A Space Marine Got a Status Window

Ever since he was young, Kim Seojun hated his older brother, Kim Jinsu.

It had been that way even when their parents were still alive.

His brother, who was ten years older than him, was more like a second father than an older brother.

And one who, on top of that, never stopped nagging him.

“Hey, Kim Seojun, don’t do that.”

“I told you not to do that.”

“Do you want me to punish you?”

He practically lived his life repeating those kinds of things.

And whenever he fought with his younger sister because she had done something wrong, his brother always took her side.

“Kim Seojun! If you’re the older brother, learn to give in a little!”

He never took his side.

Things remained the same even after their parents died.

He hated his brother.

“Oppa, oppa. When is Jinsu oppa coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

Because his brother had left seven-year-old Kim Seojun and five-year-old Kim Hyeeun behind to join a group of mercenaries and travel into the depths of space to hunt Mog.

“Seojun, Hyeeun. I’m going to earn money, so you have to behave while I’m gone. If anything happens, call the district office employee whose number I gave you. Got it? If not, call Jiyeong noona. You can manage even when I’m not here, right? Seojun, while I’m gone, you’re the hyung. Take good care of Hyeeun.”

Back then, Kim Seojun couldn’t understand why his brother had to travel so far away just to earn money.

So he thought his brother had gotten tired of them.

That both he and his younger sister had become a burden to him, and that was why he had abandoned them.

He truly hated his brother.

However, that hatred did not last long.

When Kim Seojun entered elementary school, he met a teacher who would eventually become his mentor.

His homeroom teacher taught him many things and, on top of that, looked after Kim Seojun and his sister even after classes ended.

One day, that teacher told him.

“Seojun, your brother is braver and more admirable than anyone. He didn’t abandon you. He went so far away to protect you, to protect you and your younger sister. Trust what your teacher is telling you. You’ll understand soon. Very soon.”

And he was right.

The following year, when Kim Seojun was in the second grade of elementary school, he saw his brother again after a long time.

His brother told him.

“Take this medicine. From now on, you have to take it every day, without fail.”

He suddenly pulled out something resembling a safe and told him to take the medicine inside.

“If you take it, you won’t get sick.”

Those medicines were none other than a gene therapy treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a genetic disease.

In other words, to treat his younger brother’s disease and obtain that extremely expensive treatment, Kim Seojun’s brother had traveled all the way into the depths of space.

And there, he had fought against the Mog, terrifying space monsters.

“You also have to take care of Hyeeun. She has to take them with you.”

And he didn’t even have just one younger sibling to take care of.

There were two.

Kim Seojun was nine years old back then.

Despite being so young, he finally understood.

His brother had not abandoned him.

Quite the opposite.

His brother had truly risked his life fighting space monsters for him and his younger sister.

After that, Kim Seojun never again said that he hated his brother.

In fact, he began listening to him.

And from then on, the family finally found some peace.

After securing the future of his two younger siblings, Kim Jinsu stopped working as a mercenary and found a job at an ordinary security company.

Kim Seojun, for his part, devoted himself seriously to his studies.

“Hey, Kim Hyeeun, get a grip. What’s this about wanting to become an idol?”

“Why? Jinsu oppa says it’s fine. Who are you to tell me no, Seojun oppa?”

“I’m telling you because I know you won’t make it.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because you’re uglier than me.”

“What? What did you just say?!”

Although his younger sister, Kim Hyeeun, still had her head in the clouds, at least she never caused any serious trouble.

They didn’t have much, but they didn’t lack anything either.

And they had more than enough happiness.

Until the nightmare arrived.

“Cancer? But my brother isn’t even thirty yet.”

“You said he worked as a mercenary, right? Then he was probably traveling from one planet to another without proper equipment. There was no way he could come out completely unscathed from space radiation. If anything, you should consider him lucky that we discovered it before he died.”

Cancerous tumors had developed in several of his brother’s organs.

