Chapter 241.1: Even If My life Is Filled With Tears (2)

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The enemies were still five hundred meters away from them.

Clouds of dust rose and disappeared all over the wilderness between the base and the enemies.

“Hold your fire!” Kang Chul-Gyu shouted loud enough for even those who were inside the barracks next door to hear. “Get some cover!”

Even as hostiles walked to the front of the truck, Kang Chul-Gyu stayed as much as he could at the back of the barracks and kept ordering the soldiers not to shoot. He smirked as he stared at his enemies, who were taunting them.

The moment his men raised their heads to take aim, enemy snipers would immediately shoot them down. Nevertheless, Kang Chul-Gyu stood tall, seemingly telling their enemies to come and get him. He stood at the very back of the barracks on purpose.

The enemy snipers were most likely going out of their minds right now. Considering the distance between them and the South Korean team, they could shoot Kang Chul-Gyu in the head with ease if they just peeked out and brought their sniper rifles up to shoot. However, no sniper would do something so reckless, especially not those from the Spetsnaz, now that they knew how good of a shot Kang Chul-Gyu was.

It was difficult to determine where the snipers were since they were covered with ocher-colored fabrics that were ripped into pieces to form a Ghillie suit[1], which also served as proof that they used to be members of the Spetsnaz.

However, Kang Chul-Gyu was the DMZ King.

Creating that kind of legend in this day and age was difficult now since close-quarters combat at the DMZ no longer existed. Attacking guard posts was also considered taboo now.

Kang Chul-Gyu quickly scanned their surroundings.

In his prime, Russia’s Spetsnaz and China’s White Wolves were deployed at the DMZ multiple times. Part of their special training involved slitting the necks of their enemies.

Kang Chul-Gyu let out a huff of laughter.

He remembered his superior asking him not to kill people like them.

‘What about the men on our side? Are you telling me to just watch those pitiful people over there get their necks cut off?’

‘Do I really have to spell out why I’m telling you this? They have ordered us to just leave them be! As your commanding officer, I order you never to leave the barracks today. You are not allowed to go there, do you hear me?! You’re going to get yourself either injured or killed at this rate! If you disobey this order and cause Russia and China to kick up a fuss, I won’t be able to protect you!’

Kang Chul-Gyu could still remember the look on his superior’s face when he yelled and pounded his desk so clearly that it was as if it just happened yesterday.

Back then, he smiled the same way as he did now.

***

“It must be nice to work furthest from the frontlines! It’s the safest over there!” The rescue officers in the DMZ yelled to the soldiers protecting the cease-fire line.

The men at the DMZ and the North Korean soldiers had secured a path that they could all use to get through the area that was filled with landmines. However, the shitty North Korean soldiers secretly buried landmines in that path at night.

Kang Chul-Gyu’s heart pounded whenever their enemies did something like that. Without fail, he would find the landmines.

However, people were sometimes sent on mine detection missions without him, resulting in some of them returning with their ankles or knees blown off. That was why he didn’t have time to rest.

Kang Chul-Gyu’s heart furiously pounded whenever the Spetsnaz and the White Wolves infiltrated their territory. If he couldn’t go on operations on those days, then two or three of his men would have their necks slit or their heads blown off, leaving only their bodies behind.

His superior was telling Kang Chul-Gyu to stay at the barracks even though he knew what was going to happen.

The Spetsnaz would stab the ears of Kang Chul-Gyu with an awl as proof that they had completed their training. The White Wolves would behead his men with ease and give their heads to the North Korean soldiers before leaving.

Hence, seeing his men’s corpses was enough for Kang Chul-Gyu to know exactly who killed them.

That wasn’t all.

North Korean special military officers and the Airborne Corps of the People's Liberation Army Air Force would stab his men’s hearts and slice through their Adam’s apples, stopping only when their heads were finally dangling lifelessly.

Resting for a day would mean allowing their enemies to slit the necks of his men with a knife, stab their hearts, pierce through their ears with an awl, or behead their corpses. It was such a common occurrence that they could almost say with certainty that it was inevitable.

Kang Chul-Gyu couldn’t pretend that he didn’t notice that his men, who had just turned twenty, looked happy whenever they saw him even though they were very nervous.

Their search party consisted of career soldiers and ordinary soldiers.

“Inspect your firearms!” Kang Chul-Gyu ordered.

Clank!

His men pulled the breechblock of their weapons, then returned their gaze to Kang Chul-Gyu.

“What’s the password!” Kang Chul-Gyu exclaimed.

“– – that’s all!”

Although Kang Chul-Gyu wanted to make sure they knew the password, they uttered it so quietly that he couldn’t even hear it.

They passed three cease-fire lines without a single word. When they finally got out, he had a smoke with his squad.

“Thank you for your hard work,” they told Kang Chul-Gyu.

How could he comfortably stay in the barracks and leave people who approached him so welcomingly to fend for themselves?

At the time, Kim Tae-Jin was one of the second lieutenant greenhorns who brought over cigarettes for Kang Chul-Gyu.

