Prologue + Development Group (1)
Prologue
My older brother died.
In Cambodia.
Ever since he was little, he loved computers.
He said he was going to become a programmer.
He was good at studying, too.
He always came first in the entire school.
He could have gone to medical school, of course, but instead he said he wanted to major in computer engineering.
“Doctors make a lot of money now, but programmers will make even more later.”
He talked my parents into letting him study computer engineering.
They regretted, in their own way, that he hadn’t gone to medical school, but in the end they trusted him.
He had never once disappointed them.
As soon as he finished his military service, he said he was going abroad to make money and left for Cambodia.
All the while having no idea that it was the headquarters of an illegal sports betting operation run by the Jeongukpa gang.
He thought he’d been hired to manage the servers for an IT company, but instead he was trapped in a workshop in Cambodia, forced to manage an illegal sports betting site day and night.
And whenever they felt like it, he was beaten by gangsters high on drugs.
In the end, my brother tried to escape.
But he was caught almost immediately and dragged to a sugarcane field, where they beat him until the sun went down.
They left him unconscious on the street.
If they had taken him to a hospital, he might have survived.
But those pieces of trash didn’t.
My dead brother was classified as an unclaimed body, kept in the Cambodian National Morgue, and then cremated.
And my family didn’t learn any of this until a year later.
If the other victims who had been held with him hadn’t managed to escape, our family might never have known at all.
After holding a funeral for him without even a body to bury, my parents went from the National Police Agency to the Prosecutors’ Office, the courts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the front steps of the National Assembly, begging someone to uncover the injustice of his death.
“Local police are searching for the suspects. Please wait a little longer.”
They kept repeating the same words.
Two years passed like that.
Then, like a miracle, news came that the bastard who had killed my brother had finally been arrested locally.
He would soon be sent back to Korea and put on trial.
If the charges were proven, he’d face at least ten years.
But the joy didn’t last long.
Before many days had passed, they said he had bribed the local police and escaped from prison.
My father collapsed when he heard the news, and after lying in a hospital bed for six months, he died.
After my father passed away, my mother took her own life.
I was eighteen.
I became an orphan.
As I placed my mother in the columbarium where my father rested, I made a vow.
I would kill every last one of those trash bags who had killed my brother and driven my father and mother to their deaths.
Not a single one would be left alive.
And I would make sure they died in the most miserable, agonizing way possible.
Development Group (1)
If I wanted revenge, I had to become stronger.
Mentally. Physically.
So the place Kang-hae chose was the Military Information Command.
A special operations battalion under the Republic of Korea’s Military Intelligence Command, once used to train covert agents for infiltration into the North and now carrying out classified intelligence missions.
The moment Kang-hae decided to go there, he called the Military Manpower Administration.
When the automated voice prompted him, he entered the numbers and was connected to a counselor.
As soon as the counselor picked up, Kang-hae told her to send him to the Military Information Command.
“Yes, how may I help you?”
“I want to go to the Military Information Command.”
“Yes...? Where...?”
The confusion in the counselor’s voice came clearly through the receiver.
But Kang-hae didn’t care.
“I mean the special operations battalion under the Military Intelligence Command.”
“W-why would you call here about tha—”
“Army, navy, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, I mean, why are you asking me—”
“Please make sure I get sent there. I’m asking you.”
After repeating that request several times, Kang-hae hung up.
Two days later, his phone rang from a blocked number.
Instinctively, Kang-hae knew it was a recruiter from the Military Information Command.
“Is this Na Kang-hae?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I hear you said you wanted to come to the Military Information Command.”
“Yes. I do. I want to go there no matter what.”
“Why do you want to go to the Military Information Command?”
“Since childhood, I’ve admired special forces, and any man born in the Republic of Korea should...”
“No, not that. The real reason. Tell me the real reason.”
“...I want to get stronger.”
“Honest answer. I like that.”
With that, the call ended.
And then a text message arrived.
- 2n year, n month, n day.
- Sangseong Station, Exit 2.
- 8:00 a.m.
Kang-hae headed for Sangseong Station at the date and time the recruiter had given him.