“Once on Earth, replacing the affected organs and purchasing the appropriate targeted therapy drugs will be enough for him to recover his health.”

And saving his brother required money.

Kim Seojun did not hesitate.

Just as his brother had done everything possible to save him and his younger sister, Kim Seojun chose exactly the same path.

“Don’t tell Jinsu hyung.”

“If oppa finds out, he’s going to kill you.”

“Yeah. I hope he gets out of that bed and comes to kill me. Either way, don’t tell him.”

That was how Kim Seojun became a Space Marine.

After completing eight weeks of training, he was sent to the battlefield.

There, he came face-to-face with a Mogdog for the first time.

And when he returned to his barracks after fighting a fierce battle, Kim Seojun burst into tears.

He locked himself in the bathroom and sobbed uncontrollably, almost as if he were screaming.

It wasn’t because he was afraid of the Mogdogs.

He cried because he couldn’t stop imagining the fear, suffering, and despair his brother must have felt.

His brother had been even younger than him when he had been forced to face those absurd space monsters.

And he hadn’t even done it as a soldier.

He had done it as a mercenary.

That was why he cried.

Nothing more.

After that, his life as a Space Marine began, and it turned out to be more bearable than he had imagined.

Of course, that didn’t mean it was easy.

It simply wasn’t as absurdly difficult as the rumors circulating among the public claimed.

It was said that out of every ten people who became Space Marines, five died, four were medically discharged, and only one managed to remain in service.

Reality did not reach such extremes.

And the reason Kim Seojun was able to endure that life was due to several talents he possessed.

“Hey, Kim Seojun.”

“Soldier Kim Seojun!”

“Are you fucking serious, bastard?”

“Sir?”

“Bastard, is it true you didn’t piss in your diaper during your first battle? Did you piss yourself or not?”

“I didn’t piss myself, sir.”

“Wow! Fuck, this is insane! Hey! This bastard didn’t piss in his diaper!”

At the time, Kim Seojun thought his superiors were simply playing one of those pranks they usually pulled on rookies in the military.

But that wasn’t the case.

“Kim Seojun, from now on, you’re our ace.”

“Sergeant, I don’t quite understand, sir.”

“Hey, listen carefully. The Mog are fundamentally stronger than humans. That’s why, when you see one, it’s natural to piss yourself. It’s like a mouse pissing itself when it sees a tiger. But you don’t piss yourself? That means you’re naturally at least on the level of a cat.”

It was a sincere compliment.

And that was also an extremely important talent.

“From now on, if your superiors lose their heads from fear, you’ll have to take charge of the situation. We’re counting on you.”

Because when someone was paralyzed by terror, it didn’t matter how extraordinary their abilities were.

They couldn’t use them.

Besides that, Kim Seojun possessed other talents that were useful on the battlefield.

For starters, he had exceptional Dynamic Vision.

“Kim Seojun, bastard, you’ve got really good eyes.”

“I’ve always had them, sir.”

“Yeah? How good?”

“When I played soccer, if I was in good condition, I could even read the name written on a ball while it was flying.”

“Seriously? You’re not lying?”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like that, sir.”

He wasn’t exaggerating.

And that ability proved extremely useful in battles against the Mog.

After all, in situations where a fraction of a second could decide between life and death, Kim Seojun saw the world more slowly than everyone else.

The results Kim Seojun achieved thanks to that were enough to astonish even the most battle-hardened veterans.

“You aren’t a Psyker, are you?”

For that reason, they even began to suspect that Kim Seojun was a Psyker.

That is, one of those individuals born with a special talent that allowed them to use the Prophet’s relics.

Of course, he wasn’t.

“If I were a Psyker, I wouldn’t have enlisted in the Space Marines to make money, sir.”

“That’s true.”

If he really had been one, he never would have had to go through all those hardships.

