WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 114: Aoji's Great Escape

──────

In an age when the number of North Korean defectors had surpassed thirty thousand, the number of brokers specializing in their escape grew every year as well.

Pastor Jo Taegwang had not started out as a broker smuggling North Korean defectors to safety.

Pastor Jo was a missionary who had gone to northeastern China.

On weekdays, Pastor Jo ran a noodle shop to make a living. On Sundays, Pastor Jo ministered to an ethnic Korean church.

It was a common arrangement for pastors running church plants in foreign countries with no established base.

While carrying out this ministry, Pastor Jo formed some unexpected connections near the border.

"A North Korean defector, you said?"

"S-shh! People will hear us!"

Pastor Jo learned the truth after treating a person wandering around in rags outside the noodle shop to a bowl of noodles.

Once the defector realized Pastor Jo was South Korean, they asked for help.

"The embassy... Just take me to the embassy."

Pastor Jo put the defector in the car and drove them to the South Korean embassy.

The defector thanked Pastor Jo over and over while trying to enter, but someone grabbed them at the entrance.

Chinese Public Security officers.

The officers lying in wait arrested the defector, and Pastor Jo had to undergo questioning as well.

Pastor Jo was released soon after, but the defector was repatriated to North Korea.

There was a high chance that the defector had either died or been dragged off to a prison camp.

That day, Pastor Jo realized that people who had risked their lives to escape North Korea would be sent back if they were caught.

After that, Pastor Jo always kept an eye out for defectors wandering nearby.

Pastor Jo occasionally spotted them, gave them food and medicine, and helped them get to South Korea.

In the process, Pastor Jo learned that embassies were not a particularly good option.

Whenever a defector appeared, North Korea cooperated with Chinese Public Security and stationed people at embassy entrances.

So Pastor Jo asked others for help.

They were mostly defector brokers, but plenty of them simply took the money and disappeared.

It was also common for them to take the money and hand them over to Public Security or traffic them.

Once Pastor Jo understood the reality of the situation, Pastor Jo decided this could not be left to anyone else.

So Pastor Jo did it personally.

Fortunately, Pastor Jo had someone to ask for advice.

Before serving at a church plant, Pastor Jo had been an associate pastor at Gangnam Holy Temple Church.

Pastor Jo had studied exorcism under Pastor Park, but realized it did not suit Pastor Jo and chose to focus on ministry instead.

With the connections and support of Holy Temple Church, Pastor Jo secretly worked as a broker for North Korean defectors.

"You're doing admirable work."

"Jesus told us to become neighbors to those who have fallen among robbers. I'm only following His teachings."

Pastor Jo smiled at Yohan's words.

"Pastor Go, did you come to see me because of an escape operation?"

"Yes. A North Korean defector I know in South Korea has family there. We're trying to bring them out."

"Do you know where they are?"

"At the Aoji Coal Mine."

Pastor Jo's expression changed.

"Aoji... you say?"

"Will it be difficult?"

"Yes. Very difficult."

Pastor Jo took a map from a drawer.

It was an enlarged map of the North Korean border region. It had clearly seen heavy use, with permanent-marker lines and unfamiliar markings scattered across it.

"Aoji lies on the China-North Korea border, bordering Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province. It faces China across the Tumen River, so it's often used as an escape route."

The problem was the coal mine.

"But the Aoji Coal Mine is different. It's a prison where political prisoners are held."

Pastor Jo listed three problems.

"First, secretly getting in is nearly impossible."

Pastor Jo spread a rough map of the area around the Aoji Coal Mine and a few old photographs across the table.

"The mine is cramped, and the prison camp is under tight surveillance by the Korean People's Army. Finding specific people would be difficult."

"Ah, I think I can handle that."

Yohan raised his hand.

Pastor Jo tilted his head and asked again.

"You have a way to find people in that complicated mine?"

"Yes. Would you look outside?"

At that, Pastor Jo opened the window and looked out.

There were... birds.

Gugu! Gugu!

Chirp! Chirp!

Birds of every species had gathered, far too orderly for it to be a coincidence. Like a single legion, they landed in unison on rooftops and power lines.

But only for a moment.

Every bird Pastor Jo had just seen vanished at once.

"...Familiars?"

"Yes. If I dematerialize them, they should be able to sneak in."

Then all I had to do was find Cha Hyeran's parents through shared vision.

