Passion Novel - Volume 3 - Chapter 75

Jeong Taeui had never before seen anyone call Ilay by his full name. This madman was always referred to as Riegrow or Rick. Of course, his full name wasn’t a secret. But perhaps because the latter was the generally known name, even those who knew him didn’t call him Ilay. Those who knew his personality even better certainly didn’t utter that name.

Thinking about it, Jeong Taeui didn’t know why it was okay for him to say “Ilay,” but in any case, he had never heard the name Ilay uttered by anyone else besides himself. No, just once, on the first day Ilay was appointed as an instructor to the Asia branch and came here, the head of operations and his uncle had called him “Ilay Riegrow” in the formal setting of the head office. But that was all.

Jeong Taeui stared down at the man, whose South American features were plainly evident. This man didn’t know Ilay. He might have known him from scanning his personal details, but he was someone who had never directly encountered the person Ilay.

“If even a man with no personal grudge would lunge at him with a knife, he’s truly gone too far…” Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and muttered. It was such a small voice that he thought Ilay wouldn’t hear it, but Ilay, who was even quite a distance away, somehow heard and asked back,

“Me?”

…His hearing was annoyingly good.

“Then who else in here would get knifed by someone who has no grudge against them but you?” Jeong Taeui mumbled, clicking his tongue bitterly, and Ilay chuckled. Then he mumbled enigmatically in an ambiguous tone,

“Well, there’s definitely more… Though, it’s quite rare to see such blatant and childish tactics. What exactly does he intend to do by attacking so openly?”

Jeong Taeui looked suspiciously at Ilay, who spoke calmly—almost cheerfully, in a way—without batting an eye in this situation where deadly attacks were converging on him.

“You seem to have an inkling.”

“I have several, but at this point, it’s probably just one.”

“This point…” Jeong Taeui briefly thought about the necessity of considering timing when settling grudges. “You should never target that enemy in winter. You must target them in the summer. That way, their wounds will fester more easily, and they’ll suffer immensely.” He shook his head, recalling such thoughts.

“As the head of operations position is about to become vacant, there’s chaos everywhere. The night before last, some empty-headed fool who tried to bribe me with money called in the middle of the night.”

Anyone listening would misunderstand it as a noble mindset that doesn’t sell loyalty for mere wealth, you silver spoon. Even as such cynical thoughts suddenly surged, Jeong Taeui didn’t miss Ilay’s words. He must have made quite a bewildered face. Ilay, who had been walking a few steps ahead, glanced back when he didn’t hear Jeong Taeui following, then tilted his head upon seeing his dumbfounded expression.

“Why the sudden face like you bit into a worm?”

“Chaos because the head of operations position is about to become vacant? Are you saying this situation is about a power struggle?”

“Ah—something like that.”

“No, what kind of high office is the head of operations position…?” Jeong Taeui let out a hollow laugh and mumbled, and this time, Ilay made a briefly bewildered face. Then he chuckled. Only after seeing that expression did Jeong Taeui fall silent.

The head of operations position at UNHRDO was indeed a significant office. It was a position where one would rarely have to bow down, no matter what luxurious place one went to. In a situation where people were dying even over paltry neighborhood gang territory disputes, let alone the top position of an organization of this scale, it went without saying.

But even so.

“There’s such a thing as human decency… No matter how corrupt the world gets…” Jeong Taeui groaned like a wail and mumbled. Then, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind, making him frown.

“If this is being done for the head of operations position… are you saying Gentil is behind this?”

Ilay—though his exact background was unclear—had come in as Kifnan’s successor. Following that line of succession, the end of the chain was Maori. He was the man contending with Rudolph Gentil for the head of operations position. Therefore, unless there was some complex underlying reason, it was natural to assume that the opposing faction would try to eliminate Ilay.

But as Jeong Taeui looked suspiciously at Ilay, thinking that using such an obvious tactic seemed like a trap, Ilay mumbled, “Ah?”, then waved his hand.

“Wrong. Well, it could be Gentil, but you can’t just suspect Gentil. …Taei. The position of Head of Operations at UNHRDO, which isn’t some grand office, isn’t just about the power dynamics within that branch.”

Ilay, who said “which isn’t some grand office” with a subtle nuance and a slight sneer, ignored Jeong Taeui’s indignant glare and continued,

“Why do you think I came here?”

