Reliable Comrades
I pulled Hong Okrye behind the main school building the moment morning assembly ended and asked her to keep an eye on a place called the Higashinori Research Lab, explaining the dangers involved. But her reaction was less than enthusiastic.
“Um… Comrade Baek, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
Her refusal left me in a bind. I had chosen her because, as a member of a secret independence organization, she seemed perfect for espionage and covert operations. I hadn’t expected her to turn me down.
‘If it can’t be done, I’ll make it happen.’
I glanced around quickly, then lowered my voice into something deliberately intimidating.
“What’s that? I’m out here risking my life on a secret mission from Kim Gu himself for the cause of independence, and you—a comrade who shares the same goal of liberating Korea—can’t even do me this small favor?”
“It’s not that, Comrade Baek. I have my own circumstances—”
“Should I tell Lee Yuha that you know our true identities? Want to get a taste of frostbite?”
Hong Okrye’s face went deathly pale. She seemed to have taken my earlier description of Lee Yuha as a cold-blooded killing machine to heart.
“Eek…!”
Still, she began explaining her situation with genuine distress.
“W-wait, just listen. After the recent shrine operation failed, I couldn’t tell the Taegukdan the real reason. So I told the other members that we ran out of cellulose acetate—the raw material for explosives—and that’s why it failed.”
I had been quietly worried she might rat out my lie to the group, but it turned out she had covered for me.
“Well done. But what does that have to do with this?”
“The thing is… as you know, Comrade Baek, we can’t actually bring real bombs into the school. So when we planned the shrine operation, we intended to make the explosives using cellulose acetate supplied from the school. But because I told the Taegukdan that the school had run out…”
Hong Okrye continued her lengthy explanation. Just when I was wondering where this was going, her next words caught me completely off guard.
“In the end, I had no choice but to take responsibility and go to Wonsan myself—the natural source of cellulose acetate. I’ll also meet up with some other comrades while I’m there… If I leave tomorrow, it’ll probably take several days.”
Damn it. But I couldn’t blame her. After all, the reason she had to make this trip was partly my fault. And asking her to do something potentially dangerous had already been weighing on my conscience.
Even so, I couldn’t meet this Dr. Higashinori completely unprepared. It looked like I would have to wait a few days until Hong Okrye returned.
‘Guess I should take a proper look at that computer first.’
The vacuum-tube computer hidden in the underground air-raid shelter beneath the shrine. I had wanted to investigate Dr. Higashinori because I wasn’t confident I could understand the machine just by staring at it. But now that things had turned out this way, it made more sense to examine the computer in the meantime.
At the very least, I should be able to determine whether it was only being used to maintain the school’s barrier. I could always dig into the doctor afterward.
‘Today’s a lot more boring than yesterday.’
It was during the morning’s shared class—squad tactics practice. I had that thought while watching the other squads fight before our turn came.
The demonic beasts released for today’s training were mostly weak low-grade ones. Of course there were slight differences depending on each squad’s level, but overall they were all about the same.
‘Must be because Renka and I wiped out all the strong ones yesterday.’
The beasts that had come out of the underground yesterday were definitely from the training pens. Since we had slaughtered all the mid-to-high-grade ones like the Claw Wolves down there, only low-grade beasts would be available for today’s practice.
And then it was our squad’s turn.
‘Needle Mine. In this era they call it… “Harizurai,” right?’
In the 21st century it had been known as a Niddle Mine. A low-grade beast that was all size and no brains—slow-moving and barely worth any experience.
‘As long as you don’t get too close it’s not that dangerous. I’ll hang back and watch how the rest of the squad handles it.’
Even though it was low-grade, its body was covered in spikes over sixty centimeters long, making ranged attacks ineffective. And if you got close, it would inflate and shoot out its spines as a defense mechanism. Without knowing the proper strategy, it was surprisingly tricky to take down.
