Chapter 41.2

“Where can I find it? I mean, on which floor of the company…”

“Don’t get carried away, Han Seoryeong, it’s just a nutritional pill.”

“But you said they’re not uncommon for the others?”

Lee Wooshin walked out without a word, seeming annoyed.

“Sir…!”

Although she called out plaintively, he just waved his hand as if it were a bother and walked away.

By the end of the morning routine, the dormitory was filled with the smell of Mentholatum.

멘소래담 (Mentholatum) refers to a brand of menthol-based topical ointments or balms commonly used for relieving minor aches and pains

“If the instructor sees you, you’ll lose your will to train, and you’ll be sent home.”

It’s been that way for a long time,” one of the soldiers at the mess hall table said, glancing at Seoryeong.

She was furiously stabbing at the first clean plate of food she had received in a long time. She forced her jaw to work, and suddenly the atmosphere became sombre.

She looked up to find the entire crew staring at her with pity.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

She asked in a muffled voice, and they just buried their heads in their plates.

Seoryeong had always been the last to eat, but things had only recently gotten better.

The instructors deliberately rushed everyone to finish their meals within five minutes, so the meals were always a mess. Moreover, everyone’s table manners were so poor that it was hard to tell if something was a new side dish or food waste.

This happened because the company didn’t emphasise order in the first place, but rather just trained people to complete everything on time.

It had been a long time since Seoryeong had received a proper meal after eating such garbage. There was no time for small talk. She just gripped her spoon tightly and shoved the warm rice into her mouth without stopping. Some people put down their cutlery as if they had lost their appetite, but it wasn’t funny.

The men, who at first had been unnecessarily bossy because she was a woman, had recently begun to approach and talk to her as she stood her ground like an Akbari.

She didn’t know if it was the hard training together that broke down the barriers, or if it was the compassion, but the way they looked at each other began to show sympathy and vulnerability.

I don’t know exactly when that happened…

It was when they greeted the morning sun rising from the sea together for four days without sleep. Darn it… Just thinking about it made her curse like a reflex.

She was tempted to give up several times a day, as she was human, but she pressed the sentiment back down and swallowed it down her throat with her rice.

She was curiously confident that she could hold on, but in reality, she was on the verge of fainting. Each time she gritted her teeth, she remembered Kim Hyun.

Because of her pride, her ego, and her ager towards Lee Wooshin, who was a sadist and played people around like a maniac, she couldn’t possibly give up.

Now she ran five kilometres every morning. One day she even wore a four-kilogram weight belt because Lee Wooshin told her to.

The man would drop coins and screws at the bottom of the pool and blow a whistle without even trying. The crew would then have to wade to the bottom of the pool barefoot and without goggles to pick up the items he dropped.

Vomiting and dizziness were a daily occurrence, and her coworkers would run while nauseous. It was a non-stop schedule that made her feel like she was going to lose her mind.

After running, her feet would swell so much that she couldn’t take off her shoes. She had to untie her combat boots completely before she could take them off.

There wasn’t a single spot on her heels, inside her knees, or in her groin that wasn’t sore. So everyone crawled on their hands and knees.

They would go to the infirmary, and the doctor would just soak a cotton ball with a handful of red medicine and dab it on their bodies.

“Ugh…….”

She bit her lip to stifle the soreness, and in the bunks next to her, some of the more raggedy crewmembers were sobbing.

“Get up on the roof and dry off!”

The medic instructed them to dry themselves in the sunlight without bandaging them.