A New Battlefield (1)

I hold a job you almost never see in the modern world.

A mercenary.

A professional combatant, paid to fight and to carry out high-risk missions. Within that trade I am a contractor—a mercenary attached to no single PMC, no private military company, who moves from contract to contract.

On a job, the role I usually take is simple. I slip into the enemy position ahead of everyone else, cut the power, quietly remove the guards, and blind their surveillance. Then I pass the real-time intelligence gathered on the way in to the main force or the client, and design a safe route back out.

It is the role commonly called a Covert Saboteur.

The pay was obscene. So was the danger.

Today was no exception.

"Objective reached. Power goes down in thirty seconds. Two lobby guards eliminated. A three-man security team is waiting under the west stairwell. The CCTV main-line distribution box is in the basement control room. Sensors are live in the east corridor—watch yourselves."

Hidden at a concealment point I had secured in advance, I sent back what I had learned on the way in, pared down to the bone.

Static crackled in my ear.

A moment later, the low voice of our bald French team leader, Leclerc, came through the tactical earpiece.

We had ten minutes. After that, the police who had taken the bribe would arrive.

I moved through the dark with the smallest motion I could manage. The dagger in my hand caught the moonlight and threw a blood-red gleam.

I was making for the extraction zone I had set in advance when the earpiece spoke again.

Leclerc never finished.

KRA-KOOM!

"...!"

The building shuddered with the blast, and a beat later ragged gunfire poured down from the floors above. A chill raced the length of my spine.

They'd dug the trap and waited.

The worst possible situation. Before I tried to make sense of it, I needed a place to hide.

I opened my mouth to call the sniper who should have been watching this side from an outlying building. The voice in the earpiece got there first. A voice I had never heard—cold, with not a shred of feeling in it.

Fluent French. For the record, we had been speaking English ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠until then.

Walked right into it.

I dropped the earpiece, the burner phone, the tactical chest rig, the NVGs, and my spare magazines where I stood, and ran for the jungle.

"So you hid in the jungle near Kisangani for two weeks? How did you even get drinking water?"

At Chae Geon-wook's question, Go Tae-min answered around a mouthful of hamburger.

"Managed somehow. We did CEET training, didn't we?"

"Ugh... sucking the juice out of tree roots? Don't tell me you did that again."

"Try lasting three days without water. You'd be out there with your eyes rolled back, digging in the dirt and high-fiving earthworms."

"God, I don't even want to picture it. What about food?"

"African lizards are tougher than you'd think. Shut your eyes, get past the fishy taste, and chicken doesn't stand a chance. Want me to catch you one later?"

Go Tae-min had spent two full weeks drifting through the jungle, shaking pursuit. The gunfire had lasted only the first few days. The silence that came after was more dangerous—a perfect isolation, even his communications with the outside cut. Each dawn he took his bearing from the stars, moved only at night, and endured one day at a time. To leave no trail he stepped only where roots would take his weight, and he slept crouched in the trees.

Following the river northeast, he managed at last to hide himself nearly to the border.

"Met a broker there and got out through Uganda. Then I went down to Mombasa Port and slipped aboard a cargo ship."

He said it as if it were nothing, but every day of that journey had been a blood-draining fight to stay alive. Even after the freighter out of Mombasa made Naples, he could not afford to relax. A man trying to dodge a tail could not enter a country through the front door in the first place. The moment he stepped off the ship, Go Tae-min hid himself on the outskirts of the port, made contact with a local broker, and only after forged papers were finally in his hands could he attempt the trip home.

The money that vanished along the way came to twenty thousand dollars.

"Agh. My blood money..."

Chae Geon-wook offered what comfort he could to Go Tae-min, who sat clutching his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chest in bitterness.

"At least you came back with all your limbs. You went through hell. Rest for a while."

"If I were here to rest, I wouldn't have come looking for you. If I don't want to suffer later, I need to work while I'm still young."

Chae Geon-wook was a senior from the same unit, a man who had shared life and death with Go Tae-min, and these days he worked as an information broker. Go Tae-min often took contracts through him.

