"What..."
Bewilderment and concern, tension and fear.
At the sudden turn of events, Jae-hwan froze where he stood.
"Lee Ji-yeon. Can you heal him?"
"No. It's too late. He died way too fast."
Ji-yeon answered Chang-ho in a trembling voice.
"Can't be helped. Anything else suspicious around here?"
"No, nothing. No matter how I look at it..."
Jae-hwan was just as rattled.
But what worried Jae-hwan now wasn't the battalion commander's death.
"Team Leader. More than the battalion commander... that blood..."
The blood kept spreading through the gap under the door.
A heavy silence settled for a moment.
Chang-ho slowly opened the door of the battalion commander's office and looked outside.
Creak.
The door opened with an ominous scrape.
Only then could the group see the carnage that had happened outside.
Bodies sprawled on the floor.
Fingernail marks scratched into the walls, as if speaking for their agony.
Eyes rolled back, just like the battalion commander's.
Outside the battalion commander's office, everyone in the admin office, soldiers and officers alike, lay miserably dead.
While the whole group stood aghast at the unexpected sight.
An alarm suddenly blared.
"That alarm, don't tell me..."
"I don't think it's anything good."
As if to voice the group's unease, thunderous footsteps began sounding down the hallway.
"Lightning Squad, move out! Move out now! This is not a drill! A murder has occurred in the battalion commander's office! Subdue them immediately!"
"Ah, what shitty luck today, seriously."
Chang-ho swore under his breath.
BANG!!!
And before he'd even finished swearing, a squad of soldiers burst in.
Armed with clubs, they stared around in bewilderment.
"Aaagh, what is this?!"
"This is crazy, it's blood!"
"Never mind that! Just grab those bastards!"
One soldier, who seemed to be the senior among them, immediately gave the order.
"What do we do?"
"What do you mean, what do we do?"
Ji-yeon answered Jae-hwan's question.
"We knock them all flat and bolt."
***
The soldiers took the group of just three lightly.
Until they took a proper punch to the face.
"Hiiik...! What the hell is...!"
Expressionless, Ji-yeon slammed a soldier who charged at her straight into the ground.
Chang-ho had already snatched a club and was beating the soldiers with it.
Beside him, Jae-hwan had formed snares of blood and was stringing soldiers together like Vienna sausages.
No matter how much physical training was forced on them, they were conscripts in the end.
There was no chance such men could beat a group with enhanced bodies, special abilities, and real combat experience.
It was only natural that soldiers relying on numbers alone got crushed.
"All taken care of?"
"Yes. Let's go."
Without even breathing hard, Ji-yeon answered calmly.
"About 3 minutes have passed. Let's get out before the 5-minute alert team shows up."
"Then let's get out of this unit for now. Things have gotten tangled. Aberration or not, clearing up the misunderstanding comes first."
The group nodded in agreement.
Done speaking, Chang-ho immediately opened the admin office window.
"This way. Going around through the hallway will only give them a chance to chase us."
But beyond the open window, a new problem lay in wait.
"Um... Team Leader."
"What?"
"The snow outside..."
Snow had piled up outside the window.
So much that it reached halfway up the 1st-floor admin office.
At that moment, Chang-ho's face went visibly pale.
"Damn."
"What's wrong?"
"Run to the checkpoint! Now!"
Chang-ho urgently gave the order.
Not knowing why, the others followed.
They ran for the checkpoint.
When they got close, the group could only stand aghast.
Snow piled high as a mountain had blocked the way to the outside world.
"We're cut off. It happens a lot around here."
Chang-ho said it to the group through gritted teeth.
"So running away is out. What now?"
Deflated, Jae-hwan watched for Chang-ho's reaction.
"Wouldn't it be better to run for now? We could somehow break through there and get away..."
Gritting his teeth, Chang-ho made the call.
"We're staying here."
"What?"
"We stay and keep investigating. And once we've taken out the aberration, we get out. This much snow isn't something you can just dig your way through. I'm sure of it. Speaking from experience."
No one could respond to Chang-ho's heavy voice.
"Understood."
Jae-hwan lowered his head and agreed.
"But what do we do right now? I mean, there are tons of soldiers out there after us right now, aren't there?"
"We'll have to think about that."
"No! We can't just think, we have to do something right now..."
"That's why I'm thinking right now! Just hold on a sec!"
Instead of a clear answer, there was only bickering.
In the gloomy atmosphere, the group racked their brains for some way out.
"Let's try this."
It was Jae-hwan who broke the heavy mood.
With that, Jae-hwan laid out his reckless plan to the others.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"We don't have a choice."
"That's true."
Hearing Jae-hwan's idea, Chang-ho heaved a deep sigh.
"All right. Let's do it Jae-hwan's way."
After the brief meeting, the group left at once to carry out the plan.
***
A frontline unit in Gangwon Province, under a maddening snowstorm.
