The Soldier 1

by Donald Ha

  Putting on an American soldier’s jacket, Jackal stepped forward.

  What lay in front of him was a dark hallway and a ladder. Higher up was the hatch and the enemies who was waiting above it.

  Marie-Louise amusingly watched Jackal disappear down the hallway.

  ‘The current time is 5 o’clock, on the dot.’

  They say it’s darkest before the dawn.

  The outside world would be so dark it’d be difficult to see.

  The hatch keepers would be falling asleep at this time.

  It may have been because it was too early to be called early morning and too late to be called evening.

  Jackal leaned on the ladder that led up to the hatch and took a moment to get a feel on his surroundings.

  It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. No one was banging on the hatch. There were no sounds.

  It may have been that the men had been worn out, not knowing when they’d have to be called into action.

  ‘It’ll end quickly.’

  Jackal quietly crawled up the steps and held onto the tightly shut hatch with both hands.

  ‘Two and a half turns.’

  It was how many times he’d have to turn to open it.

  Putting all of the inner power from his engine room into his hands, he turned the handle.

  Creeeeeeak-

  An ear splitting sound rang out in the darkness.

  “What was that just now?”

  “Did you hear that?”

  He could hear voices from a close distance.

  There were two voice.

  ‘From the northeast. 15 meters away.’

  Jackal’s two eyes shone in the darkness.

  *Clunk.*

  The lock was opened.

  Jackal took out his gun with one hand and opened the hatch with the other.

  *Bang! Bang!*

  Fire spurted from Jackal’s rifle.

  “Ugh…..”

  The dying groans were followed by two men falling to the floor.

  It had all happened even before the hatch was completely open.

  Having taken down them in an instant, Jackal jumped out of the hatch and hid himself along the crumbling wall.

  He couldn’t hear anything besides the groans.

  The fact that there wasn’t any movements reacting to the gunshot meant that those men were the only two there.

  If they were on a battlefield, one or two veterans may have hidden and sought revenge, but the Huiziga clan was a group of thugs who thought of nothing but profit. They wouldn’t do such a thing.

  Most of all, Jackal had seen the extent of the Huiziga clan’s disorder and inexperience with his own two eyes.

  He trusted his own judgment.

  Sssss-

  Jackal moved away from the darkness.

  But all the cells in his body were on high alert.

  He walked like a ghost towards the groaning men.

  “Hey.”

  Jackal kicked one of the dying men and spoke brusquely.

  Unfocused eyes stared at Jackal.

  “Ugh…”

  He looked like he was trying to say something, but couldn’t seem to make the words appear. Jackal crouched next to him and stared at the wounds.

  “Do you want to live? Looking at your wounds, it looks like you might live if you can get to a hospital.”

  It was a lie. The bullet had ripped through the man’s intestines. The abdominal cavity was already filling with blood from his exploded intestines, and he would soon go into shock.

  He had no chance of survival.

  But telling him that he could potentially survive had hope flare up in the man’s eyes.

  He put all his strength into nodding.

  “It’s just the two of you here?”

  The man briefly hesitated at Jackal’s question, but he eventually nodded.

  Jackal’s lips curled in a cruel smile.

  “You will be welcomed in heaven.”

  He brushed off his clothes and stood up, whistling as he walked forward.

  “Ugh….”

  The fallen man tried with all his might to reach for Jackal’s departing figure, but Jackal did not turn around.

  The man’s eyes slowly lost focus, and his reaching hand fell lifelessly on the floor.

  Just another death.

  For some, it was a tragedy, but to Jackal, it was just another part of his day.

  That was what the battlefield did to you.

  Jackal put the man’s death behind him and focused on his situation.

  ‘First, I should move all of our things into the bunker. Berlin is no longer safe.’

  If the Huiziga clan knew who he was, everyone in Berlin would know in no time.

  Those rumors would reach the American troops’ ears. That meant his greatest customers would become his greatest enemies.

  Jackal remembered Major Grace’s shining bald head. He felt a sense of bitterness.

  ‘It’s too bad but it can’t be helped. The most important thing right now is to survive.’

  Countless thoughts appeared and disappeared in his head.

  Would he have to leave Berlin?

  Where would he go and what would he do?

  With the thoughts piling on each other, he suddenly felt chills down his spine.

  It felt like someone was watching him.

  Jackal was good at picking up on that unpleasant feeling.

  ‘Could it be.. this feeling..?’

  Jackal turned his head towards the source of his unpleasantness.

  Three figures stood on the roof of a building, lit by the slowly brightening sky.

  ’60 meters away, three people, no weapons. But…’

  Jackal bit his lip.

  ‘They were.. Wulin people…!’

  Monsters with mysterious powers that had once chased Jackal, and were now looking for Marie-Louise.

