Prologue

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It is 5:32 AM. A convoy of two trucks and two armored SUVs of the III corps of the Korean People's Army is driving down the road at South Pyongan province. It's been about two hours since they left the camp. The skies are clear and the road is empty. Of course it would be. All citizens and workers are still asleep, enjoying their 9 hour rest. In about 25 minutes, it'll be the time for their wake up. Another irritating morning with propaganda music echoing across the nation. To most of the citizens, this is their torture sentence. 16 hours of working non stop evaryday and without food is like a death sentence. You just keep doing what you always do, waiting until your organs finally shut down and you can go to your eternal sleep. You just have no room for joy in this type of life. Here, it doesn't matter if you are a worker, a soldier, or even a citizen. You are just a tool that can be replaced if broken beyond repair, but you do have a little more luck if you join the special forces or the III corps, not just because they are the only units equipped with the most advanced equipment, but because the defense of Pyongyang in entrusted to those units. If you join eithwr of those two, the entire fate of capital rests in your hands.

Colonel Chang Min-Ho is sitting on the back of the truck with the rest of his fellow soldiers, trying to take a nap. It's been about two hours since the exercise has finished and he still can't get some rest. He's been awake for more than 24 hours and he's very exhausted. A few hours ago he was at the barracks, taking part in training exercises and inspecting the new combat gear. And now he's been assigned to the Paektusan Mountains for no reason whatsoever. Exercise after exercise, parade after parade, he just won't get a single minute of rest. But that's what happens when serving at a military unit which is responsible for the nation's capital. The III corps and the special forces may be better equipped than the rest of the army, but its personnel is subjected to constant training day after day. The 'marshal' fears that Pyongyang's soldiers are not even ready to face the enemy in case of war, so he has ordered his troops to train to the death, although he's probably sentencing them to death before they encounter the enemy. If they continue like that, the K.P.A. and the S.O.F. will run out of troops before the war.

-'Well comrades. A night and a half this has been', says captain Pong Sun-Heon, one of the S.O.F. soldiers who has been fixing the night vision goggles on his helmet. 'It's the weather I suppose'.

-'Yeah, could be', replies Chang while trying to lie down on the truck's floor.

-'You okay comrade Chang?', asks Heon again. 'You seem to be spacing out'.

-'Yeah well, I didn't get any sleep last night', replies Chang again in his tired voice tone. 'I had to practice for the parade 24/7 with the rest of the corps and the S.O.F.'

-'I see. Well, too bad I wasn't there yesterday', says the soldier. Judging by his voice tone, it sounds more like he's enjoying seeing him suffer. Because he's at the special forces he thinks that he himself is special. In fact, he thinks he's more special than the infantry or the rest of the armed forces. He's not the only one. Everybody in the S.O.F. has been mocking the infantry for their supposedly outdated gear and weapons, despite the fact that the entire corps has been upgraded with modern equipment. 

When the S.O.F. was upgraded with modern gear in 2017, there was a huge reaction of excitement and relief by its members who couldn't wait to try out their new combat outfit. Not everyone was excited about that though. While most of the soldiers of the regular and mechanized infantry learned to respect the S.O.F., there was also a huge reaction of jealousy and rivalry, especially by those in the III corps who, despite being given modern kevlar helmets, were still forced to wear the old camouflage uniforms which were outdated and completely ineffective. This in turn caused a deterioration of relations between the special forces and the infantry which sometimes lead to fights and deliberate friendly fire incidents during exercises. Such was the hatred between the soldiers that they couldn't handle each other's presence. For the S.O.F. soldiers, they didn't like the idea of having to work with inferior personnel that was still using and old uniform. To them, the infantry soldiers had no right to coexist with them, they had to disappear.

You've reached the end of published parts.

⏰ Last updated: Sep 01, 2022 ⏰

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