Its spiny armor caused Song Byeong-o’s magic bullets to ricochet, and Lee Yuha’s freezing had no effect either. Even if the surface froze a little, one good shake sent the frost crumbling off in chunks.
Yang Bok-ja shouted,
“You?”
“Yeah! I think I can handle it!”
I tilted my head in confusion. Her role was support using telekinesis. This didn’t seem like a monster she should be facing. Its sheer mass alone would make it difficult for her to manipulate.
But when she stretched out her hand and concentrated for a long moment, the wriggling Harizurai suddenly froze in place, its spines drooping limply.
I asked her, “Isn’t that mind control?”
“Yep! I just learned it recently!”
Telekinesis and mind control both fell under the same “esper” category. It was common for growth in one ability to unlock similar ones.
“Pretty cool, right? But my level’s still low, so it doesn’t work on higher animals. It only affects low-intelligence creatures for a very short time!”
That made sense. Calling it mind control was a bit of a stretch—controlling anything with real intelligence required enormous mental power. This Harizurai probably had the brainpower of a goldfish, which was why it worked.
Once the beast had completely stopped moving, Murasaki Kenji stepped forward.
“Mou, Murasaki-kun! I told you to call me Tomiko!”
“Anyway, is it completely asleep? …Heh heh, then I have nothing to worry about.”
Murasaki strode right up to the Harizurai with his sword drawn. He stopped in front of the sleeping beast, raised his blade high, and—
I was dumbfounded.
‘What the hell is this idiot doing? Even if it’s hypnotized, that shout is definitely going to wake it up!’
Sure enough, the Harizurai twitched and began reflexively inflating its spines.
‘…Shit!’
I kicked off the ground and sprinted forward. It was a good thing I had pre-cast Swiftness just in case. The instant I kicked Murasaki out of the way, a barrage of spines flew straight at me.
From a distance, Yang Bok-ja screamed,
I barely dodged the spines and, in the same motion, drove my blade into the Harizurai’s weak point—its breathing hole.
-Kieeeeeeek…
‘Phew.’
That had been way too close. I sheathed my sword, looked down at Murasaki who had been sent tumbling by my kick, and let out a sigh.
“Why the hell would you shout like that, you moron? Even a dead man would jump up in surprise.”
But Murasaki, still sitting on the ground, stared at me with a look of pure panic.
“Huh?”
Wondering what he was on about, I looked down at myself. My uniform was soaked with blood in several places.
‘Oh crap.’
It was from the wounds I’d received yesterday. They had only been shallow scratches and had already scabbed over, but the sudden surge of blood flow from Swiftness combined with my explosive movement must have torn them open again.
“Uwaaaah! Shirabayashi-kun! What do we do?! Gomen! Gomen!”
Yang Bok-ja came running over in a panic. She thought her hypnosis had failed and I had been hit by the spines.
“No, this is—”
“You’re completely covered in blood! Aikawa-chan! Come here quick!”
“I keep telling you I’m fine. These are just scratches—”
But Aikawa Satomi took one look at me and turned pale.
Even Lee Yuha approached with worry in her eyes.
“How can you be so careless with your own body? Can you walk?”
“I really am fine—”
“You are drenched in blood. How can you call that fine?”
At this point I had no choice but to listen. I couldn’t exactly explain what had happened yesterday.
Yang Bok-ja shouted to our squad tactics instructor, Professor Kadamura,
Then she turned back and yelled,
“Got it.”
“Uhh… okay.”
Leaving the cleanup to Murasaki and Song Byeong-o, I was practically dragged away by Yang Bok-ja and Aikawa Satomi until we reached the infirmary in the main building.
‘Well, since I’m here anyway, I might as well rest a bit.’
But the girls showed no sign of leaving. They stayed right by my side. Aikawa pointed to one of the beds.
“What? You’re going to treat me?”
I asked Aikawa. Come to think of it, the school doctor was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s the school nurse—I mean, the infirmary professor?”
