The First Stream (2)
-Spill some war stories, please.
"War stories, huh..."
I started to think about where to even begin. If I was going to explain anything properly, I figured I should start with what the Fifth Middle East War had actually been.
"Just a second."
I opened Paint right away and lightly adjusted the stream layout. I shoved my cam feed into a corner and checked to make sure the chat was coming through clearly.
-What kind of room is this?
-A veteran story time room
-What war?
-The Middle East War
In the short time it took for new viewers to flood in, the people who'd already been here started giving them quick explanations.
Honestly, it saved me the trouble.
"All right, then. I'll give you a quick rundown of how the Fifth Middle East War even started."
-k
-Bro, hurry up and tell the war story lol
If I dragged this out too long, people would get bored, so I kept it short.
With practiced ease, I sketched a map of Solomon and Gibro on the Paint canvas.
I’d stared at so many maps on the battlefield that even a rough doodle was enough to make the shapes come out right.
"The country on the west here is Gibro, and the country on the east is Solomon."
I filled Gibro in red and Solomon in blue.
"Gibro and Solomon had been clashing over an oil field sitting right on their border. Solomon claimed it was theirs because more of the field extended into their side of the border, while Gibro basically said that was bullshit and moved troops in to show force. Solomon answered by mobilizing its own army, and the atmosphere between the two countries worsened fast."
I drew a yellow star over the oil field that had lit the fuse for this damned war and marked it clearly.
"Then the United States, Solomon's ally, stepped in and backed Solomon's claim to the field, and Solomon's oil companies got excited and started pumping like crazy..."
Slowly, I covered the yellow star with a black circle.
"In the end, Gibro got pissed off enough to declare war on Solomon, and that was how it started. In the beginning, Solomon was pushed back hard by Gibro's offensive, which had been prepared down to the last detail."
But before long, the war hit a major turning point.
"The United States, which had been standing by and watching, started supplying weapons to the increasingly outmatched Solomon army, and Solomon's Ministry of Defense created an international legion made up of foreign troops and began recruiting."
Mercenaries and veterans from all over the world started gathering to support them.
-So that's how you ended up in the International Legion?
"Yeah. That's right. I was assigned to the International Legion and sent into various battles."
The moment I said that, the chat started flying up even faster.
-So have you killed people?
-Of course he has
-Maybe he was a medic or something else
-The Medal of Honor isn't handed out to just anybody, you know, lesbo...
"I've killed people, of course. Quite a lot of them, actually."
-Holy shit;;
-Okay, that's a little scary...
-What counts as "quite a lot"...?
Watching the reactions in chat, I briefly went over my kill count.
The official record was five hundred.
The unofficial one was in the seven hundreds.
Thinking about it now, I'd really killed a lot of enemies.
I shot them, blew them up with grenades, ran them over with vehicles, stabbed them with knives...
While I was lost in the past for a moment, another viewer's question popped up above the chat.
-What's the battlefield like?
"Hmm... just a normal desert, I guess? Except there are bullets flying around, shells and missiles going off, and it's noisy as hell. Chaotic would be the best way to put it."
-Have you ever been shot?
"A fuckload of times. I got shot on the very first day I was deployed. While riding in a Humvee."
-???
-How are you still alive...
-What's a Humvee?
-Some kind of jeep-like vehicle
Maybe because they were surprised by what I'd said, the chat started racing up even faster.
Well, it wasn't exactly common in Korea to meet someone who'd been shot before.
"So, what happened was..."
.
.
.
.
A line of Humvees rattled through the city streets.
Seated in the back of the lead vehicle, Kim Seong-hyeon was crammed into the corner, his body rigid with tension.
He had died in a traffic accident on the day he was discharged from the army, only to wake up in an unfamiliar gender-reversed world.
Worse, he had landed there as a brand-new recruit in the International Legion of a Middle Eastern country he'd never even heard of before.
During the short training period, he had sorted through his thoughts over and over again.
In the end, he had come to one conclusion: if he wanted to survive, he would have to fight on the battlefield.
Once he had already been folded into Solomon's military structure and briefed on military information, there was no way out for him.
All he could do was adapt and fight bravely.
Sadly, reason and instinct were often at odds.
He had somehow endured training, but once he was actually deployed, an overwhelming pressure was crushing him from the inside out.
When a comrade saw his face going pale—so pale it seemed to turn blue—and snorted with laughter, he tossed out a joke.
"Try not to freeze up that much. They say the first one to die is always the guy who's frozen stiff."
"Hiiik..."
"Hahaha, don't scare him too much. At this rate, he'll lose his mind before the fighting even starts."
"Heh-heh-heh..."
Watching Kim Seong-hyeon draw in a sharp breath and hug his rifle like a lifeline, the soldiers in the same vehicle all started laughing as if he were adorable.
Their reaction only made him more embarrassed, and his cheeks flushed as he hurriedly straightened his posture.
Up until then, everything had seemed to be going more or less fine.
While he traded a few crude jokes with the comrades he'd grown close to during training and tried to shake off his nerves, the Humvee swung left along the side of a row of commercial buildings.
Titititititit—!!!
Bullets came flying from somewhere and began chewing into the Humvee's armored plating.
With a deafening metallic shriek, sparks burst in every direction and threw the soldiers into chaos.
"W-what the hell?!!!!"
"We're under enemy fire!!! Back up—"
Thwack—
With an ominous sound, a hole punched through the windshield.
"Shit, Yelena!!!"
