Chapter 185.1

Chapter 185.1

“Ugh! Instructor, stop chasing me!”

A man in a worn military uniform shouted with pale lips. The trainee ran up the rocky hillside, gasping for breath.

He quickly jumped over the bushes, avoiding the moss-covered tree stumps, signaling to his teammates, but something had gone wrong, and the coordinated operation was already a failure.

The teammates who had tried to strike the instructor from behind had been rendered useless and captured. Locked up in the mock prison, they confessed their plan.

‘D*mn! I have to survive! I need to complete this training to make it through to the graduation ceremony without incident.’

“Gah… Hah!”

The chills he felt were not just due to the cold weather. The sound of gravel crunching underfoot was coming closer right behind him.

In a panic, he glanced back to see the instructor, with black camouflage cream smeared all over his face, his eyes shining white, charging at him like a demon.

Damn! The distance he had thought was safe was rapidly closing, and the instructor swung his rifle.

Instructor Maxim mercilessly struck the trainee’s back and smashed his ankle as if to punish him.

“Such worthless ones, this is your first time.”

“Ugh!”

The trainee rolled on the uneven ground, trying to take a defensive position. The instructor, having forced a surrender, blew the whistle hanging around his neck and called forth the reserve members hiding nearby.

Young men in military uniforms gathered slowly, their faces showing distress. Lee Wooshin watched their faces and kicked their calves one after another. A low, cold foreign language flowed from his lips.

“Have you been playing tag like fools instead of focusing?”

The atmosphere froze instantly.

“Where did you learn the habit of abandoning your rifle and running away? Instead of regrouping the remaining members and coming up with a new plan, you just flee alone?”

“Today, I’m not the commander…”

“Those who are flustered and don’t know what to do, and the passive unit that ignores orders, the battlefield is a graveyard for you.”

“….”

“I’ve told you time and again that unexpected situations must be resolved on the spot to push forward with speed. The moment you hesitate, you’re all doomed.”

“….”

“Even if the command structure is shattered, someone should have led the unit!”

Lee Wooshin poked a woman’s shoulder wearing an armband with the end of his rifle. The woman, with her long black hair tied back, was gasping for breath.

“This unit will receive a full deduction of points, and if you have any conscience, take off that armband.”

As he coldly stared at her, Lee Wooshin turned and ordered, “Dismissed.”

As soon as the instructor left, the trainees, who had been maintaining a stiff posture, simultaneously collapsed onto the ground.

The woman bit her lower lip in frustration and watched the retreating instructor for a long time.

“Because of the instructor, we won’t even make it to the graduation ceremony!”

A trainee, whose ankle was swollen from being hit, wiped his dirty face and complained.

The instructor named Maxim was someone who had appeared out of nowhere. He was a man who entered the irregular Gurkha training camp, mixed with various nationalities from Pakistan, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and Kazakhstan, and completely changed the inspection standards in one fell swoop.

He was a devil who devised a new program that required passing through treacherous terrain of up to five miles, surrounded by chest-high water, minefields, smoke, and fire, rather than just doing a few sit-ups.

Moreover, in the weapons test, if you couldn’t shoot freely with the RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launcher, PKT machine gun, AK 74M automatic rifle, and Makarov pistol, you would be trained all night until blisters formed.

The difficulty of completing the training suddenly skyrocketed. Even more chilling was the four hand-to-hand combat sessions with the instructors.

“Ah… I really can’t take this anymore!”

However, the tall instructor, with not an ounce of fat on him, exercised more vigorously than the members here, and his functional shirt with raglan sleeves was always soaked. He was such a strict instructor that everyone became as mute as a bee after eating honey in front of him.

“Have you ever seen Instructor Maxim smile? No, right? He’s totally a devil!”

“I have.”

The woman, tightening her temporary command armband, spoke up. Her name is Asha.

“That instructor sometimes stares at my hair intently.”

“….”

A sudden chill fell over the atmosphere. One of the members threw a clod of dirt at her in mockery.

The woman shrugged it off, looking back in the direction the instructor had disappeared, as if it didn’t matter.

He really was an interesting person.

Despite his reputation as a devil, the sharp remarks he occasionally shot back were merely intimidating; he was openly indifferent.

One day, when a dim-witted guy was harshly gossiping about the instructor behind his back, Instructor Maxim passed by without acknowledging it.

In a place where discipline and order were important, wasn’t that a contradictory reaction for someone who had completely overhauled the training standards?

So sometimes, Asha felt a strange thrill from his emotionless gaze. No matter how she looked at it, his eyes didn’t seem rooted here. Occasionally, she felt a strange mischievousness toward him.

“He doesn’t yell at me to get out just because I’m a woman. He doesn’t discriminate. He doesn’t show favoritism either.”

“So?”

“His blatant indifference feels like… interest in a way.”

Everyone gathered their helmets and shook off their butts to stand up. They shook their heads as if they had heard nonsense. At that moment, a limping comrade suddenly yanked her armband away and said,

“Sorry for interrupting. But the instructor probably doesn’t even know our names, including yours.”