March Novel (Completed) - Chapter 124

“What is your intention in asking that?”

Oh Seonran’s expression hardened a beat late. Gi Taejeong’s voice was so calm that at first, he thought he had misheard him.

“Even if I’m not around, I hope Sehwa never has to hear any more dirty words, and that he remains safe.”

“Safety, I can understand… but ‘dirty words’?”

“The things the elders said in court just now… for example, bringing up Sehwa’s origins, or talking about using the child as an experimental subject. I hope Sehwa never has to hear such things again.”

“So, if that’s guaranteed, you’ll let them go? Sehwa and the child?”

“Yes.”

He had experienced firsthand what kind of expression Gi Taejeong generally wore, what kind of voice he used, and what gestures he often made when negotiating. In meetings or trials, he would shine with a smug face, so much so that onlookers would feel embarrassed, but when there were no witnesses, like the moment he presented the parental rights waiver, he would attack as if he had a knife in his mouth. And in any situation, he made no effort to hide the fact that he could slice and tear you apart at any moment.

But the Gi Taejeong before her now was, well. He was neither of those. He had the rawest face she had ever seen, and in a way, he looked like a young man finally fitting his age.

“Right now, everyone seems oblivious because of the trial, but they’ll gradually realize. What it means for someone to appear who will carry on the Oh family line, which they thought would end with me. Sehwa’s incorporation into the 5-star system is complete, so if we just resolve the child’s registration issue, at least they won’t be able to spout nonsense in front of us anymore.”

Gi Taejeong slowly nodded his head. Yes, Sehwa was now Captain Oh Seonran’s only blood relative. Even superficially, it was far more advantageous for him to remain by Captain Oh Seonran’s side than by him.

All he could offer was inexhaustible wealth, but Captain Oh Seonran also possessed that in abundance. Personal safety was not something she, a brigadier general, needed to worry about… rather, Captain Oh Seonran could even place the crown of honor, which was difficult for Gi Taejeong to obtain, on Sehwa’s head, as a member of a prestigious family.

Trying to force Sehwa to stay by his side without thought was, the more he thought about it, a foolish and impossible thing to do.

“Then I will conclude the trial as is.”

“What? How?”

“I intend to focus on the claim for damages due to the complete destruction of Sector 2 rather than drug manufacturing. I’ll arrange a separate meeting, but from now on, I plan to support the victims from behind, or more precisely, the jackals interested in the spoils. I intend to induce Colonel Kim to suffer a headache for as long as possible, and in the process, lose all the money he cherished like his life.”

Of course, in the end, he intended to make them close their eyes in a miserable and sordid state, but there was no need to blabber about such details. Captain Oh Seonran lightly stroked her chin, lost in thought.

“Lieutenant Kim? Will the drug manufacturing issue be overlooked without punishment?”

“Of course not. If I concede one thing, I believe the jurors will let me have my way with that bastard.”

“Concede? What?”

“I intend to postpone my discharge.”

Gi Taejeong calmly responded, straightening his disheveled uniform.

Oh Seonran was momentarily speechless, letting out a long, drawn-out hum. In the end, all of this was a scheme Gi Taejeong had concocted because he wanted to shed his military uniform. Everyone knew how fed up he was with being treated like a killing machine. Gi Taejeong would do anything to spite the military brass, and even Oh Seonran, who had been abroad all this time, had heard of his exploits. But…

“Give up your discharge? Because of Sehwa?”

He was going to abandon the goal he had most desperately desired, right here? And right before it was achieved? It was naturally unbelievable.

“No, I’m postponing it. I have no intention of staying permanently.”

Gi Taejeong uncomfortably rubbed his Adam’s apple a few times, continuously frowning. Then, as if a thorn had pricked him, he swallowed hard, returning to his usual expressionless face, and continued speaking.

“But if I throw away my insignia right now, Sehwa, who is left behind, will be in an even more difficult position.”

“……”

“What good would it do if I let him go so he wouldn’t hear those bastards’ nonsense, only for rumors to spread that he was just used and abandoned by me?”

“……”

“It’s better to say that I, as always, went to the battlefield, and you, Captain, stayed here and opposed it because you couldn’t let him meet someone from a detention center.”

“So,” Gi Taejeong said, drawing attention. His attitude was lighter than before, as if intentionally so.

“First, we need to conclude the trial… How about I go wild, and you, Captain, mediate? The elders will have less opposition… and in many ways, that would be the most presentable scenario.”

Gi Taejeong, who had been rattling off his thoughts like flowing water, closed and opened his eyes for just a moment at the end. It was brief, but his deeply, tightly closed, picturesque eyes seemed as if they would wear out and shatter at any moment.

