Chapter 77 (1/2)
“You monster! Those are what define our history and heritage!”
A convoy that had been sweeping through every home and museum for historic artefacts to escort back to the rear was ambushed. Each and every historic antique in these trucks held unfathomable significance in the history it entailed. They were national treasures.
However, the soldiers who ambushed the trucks grumbled to each other when they realised that what was in the trucks weren’t supplies. With an order from Joon-young, they began gathering the artefacts into a single truck. One of the convoy’s guards, who had taken the job of a traitor, tried his utmost to stop them.
“d.a.m.n you’re noisy. It’s much better to destroy it than have it taken from us.”
“Don’t you know that history will remain even if the nation disappears?! We have to leave behind our history and its evidence if we want to continue our cultural heritage!”
Joon-young simply plugged a finger into his ear in the face of the man’s wailing, hastening his men to pour oil and gunpowder onto the artefacts.
“They’ve changed history before this war. I’m sure they’ll do the same after this war and carefully package it as part of their own history. Isn’t that obvious?”
“That’s even more of a reason to protect those national treasures! For as long as the evidence exists, history will speak the truth!”
Joon-young smirked at the man. One of his men reported the process was done, and Joon-young personally lit the truck on fire.
“No! stop!”
The man screamed and charged at Joon-young, but he was quickly subdued by Joon-young’s men, who were evidently irked. Joon-young watched the flames grow bigger and then approached the man.
“You’ve heard the phrase right? The people who have forgotten their history have no future.”
“…”
Joon young smiled mischievously at the man who looked back at him with hatred as he pointed at the truck.
“That future is now.”
“…”
“People who have no future don’t need history.”
“…”
“Hmph. This will all become but a single phrase in history textbooks in the future. Like the Sumerians or the Andeans, where only experts remember their names as the birthplace of civilization. A single phrase that this nation once existed.”
“… You will go to h.e.l.l.”
“You think I’m afraid of h.e.l.l? If there is a h.e.l.l made for burning these rocks and paper, then I’ll gladly go there. What I’m afraid of is seeing the faces of the dead who died protecting this nation weep at what has happened. Dying while fighting for its preservation would make a decent excuse. It’s much better than boasting to them that ‘it looked obvious that the nation was done for, so I tried to protect its treasures instead.’ Right?”
“s.h.i.+t! We got a dud. To think he was a soldier.”
“But these memories have experienced war. It will be different from the others who only received training.”
“But we are already overflowing with military knowledge. And I doubt someone from the military would have any connections with the Queen.”
“This is just the start. I’ll keep looking.”
“What are they saying at the top?”
“They said they don’t have anything to support us with. We’ve been ordered to break through on our own.”
“Is there a different path we can take?”
“We’ll need to circle the long way around. The only path we can take to arrive on time is to break through here.”
“Ah, s.h.i.+t. Which r.e.t.a.r.d made this plan? Has he never played an FPS in the past? Isn’t it common sense that snipers would be camping their a.r.s.es in urban warfare?”
Joon-young grumbled and peeked a mirror out the building to get a glimpse of the intersection, where a soldier screamed for his dear life. Sergeant Min-won-hoo asked Joon-young.
“What do we do about him?”
“What do you mean what do we do? Haven’t you seen the movies? Leave him.”
“All of our boys will die if we don’t kill that sniper.”
“That’s why we need to kill him.”
“How?”
“What gun is that sniper using?”
“They’re from the north, so they’ll be using Russian weapons, and if it’s a Russian sniper rifle, it has to be a Dragunov right?”
PR Note: The Dragunov is a real-life Soviet-developed semi-automatic sniper rifle.
“Dumba.s.s, you sure that isn’t the only sniper rifle you know about?”
The soldiers snickered when Joon-young belittled Min-won-hoo. Once again, a loud ‘bang!’ pierced their ears, and the screams of the injured soldier grew louder.
“One of us will go out with a s.h.i.+eld to act as if we’re rescuing him while others spot the sniper’s location.”
“So where is this ‘s.h.i.+eld?’”
“Isn’t there anything we can use around here?”
“Can you see anything we can use?”
Joon-young looked around, only to see the collapsed buildings, broken cars and the bodies of dead civilians.
“How about we rip off one of the car’s doors?”
“You think that’d really stop a sniper’s bullet? This isn’t a movie, you know.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t seem very reliable to me either. There’s no choice. Go grab some of those corpses and put on a Kevlar. We’ll use those instead.”
“Hm. It’ll certainly act as a s.h.i.+eld. But who’s going to go out with it?”
“…”
Since the work entailed great danger, everyone looked at each other in silence. After a brief ponder, Joon-young smiled and offered a suggestion.
“Rock-paper-scissors.”
With a loud ‘bang!’ the soldier who lost the game moaned briefly and fell onto the ground.
“Wow! Has he been sniping ever since he was born? How did he hit him through that gap?!”
