episode_0053

Four women sat around a large round table. Remili, who wanted to sit as far away from her sister as possible, took the seat opposite Ailee, and Mila and Sarah naturally faced each other.

Ailee was just sitting leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed and her mouth shut, while Remili, with her feet on the table, was chewing over the meaning of Ray’s casual remark for the 600th time. In the still silence, Sarah was sitting upright, her eyes blinking passionately as always.

“⋯⋯Well, I think. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be a little⋯friendly? Like, like regular coworkers.”

Mila, tired of the maddeningly awkward atmosphere that inevitably arises whenever a meeting is held, broke the silence and made a suggestion.

“That’s ridiculous. You have work to do, so why are you rambling on?”

Ailee immediately glared at Mila and answered harshly.

“Personal feelings can interfere with the cause, Captain!”

Sarah added in a cheerful voice, winking one eye.

“Haa⋯. At times like this, our hearts are in sync like ghosts. Remili, what about you?”

Mila lowered her head at their sharp answers and sighed.

“⋯Huh? What were you talking about?”

Remili, who had locked eyes with Mila, gave a dispirited answer.

“⋯⋯Yeah. I didn’t expect that.”

Today, too, Mila’s heart is filled with tears of blood as she forces a smile.

“The reason I’ve gathered you all here since this morning despite your busy schedules is… As you all probably already know, the rumors that the bandits we’re supposed to eliminate have taken over the Songrad Castle and are using it as their base have been confirmed by our side.”

“I saw it with my own eyes and confirmed it!”

Sarah raises her hand.

“Yeah, thank you for your hard work. I heard you carried the injured person. Was there an accident on the way here?”

“Oh, no. The injury was sustained during the operation, and one of our agents carried him all the way from Songrad Castle to here. ”

“From there⋯ to here?”

Mila tilts her head.

“Yes.”

Mila glanced at the map on the table with a suspicious look. Even though it was flat ground, it was quite a distance, but this winding mountain path⋯?

“⋯⋯Well, let’s move on from that. Make sure you get some medical treatment. Now we can concentrate our troops and supplies. It turns out that the guys who seemed to be scattered here and there were actually active around the Songrad Castle area. The problem is⋯how do we wipe out the guys who got inside the walls?”

Mila places a small, model of a Siberian flag on the map.

“I propose surrender! The vigilantes’ power has clearly decreased due to their activities so far. Unless they are leaders, we should rehabilitate the low-level thieves as we have been doing so far⋯.”

Sarah suggests, blowing her stupid hair upwards.

“I don’t think things will work out that easily. Recently, the position of the thief group’s enemy, the woman commonly called Jackie, is said to be almost on par with that of a god. Unlike the sporadic groups or the executives we’ve subdued so far who mostly acted for profit. The thief group itself is now close to a religious group. Will the guys who believe that woman will split the ground and make it rain accept a surrender offer?”

Ailee intervened and started to argue back. Sera’s face became sullen.

“⋯It’s just like Ailee said. When we rescued the prisoners of the Songrad family, the guys we brought with us just couldn’t communicate.”

Mila nodded and said.

“So what happened to those guys who failed in negotiations?”

Ailee asked casually. Mila frowned.

“⋯⋯Executed according to procedure. According to the laws of this country.”

Ailee shrugged her shoulders as if waiting for Mila’s answer.

“The law should be fair, right?”

Ailee’s meaningful questions continued. As if she had guessed that she would once again bring up the issue of Teria’s execution here, Mila did not lose her composure and only moved her lips to convey her message to Ailee.

‘That problem later.’

Ailee lifts her chin high, and one corner of her mouth goes up.

“Don’t you know that the basics of a siege are waiting? If you don’t let supplies into the castle, they’ll starve to death. ”

Remili, who had been wiggling her toes, clasped her hands behind her head and blurted out indifferently.

