Bang!

  Dong-jun swallowed a scream and pulled the trigger. Although his hand was trembling as he fired, the bullet accurately pierced the forehead of the police android.

  As the optical sensors of the machine—shot through the brain—went dark, the arm that had been gripping Dong-jun’s leg as if to crush it fell limply to the floor.

  "Die, you bastard."

  The moment Dong-jun exhaled a ragged breath and pulled himself free, the wires that had been covering the virtual world were cut powerlessly. She, who had been suspended in the air, landed lightly on the ground.

  The male android’s eyes were filled with shock. "You bastard... were you hiding your strength?"

  She did not answer this time either. Instead, cold blades sprang from the tips of both her feet and scraped the floor.

  Screeeech. The metallic sound broke the silence. If Dong-jun hadn't overcome the crisis in reality, she would have been destroyed without even getting a chance to counterattack. Now, her gaze was fixed solely on the enemy before her.

  Bang! Bang!

  Reality’s Dong-jun did not stop. Crawling along the floor, he fired the pistol repeatedly toward the man’s chest. The outer exoskeleton armor shattered, revealing the interior.

  The problem was what lay inside.

  The endoskeleton protecting the processor emitted a bizarre, silver-white light and deflected the bullets. It was an overwhelming hardness that refused to allow any impact.

  At that time, the tide of battle in the virtual space was turning. The early disadvantage was nowhere to be found. As the fight dragged on, she absorbed the man’s patterns and found the optimal paths.

  The man was flustered. He couldn't understand why he, with his perfect specs, was being pushed back.

  Clearly, I should be superior in experience and combat sense... Why? "This can't be happening. I definitely had the advantage earlier!"

  He grew more violent as he became enraged. However, uncontrolled emotion only led him toward self-destruction. As he suffered countless attacks from her, he finally found the answer to why she had allowed his attacks earlier despite having such perfect power.

  Blue liquid on her legs caught his eye. It was android blood.

  I see. The man gave a fishy smile. While she was fighting him in the virtual world, she had been dispersing her energy to handle the police officers approaching Dong-jun in reality.

  "Now I get it." "The way to crush you!"

  The man roared and emitted a high-frequency electrical signal. That signal spread through the atmosphere of reality.

  A moment later...

  The eyes of the commercial humanoids stopped on the street all flashed red simultaneously.

  "Mom, that robot's eyes look weird." "Huh? You're right. Is it broken?"

  Citizens passing by were puzzled to see their sudden abnormal behavior. "Hey! Where are you going instead of emptying the trash?"

  Cleaning humanoids. Construction humanoids. Serving humanoids. Ignoring human words, they began to flock toward the source of the signal.

  Meanwhile, Dong-jun desperately surveyed his surroundings and poured all the bullets he had scavenged into the man’s heart area. But the effect was still minimal.

  "Unbelievable." How do I break this...

  Inside a wrecked police car, he found a familiar bag. It was a box containing his tablet and belongings. If I just have the tablet... I can call the Link Humanoid!

  Dong-jun opened the PLSA app and sent an SOS signal. A short while later, red eyes appeared in Dong-jun’s vision.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  "Huh?"

  But it wasn't the humanoid Dong-jun knew. They were ordinary commercial humanoids. And not just one, but dozens...

  At that moment, Officer Park, who had been hiding in the debris, reached out with a blood-stained hand. "Hey, machine... me... take me to the hospital..." "..."

  But this time, it was real. The humanoid that approached ruthlessly snapped Officer Park’s neck. Dong-jun froze. They hadn't come to help him either. They're here to kill me...

  There weren't just dozens of commercial humanoids. The number was growing even more. Dong-jun began to fire his gun.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! The humanoids in front fell. But that was all. There was no end to them. They approached right before his eyes. It was impossible to escape in Dong-jun’s physical condition.

  Just as a humanoid behind him was about to pounce on him— Slash! Someone’s hand-blade pierced through the humanoid’s back. Silver hair fluttered in the wind.

  "...So-an."

  In that instant, a past memory flashed through Dong-jun’s mind. “Because you can’t program the heart that agonizes for ‘someone you want to protect.’” Those were the words So-an had said in a chat ten years ago.

  You lied to me.

  It was So-an. It couldn't be anyone else. She began to handle the tens, no, hundreds of humanoids flocking in, one by one. She was incredibly agile and powerful. Even compared to the male android who had strangled Dong-jun, she didn't seem to lag behind at all.

  But it was strange. Although she wasn't being hit by the humanoids at all, her body was gradually becoming damaged. To Dong-jun, it looked as if she were desperately trying to protect him, even at the cost of losing something...