In front of Exit 2, there were dozens of other applicants for the Military Information Command besides Kang-hae.
They wandered around the street, sneaking glances at one another.
At eight o’clock, a military bus pulled up in front of the station.
The doors opened, and instructors from the Military Information Command wearing sunglasses got off.
“All applicants for the Military Information Command are to board the bus immediately.”
Kang-hae was the first to climb aboard.
Then he took a seat in the back.
Through the window, he could see the faces of the applicants still outside the bus.
They were hesitating.
Now that it was time to actually enlist in the Military Information Command, all sorts of things were running through their heads.
Their families, their friends, their lovers.
But Kang-hae was different.
He had no one.
No one waiting for him. No one worrying about him.
* * *
Halfway up a mountain in the far northern city of Gangwon-do.
The Development Group, which had once trained covert agents for infiltration into the North, was located there.
- Brutal training, merciless punishment
- Once we bite down, we finish the job
- Fight coolly, die with worth
Stone monuments bearing those words stood all over the Development Group grounds.
On the drill field, the instructors, led by senior instructor Lee Woo-hyung, were waiting for the trainees.
“Senior, they’ll be here soon.”
One of the instructors who had received a call spoke to Lee Woo-hyung.
Lee Woo-hyung said nothing, only looked toward the main gate.
A moment later, the gate to the Development Group opened, and a bus carrying the trainees appeared in a cloud of dust.
After the bus stopped, the instructors who had ridden on it got off first.
“Get your asses off the bus, you sons of bitches!”
The instructors shouted toward the inside of the bus.
The trainees hurriedly stumbled out.
Tense and stiff, they lined up on the drill field.
Without being told, they formed ranks in neat rows.
“Anyone here who was dragged in against his will?”
Lee Woo-hyung asked, looking over the trainees.
None of them answered.
Lee Woo-hyung reminded them of one thing.
They hadn’t been dragged here. They had volunteered to come.
“I don’t know why you applied to the Military Information Command. Because it seemed cool? To make money? Because you love the Republic of Korea? Or because you hate that pig bastard up north? Whatever the reason, there’s one thing you need to remember. You will obey orders. No exceptions.”
When Lee Woo-hyung finished speaking, the instructors took the trainees up the mountain behind the Development Group.
Halfway up, there was a shallow ravine, its surface skimmed with thin ice.
“Strip.”
Kim Jeong-hyeon, a fourth-year instructor, shouted at the trainees.
The moment they heard him, the trainees stripped down to their underwear.
“Into the ravine.”
Kang-hae didn’t hesitate. He was the first one in.
The pain, as if his skin were being torn apart, shot all the way to the top of his head.
The other trainees followed him into the water.
“You’re washing away the life you had in society.”
One instructor shouted.
The trainees’ jaws started to tremble.
Less than a minute passed before several of them bolted out of the water.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I-I’m g-going to die.”
“If you don’t get back in, you’re out.”
The trainees who had climbed out of the water, faces twisted in tears, went back in.
But three of them couldn’t even last a few seconds before sprinting back out again.
Those three were dismissed on the spot.
And Kang-hae, who had been the first to enter the water, did not come out until he fainted.
The instructors went into the water and hauled the unconscious Kang-hae from the ravine.
His body shook like that of a man having a seizure.
And so the first day at the Development Group came to an end.
* * *
Pro boxing rookie championship winner
Bronze medalist, high school judo, National Sports Festival
Gold medalist, high school freestyle wrestling, National Sports Festival
Silver medalist, World Junior Swimming Championships
Among the trainees who entered with Kang-hae, many had been athletes.
And among them was Kang-hae, who could barely manage five pull-ups.
During training, he would collapse at the slightest thing.
They thought he wouldn’t last long before getting kicked out.
So they didn’t bother talking to him much.
Why get attached to someone who was going to leave anyway?
But they didn’t know.
That a person who believes himself strong can never become stronger.
Kang-hae was the weakest of them all, but only when it came to his body.
Among the trainees, Kang-hae possessed the strongest will.
A month later, the number of trainees had been cut in half.
