WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 13: Center Core (1)
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It was too clean and too well-kept.
It even seemed to have two floors. It looked like a neat wooden cottage.
Something was strange. They were giving this to me for free?
I was still baffled by how little sense it all made when the car stopped.
“Get out.”
Yoon said it without making any move to get out himself.
“I’ll park and bring the paperwork.”
I quickly got out of the passenger seat.
The spotless car drove away as soon as I stepped out. I raised my head and took in the scene before me.
It was a beautiful street.
It was also completely deserted. A wide, immaculate road ran between enormous houses, each with dazzlingly well-kept lawns out front. I regretted not having the words to describe the scent of wealth drifting through the street.
That meant even this cottage had to be expensive.
What was this?
What could it be?
It was so good that it felt suspicious.
I slowly approached the cottage. Its unexpected luxury intimidated me enough that I moved carefully.
That was why I did not notice someone approaching.
A familiar husky voice called out.
“Hilde.”
I jerked in surprise.
“Ah! You startled me!”
“Sorry.”
The other person looked startled too, eyes widening.
The instant I recognized Commander-in-Chief Lee Ye-hyeon, I snapped straight as though splashed with cold water.
I did not forget to bow quickly.
“Commander, ah, I’m terribly sorry.”
“No.”
Perhaps my suddenly apologetic expression amused him. Ye-hyeon narrowed his eyes as he smiled.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry for startling you. I was about to go inside when I saw you arriving. Did you have a good first day?”
“Ah, yes. Thanks to Senior Yoon. We had a good dinner too.”
“He treated you to something expensive, right?”
“Yes. It was really delicious.”
“Good. I’m glad. Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m full of energy.”
The man standing with his hands in his pockets smiled at my immediate answer.
He had a presence that stood out even when he was simply standing still. Yet unlike the authority in his posture, his smile was incredibly gentle, giving him a peculiar air.
Even if he smiled kindly, it did not make me feel any more at ease.
“I hear you agreed to take the cottage.”
I nodded at his calm voice.
“Yes. You’ve done me such a great favor that I’ve been wondering how I could repay you.”
“You needn’t think of it that way. Yoon had recently been considering spending money to have this cottage demolished. If you move in, Yoon will have his junior partner living nearby, and he will not have to spend money tearing the place down. It is convenient in several ways.”
Then why had he wanted to get rid of a cottage that looked perfectly fine?
I was curious, but I did not ask. Ye-hyeon did not add an explanation. He simply stood there, watching me.
A cool evening breeze blew past.
“Did Yoon explain the administrative details?”
I nodded.
“I memorized them all.”
“Good. Do not mention them first unless someone asks.”
“Yes.”
After answering dutifully, I looked at him.
“Commander.”
“Are you going to apologize?”
His gentle question stopped me short.
As I stood there speechless after being caught off guard, Ye-hyeon gave a faint smile. Unlike his earlier gentle expression, this one held sadness and experience.
I stared blankly at my superior before speaking.
“If you do not want an apology, please at least accept my thanks.”
Ye-hyeon’s bitter smile lingered.
“Hilde, do not feel so burdened. Even if you occasionally forget or get your fabricated past wrong, there will always be a chance to smooth it over. Memories are terribly unreliable, after all.”
“Still, you could have avoided creating problems in the first place.”
Ye-hyeon’s unreadable bitter smile deepened at my words. Seeing that expression made it hard to keep my mouth shut.
“You could have disposed of the enhanced body. Or just left me to die while I was being chased by a creature.”
“Would that not go against basic human decency?”
“It might look that way in the short term, but I was someone who could not even remember what I looked like. Since I have no idea what kind of person I was, would it really have been irrational to treat me as a risk and eliminate me?”
“You are a good child.”
The Commander-in-Chief’s voice was gentle but firm.
“Even if your memories return, that good nature will not disappear.”
At his final words, the turmoil inside me settled in an instant.
I still could not shake the sense that I owed him a great debt. This man was Black Badger’s highest authority, and he was the one who had made the final decision to make me an official Black Badger member.
I must not forget the debt I owed him.
The moment I made that vow, a low, cold voice spoke.
“Commander-in-Chief.”
Ye-hyeon turned his head.
“Yoon.”
“Have you gotten off work?”
The senior partner approached at an unhurried pace. He carried the stack of papers he had said he would bring out earlier.
The Commander-in-Chief nodded and smiled faintly.
“Just now. Speak casually.”
“You said you were going inside after seeing the kid.”
Yoon immediately dropped the formal speech.
I saw Ye-hyeon raise an eyebrow. His hands remained tucked into the pockets of his suit trousers.
