not quite down to 5th-Class, but they’re treated as less than human. People who panic at the thought of being eaten by monsters out in the provinces and just dig in and stay in the city—those are the ones who become 4th-Class slum dwellers.”
So, in summary: a dystopia.
Hearing something that belongs in a movie is actually starting to make it feel less real.
For Ji-oh, who loved friendship, love, and peace, this was a hard world to accept. Up until thirty-one years ago, he had still been able to feel a decent amount of human warmth. Somewhere along the way, things had gone badly wrong.
Ji-oh began to shrink dramatically behind his blunt poker face, but Seong-un—who wanted him to understand human society accurately—kept explaining.
“Dungeons can open anywhere to begin with, and even without that, plenty of monsters have already settled permanently on Earth. Cities are relatively good at managing those native monsters, but the provinces don’t have the people or the equipment. Look away for a second and people die.”
“That sounds frightening.”
“That’s why in provincial villages they tell you not to go outside after five in the afternoon. Or sometimes a whole village is run primarily by hunters C-rank and below. Even if they’re not that strong, awakened people are still a lot more reliable than ordinary civilians.”
Around then, the elevated train’s doors finally closed.
“…….”
“Looks like we’re moving.”
“No one else got on.”
“Well, it’s not lunchtime…”
“It is morning, though.”
“What office worker eats breakfast?”
His tone suggested that eating breakfast was far from a given. In this world, the phrase “three meals a day” had probably vanished long ago.
Even just the two of us are about to go looking for three meals.
Letting the horrors of modern society wash in one ear and out the other, Ji-oh slowly took in the elevated train, which was structured much like the subways he remembered. What impressed him most were the transparent walls and ceiling.
“Are this wall and ceiling also made of Formless Crystal?”
“Probably, yeah. In durability and transparency it’s on a completely different level from Earth’s traditional materials, so it can even hold up against a monster attack to a certain degree.”
“I see.”
“They used to make windows like this out of glass or plastic… Looking back, it’s kind of amazing they managed with materials that weak.”
“…….”
And just like that, Ji-oh was instantly demoted to the status of a distant ancestor. From the young blood of the education world to somebody’s great-great-grandfather. The exponential drop left him dizzy.
“Are glass and plastic not used at all?”
“They get used, but glass… is mostly for ornaments, right? It’s a lot easier to shape than Formless Crystal, and you can mix colors into it. You can make it artificially, but it’s still treated as a kind of gemstone, so it’s a bit expensive.”
“And plastic?”
“Plastic? Almost nobody uses that. It doesn’t recycle well and it doesn’t break down.”
Thinking of the planet’s health—so Earthlings had made some progress in the last thirty-one years. He’d assumed they were too busy evolving into a dystopia to manage anything else, but this was respectable.
Earth’s lifespan must have gotten a little longer.
Ji-oh turned his gaze back to the train itself.
Up to the seat backs, everything was covered in soft fabric and leather like a sofa, but from the shoulder line up, the windows and ceiling were so clean they looked like nothing was there at all.
Beyond them, the glittering walls of buildings and the clear blue sky delivered a strange kind of thrill.
A gentlemanly roller coaster…
There was no sense of speed and no rattle, but the absurdly high rails still stirred Ji-oh’s sense of romance. It felt like a scene from a science-fiction film.
“Ah, Ji-oh. We’re getting off soon.”
“Are we?”
“The set-meal restaurant and the hotel I booked are both near the next station.”
“I am looking forward to it.”
“You can look forward to it. I picked good places for everything.”
As he listened to Seong-un, Ji-oh felt a flicker of interest—and at the same time, a faint, clear intuition settled over him.
Earth is no longer a place where a concentrated mass of harmlessness like me can survive.
For frail Ji-oh, who didn’t even hold the white belt in taekwondo that everyone else seemed to have earned, there was no strength to overcome this terrifying world. He would have to spend the rest of his life buried inside his portrait, looking after nothing but his own safety.
It was a thought that would have made Yu Seong-un shudder with pure absurdity if he had heard it.
(To be continued)