Chapter 115 - Emergency Mobilization (3)

Yun was angry.

Understandably so. This wasn't just a slight against me; they had disregarded my training officer's orders. There was no way they hadn't known my training officer was Choi Yun, so they had probably assumed he wouldn't see what happened.

Either way, this man wasn't going to let it slide.

Yun kicked Dawson in the stomach as he tried to get up.

THUD!

"Get your fucking head on the ground."

An ordinary person would have died.

The blow was strong enough to damage even a Badger's organs. Indeed, Dawson screamed in pain and rolled across the ground.

He didn't look capable of thinking about putting his head on the ground...

I slowly got to my feet.

At the same time, Yun shoved someone else by the back of the head, driving them into the ground.

"You too."

Who was this one now?

"Thought I wouldn't see?"

Ah. The person who had pushed me in the back.

The two seniors planted their heads on the asphalt.

We were in the middle of a ruined city.

Heavy silhouettes drew my eyes in the deep darkness. Towering buildings and asphalt split by jagged cracks. An overturned SUV and a shopping cart that could have come from anywhere.

It had probably been quite a busy street once.

Now it merely exuded the gloomy atmosphere of an apocalypse movie. I took a deep breath of the fallen city's air. Something faintly resembling the smell of paint hung over the street.

The seniors braced their heads against the hard asphalt and clasped their hands behind their backs.

What a pity.

"As you can see, assuming you have eyes..."

Yun's voice still simmered with irritation and anger.

"I'm the squad leader on this mission."

He was.

A squad leader was assigned for every mission. When I'd gone outside the core to escape Jaeyeon, it had been Richard. On the colosseum mission, it had been Riccardo.

This time it was Choi Yun.

I had seen it displayed on the hologram in the portal zone just a few minutes earlier. That must have been why my training officer had been so irritated by the personnel selection.

Yun continued in a low voice.

"We're the only ones in Area 14."

He really was furious.

"That's the nice thing about being outside the core. No witnesses. Wouldn't you agree?"

The seniors kept their heads planted and didn't move.

Surely no one could miss the implication.

Yun stared down at the pair, who were as quiet as mice, then turned his head.

"Everyone, face down."

Collective punishment, then.

I bent down along with the seniors, who wordlessly dropped into push-up positions.

Then my training officer caught me by the nape.

"You, stand over there by yourself."

"Sir?"

That would only make them dislike me more.

The thought crossed my mind, immediately followed by another: so what if they did?

What was the point of winning over people who engaged in such textbook rookie hazing, anyway?

Without arguing, I went and stood to the side.

Yun whipped his head toward the seniors lined up on the ground and began issuing orders in a flat voice. I watched with my hands behind my back as they lay face down, then on their backs, following his commands.

The punishment was brief and intense.

To finish, Yun brought his combat boot down on the back of each insubordinate senior's head.

"Ohhh, so we were supposed to stop that."

The other seniors scrambled to their feet.

One of them, a tall, solidly built figure, came toward me, rubbing his neck.

"I didn't realize... Sorry. I'm a little slow about these things."

I looked blankly at him.

His helmet and lowered visor hid his face, but his voice told me he was a man. There was no malice or sense of inferiority in that clear, easy voice.

I stared at the senior beside me.

"Oh, can't you see my face?"

The man clicked his visor up.

Bright blue eyes appeared.

"Sorry. I forgot that showing your face is the polite thing to do."

Despite saying that, he didn't seem to have any intention of taking his helmet off.

And he blinked strangely seldom.

His eyes were as piercing as my training officer's.

"Leonard, sir?"

"Huh? How did you know?"

Just as I'd thought.

I'd had a feeling he was the same sort as Yun. I gave him a small smile as he marveled, "That's amazing. I've never met you before."

Why were there so many people like this around me?

I resented the fact that dealing with Colton and Yun had given me the ability to identify people with antisocial personality disorder.

Those two were more than enough already...

My sociopathic senior offered a cheerful assurance.

"I'll try to stop this sort of thing if it happens again. Sorry about this time."

"No, sir. I appreciate you saying so."

"We're moving out."

Yun's voice cut our conversation short.

"Through Area 10 to Area 7. Take a motorcycle each."

Several motorcycles stood at the edge of the road where we had emerged.

They hadn't been abandoned here. They seemed to have been brought through the portal from headquarters. They were the same model I'd seen at the Library of Beginnings.

As I turned toward them, someone darted across my field of vision.

"Here you are, sir!"

The first person to reach the motorcycles brought one over to Yun.

"Your ride, sir!"

Impressive.

Even I couldn't manage that. Admiring such prompt service, I headed toward the motorcycles.

Then someone took me to task.

"Aren't you moving a little slowly?"

It was the senior who had pushed me in the back.

What remarkable powers of recovery.

Not wanting the hassle, I answered readily.

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, rookie! What kind of manners are those, grabbing a bike for yourself first?"

The man who had just delivered Yun's motorcycle turned and shouted at me.

"You bring your seniors theirs first, then take the last one!"

Ah.

So that was how this group worked. I stepped back off the motorcycle I had been about to mount.

