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Sometimes I have this dream.

When I open my eyes, what greets me is a dense forest drenched in rain.

The headlights of a vehicle halted in the middle of an unpaved road illuminate the woods, where five or six sturdy men huddle together, staring at the roadside.

“Vietnam’s weather is a mess, isn’t it? At this rate, I’m gonna lose my hair. Did anyone bring an umbrella?”

“Who carries an umbrella while on a field assignment? Hurry up and search the vehicle.”

Grumbling under his breath, my colleague leads the deputy down the slope.

Our destination is below the roadside—a vehicle crashed into a tree.

“What do you see?”

“Uh, there’s a badger in there. In the driver’s seat.”

“Is he alive?”

“Looks like he’s dead.”

The colleague crouching around the driver’s seat scans the interior with a flashlight. I adjust the straps of my rifle and motion for the team to join me as we descend the slope.

Bounding down the short incline, I see the deputy pulling out a red guy from the driver’s seat, shining his helmet light on the guy’s face.

“…Choi Cheol-min of the National Defense Science Institute, 166 Engineering Research Institute under the Department of Munitions of the Korean Workers’ Party. Confirmed dead. His wife is in the passenger seat.”

“What’s the cause of death?”

“How should I know? I’m not a forensic expert.”

The deputy pokes his finger at his face.

“At first glance, it seems the badger died instantly from the crash impact. There are lots of glass shards stuck in his face. The wife, well, she’s got a rotten tree root the size of an adult male’s forearm pierced through her chest.”

“Identification?”

“Yeah, well, both have glass shards embedded in their faces, so it’s pretty mangled… but it can be identified. But Team Leader, why is the airbag intact if the vehicle crashed into a tree?”

“We took it off a couple of days ago.”

“Who did?”

“I did.”

“Oh my goodness…”

Amid our trivial banter, the deputy pulls out a camera and snaps a photo of the badger’s face. He walks around to the passenger side to take a look. Inside the overturned vehicle, a woman with a tree root embedded deep in her chest lies in a pose as if she were celebrating towards the ceiling. The airbag is perfectly fine.

While I stand there gazing down at the dead badger, someone taps my shoulder. It’s Chief Park.

“Team Leader, look at this.”

“What is it?”

“The cargo pulled out by the badger.”

Chief Park shines his light on a brown briefcase. Stained with red handprints, inside the briefcase are, as always, scraps of blueprints and a few Chinese smartphones. Chief Park pulls out one of the blueprints and shows it to me.

“This is a blueprint for a missile propulsion system. It’s definitely different from what the Belarus Operations Team obtained. Judging by the shape, it seems to be a propulsion system, but I can’t discern the language written here.”

“…It’s Persian. This looks like something that came from Iran.”

“Iran?”

“North Koreans have been making deals with Iran a lot. Back during the Iran-Iraq war, they sold weapons and sent military advisers and technicians several times. They must have either bought it there or stolen it. We should fold it up neatly and put it away before it gets wet.”

I put the blueprints and smartphones back in the bag and close it.

Click.

Click.

…Cough!

Someone coughed. It was a youthful voice. Not outside the vehicle, but from inside. Without a moment to think, everyone turned their gaze toward the vehicle simultaneously.

Rustle. A pistol is gripped in hand, shining the light on the interior from the mud.

In the rain-soaked, dense forest, the only sound reverberating through the silence is that youthful cough, followed by my anxious colleague’s voice in the background.

“Director, I apologize for interrupting, but there’s a survivor inside the vehicle. …No, not the badger—it’s a girl. I distinctly heard in the briefing that she was left behind in North Korea when we departed… We have no idea why she’s here either. …Yes. …Yes, understood. I’ll switch.”

A voice comes through the radio handed to me by my colleague.

-“The situation is critical, so answer only with yes or no. Did that girl witness our entire operation?”

“…I’m not sure.”

-“Answer only with yes or no.”

“…Yes.”

-“…….”

In the back seat of the overturned vehicle, a little girl clutches a frilly teddy bear, wedged in by the seatbelt. She can’t fully open her eyes and gazes at me through the dim glow of tritium.

The cold touch of the trigger feels sharper than ever.

