Chapter 13. The Little Prince in the Ossuary (13)
# Leadership, Camp Roberts
After reaching the end of the journal, Gyeoul decided to pay a visit to those who were waiting for him. He had shown his ability and had given them enough time. He hoped they’d be eagerly awaiting his appearance, enough to make up for the age penalty imposed on him.
The night at the refugee camp was as quiet as a graveyard. Several empty tents had been left open. It was proof that people were gathering in one place.
As the boy gazed around the nearby tents, a man approached from the front. He wasn’t someone the boy was acquaintanced with.
With visible unease, the man stared at the boy from the corner of his eye. Since it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, the boy kept walking without paying much attention to it. But just as the boy passed by, his 「Survival Instinct」 sent him a warning.
Pretending to bump into the boy, the man quickly took out a knife. But Gyeoul was already prepared. The moment the blade flashed, the boy grabbed the man’s hand and gave it a slight twist. The man shrieked as he let go of the weapon. With a clang, a dirty rusty knife fell to the ground.
At present, Gyeoul’s combat ability was strongly influenced by the game’s technical corrections. Even considering the penalty applied to minors, Gyeoul’s strength far surpassed that of an ordinary adult. As a result of this, the man’s struggle ended in vain.
“Ahhh, it hurts! Let go of me!”
Gyeoul tightly grasped the man’s twisted arm, like holding reins, and dragged him into a narrow dark alley located between some tents. The man started raving like a lunatic in an effort to escape the boy’s grip. But once he figured out it wouldn’t work, he began to cry for help.
“H-help! This crazy kid is trying to kill me! Somebody help! Where are those Yankee bastards when you need them?! Fuuuuck!”
“Patrols won’t come here this late at night, so please shut the fuck up.”
It was the same reason why the Harlem district didn’t have patrols late at night. They didn’t care, as long as the important places were safely guarded.
Dim lights were leaking out from several tents, but not one person came out to save the man.
The boy threw the man to the ground. The man was now in complete shock and couldn’t breathe properly. He looked miserable, with tears and snot coming out from his orifices.
While approaching the man, the boy ran one hand through his hair and took out his bayonet. The man crawled away on his butt, and after bumping into a dead end, he quickly turned around and started digging under the tent with his hands.
Despite him using his bare hands, the man dug at an amazing speed. Perhaps it was some sort of upward revision applied when someone was desperate. Gyeoul tried to think of a way to take advantage of it but soon dismissed the idea. It was useless if he couldn’t control its activation.
Gyeoul then stabbed his bayonet into the man’s back. The man let out a shriek, like the sound of air leaking out of a lung. Blood spurted out as the boy pulled out the knife.
The man convulsed like the flame of a candle, flickering brightly before extinguishing. But the struggle didn’t last long, as his strength diminished along with his blood loss. Soon enough, his body went completely limp.
Gyeoul didn’t bother trying to find out the culprit behind this incident. It was obvious that the client must’ve taken failure into account and got rid of anything that would link Gyeoul back to them. In a world where the strong prey upon the weak, those at the bottom of the pyramid were always hungry for food. And those people could be easily employed with just a couple of ration stamps.
Still, the boy had deliberately killed the man to set an example. If he were to appear as easy prey, their methods might become even more extreme. This was the best way to minimize deaths.
Gyeoul felt a gush of heat surging up from his chest. The same sensation he felt whenever he killed a person. The boy, of course, felt repulsion from having murdered someone, but ignoring such repulsion allowed him to enjoy the feeling of intense heat spreading from his heart. He felt as though the heat was melting the rock in his heart little by little.
But that pleasure only lasted for a moment. After the heat subsided, the boy’s heart felt even heavier. It wasn’t because of guilt. Rather, it was because of the fact that he didn’t feel any remorse. The subconscious acknowledgment that this world was not real.
The boy raised the curtain of the tent that the man was digging under. Beyond the entrance, at the far back of the tent, some men holding clubs in their hands were standing around a group of women, protecting them as they stared at the boy with their hands covering their mouths.
The boy slightly bowed and said, “I’m sorry if I disturbed your sleep. This guy here tried to kill me, so I couldn’t help it. I’m not going to harm anyone here.”
