RTN 15

Baek Ihyun tightened his hold on me. The cold metal buttons on his uniform pressed into my skin and hurt; I swallowed. At that, the arm that held me loosened slightly.

It wasn’t loose enough for me to push him off. I managed to say, barely.

“Put me down.”

Baek Ihyun pretended not to hear. His gaze slid past me and down. A bowl had been overturned on the floor and food was scattered everywhere.

I pushed against his chest again. My palm thudded against him. His voice was low and calm.

“This woman is not a dog. That treatment is not right.”

Min Seorin was already standing. She folded her hands neatly and dropped her eyes a fraction—an extremely polite posture.

Her demeanor was so cordial it was impossible to believe she’d just grabbed my hair and tried to pour soup into my mouth. Min Seorin answered in that same composed tone.

“In my hometown we call concubines ‘dogs,’ so I brought dog food.”

Her voice was so natural that for a moment I didn’t understand. Then I looked at the food again. What had at first looked like an ordinary meat soup gave off a faint fishy smell.

“Why did you judge her to be a concubine?”

“You can enjoy yourself without trouble, can’t you?”

Min Seorin kept her hands folded and lowered her eyes as she spoke smoothly.

“You are often on harsh battlefields; there can’t have never been any transfers. Surely you leave some of them behind somewhere, right?”

“Transfers?”

It was a term I’d never heard. I didn’t know what it meant, but something about what she was saying felt off.

“You secretly transfer women from behind the lines, launder them as foreigners, and then, to make sure they don’t die, you personally spoon-feed them up to S-rank — Commander, your sense of romance is on a large scale.”

“So you mean I’ve known this woman for a long time and staged this whole scene to openly take her around the battlefield?”

“Isn’t that right?”

“Get out.”

Min Seorin didn’t back down. She lifted the eyes she had kept cast downward. Her pupils were unusually large and didn’t glance at me at all—fixed precisely on Baek Ihyun, almost clinging to him.

“There is no precedent for bringing a foreigner onto the warship like this, Commander.”

“There’s no situation in which precedent can exist.”

“Even if it’s exceptional, there’s common sense. I heard that the woman broke into the security room and stole a valuable weapon, yet there was no disciplinary action.”

“So you brought some dog food you don’t even know what’s on it and intended to personally punish her? Since when does the Defender have disciplinary power? That’s arrogance, beyond authority.”

“We cannot let a foreigner into the military under any circumstances. No one can oppose the Commander, so I took action.”

“Do you not understand the value of an S-rank?”

Min Seorin didn’t answer.

“I’ll ask again. Does the Yuwol family have the means to compensate for the value of an entire mothership?”

“Our family values honor more than money. If a foreigner is allowed to roam alive on the ship I support…”

Min Seorin’s eyes swung toward me.

“It would be degrading.”

“Does using an S-ranked weapon sealed by His Majesty the Emperor require formality?”

“This is not good for you either, Commander. Tell His Majesty it was lost in an accident and, if someone must take responsibility, use me as the excuse. End this ridiculous farce. I’ll be generous—on the hundredth concession, I won’t have her killed. If you just remove her from in front of you, we’ll act as if this never happened…”

Baek Ihyun stopped listening. He spoke shortly, as if I weren’t worth arguing with.

“Let her go.”

A soldier waiting behind Baek Ihyun stepped forward. The boredom that no disciplined posture could hide felt familiar.

He was the man at the gate who juggled jewels pilfered from a dead man and shouted empty jokes, the one who had come up and asked me if I was a developer—Kim Do-woon.

Before Kim Do-woon could come any closer, Min Seorin’s face twisted cold.

“Don’t touch her. I’ll leave.”

She said it briefly, then lightly gathered her dress and brushed past Kim Do-woon. She stopped at the doorway and looked back at us.

“If my family learns about this behavior, they’ll call me back. Then the warship will be emptied. Can you fight without a Defender?”

“You can replace a Defender, but the woman you just tried to kill is irreplaceable.”

Veins bulged on the back of the hand clutching her dress. Then Min Seorin left the room.

Her heels clicked away behind the slowly closing door.

“Does the head of the Yuwol family know his daughter behaves like this?”

“I hope he didn’t instruct her,” Kim Do-woon replied. He knelt on one knee, lowered himself, and put his wrist over the overturned bowl.

A red alert flashed on his watch. Kim Do-woon stood up.

“There is a large amount of poison. I’ll call researchers to collect it.”

“You hope he didn’t instruct her?”

“Commander.”

Kim Do-woon looked at Baek Ihyun.

“Min Seorin doesn’t act like that toward just any man. Didn’t you see earlier? She treated me as if I were a pest.”

“We’re not even acquainted, yet she suspects too much of my conduct.”

“She seems paranoid.”

“Is your head broken? I’m asking because I’m concerned.”

“If you judge her being clingy because she likes you to be abnormal, then you should worry about more than half of the lifeforms in the universe—including unconscious wandering spirits. Or maybe more, since there are men, too.”

Kim Do-woon wasn’t joking at all. He added,

“I’m not defending Min Seorin.”

“She’s in a mental state that would recklessly damage military resources—do the Defenders still provide proper support? Check whether the defense rate has dropped below 95% in the last three months and report by midnight.”

“Yes. But, Commander. You’re still holding her.”

“I forgot.”

Baek Ihyun put me down on the bed. He rose with a dry, emotionless manner—neither gentle nor rough—and straightened the crumpled sleeve of his uniform.

Kim Do-woon stood staring at him, dumbfounded. His composed façade evaporated; his face showed sheer incredulity.

“You ‘forgot’?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

There was a faint annoyance at the edge of Baek Ihyun’s tone.

“The unit’s key asset was almost damaged. Because of your carelessness.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kim Do-woon bowed properly but still looked utterly unconvinced. Baek Ihyun watched me as if sighing.

“Why didn’t you avoid it?”

I met Baek Ihyun’s gaze in silence.

“You, who slipped past all the researchers, even knocked some unconscious to break into the security room—there’s no way you couldn’t knock away one bowl of food that reached your mouth. Were you waiting for the status window to appear again? Does it pop up when you get in trouble?”

As he asked, Kim Do-woon blinked wide-eyed and looked at me.

“You’ll learn now. The status window will use any means to protect you. Earlier it gave a one-minute grace, but it might react differently in other situations. Are you planning to raze this place?”

“If necessary, do it.”

It wasn’t a difficult answer. I spoke slowly and clearly.

“No one tells me about the status window, so to find clues I have to eat dangerous food myself. If you don’t like my reckless behavior, give me information.”

“If you act like this, everyone is in danger. The status window, they say, will nullify everything within a 100 km radius. Do you not care if I die?”

“Why would I care whether you die or not?”

“You called me your close friend. Was that a lie?”

“You misread me.”

My feelings had been sorted cleanly. In retrospect, there were more than one or two differences; I had failed to steady my emotions because the man before me had the same name and appearance as the Baek Ihyun I knew.

Not anymore. I said it plainly.

“You are not the Baek Ihyun I know.”

I was certain. He was someone else. In that bleak space where there was nowhere to hide and every attack concentrated on a child, I finally understood.

This is not how my friend would behave.

“The Baek Ihyun I know wouldn’t use goodwill.”