Chapter 23. Armed Forces Demonstrations, Part III
Translator: Khan
Editor: RED
6.
On the sea of Incheon, which was colored by the light of dawn…
A fishing boat was moving slowly over the sea, making a breathless sound. There was silence above the fishing boat, and the sea was also still.
In the silence, the fishing boat made a breathless sound, and it stopped as a man appeared from the steering house of the stopped boat.
‘Yeongjong Island, it has been a long time.’
The man with a Sword on his back, Kim Tae-hoon, was immersed in memories for a while, looking at a golf course that was dimly visible where the stopped boat was pointed. It was not a memory of golf. The place of memories was the huge Incheon International Airport beyond the golf course. ‘Incheon International Airport.’
There were a few cases where Kim went abroad, leaving through Incheon International Airport. Most of the time, he went abroad through another route, became a civilian after his mission, and returned via Incheon International Airport. For him, Incheon International Airport was the place marking the end of a long mission. It was also a place where he realized that he survived.
‘I have no bad memories.’ That was the only comfort that Kim could have in front of the green-eyed monster he was hunting from now on.
“Hoo!” Kim Tae-hoon sighed briefly. He could see that the harsh winter has passed. That was the end of his sentimental recollections.
He moved to the back of the boat and stood in front of one of the countless boxes there. He opened the wooden box and the bag inside. There was something in the bag that seemed to be like a musical instrument, but it was something quite different: a gun with an elongated barrel, unlike a typical gun.
‘It’s been a long time.’
The sniper rifle PSG-1, a luxury beloved by snipers all over the world, and more familiar to him than any other weapon he had ever used. It was his partner, willing to share his fate when dealing with an enemy that was stronger than him.
That fact has not changed much now. The enemy that he had to deal with from now on had formidable power and force. Of course, he did not intend to play head to head against the enemy. That was what he did best.
‘I will show you what armed forces demonstrations are.’
7.
Armed forces demonstrations were not just an exercise of violence. Its original purpose was to cause psychological pressure to the object through the demonstrations.
So, what do you need to exert psychological pressure on a target? The answer was simple: fear.
Nothing was more effective than the fear of death. But that did not work well if you gave them a simple fear of death. You had to make them fear that they would die at some point in time and for some reason.
‘Hoo.’ On the rooftop of an apartment complex located on Yeongjong Island, he drew his breath, looking through the sight at a Brown-skinned Orc’s head, prepared to deliver the fear.
Tu-woong! The sniper rifle hurled the bullet forth with a dull sound. The bullet began a short journey and eventually completed it by penetrating the Orc’s forehead.
The Orc with a hole in its head fell backward. Soon, a crowd of Orcs gathered around the corpse. The Orcs were angry at the death of their kin, and they let loose with their fearsome cries at the threat that fueled their anger. However, the sound did not reach him, as he was about a kilometer away.
Tu-woong! He pulled the trigger again. The Orcs that gathered at the dead bodies of their same race also became corpses. One by one, the corpses of the Orcs piled up, and at some point, they no longer approached the dead.
He pulled his eyes off the panoramic sight. Five. It was the headcount of the Orcs that he killed in this hunt.
‘I’ve barely killed a hundred in four days.’ It was certainly an inefficient hunt.
If he appeared in front of the Orcs immediately, dozens of Orcs would gather for him. It would take the time to breathe in and out to make the horde into a pile of dead bodies.
On the other hand, the number of Orcs that he could kill through sniping was not even ten per hour. Nevertheless, the only reason for such efforts was because of the distance of one kilometer.
‘Now the learning period is over.’
This distance, which could be reached in one minute by a cheetah running at full speed made death not just death, but death from nowhere.
‘There will be a crack sooner or later.’
The option for such an unprecedented fear was always the same: hiding. There was no other option. The Orcs would hide everywhere to escape the death of the unknown.
‘All it has to accomplish is showing the bottom of ogre’s patience.’ It was their leader that was the real problem, after all.
Twin-head Ogre.
When the Orcs hide, it would start getting hungry.
The Twin-head Ogre was a big two-head glutton, and the amount of food that it ate in one day was enormous, dozens of human corpses.
How long could it hold on to its hunger?
No, was there any patience to restrain its hunger on such a crazy monster?
Kuhuhuh! Kahahah! At that moment, two shrieks from Mt. Baekun began to fill Yeongjong Island like thunder. The two sounds sent a bitter cold through him, like the chill of winter returned.
‘As expected.’ He gritted his teeth tightly.
The fear of the Twin-head Ogre was a very simple fear, unlike the fear of the unknown inflicted by Kim. But the power was overwhelming.
‘Not a joke.’
It was why he was striking from a distance.
‘I’m not going to be able to fight this fear head-on, either.
‘It is impossible to face this fear. The moment I’m exposed to this fear, my stomach is going crazy, my brain turns white, and my heart starts to run like crazy. And that’s all I can do when I’m exposed to the fear: I can’t use my telekinetic force to fly or to handle the Sword and an Arrow, or I won’t be able to protect myself with Energy.’
