Passion Novel - Volume 3 - Chapter 76

It was correct to say that the joint training with the South American branch was proceeding quite smoothly compared to the European side. This was most easily seen in the casualty situation of the members.

In the previous training, there were several fatalities, and the infirmary was overflowing with countless injured every day. This time, although injuries were continuous, no one had died yet. The joint training would end in about three or four days, and at this point, with hardly any life-threatening training left in the program’s structure, one could even predict zero fatalities.

Jeong Taeui, as a adjutant, who could be considered the instructor’s errand boy, had to do odd jobs from early hours before regular duties began. These weren’t important tasks. The important matters within the branch were handled by the head of operations and the adjutant; the adjutant simply performed minor chores assigned by the instructor.

Ilay was a capable instructor. If it weren’t for his personality issues, being Ilay’s adjutant wouldn’t have been difficult. At least, he had almost nothing to do outside of regular duties. So, Jeong Taeui, who often managed to skip his adjutant duties in the morning by subtly observing, was surprised but readily agreed when Ilay called him in the morning to get some documents ready. (In reality, it wasn’t an agreement but one of the tasks he was naturally supposed to do.)

Most of the documents exchanged during this period were related to the progress of the joint training simultaneously taking place in each branch. Jeong Taeui occasionally saw the documents passing through his hands and realized that things were proceeding smoothly elsewhere, with no major incidents, and the training was nearing completion. He read the data from his uncle’s branch in Australia a few seconds more carefully, and it was the same there.

“Perhaps it was a very excellent selection, despite some side effects.” Jeong Taeui muttered, pointing to the statistics that indicated zero fatalities so far. It seemed he could tentatively say that the monster-like killer had become an instructor and stopped killing people. Even if an accident occurred later, there was still room for such an excuse for now.

If someone had predicted this and put that guy in the instructor position as soon as it became vacant, whoever that person was, they deserved an award. Although he had caused widespread resentment within the European branch and ruined many people’s lives. And Jeong Taeui, one of those whose life had been ruined, briefly thought about his situation and sank into depression, but then he quickly shook his head. Still, he hadn’t died yet while sticking by that guy. Thinking about that, perhaps Jeong Taeui was surprisingly lucky.

Jeong Taeui tried to think that way, somehow feeling a sense of sadness. When he arrived at the instructor’s office, fanning himself with the documents he had received from the office as Ilay had requested, it was not yet 8 AM. When Jeong Taeui opened the instructor’s office door, which was open about a hand’s width, there were two instructors inside.

Excluding the two who had led the members to the Australian branch and one who rarely stayed in the instructor’s office, preferring to wander around on errands, one person was missing. And the one missing was Ilay, who had asked Jeong Taeui to bring the documents.

He must have stepped out briefly, as there were still traces on his desk showing someone had been sitting there just moments ago. Unfinished work was scattered across the desk.

The two instructors—Crimson and McKin—merely glanced at the person entering and continued their work. Crimson, who seemed a bit idle, checking something on the computer and occasionally reading a newspaper, was in the innermost seat. Next to him was his uncle’s empty seat, and across from it sat McKin. Next to him was Ilay’s seat.

“Is that the report? May I see it for a moment?” As Jeong Taeui neatly placed the documents on Ilay’s desk, grumbling to himself about where the hell the guy who called him was, McKin gestured from beside him. He must have somehow spotted the documents Jeong Taeui was carrying, even though he was behind a partition. Jeong Taeui replied, “Ah, yes,” and handed the documents to McKin. After all, these kinds of documents were shared by everyone, not just Ilay’s personal property. McKin said, “Thanks,” briefly and took the documents.

Jeong Taeui waited beside him for him to finish reviewing and return the documents, quietly observing McKin, who was focused on the papers. There was no particular reason for an UNHRDO branch instructor to look unusual, but McKin was just like any neighborhood uncle if he took off his uniform. Perhaps because his eyes drooped and his face was somewhat round, he looked gentle at first glance. However, in reality, he was the most difficult person to get along with among the instructors.

