#394. What else would you do?
* * *
Follow me.
My ears are noisy.
The loud sound of an alarm clock.
He stretched out his arm and fumbled for a long time to turn it off.
I manage to erase the noise and regain my peace, but I don’t have time to close my eyes again.
I get out of bed and turn on the TV.
Beep.
[This is the news about yesterday’s accident.]
[During the welcome ceremony at XX on the XX day, a sniping took place against the Great Khan. The rebels are presumed to be behind this?]
[Yes. Regarding this, the Great Khan expressed great regret, but showed mercy by personally capturing the shooter.] [
It is truly a merciful decision.]
[Yes. Regarding this, some say that the Great Khan’s generosity is causing the rebels to indulge, and the need for stricter punishment…]
Beep.
turn the channel
Calm music playing instead of the news.
I take a shower with a much more comfortable feeling and fill my stomach with jam mixed with kasha made with oats in milk.
And I leave the house in one of the five or six identical, crisply pressed suits in my closet.
Vroom Vroom.
Engine sound when starting up.
The national car VAS, which the Russian Khanate is proud of, starts smoothly to match its reputation.
Compared to my father’s generation, who said the engine would shut off once in every three rides, or my grandfather’s generation, who said the engine would blow up once in a hundred, this is truly an admirable improvement.
but not satisfactory
in front, behind and beside.
There is only a slight difference in color or model.
I sigh when I see the road lined with the same VAS vehicles through the pouring snow.
‘Why is VAS only like this car? Even if I paid a little attention to the design, my stomach would be better than now.’
Rumble rattle.
‘…Well, it’s still better than that.’
dissatisfaction for a while.
When I see an old bus full of people moving, I feel both relief and pity.
If he hadn’t been a second-class citizen, he would have made his already boring life more difficult by using public transportation without a car like them.
As usual, we drove in a complex state of mind and arrived at a building with a silver dragon mark.
Even in the factory district of Moscow, it was a uniquely large factory.
“Oh good morning. Miss Ksenia.”
“…Mr. Bachemensky. You look healthy today.”
“I’m not a corpse except for the healthy ones? ha ha ha.”
The moment you park your car in the parking lot.
At the greeting of the man who parked the foreign car right next to him, Kseniya tries to smile.
A formal greeting to anyone.
But it seems like he’s happy that she accepted his words.
Bachemensky continued the conversation with a single smile on his face.
“Did Miss Ksenia see the welcome ceremony yesterday?”
“No, I couldn’t participate because I had work to do.”
“I’m sorry about that. Everyone said in unison that it was a bigger event than the Great Khan’s birth festival.”
‘It must have meant that it was an event that gave more labor points than the Great Khan’s birth festival.’
Ksenia muttered inwardly.
To think that the people of the Russian Khanate, who are driven by labor every day, voluntarily participate in events such as the welcome ceremony of the terrible dictator.
Even if it was a large amount of labor points, it was impossible unless it came out as a reward.
Well, with Bachemensky, that might be the case.
For him, who became a first-class citizen thanks to meeting his parents well, all he had left was his hours for labor points.
Even driving a foreign car at a young age was a luxury that a second-class citizen like her could not even dream of.
That’s why I couldn’t like him at all.
However, Bachemensky, not knowing how she felt, was silent.
“Did you hear more than that?”
“I saw on the news about the assassination that took place during the welcoming ceremony yesterday.”
“Other than that, the plant manager sent me a message this morning. Ksenia and I were called to come as soon as we left for work.”
“…I wish you would have told me about that first rather than small talk.”
He’s a really hard guy to like.
Despite sighing over and over again, Ksenia did not blame him.
It was her fault for not checking her contact information, even though it was because she had a hard morning because of her low blood pressure.
In any case, thanks to that, Ksenia was able to avoid being called by her boss.
‘By the way, what are you doing this morning? Did an additional order come in suddenly?’
‘Then I have no choice but to increase my working hours.
Concerned, Ksenia went to Vachemensky and the plant manager.
However, the business that the gray-haired factory manager called them was completely out of the ordinary.
“Come on. Actually, the reason I called you was to entrust you with training for new recruits.”
“Rookie training… you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Suddenly, what do you mean? When did you hire a new employee for our factory?”
“Well, isn’t there a shortage of manpower these days? That’s why I’ve been recruiting talented people, so you guys should take good care of me.”
Ksenia as well as Bachemensky could not hide their bewilderment at the sudden statement.
Lack of manpower. It’s always been the case, but starting from the fact that they were recruited, why did they entrust training to them?
Because it was completely incomprehensible.
However, without a chance to inquire into the reason, the two had to greet a pair of new recruits introduced by the factory manager after a while.
“nice to meet. My name is Limanov Koshkin. Feel free to call me Reno.”
is this a newcomer?
Or is it a new boss?
A white-haired young man with a cheeky attitude to the point of being indistinguishable from each other…
“Nice to meet you. I am Reno’s wife.”
Continue.
“…Reno, that cheek hurts.”
“If you are sick, don’t scold me. Anyway, that was a joke, and this is Elshar Koshkin, my sister. I’m counting on you.”
“Anyway, I liked my wife more than my younger brother…” An
expressionless white-haired girl muttered with her cheek pinched while her face was covered with sunglasses and a mask.
That was the moment when the two bizarre siblings entered the ‘Moscow state-run munitions factory’ as new supervisors and researchers.
‘A parachute again?’
It was the first time that I was taken aback by the sudden greeting.