A squad of soldiers was searching the unit's facilities.
"I'll say it again: these guys killed the battalion commander and everyone in the admin office. This is an emergency, so don't let your guard down for a second!"
The escort officer kept repeating his warning to the soldiers.
But the snowy wind kept howling fiercely.
"Watch the stairs! They're slippery!"
The escort officer shouted a warning to his men.
Amid extreme tension, the soldiers began climbing the stairs.
Crunch, crunch.
The sound of snow underfoot, masking the tension.
The moment the escort officer finally made it up the long stairs to the top.
The snow piled on the roof suddenly came pouring down.
"What the hell is this?!"
"Clear it now! Clear it and get back in line!"
Caught off guard, the soldiers shouted and panicked.
After a round of meaningless yelling, the soldiers finally started clearing the snow.
At last, the piled snow was cleared.
"Ah, shit... Hey, line up again! Move out!"
The escort officer gave the soldiers their orders once again.
Without even realizing that one soldier bringing up the rear had fallen behind.
***
"Mmph...! Mmph mmph!!!"
An abandoned guard post in the middle of the snowy mountains.
Following Jae-hwan's plan, the group had managed to grab one of the soldiers searching the unit.
"Ugh, shut up for a sec. I'm going to untie you."
Threatening the struggling soldier, Ji-yeon removed his gag.
"Puhah...!"
"If you don't want to be tied up again, answer only what we ask. Other than that, keep your mouth shut. Got it?"
At Chang-ho's threat, the soldier hurriedly nodded.
Looking at the captured soldier's name tag, Chang-ho went on.
"Good. Private First Class Hong Jun-young. Let me ask you a few things. Do you know anything about the recent murders?"
"Th... that's... We were ordered never to tell anyone..."
"Tie this bastard back up."
At Chang-ho's order, Ji-yeon immediately got ready to bind Jun-young.
"N... no! Wait! I'll, I'll talk, so just a moment...!"
Trembling, Jun-young began clinging to their pant legs.
Satisfied, Chang-ho put on an intimidating air once more and asked Jun-young.
"Then let's take it step by step. Do you know how the first victim, Private First Class Lee Jin-hyuk, died?"
"It was suicide."
At the unexpected answer, the group looked at one another and frowned.
"You sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure. He smuggled out some rounds, snuck into the firing range, and then secretly..."
"So it wasn't an aberration?"
"Seems that way? But when the battalion commander died, it looked like an aberration's doing to anyone who saw it..."
Jun-young's confident words left the group flustered.
To hide it, Ji-yeon quickly asked Jun-young a second question.
"Next question, then. I heard an NCO died. Was that suicide too?"
"No, the transport section chief really did drop dead. We don't know why he died either. He was working on a vehicle, and suddenly he was pouring blood..."
"Pouring blood?"
"Yes. Literally. I mean, blood was gushing from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, and then he died..."
"That's the same as the battalion commander."
"There's definitely an aberration, then."
As the group kept talking.
A thought came to Jae-hwan.
"Was Lee Jin-hyuk bullied by a group or something, by any chance?"
At Jae-hwan's question, the others looked as if they'd realized something too.
"Yes, that's right. He was in my intake. It started with him being a little slow, then the seniors started riding him even harder because his family was poor, and before long he was even cut out of his cohort..."
"And the officers ignored it, I bet. Right?"
"Yes."
Clutching his throbbing head, Jae-hwan spoke to the others.
"Team Leader, I think we got it wrong. I don't think both cases were the aberration's doing."
"Yeah. I think I get it. The first case was just a suicide, the kind you see all the time in the military. And then Private First Class Lee Jin-hyuk, who killed himself, turned into an aberration out of a grudge."
"We figured it out too late."
"Right. We should've been suspicious from the moment they called it an unexplained death, but we were so focused on the aberration that we missed the basics..."
"It's not your fault, Team Leader. We were all the same."
Chang-ho frowned, blaming himself.
Meanwhile, seized by an ominous feeling, Jae-hwan questioned Jun-young again.
"You said you were in the same intake as the dead guy, right? When he was suffering, what did you do?"
"...I'm sorry."
"No, don't apologize. I'm asking, what exactly did you do?"
"I... I looked away. When Private First Class Lee Jin-hyuk asked for help, I didn't actively join in the bullying, but I was scared of getting dragged into it... so I just pretended not to know."
"So anyway, you're saying you didn't bully him directly."
With that, Jae-hwan turned to the others.
"Team Leader, I think using this guy as bait is going to be a bit difficult."
"Looks that way. If he wasn't one of the people directly bullying him, the grudge will be weaker by comparison. Then we'll..."
At that moment.
Bang!
A gunshot suddenly rang out from beyond the snow-covered hill.
TL Notes:
TL Note: cut out of his cohort - the army hazing practice in which a soldier's own intake class and seniors treat him as if he does not belong to the unit at all.