GB 8

Near dawn, before daybreak, the door to the storehouse where Yoon Moo-hwa was held opened. They checked the rope binding him. It seemed slightly loose, but not enough for his wrists to slip out. Besides, they didn’t think a dimwitted navy man who got caught by them would have tried anything clever.

“If this is all a lieutenant amounts to, the navy bastards must be pathetic.”

One of the pirates sneered, mocking Yoon Moo-hwa.

Despite the blatant taunting, Yoon Moo-hwa remained silent. Their way of hitting focused on violence but lacked efficiency – inflicting surface pain without causing substantial injury. While this might be enough to intimidate ordinary people, Yoon Moo-hwa had undergone torture resistance training. This was nothing.

However, it was obviously easier to deceive them by playing the fool than by appearing unaffected. Yoon Moo-hwa complied meekly as the pirates grabbed his hair, twisted his head, and pummeled his stomach.

At a certain point, they began to drag Yoon Moo-hwa out.

“Where are you taking me…?” Yoon Moo-hwa asked, deliberately spitting out blood he had accumulated. His rough, hoarse voice made the pirates believe he was half-dead.

“Where else? The middle of the ocean. Don’t you navy folks give sea burials to comrades who die in naval battles? We’ll do it that way.”

The pirate thought Yoon Moo-hwa was too scared to make a sound, but in reality, he was thinking of something else.

The main ship must be quite close to this island by now. Probably four to six hours away at most. Since the modified ships used by pirates are usually faster than military vessels, if they set the right direction, they should meet exactly halfway.

“Then at least let me choose where I’ll be buried.”

Yoon Moo-hwa pleaded, his voice trembling. This too was an act, of course.

“I’d like to be sunk southwest of here. A comrade died there. Will you grant me that small wish?”

“Hah! You think we’d believe a navy dog?”

The deputy commander, who had been quiet until now, snorted derisively.

“Is there some reinforcement coming to rescue you in that direction?”

“Warships are quite large, so you’d spot them before a direct encounter. You could turn back then. And how would they know my location when I can’t send a distress signal?”

As Yoon Moo-hwa lied without batting an eye, the deputy commander gritted his teeth and yanked the dog tag around his neck.

“Do you think I’m stupid enough not to know that the light floating here indicates coordinates?”

Not a complete idiot, then.

Feeling the soft coastal sand beginning to catch under his feet, Yoon Moo-hwa calmly replied:

“That’s the main ship’s location. If necessary, you can avoid it using that. Right?”

It wasn’t a lie. Because the dog tag had to be very thin and light, it could only provide simple information about the mothership’s location. What Yoon Moo-hwa trusted wasn’t the dog tag, but the people on the warship.

Yoon Moo-hwa had set up the survey boat to transmit its current coordinates and course to the mothership from the moment he boarded. This would continue until the fuel was completely exhausted or the core circuit was destroyed beyond a certain level. Assuming the core circuit stopped working about 20 minutes after the battle started, the location would have been transmitted up to the nearby coastal waters. Even if this base was on a ghost island, that much would change the probability of making contact.

Judging this explanation somewhat reasonable, the deputy commander, after a moment’s consideration, broke off the dog tag and wrapped it tightly around his hand. Yoon Moo-hwa’s eyes moved quickly.

Knowing that the dog tag had coordinates on it – had he been in the navy? But he lacked the characteristic neatness of military personnel. There was too much unnecessary movement in his actions.

‘Even if he was in the military, it must have been a long time ago.’

So he clearly wouldn’t know how far the technology had been updated.

Yoon Moo-hwa had no qualms about having things attached to his body. This time too, he had inserted a vital chip that was still in the test operation stage for this reason.

It would be nice if it could show coordinates as well as vitals…. If he survived, he might make a report about it, but for now, he decided to focus first on survival, then on making contact.

They finally arrived where the ship was. Yoon Moo-hwa frowned as he looked at the pirate ship. The newly painted, modified vessel was clearly a patrol ship. Not the latest model, but definitely one that had been used by the navy.

The pirates threw Yoon Moo-hwa in front of their captain, who had been waiting for him. With his hands tied, pushed forward abruptly, he slowly scanned the pirate captain from top to bottom. The captain raised one eyebrow, and Yoon Moo-hwa slowly curved his lips. Then he asked:

“A deserter?”

A pirate with a navy background. Things were going well.

It seems I’m definitely not destined to die here. As the situation turned in his favor, Yoon Moo-hwa briefly raised and lowered the corners of his mouth.

Seeing this, the captain’s face twisted. The face, with a long scar that had been torn and healed, looked terribly fierce even with the slightest movement.

However, Yoon Moo-hwa approached nonchalantly and asked in a low voice:

“Do your subordinates know about this too?”

“…Do you want me to tell them that you’re the only son of the Northeast Pacific Admiral?”

The captain returned Yoon Moo-hwa’s sneer with a half-threat.

The information about how important Yoon Moo-hwa was, was something the captain wanted to keep to himself. He wanted to avoid talks about letting him go or making bigger deals for now.

“Seeing that you know who I am, you must have been an officer. I won’t ask about the long story of why you’re living as a pirate. Above all, I’m glad to meet someone who properly knows my worth.”

The captain slowly turned his gaze to stare at Yoon Moo-hwa.

Yoon Moo-hwa shrugged innocently.

“What? Did you expect something from an officer who got his position through nepotism?”

“…It’s because of pathetic bastards like you that I left the navy.”

“Cowardice can be called different names depending on how it’s packaged.”

“Then how should I package your cowardice, you chicken?”