Gi Taejeong, behaving quite normally, was unfamiliar, but the expression he wore now was familiar. It was the same expression Oh Seonran had worn when he decided not to trace Lee Jinwoo’s footsteps anymore. When he accepted that he could never see or touch him again, Oh Seonran had also lived with that face. His appearance was exactly like that when he was neither dead nor alive, just barely surviving.

“So, for Sehwa’s sake, not mine… I would be grateful if you could help me a little.”

With that, Gi Taejeong awkwardly bowed. It wasn’t a reluctant salute as a subordinate, but a request from Gi Taejeong as an individual. Of course, his attitude was stiff, as if he had never done such a thing in his life. Indeed, it was probably the very first time he had ever bowed his head to ask something of someone.

Oh Seonran only then realized that Gi Taejeong, who was acting like a block of wood, was not yet thirty. Even though he acted as if he had experienced all sorts of hardships, Gi Taejeong was still very young. He was like a child, who had never received or learned love, just standing blankly, not knowing what to do.

“…You don’t have to worry about that part.”

Oh Seonran hesitated for a moment, then awkwardly patted Gi Taejeong’s shoulder a couple of times. Of course, he still couldn’t forgive what he had done to Sehwa. However, he understood better than anyone the feeling of losing love due to one’s own mistake, that sense of loss as if one’s entire life was being torn apart… so, for this moment, she decided to pity Gi Taejeong just a little.

“What? Write a separate complaint? Wouldn’t it be better to settle everything here at once?”

“Yes, even at this very moment, my losses are continuing. Interest is accruing, but there’s no income, because the Sector 2 warehouse burned down!”

As soon as he returned to the courtroom, Gi Taejeong brought up the most sensitive topic. Even though they held a money supply that would last a lifetime, the old men thrashed fiercely like fish on a hook.

“Strictly speaking, I didn’t suffer property damage from the fire in Sector 2. I was merely helping you with something you should have handled yourselves.”

“Hey, Gi Taejeong!”

“Hey, Gi Taejeong? Did you just call me that, Colonel Ha?”

At the chilling retort, the man who had been pointing a finger at Gi Taejeong subtly bent his index finger. Usually, he didn’t care what others called him, but suddenly, his eyes were blazing with fury.

“You’ll soon be a lieutenant general, at least a major general, so please refrain from calling me that. You wouldn’t like it if I called you a gutless old man at your age, would you?”

“What, what?! This crazy bastard is now…! Who said you could get more stars?!”

“You haven’t forgotten what conditions I laid out when I wrote the complaint, have you…? Shall I recite them again?”

Colonel Kim and the other elders just laughed hollowly in disbelief. Gi Taejeong was raging with venom, all because someone from the lower class had been touched. Gi Taejeong, of all people.

“Brigadier General Gi Taejeong, the sharper you react like this, the more you’re just advertising to everyone that that person is your weakness.”

“He is my only weakness. But why does that matter?”

“Why? Don’t you know what a weakness means?”

“Yes, he is a weakness, but I don’t think that factor is disadvantageous to me.”

Gi Taejeong smiled crookedly.

“They say a bastard who never listened to a word finally has a soft spot, so if I were you, I’d stop talking about lower-class people and start thinking about treating that person well. Isn’t this a much cleaner opportunity to solidify your position than handing over your precious child to someone like me, from a detention center? Especially since ‘that lower-class person’ is even Captain Oh Seonran’s only adopted son, I’m curious what exactly you’re relying on to speak so lightly of him.”

Only then did the elders seem to recall Captain Oh Seonran’s impassioned defense of Lee Sehwa moments before, and they fell into thought with sullen faces.

It wasn’t wrong. Even if Gi Taejeong, who had no backing, was one thing, Captain Oh Seonran… Although his influence had weakened considerably, the Oh family was a prestigious family that could never be treated lightly.

“I want to finish this quickly, so I won’t beat around the bush, Colonel Kim. I will remove the damages for the Sector 2 fire from my complaint, so please settle with the victims individually.”

Was he even making sense? It was a childish tantrum that made her scoff. Colonel Kim had no reason to accept it. The fire incident was clearly Kim Seokcheol’s blunder. If a separate trial were to be held and lawsuits initiated… they would have to compensate for the depreciation of neglected assets during the proceedings. It was best to insist that this incident was a trap set by the House criminals.

However, Gi Taejeong’s immediate subsequent proposal was not something they could simply brush off as before.

“Instead, I will take Lieutenant Kim under my wing.”

“…Take him under your wing?”

“Exactly. Remove his lieutenant insignia and send him to me. I will take him with me for a while and guide him well so he can become a military member who does his part.”