“Now isn’t the time to admire him! 11 o’clock! 4-story building! Flash spotted on the 3rd floor, middle window!”
Min-won-hoo shouted out, and a soldier who had been on standby quickly ran out with a different corpse, while another soldier closely followed him.
Another gunshot was heard, and whilst the soldier with the corpse flinched, the soldier who had been hiding behind him stepped to the side and set off a panzerfaust directed towards the location Min-won-hoo pointed at.
PR Note: The panzerfaust was a German anti-tank weapon used in World War II. Roughly speaking, it is a German equivalent of the U.S. bazooka.
The warhead flew across as it ripped through the air. It hit its mark, causing a giant explosion inside the building. All of the soldiers cheered and ran outside.
“What happened to the first one that got hit?”
“He’s dead already. I think he bled too much.”
“Good. We didn’t have the time to treat him anyway. We’ll take the body if we get back alive later. Let’s move, we have no time.”
“Hng. I’m still alive.”
The first soldier who ran out with the corpse struggled as he got back up on his feet. Joon-young looked at him with great surprise.
“What the? You’re not dead?”
“It went through my ankle. d.a.m.n it hurts.”
“Dumba.s.s. It hurts because you’re alive. Fall back to the rear. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to do it on your own.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t go wit…”
The soldier made an awkward smile, when suddenly his head blew up into a fountain of blood.
“Sniper! Run!”
Joon-young and the soldiers immediately reacted by running back to the same building they came from. Frustrated, Joon-young threw his helmet and shouted out.
“s.h.i.+t! It’s a different one right?”
“Seeing how his head blew up, it seems the bullet came from the opposite direction.”
“s.h.i.+t! Was it an entire sniper squad? Why the f.u.c.k are there so many snipers when it isn’t even a Korean specialty!”
“The Director of Surveillance has a.s.sembled the Grand Council.”
“But this is too quick for her to notice.”
“Rivelia spilled the beans to the Director of Surveillance. She used the fact that Target 728 knew this was Central’s ploy as her excuse, and the Director of Surveillance used the same excuse to intervene. Thanks to that, they found out that we killed who was it again? That Mission Support Agent. This mission’s a failure.”
“s.h.i.+t… that’s going to be a mess. What will you do now?”
“Hide of course.”
“From the Director of Surveillance?”
“There are many on the Grand Council who are still on my side. The Director of Surveillance won’t be able to interrogate me so one-sidedly.”
“Let’s head to Viscount Luken’s land then. An information a.s.sembly facility exists there.”
“… Isn’t it a shame to expend him over something like this?”
“Do we have a choice? He was made to be used in preparation for a situation like this anyway. Since the mission has failed, we’ll need to make it look as if it was Viscount Luken doing all of this on his own.”
“I guess so. Let’s proceed that way then. Personally, I’d like to just kill him here, but that’d really make the Director of Surveillance hunt for me for the rest of my life. It’s a shame I can’t kill him.”
“I’ll wipe his memories clean instead. Not even the Director of Surveillance or the Queen will be able to get what they want from an empty husk.”
The evacuation of civilians resulted in failure. The regiment had ordered a full retreat, but Joon-young’s squad and others couldn’t abandon the civilians. They volunteered to stay and help evacuate. But as they were guiding the civilians, enemies attacked. The city was taken over, and with the path of retreat cut off, the only option left for the army who refused to surrender was to hide.
At first, they met up with civilians who were friendly to them, and with their help they continued their resistance within the cityscape. But soon, they began to run out of ammunitions and medical supplies, and with no supplies reaching them, they began dying off one by one.
Their greatest foes weren’t the enemies but the civilians. Those who protested against the war stood at the front, demanding the army to surrender all the while hunting them from the shadows. They welcomed the annexing troops with open arms. It seemed that the army that annexed the city noticed the world media and placed strict rules on soldiers’ conduct regarding civilians, but that was all. The refugees who were hidden away quickly ran out of food and water, and the enemies used food and supplies as bait to bring out the civilians.
With even the few civilians who were friendly to them turning their backs now, all that was left was to be hunted down like wild animals whilst trapped in a cage. More and more soldiers deserted to surrender while others died of thirst and starvation. They could only stand and watch powerlessly as their comrades were hunted down and beaten to near death by civilians, their bodies being dragged over to the enemies as trophies.
They hid themselves in the sewers like rats drinking rain water and staving off starvation however they could, but that h.e.l.lish life changed when the now-regrouped army that had retreated came back to take the city. Joon-young and his men found out when they heard cheers outside whilst they rotted away in the filthy sewers.
The army marched on the streets with tanks at the head, and people lined up to meet them with cheers on both sides. Everyone welcomed the army back with open arms, whether they demanded that they fight to the death or demanded that the army surrender and disband to avoid war. They were, at this point, united to welcome the army into the city.”