Chapter 178.1

Chapter 178.1

“Gasp… gasp!”

His stiff limbs trembled, and he couldn’t breathe properly. A familiar voice was choked with emotion as it urgently pressed the nurse call button.

The loud alarm shook his head.

‘Ah!’ Unable to exhale, thick veins stood out on his neck.

“Team Leader, are you coming to your senses? Can you hear my voice?”

“….”

‘Don’t touch me. I have to go back. That child is still in the Winter Castle!’

His eyes were fixed on an unfamiliar ceiling, but the sounds of explosions still echoed in his ears. His wide-open pupils trembled as if wandering through the past.

“Here, bring a sedative!”

“Team Leader, please, Team Leader!”

“The muscles are spasming, so the pain will be considerable! Family members, please step outside for a moment!”

Doctors rushed in, prying open Lee Wooshin’s eyelids and shining a penlight into his eyes.

‘Don’t touch me, d*mn it!’ He violently resisted, shaking off the hands that tried to restrain him. Then, several people rushed in to pin down his thrashing limbs.

“Patient, can you hear my voice?”

“….”

After several minutes of explosions, what remained was a chilling silence. As he desperately clawed his way up from the ground, the sky, clear without a cloud, covered his eyes with tears. There was nothing in his field of vision.

Thick black smoke billowed up, and the flames wouldn’t subside. There, Lee Wooshin stood alone, stepping over hundreds of corpses.

Until the rescue team forcibly dragged him away, he frantically dug through the ashes of Winter Castle with his hands.

He hadn’t even saved that child yet. He couldn’t do anything, nothing at all…

“Patient, you were transported to the hospital two months ago due to a gunshot wound and underwent surgery. Do you remember? How much do you recall? Please tell me your name and age.”

The doctor continued to ask questions while checking his pupils with the penlight.

“Your name. What is your name, patient?”

The sole survivor of the Winter Castle terror attack. His dry lips moved helplessly.

However, after miraculously surviving, Lee Wooshin’s life had become nothing short of a battlefield.

That year, Russia was in chaos.

The Kremlin, having lost all its ministers, could not quell the rising public anxiety and ultimately saw a regime change by a new force.

In the meantime, funerals and memorials continued without end, and the tragedy of the Solzhenitsyn family became the talk of the town through newspapers and news broadcasts.

Young, wealthy, and unhappy Yuri Solzhenitsyn.

He could not live quietly, besieged by all sorts of lowly and greedy gazes.

New political forces approached, seeking to exploit the boy’s halo, and he was frequently summoned to the police station simply for being the sole survivor.

Wherever he went – home, school, hospital – cameras followed him.

Around that time, as more people coveted the Solzhenitsyn family’s wealth, politicians with sweet-talking tongues and con artists with knives alternated in their visits.

Eventually, even hitmen moved in next door almost daily. The terror of a dark shadow looming over him in the middle of the night was–

“D*mn….”

Why did I survive? Why am I the only one left? The recurring thoughts gradually suffocated him.

Countless attempts at kidnapping, threats of murder, and attempted homicide. During the day, he heard praises for the young heir, and at night, he was glared at by those very people.

“What is this?”

“It’s a Private Military Company (PMC).”

While checking the list of the Solzhenitsyn family’s assets through a lawyer, one company caught his eye. It was a military firm based in South Africa.

The contemplation didn’t last long. It was time to abandon Russia, to abandon Solzhenitsyn.

“The safest way is to wander the world with us.”

“For how long?”

“Well, we should hold out until you become an adult, right? Once you reach legal adulthood, the pests should fall away on their own.”

“….”

“Then, should we demand a hefty sum for your upkeep, young master?”

To continue this unbearable life, he decided to abandon everything.

The aristocratic demeanor, the cultivated manners ingrained in him, and the standards of hygiene, he had to start all over again from the ground up.

“Patient, pull yourself together. What’s your name? How old are you?”

“Owl, twenty-seven, no, twenty-eight.”

He discarded his name and surname without a second thought.

Thus, he followed South African mercenaries, wandering through war-torn regions. At first, he was often dismissed as a prickly young master, but it took less than six months for him to become proficient with any weapon, whether it was an automatic rifle or a flamethrower.

His clumsy hunting skills improved dramatically, albeit in an unworthy manner, and in this place where only orders and obedience mattered, he witnessed all sorts of filthy sights.

Every day was a crossroads of survival.

He was hit by grenade shrapnel, bullets rained down with no ammunition left, and he carried a comrade with both legs severed over the mountains. Thanks to the wars he faced with a constant readiness to die, his body instinctively learned survival skills.

His skills in tracking, reconnaissance, camouflage, and surveillance increased, and the more twisted his personality became, the more adept he grew.

He snored even with a corpse beside him, and when his loose teeth wobbled, he simply smashed them out with the muzzle of a gun.