He seemed to talk a bit with his uncle, perhaps because they served the same sub-head, but Jeong Taeui had never seen him comfortably joke and laugh with others.

—Come to the instructor’s office now.

It was past midnight last night. When Jeong Taeui, who was just about to go to bed, picked up the phone, McKin’s voice, tinged with the unique mechanical sound of the telephone, came through the receiver.

Looking at the clock, which was past midnight and almost 1 AM, Jeong Taeui thought, Aha. His uncle had told him to help McKin. Although he had used soft words like “help,” it actually meant to do whatever McKin told him to do. Jeong Taeui had felt suspicious and bothered ever since his uncle mentioned it, but he felt even more reluctant now that the call came so late. Moreover, he had an inkling of what kind of task McKin would assign.

He didn’t know the method, but it was certainly related to the “power struggle.” Not only what Ilay had hinted at, but these days, Jeong Taeui sometimes felt a knife-edge atmosphere in the instructor’s office. Should he say it was tense, or to put it more grimly, a sinister air hung around. It was better now that the number of instructors had been halved. Before the training began, when all the instructors were present, the atmosphere was so sharp that even amid laughter, his skin would prickle with palpable intensity.

Although the desire for power drives much of the world, he would decline to be swept up in its whirlpool, he sighed. Yet, Jeong Taeui had made a promise, so he had no choice but to go as McKin called.

The instructor’s office, past midnight, was empty. Only one person, McKin, sat waiting for Jeong Taeui. The instructor’s office in the middle of the night, with no one else around, felt somehow unfamiliar, so Jeong Taeui looked around the interior as soon as he entered. Seeing his expression, McKin, perhaps thinking something else, said, “There are no recording cameras installed in the instructor’s office, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Jeong Taeui thought he understood why he had been called here and sat down in the chair as McKin suggested. The conversation wasn’t prolonged. It wasn’t even a grim or dangerous topic, as Jeong Taeui had worried about all the way to the instructor’s office. In a way, it could even be called ridiculously simple and easy.

—The day after tomorrow, no, now that it’s past midnight, it should be tomorrow, the 27th, from 4:30 AM to 4:40 AM, for 10 minutes. It absolutely must be that time. During that time, connect to this side and receive a document. The document name is written there, but just in case, check the contents after receiving it. You probably won’t understand the contents just by looking, so just check if the first three or four lines and the last three or four lines match. It should match what’s written there. And then send that document to the address at the very bottom.

McKin said, handing him a memo. Jeong Taeui glanced at McKin, unfolded the memo, casually skimmed the few lines of content with a few addresses and passwords, then put it back in his pocket.

Indeed.

Even coming here, and even while listening to McKin, he had been puzzled. No matter that he was Instructor Jeong Changin’s nephew and not an official branch member, was it really okay to be involved in a matter that should clearly be classified as secret? If he helped with the work, he would naturally get some idea of the contents, so could they really entrust him with it so casually?

If his uncle hadn’t mentioned it, Jeong Taeui would have thought, Will I be killed secretly after I finish the job? But after looking at the memo, he understood. This task surely had to be kept secret from beginning to end, but while doing it, Jeong Taeui would be unable to know what he was doing. No, to be precise, he would only be able to guess, but he wouldn’t know what he was touching. The few lines of text given to him to confirm the contents were not characters he could understand. McKin was staring at him intently, so he didn’t feel like examining it closely on the spot and quickly put it away, but it was a complex sequence of alphabets and numbers, and symbols.

Indeed, it seems like someone is extracting classified information from somewhere and transferring it somewhere else… but I have no way of knowing where or what the content is.

But even so, even if he didn’t know what it was but found it suspicious, if he were to leak it… Jeong Taeui chuckled to himself, cutting off that thought. He could immediately list five cases he had heard about in his World Security History lecture, where people had lost their lives after carelessly releasing something they didn’t understand.