The people inside the tent, frightened by his bloody appearance, could barely nod in response. The boy then left with a brief farewell, pulling down the curtain.
Gyeoul searched the corpse and found three ration stamps inside one of his pockets. Just as he had thought, there was no clue as to the person behind this. He would’ve doubted if there were any.
Leaving the body neglected, the boy headed straight to his original destination. After arriving, he encountered a refugee on guard duty. The guard first stared at the boy with vigilance, but once he realized who it was, he hurried into the tent. Soon enough, the noise of people scurrying was heard from inside the tent. The boy dived in without giving them time to prepare.
“Gyeoul, What brings you here so late?” said the old man who had deprecated himself during the boy’s last visit. He seemed to have gained some more age spots during the past few days. There was a hint of confusion on the old man’s face.
Not only him, but the others also looked puzzled at his sudden visit. In fact, that was what the boy was aiming for. In order to gain the initiative, he couldn’t give them any room to maneuver. That was why the boy didn’t wait until morning to deliver his message to them.
“I’m here to tell you that I will accept your offer.”
“Oh thank god!”
Yeonchul exclaimed with joy as soon as he heard what the boy said. Not just him but the entire tent bustled joy. Only a middle-aged woman asked the boy, looking worriedly at his hand that was stained with blood.
“Are you hurt?”
“Oh, this? This isn’t my blood.”
A look of fear appeared on everyone’s faces. The reaction wasn’t big, neither was it small. It was just enough for Gyeoul to make use of it. The boy immediately explained the situation while adding some small lies.
“Some guy tried to kill me on my way here. Don’t worry though, since I didn’t get hurt. Anyway, I caught him and interrogated him. And guess what I found. He said that he was sent by the Damul Promotion Association. It seems that they don’t want me to join your group.”
“Those assholes!”
“How dare they touch a kid!”
“They’ve been taking our stuff so far, but now that they think they can’t steal from us anymore, they’ve started resorting to dirty tricks! What a load of trash!”
People could easily be brought together if there was a common public enemy, and the boy’s ‘injury’ was just enough justification to turn a whole faction into the number one public enemy. The people in the tent became infuriated. In particular, the lady who had been abandoned by her husband looked so angry that her hands and legs were shaking. Although she was trying to soothe his crying child, who had been woken up, it seemed like she was in even more need of soothing that him.
“By the way, there’s something I want to go over before accepting your offer. As you all can see, I’m an underage kid. But I don’t like it when people make light of me. So I’d like to get a promise from all of you. Whenever we are dealing with communal affairs or in formal situations, please use formal speech when speaking to me. I don’t care if you speak casually outside those situations.”
“Of course, we promise! That’s what we all wanted! Isn’t that right, everyone?”
Yeonchul, the man who had first invited Gyeoul, took the lead, asking for everyone’s consent. Gyeoul observed his behavior with half-closed eyes. Although he was just leading a small group of people when compared to the huge community of Camp Roberts, when this group later became an independent community, there would be a perfect role for him.
After listening to the crowd’s consent, the boy waved his hand, signaling them to quiet down. It then soon became quiet and everyone’s attention was focused on the boy.
“Good. Now, let’s make a promise to each other. You will do your best for me, and I will do my best for you all.”
The people sent him a big applause. A hint of hope, anticipation, and joy could be seen in their eyes. It was a good response. However, there were still some eyes that showed other thoughts. It was an unpredictable variable that he had to keep in mind.
Once again raising his hand to calm them down, Gyeoul carefully opened his mouth, “It may be all too abrupt, but I have an order as the leader of this group. I need some volunteers to join the training at Lieutenant Robert Capstone’s company tomorrow. This isn’t something that can be taken lightly, because these volunteers will be deployed for future missions.”
“How many do you need?”
“I need at least ten. That way, we can fill a whole truck with our people, so that we won’t have to fight for credit with people from other factions.”
An awkward silence hung inside the tent. Gyeoul remembered that Yeonchul had said they had seventeen people who could fight in case of emergency, but that was most likely the absolute maximum. Besides, he didn’t think that Yeonchul, who had been desperately asking him for help, had been completely honest with him when he said it.
