Chapter 2 Part 8

Carlo Sagisawa closed his mouth. The man from before approached with a fierce expression. Other men also surrounded him, their faces a blurry line between smiling and angry. Before he knew it, the story about his brother vanished, and with it, the slight glimmer of expectation he had held for the good luck his brother might bring.

The fortunate thing was, the atmosphere wasn’t as hostile and dangerous as he’d imagined. It seemed there wouldn’t be any need to worry about medical facilities.

However, the outcome of being beaten by many remained unchanged.

He took seven or eight hard hits. Two of them were so painful they made his head spin for a moment. But thankfully, many of the other punches were more like soft blows, just going along with the mood, barely touching him.

After taking a beating that was far too lenient to be called a “mob beating,” Jeong Tae-ui came to his senses and found himself drinking among the men who had just beaten him.

“Is there anything good to eat with the alcohol?”

“Wien-ho said he brought back some jerky last time, he’s gone to get it now.”

“Oh, that glass is empty. You should be refilling it without a moment’s delay, what are you doing next to him?”

“…”

He discovered another difference from the military… Jeong Tae-ui quietly thought to himself, munching on the bean snacks offered by the nameless man next to him.

No sooner had they given someone a good beating than they acted as if nothing had happened, saying, ‘Well then, shall we go for a drink to welcome the new team member?’ and brightly smiling while dragging Jeong Tae-ui along – these men were something else. But he himself, quietly sitting among them, accepting the alcohol and food offered, was also something else.

Are these men strange, is this team strange, is this branch strange, is UNHRDO as a whole strange, or is he strange for finding this situation odd?

“Is it okay to drink this much alcohol? What if an emergency breaks out while everyone’s soaked in booze?”

Jeong Tae-ui mumbled, and a man named Qing Ren-zhao, sitting across from him, shrugged and laughed.

“Emergency? What’s that?”

Then Tou, who seemed to be close to this Qing, sitting next to him, chimed in.

“Tae-ui just came from the military. It’s only natural for him to have rigid habits.”

“Ah, I see.”

Only then did Qing nod as if he understood. Carlo Sagisawa, who was pouring his own drink beyond him, explained.

“There’s no reason to always be tense here, it’s not the military. Unless you’ve made an enemy internally and done something to get stabbed by your colleagues. First of all, there are no enemies to invade. After finishing your duties, drinking is, of course, free. However, if you get completely wasted and can’t make it to dawn training the next day, you’ll be torn apart by the instructor.”

“I heard that sometimes people go outside for external commissions and do dangerous work. What guarantee is there that someone who holds a grudge from outside won’t sneak in and stab you when you’re off guard?”

Jeong Tae-ui sipped his drink and asked again. He didn’t know exactly what kind of work operated under what system, but he had overheard something similar when his uncle and Jeong Jae-ui were talking long ago. So, Jeong Tae-ui had always thought of UNHRDO as some kind of service organization that handled miscellaneous tasks.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Naturally, if there’s a crack for rumors to get out, there’s a crack for them to get in.”

“Ah, right, you’re Jeong Jae-ui’s younger brother. It seems you only heard half the story. We do go out for practical missions, but we don’t take personal commissions. Even if huge amounts of illicit money are exchanged, we’re still operating under the guise of a ‘United Nations’ organization, so we can’t just take on private affairs. You could say there’s nothing here that would create personal grudges. What you should be more careful about than such enemies is…”

Carlo Sagisawa’s voice suddenly lowered, and a subtle mix of excitement and anger entered it.

“Those sons of bitches from the Europe Branch! Those are the ones who will shamelessly crawl in here soon enough!”

He heard it again. He couldn’t count how many times he’d heard curses about the ‘Europe Branch’ today alone. Jeong Tae-ui found it suddenly amusing to see grown adults getting so worked up over colleagues who were, ostensibly, under the same headquarters, and he let out a chuckle.

“Wow, their relationship is really bad… I heard that members sometimes travel between branches, so they’re still colleagues, I don’t know why they hate each other so much.”

He said it half to himself. But the next moment, a chilling silence fell over the place, and Jeong Tae-ui, who had been drinking, couldn’t even properly swallow the alcohol in his mouth and just quietly rolled his eyes.

“Ah, right, you wouldn’t know. Let me tell you. Of course, there are times when members go back and forth between branches. But…”

“…”

“There’s no exchange between the Europe Branch and the Asia Branch.”

“Huh?”

“Unless they go through another branch or headquarters first, there’s no direct exchange.”

Jeong Tae-ui swallowed the alcohol in his mouth in two gulps, struggling to hide his disbelief.

Indeed, so that’s why they said ‘he wouldn’t be from the Europe Branch’. Okay, I get it. I understand you guys have a bad relationship. But even so, it’s pretty extreme that their relationship is so bad that even official exchanges don’t happen directly between the two branches. In other words, it goes beyond just a bad relationship between individuals or members; it’s an atrocious relationship, acknowledged even by other branches and headquarters.

“What kind of bloody history could there possibly be between branches under the same headquarters…”

Jeong Tae-ui mumbled, and Qing held his glass tightly with both hands, tilting his head.