“That’s true, but… the problem is that we don’t know how many days, or even years, it will take until they collapse! If we mobilize all our forces and surround that large Songrad Castle, there will be supply issues, and there’s no guarantee that another threat won’t emerge in the vast southern region.”

Sarah said, comparing the size of the Songrad Castle drawn on the map to the size of her palm.

“Then, if that’s the only option left…then I guess we have to go in there ourselves. Who would have thought that the catapults we had planted on the outskirts of the city would come in handy one day?”

“That won’t do.”

Ailee answered Mila’s words firmly.

“You don’t think that just because you have weapons, you can use them in actual combat, do you? Even if it’s equipment that’s been left unattended for months, how are you going to train volunteers who aren’t even regular soldiers? And we don’t have any experience in siege warfare.”

“Lies.”

Remili blurted out.

“If you weren’t going to use it as a weapon, why did you pitch a tent and maintain it every week to protect it from the constant rain and snow? You want the villagers to come out and look at it? Say something like you missed the glory of the past because it’s a family relic.”

Remili jumped up from her seat, clenched her fists, and pounded her chest as she continued to speak.

“I’ll take care of the training. Unlike some fake Kindles, I’m well-versed in military science, as befitting a child of a tactical elite. And our special forces have many combat veterans from the Southern Defense Unit. They’re the ones with a lot of real-world experience. And what’s wrong with us being volunteers? The guys inside the castle are just some thieves anyway.”

Remili leans forward and points to the map with her hand.

“Songrad Castle is built along a cliff facing east, so there are three gates facing north, west, and south. The south gate is the largest and easiest to attack, but the walls here are double and triple. It’s meaningless to break through once, so let’s exclude it from the list. The west gate… is the smallest, and there’s a mountain blocking the way. It’ll be hard to drag a catapult through there, so if we exclude that too… the only one left is the north gate. It’s across a river, but if it’s this far, our catapults should be fine. ”

When Remili explained the plan with a more serious look than usual, Mila felt as if she had become a different person. Sarah stroked her chin and looked at the map with an interested look.

“⋯I guess that’s the kind of studying you did alone in your room every day when no one was paying attention?”

Ailee complains with a sneer on her face.

“Oh, that’s right. While you were trembling in fear of being kicked out by your father who was a prostitute, you were going around showing off to the elders of the family.”

Remili snickers and counters. Their eyes are filled with a murderous desire for each other that makes it hard to believe they are sisters born in the same boat.

At around the same time, another sister was following Ray around with sparkling, round eyes.

“Did you ask? What did you say?”

“Can I meet your mom?”

“Umm… Not today, but I’ll see you soon. I told you not to worry too much because I’m doing well.”

Ray also hadn’t directly seen Teria’s face to confirm it, but judging from the tone of voice of the guard guarding the front of the detention center, it seemed that her execution or something like that hadn’t happened yet as they had feared. The kids were a little disappointed by Ray’s words, but their anxiety seemed to have subsided a little.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Tell me a funny story!”

“I need to finish cleaning the fireplace I was just doing.”

Ray, whose nose and cheeks were covered in soot, said as he walked back toward the dorm.

“Hey, that’s not fun.”

“You did it before, you’re doing it again?”

The twin sisters followed Ray, mumbling and trudging along. Memer, who was watching them from a distance, bit his lip with a bitter expression on his face.

“Mr. Memer, here is the item you requested.”

When she got out of the carriage, she wasn’t wearing her vigilante outfit.

“Excuse me, Memer?”

“Yeah⋯, you worked hard.”

Memer, who seemed to have lost his mind somewhere, looked back only after calling out twice. When the woman opened the door of the carriage, Memer began to examine them carefully.

“⋯⋯I’m glad you were somehow saved. Take the incense to my room, and keep the alcohol cold. Be careful not to freeze. What happened to the thing I told you to ask?”

“Oh, he said there’s nothing special planned. I already told the special agents, so Remili will definitely be in her quarters tonight.”

Memer smiles with satisfaction at his subordinate’s answer.