Chapter 17
Zeroing Fire (2)
The moment someone said we were missing a shell casing, a painful old memory I’d buried suddenly resurfaced.
Right. Back in basic training I once spent an entire day staring at the ground just to find one lost casing!
Why was I only remembering that now? I felt annoyed at myself.
But with a single report of a missing casing, the entire unit flipped upside down.
Officers, instructors, drill sergeants, recruits—everyone froze when the company commander’s voice thundered:
“Find it. Now!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Drill sergeants! Take each platoon, divide the range into sectors, and start a full search!”
“Roger!”
It was scarier than a midnight ambush—an unexpected “midday shell-casing hunt.”
Dreadful.
The whole base went into emergency mode.
Under the drill sergeants’ watch, we began combing the range inch by inch.
“If it glints, pick it up! Don’t skip anything just because it’s a hassle! If we don’t find it today, nobody sleeps. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
I knew better than anyone that he wasn’t joking.
After nearly an hour of nothing but staring at dirt, Seohwan finally straightened his aching back and frowned.
“Seriously, why all this fuss over one shell casing? Did someone coat it in honey or something? It’s not like the country will collapse. It’s just a casing!”
His voice carried both frustration and curiosity.
Honestly, I agreed.
But no matter how strongly we recruits argued that searching for a single casing was a waste of time and manpower, nobody would listen.
Because it’s the army.
That one sentence explains everything.
This is a place where a single order from a division commander can move a mountain.
So of course a missing casing triggers a full-blown search.
Still, all I could think about was where that casing had gone.
How did we find it back then?
Actually… did we even find it? My memory was hazy.
If only I could recall it, I might be able to end this ordeal myself.
And then—
A sudden system chime rang in my head.
[A rare quest has been generated.]
[Find the missing shell casing within 24 hours.]
[Reward: 100 million won will be accumulated.]
A hundred million won for finding a casing?
No way I’m passing that up.
I’ll remember somehow!
Endlessly shuffling around staring at dirt was pointless anyway.
The answer was already in my head—just hidden in thick fog.
If I could uncover it, I could skip all this needless searching and pocket the prize.
Money on the line lit a fire in me.
But from my previous life I knew better than anyone that motivation alone doesn’t solve everything.
Think. Think!
My eyes stayed fixed on the ground while my mind raced elsewhere.
Yet all that effort yielded nothing before the daytime search finally ended without results.
After the half-hearted shooting drill, we dragged ourselves back to the barracks and collapsed on the wooden floor.
Groans of “Aigo…” drifted out of exhausted trainees like a sad chant.
No surprise: hours of staring at the ground left our backs and every muscle screaming.
Even Seohwan, the athletic college grad, lay flat like the rest of us, drill sergeants be damned.
“Man, I thought I’d lose my mind staring at dirt all day. Casings don’t grow legs—where the hell could it have gone?”
“Beats me.”
Even a god of the army wouldn’t know.
Because of the missing casing, tomorrow’s live-fire drill was on the verge of being postponed.
The company commander must be getting chewed out by the battalion commander right about now.
I could picture it without seeing.
“Screw it,” I muttered, sitting up to find my slippers.
Seohwan tilted his head.
“Where you going?”
“Bathroom. Nature calls.”
I’d felt a twinge in my stomach earlier, but the casing chaos had pushed it aside. Now it was back.
No telling when we’d be dragged out for another search, so I wanted to take care of business while I could.
Even a time-traveler like me can’t control sudden bowel movements.
I headed to the nearest restroom—Building 1’s, the biggest with the most stalls.
Opening the far-right stall, I lifted the lid with a wary hand.
“Whew. Nothing nasty.”
Sometimes you get a nasty surprise, so every lid lift came with tension.
Just as I unbuckled my belt and sat down, voices drifted from the urinal side.
They were low, secretive—as if they didn’t want anyone else to hear.
“Damn it! What do we do now?”
“What do you mean, what? We just keep our mouths shut.”
“What? You idiot! This whole mess is your—”
“Shhh!”
One quickly clamped a hand over the other’s mouth.
“You trying to get caught, moron?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to tell the drill sergeants now? If this blows up, it’s worse.”
“Relax. It’s just one casing. They’re only freaking out at the start. People always calm down later, right?”
“Ugh… whatever!”
Without meaning to, I held my breath and strained to catch every word.
They never said it outright, but I could guess exactly what they were hiding.
When the two trainees left, the fog in my mind suddenly cleared.
I remembered the night, in my first enlistment, when I’d been hauled out for punishment despite the casing being “found.”
Why had it ended in extra drills anyway?
Because of them.
Those guys were hiding the casing.
Back then, a couple of crazy trainees stole a casing and were caught three days later, earning the entire company hell.
Why steal it?
The reason was ridiculous:
They wanted to give it as a keepsake to a girlfriend during leave.
I’d been speechless when I heard that explanation.
So it was them.
I quickly memorized the numbers on their name tags: 220 and 221.
You’re dead meat.
I almost marched straight to the toughest drill sergeant to snitch—
—but stopped.
I might know where the casing was, but the quest still mattered.
[Find the missing shell casing within 24 hours.]
[Reward: 100 million won will be accumulated.]
That first line was key.
Does “find it” mean I personally have to discover it?
Could someone else turn it in and still count? Or must I be the first to lay hands on it?
No clue.
I checked the quest window again for details—
Nothing.
Couldn’t they add that feature?
Whoever designed this system, I silently cursed them.
Better to play it safe.
I decided I had to be the one to physically find the casing.
Which meant I couldn’t tell anyone—
not the drill sergeants, not a soul—
that trainees 220 and 221 were hiding it.
But where did they stash it?
This enlistment was starting to feel more like mental torture than physical.
Even during our personal time that night, the search continued.
Flashlights in hand, we scoured the dark range.
By now the trainees’ muttered curses were nonstop.
Seohwan sidled up, a speculative look on his face.
“Geumseong, you think someone might’ve swiped a casing as a souvenir?”
This guy’s intuition was annoyingly sharp.
He’d nailed it 100 percent.
But I couldn’t agree.
I had to find it first.
“Who knows.”
“Yeah, guess you don’t know everything.”
Sorry, Seohwan. I know everything.
But I need that prize money to survive this crazy second enlistment.
A quest worth hundreds of millions can’t be ignored.
Even a thousand-mile journey starts with a single step.
While the nighttime search raged on, I looked around, planning my move.
I’d need an excuse to slip away.
“Hey, Seohwan.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you need the bathroom?”
“Bathroom? Well… I could go.”
“Let’s take Jun with us.”
“Jun too?”
“We’re supposed to stick with our buddy team, remember.”
In basic training you even pick who you’ll ask for bathroom breaks.
Drill Sergeant Park? He’d never let me go.
No, the best bet was—
Drill Sergeant Joo Yong-hyuk.
I told Seohwan and Jun to wait a moment and went alone to find him.
“Drill Sergeant.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Sir, I really need the restroom. May I go?”
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“Thank you, sir!”
As expected—
Joo Yong-hyuk, my favorite drill sergeant, never lets me down.
