Ch.528Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS (End)

# Five days had passed since my youngest sibling’s (spy) coming out.

Jerry hyung was worried about his younger siblings joining intelligence agencies as a pair, while Adela noona sneered, saying the family was turning out just fine.

Many conversations were exchanged.

Unable to stand by and watch Aila’s reckless behavior after her mind had gone astray, I prepared to begin her mental reformation with a club I had named “Justice Stick.”

Of course, I failed.

“Hey, don’t be so harsh.”

“If you’re that worried, teach her yourself, you bastard. Are you really trying to hit a grown lady’s behind with a stick?”

“Let me go. I’m teaching her right now.”

“Teaching what?”

“Guts.”

My sincere educational effort to build up her courage, guts, and nerve was thwarted by the fervent opposition of the eldest brother and sister. It was truly an outrageous injustice.

Adela, who confiscated my club, scolded me to teach her with words instead. I reluctantly agreed.

However, me teaching that brat with words never happened.

Four hours later.

I was dropped in another country.

# Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS

The sky that looked like it would rain at any moment remained quiet even after sunset.

After a period of calm…

As night gently descended, droplets began to fall steadily over the city.

The rain soaking the dark canvas eventually stained even the shoulders dancing below. When raindrops pour onto the canvas where orange, blue, and white fragments of light have plunged, ripples large and small rise in groups.

That weather, somehow both unfamiliar and nostalgic, suddenly reminds me of the days when I was assigned to East Africa.

A canvas streaked with thick raindrops.

Smoke began to rise within it right after a small match was lit.

-Tsssk…

Red lips burned the air with flickering breath. The momentarily subsided breathing rekindled the fire as soon as the thread-like gray smoke disappeared.

A firefly flickers in the darkness. The face reflected on the LCD screen.

Leather gloves holding a slight dampness grip the handle.

Intoxicated by the distinctive damp smell of a rainy day, I stare blankly at the city center. The man with a cigarette between his lips stood by the roadside, aimlessly gazing into the darkness.

The 5.8-inch blade flew through the fierce rain, breaking its streams.

The femoral artery between the thigh and pelvis is cut, and the carotid artery passing through the neck is torn. The sensation traveling through the handle of the Fulltang knife was surprisingly similar to cutting lotus roots.

The knife that pierced through the ribs and hit the heart entered and exited the man’s torso three or four times. The blade that had been stuck in the back of the hand holding the thigh brushed past under the forcibly turned chin.

By the time the knife, which had severed the vocal cords with force, finally pierced through the temple area…

A car stopped in front of me as I retrieved the knife.

Intelligence officers who jumped out onto the road as if leaping from the car door grabbed the fallen man’s face and shined a light on it.

“Mohammed bin Abdul Hakan Al-Badin. Death confirmed.”

The intelligence officers quickly loaded the target into the van.

I trampled over the dark canvas soaked with red dye and took a seat.

With a precious dry cigarette in my mouth, the moment I flicked the lighter—chik-chik—I muttered, exhaling the smoke I had inhaled while leaning my head against the seat, looking like a soaked rat.

“Phew. Shit…”

What the hell am I doing because of that bitch Aila?

*

I’ve made countless mistakes in my life so far.

Among them, the three with the biggest aftermath were:

First, joining military intelligence instead of the National Intelligence Service. Second, bringing Veronica in as an informant. And third, jumping into the field as Aila’s substitute.

To be honest, the first two mistakes were closer to acts of God, like natural disasters.

During my school days, I applied for ROTC to pay off my student loans, so I didn’t even have the luxury of applying for the National Intelligence Service recruitment. And when I was working as a teacher, if I hadn’t accepted Veronica, I would have likely been crushed by those Guardian Office bastards.

In other words, deciding to go into the field in place of Aila, the family troublemaker, was entirely my decision.

That was a mistake.

“Director, no, Director Leoni. Who did you just say you’re dispatching?”

