PASSION Chapter 3 Part 1

Chapter 3 Part 1

White Hands

BAM! A sharp, violent sound rang out. Then bright red blood trickled down.

"Ack!"

Alta, clutching his nose, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then seeing the blood flowing down his palm, glared with irritation.

"This bastard used another dirty trick!"

"Well, if you fall for it, you're the fool..."

While Alta had probably wanted Tae-ui to meet his attack head-on and engage in a test of strength, Tae-ui had no desire to do so when he knew he would lose. This wasn't a test where points were awarded based on skill in fair competition - in actual combat training where people were hitting and getting hit, what reason was there to take hits willingly?

So when he slightly met Alta's attack and immediately dodged aside, landing a hit to the face in the process, Alta was making this fuss.

While half-listening to Alta's angry shouts, Tae-ui reached into his pocket to hand over a handkerchief when suddenly a huge hand like a pot lid flew in from behind and struck him hard on the back of his head.

"Ouch!"

With tears welling up in his eyes from the sharp blow, Tae-ui clutched his head and turned around to see Carlo standing there with an expression that was half amused and half pretending to be angry.

"I keep telling you that using tricks like that will get you in real trouble one day. Do it properly, properly."

"...Ugh... That's the fifth time I've heard that lecture, and this makes the sixth time the tricks have worked."

Tae-ui muttered as if wronged. Alta immediately stepped right up next to him and squawked:

"Who wouldn't fall for it if they didn't know it was coming!"

"Even if they knew it was coming, no one would fall for a direct attack."

Though Tae-ui made a very reasonable argument, Alta was still fuming and continued shouting.

Tae-ui muttered "Okay, okay, I get it" and stepped a few paces away from him. As he did so, he suddenly bumped into someone standing behind him and stopped.

"Ah, sorry."

"Watch where you're going. And do something about that noisy teammate of yours."

The person he had bumped into spoke with a frown. He was from another team.

While Tae-ui was staring blankly with raised eyebrows, the man walked away brushing off the shoulder that had been bumped.

"What's his problem?"

"Must be someone from Instructor Golding's team. Unpleasant guy."

"You know him?"

"I know his face and name, but if you're asking about personal relationships, then 'no.'"

Carlo shrugged and shook his head. Alta, whose nosebleed seemed to have stopped, returned the handkerchief while grumbling "His attitude sure is stiff."

"Is there some bad blood with that team? Everyone's attitude seems a bit awkward?"

"Nothing particularly bad. Though nothing particularly good either. It's always like this."

"Always?"

"When there's more competition than cooperation, why would people get along?"

"...This really is a bleak place..."

Tae-ui shook his head. Bad relations with other branches externally, bad relations between teams internally - what kind of human relationships were these?

Stay here too long and you'll lose your humanity completely.

Tae-ui clicked his tongue and crouched down holding his wooden sword. That's when he got hit on the back of the head for the second time.

"Ouch!!"

Though not as hard as when Carlo had hit him, getting hit again in the same spot doubled the pain. While Tae-ui clutched his head again, another sharp sound rang out and Alta also grabbed his head.

"Who sits down to rest during sparring? And Alta, aren't you his sparring partner? When he sits down to rest, you should be beating him up mercilessly."

The person saying this with a bright smile was his uncle, who had lost his humanity long ago.

Tae-ui glared at him with tears glistening in his eyes and muttered:

"Un... Instructor Jung, why are you here? It's not even your scheduled time."

However, no answer came.

Just as Tae-ui had said, his uncle, who should have been lecturing on strategy theory in Western Lecture Hall 3, walked over to the instructor in charge of Second Combat Training. A man followed behind him, glancing at Tae-ui before silently smiling and following after his uncle.

"Ah, the driver."

Tae-ui suddenly muttered.

It was the man who had driven them from when they arrived in Hong Kong until they reached this island when coming here with his uncle. Though he now looked more rigid in his indoor uniform than he had then, it was definitely him.

