WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 115: Aoji's Great Escape (2)

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Night at the Aoji Special Control Zone.

Korean People's Army soldiers roamed the border area along the Tumen River all night.

Twenty-seven escapees had vanished overnight.

One person getting out was enough to turn the camp upside down, but twenty-seven?

Sure, the whole camp had gone into a frenzy trying to catch that flock of birds, but this still made no sense.

Twenty-seven prisoners had vanished in the blink of an eye just because everyone had been running around in confusion for a moment?

"C-comrade Warden!"

"Did you find them?! Did you?!"

The camp warden clung to hope as search squad members came to report. Yet one look at their expressions told the warden the answer would not be the one they wanted.

"N-no, sir... We don't know how it happened... They're not at the border either. It's like they completely evaporated."

"How? How could that happen?! You bastards, did you search properly?!"

"W-we deployed most of the unit to search!"

Even so, they had not found so much as a shadow of the escapees.

If this many people had escaped, they should have crossed the Tumen River into China. How could there be no trace of them at all?

"I'm finished! It's all over!!"

Park Daegi, warden of the Aoji political prison camp, wanted to collapse and cry.

Twenty-seven people. A full twenty-seven!

How was the warden supposed to take responsibility for this?

The warden came to one conclusion.

They could not take the fall.

So they needed a solution.

"L-let's say they're dead."

"Comrade Warden?"

"Reactionaries dying while working in the coal mine is common. We'll say an unusually large number died this time!"

"B-but if we suddenly say this many people died..."

Smack!

The warden slammed the desk.

"We'll space it out! Say they died one by one! With twenty-seven people, we can handle it over a few months!"

Deaths at the Aoji Coal Mine were common enough that it could work.

The Korean People's Army soldiers stationed there had not tasted meat soup made with bones in a long time. How much worse did the prisoners have it?

Two or three people dying from brutal mine work and malnutrition every month was nothing unusual.

If they took their time and turned the escapees into recorded deaths...

"C-comrade! We have a major problem!"

"What now?! What else could possibly happen here?!"

The warden roared at the guard who had rushed in to report.

The report was like a bolt from the blue.

"T-thirty... Exactly thirty-one more prisoners have disappeared!"

"What?"

For a moment, the warden forgot how to speak.

The situation was so absurd that they had nothing to say.

"W-what do you mean? Weren't the prisoners locked up under airtight security?"

"T-the prisoners in one barracks all suddenly vanished! We were clearly standing guard!"

"You bastard! You expect me to believe that? Are you saying the reactionaries sank into the ground overnight?"

"I-I truly have no idea what happened!"

Unable to believe it, the warden headed to the reactionary prisoners' quarters.

What they found was an utterly empty barracks.

"Ah..."

"Comrade Warden!"

The guards grabbed their warden as the warden collapsed to the ground.

But they could no longer get back up.

It was over.

There was no undoing this now.

In a single day... no, in just two days, nearly sixty prisoners had disappeared.

Something had to be seriously wrong with this camp.

Could anyone guarantee more would not vanish tomorrow?

No, even if they solved this problem, the warden's head was guaranteed to roll.

"C-comrade Warden? Where are you going?"

"Uh... I'm going to have a think."

The next morning, the warden disappeared.

"Where the hell did they go?! Didn't you hear anything?!"

"N-no, sir! Their family fled in the night too, so we don't know where they went..."

"Isn't it obvious?! They crossed the Tumen River!"

That bastard of a warden.

Terrified of being held accountable and punished, they had fled across the border with their family!

"W-what do we do, Comrade Deputy Warden?!"

"This has gotten too big! That Park Daegi fled in the night, and the residents reported it! The State Security Department is sending inspectors!"

"That fucking bastard..."

They were screwed.

This was going to be pinned on them.

"We... run too!"

"What? How could we...?!"

"Get a grip! Nearly sixty prisoners vanished from this camp! That bastard of a warden ran off, and when State Security agents come barging in, who do you think they'll come down on first?!"

