Infiltration Action
Tae-oh sprang to his feet the moment he finished burning through every last cigarette. I have to find that bastard! He needed to track down the junkie he’d handed the meditation herb to earlier. Securing the man was absolutely essential if he wanted to survive.
Tae-oh slipped out of the barracks and began combing every corner of the unit. In this chaotic hellhole where hundreds of new recruits tangled together, finding a single hollow-eyed man was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Yet Tae-oh was confident. Never underestimate the experience of a short-timer sergeant. He was one of those masters of hiding.
Behind the drill ground, at the corner of the supply warehouse. The place reeked of rotten hay. There, Tae-oh finally spotted his target. The man sat slumped against the wall, staring blankly into space with unfocused eyes—the exact same state he’d been in when he gave Tae-oh the herb.
Tae-oh stepped directly in front of him. As his shadow fell across the man’s face, the junkie slowly lifted his head and looked up.
“The hell do you want…?”
“What’s your name?”
The man answered in a sluggish voice. “Rolls… Call me that.”
Tae-oh lowered his voice. “That meditation herb you gave me earlier. Where did you get it?”
Instead of answering, Rolls gave a crooked grin. It was a grotesque smile that revealed his yellowed, discolored teeth.
“Already chewed it all up, huh? How was the taste? Did it clear your head a bit?”
“This is important to me. I’m begging you. Tell me.”
Tae-oh asked politely. Rolls answered in a voice laced with a metallic rasp.
“What does it matter where I got it? I already gave it to you. Just shut up, drink it, and feel good. We’re all going to be corpses the day after tomorrow anyway.”
“You can feel good after you’re dead. Right now, I’m fighting like hell to stay alive. So please, I’m begging you. You got this from the forest, right? How the hell did you get out?”
For a split second, a sharp glint flashed in Rolls’s eyes.
“Ha… You think you’re gonna live? Wake up from that dream… The ones coming for us are the Empire. The Empire. And from the looks of you, you don’t seem all that strong either…”
He waved his hand dismissively with a bitter laugh. But Tae-oh refused to give up.
“Come with me. Guide me to the forest. The same path you take to get your drugs.”
“Kuk kuk, are you crazy? If I get caught going with a rookie like you, I die too. You think the sentries have painted eyes? Desertion means immediate execution.”
“Then we just don’t get caught. Besides, you’ve clearly gone back and forth on this path multiple times already. Every time you ran out of drugs, you snuck out and came back, didn’t you?”
Rolls fell silent. It seemed Tae-oh had hit the mark. That silence gave Tae-oh certainty. There’s a way out. I absolutely have to get out!
Tae-oh carefully considered what this guy truly wanted. For people like him, there was something that overrode even the desire to live: immediate gain, and the drugs that could fill his emptiness. Tae-oh pulled out something he had prepared in advance. It was a crude cigarette rolled from dried meditation herb leaves.
“See this? I made it from the meditation herb you gave me. It kicks in faster and stronger than chewing it raw. The side effects are greatly reduced too.”
“What the… A meditation herb cigarette? You made this? This thing?”
Gulp. Rolls’s Adam’s apple bobbed noticeably. His gaze was glued to the cigarette in Tae-oh’s hand.
Tae-oh waved the unlit cigarette lightly right under Rolls’s nose.
“If you take me into the forest, I’ll make you something far better than this. Not just meditation herb—I’m talking about a combination drug that can send your mind flying to the far edge of oblivion.”
Rolls stared at Tae-oh with suspicious eyes.
“You… what, some kind of alchemist? You don’t look like one.”
“Let’s just say something like that. You in or not? We don’t have time. The day after tomorrow we’re getting dragged to the battlefield. Isn’t it better to roll the dice once instead of dying like a dog there? If it succeeds, I live, and you get your drugs. How about it?”
Rolls seemed to wrestle with the decision for a long time. His fingers kept scratching the back of his head. As the drug’s effect faded, his complexion grew increasingly pale. Finally, as if he’d made up his mind, he snatched the cigarette from Tae-oh’s hand and whispered.
“……There’s a dog hole. There’s a spot we can use during the night shift change.”
“Good. Let’s meet here at midnight.”
Eventually persuaded, Rolls stood up.
“Tsk, what a pain in the ass.”
Temporary desertion. If caught, it meant death, but Tae-oh had no other choice.
The night had grown deep. Inside the barracks, the air was thick with the rough snoring of soldiers.
“You made it without getting caught?”
“This much is a piece of cake.”
At those words, Rolls let out a snort of laughter.
“Looks like you’ve got some decent stealth skills after all.”
“Shut up and let’s move. We’re short on time.”
They had to be back before sunrise at the latest. Tae-oh had briefly considered full desertion, but Rolls had talked him out of it.
“Are you insane? Can’t you tell by the identical uniforms on all the new recruits? If you wander around in that and get caught by real soldiers, it’s immediate execution on the spot.”
Besides, the fact that Tae-oh had no idea where this place even was made true desertion impossible.
Tae-oh held his breath and followed Rolls’s movements. Torches burned throughout the drill ground, and in the distance the regular footsteps of sentries could be heard.
