Black Badger

"For now."

The next day, Yoon left me to do my usual basic fitness training and said,

"Don't be late for the exam."

"Isn't that obvious?"

I wasn't so scatterbrained that I'd be late for an exam.

Did he see me as that irresponsible? But Yoon wasn't one to say unnecessary things. He was extremely efficient and didn't waste words.

So there had to be some details.

"You have to get to the exam venue on your own. It's not an easily accessible place. And during the exam, the mentors in charge can't intervene in any way."

"Yes. I figured as much."

"The venue isn't at headquarters, and they only tell you a week in advance, so there are often cases of lateness."

Really...

Yoon said coldly, looking at my stunned expression.

"For whatever reason, if you're late, you're disqualified."

"Yes."

"Even if your parents die, don't be late."

"My parents are already dead."

"You can swim, right?"

I nodded.

I hadn't done it in nearly a year, so I worried my skills might have deteriorated.

Perhaps thinking the same, instead of picking up a gun, the mentor dragged me to the pool at headquarters and threw me in.

Caught off guard, I ended up splashing around in the disinfected water.

"Have you warmed up your body?"

After about an hour monopolizing the pool, Yoon approached, still wearing his windbreaker without even taking it off.

I poked my head out of the water and blinked.

I'd warmed up an hour ago before getting in.

When I nodded with a puzzled look, Yoon jerked his head as if to say get out.

"Then let's go."

"Go? Where to?"

"The ocean."

What?

"The exam event is ocean swimming."

Ah.

That wasn't surprising, but heading to the ocean right now was.

Could we just leave like this without any planning? And I only now learned that there was an ocean inside Center Core.

I'd thought it was just a vast continent.

"If you can swim this well in the ocean, you won't need separate training for the swimming event."

"Are we going right now?"

"It's not far by plane."

Oh, so we took a domestic flight.

I wondered if the ticket would be covered by public funds. And lunch would be the in-flight meal, then.

Harboring all sorts of curiosities, I silently followed Yoon's instructions. I'd learned long ago that things would proceed smoothly if I just went along obediently.

I trailed after him.

And it quickly reminded me that the mentor had been adopted and raised by a chaebol family.

Yoon... chartered a private plane.

"To check if you can swim in the ocean, a charter flight..."

"If you're not satisfied with your swimming, we'll book a room nearby."

Yoon spoke with a voice full of determination to get it done in one go.

"You've swum in the ocean before, right?"

I swam satisfactorily.

The mentor, pleased with my skills, dragged me back to headquarters. We returned around sunset; he had me complete my shooting practice quota, and then let me go quickly.

He seemed in a good mood now that his workload had clearly decreased.

"Swimming's done, so tomorrow let's tackle climbing. You can climb, right?"

"Do you mean rock climbing? I can do it decently. The place I used to live was full of cliffs."

"Ah, good. What about building climbing?"

"Buildings?"

Did building climbing even exist?

When I blinked in confusion, the next day Yoon explained in detail. Civilian building climbing was illegal, but badgers had to know how to do it. There were frequent cases where you had to scale dilapidated buildings outside the core.

After such a reasonable explanation, he suddenly handed me safety gear.

And then he calmly ordered,

"Climb headquarters."

"...You mean this building I'm in right now?"

"Too much hassle to get approval for another one."

He was utterly shameless.

"I've got permission, so eat lunch and start."

Is this normal...

But since he had permission, I had nothing to say. Practicing one or two more days wouldn't make much difference. So after returning to headquarters and having lunch with Tom, who was there (Wait, are you climbing headquarters too? No, what are you talking about, Hilde?), I put on the safety harness and started climbing the headquarters building in a spot where the sunlight wasn't too harsh.

Sorry to the people working inside.

With a queasy feeling, I climbed the building.

But once I started, I didn't have much room for other thoughts.

Half in a trance, I scaled the building covered in smooth glass.

Until someone flung open a window.

"You're working hard~."

It was Ricardo.

"To think the one hanging on the window is you... For a second, I thought the creature alert was broken~."

"Hey, you punk, you scared me."

Ro was there too.

Hanging from the window frame with my arm hooked over it, I looked at Ricardo, who happily watched me, and Ro, who stretched out his hand and snapped photos while laughing.

The seniors' hair fluttered in the wind.

"Feeling alive again~?"

Ricardo curved his long eyes into a smile.

I gave a crisp salute.

"Yes. Thanks to you. Loyalty, loyalty."

"Still as cheeky as ever..."

"But what are you doing?"

As expected of Ro, he asked the belated question.

Posing a V-sign against the barrage of flashes, I answered.

"Practicing for the climbing exam."

"Oh? Exam? What exam? Why an exam?"

"My promotion exam."

"Oh, that thing the rookies take?"

Honestly, I was surprised he even knew about the promotion exam.

Ricardo seemed to share the sentiment, letting out an "Ooh."

Ro ignored all the reactions.

"But why are you climbing this?"

"Because my mentor told me to."

"I see?"

He seemed to have lost interest now.

"Then work hard."

As he said, I climbed the building diligently again.

Feeling Ricardo's amused gaze, I headed upward. Along the way, people from various places opened windows to watch me. Mostly strangers. Office workers stuck their heads out and waved at me.

I paused occasionally to return the greetings.

But man, it was high.

There was a reason Yoon told me to start after using the bathroom. This building was annoyingly tall.

The building wind started to pick up.

Good thing I dressed warmly.

Lost in a trance again as I climbed, a window suddenly burst open on a pretty high floor.