  They were like a giant wall to Jackal, with strengths beyond what Jackal could handle.

  ‘They’re different from the others.’

  Jackal’s good eyesight did wonders for him in the dark.

  Jackal was able to figure out his opponents by small differences in their stature, posture and clothes.

  A skill that was necessary for snipers.

  But though they seemed to be from a different clan, they were still Wulin people.

  The people Jackal needed to avoid were now staring directly at him.

  ‘As I thought.. did they come chasing after me from the sounds I made?’

  They were probably chasing after the sounds of his gunshots. Gunshots ringing out in the dark were capable of drawing anyone’s attention.

  Jackal turned his head and kept walking forward, as if he hadn’t spotted the figures.

  Even before he had taken a few steps, he noticed that the Wulin people had moved. The men who had stood on top of the building had now come down.

  They were headed straight for Jackal. Almost in a straight line.

  ‘Like they say, out of the frying pan and into the fire.’

  He had no time to think. He had to just run with it.

  Jackal concentrated his thoughts on one thing.

  A map outlining all of Berlin.

  Jackal used that map as a basis to guess his current location and direction.

  And using all of the information he had collected, Jackal began making some calculations.

  It was on where he would be able to lose his pursuers.

  “…..”

  It was difficult. His regular methods wouldn’t work because his opponents were Wulin people.

  A single thought passed through Jackal’s mind.

  He took out his pocket watch to check the time.

  5:40 in the morning. Light was coming from the eastern sky.

  ‘The sky’s on my side.’

  Jackal began to smile.

  He soon decided where he would head next.

  His destination was a market, not far from where he was.

 
It was a place where people frequently sold various items from home when it got difficult to find food, after the Berlin economy had collapsed.

  That place would be busy with people this early in the morning.

  Having that many people in the area would mean there would be more eyes watching.

  If the Wulin people wished to cause harm to Jackal, they wouldn’t be able to do it in front of others.

  The Wulin people tended to mask their presence from the general public, because they would have greater control over a situation if they kept their powers a secret.

  Past an empty road there were a group of people huddled around a fire kindled in a drum. They were exiled people.

  Followed by hostile gazes from the group, Jackal turned a corner and came across people who were setting out items they had brought in baskets. Laying them out on the wooden boards.

  He had reached the market. Jackal slowly began picking up his pace.

  “Shall we begin?”

  Jackal’s pace looked relaxed at first. Almost as if he was on a stroll.

  But the reality was quite different. Every step he took, he glided forward like his body was a boat with oars.

  Divine speed hidden in normalcy.

  It was such a strange way of moving quickly that it looked like he was playing tricks to fool people.

  “Use this way of walking if you run into anyone who’s after you.”

  Marie-Louse was an excellent teacher. She was always straight to the point when teaching something to him.

  She would figure out which situations would be most dangerous and likely, and teach skills that fit those instances.

  Though her brevity annoyed Jackal at times, Marie-Louise’s teachings were always a blessing to Jackal in difficult times.

  But Marie-Louise never told him the names of the skills she taught. She said it was because the skills all had names that were unnecessarily grand and outdated for this day and age.

  So Jackal had to make up his own names for the skills.

  ‘Covert acceleration….!’

  Internally repeating the name he had given the skill, Jackal kept walking. Forming and using all of the inner power in his engine room to glide forward.

  Not only was there energy from whenever he took a step, but he also added potential energy in his step whenever he pushed off from the ground.

  That was how Jackal was able to walk much faster and further, than usual.

  The most important part was to move his knees smoothly and his arms naturally.

  This was to not let his opponents know that he was in a rush.

  The core to Covert acceleration was to move much further than expected to confuse the opponents and shake their sense of distance and perception.

  In an area that had much to see like the market, Jackal’s skills shone and he was able to put quite a bit of distance between him and his opponents.

  He could feel himself getting further away from them, but also felt the Wulin people speeding up.

  Reaching a set of crossroads, Jackal turned the corner and disappeared. His pursuers sped up.

  But they couldn’t use their lightweight movement when there were so many people around them. Their skills, unlike Jackal’s Covert acceleration, were too flashy to be performed in secret.

  The Wulin people were almost running and by the time they turned the corner, Jackal had turned another corner.

  This is what Jackal had wanted. The market was set up like a chessboard and had many corners Jackal could turn to hide.

  The leader of his pursuers, a fairly large man, motioned to the others with his hand. They split up into three directions. The one who was last in line turned back while the man in the middle kept running forward. The leading man chased after Jackal.

  The other two were now running fast enough that it was noticeable. Though they were not technically running, they weren’t exactly walking either. But their speed was as fast as Jackal’s.

  They were using a similar skill to Jackal’s Covert acceleration. But their techniques were far more noticeable and awkward than Jackal’s.

  ‘Two have veered off course. Are they trying to close in on me? Interesting.’