The driver, who had been trying to radio the other Humvees behind them, took a tiny slug straight into the head.
Her forehead caved in, and she slammed face-first against the steering wheel, spilling sticky fragments of brain matter across it. The sight sent shock through everyone.
The comrade who had been laughing and joking a moment ago had been murdered in the most grotesque way imaginable.
There was no way anyone could stay calm.
"You motherfuckers!!!"
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat—!!!
One soldier, enraged by the death of his comrade, opened fire with the machine gun mounted on top of the vehicle.
Titititing—!!!
More sharp cracks rang out as bullets struck, but they were stopped by the bulletproof plate mounted in front of the machine gun, unable to reach the gunner.
As the machine gun sprayed suppression fire and drew the enemy's attention, the soldiers inside the vehicle moved frantically.
Swish—
"Ugh..."
The squad leader, seated in the passenger seat, shoved the driver’s cooling corpse aside and grimaced.
Brain fluid and fragments had spilled across the steering wheel and left a filthy smear behind.
Still, there was no time to retch. Forcing down the nausea surging up her throat, the squad leader put her hands on the wheel.
She manipulated the gear shift, switched it into reverse, and slammed her foot down on the pedal.
Vwoooom—
The Humvee lurched backward violently, throwing the soldiers inside forward.
If they could have backed into the alley and taken cover, that would have been ideal.
Unfortunately, luck had no intention of favoring Kim Seong-hyeon's squad.
BOOM—!!
"Kraaaagh!"
"We collided with Vehicle Two!"
The violent impact sent the soldiers tumbling around the interior of the vehicle.
In her panic, the driver had reversed too fast and slammed their rear end into the bumper of the second vehicle, which had been moving around the building to take position.
"Shit...!!!"
"Squad Leader! In front! In front!!!"
The squad leader tried to move the vehicle again, but the shout from the soldier in the back seat forced her to look forward.
What she saw was the Gibro army aiming a long cylindrical weapon at them.
Stunned, the squad leader could do nothing but scream.
"RPG!!!"
Shiiiiing—
BOOOOOM—!!!
With a force beyond imagination, the Humvee's heavy body was hurled high into the air.
The overturned vehicle was swallowed by flames in an instant.
"Ughhh..."
"Stay sharp and count heads!"
Right before the RPG hit, Kim Seong-hyeon had barely made it out of the vehicle with a comrade's help. Now he was reeling from a tinnitus so intense it felt like his eardrums were being torn apart as he looked around.
The machine gunner who had been clinging to the roof-mounted weapon hadn't escaped.
Her body was just barely sticking out from beneath the overturned Humvee, already blackening as it burned.
"What about the squad leader?!"
"She's gone! Get everyone into the building first—"
Thunk—!
"Khah..."
"Leimy!"
Kim Seong-hyeon could only stare helplessly as Leimy, who had just struggled to her feet, clutched her abdomen and fell backward.
She was gasping on the ground, but she was still alive.
Seong-hyeon dragged his trembling body toward her and checked her condition.
There was a hole blown through her body armor, but no physical wound beneath it.
The plate in Leimy's vest had clearly stopped the round by pure luck.
Seong-hyeon slipped his arm under Leimy's armpits, hauled her up, and shouted to the comrade who was already lying prone and aiming his rifle.
"Leimy's fine! I'm taking her inside!"
"Got it! Covering fire!"
Ratatatatat—!
The comrade's rifle roared to life, and at the same moment, Seong-hyeon's body—Leimy clutched against him—began to move.
He took careful, measured steps so he wouldn't trip over his own feet as he moved deeper into the commercial building.
Just as the wall of the building was about to completely shield him and Leimy's bodies—
Thwack—!
"Ghk..."
Seong-hyeon felt the violent impact of something striking him in the stomach like a punch.
Someone had shot him.
"Ughhh..."
With trembling fingers, he reached for his stomach, and dark red blood smeared across his hand.
Had he been hit?
"Aaaagh...!!"
Seong-hyeon let out a pained scream and crawled into the interior of the building.
Of course, he didn't forget to keep hold of Leimy's limp body.
After finally bracing himself against the wall and catching his breath, the comrade who had finished laying down suppressive fire came running toward him.
When he saw Seong-hyeon's blood-soaked body, his face hardened instantly.
"Chris, are you all right?!"
"Blood... there's blood..."
Panicking, Seong-hyeon couldn't answer properly.
All he could see was the blood-smeared mess across his own stomach.
But his comrade twisted his face in pain and shook him hard.
"Chris, focus! That's not your blood!"
"Ugh...?"
"It's Leimy's blood!"
At those final words, Seong-hyeon stared blankly down at Leimy in his arms.
Half her head had been blown away, leaving only her jaw behind.
Only then did he understand what had happened.
The round that had torn through Leimy's head had struck his bulletproof vest right after.
And in the process, the contents of Leimy's body had sprayed all over him.
"Aaaaghhhhhh!!!!"
In the face of a hellish situation like that, he screamed.
.
.
.
.
"...So, yeah. Something like that happened."
Thinking back on it with a distant, almost dreamy feeling, it was strangely emotional.
Back then, that experience had nearly driven me out of my mind, and now I was talking about it this calmly.
I couldn't help feeling a little wistful.
I turned my head for a moment and checked the chat reaction.
-I'm sorry...
-Damn... rest in peace
-What kind of life have you lived...?...
"...?"
Did the story about Leimy's head exploding hit them that hard?
For some reason, the donation message feels kind of pitying too...