Chapter 95
Chapter 95
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: Avenger of Kamdesh
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It must have been from exhaustion.
Aiden's consciousness, deep in sleep, sank to its lowest depths.
It wasn't a memory.
A place far deeper.
Deep, deep below, it was Aiden's most primal, fundamental abyss.
“Lieutenant Colonel Aiden, it hurts. It hurts so much.”
A new recruit with a shattered face and subordinates with shrapnel embedded all over their bodies.
The men who had fallen in Kamdesh were staggering toward Aiden like zombies.
“I want to live.”
“Why are you still alive?”
“We all died.”
“It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”
Aiden couldn't shake off the corpses clinging to him.
They were horrifying figures, as if dug up from their graves, but he knew they were his men.
Unable to flee or fight them off, the spider-like fingers of the dead crawled over Aiden's body, clinging to him.
“No.”
In an instant, the fingers crept up his arms and reached his mouth.
Just as Aiden’s eyes widened, his nose and mouth sealed shut, another hand covered his eyes.
A fear that felt like he was about to suffocate.
And beneath that fear, a heavy, somber emotion that couldn't be concealed.
Guilt.
Not only had he failed to die with them, but he had also failed to find out who had avenged his men.
It was the moment that intense guilt, born from a strong sense of responsibility, used the hands of the dead to drag him down into the abyss.
Thump.
Kanghyeok touched his thigh, pulling his consciousness back to the surface.
“Gasp!”
Aiden gasped for air and opened his eyes.
The sun had passed its zenith and was preparing to paint the sky with sunset hues, while Leila's steady breathing could be faintly heard from the back seat.
A sense of peace.
The quiet surroundings.
Aiden wiped away his cold sweat and sat still for a long while. Then, realizing he had woken from the dream and returned to reality, he spoke.
“How long was I out?”
“A while.”
Aiden roughly rubbed his face with his palms.
“Let’s switch. You need to sleep too.”
“Don't need to.”
Kanghyeok gripped the steering wheel as if to say he wouldn't yield it.
“Cigarette?”
“I have my own……”
Aiden trailed off and held out his hand to Kanghyeok.
“Let me bum one.”
Unlike Aiden's, Kanghyeok's cigarettes were American.
There were plenty of the same brands in this country.
But cigarettes had a peculiar quality; even with the same brand, the taste could feel worlds apart depending on where they were made.
He needed an American cigarette.
Desperately.
Kanghyeok chuckled and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
He put one in his mouth and handed another to Aiden.
They both had lighters, so they lit their own.
“Hoo.”
Aiden rested the hand holding the cigarette on his knee and blew smoke out the passenger window.
“Do you have nightmares every day?”
“Did it look that way?”
Aiden's voice was tinged with embarrassment, ashamed of having shown a moment of weakness.
“I do too.”
Aiden turned his head to look at Kanghyeok.
“You?”
He couldn't imagine it.
Nightmares stemmed from a weakness of the mind.
They belonged to the weak, to those who lacked strength.
Therefore, the strong did not have them.
Especially someone as strong as Kanghyeok.
Having always believed this, Aiden found it hard to accept that Kanghyeok had nightmares.
Kanghyeok checked to see if Leila was sound asleep, then brought the cigarette to his lips.
“I see a burning bus.”
“A bus?”
Aiden waited for Kanghyeok to continue.
But for a while, Kanghyeok didn't answer, only smoking his cigarette.
“Were you in a big accident?”
“Hah.”
Kanghyeok answered by twisting his lips and exhaling.
Some things couldn't be answered.
Because no one would believe him if he said he'd died in the future in front of a burning bus.
But from Kanghyeok's hollow, weary laugh, Aiden seemed to have found an answer.
“So you’re a miserable bastard too.”
“Probably.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Kanghyeok smoked without replying.
*'Because we're similar.'*
He felt a certain kinship with Aiden.
Kanghyeok too had once been a soldier, then a mercenary, and was plagued by nightmares.