"Huh."

I came face-to-face with the Supreme Commander, his eyes wide.

"Commander."

Ye-hyeon looked genuinely shocked.

His already large eyes grew even bigger as he stared at me, frozen in the position of having opened the window.

He was so surprised he'd forgotten to speak.

Behind the stunned him, the brown-haired aide's face poked out.

"Um, preparing for the promotion exam."

I awkwardly defended myself to Ye-hyeon, who seemed to have forgotten even to blink.

"I heard I had permission..."

Ye-hyeon didn't take his eyes off me for a while.

Then, at his aide's words, "Commander, the report has arrived," he snapped back and turned his head.

After glancing inside the office for a moment, the commander turned back to me and said,

"Climbing exam?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it too high?"

I craned my neck to look up.

Blue sky and the building. The structure stretched toward the heavens. It didn't seem as long as I'd thought. I'd climbed a lot. Just a bit more and I'd reach the roof.

The place with the helicopter markings. Where I'd gotten drunk, climbed up, and got chewed out by the seniors.

Brushing aside my white hair fluttering in the wind and obscuring my view, I nodded.

"It's fine."

Ye-hyeon looked at me appraisingly.

Then, perhaps deeming it okay, he began slowly closing the window.

"Be careful."

"Yes. Thank you."

"Don't worry too much about the exam."

His husky voice leaked through the closing window.

"If you just show up safely and take it, you'll pass."

After that, I received greetings from three more people on my way to the roof.

Once on the roof, I even got Yoon's perfunctory applause.

And so, I cleared the climbing event.

*

"Airborne training."

After finishing shooting practice, Yoon explained while looking at me.

"It's entrusted to a military unit."

Entrusted?

Could augmented body badgers even receive training at a regular military unit? I shot him a puzzled look. It seemed to need more explanation.

But Yoon didn't add anything.

"This you'll do with your cohort members."

He meant Hesi and Tom.

"You'll be holed up in the military unit for three weeks."

Three weeks?

I'd cleared hiking and swimming in a single day, but airborne training took three weeks? It didn't make sense. And since this was already the military, I couldn't figure out why we had to go to another unit.

But again, no explanation. Yoon just briefly told me the start date for the airborne training and how to get there, then vanished.

So I bombarded my cohort members with questions.

Hesi, whose father was a soldier, explained in detail.

"The airborne training normally takes three weeks to complete."

He'd finished it a few years ago and already had the badge given only to completers.

So he didn't need to do the training. But since Black Badger rookies went through the regular airborne education, he went again too.

Hesi said it might be more fun than expected and taught Tom and me a military song.

"...Military song..."

"You just have to jump safely four times for number four."

Seeing Tom and me mumbling the unexpected military song, Hesi's eyes sparkled.

"Let's hope we're not the unlucky cohort that has to jump from the balloon four times! It's either balloon, plane, or helicopter, but if the weather's bad, straight to the balloon."

And so, we were dragged to the military.

With Kal and Angela seeing us off, we headed to the military unit.

Yoon didn't come to see us off. That was so like him. It even made me realize how natural it was for him not to show up, after Hesi and Tom comforted me that they weren't disappointed.

If he had come, it would've been creepy.

Anyway, we enlisted just like that.

"Toe and knee, don't touch the ground!"

We rolled hard in the unit.

"Shout toe and knee while doing bunny hops!"

"Toe, knee!"

"Toe, knee!"

I missed Choi Yoon.

"Is that the volume you're giving me!"

"Toe! Knee!"

"Toe! Knee!"

I'd graduated from this stuff back in my youth...

But there was no escape. No way to contact the outside either. (They confiscated our phones.) At least I was lucky to be training with my cohort. After training, we could relax in the container barracks with them.

Ah. Time with Tom and Hesi was simply enjoyable.

Enough to make me forget my situation for a bit.

Probably because of this weird place where even going to the outdoor bathroom required marching in step.

We even had to chant slogans in unison.

"Airborne, infiltration! Airborne, infiltration!"

"Voice too quiet!"

At least let us go to the bathroom comfortably...

But the seemingly endless three weeks of training ended quickly. In the final week, we rose at dawn and lined up in the parade ground. Inhaling the bluish dawn air, we strapped on parachutes and headed to the drop zone.

We waited our turn gazing at the sky and then jumped.

We jumped four times over the week.

Three from the balloon. One from the plane.

"Ah, we didn't get to ride the Chinook again!"

Hesi couldn't hide his regret at not riding the helicopter.

"I wanted to jump from a helicopter!"

I felt a bit sorry too.

Anyway, the training ended safely. Three weeks later, we returned to headquarters staggering in our military uniforms. We waved pathetically at Kal, Angela, Iho, and Shu who waited for us.

They smirked at how we'd picked up the habit of marching in step.

And so, after three weeks, hearing that we'd entered a military drama, I wrapped up preparations for the airborne exam.

Clearing the trainings one by one like this.

Layer upon layer of such time, and soon the exam week arrived.

*

Exam day.

The day Hesi, Tom, and I had been waiting for with bated breath.

The day before that, after finishing my daily training, I walked to the grocery store to buy ingredients for dinner.

With my hands stuffed in the pockets of my windbreaker. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

I walked, inhaling the cool evening breeze. In my head, I simulated the upcoming exam day. I reviewed the points Yoon had consistently pointed out during shooting.

So engrossed, I didn't notice at all.

Someone approaching.

Thud.

A handkerchief covered my mouth and nose.

The last thing I thought was that it smelled strange, and then my memory cut off.