“You know that new recruit your company received? That friend’s brother is a major in our company, and he says he’ll go there this time.”

The Royal Intelligence Service was in the midst of preparing for regular personnel exchanges with the Military Intelligence Agency. Though they called it preparation, they had already drawn up the list, so it was practically at the end stage.

But Leoni excluded one employee from the list and added a new name.

No matter how high-ranking, the Royal Intelligence Service is clearly a national intelligence agency, and the Military Intelligence Agency is a sectoral intelligence agency. Even the National Intelligence Service can’t arbitrarily dictate terms when cooperating with the military. If Leoni pulled something like this, many people would be in trouble.

But when the newly updated list arrived, the corners of the Royal Intelligence Service Personnel Selection Committee’s mouths rose to the sky.

“Ah, ah- So it was this person! You should have said so earlier. Then we’ll consider this the final list. The deadline is right around the corner, so it would be troublesome if you bring a different list later. Ah yes, thank you for your hard work~”

The usual personnel exchanges typically included only elite names, so a suddenly changed list would have been a tiresome event that only increased administrative work. But this updated list was quite different.

Perhaps that’s why? The Royal Intelligence Service Personnel Selection Committee came looking for me before my vacation even ended.

“You’re Major Frederick who’s scheduled to be dispatched this time, right?”

“Yes. But I’m currently on vacation. If you’re here about the training that starts with the personnel exchange, next time…”

“Checking now, your name isn’t on the training list. I’m truly sorry, but it seems you’ll have to receive training later. For now, you need to go on a business trip, so let’s pack your bags first. Yes.”

“…What? No- What nonsense is that-“

After throwing Aila (who joined the Royal Intelligence Service as a new recruit this year) to the Royal Intelligence Service employees who were about to drag me away, I quickly ran into the bathroom and screened the situation at the company.

In other words, I frantically bit my nails with my teeth, trembling my legs, and called Clevins.

-‘Oh, yes. Is that you?’

“Director? The Royal Intelligence Service people are telling me to go on a business trip now. What the hell is this?”

-‘That’s how it turned out. Ah, you know the company situation.’

After mobilizing all my connections and running radar checks here and there, the result was surprisingly an “administrative error.”

Normally, when you go on a personnel exchange, you take your first steps leisurely while looking around, getting education, and whatnot.

For this, the HR departments need to exchange official documents, but the Military Intelligence Agency’s HR executive forgot that the list had been updated, and went on vacation without sending an official document to the Royal Intelligence Service’s HR department.

“Fucking hell!”

So I threw my phone at the tile and tore at my hair, and the Royal Intelligence Service employee who rushed into the residence pounded on the bathroom door as if to break it down.

“Excuse me? Sir! Whatever the situation is, let’s come out and talk about it! Let’s talk!”

“S-senior…? Um, my brother actually has constipation…”

“Oh, so that’s why you cursed? I was quite startled.”

Aila. Please shut your mouth.

There was absolutely nothing I could do in this accident caused by the HR executive’s mistake. It meant I had to pack my bags and go on a business trip even though my vacation hadn’t ended.

Personally, I had speculated that I might be assigned to Kyen. But my hopeful heart, which remained dreamy until I trudged out pulling my carrier, was shattered into pieces by the Royal Intelligence Service employee’s thunderbolt-like nonsense.

“Where did you say I’m going?”

“Yes. The East Mauritanian countries.”

“Isn’t that a civil war zone? Am I mistaken? I think my colleagues were deployed there.”

“That’s correct. That’s exactly where the Abas military deployment units are stationed.”

For reference, the East Mauritanian region, like East and West Africa, was a neighborhood where coups and civil wars were everyday occurrences.

Somalia, where the Cheonghae Unit operates, was a representative disaster state in East Africa.

Ethiopia, famous for terrorism like the Sahel Triangle border area; Tanzania, which even went to war with Uganda; Mozambique, which is said to have improved somewhat after the end of the civil war but is actually a complete mess—all of these are in East Africa.