Then I smiled and presented it to the senior who ran over.

Now I understood perfectly why Yun had snapped at the head of HR.

"That was thoughtless of me."

"Don't make the same mistake again."

He swung onto the motorcycle and went over to Yun.

My training officer was ready to leave and listening to his comms.

That bootlicking senior seemed to have felt free to lecture me because he was certain my training officer couldn't hear. If Yun had been listening, he would have pretended to be nice to me to get on his good side.

In any case, I kept the smile on my face.

"Clueless little shit."

Beside me, the senior who'd criticized me for being slow muttered as he climbed onto a motorcycle.

"A little attention from other people, and he forgets his place."

Everyone mounted up.

Things moved quickly. As soon as my training officer confirmed we were all on our motorcycles, he set off. True to form, he offered no further explanation.

We raced after him through the decaying city.

Not that racing was easy, with shattered asphalt, fallen utility poles, and stalled cars blocking the roads everywhere.

As expected of Sector B, the place was crawling with creatures, too.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The Badgers shot down the creatures blocking our path.

Most, we simply ignored and rode past, because that was what Yun did at the head of the group. I watched in quiet admiration as he sped along as fast as possible, killing whatever he could with his motorcycle.

He really was an extraordinary human.

When would I finally be able to cut a piece from that man's clothes?

The cold night wind slapped my cheeks. The roar of motorcycles filled the ruined road and battered my eardrums. I burst a giant slug crawling onto the road and swerved.

Following my seniors, I passed between a bus and a truck blocking the way.

Then I slammed on the brakes.

SCREEEECH!

"Aah!"

A senior was lying in the road.

I braked desperately.

Turning the motorcycle completely sideways, I barely managed to stop.

Wow.

Any closer and I would have run right over him.

I was too shocked to speak. My heart hammering wildly, I looked at the person at my feet.

He must have fallen.

The wreckage of a smashed motorcycle littered the road.

Panting, I finally managed to speak.

"I'm sorry."

We needed to sort this out and get moving.

"Get on behind me, sir."

The senior sprang up and climbed on behind me without a word.

I, too, said nothing more and started the motorcycle again. Naturally, Yun hadn't waited for us. The others were already a fair distance ahead, so I opened the throttle to avoid being left behind.

Our speed climbed steadily.

We rode over the mangled wreckage of the motorcycle.

"Hey, ease off the throttle!"

I ignored the anxious words of the senior clinging to my waist.

"Go too fast and even we can die!"

I suspected going slowly and getting left behind would have the same result.

The two of us wouldn't last long alone in a place full of this many creatures.

I didn't bother saying so. Instead, I accelerated and focused on catching up to the seniors racing down the road.

I kept at it until I regained our pace and settled in a comfortable distance behind Leonard.

We didn't stop until we reached Area 7.

* * *

Once we reached our destination, Yun dismounted.

My training officer gave a terse order.

"Find a place where we can deal with the creatures that'll come swarming in."

With a gun in one hand, he vanished into the dark city.

"I'll be back within ten minutes."

At least he was equally bad at explaining things to everyone.

I gave a small snort as I watched my training officer melt into the darkness. We were in Area 7. No one had told us why we'd come here instead of Area 5, or exactly what we were supposed to do.

He could at least have told us where he was going and what he was going to do.

I stared sullenly into the darkness where Yun had disappeared.

There were creatures all around us.

None were approaching us yet, but I could sense them prowling in the darkness, watching. There were so many. I could detect so many individual creatures that there was no need to sharpen my senses.

Surely going alone would be dangerous, even for him.

As I stood there sulking, someone approached.

"Hey."

I felt a tap on my arm and turned.

And found myself face-to-face with someone I was sick of.

"Gray Hair. Didn't you hear the squad leader?"

This man certainly recovered quickly, too.

Such admirable dedication, coming back to pick a fight without getting tired of it even after Yun had kicked him in the gut.

I looked straight into Dawson's visor.

"I heard him, sir."

"Then move instead of standing there like an idiot."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry."

"So, I hear you've had nothing but gray hair since you were a kid?"

Dawson snickered at me.

"Does that mean you're white down below, too?"

A couple of Badgers listening in burst out laughing.

I answered the guffawing seniors politely.

"Yes. Would you like me to show you?"

I could practically see Dawson's brow furrow through his visor.

"Cut the filthy talk."

"I'm sorry. You seemed curious."

"He asked if you wanted to see. Gah. That's fucking hilarious."

"Is this bastard completely clueless or what?"

"Show us what?"

"Lucia, read the room and stay out of it!"

"Dawson. Stop picking on the rookie. Let's get moving."

A senior holding his removed helmet addressed Dawson gently.

His kind face gave me a little hope. I'd never met this man before, but at least he looked decent. He made a good first impression, anyway. He didn't seem as out of touch as Leonard.

Yes. Surely at least one of them was normal...

"Good to meet you, rookie. I'm Isaac Lane."

Damn it. One of the names my training officer had spat out.

Hiding my mounting disappointment, I shook his offered hand.

Nine minutes until Choi Yun returned.

I was already learning firsthand just how much could happen in that short time.