If a skirmish were to break out with 10 of their combatants missing, it was obvious what would happen to the remaining people here.
Gyeoul, therefore, pointed that out before they could voice their worries themselves.
“Don’t worry though, I know you can’t afford to lend me ten combatants. Although you said there are seventeen people who can fight, I didn’t completely believe you. But I understand, you must have been desperate. So you can wipe that look off of your face.”
“I’m sorry… And thank you… for your understanding.”
“We have nothing to say.”
While the majority were showing this kind of reaction, some of them were rather radical.
“Are you all just a bunch of cowards or what? Don’t you know this is a risk we have to take? Do you think we’ll get anywhere just by relying on him? Snap out of it! If you are going to be like this, I’d rather volunteer myself!”
A furious voice came from the lady with the baby. Gyeoul approached her without saying a word. A look of tension replaced the fury on her face. It was no wonder for there was still blood on Gyeoul’s hands. But Gyeoul showed no hostility. He knelt to meet her baby’s eyes and spoke in a friendly tone.
“I could always use some brave people, but you should think about your child. Don’t tell me you hate him because of his father’s fault, do you?”
“N-no, of course not!”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
Gyeoul stroked the baby with his clean hand. He certainly didn’t have the appearance of a baby hated by his mother. His well-kept white skin was unblemished and much cleaner than his disheveled mother’s.
Gyeoul once again spoke to the mother in a soft tone. “He’s cute. What’s his name?”
“His name is Park Jeonghan… for now.”
“For now?”
“It was my ex-husband’s idea. I’m thinking of giving him a different name.”
“I see. Then what’s your name, ma’am?”
“Song Yegyeong.”
“I’ll remember that.”
The boy then stood up and looked around at the rest of the people.
“I’d like to have a moment to get to know your names.”
After some time, Gyeoul brought back the original topic of conversation.
“Now, let’s get back to where we left off. As I said earlier, I’m not going to choose ten healthy men. It’s also important to keep the rest of you safe. I do need ten people, but it’s okay if half of them cannot fight. Just pick some to make up the numbers and it should be fine.”
“Then wouldn’t it be dangerous for the people participating in the missions?”
It was a legitimate concern. But the boy replied with a smiling face.
“I’ll be there for them. I told you I would.”
“But…”
“Trust me. I’ll make sure no one gets left behind.” (Nis: Ohana means family…?)
As soon as Gyeoul said so, a warning message appeared in front of his eyes.
「A promise made publicly as the leader of a faction will be considered as a Faction Mission. If this mission is successful, you will be rewarded with leadership experience points and an upward revision to your authority within the community and the members’ sense of belonging and loyalty towards the community. But failing to do so will result in several penalties such as a decrease in stability of the community and a downward revision to the members’ sense of belonging and loyalty towards the community. If the stability of the community falls below a certain level, you may lose your leader position and could be even expelled from the faction. Therefore, when making a promise as a leader, you must carefully consider the chances of success. It is also possible to mitigate these side effects through leadership-type skills such as 「Instigation」 and 「Deception」.」
Certainly, this kind of promise would have posed too much of a risk if he didn’t have his leadership skills. But now it was different.
“Umm… I’m sorry to say this, but… how can we trust you?”
One of the few men raised a doubt towards the boy’s ability, and several people concurred with that suspicion. It was a reasonable doubt since the only history the boy had during this playthrough was merely one field mission and a fight with the Damul Promotion Association.
The boy didn’t refute the man’s skepticism and answered with a rather lighter tone of voice, “Well, you’re right. I don’t have any way to prove myself right now. But that’s why I need those who can trust me to volunteer for this job. I’m not forcing anybody here. It’s okay if we don’t have enough numbers. We’ll just have to work with people from other factions. But even if that happens, I will guarantee the volunteers’ safety. Just keep in mind that you’ll be getting fewer stamps if fewer people volunteer.”
After a pause, Gyeoul continued, “We’re not going to decide everything right away. I’ll come back after breakfast, so try to make up your mind before then.”
Just before leaving the tent, Yeonchul asked Gyeoul if he could stay with them. The boy, however, turned down his request. People tend to take one’s favor for granted if one keeps granting them every single request.
‘My parents were also like that.’
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