As for West Africa, it’s already famous for the “coup belt” stretching from Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso-Chad-Sudan. After the consecutive coup race that erupted in the 2020s, it became a new transit route for South American drug cartels to distribute cocaine to Europe, so detailed explanation wasn’t even necessary.

And from what I heard, East Mauritania was where Pippin had eradicated pirates when he served as a naval intelligence officer, and where Jake had gone to take rebel heads when he was in a special warfare unit.

Although I had never been to East Mauritania, when I worked at military intelligence, I had rummaged through all the countries in East and West Africa.

“…Ah, no!”

The civil servant, recalling the horrors of his military intelligence days, was more than startled—he threw away his carrier and attempted to execute “I’m not going, you bastards.”

However, the Royal Intelligence Service employees, excited about recruiting a new victim, stuffed the civil servant (victim, age 29) into the car and threw him into East Mauritania.

And thus!

The hero of the reverse-coup that saved the Federation of Zamria!

The exemplar of self-sacrifice who jumped into a burning hell pit in place of his sister!

A civil servant who studied French and Kyen language but barely visited France and the Empire, instead wandering through Eastern Europe, China, Russia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America!

(???: Who threatened you to fail the selection? LMAO / ???: Bastard…. Kiyeol!)

Since Administrative Sergeant Kiyeol, the enemy of executives, voluntarily flew to East Mauritania!

The desert rebels, warlords, pirates, terrorists, criminals, and cartels would taste the angry knife work of a foreigner (who was suspiciously fluent in local languages) trained with over a decade of experience!

*

The work performance of the newly arrived personnel amazed the branch director dispatched to East Mauritania.

Whether it was intelligence collection or information analysis.

Even if you scraped together all his overseas deployment experience, it would barely reach 5 years, yet wasn’t he performing better than most 10-year veterans?

The branch director, who hadn’t expected much, was greatly impressed and requested a meeting, where he shed a whole bucket of tears.

How could this be! Jumping into this harsh workplace out of concern for his sister! Even though the company employees themselves struggled and fought not to come to this dangerous place!

And despite the sudden dispatch, he didn’t waste time idly but worked diligently!

It was a story that couldn’t be heard without tears.

“Send me home…”

Truly impressed by this, the branch director spanked the employees who weren’t doing their assigned work and were secretly playing in the department store (they had gone out to collect information but rushed to a café because it was hot), and then opened a bottle of moonshine at dawn and submitted a document through the reporting line.

Impressed by the remarkable achievements, the headquarters granted the dispatched intelligence officer “special leave.”

Soon, the intelligence officer who received “special leave” was sold off to branches in neighboring areas, upper areas, lower areas, and even branches that required crossing borders four or five times over 38 hours of driving.

“Please return me to my original unit…”

Behold. Despite dizzying motion sickness and air conditioning as lukewarm as the streams of urine in a Chinese backwater public bathhouse, he analyzes intelligence on his terminal while breathing in a mouthful of dust through the window.

Isn’t he focusing on his work for 14 hours straight, crouched among boxes full of equipment, chewing motion sickness pills?

“I was on vacation, you bastards…”

Though a muttering sound was heard, the driver thought it was just a habitual self-talk and continued driving down the unpaved road.

Bump-bump! Thud, rattle-rattle-rattle! The vehicle rushing down the broken road bounces up and down, reminiscent of a roller coaster or bumper car.

Nevertheless, the intelligence officer (lumbar disc progression 97%) stuffed like luggage doesn’t even complain, and with eyes like frozen pollack laid out at Noryangjin Fish Market, stares at the Labor Office’s complaint submission screen on his terminal, urging him to report the evil corporation right now.

“This is a labor law violation, damn it…”

This is the middle of the East Mauritanian desert, where silent screams echo emptily.

The radio waves filled with desperation wandered over the sand without being received by the Abas Labor Office.

The sixth failed submission screen appeared much later.

# Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS – END –