“Well… the professor is currently teaching a third-year specialized class… But it’s okay! I’ve learned basic healing techniques…”
The infirmary professor was also the specialized healing instructor for Aikawa’s major. Since there was only one healing professor on campus, they had to double as both.
‘To think the school is this short on healing personnel.’
Most talented healers were high-value assets. Instead of earning a salary teaching here, they would rather open their own clinics. Still, this was a hunter academy. Shouldn’t they be investing money to recruit more healing-capable staff?
Was the school really fine with students getting hurt or even dying?
‘Typical Japanese—zero regard for human life…’
Anyway, I might as well get healed. Even minor wounds healed faster with proper treatment, and this was a good chance to see how much Aikawa’s healing ability had grown.
“Alright.”
I sat on the medical bed and was about to remove my uniform jacket when I spoke to the girls.
“Yuha, Bok-ja. Can you two step outside for a bit?”
Aikawa had to stay to heal me, but I felt awkward showing my bare body to the others. Besides, although this Baek Chulyeon body had gained some lean muscle recently, it was still scrawny compared to my 21st-century self.
At my request, Yang Bok-ja covered her mouth and giggled.
“Oh my, Shirabayashi-kun! Are you feeling shy?”
Of course I was, damn it.
Lee Yuha walked over to the giggling girl and scolded her.
“How can you say such shameless things in front of an injured person? Come outside with me at once. How is Baek Chulyeon supposed to receive treatment comfortably with you here?”
“It’s not the Joseon dynasty. We’re all just students. Why act so prudish…”
Grumbling, Yang Bok-ja and Lee Yuha left the room. Only then did I take off my top.
Sure enough, the wounds on my arms and chest had reopened and were bleeding again. Aikawa Satomi swallowed nervously.
“Go ahead.”
While Aikawa placed her hands on my wounds and channeled vital energy into them, I had nothing else to do, so I closed my eyes and thought.
My mind kept returning to the vacuum-tube computer in the air-raid shelter beneath the shrine—the thing that had been bothering me since yesterday.
After hearing from Hong Okrye this morning that spying on Dr. Higashinori would be difficult, I had passed by the school shrine on my way to class and stopped in for a moment. Because of yesterday’s incident, a “Under Repair” sign hung on the shrine, and security personnel from outside the school were posted there.
‘No getting in this way.’
As I wondered if there was any way to sneak inside, I suddenly realized something.
‘The demonic beasts that came out of the underground entrance to the shelter.’
The moment the iron wall had closed, those beasts had appeared from somewhere. They couldn’t have been native to the underground or raised there. They must have been brought from the training pens.
‘Which means there must be a secret passage connecting the beast pens to the shelter.’
Just like the passage between the squad tactics training ground and the pens. There weren’t any special guards at the beast pens, so going through there might let me reach the underground shelter.
But another problem immediately presented itself.
‘How the hell am I supposed to sneak through a place full of demonic beasts?’
I could kill every beast in the training pens to get through, but that would hardly count as sneaking anymore.
‘What should I do…’
I opened my eyes at Aikawa’s voice and looked down. The scabbed, bleeding scratches had vanished completely, as if they had never been there. It seemed Aikawa had already grown strong enough to heal minor wounds like these.
‘Everyone really is growing.’
The same went for Yang Bok-ja. Even though Murasaki had ruined it with his stupidity, she had still managed to put the beast to sleep with proper mind control.
I hadn’t been paying much attention because of everything else going on, but seeing them steadily improving through their specialized classes made me feel proud.
‘Yeah. Who else can I trust if not them?’
Dropped alone into this completely alien past with no acquaintances, the only ones I could turn my back to and rely on were my squadmates—fellow members of the same fate-bound group.
‘From now on, I need to pay more attention to them too… Wait a second.’
My thoughts suddenly landed on Yang Bok-ja’s hypnosis ability. Come to think of it, there was an immediate use for it.
‘The training beast pens.’
I had been worried about how to sneak inside, but if I had her put the beasts to sleep, that problem would disappear. The pens only had low-grade beasts left now anyway. Her current level should be more than enough after what she did to that Harizurai earlier.