"...Familiars can only be maintained in numbers of a dozen or so at most."

And that was only for small animals such as birds and rats.

The stronger a familiar was, the more power it took to maintain.

Yet even if they were small animals, he was maintaining hundreds at once?

"This is..."

"What's the second problem?"

"Getting out. We have to cross the border with two people from the Aoji Coal Mine. It would be one thing if they were in an ordinary village or city, but there is no way there would be no pursuit after taking political prisoners out of a mine."

No matter how hard North Korea tried to stop defections, it could only station guards along the border.

That inevitably left gaps, and brokers like Pastor Jo slipped through them.

If a few people disappeared from North Korea, it might take days before anyone noticed.

But a coal mine?

It was where political prisoners were confined and forced into labor.

If they took people out, the North Korean military would begin pursuing them immediately.

It could not be compared to an ordinary defection.

"Lastly, the third problem... Chinese Public Security."

"Public Security?"

"Yes. If it were an ordinary defection, North Korea would likely keep it quiet these days. But the escape of political prisoners is another story. They'd fully cooperate with Public Security. At the latest, Public Security would mobilize in force within two days. They'd practically set up camp at the border."

In other words, getting out of North Korea was a problem, but making it through China to South Korea afterward would be an even bigger one.

I considered Pastor Jo's practical concerns for a moment.

"I think it'll work?"

* * *

The mining district of Aoji in North Hamgyong Province.

It was one of only two places on the Korean Peninsula where lignite was mined. The lignite was poor quality, but it was still an important North Korean resource.

It had become known as the place where athletes who failed to perform well in international competitions were sent, though that story had been embellished.

Those brought here were usually reactionaries transferred from political prison camps or reeducation centers.

Cha Daehyeok and Im Miran were also subjects of reeducation, classified as reactionaries by the North Korean authorities. Their crime was being Jesus freaks.

In more official terms, they were "enemies of the state and revolution," but most people just called them Jesus freaks.

The couple had been brought here a little over ten years ago.

Hard labor in the choking mine, mining coal with crude pickaxes and the like, was no way for a person to live.

Yet people were adaptable creatures, apparently.

The Cha couple was surprised that they had eventually adapted even to such an extreme environment.

'Heavenly Father. Please give us the strength to endure today as well.'

What sustained them was the hope that salvation would come someday.

Of course, they were not entirely without worldly hope either.

"Do you think Hyeran is doing well?"

"When she visited last time, she looked troubled. I wonder if she's eating properly..."

They had heard Cha Hyeran had become a North Korean officer.

They could not understand how the daughter of parents with a reactionary background had been able to follow the Korean People's Army's elite track.

Still, her dark, exhausted face must have carried many hardships.

The two thought of their daughter's face and swallowed their worries.

"It must be because of Hyeran's power, right?"

"It feels like only yesterday that the Party branded those who received spirit descent as traitors and had them killed..."

They knew about Cha Hyeran's innate power.

She had been tormented by all kinds of evil spirits since childhood.

Fortunately, there had been an old woman in their village who had once been a shaman and tended a sacred tree, and she had barely suppressed it. But she, too, was soon accused of being a reactionary, arrested, and killed.

Before she was taken away, the old shaman woman had said this.

「She needs to serve a god. To protect your daughter from those evil spirits, she needs to serve a powerful god!」

「What? But how could we possibly...?」

By then, male shamans had all but disappeared from North Korea.

Even if they wanted to receive spirit descent, there was no one left to perform the ritual.

「There is a way. A South Korean Jesus freak came here once, long ago. That person suffered from spirit sickness too.」

But they had not become a male shaman.

They had neither received spirit descent nor been devoured by evil spirits. Instead, they possessed the authority to subdue ghosts and even erase their souls.

「H-how?」

「They served a great god. The god among gods. The most powerful god.」

That was the Lord Jehovah.

God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The old shaman woman told them to somehow obtain a Bible.

She told them to pray for their daughter, endow her with spirituality through the power of the Holy Spirit, and raise a spiritual barrier around her.

She said it was the only way powerless people could protect themselves without the help of a male shaman.

The Cha couple faithfully followed her advice.

They acquired a Bible from smugglers crossing the Yalu River and had Cha Hyeran read it from a young age.

It worked.

Cha Hyeran, who had been tormented daily by evil spirits and teetered between life and death, found peace.