The deputy warden would be first.

The Korean People's Army guards assigned to security would come next, followed by the search squad members who had failed to produce results in the massive search.

"We'll all become food for anti-aircraft guns! Got it?! The only thing we can do is cross the Tumen River before State Security gets here!"

"...I'll get my family first."

The officials hurriedly gathered their families and what little property they had, then crossed the Tumen River.

The Korean People's Army soldiers who watched them openly flee were bewildered.

"W-what the hell is going on?"

"What do you mean, what's going on?! If we don't want to die too, we need to find a way to live!"

They had failed to guard the camp and failed to find the escapees.

The officials who should have taken responsibility had all run away, so now they were the ones facing execution by firing squad.

"Run!"

An unprecedented crisis gave rise to an unprecedented mass escape.

As they fled without caring about the remaining prisoners, the prisoners in the empty camp stood frozen for a long time.

"W-what's happening?"

"Can we really do this?"

Rumors had already spread among them.

Dozens of prisoners had escaped overnight, and dozens more had escaped the next day.

They could not make sense of it.

A mass escape like this should have required careful preparation beforehand.

If such a plan had been circulating, someone should have heard about it. Yet nobody had.

"T-the storehouse! Nobody's guarding the storehouse!"

"Food! Let's eat!"

The moment they realized every Korean People's Army soldier watching them was gone, they decided to raid the storehouse first.

For people who had spent years doing forced labor without ever eating properly, nothing mattered more than food.

"Corn rice, salted radish... a few pieces of kimchi, and that's it..."

"Those bastards... They guarded us while eating stuff like this too?"

The only difference was that the Korean People's Army received slightly larger rations.

Not that it stopped them from looking like gaunt skeletons.

"Huh? You're all cooking for yourselves?"

""...!!""

Then, a neatly dressed young man appeared inside the camp.

Seeing him, they thought some high-ranking official had come down and immediately prostrated themselves.

Even the warden could not afford clothes that neat. More than that, skin that pale was only possible for some big shot from Pyongyang.

"W-we have committed a sin worthy of death!"

"T-the soldiers all disappeared, and we only meant to get something to eat first!"

They thought this important person would hold them accountable for raiding the storehouse.

But the young man's reaction was completely unexpected.

"Whoa, this is North Korean kimchi? It's so pale. Don't you use red pepper powder? What's this here? It looks like radish."

"Pardon?"

"Uh, that's salted radish. Radish pickled in brine."

"Oh. But that's all?"

"Pardon? Salted radish is just salted radish."

"Ugh... It's too salty. I can't eat this..."

How spoiled did someone have to be to have never eaten salted radish?

Still, he was definitely the child of some high-ranking official.

"It's a little late to ask now, but... do you all want to defect?"

"Pardon? Good heavens! What a dangerous thing to say!"

"We have never entertained such delusional thoughts!"

"The reactionaries who escaped have nothing to do with us!"

"Ah, you've got the wrong idea."

The young man, Yohan, cleared up the prisoners' misunderstanding.

"I came here to help you defect. If you want to come with me, I'll move you."

""...""

The young man had been telling the truth.

Everyone who took his hand vanished as if they had disappeared into thin air.

That was how 287 people disappeared from the Aoji Prison Camp Special Labor Zone over three days.

Compared to all the prisoners in the camps around Aoji, it was a drop in the bucket. Still, it was a major incident that sent the North Korean leadership into a panic.

When the State Security Department agents who arrived late to investigate discovered it, they had the same thought.

"W-won't they pin all of this on us?"

"T-the only way for us to survive is to escape the Republic!"

The State Security Department agents sent to investigate escaped as well, and the historic Aoji Coal Mine prison camp mass escape was only revealed after it made the South Korean news.

* * *

Spatial Leap magic only worked on places I had been before.

Even if I could return to the Chinese border, I still had to get close to the camp first.

That wasn't too hard.

Kyaaaaaah!

After all, I had Jinju, the flying king dino and eternal friend of Toruk Makto.