Because this year is my year of bad luck, Jeong Taeui grumbled inwardly, yet he understood. When a position became vacant, it wasn’t filled solely by personnel from within that branch. The appointments of other branches and headquarters were all intertwined. In this case, the two most suitable candidates for the vacant head of operations position happened to be within the same branch, but there was no guarantee that the sub-head position that would be left when one of them moved up would be the same. This place also had its own intricate web of ambitions. There were truly many people entangled in the murky depths.

A boisterous noise could be heard from afar. It seemed free combat training was in full swing just beyond that corner. Jeong Taeui, who was grudgingly following behind Ilay, walking towards that direction, stopped again. This time, Ilay, sensing his pause, looked back.

“Then Uncle, who’s in Australia right now, isn’t safe either, I suppose,” Jeong Taeui muttered, frowning. Ilay again narrowed his eyes at Jeong Taeui with a bewildered expression, then sighed, “Hmm.”

“Instructor Jeong Changin isn’t someone who would easily fall victim if someone targeted him. On the contrary, if someone targets him, he’d seize the opportunity and exploit it to his advantage.”

Listening to that, it sounded remarkably plausible. However, hearing words that felt more like slander than praise, he felt a complex emotion as a relative. Of course, it was an accurate assessment, but…

Before his reluctant feeling faded, Jeong Taeui stopped the step he was about to take. A sudden, infuriating thought occurred to him. That is, when the time comes for a change in the position of head of operations, dark struggles would occur within, and those involved could find themselves in a dangerous situation. But his uncle had dragged him here precisely at such a time. He had even—though he couldn’t say for sure if his uncle orchestrated this—dumped the adjutant position on him.

Uncle, I’m not Jaeui hyung, and if my luck runs out like this, I’ll die for sure!

Jeong Taeui shouted inwardly, imagining he would have rushed to his uncle, grabbed him by the collar, and shaken him vigorously if he had still been in this branch. The more he knew, the more he dug, the more unpleasant things he saw in this place. It was no wonder his uncle had become such a person after spending so much time in this place. Jeong Taeui suddenly stared at Ilay.

Is this guy’s personality due to this environment? If he was originally a healthier person but became like this to survive being battered by this vulgar environment, then he’d be pitiable. But… of course, that’s impossible.

Recalling Ilay’s past self, which he had vaguely heard about before, Jeong Taeui shook his head.

“Besides, such ridiculous pranks are almost non-existent now,” Ilay said, kicking away a body that lay sprawled on the floor and obstructed his path, as if it were a nuisance.

“No one in a position relevant to a power struggle would think of killing someone to get rid of them. A fool like that wouldn’t have made it to that position. It’s probably some idiot clinging to someone else who’s doing something stupid.”

“Haa… Well, there must be ways to get rid of them without killing them.” Jeong Taeui nodded and mumbled. While in the military, he had heard whispers or even directly witnessed a corner of such things. Although changes in rank were rare there, the power struggles and nerve wars based on factions and positions were no less intense than anywhere else. While he had certainly felt regret leaving the military, where he had once thought he’d be permanently stationed, he had also thought that at least he wouldn’t have to see such ugly things again. But now he realized, he was the one who was still entangled in the murky depths.

Jeong Taeui followed Ilay, feeling gloomy. The commotion was getting closer. Beyond that corner, there were definitely a dozen or so guys clinging together and fighting.

Jeong Taeui, who would rather not go to a place where crows gathered, subtly looked at Ilay. However, Ilay was casually walking towards it, clenching and unclenching his newly gloved hands. Perhaps he wasn’t just accepting the fight because it came to him, but because he genuinely enjoyed brawls. He wanted to play with white herons, but he somehow ended up with a king crow among the crows.

His year of bad luck was severe; this year must be it. Jeong Taeui sighed again, looking at Ilay walking ahead. But then.

They were just about to turn the corner. From a shortcut leading to the lecture hall on the east side, a path wide enough for one person to pass, someone burst out. He was between Jeong Taeui and Ilay. Into that space, barely a couple of steps apart, a person squeezed in and swung his arm.

“!”

His body moved before his mind. Before Ilay could even turn, Jeong Taeui lunged, practically throwing himself into the embrace of that large figure, who was a couple of heads taller than him. Thud, Jeong Taeui, putting his full weight into a shoulder tackle to the man’s chest, briefly saw the object in the man’s hand flash with a bluish-silver light above his head. He didn’t even know what that sinister silver object was. It was just that his body reflexively reacted to that sharp glint falling directly towards Ilay’s head.