Chae Geon-wook set down the whiskey bottle he had been wiping and clicked his tongue.

"You want to go back out in the field even now? We don't even know how far those bastards have sunk their hooks. Are you in your right mind?"

"It's not like I do business with my face out and my name on a sign. I've got plenty of laundered identities."

"Even so, kid. This time they crossed the line. I know money's tight. But Tae-min, can't you ease off a little? How much more do you need before you can crawl out of that mess?"

"If I want to change the way Mom and the kids are living, I've still got a long way to go."

"Know when to quit, you little shit. If you die, you think your family's going to be happy taking that money?"

"I'm not going to die. Hell itself won't take a guy like me—the pay doesn't match. So hurry up and find me some work."

Chae Geon-wook shook his head. The junior in front of him was stubborn as rebar. Even without him, the kid would land a contract somehow. He had been moving under aliases with his face covered, so his identity had probably not been exposed—but sending him into the field right now was still far too dangerous.

"Then why not try a different line of work for a while? There's Nova Arena, for one."

"Nova Arena? What's that?"

Go Tae-min tilted his head. For years he had worked only in the backcountry of Africa. He had no way of knowing how the world turned these days.

The moment Go Tae-min showed interest, Chae Geon-wook grinned.

The year was 2030.

A company called Nova succeeded in developing a BCI system—Brain-Computer Interface technology. It read the brain's sensory and motor signals, even memory, in real time, and let a body inside a virtual space move as if it were real.

With that technology they created something that had not existed before. They called it Nova Arena. Put simply, it was a modern Colosseum.

Inside a virtual arena built by BCI, participants took up weapons and shields and fought as gladiators. Die, and you lived again—but the fear of death, and the pain, were no different from reality. And yet the body in the real world was never harmed. The moment this contradictory world was revealed, it captivated people across the globe.

Crowds flocked to watch Nova Arena, and the more they came, the more capital poured in after them.

The formats were just as varied. Fighters waged one-on-one blood matches with weapons in hand. More than a thousand participants fought sieges. Some trekked a jungle to complete a set mission, or escaped a prison laid out like a maze. Palm-sweating contests, all of them, unfolded inside Nova Arena.

"Well? Aren't these things you could do just fine? You're a specialist in the business."

Even at Chae Geon-wook's praise, Go Tae-min had only one interest.

"You're saying the money's good?"

"You do have to climb to a certain point. Still, you'd make a hell of a lot more than in the MMA market."

Hearing the explanation, Go Tae-min propped his chin on his hand and sank into thought.

Better than I expected.

Seven years in special forces, and three as a mercenary. He had fought until combat was worn into his bones. For a Covert Saboteur, whose life depended on stealth, a blade was a tool you had to keep practicing in the gaps—something to erase your presence and slip in quietly. The work had to be done in enemy ground without ever being noticed.

A slightly longer blade isn't going to change much.

He had never formally learned how to use a sword, but it had not been a problem so far. Most of the enemies he had faced were men used to modern war. Dangerous at a distance—but get in close, and the rest was simple. Drive a dagger into a vital point, or just keep them from bringing a gun to bear. That was enough.

One thing still snagged at him.

"Wouldn't entering Nova Arena expose my identity instead?"

At the question, Chae Geon-wook snorted.

The little shit. He had acted as if he didn't care, but he was quietly worried after all.

"Relax. You connect through a capsule anyway. Throw on something like a mask and enter from Japan or the States—who's going to know it's you? Just change the nickname."

He would not have to show his face. He could operate under a handle, and he could change the country he competed from whenever he liked.

That was enough. Go Tae-min made his decision.

"What do I have to do to enter?"

"Whoa. It's bigger than I thought."

The capsule I had bought sat in a small room beside Chae Geon-wook's workshop. He was glad to have a solid guard like me around, and I had gained a hideout where I could operate with my mind at ease. Win-win.

"Which country do you want to start in?"

"Which one's good?"

"Plenty of decent options."

