Chapter 48.1

Chapter 48.1

“Excuse me.”

Someone gently pulled the tightly clenched fist. A husky voice sought permission and handed over a warm mug.

“You seemed cold.”

He made sure Seoryeong’s fingertips felt the curvature of the cup, so she wouldn’t be startled. Despite his voice sounding like a bandit’s, his hands were surprisingly gentle.

In that moment, Seoryeong might have, perhaps, suppressed a choked-up feeling, acknowledging a little. She had to live in this kind of world from now on.

Remembering people by their voices, feeling someone’s kindness not through a smile but through temperature—a completely different world.

But she had also thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

The downpour that day quickly subsided.

“Ack!”

The sensation of a cold needle piercing through made her eyes snap open. Cold water, poured mercilessly onto her face, trickled down her jawline.

Where was this? Blinking dazedly, water droplets flowed into her wet eyelashes.

Memories were gradually coming back to her white, empty mind. Oh… she had been standing in formation at the assembly grounds.

She glanced around while shaking her head. The room was narrow and stuffy, with only one old light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Seoryeong stared at the flickering bulb as if it might go out at any moment. Each time it dimmed and brightened, the messy room was revealed.

Tiled walls stained with dirt, a broken bathtub filled with water, a wooden table with mismatched legs, and a variety of long tools scattered around. And…

“Why are you just waking up now? I thought you we are gonna rot waiting.”

“…!”

A man was holding her legs with a nonchalant expression.

As her hazy mind cleared, the bound arms started to twitch.

She was suspended like a fish, her arms tied above her head. Since her feet couldn’t touch the ground, just hanging there was quite taxing.

Her wrists, bearing her entire weight, felt numb for quite some time, and the skin rubbed by the ropes was itchy and sore.

Bit by bit, she began to grasp the situation she was in. Amidst it all, she thought it was fortunate not to be hanging upside down.

“Did you drug us?”

She asked the most pressing question first. However, Wooshin remained silent, only pouring water into the bathtub. He didn’t answer, but sometimes silence itself sounded like an answer.

Oh… Was it the water they drank after training?

The man approached with a brimming bucket of water, seeming almost overflowing.

Being with that man in this state for two days…

It was definitely torture and embarrassment.

At that moment, Wooshin muttered with a grim expression.

“59.9343°N, 30.3351°E.”

“….!”

“I already know the contents of the note.”

Seoryeong looked at him with a puzzled expression. What kind of training was this? It seemed to be over before it even started.

“I have something I want to hear, so there’s no need to make that expression,” he said beneath the orange light bulb, his face strangely unfamiliar and alien today.

While he often used informal language to belittle the recruits, it didn’t feel like that now. He wasn’t a team leader or an instructor at the moment. He seemed a bit more natural, and therefore closer to his true self.

“The instructors promised to teach you properly, to show you what you’re missing,” he said, pulling the rope attached to the pulley with force. As a result, her arms were pulled closer to her ears, and her body rose sharply, suspended like a slaughtered piece of meat hanging from the ceiling.

“Have you ever thought about what you might endure if you become a prisoner?”

He was now at eye level with her. Seoryeong glanced down at the distant floor, trying to move her feet unnecessarily. Wooshin picked up a long stick that had been on the table. It resembled a blind person’s cane.

“If you do something wrong, you might end up facing something bad in return,” he said. In an instant, electricity sparked from the stick he held.

“Blast’s main clients are often countries led by corrupt leaders. Most of them commit international crimes, and the Special Security Team cleans up behind these scumbags.”

“Clients associate with dictators, rebels, government agencies, and even drug lords.” Lee Wooshin said.