“Why not call him by name instead of calling him a kid?”
“He probably wouldn't mind.”
“It is still not respectful.”
“I really do not mind.”
I hesitantly joined the conversation. Both men looked at me.
“I do not care what you call me. From your perspectives, I really am a green kid. I struggled with a mushroom, after all.”
“Mushroom.”
As though he had remembered something he had forgotten, Ye-hyeon repeated the word and sighed.
“Right. The mushroom. What were you thinking?”
“Looks like Ami told you. But he focused well for three hours and killed it in the end. He was not particularly shaken by it. In the meantime, I got a sense of the things I needed to teach him.”
“Three hours?”
Ye-hyeon asked, unable to hide his shock.
“You had them getting hit by tentacles nonstop for three hours?”
“I told him he could give up whenever he wanted. He was the one who refused to give up. Kang Joo, the head of personnel, was the one who assigned me as his senior partner.”
“You really are all right?”
The Commander-in-Chief turned to ask me. I hurriedly nodded.
“Yes. I really am fine. And he truly told me I could stop whenever I wanted.”
“If you are not all right, do not endure it. Tell someone right away. Anyone. If Yoon is difficult to approach, tell Ami or Ro. Not just today, but from now on as well.”
“I’m great at making a fuss. Don’t worry.”
Ye-hyeon’s troubled expression eased at my quick answer. His furrowed brow relaxed, and his gentle smile returned.
My handsome superior let out a laugh.
“You probably do not even remember whether you used to make a fuss.”
“Hmm. That is a sharp point. Still, I have a feeling I was good at making a fuss.”
“He is fine. You can tell when he’s forcing himself through it. Hey, take this.”
Yoon spoke roughly as he held out the papers.
I immediately accepted them. My eyes quickly scanned the documents, and as I did, my overflowing affection for my dry senior partner was confirmed once again.
They were the cottage transfer papers. The ownership had been transferred to me.
“I love you, Senior Partner.”
“Your true feelings are showing.”
“I did not think there was any need to hide them.”
Ye-hyeon laughed aloud.
Whenever he laughed, the pressure created by his particular blend of experience and sorrow vanished.
Afterward, the three of us inspected the cottage. Its condition was astonishingly good.
When I pushed open the door, the smell of wood greeted me. There was a small shoe cabinet and an entryway. After taking off my shoes and stepping inside, I saw the living room at the end of a short hallway. An old beanbag sat there, along with a round, cute carpet that was worn but still in place. To the right was the kitchen, and to the left were stairs leading to the second floor. It was a loft-style home.
“It’s cozy and wonderful.”
When I thanked them sincerely, my senior and superior looked at me with uncertain expressions.
Soon, they left. They said that the house visible as soon as I opened the door was theirs. They disappeared after telling me to rest well after such a long day.
Of course, Ye-hyeon was the one who told me to rest well.
I was alone again for the first time in a while.
An overwhelming exhaustion suddenly weighed down my entire body.
I staggered into the bathroom and fell asleep without even remembering how I had washed.
* * *
When I woke as if I had been unconscious, it was seven thirty in the morning.
I sprang up and showered quickly. After rushing out of the bathroom, I checked the refrigerator. Just as my senior partner had said, it contained basic food.
Milk, eggs, cheese, bottled water, several ready-made meals, bread, and cereal.
I ate some cereal and put on something suitable from the clothes I had.
There was still some time before I had to go outside to see Yoon.
Unable to figure out what to do, I stood there blankly before picking up my phone. I sank into the old beanbag and turned it on.
After hesitating, I went online.
I typed “Lee Ye-hyeon” into the search bar. There was no particular reason. I just thought that if I searched for him, I might find something.
No.
He was incredibly famous.
I took in the photo and profile displayed prominently in the search results. He seemed to appear in the news all the time. There were countless articles, and it felt strange to see someone I had met just last night online.
Maybe I would read them slowly after my schedule was over.
As I scrolled down, a particular title caught my eye.
[Black Badger is not even a private company. How does it make sense that its leader never changes?]
It looked like a community post.
I dutifully clicked the title. It was something like a thread with a long stream of comments.
[Stagnant long enough to rot.]
[Seriously, how long is that guy going to sit in that seat? Does he not have a term limit?]
[This world is ruled by invisible Big Brothers! Do not be deceived by the president who is president in name only!]
[His term ends when he dies.]
[Dysfunctional.]
[Is he not still there because he is good at the job? Do you not remember what happened when they tried changing him out once?]
[That was because the replacement was an all-time piece of shit.]
[It is definitely a problem that there is no fixed term.]