I deployed my Gugu legion, thousands strong, found the camp where Cha Hyeran's parents were held, and used materialization to create a distraction while I leaped the two of them to the border.

After bringing them over, I still had plenty of spiritual power left, so I made another leap.

Two more people. Then, while I was at it, twenty-seven more.

"This is totally doable. If I work at it for a few days, I think I can bring over a few hundred people."

"Yohan, aren't you pushing yourself too hard?"

Pastor Go gave me a worried look, and I considered it for a moment.

"That place isn't fit for people to live in. I have the chance now, so I want to do as much as I can."

"...All right. Leave what comes after to us, Yohan. Do what you want."

We hid the North Koreans I had brought out in Pastor Jo's safehouse and repeated the process.

I brought over a total of 342 North Korean defectors.

The problem was how to get all these people back to South Korea, but Pastor Jo and Pastor Go had finished preparing.

"All right! From here, we're going to Posiet Port!"

It was a Russian port near Aoji.

The two pastors drove a large truck they had somehow acquired. It was cramped, and the ride was awful, but moving this many people at all was impressive.

"But why a Russian port?"

"We have connections with the Russian Orthodox Church there. They've been exchanging favors with us since Pastor Park's time. It's a kind of exorcist alliance."

Russia was just as reluctant to accept North Korean defectors, but the Orthodox Church was another matter.

The Russian Orthodox Church's exorcists were allies who had built a long relationship with Gangnam Holy Temple Church, much like Japan's Tsuchimikado Clan.

It seemed they helped each other like this often.

"Pastor Kim used the same route when he escaped after stealing a North Korean relic."

There was a minor snag along the way.

It seemed word had finally gotten out about the mass escape in North Korea, and we ran into a checkpoint, but Pastor Jo handled it smoothly.

"In China and Russia, there is nothing money can't solve."

Pastor Jo had also spent years opening routes for North Korean defectors to enter South Korea.

We crossed the China-Russia border without trouble and reached Posiet Port in half a day.

A Russian Orthodox cleric who had been contacted in advance was waiting there. They let out a hollow laugh upon seeing the defectors.

"Wow... I thought I would never see another crazy stunt like this after Kim Paladin."

"You helped us greatly back then too, Archbishop Alexei."

"I was a bishop then. Time has passed so quickly."

Someone much more important than I expected had come.

Archbishop Alexei looked at me and smirked.

"Well, this time you're stealing people instead of relics, so it's better. Though it is more difficult."

"Will it be difficult?"

"I said difficult, not impossible."

Archbishop Alexei immediately used the Orthodox Church's Far East network to requisition cargo ships and fishing boats.

Several ships that were officially scheduled to pass through or dock in Korea, with perfectly clean paperwork.

With the Orthodox Church's help, we were able to dock in Busan.

"Gari Bodhisattva... You really caused a huge incident this time."

"Wow... What the hell?"

Waiting at the port were Team Leader Kang and Team Leader Joo from the Mystic Association.

"A sudden mass defection... Isn't this a little out of nowhere?"

"Well... It just happened. I thought I could do it."

"Good grief..."

"Father! Mother!"

"Hyeran!!"

The three people who spotted each other at the port ran together and embraced.

Cha Hyeran, who had anxiously asked for news again and again over the past week, clung to her parents and sobbed.

I think they said she had just come of age?

Yeah, she was still young enough to be in her parents' arms.

There would be many things she had never been allowed to have in a country as abnormal as North Korea, things she could now enjoy freely.

"You did a good thing!"

"Yay! As expected of you, my lord!"

"To cause this much trouble and still end it without anyone dying. You really are a pacifist, my lord."

"Beef tonight! Let's eat like we're trying to wipe out our bank balances!"

【Po~!】

Clack-clack-clack!!

That very day.

While we were cramming our cheeks with melt-in-your-mouth short plate, the nine o'clock news was flooded with reports of the Aoji prison camp mass escape.

Footnotes:

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