Black Badger - Chapter 44

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ Black Badger ◈

Chapter 44: Sector D (1)

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I wanted to apologize to Senior Jonathan Kudo for causing him trouble.

As expected, he did not come. He had not seemed interested in other people, so it was not surprising. Everything appeared to have worked out, so he must have come through without any trouble too.

I focused on recovering while Samuel bombarded me with nagging.

Days spent eating and resting in my hospital room. Tom and Hessi came to visit. They enjoyed reading the article about me.

When I told them I was being banished far outside the Core, they were even jealous.

Well, only Hessi was.

“Your skills are going to improve so much!”

Hessi was always so enthusiastic.

“You’re going farther in, right? I’m seriously jealous. When will I get to go deeper in?”

“...You’re jealous?”

“You’ll have it rough.”

Tom had a more sensible reaction.

“I hear the area gets worse the deeper you go. I hope you come back with all your limbs intact. Your recovery ability isn’t exactly in great shape either.”

“Yeah. Well, I just shouldn’t cause trouble.”

“Who are you going with?”

Hessi leaned forward, his excited eyes shining.

“You’re going with some seriously senior people, right? Who?”

* * *

Who, you ask?

“Richard Green, Jason Tvein, Choi Ami, William Walker, and Aki.”

Yoon listed the names, then clicked his tongue.

He gave this indifferent assessment.

“Without Choi Ami, you’d suffocate to death.”

“...Is it really that bad?”

“Richard Green didn’t visit you?”

Yoon slipped his phone into his gown pocket.

I shook my head.

“No, he didn’t.”

“He came to see me.”

“Why?”

“He asked whether I hadn’t taught the rookie to shoot or drive. He asked whether teaching the basics first wasn’t basic common sense. He asked how many years I had served for me to still lack the basics. Then he went on a detailed rant about how he had advised the Head of Personnel for years to appoint Choi Yoon as a senior partner too.”

I am useless.

Just as Senior Richard Green said, I didn’t have the basics down.

Self-loathing washed over me like waves, and I clutched at my hair. He wasn’t wrong about any of it. Despite lacking even the basics, I had drawn creatures to myself, and some unknown stalker was attached to me.

And my recovery ability, too....

Aaargh.

When I buried my head in my knees, Ami patted my shoulder.

“It’s okay! I’ll cover for you as much as I can!”

Ami was the light and salt of my life.

“Hilde, let’s just not die!”

“I’m sorry in advance, and thank you....”

“Well. If you come back alive, your skills will improve.”

Yoon evaluated me lightly, as though he were talking about someone else.

“You don’t seem like you’d suffer much mental damage, even if you went through something shocking.”

“...Thank you for the compliment.”

“Right. You might be more okay than we think.”

Ami patted my back as I answered without any spirit.

Then she looked at me with round eyes and spoke brightly.

“And Richard said you looked like you had guts after seeing the article! His standards are so high that he hardly ever compliments anyone. This alone is impressive. He probably won’t hate you too much.”

“Really?”

“It sounds like he’s stroking your cheek before slapping you.”

Yoon calmly crushed my hopes.

Ami scolded Yoon beside my devastated self.

“Oppa! How can you crush Hilde’s motivation already?”

Yoon calmly snatched the soy milk from Ami’s hand.

“It’s important to face reality.”

He said it evenly, then put a straw into the soy milk despite not seeming thirsty at all.

The senior partner got hit by Ami.

A spectacular struggle unfolded. It was such a high-quality battle over soy milk that it was hard to follow the siblings’ arms with my eyes.

From farther away, I heard Samuel grumble, “What a damn circus.”

Still, I was glad Ami was there. Having even one person I could rely on put my mind at ease.

As I blankly watched the battle to reclaim the soy milk, I made up my mind. Do not die. Be quick on the uptake. Learn everything my seniors taught me before leaving.

I couldn’t keep disgracing Yoon.

“What should I do before I leave?”

When I muttered it as if to myself, the siblings stopped their dazzling hand movements and turned to me.

They answered in turn.

“I’ll tell you all about the people going with you! Let’s remember it all.”

“Pack.”

I did both.

* * *

“A sword?”

Richard Green was the experienced-looking man who had first questioned me in the auditorium.

“He taught you the sword? Your biological older brother has even less sense than I thought.”

“Come on. He was planning to teach Hilde shooting step by step too.”

Ami smoothly took over.

“Hilde hasn’t even been here that long. He’s a chick who would never normally leave E Zone.”

“That is exactly why the basics should have come first. He doesn’t even have an autonomous-driving license. Do they hire rookies without licenses these days? I should have a word with the Head of Personnel.”

“He’ll learn quickly. We can teach him later. Hilde is smart too, so he’ll pick it up quickly.”

“Later? When is later? Are you planning to teach this chick only after he returns as a corpse?”

“We will arrive in fifteen minutes.”

Aki, seated in the driver’s seat, spoke bluntly as though she could not hear the vicious conversation.

“There is still nothing abnormal ahead.”

