A New Beginning (6)
And so I tasted my first real rest in Mexico. But the very next day, I was moving again. Five months of habit had me terrified. If I stayed still, it felt like the trio brothers would show up and beat me senseless.
Mornings began with eighteen movement drills to loosen up, followed by solo trips to the shooting range for sniper practice. Afternoons were spent on YouTube, studying explosives with hands-on demonstrations. I passed the time in that strange space between rest and training while keeping tabs on the situation back in Korea.
Hamo's logistics division had finished recruiting despite the sluggish economy. The new hires were now in on-the-job training, with plans to promote the best performers to full-time status. Yangcho's raw material production unit remained unchanged—he was living comfortably as a civilian, and the abalone had grown quite large. At this rate, he might actually retire for real. There was no one quite like him, even if he could be a bit clumsy at times.
Vietnam's hashish manufacturing division was struggling. The volume wasn't moving as expected. Of course not—his product was basically holiday merchandise.
I reached out to the executives. I didn't feel close enough to Nakamura or Cider to contact them directly, so I messaged Flashmob and the US Army guy instead.
No chance. In my opinion, his name was probably sitting right at the top of the list alongside Seobu Jigeom and the Incheon Prosecutors' Office.
"You should put together a team or two yourself. Business has been good lately, hasn't it?" —Flashmob (46.7)
"What kind of team?" —GB (37.5)
"Security." —Flashmob (46.7)
I wasn't sure we needed one, so I asked Flashmob what he used his for. Warehouse and factory security, plus the occasional debt collection. Scary guy.
I wrapped up by saying I'd contact him once I returned to Korea. Then I messaged the US Army guy.
"How have you been? Sorry I haven't been able to greet you properly—I've been overseas lately." —GB (37.5)
He left me on read.
I thought the fifteenth week would pass like that. Until Gonzales showed up.
"Hey, GB."
The man who found me lounging in the barracks was none other than Gonzales. As usual, he told me to pack my things. I didn't want to go, but the assistant instructors were already trailing behind him, so I threw my gear together and climbed into the confident-looking vehicle.
We drove for about six hours. I had a bad feeling. And I was right. This time, it was the sea. Damn it...
The moment I unpacked on the first day, I was thrown into the water. I swallowed a lot of seawater. For three weeks straight, I was in the ocean except when I was sleeping. The first day they taught me how to swim. Getting smacked with an oar hurt so much I wondered if this was how they used to punish people with the bastinado back in the Joseon era. I was in a rubber boat while he made me swim and followed behind, swinging the oar. After that, it was obvious—if he caught up, I got hit.
I spent the first week doing nothing but swimming. What I didn't know was that there were many different kinds of swimming. From the basic strokes like freestyle, breaststroke, and backstroke to purpose-driven styles like survival swimming, combat swimming, and rescue swimming—I learned them all through YouTube and that damn oar.
When they told me to do rescue swimming by dragging an eighty-kilogram log, I refused with my eyes and got hit for it. On the beach, I wondered how anyone could swim while pulling that thing. But once I was in the water, the buoyancy made it surprisingly light.
I pretended to train hard. The professionals saw right through it and punished me accordingly. That was how the seventeenth week went. I kept hoping something would happen at the end of each week, but nothing did.
The next week, they decided I'd adapted to swimming and moved on to diving. I thought, how hard could it be? Just hold your breath underwater. But the moment they added conditions, it felt like I was going to die. My assistant instructor would hit me every time I came up for air. After getting beaten for hours, he finally taught me the technique—how to breathe properly.
Combining diving with swimming, my lungs grew three times stronger than before. At first I couldn't last thirty seconds. Then a minute. After a week, I could manage a minute and a half. Those were the two weeks I grew close to the sea.
The following week, they dropped me off at a remote reef and told me to swim back—probably some kind of fitness test. I was grateful it was just my body until they strapped lead weights on me. Ever tried scuba diving? You wear lead to overcome buoyancy. But I didn't need to overcome buoyancy—I was supposed to swim back. In other words, it was hell.
Still, no one argues with a beating. When I refused to go, the rubber boat came over and they hit me. It was the first day at sea all over again. I regretted not listening.
The next morning they gave me theory lessons. They said we'd be doing scuba diving. Damn. But why were we carrying guns? On closer inspection, they weren't guns—they were harpoons.
I learned breathing techniques, decompression procedures, emergency protocols, how to clear water from the mask, and how to shoot the harpoon. After theory came practice. I actually caught a fish—it looked like a rockfish, but they said it wasn't edible. It looked delicious, though.
That afternoon, I passed out. I really wanted to stop passing out. I'd gone down maybe two meters when my ears suddenly rang and I panicked. I tried breathing through my nose, but nothing came in. Scuba diving requires breathing through the mouth. My heart raced and I wanted to bolt. The tension made my body heavier, and I couldn't surface because of those damn lead weights. Then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes, I was on the boat. The swimming instructor said everyone went through it and made me do it again the next day. I didn't pass out this time, but I took a lot of hits. That was how the nineteenth week ended.
I'd already been in Mexico for nearly five months. Just one more month and I'd be done. The thought gave me strength.
The next day, the rubber boat dropped me on an uninhabited island with no explanation. They'd be back in a week, they said, and tossed me a backpack before speeding off.
Inside were a tablet and seven power banks. I stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then figured I should at least do something. If I did nothing, they'd probably come back to beat me like last week.
When I turned on the tablet, there was a single folder. Inside were instructions on how to survive on a deserted island. So that's what they wanted me to do—stay alive by following this. Water purification, DIY projects, finding edible food, starting fires. With nothing else to do, I followed the tablet's instructions step by step.
Luckily, the island had plenty of trash. While rummaging through it, I found plenty of substitutes for the materials mentioned in the guide. There was even a fireman's axe on the far side of the island, so I practiced my eighteen movements with it.
The next day, I felt so settled that I wondered if I should just stay on the island like Yangcho. I cleared some trees with the axe, built a shelter, made a harpoon from some bamboo, and even fashioned a trap from discarded fishing gear. I caught a few edible fish with it and used plastic and clothes to distill drinking water—though there was a stream in the forest, so I didn't really need to. I tried it anyway for practice. With the axe, I even managed to catch a rabbit in the woods.
Just one week left. My mind wandered freely while my body stayed busy. This seemed like the easiest part of the Mexican training so far.
But apparently someone didn't like how comfortable I looked. The next day they came and took me away. Guess I got caught. Damn. I thought I was going to coast for a while.
Still, they must not have expected me to do this well, because they threw together an emergency curriculum. The next day, they taught me how to drive a boat. It wasn't too bad. Push the lever forward to go, pull it back to reverse. Parking was tricky, but after getting hit a few times, I picked it up quickly.
That was how the twentieth week ended. If the goal had been to make me comfortable with water, it was a complete success. Why? Because my seasickness was gone. I'd been worried about it—especially for trips to places like Yeonpyeongdo or Dokdo. They say seasickness gets worse on smaller boats due to differences in rolling, pitching, and stability. I wasn't sure. Maybe the tension, or maybe all the seawater I'd swallowed over three weeks, but the ocean breeze actually calmed me down.
Thus ended the twentieth week of training.
On the last day of the twentieth week, I was lying in my quarters when Gonzales—the man I never wanted to see again—showed up. I didn't even want to call him "mister" anymore.
"Pack your things."
"Si." (Yes.)