With Jeong Taeui’s lunge, the large figure hit his back hard against the wall. With that, the weapon he swung crunch, embedded itself into the wall. The moment he confirmed the object that had grazed Jeong Taeui’s thigh and dug into the wall, a shiver ran down his spine.

It was a sharp, silver-bladed hand axe. Although it was a hand axe, the weapon, about the size of an adult’s palm, was something that could kill an ox if wielded correctly. To catch a monster, one needed to use a weapon capable of being devoured by a monster, but something like that was too much. Jeong Taeui’s face turned pale. However, he had no time to think further.

“This bastard…!!”

The large figure, whose axe missed its mark because Jeong Taeui lunged, brought down his clasped fists. Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue. He desperately swung his fist upwards, striking the large man’s wrist, but the downward force still overpowered Jeong Taeui’s strength. The fist came down towards Jeong Taeui’s head.

Damn it, it’s much better than getting hit by an axe, but this won’t end well either…!

He instantly braced himself and frowned. He covered his head with his arms and hunched over.

However.

He waited for a moment, but the blow didn’t fall. Jeong Taeui, who had been focused on protecting his head, bracing himself that his arm bones would surely shatter if hit by that fist, slightly raised his head when the fist didn’t come even after it should have.

“Why do you court trouble?”

Above his head, instead of the large figure, was Ilay. Ilay’s outstretched hand had the large man’s head firmly gripped. And that head was slammed against the wall, leaving gruesome red blood splatters on the white wall.

“Il—”

“Hmm… It’d be useful for taking off a head or two.”

Ilay calmly bent down and effortlessly pulled the axe, which was half-embedded in the wall, out. He held the handle in his hand, swung it once or twice to gauge its weight. Each time the axe blade sliced through the air, it made a chilling “whoosh, whoosh” sound.

“Sometimes you just court trouble. Why is that?”

His serious face didn’t seem to be joking. You bastard, I did that to help you! How was I supposed to know you, a monster, would have eyes on the back of your head?

How was he supposed to know that the guy who attacked from behind was so abnormal that he could accurately hit his target with a carelessly swung foot without even looking?

To Jeong Taeui, who resolved to pretend not to see it whenever anyone swung a knife or an axe at this man in the future, Ilay seriously asked again,

“Are you perhaps masochistic?”

He thought it would be great if he could snatch that axe and smash it into that guy’s head. And at the same time, he thought that if he were masochistic, he would have greatly enjoyed that day he collapsed and fell ill after being tormented by this guy. However, he didn’t voice either of these thoughts.

It wasn’t a time for such leisurely conversation. Having heard the minor commotion around the corner, the guys who had been fighting beyond it rushed over. Rather than rushing, it would be more accurate to say that the fight happening over there immediately spread to this side the moment they saw Ilay.

Unfortunately, Ilay had an axe in his hand. It was a very sharp and excellent weapon whose blade wasn’t damaged even after being embedded in a stone wall. Fortunately, the men who saw that monster even had an axe in his hand flinched and slowed their steps. Right beside them, there was also an example, a man whose face was smashed into the wall, profusely bleeding.

“Demon-like bastard…” someone muttered abruptly. That voice, steeped in fear and unease, seemed to have misunderstood the correlation between the fallen man and the axe, but Jeong Taeui didn’t bother to correct him. He rather hoped that they would all step back, perceiving him as a demon-like bastard.

Things didn’t go as smoothly for Jeong Taeui as he wished. The men, who had been fighting each other, now took on the appearance of a tribal nation uniting against a common invader. They turned the weapons they had been using on their comrades toward Ilay. The problem was that most of them were South American. And judging by their faces, still covered in soft down, it was clear they hadn’t been in UNHRDO for long. It was also immediately apparent that their fighting stances were barely taking shape and not yet fully ingrained in their bodies. In that context, their audacity in aiming weapons at Ilay was understandable.

Jeong Taeui had heard that Ilay Riegrow’s reputation had spread throughout all the branches, but these guys apparently hadn’t seen his true colors yet. The Asia branch members, who knew his true colors all too well, glanced at the South American members with expressions that said, “You guys are going to die this time too,” but they had no loyalty to tell them to run, and more importantly, they knew they would have to risk their lives to face Ilay, who even had an axe, so they didn’t foolishly reduce their own fighting strength.

The nine-on-one fight began. But it ended as anticlimactically as it started.