Jeong Taeui nodded and put the memo away. McKin, not intending to stay long, rose from his seat as soon as Jeong Taeui put the memo away. After reinforcing one last time, “Don’t forget, and be sure to be on time,” McKin left the instructor’s office first. And Jeong Taeui waited for his footsteps to fade in the corridor before slowly following him out. That was last night. In terms of time, barely a few hours had passed.

McKin sat in the exact same spot he had sat last night, his face calm, and skimmed the documents Jeong Taeui had handed him.

“Hmm. It seems Makadi got injured in the Australian branch.”

As McKin said this casually, Crimson, who seemed to have heard it from across the partition, said, “Makadi? Tsk, tsk. Bring that document over here too.”

Instructors knew each other even if they worked in different branches, as joint training sessions between branches occurred frequently, and there were monthly UNHRDO general meetings. There were also often cases where they had worked in the same branch in the past, even if they were in different places now. So, when an instructor from another branch was injured, they would react somewhere between a stranger getting hurt and a close friend getting hurt. They wouldn’t worry excessively but would feel a momentary twinge of sympathy.

Normally, it would end with “Injured? That’s too bad.” The fact that they insisted on seeing the document now might be due to the current atmosphere, where a grim tension flowed among the instructors.

It doesn’t seem like someone else’s problem.

Jeong Taeui muttered to himself, then delivered the documents, which he had received back from McKin, to Crimson this time. And then he looked up at the ceiling, wondering when this damned guy, who had called him and then left, would finally arrive.

An old feeling surfaced. In high school, he had been part of a film studies club. Of course, they didn’t do anything as grand as film research; they just watched one suitable movie every week. The only time they did anything resembling research was once a semester, at the end of the term, when student activity evaluations meant writing and submitting film reviews. Three or four members would choose a topic and write about a single film.

The group Jeong Taeui belonged to had, with the youthful recklessness common among boys their age, chosen hardgore as their theme. He remembered going to a friend’s empty house on a Sunday afternoon and spending two hours watching a hardgore film they had painstakingly acquired.

Jeong Taeui recalled that memory as he stared at the LCD monitor. The joint training was drawing to a close. The final task was to edit and select usable portions of the training period’s footage to show the members on the last day. Instructor Ilay, finding this tedious, had dumped the task on Jeong Taeui, who had no choice but to review ten days’ worth of recordings.

Although it was ten days’ worth, the adjutant had already sifted through most of it and almost finished editing, so Jeong Taeui only needed to spend about three or four hours reviewing and organizing. So, thinking it wouldn’t be difficult, he had been watching the videos for about two hours now.

Jeong Taeui was recalling that vague, distant memory of having to watch videos he detested for a film review—in truth, he’d thought about just not submitting it and taking a zero, but since it affected his friends’ combined score, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse their pleas. In the videos he’d received, supposedly training footage, blood and flesh were flying. At least the one-on-one sparring footage was better. He’d seen so many instances of broken arms and concussions leading to people being carried off to the infirmary that he’d become accustomed to it. However, unrestricted free sparring footage often made him involuntarily gasp, “Ugh.”

Especially when Ilay was in the footage, it was almost always like that.

After watching three consecutive scenes of people being carried out, practically bloody lumps, even if not dead, his appetite vanished. Jeong Taeui took pity on the adjutant, who must have meticulously reviewed and edited ten days’ worth of footage, and paused the video. He’d only watched about half, but staring at the blood-red screen was making his head feel strange; he couldn’t go on. He’d take a break, then quickly skim through the rest and return it. Jeong Taeui scratched his head, tasting bitterness. He felt a bit sorry for himself, having to be stuck watching such videos during the evening, when he usually had free time after regular duties.

“Should I go up for a bit and get some fresh air?” He was just rubbing his neck and getting up from his seat when the phone rang.

A red lamp was blinking. It was an outside line. There was only one place he could think of that would call Jeong Taeui from outside right now.

“Hello?”

“Are you doing well?”

As expected, it was his uncle.

