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Chapter 45: Chapter 8, Episode 5: The Conditions of a Mercenary and a Human

“Check again. If even one of them is alive, our location will be compromised. Jang Shin, you punk, check again. Morris, what are you doing? Check over there again.”

Sergeant Mike kept nagging them even after they had finished checking. He was just angry he didn’t get a chance to participate in the battle. He may be a mouse in front of Black Mamba, but his bad personality wasn’t going anywhere.

“That punk sure is strong-headed.”

The ears of the laughing Black Mamba picked up something.

‘Yeah, are any of them alive?’ he wondered.

He sensed a life force so thin only he would have been able to pick it up.

Black Mamba followed his senses toward the being that was flitting between life and death. There were two corpses with collapsed chests in the middle of the explosion aftermath. He kicked at the corpses with his army boots. It was a child soldier. He looked to be around thirteen or fourteen years old.

He wasn’t old enough to leave the security of home and be out in the world alone.

The child soldier was grabbing onto his ripped stomach with both hands. The broken ribs and thin neck made him look pitiful.

Their eyes met. His soulless eyes were full of his sense of futility. Black Mamba lifted his glock but could not bring himself to pull the trigger.

Child soldier Murcy’s hazy mind returned to consciousness. It was the surge before death. He had lost too much blood. He couldn’t move his body, but his mind was clear. Through his hazy vision, he could see the orange brown army uniform. It was the enemy.

All the things that happened for the last several months flashed before him.

When the sun was going down, he had been coming back after herding the goats as always. His younger brother had been waiting for him. He was twelve years old, and his brother was nine. They had met up with a group of soldiers at the town entrance. They shot and killed his brother then dragged him away. He was worried about his brother and the goats, so he resisted. They had shot the goats as well. The three goats they had were all his family owned.

The place they arrived at after walking all night was to a small mountain village. There they gave him a gun made of wood. He prepared the meals for the People’s Liberation Army and received training with his wooden gun.

After a month passed, they gave him a real gun.

From that point on, the training became intense. Other than time to sleep and eat, all he did was train. He no longer had time to worry about his brother or his goats.

The training was not hard. Shooting, charging, disassembling the gun, throwing grenades…that was all there was to the training. Memorizing was harder than the actual training.

He was forced to memorize the history of the People’s Liberation Army and the pledge of loyalty to Habib. They were taught that they would go to heaven if they died following their commands every day.

After two months of training, he was assigned to a troop. They said the best commander was Colonel Ahmud. After being assigned, his training and loyalty brainwashing continued. There were 320 men in the unit. Half of those in the unit were child soldiers like himself.

The only command Murcy received was to kill the enemy. He was told that he had to kill at least one enemy for Allah to give him a blessed life. The lesson he had been taught popped into his head. He had heard it every day, so it came to mind without much thought.

‘You are Allah’s servant. If you run away, you will be rot forever in the depths of hell. Even if you die, die after killing the enemy. Only after killing at least one enemy soldier will you be able to stand on the right hand side of Allah.’

Murcy was in pain, but he gathered all his remaining energy. There were the words that his instructor had taught him to say any time he felt scared to give him courage. His vocal cords were damaged, so the sounds he made were broken.

“Yawm al-din al-Amr Arif bi-Allah, judgment will be made as is commanded. I am liberated.”

Chartres saw the smile hanging on the child soldier’s lips.

Black Mamba, who had been lost in his thoughts, did not see it, but the quick Chartres was sharp.

Tick-

Black Mamba’s ears heard a soft metallic click.

“Ah peul la tee. Kkong!(Lie down. You idiot)!”

Whoosh-

At the same time as his yell, he heard the sound of air escaping as if from a rubber tube. Blood splattered from the child soldier’s head. It was Chartres from behind Black Mamba.

The head of the child soldier who got shot fell back. The two hands which had been grabbing his stomach dropped. Murcy forgot his pain and was at peace. He no longer had to worry about his brother or his goats.

‘Ah!’ Black Mamba exclaimed.

From the ripped stomach, a grenade with its pin removed rolled toward them. The grenade was drenched in red blood.

A grenade is not something that is thrown and explodes at once when the pin is removed as seen in the movies. A grenade has two safety features, a safety pin and a clip.

The safety clip can only be removed once the safety pin is removed. Once the soldier throws the grenade, the safety lever releases, and the striker throws the safety lever away from the grenade body as it rotates to detonate the primer. The primer explodes and ignites the fuse. Even if the safety clip is removed, if you hold onto the body to hold the safety lever down, the striker can’t detonate the primer.

The delayed reaction for the explosion is about 3-4 seconds. It is the time it takes to throw it. An infantry grenade is thrown about 25m per second. If it is thrown a distance of 35 meters, it will explode 1-2 seconds after hitting the ground.

They couldn’t know when the child soldier had let go of the safety lever.

Warning bells instantly went off in his head. The nerves activated him to go into the actin to create a quick response.

“Grenade!”

Black Mamba explosively kicked off the ground the moment he sensed danger. The ground beneath him was dug up by the strength in which he kicked off it. He dived between the corpses with a speed that cut through air like a sprinter.

Boom!

A loud explosion rang.

“Ack!”

Black Mamba was flown back from the explosion while holding the guerrilla corpse and rolled down the hill. He hit his head hard on the red sandstone and lost consciousness. The area where the shrapnel had swept across was littered with flying body parts.

“Ack!” Chartres, who quickly threw himself under some cover, screamed.

The team members, surprised by the explosion, ran towards them.

Jang Shin and Emil ran to Black Mamba.

“Hey, Black! Black!”

The flustered Emil grabbed Black Mamba and shook him hard.

“You idiot, are you trying to kill Black?”

Jang Shin hit Emil on the back of the head.