As for convincing her, if I promised to introduce her to Renka—a Japanese noble—she would gladly help me out.
‘Good. I’ll go in tonight.’
“It’s taking rather long. I wonder if Baek Chulyeon is truly alright…”
Out in the hallway outside the infirmary, Lee Yuha gazed out the window before turning worried eyes toward the infirmary door.
“He’ll be fine, right? Shirabayashi-kun is quick on his feet. Even if he got stabbed, it was probably just a graze.”
Yang Bok-ja, leaning against the wall right beside the door, spoke up. Lee Yuha turned to her with a slightly sharper tone.
“You speak as if it has nothing to do with you. If you had done it properly, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Hmph! What kind of thing is that to say? You think I don’t feel bad? I just believe that since it’s Shirabayashi-kun, he’ll be okay…”
After that, Yang Bok-ja pulled out a hand mirror and began fixing her pink radio-maki curls, while Lee Yuha stared out the window. The two remained silent for a long time.
It was Yang Bok-ja who broke the silence first.
“It’s taking forever. I wonder what Aikawa-chan is doing in there.”
Then she suddenly stood on her tiptoes and peeked through the infirmary window. A moment later she burst into laughter.
“Maa, Shirabayashi-kun looks surprisingly good without clothes—”
She sounded impressed that he was better built than his slim appearance suggested.
Lee Yuha, standing by the hallway window, was appalled and scolded her.
“How can you shamelessly stare at another man’s bare body—”
But Yang Bok-ja wasn’t one to back down from an argument.
“Mou, most of the girls I went to high school with have already gotten married and had children. What’s the big deal about seeing a naked body?”
Her logic was that since girls her age were already wives and mothers, seeing a man’s bare form was hardly shocking. But Lee Yuha could not accept such reasoning.
Her voice grew louder.
“If they were married it would be one thing, but secretly peeking at an unrelated man’s body is completely different! What sin has Baek Chulyeon committed that he must be disgraced before you?!”
Yet Yang Bok-ja simply shrugged it off.
“Heh, in this enlightened age, are there still pure girls like you? I don’t know for sure, but I bet Shirabayashi-kun is quite the ladies’ man.”
“Baek Chulyeon is not that kind of person!”
Lee Yuha shouted. But even as she defended him, a small part of her mind couldn’t help but worry.
What suddenly came to mind was Shimazu Renka, the daughter of a Japanese noble family. Just what was her relationship with Baek Chulyeon? It didn’t seem like mere friendship. A noblewoman with everything at her fingertips was showing unusual interest in a Korean like Baek Chulyeon, constantly approaching him, while he treated her coldly. Lee Yuha had seen it all.
Yet they were often seen together. And why had Renka even ordered her subordinates to monitor him?
Lee Yuha couldn’t understand it. Then there was the scene at the school shrine two days ago. When she and Renka had been looking for Baek Chulyeon, he had emerged from the shrine storage with a healthy-looking girl with a reddish-brown ponytail.
‘That girl was called Hong Okrye, wasn’t she?’
She was a Korean girl from the same class, though they had little interaction. At the time Lee Yuha had been so relieved that nothing had happened to him that she hadn’t noticed how strange it was for the two of them to be alone together in a dark storage room.
And that wasn’t all. This morning after assembly, she had seen Baek Chulyeon take Hong Okrye somewhere right away.
‘Don’t tell me…’
But Lee Yuha shook her head. A ladies’ man? No. Baek Chulyeon couldn’t be that kind of man. Despite the false accusations of being pro-Japanese because of his parents and background, his heart was as straight as bamboo. He was a reliable comrade and friend who guided her whenever she made mistakes.
There was no way such a person could be immoral.
Just as she was thinking that, the infirmary door opened and Baek Chulyeon stepped out. The first thing he said—quietly, and directed at Yang Bok-ja—was:
“Bok-ja. Are you free tonight?”