  Jackal turned another corner and hid himself, halting on the spot and hiding his presence.

  Hiding in the shadows, Jackal waited for his pursuer. He soon heard calm and even breathing.

  ‘It reminds me of Marie-Louise’s breathing. But it’s lighter than her breathing.’

  The large man, who was wearing a fedora, silently turned the corner. That was the first time Jackal had a chance to look at his face.

  ‘Is this.. what a Wulin person looks like?’

  It was the first time he’d seen one up close.

  Under the fedora were honey-colored curly hair and a strong Northern jaw.

  Putting his surprised behind him, Jackal began walking towards the Wulin person.

  ‘Covert acceleration…!’

  Jackal used his skill again.

  The moment that the man turned the corner, Jackal and the pursuer passed by each other in opposite directions.

  “…!!”

  Surprised by Jackal’s appearance, the man’s eyes were filled with shock.

  Though he belatedly tried to reach out to Jackal, who had slithered past him like a snake, Jackal took one step forward and moved further than he should.

  The tightly clenched fist hit nothing but air as it whipped past Jackal.

  “F*cking…..!”

  The man shouted.

  At that moment, Jackal’s movements began to change.

  Instead of continuing his leisurely pace, Jackal began to run.

  What gripped the pursuer was a sense of fear.

  With it being so hard for them to catch him when he was simply walking, how fast would Jackal be able to go once he started moving even quicker and running?

  Would he be able to catch up with the man?

  The pursuer didn’t have many options left. He took out a whistle and blew it, chasing after Jackal as he did so.

  Though no sound came from the whistle, all of the men who were chasing after Jackal stopped simultaneously.

  And they all began running towards the same direction.

  ‘Siege maneuver!’

  Now, Jackal casted the fastest lightweight movement he had picked up from Marie-Louise. It was a skill for mid-to-long range distances, when one needed to run away from one’s enemies or move as fast as possible.

  As Marie-Louise had not told him the skill’s name, he had to make up his own.

  Siege maneuver.

  It came from the maneuver used by troops in which they moved as fast as possible to surround their opponents.

  The skill allowed Jackal to move at a speed beyond a normal human’s capabilities.

  ‘My word, I’m the one doing this but I still can’t believe it.’

  Everything around him, the buildings, the people and everything else, sped past him as if he was on a train.

  Though he had practiced the skill many times in the narrow basement, this was the first time he was using the skill out in the field. Even Jackal was surprised by how fast he was going.

  People screamed as Jackal raced past them.

  “Aaaaaah!”

  “What is that?”

  Jackal ignored their screams and kept his eyes on the ground. He concentrated on where to put each step.

  And he kept going without stopping.

  His ankle almost gave out when he stepped on a leaflet with his left foot, stumbling towards an arcade pillar while avoiding the people. He bounced off the pillar and his speed was like a hawk descending to caught its prey

  Easily sidestepping a handcart that took up the entire road with tinkling bells, Jackal also avoided a woman pushing a stroller by grabbing the woman’s shoulder.

  Moving past all of the obstacles in his way, Jackal was able to reach the edge of the market. Past it, he saw a sign showing where the entrance to the underground passages
was.

  He could no longer feel the presence of his pursuers. They had fallen behind although the men were still running; they were unable to pinpoint Jackal’s location.

  Jackal ran to the entrance of the underground passageways. The stairs were divided into two. The side going up was empty while the side going down was brimming with people who looked like workers.

  Jackal’s eyes momentarily filled with indecision. But that was only for a split second as Jackal began moving with purpose. He headed for the empty set of stairs on the right.

  Jackal threw his body downwards. He matched the 30-degree angle of the stairs and flew down like a racing bullet.

  Once he hit the ground, Jackal reached out a hand on the ground and bounced back up like a spring, and rolled on the ground a few times.

  People started shouting when Jackal stood up. People were whispering and some of the workers were pointing at him and yelling.

  Jackal dusted off his old jacket and started walking forward as if nothing had happened. He casted his Covert acceleration to get away from the gossipers.

  He could no longer feel the presence of his pursuers.

  *

  “……”

  Its been awhile since he was home.

  Though it had only been a week, it felt like it had been a whole year.

  Jackal opened the door and carefully entered his home.

  The moment he opened the door, he heard rustling from inside.

  Jackal’s eyes sparked and he whipped out his gun.

  “Who is it?”

  But Jackal quickly put his gun down once he recognized who he was talking to.

  “…Jackal? Is that you?”

  Erika, looking much gaunter than before, was inside his home.

  “It’s you, right?”

  Seeing her eyes, which were always half open and made her look constantly tired, were filled with tears.

  Jackal knew something had gone wrong.

  This eBook was selected for the ‘2015 Export eBook Translation Support’ project operated by the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea (KPIPA).