Jeong Taeui had thought it would most likely be his uncle, but still hoping for a rare surprise, he mumbled disappointedly, “What’s up?”

“Well, I called to see if everything’s alright. You’re still alive and well, right? Is the training manageable?”

“Anyway, all these records will go to you too, won’t they? No one’s dead, and a lot of people are injured, but that’s just how it is. Still, it’s better than the last joint training. No one died.”

Jeong Taeui grumbled sullenly, and he heard a chuckle from the other end of the line. “Yes, for him, that’s an excellent result,” came the reply, a mixture of jest and seriousness.

Jeong Taeui was silent for a moment. He wondered if his uncle would bring up anything else, but there was no sign of it. Moreover, he wasn’t someone who would discuss serious matters over the phone.

“…Oh, right. I got a call from there.” Jeong Taeui said casually, as if suddenly remembering. His uncle paused very briefly, then chuckled, “Ah, yes. It’s about time for that.”

Jeong Taeui simply replied, “Is that so?” to his uncle, who merely said those few words. It’s about time. Indeed, setting a specific time seemed to have had its reasons. Jeong Taeui didn’t intend to ask for details and vaguely glossed over it. It wasn’t an issue to talk about for long, and he suspected this was the reason his uncle had called.

He was exchanging a few trivial words with his uncle, thinking of hanging up soon if there was no other business.

The door opened without a knock, and Ilay entered.

Jeong Taeui was silent for a moment. It had been mere minutes since he had seen that man on the blood-red screen, and seeing him in person, looking perfectly clean, was a distinct feeling. Distinctly like a sense of discrepancy.

“Ilay…” Jeong Taeui, who had opened his mouth to ask what was going on, realized he was still holding the phone. It seemed his uncle on the other end had heard it too.

“Ah, ha. He’s here?”

“Ah, yes, well…” He mumbled vaguely, staring blankly at Ilay. Ilay, seeing Jeong Taeui on the phone, subtly raised an eyebrow, then gestured as if to say, Don’t mind me, keep talking. And then he went to the bed as if it were his own room and lay down. There was nothing new to be surprised about, so Jeong Taeui merely sighed bitterly.

“Alright, then I’ll see you soon. Call if anything happens. You remember the direct number, right?” His uncle, also seemingly done with his business, showed signs of hanging up. Jeong Taeui nodded.

“Yes. I wrote it down. But I don’t think there’ll be anything to call about. I’ll see you in a few days. Please take care of yourself during the remaining days and come back safe and sound.”

Jeong Taeui said indifferently, and his uncle chuckled in response, “Hearing that you’re assuming there’s a high possibility I won’t come back in one piece somehow makes me feel complex.” His uncle then left a short goodbye and hung up. Hearing him speak like that, Jeong Taeui thought he would return safely and also put down the phone. After hanging up, Ilay, who had been lying diagonally on the bed, looking at Jeong Taeui, said languidly,

“Instructor Jeong Changin?”

“Mm.”

“What’s up? He actually called.”

“…He must have been worried if his nephew was still alive.”

He wanted to insert the phrase “left in a place where murderers roam freely” before that sentence but held back. Thinking about it, even Jeong Taeui himself knew his uncle wasn’t the type to call for that reason. However, Ilay seemed convinced by the answer and nodded. Jeong Taeui rotated his chair halfway to face Ilay. He intended to ask what was going on, but Ilay’s gaze was no longer on Jeong Taeui. He was looking at the screen on the desk, paused on a still image.

“Ah, ha. You were checking the records, I see.”

Hearing him speak as if it were someone else’s business made a slow anger boil within him. This was originally Ilay’s job. It was only natural for his stomach to twist when he saw Ilay casually show up after vaguely saying he had other things to do and dumping the records on Jeong Taeui.

“No matter how many times I fast-forward, it’s always a red screen, and your face always appears on it. It’s not like I’m watching your full life story, and this is probably because it’s been edited once already.”

