Yesssss. I wonder if MC is also some kind of heartless variant because I believe it was mentioned that he was the only soldier in his company to survive. Everyone else was wiped out by heartless so it's curious how he managed to survive.
There's also the mystery of "The Chef" and Guk's past and debt. And if he's also tied to the origin of heartless somehow.
Oh yeah I forgot about the sole survivor tidbit. Surprised that it hasn’t come up yet, it’s a neon sign.
Not sure why but “The Chef” struck me as a misdirection but Guk’s debt is probably a funny story where it’s 99% his fault bc he’s insane
This is an interesting one. I’m probably in the minority who thinks the minimal exposition is a smart move from the author. (And I really think BL and its readers could benefit from reading between the lines)
So far Dir Na & Guk’s organization is the only thing we could count to reveal the in-depth lore behind the Heartless phenomenon, but from the latest chaps, it seems that Je-Myeong (MC) has a bigger clearance than both of then combined. MC might have written the “president and Blue House” as a joke but we can’t ignore that he’s always displayed overqualified expertise on guns and an eye for covert combat tics that an even an average soldier (as seen in the previous case) couldn’t notice.
Guk also alluded that nobody in that room has a higher kill count than him except the MC, that was after glancing at him and singling him out in a roundabout turn of phrase. Je-Myeong(MC) took those Heartless out in the bunker but not after expertly rendering the pink-haired guy unconscious; MC is hiding his combative abilities or something else. (I’m thinking queen bee of a bee colony)
In the early chapters, Dir Na has conveniently shared that Guk had an uncanny ability to identify a Heartless with pinpoint precision. But wait, remember when he met Je-Myeong(MC) for the first time? He had to check ‘to be sure’, his instincts told him MC was a Heartless but he was wrong. This was a deliberate move from the author: Guk is our compass and for some reason, he’s been stuck on our MC, dragging him to cases above his credentials as if he’s testing him. Waiting for MC to make a move (and he did. Well. Behind the scenes)
So. The author is deliberately keeping us in the dark about TWO important plot points: Heartless origin and Je-Myeong’s true identity via Guk. I think Je-Myeong was a former mercenary, not unlike Guk, but one that had been employed/funded by the military gov and had a direct involvement with Heartless origin. He could also have been a patient X - along the lines of super soldier project responsible for propagating the strand for Heartless but an internal political/ethical power struggle had shut it all down, or a lab-related incident that had gone awry and eventually, viral.
With only a few chapters of the novel translated and SamK being the OG author, it’s all up in the air. 49(adaptation author) is doing an amazing job directing it though, just wish the art got more dimensions.