I want to go home.

Less than a day after leaving the Core, I was already desperately missing my quarters in the old dormitory building.

My game console. My comfortable bed. The window that let in just enough sunlight. I missed everything. I even missed Yoon’s lessons, where he kept swinging a sword at me.

I wanted to return even to the guest room in Yoon’s house, where the Commander-in-Chief lived.

But I couldn’t. Until the Commander-in-Chief’s expulsion order was lifted, I had to live outside for an indefinite time.

Day 1 of the expulsion order.

To avoid showing my discomfort, I lowered my gaze and studied the floor of the military vehicle.

The rattling of the vehicle pounded in my ears. We were heading for a Safe Point located roughly in the center of D Zone. We had come as far as E Zone by train. But from D Zone onward, there were no rails.

That was why Richard Green had been angry that I didn’t even have an autonomous-driving license.

I had heard that he was quick to anger because his convictions were as hard as mithril.

“Sending such a chick into D Zone among us in the first place. Ye-hyeon has given a truly irrational order.”

“Exactly.”

Tvein, who had been sitting beside Richard Green and watching me get scolded, joined the conversation.

He was remarkably consistent. Even in a black combat uniform, his smooth, shining face and low-class, cocky air remained the same. So did his constant dislike of Ye-hyeon.

“His judgment keeps getting worse. Ami, can’t you see that when you live with him?”

“I can’t.”

“Why give an order like this? He has never done anything like it before.”

“When have we ever questioned the Commander-in-Chief’s orders? If an order is given, we follow it.”

Ami brushed off Tvein’s words without concern, then firmly answered Green’s near-mutter.

“It’s not a bad thing, is it? Richard, you were curious about Hilde too.”

I raised my head without thinking.

My eyes met those of the battle-hardened soldier. With his arms crossed, he was glaring at me with eyes burning with anger and conviction.

The senior studied me, then broke the silence.

“Taleb.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let your guard down.”

His voice carried anger toward a world that did not match his ideals.

“From D Zone onward, the moment you let your guard down, you lose your life.”

A war hero who survived the First War and the Second War. A true soldier who charged to the front lines before anyone else. One of the unquestionable top ten among countless Black Badgers.

I did not avoid his gaze.

“Yes. I’ll remember that.”

Richard watched me for a long moment, then turned away.

Silence fell again. The engine echoed inside the windowless military vehicle. Relieved that the carpet bombing directed at me had ended, I let out a small breath.

As I turned my gaze while swallowing another sigh, I met Ami’s eyes.

Ami’s round eyes curved as she smiled.

Wow. Her face is too bright to see.

That senior, who was nothing but light, slid closer and looked up at me.

“Did you pack well?”

I glanced down at the field pack between my legs and nodded.

“Yes. I checked three or four times.”

“What do you have?”

If it had been someone else, they would have imperiously said, “List it, rookie.” But she put it that way instead.

Silently grateful, I listed my supplies.

“Ammunition, drinking water, emergency rations, fishing line, a solar signaling mirror, a small saw, a magnifying glass for starting fires, a bulletproof vest, a magnetic compass, a spectral compass, spare communicator batteries, and basic first-aid supplies.”

“What first-aid supplies did you pack?”

Richard, who had not taken his eyes off me, asked.

I answered at once.

“Blood injections, suturing supplies, painkillers, carbohydrates, antibiotics, a scalpel, fluid solution, and a fluid injector.”

“Do you know how to use them?”

“Yes.”

“What about morphine?”

I showed him the morphine I had packed around my neck.

Richard fell silent again. It seemed I had passed his test.

I sighed in relief without thinking, and Ami smiled.

“You learned how to use the communicator and tactical beacon, right, Hilde?”

“Yes.”

In truth, Yoon had even tried to teach me how to repair the communicator and tactical beacon.

“You don’t seem stupid.”

But I was stupid.

Yoon quickly gave up on teaching me how to repair communication equipment. There wasn’t much time, but more importantly, I wasn’t technically skilled enough to meet his expectations.

Yoon’s standards for other people’s intelligence were too high. He called things I could not even understand the most basic of basics, then pushed me to quickly master the basics and move on to applications.

He eventually recognized my intellectual limits and compromised.

Which meant I had only crammed the operation and repair methods for communication equipment into my head.

Even now, I wasn’t confident I could repair the communicator if it broke. I had blindly memorized basic responses, and I hadn’t even memorized every situation. Yoon did not expect me to repair it properly either. How could I repair something when I did not even understand how it worked?

If I got separated and the communicator stopped working, I should at least try the methods I had memorized.

I just shouldn’t get separated.

As I gloomily stared at my field pack, Ami spoke warmly.

“When we arrive, we’ll unpack at the Safe Point.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Then, we’ll reconnoiter...”

Boom!

The vehicle flipped over.

My vision spun. My seniors shouted. A heavy impact rang out.

William Walker and Ami’s strong arms grabbed me.

As their hands helped me regain my balance, Richard Green roared.

“It’s time to hunt!”