He couldn’t help but grumble. As he did, Jeong Taeui thought, It’s quite something that I can talk so freely to that murderous madman. Anyone would think I’ve given up. He sighed, telling himself not to act so recklessly anymore, as it would be utterly unfair if he were to die by that man’s hand with only a few days left until he could leave. Though he hadn’t wanted to, he asked, rising from his seat for his uninvited guest,

“What do you want to drink? …No, on second thought, there’s only water. Want water?”

“No, I’m good.”

Ilay shook his head and started playing the paused video again. Blood and flesh once again splattered across the screen. Jeong Taeui watched Ilay, who was observing the members sparring as if it were a sport, then took out the entire water bottle and took a sip. And he quietly observed Ilay’s profile closely. Looked at this way, he was truly an ordinary and neat young man. Who would think he was the same person as the blood-soaked madman appearing on that screen? Even Jeong Taeui, who had clearly witnessed both those sides of him firsthand, was beginning to doubt it.

Jeong Taeui, holding the water bottle, reluctantly turned his gaze to the screen. The moment his eyes landed on it, the scene that greeted him was Ilay grabbing the head of a man much larger than himself and, with a blank expression, slamming it into a stone wall. Blood splattered everywhere from the man’s head, which was embedded in the wall with a horrifying sound.

“Ugh,” Jeong Taeui mumbled, grimacing. He had seen countless scenes far worse than that, but it was still not a pleasant sight to behold.

I’d rather watch splatter films, he thought, watching the screen, then his eyes widened slightly. He recognized the man. It was the one who had been wielding the axe. Sure enough, Jeong Taeui’s own figure was reflected slightly beside the man. And Ilay mumbled something, then pulled out the axe embedded in the wall.

Right. That’s what happened. He had been prepared for a massive hit from that large man, but he ended up being helped by Ilay. And what Ilay had said to him back then…

“You’re the kind of guy who courts trouble…”

Yes, yes, that was exactly what he had said. He truly was a guy who didn’t know how to say anything nicely.

Jeong Taeui turned his gaze back to the screen. Ilay was still visible on the screen. He looked quite fitting with the axe in his hand. He even felt a sense of familiarity with that sight.

“Now that I think about it,” Jeong Taeui started to say something, then closed his mouth. And he thought hard again. He definitely didn’t remember mentioning it. Ilay glanced at Jeong Taeui, who had cut himself off mid-sentence with a pensive expression. Jeong Taeui then looked back at the screen with a blank face and said,

“Back then, thanks for the help.”

“…Help?”

Ilay tilted his head slightly. He seemed confused about what Jeong Taeui was saying. But following Jeong Taeui’s gaze and looking back at the screen, he finally understood and shrugged, “Ah, yes.”

“You’re welcome.”

Of course, “you’re welcome,” Jeong Taeui thought. He had already known it at the point of saying thank you. The reason Ilay had slammed the large man into the wall just before Jeong Taeui was hit wasn’t to help Jeong Taeui, but simply because the large man had originally targeted Ilay. Nevertheless, without any logical connection, Jeong Taeui suddenly recalled what Shinru had cried out the other day, with a face on the verge of tears:

—He has impure intentions toward you, hyung! That man likes you, hyung!

“…”

Jeong Taeui subtly raised his hand to cover his mouth, rubbing his lips with his thumb. No one was looking into his mind, but he felt incredibly awkward. Actually, if someone were to look into a mind, they should look into Shinru’s, who could come up with such an idea, but Jeong Taeui felt so embarrassingly distressed that he tried desperately to erase that memory from his mind, even though he hadn’t even said it himself.

In the ensuing silence, the screen showed Ilay casually wielding the axe. After that, the discipline sparring footage finally began, and Jeong Taeui was at last liberated from the blood-red visuals.

“But what brings you here?” Jeong Taeui asked, taking a breath from the video, as if it just occurred to him. In truth, there was no need to ask. He usually called or summoned Jeong Taeui to his room if he had business. When he occasionally came to deliver a message in person, he usually just said what he had to say and left. His simply entering and lounging casually meant he had come for no particular reason.