Chapter 38
Around 10 p.m.
“Space is tight, so sit close together front and back!”
“Front and back, close together!”
“Close together!”
Faced with a brief rest that had come after a long time, we all plopped down onto the ground at the same time.
Once we set down our full packs, a feeling of lightness and cool relief swept over us, as if we could fly.
Seohwan pressed his forehead against his knees, panting.
“Ha… f*ck. This is seriously exhausting…”
If even Seohwan, with his stamina, was struggling, it was obvious how much harder it must have been for the other recruits.
I opened my canteen and took a sip of water.
The salty taste of dust mixed with sweat spread across my mouth.
As I briefly tilted my head upward to drink, I thought to myself,
“The stars… there are so many of them.”
The night sky was studded with stars, as if they were pouring down.
It was a beautiful view, though utterly pointless here.
If only we weren’t in the army, this scenery would have made me incredibly happy.
But reality was a gutter.
Parkjun leaned almost completely against his full pack, nearly collapsing.
“This march… it’s g-gonna end, right?”
“It’ll end eventually.”
It probably felt incredibly long.
That’s the nature of training—making one minute feel like ten.
For soldiers like us, it’s an ability we don’t really need.
But since it’s imposed, all we can do is accept it.
Getting stressed over something like this would only hurt ourselves.
To make the most of even a short ten minutes, I tried to lie down briefly, just like Parkjun.
At that moment—
“AAAH!!!”
“F*ck! Wh-what is that!”
Suddenly, the recruits screamed in terror.
We turned our heads in the direction they were pointing.
“…!”
From inside the dark bushes, red eyes stared piercingly at us.
Glowing vividly in the darkness, the red eyes…
The moment I saw them, I almost lost my mind… well, that would’ve been bad.
“F*ck! It’s a g-ghost or something!”
“Sergeant! There’s… there’s something in the bushes!”
“What? Stop talking nonsense!”
The instructors rushed over immediately.
Meanwhile, we hurriedly moved away from the area of concern.
By the time Sergeant Juyonghyeok arrived, the red eyes had vanished as if they had never been there.
“What? It’s gone. You guys just didn’t want to march, huh?”
“N-no, sir!”
“We definitely saw it!”
“Keumseong, you saw it too, right?”
I nodded, repeatedly confirming to Sergeant Juyonghyeok that what our peers said was true.
Just as I was about to plead for him to believe us again,
Rustle, rustle!
A foreboding sound came from the bushes.
“Ah! F*ck, you scared me!”
“Sergeant! There, there it is!”
The red eyes revealed themselves once again.
Wait a minute.
Finally regaining my composure, I began to carefully observe the red eyes staring at us.
At first, in my confusion, I thought it might really be a ghost, as my peers had claimed.
“Looks like… an animal?”
“An animal?”
“Look over there.”
The silhouette, as best as I could make out, seemed far too awkward to be a ghost.
Shining a flashlight into the bushes, we simultaneously lost our strength in our legs.
The culprit behind the red-eyed scare was a fawn.
“What? It was just a fawn?”
“It suddenly jumped out from nowhere…”
“Hey, hey! Go back to your mom and dad while we’re still being nice.”
Seohwan waved his hand, trying to shoo the fawn away.
At that moment—
AAAAAH!!!
A scream, eerily like a human’s, came from the fawn.
Startled, Seohwan fell backward onto his butt.
The surrounding recruits and Sergeant Juyonghyeok’s shoulders shook violently.
The fawn, having successfully startled us again, dashed away as if mocking us.
“That fawn!”
“But… why does a fawn scream like a human?”
“Almost gave me a heart attack!”
The recruits, who had never heard a fawn make such a sound, were understandably shocked.
I had known what it sounded like, but hearing it so close for the first time was startling.
Meanwhile, Sergeant Park Gilyoung, who had rushed to the scene late, scolded Sergeant Juyonghyeok, who was still dumbfounded.
“What? What happened?”
Finally, Sergeant Juyonghyeok explained that the incident was caused by the fawn.
“Anyone injured?”
“No!”
“Good. The march will resume soon, so put your packs back on and get ready.”
…Damn.
Thanks to that damn fawn, our precious rest time was ruined.
“Everyone, stand up!”
Following the instructor’s command, we shouldered our packs and stood.
Without having properly rested, we set off again on the hellish march.
As we resumed, tension and fatigue among the recruits intertwined, spilling out in sighs.
Seohwan muttered beside me,
“This… it’ll end, right?”
I turned to look at him.
“Yeah. If it has a beginning, it must have an end.”
“…I believe you.”
“You can believe me.”
The catch is that the path toward that end won’t be smooth.
I turned my gaze forward again.
Parkjun spoke cheerfully from behind.
“Keumseong, I heard the instructors say something earlier.”
“What?”
“They said we’ll go to another unit around midnight and have ramen?”
I realized that, indeed, there was a scheduled ramen break during the night march.
Jun’s reaction was ecstatic, but I wasn’t quite so happy.
“Don’t get too excited. That ramen will make the march even harder.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
I advised that the ramen break, which had been comforting during individual combat training, might actually backfire during a night march.
I, too, had once reacted like Jun.
This is probably a privilege of knowing the future.
But one thing’s certain: whether you know or not, getting hit by hardship hurts just the same.
Finally, the moment came.
Ramen Hell Time.
As expected, Jun, Seohwan, and the other recruits were ecstatic, claiming they were starving just as the ramen arrived.
Unlike the instant noodles incident during individual combat training, this time piping hot water was ready.
“Keumseong! Hurry! We need to line up!”
Jun’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the stacked cup noodles.
He had been exhausted and tense just moments ago, but at the smell of ramen, his face brightened.
I sighed.
“Okay, I’m coming.”
We opened the cup noodles and lined up.
Pouring hot water that steamed up, we headed to an empty spot.
Three minutes in, Jun eagerly lifted the noodles with his chopsticks.
Seohwan, sitting next to me, licked his lips.
“Hey, the noodles will get cold. Eat fast.”
“It’s only been three minutes.”
But my words didn’t even reach them.
They stuffed the noodles into their mouths, wearing the happiest expressions in the world.
“Ah, fck. This is fcking good…”
I took a spoonful of broth, and the hot liquid running down my throat felt like pure relief.
“Not bad at all.”
Even I, a ramen skeptic during marches, was quickly converted by its power.
After all, the night was growing colder, and hunger gnawed at us—how could ramen taste anything but heavenly?
Only those who experienced it could truly understand.
I knew this brief happiness would end, and the weary march would resume.
Yet the intense satisfaction of noodles and broth couldn’t be resisted.
At first, I planned to eat moderately, but…
“All gone.”
I finished every drop of broth.
Seohwan laughed at me teasingly.
“Weren’t you saying to Jun that eating ramen would make things harder?”
“I did. But…”
“But?”
“F*ck. It’s so good… how could I resist?”
Even I surrendered to ramen in the end.
Looking at myself, I thought,
“I’ve still got a long way to go.”
If eating ramen had been forbidden, it might have been different.
But without restrictions, how could I resist this bliss?
And familiar tastes are even harder to resist.
I couldn’t.
I enjoyed it, but… the future worried me.
“Ah, whatever. It’ll work out somehow.”
I pushed my worries to the future and decided to enjoy this fullness for now.
After an hour of rest, everything ended.
Having finished the ramen and drinks, we shouldered our packs and began walking the dark mountain path again.
Filled with ramen, our steps were initially lighter.
But that happiness didn’t last long.
The path was rough, and the ground was hard to see.
Whenever the ground suddenly dropped into a hole, my heart skipped.
“Ha…”
Breathing became labored.
My wet uniform clung uncomfortably to my skin.
“Hey, Keumseong…”
Parkjun, walking beside me, called softly.
“What?”
“…Aren’t you sleepy? I don’t know why I’m so drowsy.”
“That’s all because of the ramen.”
This was why I usually tried to maintain a moderate level of hunger.
The post-fullness drowsiness was hell.
Not only Parkjun, but Seohwan also kept yawning repeatedly.
I tapped Parkjun on the shoulder.
“Wake up. We’re on a mountain ridge. Can’t you see the cliff next to us?”
I pointed the flashlight downward, warning him.
Shivering, Parkjun nodded.
One wrong step, and it would be fatal.
“Okay. I’ll be careful.”
I patted him again, reminding him to stay alert.
But my advice didn’t last long.
About ten minutes later, I glanced at Parkjun and saw him nodding off.
Just as I was about to warn him,
“Uh…?”
His body suddenly tilted toward the cliff.
