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chapter 22
Kim Do-woon’s creed was simple: safety first.
To live peacefully and without incident. Smoothly, like flowing water. To go along if he could, to adjust to the mood even if he didn’t see eye-to-eye with his comrades.
His only goal was to survive this grueling war while keeping as low a profile as possible and eventually return home safely.
But now, a life-or-death crisis had arrived.
His superior, Baek Yi-hyun, was out of his mind.
Up until now, Kim Do-woon had survived thanks to a combination of modest skill and unbelievably incredible luck. The luck of having ended up under Baek Yi-hyun.
All his comrades who enlisted with him had long since died, their names erased from memory. Yet, Kim Do-woon had survived, achieved remarkable feats, and smoothly risen to the Special Operations Battalion—all thanks to Baek Yi-hyun.
That was the reason he survived. There was no other. Kim Do-woon had watched comrades, far superior and favored by the military, perish—not by the enemy’s blade, but by disease. Life was luck.
And as far as Kim Do-woon knew, there was only one person who could create their own luck: Baek Yi-hyun. Being near him meant safety.
But now, Baek Yi-hyun was acting strange. Uncharacteristically strange. Kim Do-woon could sense it.
Why is he feeding someone by hand?
Even after seeing Baek Yi-hyun open a lunchbox for Seol Ah-yeon with his own eyes, he wanted to believe it was an illusion.
It was better to think his eyes were deceiving him. If Baek Yi-hyun lost his composure, this battalion was doomed.
Next week, they were going on a mission.
Kim Do-woon’s gut twisted with unease. What if Baek Yi-hyun’s mind wavered and he made a mistake? What if he misjudged the situation unprecedentedly? What if someone got hurt or died? And what if that someone was him?
Just thinking about it made cold sweat run down his spine. He couldn’t die here—not on this barren warship with not even a single flower in sight…
The mounting anxiety made him barely touch his food. Eventually, he put his spoon down and unconsciously spoke, his voice hoarse.
“Battalion Commander…”
“Huh?”
One of the soldiers across from him, chatting cheerfully with a companion, looked over. Kim Do-woon asked weakly,
“You’ve never been in a relationship, right?”
“Huh? What do you mean…?”
“Never mind.”
He sighed and shook his head. The soldier blinked and returned to his conversation. Today, the dining hall was unusually noisy.
“Thinking about it, assuming the Coordinator would definitely be on our side was arrogant, wasn’t it?”
“But I didn’t expect it to come from an outsider.”
“The one who balances the world is the Coordinator. It doesn’t matter what dimension they’re in—they could be on our side, or in the other world.”
“We were so stupid. We searched for the Coordinator everywhere, and the moment we saw an outsider, we just killed them.”
All day, it seemed the conversation revolved around Seol Ah-yeon. Everyone’s focus on her left little room for actual eating. The usual habit of burying their faces in trays had disappeared.
The temporary anger over losing the coveted S-rank had faded, replaced by the chaos of realizing Seol Ah-yeon was the Coordinator.
This wasn’t good. Kim Do-woon felt anxious again. Baek Yi-hyun was out of his mind, and now his subordinates were noisy too. Definitely bad. This frivolous atmosphere would surely carry over to the battlefield.
Operations that already demanded perfection could easily fail with even minor variables. If an emergency occurred, someone had to throw themselves into the fray to fix it. That role was Kim Do-woon’s.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.
“Is this finally my turn to die? I’ve lasted a long time. Where did I put my will…”
“Anyway, the Coordinator wouldn’t die easily by our hands.”
“That’s not certain. The status screen protecting the Coordinator isn’t 100% verified. Maybe it’s not just because she’s the Coordinator, but because ‘that woman’ is the Coordinator…”
“Are you defending her?”
“I’m just saying how careless we’ve been.”
Laughter came from behind.
“Damn, is he falling for her?”
“An outsider? Are you crazy?”
“Exactly how you look right now.”
Kim Do-woon pushed the barely touched food to one side of his tray and thought of Seol Ah-yeon.
She was pretty. Min Seo-rin’s suspicion that Seol Ah-yeon was Baek Yi-hyun’s partner in operations wasn’t unfounded—her striking appearance helped.
“Damn it, if only the Battalion Commander hadn’t shown up…”
“Lucky you, with an outsider.”
“You were staring too.”
“I was. That guy couldn’t take his eyes off her.”
As expected, crude jokes began to circulate.
“So that’s just a lie, right?”
“What’s?”
“That our Battalion Commander knows her personally.”
“They said we saw it wrong.”
“Look at them backing down immediately. Pathetic.”
“The Commander’s too FM anyway. If it were me, I’d play along…”
Had everyone taken some kind of drug together? The more he listened, the more ridiculous it got.
Even if they didn’t know Baek Yi-hyun had a private interest in Seol Ah-yeon, talking like that in front of him would be disastrous. Baek Yi-hyun’s ears were everywhere.
Avoiding this situation was the best choice. Kim Do-woon was about to stand when…
“Hey, Kim Do-woon!”
Of course, he had expected this. He sighed and turned to see the group of low-class troublemakers staring at him.
Their faces gleamed with impish mischief. He hated being in the same unit as them.
“You were protecting that woman earlier and got pierced by Min Seo-rin, right?”
Damn him. Choi Jae-hyung. One of the guys who always tried to provoke him.
He could have beaten him into silence, but that wasn’t Kim Do-woon’s style. He preferred minimizing unnecessary conflict.
Fewer enemies on the battlefield meant better survival chances, and sometimes, an angry ally was more dangerous than the enemy.
Kim Do-woon relaxed his body, smiled pleasantly, and said loudly,
“So how’s a Defender supposed to hide without us noticing?”
Before Choi Jae-hyung could respond, mutters of disbelief spread.
“Hide? Doesn’t that have a 24-hour cooldown? It ends at midnight on this ship?”
“Wow, we’ll have to manage without hiding from tomorrow… crazy.”
“Last operation we begged him to deploy the field just once, and he ignored us. Now he’s using advanced skills for his own interest? Will he abandon the mission and just sneak into the Commander’s quarters?”
“Hey, do you know where her room is?”
The topic seemed to shift, but crude jokes resumed before anyone could relax. Choi Jae-hyung started talking about Seol Ah-yeon again.
When he came close to crossing the line, Kim Do-woon’s patience ran out. He said sharply,
“Seol Ah-yeon has a terrible personality.”
The noisy dining hall fell silent. Kim Do-woon could feel stares burning into his back.
He draped an arm over his chair and turned, staring at Choi Jae-hyung.
“Didn’t you see Team Leader Jang’s hand? She won’t be able to use her right hand for a while. I don’t want to get involved unnecessarily. You should be careful too. She’s S-rank and the Coordinator—don’t die trying to mess with her.”
Choi Jae-hyung’s face twisted. A clash was inevitable.
Deciding to enforce discipline and restore order, Kim Do-woon stood up—and then flinched.
“How badly hurt is she?”
Seol Ah-yeon was standing right next to him.
Just as he had seen her handing the lunchbox to Baek Yi-hyun, she stood there. White top, matching cotton pants, her gaze clear and focused on him.
Holding only a tablet, she said seriously,
“I didn’t bite that hard.”