"Driver? Ah, you mean Officer Kang? Well, he does drive the Instructor's car."

"What's an 'Officer'?"

"He's a member like us, but simply put, he's the Instructor's general secretary. Drives the car, helps with work, acts as a guard."

The rank system that had seemed simple kept revealing new positions the more he dug into it.

What is this, a cornucopia? While Tae-ui was muttering this, he heard his colleagues murmuring:

"Even the instructors have been at each other's throats lately. I heard Chang and Golding fought recently."

"Mm, must be because of that. The Director General's promotion. They say he's moving to headquarters."

"Then it makes sense they'd fight over performance now. Though it doesn't really matter to us who becomes Director General or Deputy Director."

"Don't be so relaxed about it... Remember when the South American branch was turned upside down once? Several people died in the fierce underground power struggles then. Once things get serious here, who knows what could happen."

"Hey, stop, you're scaring me. We just need to look after our own lives."

"..."

Tae-ui stared intently at his uncle while resting his chin on the wooden sword handle. Amid such conversations, he was growing increasingly resentful of his uncle. Even if only one member among the branch members were to die, judging by fighting skills and physical strength, Tae-ui would be among the weakest. He might as well have been given the number one spot in line to die.

"I guess I really can only rely on luck... Brother Jae-ui, Brother Jae-ui, please share some of that luck with me..."

Sighing seemed to have become a habit since coming here.

Tae-ui let out another long sigh and stood up with a "well then."

Alta moved on to the next round and a new sparring partner came up. Since they mixed teams for sparring, partners weren't just from one's own team. He had already sparred with several unfamiliar faces.

This new sparring partner was that man from Instructor Golding's team who had bumped into him earlier. The opponent also seemed to recognize Tae-ui as he frowned. Tae-ui scratched his head while muttering "Oh..." awkwardly.

This wasn't how he had wanted to get acquainted, he thought with a sigh as he gripped his wooden sword again. Though called a wooden sword, getting hit by these training weapons that were weighted heavier than standard ones hurt tremendously even with protective gear on, so he couldn't let his guard down for a moment. One wrong hit and it was straight to the infirmary.

Though it hadn't even been a week since arriving here, Tae-ui had already visited the infirmary over ten times. Four times he had helped carry his sparring partners who had collapsed, and the rest were times he had collapsed himself. The infirmary was on basement level 2 along with the lecture halls and training areas - by now he could find it with his eyes closed.

He was gradually getting used to how the branch operated. He had become familiar with his teammates, and while he didn't know all their names, he recognized the faces of members from other teams too. Well, there were only about 100 people total, and during regular training they were constantly facing each other and sometimes beating each other up, so even if just to get revenge after taking a hard hit, it was impossible not to learn faces.

Today's combat training focused on wooden swords. With no rules beyond using the wooden swords effectively, it created matches very close to actual fighting.

Tae-ui watched for an opening in the man charging at him. When their wooden swords clashed head-on, a sharp sound rang out. At the same time, a stinging impact traveled through his wrist. This man also seemed to have tremendous raw strength.

"Well then..."

Tae-ui grabbed the man's collar. Then he spun around.

The startled opponent spotted an opening and struck mercilessly with his wooden sword. It hurt like hell. Not only was his strength brutally overwhelming, but he showed no mercy in his strikes.

Swallowing back curses, Tae-ui endured the barrage of hits while throwing away the wooden sword he held in his other hand. Then with both hands gripping the opponent's collar, he threw him over his shoulder.

Though the opponent resisted and staggered briefly, the gambit of taking hits to close in empty-handed paid off as he eventually fell and hit his back on the ground.

As the man lay flat on the ground, Tae-ui picked up his discarded wooden sword while adjusting his collar. Shock appeared in the eyes of the opponent who was just trying to get up from the ground.

"Hey, you didn't just--"