Ksenia understood the situation.
There would be no way for a factory manager to make such an abrupt personnel transfer unless someone put him in.
It was obvious that a high-ranking person somewhere would have forced them into it, as Bachemensky had done.
The ‘Moscow state-run munitions factory’ they work at was a honey job where they could get relatively many labor points as they researched and produced all kinds of advanced weapons.
To be honest, she couldn’t like this parachute greeting.
Anyway, work is work.
Ksenia tried her best to train the newcomers.
I mean it was like that in the beginning.
“Hmm, in the end, you just have to roll the staff, right?”
“There are people who are mistaken like that, but they are not. A supervisor’s job is to maximize work efficiency through proper staff management.”
“Isn’t that what you call lazy bastards? Kids who are good at things are given carrots as labor points.”
“How the hell did you become a supervisor…?”
Ksenia was dumbfounded.
No matter how parachute you are, you must have the basics.
No matter how you look at this gray-haired young man named Reno, it was doubtful whether he had common sense, let alone the basics.
Still, she was better.
Because Bachemensky, who played the younger sister, was completely crazy.
“Researcher Elshar, can you repeat what you just said about your major…?”
“doesn’t exist.”
“Ah, are you saying that you didn’t decide on a major and studied all of them evenly?”
“I didn’t study. I don’t know anything about weapons either. So learn from the basics.”
“…”
…It was such a terrible situation that even Ksenia, who didn’t like Bachemensky, couldn’t help but sympathize.
Thanks to that, Ksenia’s doubts deepened even more.
Even by the standards of the most messed up parachute, the two siblings were too absurd.
But she didn’t know.
The fact that a blue bird was staring at him watching them with such suspicious eyes.
* * *
[Hey, team leader. Do you think this method will really work?]
“Isn’t that the basics of an undercover investigation?”
[Even if you said it was basic, I had never seen the former team leader conduct an undercover investigation while working at PAB.
]
[I admit that, but…]
Yuna-kyung scratched her head with her wings.
PAB days.
Kang Jeong-soo, who was the director, made good use of Limon.
Whenever there was an issue to subdue a high-level player, Limon was dispatched first.
Destroying at least one building was a simple but effective way to extract the deficit caused by Limon with labor.
It was thanks to that that PAB boasted a high arrest rate even with a small number of people.
However, thanks to that, Limon was usually able to fill up 24 hours a day with work, so there was no time to do things like undercover investigations.
So it was.
The reason Yuna-kyung couldn’t let go of her doubtful feelings.
[If your name is infiltration, you should do it more secretly. At a time like this, if I do it openly like this, everyone will think suspiciously?
]
[yes? Why?]
“Because if you touch the bush, a snake will come out.”
[…Are you saying you’re going to make the Liberation Brigade move by deliberately looking suspicious?]
“It’s not exactly the Liberation Brigade, it’s the Revolutionary Army. If something suspicious happens around you, even if you don’t move directly, you’ll see some kind of reaction.”
Limon pointed out coolly.
Just as there is a saying that thieves numb themselves, those who belong to the Revolutionary Army must be sensitive to the dynamics around them.
Whether you’re trying to pry behind them.
Or maybe you’re just being overly wary.
If anyone showed even the slightest suspicious reaction, he was confident that he would notice it.
However, Yuna-kyung put on a very doubtful expression.
[It sounds plausible, but it might not be as good as you think, right?]
“It can’t be helped. Right now, we don’t have the resources to trust and rely on, nor the time to conduct an investigation according to the rules.”
Even if you touch the bush, the snake doesn’t necessarily come out.
If the opponent thoroughly hides the reaction, there is a possibility that it will be more difficult to catch the tail.
Especially considering the characteristics of the revolutionary army, which has been operating under the strict surveillance of the Russian Khanate.
Still, Limon only shrugged his shoulders in the end.
Since they had already done it, there was no way to undo it, and they had no other way to believe Yekathrice’s cooperation.
Above all, there was a clear reason why he decided to conduct an undercover investigation.
“Anyway, it’s certain that the sniper rifle and special warhead used in yesterday’s assassination were made in this factory, so if you look closely, you’ll get a clue.”
[That said, it seems too blatant to mark the two most likely suspects closely under the pretext of training.]
“Then it’s rather good. The more suspicious we are, the more likely they are to make mistakes under pressure.”
[Ummm, do you think so?]
When Yuna-kyung reluctantly nodded.
Ainsha, who was listening by the side, clenched her fists and said with an expressionless face.
“All right. Then I will work harder to win the award.”
“…what else do you want to do?”
[It’s suspicious enough that you haven’t been fired after doing such a thing up until now…]
The moment I heard that.
Limon and Yuna-Kyung made a confused expression.
It wasn’t just because of Ainsha’s face wrapped in sunglasses and a mask.
It was because what she had done up until now was not something that could be rectified with just the expression of being suspicious.
How many accidents Yainsha has had at the Moscow state-run munitions factory.
It was only necessary to hear the screams of Vachemensky, who was in charge of her training as a senior researcher.
“Researcher Elshar! You can’t stick that in there!”
“No problem. This hole is the same size as this one. It fits snugly when plugged in. My eyes are clear.”
“It’s not the size that matters, it’s the voltage…!”
Pajijijijik! Perong!
“Aaaaaagh! A plasma injector I just bought this year for 333 million rubles!!!”
“…It’s not my fault. It’s because the machine is weird.”