Of course, the opportunity for him to attack the Twin-head Ogre at the moment of starting the battle with it was pathetic. In order to save the limited opportunity, he would have to make a gap that was not there.
Therefore, he did not overdo it.
‘After a while, it’ll run around like an angry bull without warning, and that’s the only chance I’ll kill.’
He disassembled the gun skillfully and put it in his bag, and began to run on the roof of the apartment.
Paat! He leaped straight to the roof of the next apartment.
He set a new record for a long distance that would shame an Olympian, continued along the roof of the apartment again and made another leap.
Using the apartments as stepping stones, he vanished quickly.
8.
Kaaah! Keu-uh! The Twin-head Ogre was ten meters tall, with a huge body like a building. It grabbed two Orcs in its hands.
Kr, Kr! Krrrr! The captive Orcs struggled to get out of the grip.
But when the Twin-head Ogre closed its hands, the bones crunched like sugar sticks, the eyes of the two Orcs burst out with the sound of bone splintering, and the blood began to ooze from their eyes and ears. The Twin-head Ogre put the heads of the dying Orcs in its mouths.
Crunch! Crunch! Two mouths began to eat at the same time, an Orc in each hand.
Chomp! Chomp! Two horrifying sounds at the same time.
The Orcs gathered in front of this horrifying Twin-head Ogre were shaking, but had no thought of running away. Some of the Orcs with black skin pushed a few of the trembling Orcs toward the Twin-head Ogre.
The Orcs pushed forth were terrified, and the Twin-head Ogre, finishing two Orcs at once, reached out to the closest Orc before it.
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At that moment, the Twin-head Ogre smashed the head of the Orc, instead of grabbing it.
With a crash that shook the ground, Orc blood and gore splattered all over. The Orc’s body was even worse, it was now a flat piece of meat with no hint of its original form, swatted flat like a human swatted mosquitoes.
Bam, bam! The Twin-head Ogre slammed down the body of the Orc, which had already been flattened, as if it could not release its anger.
Kr, Kr… Now the orange eyes of the Black Orcs began to shake in horror.
There was no Orc who did not know why: hunger. In recent days, most of the Orcs had not provided enough food to fill the stomach of the Twin-head Ogre. It was because they were in a hurry to hide themselves in fear. No matter how many Black Orcs came out to scare the Orcs or abused them, nothing changed. The Orcs were not just afraid of death, they were afraid of death that they could not even understand.
Kaaah! Kaaahh! Krr! That’s why the Twin-head Ogre exploded with anger. It could not tolerate that they dared to fear something else than itself. It could not forgive them that it had to feel hungry for that reason.
Even the anger was twice as high for the Twin-head Ogre; its heads looked at one another and poured out angry cries at themselves continuously. The blood and flesh of the Orc stuck between their teeth sprayed out as they screamed. In a moment, the faces of the Twin-head Ogre were covered with blood and flesh stains. The fierce, ferocious faces turned even creepier.
Keu-uh? Keu-ah? It was some force that made the faces bloodier. The Orcs were the first to react to the force, like an invisible fog.
Kr! Keu-eu! Keu-uh! The Orcs began to back away, looking frightened, like rats in front of a snake.
Kr! Keu-ah! It was a power that the Twin-head Ogre also knew. It could not help knowing it. It had been so tired of that power that it had left the land of Incheon and crossed the long bridge and settled in the land of Yeongjong Island.
However, that was all. It was not an irresistible force, but the Twin-head Ogre was annoyed by the power. Now there was no patience left to avoid the power. The Twin-head Ogre didn’t have the patience to test the situation by sending its fellows. Furthermore, it had no patience to vomit up a ferocious cry to warn against the force. Therefore, the Twin-head Ogre stood up.
Keu-ah! The Twin-head Ogre started running with the same shouts at the same time.
9.
Stomp, stomp!
Incheon International Airport runway.
A huge monster that made the planes look like toys began to run over the spacious open area. Its speed, leaving big footprints on the straight runway, was formidable. It seemed unimaginable to dare to block it.
But a horse and a warrior made of clay were different.
The clay horse, directed at the running giant monster, burst out a war cry with fighting spirit, and the warrior on the horse shook his wrists, holding his sword and preparing to face the monster in front of him. A large cross shone on the neck of the warrior.
Then the horse began to move. Two monsters ran inexorably, facing one another, and crossed almost instantly.
The horse and warrior passed by the side of the Twin-head Ogre, leaving a deep wound on its right thigh. At the same time, the Twin-head Ogre attempted to stop.
The asphalt road began to crumble like pudding under the force of its mass.
The Twin-head Ogre stopped, turned, and jumped immediately. Its huge body, which was measured in tons rather than kilograms, jumped more than ten meters.
It was incredible to see, but as soon as its body began to fall, shadowing the horse and warrior, it was a disaster, not a miracle. The Twin-head Ogre landed on the runway hard.
The ground quaked. Fortunately, the horse and the warrior were able to escape from the Twin-head Ogre, thanks to the horse’s surprising speed.
