Ch7
“If I had found you sooner, would this situation have been prevented? Couldn’t my dead crew be able to return to their normal lives safely without dying? Wouldn’t the country be like this after losing Seoul?”
“It’s not your fault.”
Seok-min said. But Ah-young shook her head.
“No, I think it’s my fault now. Come to think of it, I may have sinned against you. I read your file. Did you have any family in Seoul? Actually, I had, too. And now I’m the only one left. So are you. You know the sorrow of loss, right? Really, I don’t know. If I had found you early and completed the quest and the mission, they might have survived.”
Seok-min shook his head. Her guilt was nothing more than that of the living. He understood the idea, as he had lived with that guilt a lot after he lost his family too.
“This power may not be that great, but as the saying goes in some movies, with power comes a lot of responsibility. I want to take responsibility. I don’t know where the end of this mission is, but I have a feeling that there’s definitely a bright future at the end of this mission. Ok. It may be considered too vague and optimistic, but I intend to carry out the mission of that quest nonetheless. It may be the last hope for the dead, for the suffering, for my broken country.”
Seok-min remained silent. Ah-young watched him ponder without saying a word.
“Can you go to the end with me?”
Seok-min stared at Ah-young with a slightly puzzled look.
He had no love for his country. It was long gone four years ago. But looking at Ah-young, she seemed to have a great affection for her country.
Still…
‘If she hadn’t said those last words, I wouldn’t have been impressed.’
Seok-min tried hard to turn away from her. He didn’t want to give an answer right away. No, he couldn’t give it.
It was so sudden and the pressure seemed to weigh on his shoulders. It was something that needed time to think about, too.
Ah-young also knew that and did not rush for an answer.
There was a moment of silence between the two.
“…Inside the hot ruins, family pictures hanging on the walls are burned.”
He again sang verse 2 of the ‘Memorial’. Ah-young looked at him for a moment and sang along.
“Those who hide from being rescued,
Getting drenched in fear.
Are advancing with indomitable determination,
And with firmness to their cause,
With the belief that their family is waiting.
Embrace the pain.
Yesterday, handsome young men…
Which became soldiers on the battlefield today.
They’re not traitors who left their country.
They are still sons of their motherland.
But their lives are gone.
There was not even a trace left.
Up in the rainbow sky
Their stars are shining.
Spattered and drunk with blood,
Howl, like a wolf!
My dear country,
What have you done for me?”
The rainbow sky had long since disappeared, but they kept singing.
Seok-min did not answer. Ah-young understood his heart.
“I’m on channel 23. Wolf… Hmmm, Wolf 1. How are you?”
Since Seok-min was not familiar with code names, he spoke into the radio microphone in a slightly awkward tone.
-Good reception, slowly get used to it. Wolf 2.
Ah-young said.
- Are you in position?
“Yes.”
-We’ve got four people currently in sight. There are 2 people guarding the entrance and 2 people patrolling.
‘Did you say there was security at the front door?’
- The information is a little wrong.
Before Seok-min opened his mouth, she said.
Seok-min looked towards the warehouse through the scope. If he was a normal person, it would have been impossible to see through his scope at night, but he was able to see better at night thanks to his increased vision stats. Of course, the stat’s rating wasn’t that high, so it wasn’t perfect.
Through his scope, he saw people walking with rifles from the other side. It was a man and a woman estimated to be in their 40s. However, considering their actions, they seemed to be married.
“I’ll get rid of the patrols first. If we kill all the patrols, Wolf 1 will take care of the guys guarding the warehouse entrance.”
-Received.
After confirming that the two were a couple, he was a little hesitant to deal with them, but it only took one second to finish organizing his mind.
With his eyes fixed on the target, he looked back through the scope.
He breathed in. He’s already experienced that many times, so he was used to it. The Russian-made scope’s unique 조준-shaped aim line was aimed at the heads of those who turned the corner from the back of the warehouse and fell to the left. It was the couple he saw earlier.
They were armed with their weapons tied behind their shoulders, and a military uniform with an ammunition belt around their waist. They were walking with their arms crossed and the woman’s hands in the pockets of the man’s jacket while exchanging stories.
He pulled the trigger without hesitation.
With a popping sound, the woman’s head, leaning on the man’s shoulder, exploded. Red blood drops and spattering brains and bones were visible through the scope even in the middle of the night.
He changed his target. The moment the man’s head turned around in surprise through the scopes, he pulled the trigger.
Then, without confirmation, he turned the gun right. About a few seconds later, two men appeared behind the warehouse. He pulled the trigger twice again.