One, two, three—the moment the third man fell, they lost their will to fight. The third man who fell suffered a rather harsh fate. When the young men charged, Ilay, unbelievably, seemed to be going easy on them in his own way, merely breaking a nose bone by hitting it with the axe handle. However, the third guy had a clumsy but good skill. That was his downfall.

Ilay, who tended to crush stronger opponents more thoroughly, saw the third man feint a swing at his waist with a pipe, dodging the axe handle. Ilay then struck the man’s wrist with his elbow, disarming the pipe. And then he chuckled, letting his axe-wielding hand drop and arc wildly from below.

It looked like a light, casual movement. But the moment the axe arced in a circle, cutting through the air, the third man’s scream erupted. Blood gushed from his thigh, and something whitish was visible within the gaping flesh.

Watching the third man scream, completely drenched in blood gushing like a waterfall, those who had been charging in succession behind him stiffened their faces and stopped.

“Hey, you crazy bastard… who the hell injures someone like this during training—!”

“The next one is an arm. Arms are thinner than legs, so they’ll be cleanly severed.”

Before the man, who was yelling at Ilay with a pale blue face, could finish his sentence, Ilay spoke calmly. Quite a bit of blood had splashed on him too, but he seemed to pay it no mind. The gloves he had just put on began to get stained again.

Silence fell over the place at his words. Ilay twirled the axe between his fingers like a toy and chuckled.

“And the next one will be a vertical cut to the shoulder. If you’re lucky, you might survive.”

“…”

“Maybe the one after that will be the neck…”

Perhaps they thought Ilay’s words were a joke. Even while treating it as a joke, they hesitated to confront him, seeing their colleague rolling on the ground, clutching his bloody leg. However, Jeong Taeui—and other Asia branch members—knew that Ilay’s words were no joke.

He thought it would be problematic if it didn’t stop here. Although the organization superficially stated that people might inevitably die during training, if this man were left alone even in such a case, the justification for claiming “inevitability” would disappear. Jeong Taeui released the man he had been holding by the collar, preventing him from charging at Ilay.

The man had been about to charge, casually muttering before the third man’s leg was half-severed and dangling, “It’s easier to deal with a guy carrying an axe. Even if they carry something like that, they can’t just swing it around recklessly, so such a weapon just becomes a nuisance and an obstacle.” His words weren’t entirely wrong. Most people would tend to be somewhat restrained, fearing that swinging an axe carelessly might accidentally hit someone and cause serious injury.

However, that also depends on the person. This man had gravely misjudged his opponent. Consider your life saved by me today, Jeong Taeui muttered to himself, looking at the man who was no longer trying to charge at Ilay.

I’ve done so many good deeds, so I’ll go to heaven when I die. Though my body will accumulate plenty of relics while I’m alive.

“You know that instructors, in principle, don’t spar outside of demonstration matches, right?” Jeong Taeui spoke quietly from behind. Ilay looked back at Jeong Taeui with a blank expression.

“Jeong Taeui. I told you not to interfere in my affairs. Did you forget already?”

“Not at all. But it’s sparring time now. Good things come to those who do good, don’t they?”

Although there was no connection between sparring time and “good things come to those who do good,” Jeong Taeui shrugged as if to emphasize his point. Ilay grimaced disapprovingly, then opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again, as if he had decided to be good-natured today. He muttered, “Do as you please,” and still with a displeased expression, raised the axe and threw it directly at Jeong Taeui.

“…!”

A chilling sound cut through the air as it flew. It whizzed by his ear, grazing a few strands of hair. And then, with a thwack, a loud impact, it embedded itself beside Jeong Taeui. The axe, with its blade stuck in the stone pillar, seemed to pause for a moment, then clatter, it fell to the floor with crumbling stone dust. The axe rolled a couple of times before stopping, glinting eerily beside Jeong Taeui’s foot. He must have truly resolved to be good-natured after all. Still, to throw it so close.

Jeong Taeui, realizing he could maintain a composed expression even in such a situation, felt a little sad, but there was nothing he could do.

While Jeong Taeui gloomily picked up the axe and put it back in his pocket, the men wisely retreated like an ebbing tide. He deliberately wiped the bloodstains off the axe before putting it away, and by the time he finished, only Ilay and he were left standing in the corridor.

To put it cynically, those bastards abandoned me with that bleak serial killer and ran away. Jeong Taeui, feeling gloomy, sighed, turning his thoughts in a melancholic direction. He just wished this damned joint training would end quickly.