Psykers were national assets and, beyond that, assets of all humanity, so they received extraordinarily privileged treatment.

“If a Psyker joins the military, they start out as a major. What kind of lunatic would start as a private? Much less a guy who even rations the instant noodles handed out by the military to save money.”

When they joined the military, they received treatment equivalent to that of a major at the very least, and their salaries were in a completely different league from those of ordinary soldiers.

In any case, Kim Seojun had enough talent to arouse such suspicions.

And that talent was enhanced even further whenever he injected a Stimpak.

The moment the Stimpak entered his body, Kim Seojun’s world seemed to come to a halt.

And it was thanks to that.

Thanks to it, Kim Seojun managed to survive absurdly dangerous battlefields and return alive after facing terrifying monsters.

Not only Mogdogs and Thorn Snakes, but even Behemoths, enormous monsters that were said to be difficult to see even once in an entire lifetime.

And he had seen two.

In the end, he even managed to be discharged with his body completely intact.

With the money he had earned during his service as a Space Marine, Kim Seojun was able to completely restore his brother’s health.

He had achieved everything he wanted and had been able to return to Earth.

The profession of Space Marine, which everyone said was equivalent to going straight to one’s death, had given Kim Seojun hope.

That was why.

“Those fucking bastards from the Space Peace Movement. What sense does it make for the bastards screaming about peace in space to be the very ones committing terrorist attacks? Ah, this is insane. So, what are you going to do? The treatment must cost a fortune…… If you need money, for now I can……”

“Yeongcheol, don’t worry. I already got the money.”

“What?”

“I borrowed it.”

“Borrowed it? That much money? From whom?”

“I took out a loan using my credit.”

“Your credit? They wouldn’t lend you that much based on your credit history alone. Wait, you didn’t… No way, right?”

“Yeah. I applied to become an NCO. In the Space Marines.”

“You’re going back into the military?”

When he had to head once more toward that nightmarish battlefield, Kim Seojun felt no fear.

He thought all he had to do was exactly what he had done when he was on active duty.

Fight the Mog.

Make money.

Return home.

And listen to his brother’s nagging once he had fully recovered.

He thought that would be all.

Even when, in his first battle after being appointed as an NCO, they suddenly encountered more than a hundred Mogdogs, he thought the same thing.

[You have obtained Apollo’s Blessing (55 days)!]

[You can now see the trajectory of all projectiles.]

However, the moment he saw what began happening to him after that, Kim Seojun could feel it with absolute clarity.

It would now be impossible to live the ordinary, peaceful life he had imagined.

Of course, another possibility also occurred to him.

‘Did the Stimpak make me lose my mind?’

It was entirely possible that everything he was seeing at that moment was a hallucination.

It was common.

The Stimpak had been created by Doctor Space, the greatest scientist in Earth’s history, who had received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry thanks to that creation.

In exchange for temporarily turning a human into a superhuman, the Stimpak caused a considerable number of side effects.

That was why it wasn’t strange for Space Marines under its effects to start spouting nonsense.

In fact, it was considered a good sign.

‘Well, at least he’s still spouting nonsense. That means his brain is still working. Lucky him!’

‘Whatever.’

And there was one thing that was perfectly clear.

Hallucination or not, what mattered at that moment was that 333 Mogdogs were charging directly toward Kim Seojun.

More than three times the number of Mogdogs they had just faced!

Now Kim Seojun would have to fight to survive against that enormous number of enemies under even worse conditions than before.

‘At least this is better than seeing the Mogdogs singing and tap-dancing in front of me.’

From that perspective, the sudden hallucination of a red line coming out of the barrel of his weapon was fairly useful compared to other hallucinations.

So Kim Seojun aimed at one of the Mogdogs.

The red line coming from his weapon extended directly to the creature’s head.

Kiiiiieeeee!

Of course, the Mogdog didn’t stop moving for even an instant and quickly moved its head out of the red line’s trajectory.