[Absolute power inevitably corrupts!]
[Did Ye-hyeon not have a successor? Not the current handsome one with braids.]
[Saul? Saul died years ago.]
I did not understand all of it, but it was certainly provocative.
Thinking I should ask Yoon about what I did not understand later, I pressed the back button.
As I kept browsing posts, another title grabbed my attention.
[Did you see that a creature showed up at Badger Headquarters this time?]
I clicked it.
[I hear rumors that it escaped from a laboratory beneath Headquarters.]
[They clearly revealed its route of entry. Cut it out with the weird conspiracy theories.]
[It was the first creature incursion into Zone 1, and it happened to attack Headquarters. That is strange.]
[Maybe it was a creature with brains.]
[It did not look like one.]
[Why has the Commander-in-Chief not made an official announcement?]
[Why would he? One person was injured. It was a minor injury, and apparently they worked there.]
Were they talking about me?
My heart thumped. The comments continued below.
[I heard someone was injured while trying to save a child.]
[Black Badger? A civilian?]
[Apparently a civilian employee. Or maybe a visitor. I heard the Badgers carried them on their backs as they ran while they were bleeding.]
[Then what were the Badgers doing?]
[Headquarters must be crawling with Badgers. It makes no sense for a civilian to get hurt.]
[They said it was not a serious injury.]
[Look at the level of Headquarters lol.]
They did everything they could.
They were casual comments from strangers online, but knowing the truth made my insides twist.
It was not as though I could leave a rebuttal, so I simply scrolled down and kept reading. There was inaccurate information and comments trying hard to speculate. Some criticized Black Badger, while others defended it.
Since it was online, many remarks were unfiltered.
The further I scrolled, the cruder the comments became.
[How long are we going to treat Ye-hyeon like some hero of chaotic times?]
[No, but seriously, why is he not being replaced? Why not? Why not? Why not?]
[Because he is a dictator.]
[He has been a dictator for decades. It is time for him to step down.]
[Honestly, is he not the biggest beneficiary? He was a nobody, then suddenly rose to that position.]
[Exactly. You are all being fooled. Who benefits most from creatures, honestly?]
[Here we go with the conspiracy theories again.]
[Of course. Humanity has never actually reached the moon either, gentlemen.]
[Ye-hyeon is a creature.]
What was that last comment?
I snorted and read the comments that followed.
[Where did Pretty One even come from? Why is there no information about his family?]
[No mom, no dad, that's why.]
[Who is Pretty One?]
[┗Ye-hyeon.]
[Creatures are just a tool, and we are being ruled by a dictatorship.]
[But seriously, it is a little strange that he has no family connections at all.]
[Maybe they died in the war?]
[No, there are records of the schools he attended before the war. Only information about his parents is missing.]
[It is strange that he was nowhere to be seen before receiving that title.]
[It is because he killed a Level 10 creature with his own hands. There is even a video of him killing it. What is there to doubt?]
[Does that mean they should have given him that title?]
There was a video?
I should look for it later.
[Do humans not become creatures after being experimented on?]
[What nonsense.]
[We are all being fooled. Ye-hyeon is just an identity, and the people in power have kept changing.]
[Honestly, I have seen that face for too long. I am sick of it. He does not even age.]
[It is actually CGI lol.]
[He is handsome though.]
[In reality, he is a gay bastard sleeping with an adopted kid from a conglomerate family.]
[┗Ye-hyeon is gay?]
[┗I do not know. He is pretty.]
Frowning, I kept scrolling. The post went on and on.
[Does he not have something to do with the previous commander’s death?]
[The previous commander died of old age.]
[That is what they announced.]
[I just cannot stand looking at him. He acts like he is democratic and noble lol.]
[But the timing of this creature appearance is too strange. I think it is related to Representative Airheart.]
[Come on, is this only the first or second time the timing of a creature outbreak has been linked to a political scandal?]
[I heard the creature outbreak began in the Badger research wing.]
[Stop with the baseless conspiracy theories. We are talking about Ye-hyeon’s dictatorship. Why derail the discussion?]
[Honestly, it is a little strange that Black Badger was founded as soon as creatures appeared. The timing is too perfect, is it not?]
[They handled it well, and you're still bitching.]
[They were probably researching enhanced bodies somewhere around the United States or China. Stop derailing. What does that have to do with anything now?]
[Do people like this actually want humanity to have gone extinct or what?]
Thump! Thump! Thump!
I sprang out of my seat at the sound of knocking on the cottage door.
“Yes!”
“Come out.”
My senior partner’s cold voice came from outside.
“We need to make you useful as fast as possible.”
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