Emil came back to his senses and laid Black Mamba back down. Jang Shin removed Black’s clothes and carefully examined him.

His hardened muscles, which were like a wired rope, was revealed. The blood-soaked muscles looked unreal.

“Wow!”

Even at this moment, Emil touched Black Mamba’s chest muscles and exclaimed.

“Wang Ba Dan! Move over, you old punk”

Jang Shin, annoyed by his behavior, pushed Emil away.

Black Mamba’s upper body was dyed in blood. Shrapnel was lodged all over his body, and he was cut up pretty badly.

“Belman! Black got hit,” Emil yelled as Belman ran hurriedly over.

“What the heck is going on after the fighting’s already over!” Belman muttered under his breath as he pulled back Black Mamba’s eyelids and checked his ears.

He pulled out tweezers and removed the shrapnel from Black Mamba’s body.

“Geez, the shrapnel couldn’t penetrate his muscles. He’s not human!”

After getting rid of the shrapnel, he slapped Black Mamba’s cheeks.

“Wake up. You idiot!”

After getting slapped several times, Black Mamba amazingly opened his eyes.

His pupils couldn’t focus and wandered as he stared into the air.

“What is it?”

Jang Shin approached Belman as if he was ready to hit him as he saw his rough behavior.

“He’s fine.”

“What? That’s fine?” Jang Shin screamed in an outburst.

“It looks worse than it is. The shrapnel just barely penetrated his skin. The rest are just scratches. From the looks of it, Black flew out in the direction of the blast. He threw up blood, but it was due to his innards being shaken by the pressure of the blast. It’s much better than internal bleeding. The biggest injury is the bump on his head. His ears seem fine too. He opened his mouth and blocked his ears during the blast. A monster is surely different. He did everything he could to survive the blast.”

After hearing Belman’s explanation, Jang Shin and Emil stared at each other’s faces.

“In that short of a time?”

Belman’s gaze fell again on Black Mamba.

“I don’t get it either. This guy is just a monster. He’s lucky, too. Sterilize the wound and wrap it up in bandages.”

Belman tossed the bandages and alcohol to Jang Shin, then ran to Chartres.

Jang Shin looked down blankly at the corpse that Black Mamba had used as a shield. It was riddled with shrapnel. Black Mamba had seven lacerations, and as Belman said, the rest was just cuts and scratches.

Black Mamba had been within one meter of the explosion. In the blink of an eye, he had thrust his body over ten meters and used the corpses as a shield. The skill itself was surprising, but his survival instincts were amazing.

“My partner is Azrael. Who dare tries to take him to Hades?”

Emil smiled. Black Mamba was not just a casually claimed nickname.

Burimer, who had been assessing the situation, shook his head. As Belman had said, his monstrous physicality and luck had been on his side.

There was a reason Belman said it was luck.

There are three major reasons humans get hurt or die in an explosion.

The first is the pressure of the impact. The explosion itself damages the body. Second is the shrapnel. The shards of the exploding material or the broken pieces of the surroundings cause injuries from impact with it. The third is the aftermath, the damages that occur from the explosion gases or being thrown from the blast.

When a strong explosion happens, even if the body is not injured by the flying shrapnel, the aftermath of the explosion can cause serious injuries and lead to death. Aftermath consequences usually cause internal damage. If the explosion happened indoors, the pressure change would be greater and cause more severe injuries.

Black Mamba had avoided all three. If luck had not been on his side, even Black Mamba couldn’t have survived this.

Black Mamba had woken up while Jang Shin and Emil had been making a ruckus. As if a thick fog had come over him, his ears rang and his head felt numb as if he had been hit by a large dump truck.

“Black, any problems?”

Captain ran over a bit late.

“No problem! Haha.”

Black Mamba smiled as he looked up at Captain. Captain was the type of person who looked like he wouldn’t even bleed if he was pricked. His flustered state made him laugh.

“Huh, you seem fine. Of course, why should I even worry about Azrael, who controls death.”

Captain checked Black Mamba’s condition, then ran to Chartres.

Chartres was 7 meters outside the blast radius, but his state was not good.

“How is he?”

“He doesn’t have any critical injuries.”

Belman cut Chartres’s chest and pulled out shrapnel the size of a finger. His left shoulder was bleeding profusely also.

“This one is in a bit deep.”

Belman cut the areas that he needed to remove the shrapnel from. Chartres, who had returned to consciousness, started to scream.

“Ack, you quack, morphine!”

“Oh right! I forgot the anesthetic. Sorry.”

Belman didn’t look at all sorry as he pulled out a morphine injection from his kit.

“Don’t even bother saying you’re sorry, you quack.”

“I’m sorry, Chartres. You woke up too early.”

Belman moved slowly as he apologized in a joking fashion.

“Oh God, I’m gonna go crazy. Why do I bother?” Chartres complained.

Chartres had gotten injured in several places, but have been far from the blast, he didn’t have pressure-induced wounds.

“Captain, from the look of all his fussing, I don’t think he’s going to die.”

“Quack, is that something you should be saying to a patient? Can you be more gentle?” Chartres yelled at him.

“This guy is becoming a cry baby as he gets older.”

“You butcher shop worker!”

“Haha! I am a butcher, aren’t I?” Belman smiled as he pulled out the shrapnel and bandaged him up. Captain burst out laughing upon seeing the doctor and patient bicker.

If a doctor had cut open a patient without anesthetic in a civilian hospital, his license would have gotten revoked. Belman would be disqualified as a downtown doctor but as a war doctor, he was one of the best.

“You don’t deserve to call yourself a doctor.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t intend to make a living as a doctor.”

Belman didn’t lose one word to him and replied to every retort. It was a skill he learned to prevent the patient from going into shock.

“Oh, this quack is going to be the end of me,” Chartres muttered in exaggerated pain.