Mogdogs could reach a top speed of one hundred kilometers per hour.

Aiming at and hitting the head of a creature capable of moving at such a speed was anything but easy.

‘Before the effects of the Stimpak wear off, I have to kill as many as I can.’

However, now that Kim Seojun was under the effects of the Stimpak, time and everything he saw seemed to move more slowly.

All he had to do was move his weapon slightly to readjust his aim, and he could immediately place the red line right between the Mogdog’s eyes.

At that instant, he pulled the trigger.

Bang!

A short, single shot rang out.

In reality, that was a way of shooting that was never recommended during training.

During the shooting drills to become a Space Marine, the instructors had repeated it hundreds of times.

“A Mogdog’s weak point is its head! But don’t even fucking think you can aim at its head and hit it like this is some fucking video game! Just shoot! Keep shooting! Fire a hundred bullets and pray that, if you’re lucky, one hits it in the head! And please, as long as you hold Korean nationality, don’t even think about doing something stupid like taking one down with a single headshot as if this were a video game. If you want to do that, do it after emigrating to China or Japan!”

They were taught to fire in bursts.

Kim Seojun knew that perfectly well too.

Even so, the reason he had fired that way wasn’t because he was thinking something like.

‘Now that I have the power of a status window, it’s showtime!’

Rather, it was the exact opposite.

Naturally, Kim Seojun was convinced that the red line was a hallucination and didn’t believe for even an instant that that single bullet would blow apart the Mogdog’s head.

That was precisely why he wanted to firmly engrave something into his own mind with that shot.

‘This is a hallucination.’

He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by a hallucination like that.

It was a shot meant to bring him back to his senses.

Splat!

Kiiiiieeeek!

However, that bullet followed the red line with absurd ease and struck the Mogdog directly in the head.

‘Huh?’

A bewildered expression appeared on Kim Seojun’s face.

‘Is this real?’

It was then.

[You have eliminated a Mogdog.]

[You have obtained 1 point.]

[You eliminated it with a single shot. You will be awarded 2 additional points as a One Shot, One Kill bonus.]

Kim Seojun’s expression tightened even further when he heard that notification.

Truthfully, under normal circumstances, the logical thing would have been to consider everything that had just happened before his eyes a hallucination.

That is, even the fact that he had just blown off a Mogdog’s head with a single bullet.

He could think that everything he was seeing was a hallucination.

That, in reality, at that very moment, the Mogdogs were tearing him apart and devouring him while he remained completely drugged by the Stimpak, and that his brain was simply showing him a fantasy to hide reality from him.

In fact, Kim Seojun had already witnessed cases like that several times.

On those hellish battlefields, surrounded by Mogdogs, he had seen a comrade being devoured while smiling happily and shouting.

“Mom! Dad! I’m back! I’m hungry, make me some kimchi jjigae!”

Perhaps exactly the same thing was happening to him.

However, Kim Seojun did not allow confusion to overwhelm him.

“Seojun.”

“Soldier Kim Seojun!”

“When you inject enough Stimpaks, you start seeing all kinds of things, you know? And once you start seeing them, there’s nothing you can do. So you have to think of it this way if you’re going to die anyway, it’s better to see something pleasant than have a nightmare. That’s why, when you inject a Stimpak and start seeing something good, you have to say this.”

One of the veterans who had looked after Kim Seojun in the midst of that hell had taught him that.

“Lucky me.”

Kim Seojun repeated the advice that veteran had given him and pulled the trigger again.

Bang!

Once again, a single shot.

Splat!

And that single bullet blew apart the head of another Mogdog running toward them.

[You have eliminated a Mogdog.]

[You have obtained 1 point.]

[You eliminated it with a single shot. You will be awarded 2 additional points as a One Shot, One Kill bonus.]

The notification rang out again without fail.

From that moment on, Kim Seojun stopped hesitating.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

He began pulling the trigger like a madman.