Yoon Moo-hwa smiled, his eyes crinkling.

Gritting his teeth at that detestable face, the captain made him climb onto the gunwale.

Once everyone was aboard, the captain pointed at Yoon Moo-hwa and declared:

“We’re selling this guy to the navy.”

“What?”

Led by the deputy commander, the group looked puzzled.

But the captain, whose hatred for the navy had grown due to the shame he felt while fleeing from it, didn’t notice.

“This guy is the son of one of those navy bigwigs. Therefore, the ransom the navy will pay us is enormous. He’s an idiot who got caught by villagers who aren’t even combatants, and he’s only thinking about embarrassing his father who’ll have a headache over his ransom. We’ll take what we can get and run.”

“But captain, what if we get caught?”

“Warships aren’t faster than our ship. And if there’s even a slim chance the admiral’s son is alive, they’ll send destroyers or larger. Ships that size can’t catch us.”

“As expected, a former navy man is different.”

Yoon Moo-hwa muttered in a light tone, like a clueless young master.

At that, the captain gritted his teeth and pulled out a military dagger from his chest, striking Yoon Moo-hwa’s head hard with the pommel.

Blood trickled down the side of Yoon Moo-hwa’s face as it whipped around.

“Do you know why I left the navy? Those bastards destroyed my hometown, saying they’d build a mid-sea naval base in Sector 2. In the process, my sister was blinded.”

“……”

“As soon as we receive the ransom, I’ll put some pretty machine gun holes in your body.”

Yoon Moo-hwa didn’t answer, just stuck out his tongue to wipe the blood flowing down his jaw.

“Set sail!”

The anchor chain, made of thousands of wires twisted together repeatedly, was raised, and the ship slid out. Yoon Moo-hwa stared at the receding island, smelling the intensifying sea breeze.

Three hours later.

“You, you son of a military dog….”

Yoon Moo-hwa somehow understood the captain’s words amidst the tremendous noise of the helicopter spreading above his head.

The captain was now being threatened with the same knife he had used to hit Yoon Moo-hwa’s head.

They had thought he was just a pampered young master who had parachuted into some comfortable position…

The hostage, whom they thought was just wearing epaulettes due to his father’s background without knowing the ways of the world, had silently taken down three subordinates watching him while they were communicating just outside the range of bombardment. They wondered how he had escaped his bonds, only to realize he must have dislocated his own finger bones. Ignoring his swollen hands, he had come up and attacked the bridge.

It all happened in an instant.

The deck was already under control of special combat troops descending from the helicopter. Yoon Moo-hwa, with a cold expression completely different from his previous frivolous demeanor, looked down at the captain he had disarmed and quietly smiled.

Sometimes, waves frozen in the winter sea can look like ice flowers. With a face as bitingly beautiful as that, Yoon Moo-hwa asked:

“Why? What did you expect from an officer who got his position through nepotism?”

* * *

When Number 8 woke up in the morning and heard that all the adults, including the man, had already set sail, he couldn’t hold back his sorrow and finally burst into tears. Number 3’s efforts to hide Number 8’s rule violation had been in vain.

Number 3 stamped his feet as he watched the remaining adults scold Number 8 harshly after figuring out what had happened when they interrogated him about why he was crying.

‘That idiot!’

Fearing they might lose another of their few younger siblings, Number 3 tried to stop the adults.

“He doesn’t know anything because he’s stupid! He never listens and just spaces out on his own.”

Number 8 wanted to protest that he couldn’t possibly be stupid, but he held back, panting with his face swollen.

“Anyway, that person is gone now, so we can just tell him not to do it again. Right? You won’t do it again, will you?”

“……”

Number 3 was about to get angry when Number 8 kept his mouth shut instead of giving a simple answer.

But Number 8 had his reasons.

If he promised not to do it again, it would be like convincing himself that he would never meet such a souvenir – no, such a person and such an adult – again.

He didn’t like that.

Despite the brief encounter, Number 8 had really liked the man. The magnificent voice and kind tone addressed to him were unfamiliar to Number 8. The unfamiliarity brought excitement, and excitement brought vitality. Number 8 realized only after meeting the man that he had been desperately waiting for such novelty all this time.

Moreover, it was the man who had made the promise first. He had said they would board the ship together… How could he leave alone?

“Promise. It’s better that way. If the leader finds out when he returns, you’ll be in even bigger trouble. Who knows? Maybe that guy will come back as part of our family.”

Perhaps the regret about the man lingered with the other family members too, as one adult added.

Number 8 felt a glimmer of hope, but soon became gloomy again.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, he had a strong feeling that a man from the navy who wasn’t a monster would never stay with them.

But if by any chance, any chance at all, he did come back… it would probably be better for the man if he pretended not to know him.

Number 8 nodded, sniffling.

“I’ll treat it as if I don’t know. From now on…”

Having barely given his answer, Number 8 cried again, still feeling miserable, and finally the adults sighed and told Number 8 to roll up his pants.

After being hit up to his calves, there wasn’t a spot on Number 8’s body that wasn’t hurt. Released only after bruises and scratches covered him all over, Number 8 dejectedly headed to the beach.

There wasn’t a single bubble on the shore. It had been washed away and disappeared soon after the ship had left long ago.

In this state, he couldn’t go back into the sea today. Number 8 crouched down next to the shipwreck and sniffled out the remaining traces of his crying.

‘Liar.’

Now Number 8 decided not to believe in the word ‘souvenir’ anymore. ‘Trophy’ was better. Because you could keep a trophy forever.