After talking it over with him, I settled on choosing one of three: the United States, Japan, or China. I spoke a fair amount of English, and my looks were close enough to Northeast Asian that disguising my identity would be easier.

"I'd recommend Japan. A Pro License is easier to earn there than in the U.S. or China. And there's no time difference."

I nodded without argument.

"Japan, then."

If the money was the same, there was no point picking the harder road.

While he filled out the application for me, I looked over the inside of the capsule. A metal shell shaped to the curve of a human body. Lie down in here, and you could connect to virtual reality—it still didn't quite feel real. While I had been wrestling venomous insects in the African jungle, the world had gone farther than I had thought.

"Done. You can play right now. What do you want to do? Want to try it?"

"Already?"

"The system's solid these days. Plenty of people are gunning for a Pro License, so the process is simpler than it used to be."

He rapped the capsule with his knuckles.

"Get in. I'll help you with the setup."

I eased myself into the capsule. Once I settled and lay back, a cold, heavy sense of metal supported my spine. With practiced hands he sorted the electrodes and sensors and stuck them, one by one, to my head and my limbs.

"Heh. Go have fun. You'll probably be shocked."

"...?"

He shut the capsule door with a meaningful smile.

The instant the seal closed with a mechanical clack, the nape of my neck went cold. To a black-ops man, a sealed space and the dark meant death. I forced the tension out of my body and closed my eyes.

Is this really going to connect me to virtual reality?

A moment later the whole capsule trembled, ever so lightly. At the same time ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an electronic tone whispered beside me, as if it were speaking into my ear.

And then—

My vision went black.

· · ·

When I came to, a new world was spread before my eyes.

Where is this?

A massive circular structure. The floor was buried in sand, and the walls rose in tiers of spectator seating.

It really is a Colosseum.

Sunlight poured out of a blue sky. A sense of temperature almost impossible to believe was virtual. I scooped up a handful of sand. The feel of it between my fingers was intensely real.

I brushed the sand away and slowly took stock of my own body. The play of muscle, the sensation of a joint bending, the response when I put strength into it—all of it natural. Natural enough to make me forget this was virtual reality.

Incredible.

Even the clothes were exactly what I had worn into the capsule. The thin leather armor my senior had prepared for me. A sword hung at my waist, and a single dagger was concealed against my chest. An Akki mask, wrought in the shape of a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠demon, would be asserting itself across my face.

I ran a hand over the mask and let out a hollow laugh.

How is any of this possible?

It felt less like I had entered virtual reality and more like I had been teleported into some other space.

That was when blue text rose in a corner of my vision.

The sand on the far side of the arena rippled, and a man slowly took shape. Traditional Japanese dress. Two scabbards hung at his waist. He looked as if a samurai had stepped straight out of a film.

I let out a short breath of a laugh.

They said some people build a whole concept just to play to the crowd. Turns out that was true.

Then again, I was wearing a ridiculous demon mask myself, so I was hardly one to talk.

The man in samurai dress drew his sword and glared at me. I closed my hand slowly around the hilt. Shorter than an ordinary sword, a little longer than a dagger—a tactical short sword of about fifty centimeters. The blade wore a matte coating that drank the light, and in place of ornament there was only a rough grip wound over each knuckle.

Cold metal climbed my palm.

It's been a long time since a fight like this.

The fighting instinct that had shadowed me like a ghost for the past few years lifted its head. Wind brushing the nape of my neck. The coarse bite of sand under my soles. I dropped low, like a beast that had found its prey.

The set of my hands. My toes. My field of view. Every sense narrowed to a single point. The feeling of the body crossing over into combat.

Here he comes.

His center of balance tilted, ever so slightly, to the left. The signal that he was about to charge.

And then—

The man in samurai dress rushed me like lightning. The instant his sword drew a half-circle and aimed itself at me—

Left shoulder.

A single red trajectory line took shape in my vision. His sword ran along it like a train on a track laid in advance, without so much as a millimeter of error.

Yes.

The reason I had survived this long—as a special forces soldier, and as a mercenary—was this talent for seeing the line.