The self-confident ones wrote a Confidentiality Oath promising never to reveal the training process and left the training camp of their own accord.
And as time passed, Kang-hae naturally earned the respect of his peers.
“Is that bastard insane?”
“It’s not his liver that’s wrong. Maybe his brain’s broken.”
“What, is that bastard not a trainee but an instructor?”
The instructors, too, were at a loss.
They didn’t show it in front of the trainees, but when they were among themselves, they talked about Kang-hae nonstop.
“Senior, I’ve been an instructor for five years, and I’ve never seen anyone like that bastard before.”
“The seniors back when we used to ride dolphins back and forth were exactly like that.”
But not everyone liked Kang-hae.
There were classmates who envied him.
The most obvious among them was Byeon Dong-jin.
He had started running with the Daemyungpa in Suwon back in middle school.
He trailed after his seniors and did everything illegal under the sun, from loan sharking to managing illicit massage parlors.
But once he became an adult, the boss of the Daemyungpa and the senior members around him were all sent to prison one after another, and the organization collapsed.
After that, Byeon Dong-jin put his old life behind him and enlisted in the Military Information Command.
To Byeon Dong-jin, all the trainees who had entered with him were pathetic.
It was ridiculous to see guys who had never even stabbed someone with a knife pretending to be tough just because they had played a little sports.
But the one he disliked most of all was Kang-hae.
He hated the way the instructors and the other trainees seemed to acknowledge Kang-hae.
So he picked fights with him every chance he got.
But Kang-hae never reacted.
That made it even more infuriating.
Because if Kang-hae showed even the slightest reaction, Byeon Dong-jin would use it as an excuse to beat him half to death.
That day, as always, Byeon Dong-jin picked a fight with Kang-hae.
The moment the instructor who had conducted lights-out inspection left the barracks, Byeon Dong-jin walked over to Kang-hae.
Then he kicked Kang-hae, who was lying in his bed trying to sleep.
Thud—
“Hey, you fucking bastard. Get up.”
“What do you want?”
“Knock it off already, you fucking bastard. Because you keep acting so clueless, those instructor bastards are making things even harder on us. What, you think you’re something special just because you pass out with your eyes rolling back?”
Then Byeon Dong-jin brought up the training they had received that morning.
Earlier that day.
The trainees had been ordered to do underwater breath-hold training in a fifty-meter indoor pool.
They had to swim the full fifty meters back and forth without taking a breath.
Even the trainees who had been swimmers couldn’t do it.
Kang-hae couldn’t manage it either.
But what set Kang-hae apart from the others was that he never once brought his head above water until he fainted.
As always, Kang-hae had chosen unconsciousness over giving up.
The instructors hauled out the unconscious Kang-hae and gave him emergency first aid.
In the meantime, senior instructor Lee Woo-hyung looked over the trainees and said,
“Among all of you, he’s got the worst stamina. He collapses at the slightest thing. He faints all the time. And yet, in the end, the only trainee who stays until the very end is always Na Kang-hae. Remember this. That is what being truly strong looks like.”
Everyone looked at Kang-hae lying on the floor, unconscious.
They had no choice but to admit it.
Na Kang-hae was the strongest trainee among them.
And in that moment, Byeon Dong-jin decided that tonight, of all nights, he would settle things with Na Kang-hae once and for all.
Kang-hae, half sitting up on his bed, stared blankly at Byeon Dong-jin as he came at him picking a fight.
Kang-hae knew why Byeon Dong-jin kept harassing him.
He couldn’t stand seeing someone he thought was beneath him earn recognition.
But Kang-hae had no interest in fighting him.
His goal was only to get stronger for the sake of revenge.
He ignored Byeon Dong-jin’s provocation, not wanting to get dragged into some stupid fight and risk being discharged for it.
This time was no different.
Kang-hae turned his back on him and lay back down.
But Byeon Dong-jin showed no sign of backing off.
“You worthless piece of shit... tonight you’re really dead, you son of a bitch.”
Byeon Dong-jin grabbed Kang-hae by the back of the neck and yanked him upright.