Whew, the tension is no joke.
It was a romance-fantasy world, but the subgenre had completely changed. He felt like the protagonist of an infiltration action game. Amid a tension so thick his heart felt ready to burst from his mouth, Tae-oh felt a strange thrill. No—it was actually fun, like playing an extremely realistic game.
I guess I’m not normal either. Feeling enjoyment at a time like this.
Rolls gave a low warning.
“Stay quiet. Kill your footsteps.”
He moved with familiarity, sticking to the dark shadows behind the supply warehouse. Whenever a sentry’s torch drew near, Tae-oh held his breath and pressed himself flat against the wall. The cold touch of the stone seeped into his skin.
Crunch. Crunch. The sound of the sentries’ footsteps grew closer. At the same time, Tae-oh’s heart pounded violently.
Thump. Thump. It beat so hard he worried the sound alone might give them away.
Then Rolls’s voice came.
“They’ve passed. This is our chance. If we don’t go now, we won’t make it. Follow me quickly.”
After crawling for what felt like forever, Rolls stopped near an old drainage ditch at the corner of the castle wall. It had gone unmaintained for so long that weeds grew thickly around it, and a large rock cleverly concealed the entrance. When Rolls pushed the rock aside, a narrow gap just wide enough for one adult to squeeze through appeared.
“Go through here and you’re straight into the forest.”
“How do we time our return?”
Rolls grinned and pulled a long tree branch from his pocket.
“Stick this up outside and check the shadow it casts in the moonlight. You have to be back within exactly four hours. That’s the only way to slip back in without getting caught.”
Tae-oh was honestly a little impressed. The guy was thorough. It was absurd that drugs were important enough to warrant this much effort.
Rolls slipped through the gap first. Tae-oh hunched his shoulders and followed through the narrow hole.
Ugh… The smell is brutal…
After crawling out of the hole that reeked of earth and moss, a dense forest unfolded before their eyes. It was completely different from the bleak scenery inside the castle walls—a primitive vitality so overwhelming it felt almost grotesque.
The two men hid themselves deep within the forest. From far off on the wall, they could hear the sentries talking. Tae-oh lay flat on the damp fallen leaves and waited until the voices completely disappeared. Cold sweat stung his eyes, but he didn’t even have time to wipe it away. At this moment, they were deserters who could be executed on the spot with no excuse if discovered.
The air in the forest was heavy. The trees rose so densely they blocked out the sky, and the cries of nameless insects grated unpleasantly against the eardrums.
The moment they entered the forest, Rolls put the cigarette Tae-oh had given him in his mouth and lit it. Seeing a faint spark of life return to the man’s complexion, Tae-oh hurried onward.
“Alright, here’s the forest you wanted. Whatever you’re looking for, find it quickly. I’ll wait here. Four hours. Don’t forget.”
Rolls exhaled smoke and slumped down at the base of a tree. Tae-oh nodded and began scanning the area. In his mind, he desperately chanted the command.
Status Window
Yes! Tae-oh widened his eyes and scoured the forest floor. Countless crafting recipes he had memorized while playing Imperial Conquest flashed through his mind. What he was looking for wasn’t just some herb that made you feel good. He needed the ingredients for items that would let him reliably suppress Heart soldiers on the battlefield.
“Where is it… It should definitely be in a forest this size…”
Tae-oh calmly recalled the item descriptions. From the game data, he remembered they grew near damp tree stumps. He dug through the dirt, pushed aside bushes, and pressed forward. Dirt got under his nails and branches scratched his face, but he didn’t even feel the pain.
Perhaps his desperation paid off. Beneath a tree stump, in the damp shade, he spotted a plant radiating an unusually deep purple hue. Tae-oh approached it as if possessed and dropped to his knees.
“Found it!!”
The first one was the hardest. After that, it was smooth sailing. Besides the main ingredient he was after, he found plenty of other useful materials. He gathered herbs while instantly thinking up several additional useful items on the spot.
“Yeah, fuck it. I’ve come this far—I might as well go all the way. If I still die after doing this much, then that’s just my fate.”
Even though he muttered those words, Tae-oh had absolutely no intention of dying.
After several hours, Tae-oh returned to Rolls.
“What did you find? Do you even know what all those plants are for…? I see some poisonous herbs in there too.”
“Mind your own business. Just wait a bit. As promised, I’ll make you something amazing too.”
Rolls gave a bitter laugh.
“Kuk kuk, sure. That’s all I need.”
“Oh, and when we get back, join our unit.”
“Your unit?”
“Yeah. It seems they don’t stop us from moving around within the same unit.”
“Hmm, do I have to?”
“I’m doing it because I plan to keep you alive and make you plenty of drugs from now on.”
Junkie or not, Rolls’s movements were the real deal. They were clearly the movements of someone specialized in infiltration. You couldn’t move like that without training. Having been a soldier just days ago, Tae-oh could recognize that much.
“Tsk… What a hassle…”
“Then just live like that and die.”
“Well, living a little longer isn’t bad. As long as I have the drugs.”
“You crazy druggie bastard.”
“Kuk kuk, is the world crazy, or am I the crazy one?”