If he hadn't joined the Company, he might have lived a life similar to Aiden's.
That damn sense of kinship had loosened his tongue, making him bring up the bus story he didn't need to.
“Let's change the subject.”
At Kanghyeok's words, Aiden's lips twitched before he spoke.
“My men died in Kamdesh.”
This wasn't what he had expected.
But Aiden, his face somber and his eyes gazing into his memories, began to recount the old story as if reciting it.
“The Taliban swarmed us from all sides, their numbers overwhelming our combat strength. In the end, I had to leave the scene without even recovering my men’s bodies.”
“...Is that so.”
“I dream of my men every night. I have no right to, no excuse.”
Thump.
The ash from the cigarette perched on Aiden's fingertips fell like a teardrop.
“I couldn't do anything. I couldn't retrieve their bodies, couldn't avenge them, and I couldn't even find out who did avenge them.”
Aiden stared at the bluish smoke rising from the shortened cigarette and continued.
“Do you know?”
“...What.”
“About the Avenger of Kamdesh.”
Kanghyeok said nothing.
But he knew what that meant.
Still, he couldn't say anything, because leaking information related to the Company was forbidden.
If there was another reason...
Kanghyeok took a final, hard drag from the short cigarette before flicking it out the window.
He exhaled, pushing even the smoke outside, and spoke in a low voice.
“I can't tell you.”
“You know something, don't you?”
Aiden stared only at Kanghyeok's face, even as the heat from the short cigarette butt tickled his fingers.
From his perspective, Kanghyeok looked like he knew something about the Avenger of Kamdesh.
“Tell me. Please, please…”
If he knew the answer, maybe he could escape this nightmare.
Aiden pleaded, clinging to that desperate hope, but Kanghyeok couldn't answer.
He knew what happened when a desperate person found a meaningless answer.
They break. The person themselves.
It was better to chase an answer that couldn't be easily found; at least that gave them a reason to live.
“You son of a bitch.”
When it seemed Kanghyeok wouldn't answer, Aiden twisted his lips into a smile that was almost a sob, fumbled with the extinguished cigarette, and then threw it out the window.
Whump-whump-whump-whump-whump!
The sound of a helicopter came from behind the car.
“What’s with the helicopter? Dammit.”
Kanghyeok sharpened his senses, focusing on the sound.
Until now, he hadn't heard a single helicopter or plane.
*'Dive? No, it's not him.'*
A helicopter wasn't a piece of equipment you could just acquire and operate immediately.
It required flight training and guzzled expensive fuel as if pouring it into the sky.
There was no way a guy like Dive would be operating such an inefficient machine.
He had a bad feeling.
Whump-whump-whump-whump!
The bad feeling grew stronger as the helicopter approached, and Kanghyeok wrenched the steering wheel toward a nearby hill.
Clank!
“Kuh!”
Aiden cried out in pain as his casted arm slammed against something from the sudden turn, and in the back seat, Leila's eyes flew open as she sat up straight.
“What’s happening?”
“Getting ready.”
Vrooooom!
Having left the road, a thick cloud of sand and dust billowed up behind the car.
You never knew.
If it was just someone passing by or a military helicopter, it would end as a simple incident.
But what if it wasn't?
What if it was someone tracking Kanghyeok with hostile intent?
“Hey, it’s just a helicopter!”
“I know.”
“This isn’t a military zone! It must be a civilian one!”
Aiden raised his voice in disbelief, gripping the handle above the passenger window.
“Aiden, that’s the sound of a combat helicopter.”
Thwup-thwup-thwup-thwup-thwup!
You could tell the difference between a civilian and a combat helicopter just by the sound of its rotors.
They had to carry a lot of equipment and personnel, so they made a much heavier sound, a vibration that seemed to rumble in your gut.
Just like that helicopter.
“Dammit.”
As the helicopter drew closer, Aiden must have realized it wasn't an ordinary one, because he grabbed his rifle.