During that process, the Cha couple also read the Bible and came to believe in the Lord.

To them, the Bible was a new world.

People were not divided by their origins. All people were equal, and the noble One in heaven loved every one of them.

North Korea claimed that everyone was equal, yet cared more than anyone about a person's background. The Leaders said they loved the people, yet drove them into starvation and war zones.

For people who had endured North Korea's miserable reality, the Bible helped them overcome hardship and dream of the salvation that would someday arrive.

Hope was why the Cha couple could endure.

They prayed every day for salvation to come to this hellish prison camp.

'When... will we be saved?'

But salvation had yet to come.

Prisoners died in the mine every day.

They could not eat properly, receive medicine when sick, or even sleep properly.

This had to be hell on earth.

Even they, who had survived the hungry spring and the "period of no food rations" of the Arduous March, found it hard to keep going.

"Comrade Cha. Have you heard the rumor?"

A comrade approached Comrade Cha in the coal mine.

Was this the comrade who had been sent here after getting caught secretly watching evil South Korean propaganda videos?

"What rumor?"

"They say birds have been flying around here lately."

Birds?

The Korean People's Army should have hunted down and eaten every animal in this area.

"But they say the birds are right in front of you, then suddenly disappear. Damned if I know how."

"You must be seeing things because you're hungry."

"That's what I thought too."

Birds, seriously.

The Cha couple gave hollow laughs.

People must have gone so mad from hunger that they were hallucinating food now.

Then...

Gugu!

"Huh?"

He saw a bird too.

Not just one, but dozens.

"B-birds!"

"Why are there birds at a coal mine?"

This was not the time to stand around.

One by one, the prisoners working in the mine rushed toward the birds to catch them.

"Urgh!?"

"W-what? I definitely caught it!"

But the birds were not easily caught.

Just before they were grabbed, they suddenly vanished or fluttered their wings and slipped out of reach with short flights.

"H-honey! Try to catch one!"

"Y-yes! All right!"

If they could just catch one of those birds, it would be their first meat in ten years.

Not tiresome corn rice or sliced salted radish. Real meat!

As they chased the birds and unknowingly emerged from the mine, chaos had erupted throughout the prison camp.

"C-catch them!"

"C-can't we shoot them?!"

"Get a grip, you bastard! If the Party says we wasted bullets, we're all dead!"

Hundreds of birds flew around the prison camp.

The Korean People's Army soldiers threw rocks and whatever else they could find in an attempt to catch them, but there was no way the birds would let themselves get hit.

Some even fired slingshots, but none of the birds were hit and brought down.

The soldiers were too busy scrambling around in hopes of getting a taste of meat to pay any attention to the prisoners who had come out of the mine.

Then a hand suddenly grabbed the Cha couple.

"Huh?"

"W-who are you?"

"Shh! You're Cha Hyeran's parents, right?"

He was a clean-cut young man who could have passed for someone from Pyongyang.

But he did not speak in a North Korean dialect.

"W-who are y-"

"Let's go."

"...!!"

The next moment, the Cha couple felt their bodies float into the air.

When they came to their senses, they were in the middle of a reed field.

"H-huh?"

Pastor Go and Pastor Jo stood before them as they stared around in confusion.

"Yohan, you did it!"

"Yeah, it wasn't that hard. Their security's a total mess."

"I-is this the Tumen River?"

"W-what happened? Until just now, we were..."

"I'll explain later. We came at Miss Cha Hyeran's request."

"H-Hyeran?!"

"Hyeran sent you for us?"

The two pastors gave the bewildered Cha couple a rough explanation, then handed them food first.

It was a rule Pastor Jo always followed with defectors. The rice balls were packed with salt and tuna meat, but the couple eagerly devoured them.

"You'll get indigestion. Eat slowly."

"T-thank you... Cough! Cough!"

In the end, it looked like they had gotten indigestion from wolfing down the rice balls.

"Yohan, let's head back to the shop first... Hm?"

Pastor Go tilted his head as he looked toward where Yohan should have been.

Soon, Yohan suddenly appeared in the empty space, accompanied by a bearded middle-aged man and a gaunt boy.

"Yohan?"

"...I think I can do more."

Now this had potential.

The next instant, Yohan vanished again.

That night, twenty-seven people disappeared from the Aoji prison camp.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried