Chapter 63: < Protect – Episode 62 – Shanghai Express [1] >

People all around the world thought of Somalia when they heard about pirates, but Indonesia was no joke either. It was hard to dispatch military force in the ocean near Somalia since there were so many doomed countries there, but since China and Australia were near Indonesia, making a sneak attack on a cruise ship was a crazy thing to do.

“$^%&^#@&^!”

They saw a pirate ship with something being shouted through the intercom and guns being fired.

“Oh my gosh!”

“It’s a pirate ship!”

“Stay away from the banister! Go inside!”

The captain stopped the engine and sent out a warning. If they tried to run away out of panic, the pirates could set off their rocket launchers and start a bigger commotion. There were security agents as well as emergency protocols on board. However, there were those who got ahead of themselves.

“What a joke.”

“Did they come to die?”

Logan and his underlings laughed and hid their weapons. There was no such thing as a weapons drill for mercenaries. The guns in their hands weren’t just objects but beings that were as precious as family. Logan and his underlings got so armed that the crewmen thought they were the actual pirates.

- Position snipers on the roof, exhaust pipe, and spire.

- What about the passengers?

- Where can we hide them?

- A place where they can escape quickly would be the function room.

- Put all of them there.

- Heeya!

The employees and celebrities were surprised to see that the guards who were smiling like fools this whole time transformed immediately. Logan and his underlings looked so scary that no one could approach them.

“Guys, don’t worry. Let’s get moving.”

The friendliest one of the underlings, Jesus smiled and spoke up.

“I’ll protect you, so don’t worry, pretty ones.”

They normally made fun of him for being cheesy, but he seemed trusty this time.

“You’re so cool, Jesus!”

“I knew you were no ordinary man. Look at your muscles.”

“Just trust me!”

Jesus felt encouraged by the pretty girls’ compliments.

“Jesus, what about us?”

“Men should protect each other.”

“Come on! That’s not fair!”

“Here.”

Jesus tried to give the male idol a gun when he got shut down by Logan.

“You crazy bastard! How could you give a civilian a gun?”

“We’re civilians too.”

Jesus felt wronged so he argued back, but he just sat back down after getting hit. The one who directed the people was Alexa, who was dressed in a crewman uniform and holding a very large gun.

“It’s nice to meet you, everyone. Please follow me.”

A few of the passengers got excited that the sexy crewman was actually a security guard.

“She’s a secret security guard?”

“That’s so cool!”

They went wild at her strong warrior image.

- What about a rescue signal?

- The captain sent one. I’m sure the marines will come. They seemed to patrol a lot because of the pirate ships.

- Not even the Somalian ones mess with cruise ships. Are they crazy?

If this was a cargo ship, they could just steal all the goods, but if they came here to hurt people then things would get complicated. They weren’t stupid just because they lived in Somalia.

- I see one with an RPG. Should I shoot him?

- Stand by!

- I think they’re hesitating too. They might just run away if we counterattack!

- Don’t even think about making the first attack!

Logan had a hard time talking to his excited underlings out of something crazy.

“If you want to shoot guns, you shouldn’t have retired. Don’t you dare cause an accident here!”

The weapons in their hands violated national laws, so if they go into battle they would have to deal with a lot of issues afterward.

Beep, beep – Vroom – Beep, beep – Vroom –

They could see a vessel rushing over with their sirens on. Were they the marines? It doesn’t matter. Once the helicopter arrived, the pirate ship made a run for it.

- What’s going on? This isn’t fun.

- Good thing our pretty ones didn’t get hurt.

- South Korea’s so safe compared to this.

The pathetic comments made over the walkie-talkie made Logan yell.

“You idiots! Hide your weapons!”

Since the marines of Indonesia got involved, they had to testify about what happened. Or did they? The Indonesians in uniforms came on board with a ladder.

“Logan!”

He turned his head to his name. One of his colleagues handed him a satellite phone.

“It’s me. Soo Ho.”

“Testify correctly. Just report your weapons.”

“They could make a big deal out of it.”

“Give them some money.”

“Oh, sure.”

The Philippines was bad, but Indonesia was worse. Was there anyone in power who wasn’t corrupt? Their total output increased, but Indonesia’s living standards and ways of thinking were still those of an underdeveloped country.

‘We’re even running into pirates now.’

Ahn Soo Ho hung up and then laughed bitterly.

He heard that ship kidnappings were on the rise. But since it actually happened, he couldn’t just look over it easily. If the Indonesian government doesn’t get this under control, other countries were bound to get their men involved to protect the trade route.

Riento grabbed Ahn Soo Ho’s arm.

“Soo Ho! It’s starting!”

A village festival opened to welcome him. But they didn’t do it out of good intentions. If they had fun today, could they die a happy death tomorrow? No way.

‘We just live on.’

Until this life ends, that was.

The soul memory storage box that Anna-Anne Karusis left behind gave Ahn Soo Ho some homework. He thought he looked into all of the great, great magician’s life, but he must have missed something. Come to think of it, how did Anna-Anne die? Her last memories were hazy.

‘How did Granny get an object from the afterlife in her hands?’

And who were the shamans anyway? He had countless questions.

‘Something feels empty.’

When Ahn Soo Ho stared at the fire of the festival, his eyes didn’t focus on anything. He felt like he wasn’t actually a part of this world. A mercenary once said this.

‘Peace is similar to death.’

He thought he was just a crazy person in the middle of war, but it was possible that he was just looking for the meaning of life. Unfortunately, he didn’t have such a belief. That mercenary also said this.

‘There’s no such thing as a person without belief. Belief is like breathing. So you believing that you don’t have a belief is your belief.’

That was a bullshit philosophy.

It definitely was, but it sounded like something useful.

‘Am I being too snobbish if I want the world to forget me?’

He got into this world on impulse. It was like the greed of wanting his experience from his naval academy to be a stepping stone for his career. Things worked out which was how he got this far, but as he saw more death, he realized how meaningless power was. The murderous dictators, the bosses of criminal organizations and even saints died in the end.

“Riento.”

He stopped dancing in response to the calling of his name and sat next to Ahn Soo Ho.

“Why?”

“Are you going to keep living like this?”

He just blinked as if he didn’t understand the question.

“What’s your dream?”

“Dream?”

He smiled as if he finally understood.

“To live together in happiness!”

historical

He meant he wanted to bring more orphans and live happily together. It was a small dream. No, it was a Riento thing to say. When he first met Riento, he was walking into the city hall while wearing a suicide bomb vest. He tried to kill him. However, once he saw his eyes, he couldn’t pull the trigger.

‘He’s just like them.’

He had dead eyes like the eyes of the roaming souls in the afterlife. People couldn’t be called alive just because they were breathing.

“Okay, fine.”

“I love Soo Ho! Good!”

As soon as Ahn Soo Ho said —good—, Riento repeated after him.

They looked at each other and smiled.

“Riento! Riento!”

A pale boy came running toward Riento while calling his name. Ahn Soo Ho didn’t care at first, but when Riento started screaming, he turned around.

“Soo Ho! Soo Ho! Help!”

“Calm down. What is it?”

“Nattab! Kidnapping!”

He wanted to say it right away, but his English wasn’t fluent enough. Ahn Soo Ho had no choice but to use his translating magic.

“Say it again.”

“Huh? Soo Ho?”

Riento was surprised by his fluent Indonesian, and put on a serious face.

“Nattab didn’t come back from school, Soo Ho. I think he got kidnapped by an enlisting officer.”

He didn’t know who Nattab was, but he knew it must have been a young child. The boy who ran over with a pale face was Nattab’s older brother. She had been gone for 10 hours already. When her brother didn’t see that she hadn’t returned, he asked around and found out that she was last seen in front of the ice cream truck.

He headed toward that area with Nattab’s older brother.

It was 10km away from the village. Since the closest school was here, the kids had to walk all the way here for school. Ahn Soo Ho stood where the ice cream truck was and closed his eyes.

‘Hm.’

As soon as he unleashed his site memory capabilities, countless people and scenes came into his mind.

‘It wasn’t an enlisting officer. He’s more of a professional than that.’

They were bad people who kidnapped kids by using an ice cream truck. And the ones who were captured via human trafficking were killed if they weren’t satisfactory. Seeing how noisy this village was, many kids were kidnapped already.

“Go back, both of you.”

“Soo Ho?”

“You trust me, right, Riento?”

Riento nodded his head.

“Go.”

Riento dragged Nattab’s brother back to the village. After confirming that their doll went missing, Ahn Soo Ho went into full pursuit. The ice cream truck moved via the national high way, and he saw that a truck always followed behind it in the ground memories he read.