Screeech!
In an area with large, sprawling rocks, Kanghyeok slammed on the brakes.
A cloud of dust rose for a moment, but it was blown away by the wind from the helicopter, which was now close enough to identify its model with the naked eye.
Whump-whump-whump-whump-whump!
Having parked the car behind a rock, Kanghyeok fixed his gaze on the helicopter.
Would it just pass by, or?
As if pinned in the sky by Kanghyeok's gaze, the helicopter hovered without moving.
It was a pitch-black helicopter.
With a gun mounted underneath, capable of unleashing a storm of machine-gun fire.
But it didn't belong to any military unit.
“Tsk.”
Kanghyeok clicked his tongue as he watched the helicopter swivel its nose back and forth, like a snake searching for hidden prey.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The helicopter's machine gun raked the area with bullets.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
The rock shattered, sending shrapnel flying in all directions.
Crack!
When a large crack appeared on the passenger window after being struck by shrapnel, Kanghyeok stomped on the accelerator.
Vrrrrroooom!
As the momentarily stopped car shot forward, the helicopter's nose turned toward it.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The pursuing helicopter and the fleeing car.
It felt like being a rodent chased by a hawk.
Grrrrk!
Every time the tires ran over rock fragments and stones embedded in the ground, the car shook violently, and a groan escaped Aiden's lips.
“Leila.”
Kanghyeok maneuvered the car toward the road, meeting Leila's eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Already on it.”
It was an SUV, with the back seat connected to the trunk.
Leila reached back and grabbed a bag from the trunk area.
She then pulled a rifle from the bag and aimed at the helicopter through the rear window.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Aiming at a target through a downpour of bullets was not something one could do with ordinary courage.
Clack.
But Leila calmly disengaged the safety, chambered a round, and pulled the trigger, aiming for the helicopter's cockpit.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The helicopter, which had been approaching at a low altitude, ascended, and Leila raised her muzzle to match.
Rat-tat-tat-tat! Clack, click!
After swiftly changing the empty magazine, Leila waited for the helicopter to come back into view.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
But when the sound lingered overhead, Leila frowned and sucked in her lips.
“Damn it!”
Aiden rolled down the window, leaned out with his upper body and rifle, and looked up.
And he saw it.
The helicopter moving toward the driver's side.
“Front—!”
Kanghyeok grabbed Aiden's clothes and yanked him back in.
The moment Aiden's butt hit the seat, Kanghyeok wrenched the steering wheel.
Screeeeeeech!
With a cloud of dust, the car turned ninety degrees.
Click.
Kanghyeok pulled out his pistol and looked at the helicopter appearing through the driver's side window.
The helicopter, in turn, was aiming its machine gun muzzle at Kanghyeok.
Vroooooom!
Kanghyeok slammed the accelerator and pulled the trigger, while Leila in the back seat also fired, ready to empty her magazine.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets spewing from the helicopter slammed into the ground, chasing the car, while Aiden desperately waited for an angle to attack.
It was then.
“Aiden, take the wheel.”
“What?”
“The wheel!”
Kanghyeok raised his voice over the gunfire, and Aiden hastily grabbed the steering wheel.
Vrooooom!
Kanghyeok pressed the accelerator even harder and reached his arm back.
“Give me the bag!”
Without a word, Leila took the bag from the back seat and passed it to Kanghyeok.
Clank.
What he pulled from the bag was a shotgun with an attached grenade launcher.
Kanghyeok aimed the shotgun's sights at the helicopter. The person in the cockpit was invisible through the dark tint.
Still, he knew this much.
There wasn't just one or two of them inside.
A palpable, sticky intent to kill Kanghyeok, no matter what, radiated from the entire helicopter.
But why?
Who are you?
To find the answer himself, Kanghyeok pulled the shotgun's trigger.
CRASH!
As shattered pieces of glass rained down, Kanghyeok fired the grenade.