Keu-uh-uh! Keu-ah-ah! The two heads of the Twin-head Ogre both cried out at the same time to terrorize the horse.
Neigh! The horse also cried out, as if to fight against the fear. The warrior raised his sword, then pointed it at the Twin-head Ogre with the sword, and at the same time tapped his foot on the horse’s belly. The withdrawing horse charged again.
Clip-clop! This time the horse began to circle around the Twin-head Ogre. The movements of the running horse were surprisingly quick, but not hard for the Twin-head Ogre to figure out. Two heads covered a 180-degree radius each, and they just watched it circling around. But the attention span of the Twin-head Ogre was very short.
Keu-uh! Keu-ah! There was not enough patience in the Twin-head Ogre to use the word “attention,” and even if it had some, it had none left now.
The Twin-head Ogre began to run towards its target. The horse and warrior charged it again, rather than fleeing, like Don Quixote rushing toward the windmill.
The battle that started was like a bullfight. The Horse Figure Type Earthenware was hurt, barely avoiding the charged Twin-head Ogre, and every time it was injured, the Twin-head Ogre ran more and more aggressively, a murderous spirit in its green eyes.
When the battle of the two extended beyond seconds to minutes, and when all the senses of the Twin-head Ogre were concentrated solely on the Horse Figure Type Earthenware, the second Don Quixote appeared.
Shiii! A Sword began to fall from the sky toward the back of the Twin-head Ogre.
The Sword was pointed directly at the heart of the Twin-head Ogre. The location was correct. It was inevitable.
‘I can hear it.’ In order to gauge the exact location, Kim Tae-hoon was waiting underneath one of the spacious Incheon Airport runways at this moment. He was waiting as taking a risk of his life in the situation and condition where his mind became spaced out just by being exposed to the fear even if he was noticed or not.
‘I hear its heart pounding.’
He was waiting for it, to hear the heartbeat of the Twin-head Ogre drumming like crazy. And in order to make this situation, he had been playing for not a short time in order to make a situation where it could never notice his existence.
‘Swoop and strike!”
Pook! The Sword, which fell like a lightning bolt, was stuck deep into the back of the Twin-head Ogre, drawing a hawk-like trajectory at the end. The Sword drove half its length into the ogre, penetrating through the tough hide, the thick flesh, and muscles that were tougher than steel wire. Its defenses made even the bullets from the sniper rifle seem like bullets from the toy-guns of young children.
But it was insufficient to reach the heart of a giant Twin-head Ogre.
At that moment, the third Don Quixote appeared. Kim Tae-hoon, whose right arm was now blackened to his neck and chest beyond the shoulder joint, was the third Don Quixote.
The third Don Quixote was noticed by the Twin-head Ogre. Because of the presence of a sharp point approaching its heart, it had to stop. It tried to stop again.
Kwa-kwa-kwa! Once again, it crushed the runway like tofu, gouging a path, and eventually stopped. When the Twin-head Ogre stopped, Kim crossed its shoulders, stepping on the air rather than on the runway.
Keu-uh? There were doubts in its four eyes as if it couldn’t understand the reason.
On the other hand, Kim saw only one thing, the Sword of Imperator stuck into the body of the Twin-head Ogre.
10.
The Mayor’s Office of Incheon City Hall…
There, a man was constantly walking around a large desk in the mayor’s room, which had a new owner. ‘I’m crazy.’
The identity of the man was Jang Sung-hoon. And it was Daedongyeojido that Jang, who was wandering around mindlessly, had unfolded on the desk. Jang’s eyes focused on the glow of the green light on the Daedongyeojido.
‘Damn it, disappear. Please disappear.’ Jang prayed desperately for the light, but instead of showing signs of vanishing, its presence was glaring like a star.
Soon after, Jang shouted, pointing his finger at the green light as if he were trying to do some magic. “Please disappear!”
At that moment, the green light disappeared.
“Hmm?”
The moment his desire was fulfilled. However, Jang looked rather puzzled. He looked at his finger.
‘Maybe?’
Then he spoke with a very serious look, pointing his finger at the flashing blue light at the location of Sejong City.
“Disappear!” Of course, nothing happened.
“Ho-it!” He did something again, but nothing happened again. No, something happened. His face had begun to glow red.
‘Jeez, I’m going crazy, too…’ He soon came to his senses, sighed, and leaned on the desk. Soon, his arms lifted toward the sky. He posed for victory.
‘Ah! This is not for the time.’
After the pose, he could only think of his job. Kim told Jang, “As soon as I kill the Twin-head Ogre, bring the troops in front of the Incheon Bridge into Yeongjong Island; have as many witnesses as possible at the historical event, and put a real period on the Incheon landing operation.” Naturally, Jang also intended to be a witness to the historical event.
‘Let’s go quickly.’ Jang quickly folded up Daedongyeojido and turned it into a book, and immediately opened a bag that he valued more than his life.
‘Ah.’ As he looked into the bag, and his face hardened. He saw a golden glass filled with coveted red liquid.