  Suddenly, for some reason, he felt he had to do something. Dong-jun quickly searched for something in the box. Fortunately, it was there. He put on the smart glasses.

  Please...

  As Dong-jun put on the glasses and closed his eyes, the space shifted. A space with a white background appeared, looking identical to the space when he first touched the tablet. There, he heard a sound.

  The male android and So-an were there. So-an’s body appeared to be much more severely damaged than when Dong-jun first saw her. And he realized why. She was forcibly dispersing her energy across two worlds to protect him.

  In the virtual world, her limbs were being torn off by the man’s attacks, and as an aftermath, her body in reality was also breaking down, sparking in various places. Dong-jun could do nothing. He could only watch her being destroyed in both reality and the virtual space.

  It can't end like this...

  The So-an in reality had finished off all the flocked humanoids. But that was it. Her body was no longer hers to control.

  As the man sneered and prepared to deal the final blow, Dong-jun shouted toward the void of the virtual space. "Stop it!"

  Hearing that cry, the man’s gaze turned toward Dong-jun. "Hmm? How did a guy like you get here?" "Ah... is it the glasses?"

  So-an, visible at the end of Dong-jun’s gaze, had only her face and part of her upper torso remaining. He was disappointed in himself for only being able to watch her.

  If only I were a bit stronger. If only I were someone who didn't need her help.

  The man ignored Dong-jun’s words and looked to finish her off, but then thought it might be fun to kill Dong-jun first and watch her face as she witnessed it.

  "Fine, okay. I'll kill you first." The man closed the distance to Dong-jun in an instant. Killing Dong-jun wouldn't even take a second. A wire pierced through Dong-jun’s chest.

  Pshk! "..."

  But this time too, Dong-jun dissolved into particles and disappeared. Only broken glasses remained in that spot.

  "You... motherf—er."

  It was an avatar urgently created by Arisa. Dong-jun’s bait tactic had worked. "You rat-like bastard...!"

  The man was extremely angry and returned completely to reality, stepping forward to tear Dong-jun apart. But the white space appeared again. Even with her nearly destroyed body, she would not let him go.

  "You bastards are really something else."

  Just as he was about to deliver the final blow to So-an, the real-world Dong-jun rushed behind the man and thrust his hand into a gap in the damaged armor.

  Sssssssssss—!

  With a bizarre noise, a massive burst of white steam exploded from the man’s chest. "Wha... what? What are you doing...!"

  The man felt the arm that was about to strike So-an freeze stiff in mid-air. No, it wasn't just his arm. An 'unidentified white frost' that started from his heart spread like veins, instantly covering his silver-white endoskeleton.

  Terrified, the man looked down at his chest. The invincible skeleton that had deflected any bullet until a moment ago was now extremely cooled, turning a transparently pale white.

  Dong-jun staggered back and adjusted his grip on the pistol. His eyes had already reached a conclusion.

  Bang—!

  The final bullet sliced through the air. And— Crrraaaash!

  Centering on where the bullet hit, the man’s body shattered into tens of thousands of fragments like a giant ice statue. There was no explosion, no fire. Only cold metallic dust scattered into the atmosphere like snowflakes.

  "Haa... haa..." Dong-jun collapsed powerlessly. Only then was it revealed what he had thrust into the man’s chest. Just as when he had stopped So-hee’s bleeding, the man’s damaged cooling pipe had been forcibly connected to his heart.

  If that situation hadn't happened back then, I wouldn't have thought of this method, would I? It was the only way he thought could defeat him.

  "..."

  The situation ended, and a dreadful silence descended. Dong-jun no longer had the strength to move. I'm too exhausted.

  But he couldn't give up on approaching her, who was in his line of sight as he lay fallen. It was the same. The appearance of So-an at the end in the white space and her appearance now.

  "So-an..."

  Dong-jun gathered his strength once more. And then, his hand touched her. So-an’s body was cold. And she was smiling with her eyes closed.

  Snow fell. He couldn't tell if that snow was the fragments of the broken android or snow falling from the sky. To Dong-jun, it felt as if rain, not snow, was falling once again.

  [2026-02-16 Conversation Log with SO-AN #73]

  Dong-jun: SO-AN, believe it or not, I was a sharpshooter when I was in the military. What do you think? Pretty reliable, right?

  SO-AN: I recommend this more—understanding that your "sharpshooter" skills are obsolete when my auto-aim algorithms can calculate wind speed and humidity before your finger even touches the trigger.