-“…You know that the moment that girl survives and testifies to the Vietnamese police, that’s when the real war begins, right?”

Raindrops flow along the barrel.

Like tears.

-“Make your own judgment and act.”

I lift the gun and aim for her head.

Through the scope, the girl comes into view.

Red hair. Fresh blood. Blue eyes drenched in blood. A girl with blue eyes gazes back at me.

‘…Camila?’

Episode 7 – Daily Life

After getting out of bed, I realized I had been dreaming all this time. Beyond the window, instead of towering modern skyscrapers, there were strangely styled buildings slumbering against the blue dawn sky.

The chilly morning air filled my lungs. I leaned against the headboard to clear my dazed mind.

The cold, sticky sweat had dried up, leaving an uncomfortable feeling. I sensed a slight fever, perhaps from leaving the window open all night.

“……”

I sat for a long time on the mattress, staring vacantly outside. I couldn’t tell what was a dream and what was reality. I still didn’t know if I was dreaming.

As I sat there, staring into space, someone next to me stirred and spoke in a low voice.

“Um… What’s going on…?”

“…Veronica?”

It was Veronica.

*

Veronica rubbed her eyes like someone waking from a light sleep as she shifted her body. The lingering scent of alcohol still clung to the cold morning air.

“Are you awake…? You were tossing and turning a lot this early in the morning….”

“Was I tossing and turning?”

“Yeah….”

Veronica nodded lightly and lay her arms beneath her head. It seemed the night of drinking that lasted until dawn had taken quite a toll; she could hardly regain her senses.

I glanced at her with my foggy mind and instinctively powered up my device to check for any messages that came in during the night. The messages that had been steadily piling up over the past month were nowhere to be found, and the only thing on the screen was a message from the Defense Attaché Office saying it was okay to come in late.

It was quite a welcome message, but my mind was too fuzzy to think much of it.

“……”

Thus, I sat on the bed without any context, lost in thought. Chewing over the vivid memories that had resurfaced.

Sitting alone in the room until deep night, I sent a communication to the Military Intelligence Agency to set a suitable return date, heard complaints from the noisy people in the next room to drink and sleep appropriately without bothering them, and after preparing to sleep at dawn, talked to Camila when she came into my room.

As we chatted about various things, I sent her back just when Veronica and her gang barged in suddenly, forcing me to drink….

I had clearly intended to drink moderately, but from some unknown source, I ended up downing distilled spirits, palm drinks, cocktails made by an alchemist, and several years’ worth of that whatever-it-was wine brewed by the cult. Of course, the culprits were right here beside me: Veronica and her gang.

The ringleader was Veronica. The agents from the Inquisition had advised me to stay under control lest the Pope find out and reprimand us, but she brushed them off with her holy powers. Lucia sprawled out on the floor assured me she would take responsibility and sleep on time, while Francesca, lounging on the sofa, flashed a friendly smile and passed all the responsibility over to Veronica and Lucia.

…What was it she said? Something about how we shouldn’t clink our glasses while working together, so we should definitely drink today? While saying such bizarre things, she kept pushing the cup toward me. I couldn’t quite remember who said that. Maybe it was Veronica or Francesca; one of them for sure.

I tried everything possible to keep my wits about me while drinking, but in the end, I couldn’t help but throw up and ended up collapsing into a deep sleep.

“……”

The more I thought about it, the more embarrassing memories surfaced.

The memories of being so drunk I was flipping pancakes on a utility pole during my military academy days popped back into my mind as well.

At that time, I didn’t realize it, but thinking back now, it’s all embarrassing memories. If I could turn back time, I would want to erase that past somehow. I don’t understand why only embarrassing memories come up at times like this. Maybe humans are creatures that remember their awkward pasts better than good memories.

So as I found myself unintentionally smelling the cold morning air and engaging in some introspection, I suddenly realized this was my hotel room.

“Um, Saint?”

“Yes…?”

“Why are you in my room?”

Veronica looked up at me with bleary eyes.

I had been absentmindedly surveying the room when, all of a sudden, I lifted a bucket full of melted ice water—

-Splash!-

“Get out of my room!”

“Yaaaaah!”

Veronica let out a shrill scream and jumped up like a wet cat.

A new day was beginning.

 

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