To be dragged around the battlefield by Gi Taejeong, of all people. It was tantamount to saying he would play with him to his heart’s content in a death trap and then kill him. Furthermore, Kim Seokcheol was in the army. Even if he didn’t have much to do normally, there was no way he could catch up with the duties of the air force, which was a completely different field.

“He’ll be able to re-earn his lieutenant insignia with his own strength before he closes his eyes, at least. I’m confident in accumulating military achievements, if nothing else, so trust me.”

“What did you just say?!”

Lieutenant Kim, who had been sulking in a corner, finally couldn’t hold back and burst out. Colonel Kim smacked his pathetic son, who was muttering petty curses, hard on the back of his head, and calmly weighed the options in his mind.

So, Gi Taejeong was giving them a chance to choose between money and honor. He would handle the Sector 2 fire incident themselves, but minimize Kim Seokcheol’s punishment, huh? Compared to demanding the death penalty, it was certainly a step back, and above all, if this proposal were accepted, they could avoid the disgrace of the first dishonorable discharge or imprisonment of a prestigious family.

“…Let’s discuss this in more detail.”

“Father!”

As Colonel Kim showed a positive inclination, Kim Seokcheol screamed, his eyes bloodshot.

“How, how could you…!”

“Shut up! Who caused all this trouble in the first place?!”

“Do you believe that bastard? If I die, who do you think will be next? Our whole family will be ruined! We’ll lose all our money and everyone will die, it’s obvious…!”

Colonel Kim pressed his temples, as if troubled. Then he subtly nodded to the instructors standing behind him. They were the same ones who had beaten Maejo to death just moments ago.

Watching the cold demeanor of a man who would unhesitatingly order his own son to be beaten, Gi Taejeong surmised that the trial, or rather, the deal, would conclude here.

Even if they lost all their assets and became paupers, there were ways to bounce back. But a brand of dishonor, once stamped, could not be erased with billions of won. He assumed that those who were intoxicated by their family’s prestige would naturally accept his proposal. Of course, they would also have calculated that they could later use Sehwa to propose other negotiations to him or Captain Oh Seonran…

“Even so, can you really beat your son, a lieutenant, in front of everyone like that? Let’s keep it in moderation… So, what was Brigadier General Gi Taejeong’s initial demand? Special promotion and assurance of his position as an elder?”

As Captain Oh Seonran subtly interjected, people began to clamor again. They no longer cared about any rewards for Gi Taejeong. They had been hoping to simply watch the show and get their share, but now they were in a position where they had to directly confront the Kim family to extract their own interests.

And Gi Taejeong stood in the midst of that commotion like a buoy.

From the day he first observed a military trial after being commissioned, every moment of his steady rise through the ranks to the center of the seating flashed by as if played in fast-forward.

“…Crazy bastard.”

Even amidst all this, Gi Taejeong coldly scoffed at himself for still thinking of holding onto Sehwa just one more time.

It is truly over now. This operation, or rather, this incident that couldn’t even be called an operation, which began with the occupation of the House, had, in the end, proceeded with little difference from Gi Taejeong’s initial plan. Although ambiguous, a reward was also becoming certain.

He was on the verge of obtaining everything he had so desperately desired. Special promotion, a better official residence, more adjutants and subordinates, the privileges of an elder after discharge… No one would have expected a human weapon from a detention center to reach this position. It was exhilarating. So he should rejoice to his heart’s content.

He hadn’t taken off his military uniform yet, but his discharge wouldn’t take too long now… Since things had come to this, he might as well create elder positions for the rest of those who insisted they were his detention center comrades. Colonel Kim’s father and son would be slowly driven to their deaths, unable to die with their limbs intact, and then…

“…Ah.”

Gi Taejeong looked at his empty hands and squeezed his eyes shut. Suddenly, the tie of his uniform, constricting his throat, felt incredibly heavy.

He had finally achieved it, but he felt no joy.

In these hands, clutching everything he had long desired, at this moment when he held all the glory everyone wished for… Sehwa was not there.

Only Sehwa was missing.

When he came to, he was on a familiar bed. Sehwa blinked his eyes, faintly veiled with tears, a couple of times, then struggled to sit up. More accurately, as soon as he tried to get up, a large hand supported his head and back, allowing him to sit up easily.

There was no need to check who it was, or to ask.

“They said you were asleep and didn’t even know you were being transferred from the infirmary to the hospital.”

It was Gi Taejeong, who had been waiting by his side for him to open his eyes.

“Go and get another brain scan when you get back. I told you, your body is like a ticking time bomb right now.”

The man’s fingers, bent like hooks, lightly tapped his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

“Go… where?”

“Ah,” Gi Taejeong said, getting up from the stool.

“Let’s go see the sea.”

His face, as he turned around, looked unusually refreshed.