Not long after, the nightmare began. Now that Kang Chul-Gyu thought about it, his superior seemed to have had a rough idea about what was going to happen that day.

“Please, Chul-Gyu! You’re really going to die if you go out now!”

Kang Chul-Gyu could also remember how his superior sounded as he clung to him and called out his name. His memory of it was still so clear that it was as if it just happened yesterday.

Back then, despite being ordered to stand down, he still followed the warning that his heart was sending him. He dashed out of the barracks and slit the Spetsnaz and White Wolves’ necks.

When he returned to the barracks, all covered in blood, he found his superior crying in silence.

“I’m sorry,” his superior said. It wasn’t enough, though.

That night, they were put on emergency standby. Kang Chul-Gyu ran to the situation room only to discover that a guard post was attacked and five of his men were taken captive.

***

Kang Chul-Gyu frowned, suddenly feeling stinging pain at the back of his head.

Even though some of their brothers were taken away and they were now on emergency standby, they didn’t get any orders to mobilize and rescue them.

“What are we doing?” Kang Chul-Gyu asked.

“They only ordered us to be on emergency standby! Kang Chul-Gyu, come here.”

His superior dragged Kang Chul-Gyu by the arm, bringing him out of the situation room. He then handed him a cigarette.

Chk chk. Chkk!

They lit up their cigarettes with a zippo lighter.

“They’ve probably created this entire situation to catch you. Russia and China pressured South Korea to stop our men from taking action, and now they’re provoking you, so don’t go out there today. My ass will be on the line if they discover that I told you this, but I can’t just abandon you,” his superior said.

He clung onto Kang Chul-Gyu, seemingly having forgotten that he was smoking. “They put out this bait to get you. Have those fuckers ever taken captives before? I have no doubt in my mind that a lot of our enemies are targeting you right now. Look, we didn’t get orders to mobilize because those fuckers know you. Just endure it only for today! Please!”

That day, at that moment, Kang Chul-Gyu smiled at his superior like always.

“Fucking bastard!” his superior yelled.

How many people could say that they saw a soldier looking angry and as if he found the situation unfair?

His superior had that exact look on his face.

“The people who were in that guard post all came here to fulfill their duties to their country. You’re telling me not to save them even though they are about to die just because they’re powerless and aren’t well-connected when they joined the military?” Kang Chul-Gyu asked.

“What about you? Your newborn son? Your wife?”

“They’re the family of a soldier.”

The last thing Kang Chul-Gyu did to his superior before leaving was smile at him.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The wind violently slapped his cheek as it blew past him, leaving behind three to four dust devils in its path.

It was hell.

Kang Chul-Gyu couldn’t even count the number of enemies that he had stabbed in the neck that night. He killed Spetsnaz, White Wolves, North Korea’s special forces officers, and the Airborne Corps of the People's Liberation Army Air Force.

Bullets from rifles rained down on him. They even threw grenades at him and planted claymores all over.

Covered in blood, Kang Chul-Gyu dragged out five of his men. When a grenade was thrown at them, he wrapped his arms around his men, covering them.

BANG!

The back of his head, his neck, and his back hurt so much that he felt as if he was being ripped apart.

“Run, you fuckers!” Kang Chul-Gyu yelled.

Kang Chul-Gyu swung his bayonet like a demon, drenching him in even more blood. He then returned to their base with the people he rescued.

After getting past the iron fence and handing his men over to fully armed soldiers, Kang Chul-Gyu collapsed to the ground.

However, the soldiers weren’t the only ones waiting for him.

The military police held out handcuffs.

Clank!

His superior took out his pistol, and the soldiers aimed their rifles at the police.

“Why don’t you leave for today? If you move even an inch closer to him, I’ll put a bullet in every last one of you. I don’t care if you’re from the military police or some other bullshit. Go back. I’ll hand him over to you myself tomorrow,” his superior said.

After the ruckus, Kang Chul-Gyu lay down inside the barracks.

His superior smiled as he handed him a cigarette.

“You’re giving a cigarette to a severely injured patient?” Kang Chul-Gyu joked.

“You’re not going to die anyway.”

Chk chk. Chkk!

“

Phew

! I’m going to be fired,” his superior said after exhaling cigarette smoke.

Kang Chul-Gyu couldn’t even ask why. It was already too obvious, after all. He ignored orders, went out to save his men, and slapped the fuck out of Russia and China before going back to base.

“The men you saved signed an absurd statement. Don’t be upset by it,” his superior continued.

Kang Chul-Gyu smiled painfully.

“I’m going to be fired, and you’re going to be discharged as a Private.”

Kang Chul-Gyu looked at the cigarette in between his superior’s fingers. The way it was burning in vain reminded him of himself.

“I’ll pay your hospital bills,” his superior offered.

“I have money.”

“Not another fucking word, you fucking idiot! If you were going to pretend to be considerate, then you shouldn’t have done what you did last night.”

“You’ve gone through a lot,” his superior continued with a pained smile on his face.

Kang Chul-Gyu gradually fell unconscious as he listened to him talk.

1. A Ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap (hessian), cloth, or twine, sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with scraps of foliage from the area ?