“It was dealt with.”
-Got it. 5 seconds to get rid of them.
He turned his gaze. She hid really cleverly.
Soon after, the people guarding her entrance were knocked down by her gunfire. One fell still, the other twitched like a seizure and fell after walking a few steps. Both had a hole in their chin.
-Dead.
“Okay, I’ll approach the target.”
He moved first towards the security quarters. He put C4, a high-performance explosive, on the walls of the quarters, because he could not keep them alive, either. It was a little bigger than the others, and even with this alone, this kind of accommodation could be blown away at once. The timer was set to 5 minutes.
After finishing he went toward the entrance. There was a huge shutter door for vehicles to pass through and a small door for people to pass next to. Fortunately, the door wasn’t locked, so Seok-min carefully opened the door and went inside.
The inside was spacious enough to look roughly 150 square meters wide, and it was dark because the lights were off.
At the briefing, it was said that the guards would be guarding the door of the container, but they were actually sitting on sofas and chairs located in the corner, watching television and chatting.
Heavy cigarette smoke filled the container, so the view was blurred. No matter how fanatical they are, they must have been human too.
Seok-min smiled and bent down as he approached them closer.
They were men and women who were just about 20 years old.
The darkness on Seok-min’s side covered him perfectly, and they were distracted by watching television.
He pulled the trigger.
One or two people collapsed, and others screamed in surprise. Some turned to run away, and a bullet hit their back and face, while one pulled out a North Korean-made AK rifle from under the sofa, but was pierced by Vintorez’s bullet that flew through the sofa.
The sofa couldn’t be a cover in the first place. He dropped two more bullets into the screaming woman.
-Wolf 1 to Wolf 2, and the guardhouse became noisy.
“Stop it for a minute.”
It wasn’t long before the shots rang out. Screaming and urgent shouts of danger were also heard.
Still, seeing that no one was attacking him, Ahyeong seemed to be stopping them from coming out.
He took C4 out of his bag. Timed them at 3 minutes.
He opened the container, checked the weapons inside, and threw the bombs one by one.
A considerable amount of weapons appeared before his eyes as much as the weapons the Sangdeok gang had gathered last time. RPGs and machine guns were neatly gathered in what appeared to be a gun locker, but rifles and empty magazines were literally stacked full.
He picked up a weapon.
[Type 98 subgun]
Durability: 84%
Quality: Moderate
Ammunition: 5.45×39 mm
An automatic rifle made in North Korea. It is second-hand. It has been used for too long, so parts of it are rusted and the wooden handle has been polished by hand.
It was clear that the rednecks sold their used garbage weapons by weight, not by unit.
‘That’s a lot, though.’
As soon as the bomb was set up, he went to the door and lowered himself.
-Wolf 1, I’m leaving. I want you to cover.
-Received.
He opened the door. Then, someone saw him from the window near the security accommodation and pointed a gun at him, but Seok-min aimed and shot him first.
Seeing that his opponent had fallen, Seok-min immediately bowed his head and ran to the place he had come from. The guards, who were unable to get out of the guard room due to Ah-young’s shooting, saw Seok-min and opened fire, but he was already around the corner of the warehouse.
His running speed was faster than an ordinary human could achieve, as Ah-young said.
-Wolf 1, successfully escaped.
He returned to his original position and reported.
-Okay, I’ll wait at the rally point. Wolf 2.
Seok-min just ran away. Ah-young continued to fire to prevent the guards from coming out, blocking their movement. Eventually, as the time of the bomb set by Seok-min passed, an explosion occurred.
In particular, the explosion on the warehouse side even created a huge flame as the explosives detonated.
Seok-min, who was crouching in the reed forest, while putting a gun and helmet in his bag, saw the scene and whistled lowly.
Packed up, Seok-min stepped out of the reed forest and climbed on the road toward the embankment while watching the fire column rise.
Seeing that Ah-young could not be seen, she also seemed to have retreated.
For a while, Seok-min stood on the side of the embankment and looked at the burning security dormitory, and along the abandoned walkway, he saw a gray van rushing towards the warehouse at high speed.
Soon, the car stopped, the door opened, and men armed with body armor, bullet-proof helmets, and automatic rifles poured out. Some of them also had light machine guns.
‘Crazy, five fuckers, what the hell.’
He noticed at once that they were religious troops.
Judging by the audible barking of dogs, it seemed that they were also operating a military dog. Seok-min immediately turned around. When he saw a puddle of water in front of the road he was walking, he put his foot in it, stepped on it once, and passed.