After passing multiple villages, the ice cream truck stopped 120 km east of here. Seeing how the truck wasn’t there, the ice cream truck could be really selling ice cream when it was on the move. Ahn Soo Ho checked their faces. There was a watchman, the joker, and a big strong one. They clearly had weapons on their belts as well.

Kids gathered around to buy ice cream.

Even though Indonesian alleys were dangerous after the sun went down, the ones who were born and raised here weren’t fazed by the crimes. Ahn Soo Ho crossed the street and put a silencer on his gun. Shouldn’t people be surprised by the sight of his gun? However, the people just walked down the street without worrying much about it.

People might have thought he was holding a toy gun.

After silencing his gun, he held it up and started surprising a few people. As soon as the silent blows knocked down the men, people started to scream and run. He blew holes into the two watchmen who were being hesitant to the madness. He also shot the hand of the punk who threw his ice cream and pulled out his gun, which made the gun fly off as well.

“Agh!”

He blew a hole into the thigh of the staggering punk.

“Agh!”

He held onto his shot hand and crawled on the ground. Ahn Soo Ho stepped on his bleeding thigh.

“Agh! Agh! Stop it! It hurts!”

When he stepped harder, his mouth started foaming. He eased his foot. But instead, he put his gun to his head.

“Where were you sending the kids?”

“I...I don’t’ know! Agh!”

He screamed again when he stepped down harder.

“I’ll ask one more time. Where did you send them?”

“I don’t...Agh!”

The punk’s eyes rolled over as he flipped over. That was because his five fingers penetrated his mind in a vicious way. The ground memory magician didn’t only read memories from the ground. As soon as he took his hands off of the twitching punk, he fell over.

He died immediately.

He didn’t even wipe off the blood of his hands before he took out his phone.

“General Sutan.”

“Mr. Guardian?”

The Indonesian combatant commander, General Sutan didn’t sound happy to answer Ahn Soo Ho’s call.

“Did you know IBCK was hunting people?”

“Hm.”

“On top of that, they’re hunting women and children.”

“They’re a very violent group. They’re a headache for us too.”

“But I’m sure you still take all of their bribes.”

Where could they be selling the women and children? It wasn’t within the boundaries of Indonesia, that was for sure. That meant they were sent abroad and without a high official looking over it, they were bound to get caught.

“Regulate Smarr as well as the police, military, media, and civilians.”

“That’s too much!”

“I’ll get rid of all your debt.”

“Hm. Okay.”

He immediately changed his mind.

In the human trafficking method that he read in the ground memory was another transportation plan. They made bribes to use the harbor so that they could formally carry out human trafficking. It was a crazy country that was being ruled by crazy people. Most Indonesians were Muslims, but there were many other religions as well. The problem was that the value of religion depended on whether they were rich or poor.

Poor Muslims were no different from heathens.

According to somebody’s bullshit logic, that was.

It was rare for things to be loaded and unloaded in the middle of the night. They said that the harbors usually run for 24 hours every day, but this harbor wasn’t that great. Anyone who could see it would be suspicious because the guards were holding illegal weapons.

‘I found them.’

Nattab and the other kids were already in a container ready to deport. Should he just rescue those kids and get out of there? No. That wasn’t his style. If he leaves it alone, this would just happen again in the future. He had to get rid of every last one of them. When he fought 5000 vs. 1 he confidently chose his battleground.

Shitty countries had to be dealt in a shittier manner.

‘This has nothing to do with the fact that I’m retired.’

When he gets pissed, this was what happens.

Whee Ooh-

Seeing how the sirens were going off, General Sutan must be doing his job. He threw grenades at the punks that showed up in response to the siren.

Boom-

He threw as many grenades as he could. He didn’t have a great title, but he had a load of grenades inside his secret magical pockets. He had so much that he could throw them until he died.

Boom, boom- Boom- Boom-

He had no interest in fighting like the other magicians in Anna-Anne’s world. Continuous confinement? They would die of suffocation.

‘Guns and grenades are better than throwing flames.’

Unlimited coal! Unlimited grenades! How effective was that?

“Agh! Ugh!”

As soon as a grenade was put to a wounded punk, he cried. Ahn Soo Ho looked at his eyes of fear and smiled. The pain was scary to the one being victimized.

“This is what you call a divine will, right?”

“Ugh!”

He pulled the pin and threw himself toward the punks running toward him.

“Inshallah, you crazy sons of bitches!”

Ahn Soo Ho’s gun lit up on fire.

< Protect – Episode 62 – Shanghai Express [1] > The end.