Lee Wooshin was teaching two distinct martial arts systems. The first was Krav Maga, the brutal efficiency of the Israeli military distilled into devastating close-quarters combat. The second was MCMAP, the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program that synthesized the killing techniques of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, boxing, and judo into a single lethal discipline.
This wasn't about sport or self-defense. This was about **survival**. About **perfect killing** for military purposes.
The training included knife combat and firearms proficiency, each drill designed to engrave muscle memory so deep that the body would react before the mind could hesitate. For Seoryeong, with her lightning-fast reactions and razor-sharp intuition, it was perfect.
_If I could just train in fighting all day, it would be so much fun._
She was beginning to enjoy this. The ache in her muscles, the precision of each movement, the clarity of purpose. If only the training could continue like this forever...
---
Meanwhile, Seoryeong devoured her lunch with her usual efficiency, but today the cafeteria felt different. Quiet. Heavy. Like a graveyard where the dead hadn't yet realized they were buried.
She glanced around. Every face wore the same expression: **grim resignation**.
"Heh... Should we say our goodbyes now?" one teammate muttered, his tray untouched.
"I heard half of us are getting cut."
"Shit..." Another teammate rubbed his face. "I left that kind of life behind because I didn't want to deal with this anymore. And here we are again."
"At least this pays better than 1.7 million won and a loyalty contract that ends in a body bag," someone else offered. "Foreign mercenary work has that going for it, at least."
"True..."
Complaints rippled through the room like a slow poison.
"I just hope Lee Wooshin isn't the one running it."
Seoryeong chewed methodically, absorbing every word.
"I don't want to be in the same room as that bastard."
"Yeah... I've heard stories."
The atmosphere grew even heavier, as if everyone was drafting their last will and testament. One of the veterans—someone who'd spoken with the instructors before—leaned forward with the grim authority of a man who'd seen too much.
"You know the most brutal private military company out there? **Terrible Ones**. All former South African Defence Force. Real monsters."
Silence.
"Back in the '70s, there was a civil war. Blood Diamond. Rebels hacking off the hands and feet of civilians with axes."
"Oh, yeah... Sierra Leone, right?"
"Exactly. When South African mercs were sent in, there were rumors they didn't just kill the rebels." He paused. "They _ate_ them."
The cafeteria went still. Even the sound of spoons against trays vanished.
"And you know what?" The veteran's voice dropped. "Our instructor, Lee Wooshin? He came from **there**."
Every head turned. Eyes widened. Appetites died.
Seoryeong finished her last bite, drained her water, and set the glass down calmly.
"So what happens if you end up in a room with him?"
Her teammates hesitated, exchanging uneasy glances.
"He hangs you upside down."
"..."
"Then he starts. Beating. Electrocution. Force-feeding until you choke. Sometimes nerve-damaging drugs."
"..."
"Sometimes he buries your head in the ground. Fire torture. Water torture. Bamboo under the nails. Old Joseon-era techniques."
Faces went pale. The tension in the room thickened like smoke.
Seoryeong put down her spoon, rinsed her mouth, and asked in a flat, unbothered tone.
"How do you know all this?"
"I was sent to a special unit before. Couldn't handle it. Got transferred out."
---
When the team returned from their afternoon run, Lee Wooshin was waiting for them, sunglasses already on.
Everyone gasped for air, grabbing water bottles, stealing nervous glances at the instructor. The morning's rumors clung to them like sweat.
Wooshin approached, handing each trainee a small slip of paper.
"Open it. Memorize it in ten seconds."
Seoryeong frowned and unfolded hers.
Strange coordinates stared back at her:
> **59.9343°N, 30.3351°E**
She repeated them silently. _59.9343 North. 30.3351 East._
Wooshin glanced at his military watch.
"Next is interrogation response training."
A quiet sigh escaped someone's lips.
"If you want to be polite, call it that." His smile was razor-thin. "I call it **torture training**."
The breathing around her grew shallow.
"The information you just received contains mission details: target, communication protocols, infiltration routes, rally points, air support coordinates." His voice was cold, clinical. "Your task is simple. **Keep it safe.**"
_59.9343°N, 30.3351°E._
Seoryeong's tongue felt dry. Her heart pounded—not from fear, but from the adrenaline of anticipation.
"The instructors will try **everything** to make you talk."
His gaze seemed to linger on her, though the sunglasses made it impossible to tell.
"Many of you will drop out during this training. But those who succeed?" He paused. "You'll have a much higher chance of survival in the field."
He smiled, slow and deliberate.
"I hope you all return safely."
Before anyone could react, one of the trainees in the front row swayed.
Then collapsed.
"――!"
_What the hell...?_
Everyone stared in shock, but what was **stranger** was the silence. None of the instructors moved. They stood there as if nothing had happened.
Only the trainees looked around in confusion.
Seoryeong's vision began to spin.
_Wait—_
Her strength drained away. Her fingers wouldn't respond. She tried to resist, but her knees buckled.
The ground rushed up to meet her.
Before her consciousness fully faded, she saw her teammates dropping one by one, like dominoes.
The last thing she saw was Lee Wooshin's sunglasses, reflecting her own falling body.
---
## — Then —
Seoryeong met her husband for the first time when she was twenty-four years old.
Her life had been peaceful—ordinary, even—until the day she began to lose her sight.
Retinal degeneration.
The diagnosis came like a sentence. The progression was **rapid**. Merciless. Her world shrank day by day, the edges of her vision collapsing inward like a dying star.
Within weeks, she was blind.
No warning. No time to prepare.
She tried everything. Medications. Specialists. Experimental treatments. Nothing worked. The fog remained, thick and impenetrable.
She hadn't even bought a cane yet.
For days, she didn't leave her apartment. She sat in the dark—_her_ dark—and wondered if this was all her life would ever be now.
But she was only **twenty-four**.
She couldn't spend the rest of her life trapped in one room.
So one day, she grabbed an umbrella, used it as a makeshift cane, and stepped outside.
The world **exploded** into sensation.
Her hearing sharpened to an almost painful degree. Smells became vivid, overwhelming. She could hear the rustle of fabric from across the street, the scrape of shoes on pavement, the hum of electrical wiring in the walls.
_Could human senses really be this powerful?_
She made her way to a medical supply store, clumsy and uncertain, and that's where she met **Kim Hyeon**.
He wasn't the store owner—just a sales representative for medical equipment—but Seoryeong mistook him for staff. He helped her choose a proper cane, explained how to use it, answered her questions with patience she hadn't expected.
The meeting was ordinary.
Forgettable, even.
What made that day unforgettable was the **rain**.
It came suddenly, a heavy downpour that turned the streets into rivers. Seoryeong sat in the store, waiting for it to stop, holding both an umbrella and a cane, and realized she had no idea how to navigate home with both.
So she sat.
And the longer she sat, the more the **anger** rose.
_Why do I have to use a cane?_
_Why did this happen to me?_
_I was fine. I was **fine**._
She still couldn't accept it. This wasn't something anyone could just _accept_. She had no family to lean on, no one to rely on. She couldn't cry to anyone. Couldn't ask for help.
Seoryeong had been alone since birth.
And now life had made her even **more** isolated.
She had fought so hard to survive, to build something resembling a normal life, and now it felt like everything was collapsing.
The sadness, the emptiness, the **rage**—it was all building inside her, a pressure with nowhere to go.
Ready to explode.
---
_59.9343°N, 30.3351°E._
Even in the darkness, she remembered.