Chapter 129: Campus Community Service 3/10 (2) (1/2)
‘Front’
That one word created a sense of direction inside the auditorium.
‘3 minutes’
Those two words of his created a time restraint for the cadets.
The man that suddenly appeared out of nowhere regulated both the time and space of every cadet present.
Soon, the young cadets began moving according to his standards. When someone comparatively more fearful than others started moving their pen, other cadets were influenced by their peers and started their surveys.
3 minutes were more than enough.
“Here sir…”
Despite still not knowing who this man was, one of the cadets in charge gathered the papers before handing them over to Yu Jitae.
“…”
Looking back, he realised that the prison warden was wearing a strange look on his face. His facial muscles twitched and turned serious, before eventually forming a smile. He appeared bewildered.
“Thank you, Mister Guardian… next one on the schedule is breakfast. I think we can start moving now.”
Meanwhile, the camera crews were put in an awkward spot.
‘Damn. We’re not going to have enough videos…’
Yu Jitae wasn’t interested, but the theme of today’s documentary was on ‘the dangers of delinquent cadets and the necessity of increasing the number of guidance wardens’. The documentary was meant to criticise the low morality of the superhuman industry and the need to guide young cadets properly!
But in order to achieve that, they needed videos of delinquent cadets not listening to instructions, contrasted by videos of the warden who was nothing but nice. Watching that, the audience will be enraged which will allow the broadcasting crew to grab both the number of views and their original theme.
“Breakfast, is it.”
“Yes.”
“But there’s a few missing.”
“They must have gone somewhere else. I was actually thinking of looking for them right now…”
The warden nodded with a serious look on his face.
“Guys. Let’s all line up…!”
The cameraman heaved a sigh.
Everything started going south ever since the man who was here on community service intervened. This time, the command was from the warden and yet the cadets still obediently lined up albeit slowly.
Even the warden himself seemed surprised.
“Number.”
In response to the man’s words, the cadets each called out one, two, three… and so on in a line. The number of the last person in line was 23.
Carefully lowering their heads, the cadets stole glances at Yu Jitae.
The number of cadets for dismissal today was 27. Four were missing.
The warden scratched his wide forehead while the cameras went through the cadets one by one.
“…”
Yu Jitae stared at the cadets with a hazy gaze.
He didn’t say anything, and was searching where the missing cadets were on the other side of the auditorium walls. However, his silence seemed to have caused tension as the cadets anxiously stole glances. They became nervous despite him not doing anything.
“All of you, stay here.”
“Yes.”
“…Yes!”
Being cadets and reserve soldiers, they were used to replying ‘yes’. Soon when Yu Jitae began moving his feet, the warden followed him from behind with a dreamy expression as if he was in the middle of a dream.
“Sorry. I definitely locked the doors but how did they get out…”
He didn’t respond.
The four missing cadets were quite nearby. On the other side of the auditorium was an underground football ground with a storage next to it. Three of the four cadets were inside the storage building.
Smoke was seeping out of an area next to the storage, hidden behind several boxes. There was a ventilation hole right next to it.
Walking forward in large strides, Yu Jitae stood in front of the female cadet who had a cigarette in her mouth.
“Ah…!”
Startled, her eyes widened as he reached forward. He pinched and rubbed the cigarette with his thumb and index finger to turn the fire off. His fingers ended up becoming dark from the ashes.
“Why are you here.”
“Y, you surprised me there. Who are you?”
“Why, are you here.”
“…Who cares. So what if I’m here or not.”
The cadet was throwing glances at him but still grumbled to protect her ego. She tried to sneak past him and return to the auditorium naturally but she couldn’t. Yu Jitae with his large body completely blocked the gap between the boxes and the wall and stood there even after she came closer.
“…”
Now that she couldn’t sneak out, the cadet raised her head with a frown but the moment her eyes met with his, an ominous feeling caused her to lower her eyes in an instant.
She then instinctively called out.
“S, sorry.”
Only then did he turn around, leaving the rest to the warden. The reason Yu Jitae stared at her like that was because he deemed that it had to be done to make her listen obediently, for today at least.
He wanted to go back to Unit 301 as soon as possible.
Apparently it was effective. When she was asked about the source of the cigarette, the female cadet obediently replied that she had gotten it from another cadet.
They soon arrived at the storage but the doors were locked. Yu Jitae tried to pull it but it remained closed. When he was contemplating whether he should break the door or not, the warden stepped forward and knocked on the door.
“Guys. Are you in there?”
A large amount of smoke oozed out through the gap between the doors but no-one replied.
“Guys? I’m the warden in charge. Can you open the door–?”
They still didn’t respond. It seemed that they would waste time here until it was 10. The camera came closer as the cameraman asked the obvious.
“Is the door locked?”
“Yes. They must’ve locked it from inside… They probably left through the auditorium windows to smoke a cigarette in secret or something.”
“Don’t they get punished more for it?”
“Yes… the actual leaving time is 10 o’clock but they in fact get treated like normal cadets already. It’s not something that goes against the regulations…”
The warden sweated. Then, he appeared embarrassed as he quickly resumed knocking on the door.
“Guys. If you don’t come out now, know that I’ll open the door and go in!”
Is that meant to be a threat? Yu Jitae watched on.
The warden unlocked the lock with his key but the door was still stuck by something, unable to be opened.
“Aigo, why is it like this… they must’ve done something with the door.”
Yu Jitae glanced at the cameraman’s watch before placing his hand next to the door. Killing intent left through his palm and cut the baseball bat, locking the sliding door from inside, in half.
It looked strange in the eyes of the warden. Yu Jitae gently slid the door to the side and it opened.
Three cadets were lying down on mats, smoking cigarettes.
“Uh?”
“What the fk.”
Staring at the door that suddenly opened, the broken baseball bat and Yu Jitae, they raised their bodies up. Wearing a serious look on his face, the warden told Yu Jitae.
“Sorry for all the trouble. I have no excuses.”
“…”
“But I’ll try to do my best from now on.”
Yu Jitae was about to tell him to stay still but decided against it, because the warden’s face looked a lot more serious. After entering the storage he spoke with a resolve that was a tiny bit, about as big as a rat’s tail, stronger than before.
“Guys. What are you doing here.”
“Why.”
“We don’t have everyone there. At this rate, no-one will be able to complete the guidance procedures until 10 o’clock.”