Empire of the Ring

The car went across the town and was now slipping out of the town.

“Man, where on earth are they headed to?”

It was a foggy night and the road was icy.

The car was going at a terribly slow speed because of the worst possible road condition.

Because of that, Youngho and Jong-il could have conversations as they followed the car behind.

“If they’re just regular folks, we’d be wasting our precious time tonight.”

“Have you seen normal guys moving secretly at night? It’s also weird that young lads own a car. This is a poor country, remember? They can’t be normal.”

Youngho could tell that the two guys were trained since they had sharp movements and postures. Although the car looked like it needed some repair work, having a car in this town was indeed very suspicious.

The car that went on for about ten more minutes finally stopped in front of an old stone house. The light was coming out from its windows. It looked like there were many people inside the house.

“What now?”

“Let’s wait until they go to sleep. I don’t think they have further plans for tonight.”

Youngho tried to listen to any sign of movement with his enhanced hearing but it did not seem that anybody was moving. As he was going to stop listening, he caught a tiny sound. It sounded as if someone had just coughed. It was not loud, but a suppressed coughing sound.

He was sure that he caught something. He gestured to go near the house to Jong-il.

As they were about to move, they spotted a headlight from a vehicle far away. This must be the one that had gone to the town’s café. Just as he thought, four big guys were stepping out of the car.

“Is this tiny town now under the control of an anti-government organization or something? Why are these young people keep coming to this house?”

“Are you ready for a showdown?”

Now that they were certain that the house was suspicious, they decided to act.

“Hey, let’s put on masks first.”

Kyrgyz people looked distinguished from Kazakh people. It was because Kyrgyz had the blood of Mongolians and Aryans of Europe in them. That was why Youngho and Jong-il needed masks to cover their faces. That was also why they brought agents who were half Russians with them.

“What are we going to tell the survey team later?”

“Should we tell them that Kyrgyzstan’s patriotic people had rescued them?”

“Let’s think about that later.”

“Dang it. Now we have to think about what we’re going to say after rescuing the survey team’s life? This region surely has problems.”

“The survey team will have to just accept the reality. They’ll have to be here until the construction was completed anyway.”

“Let’s go easy on them in case they’re not related to the survey team.”

“Don’t break anything. Just knock them down!”

Jong-il’s hot temper could only be soothed after breaking the enemies’ arms or legs but Youngho convinced him to just knock them down in case they did not get the right people.

***

There were two rooms that had lights on.

The whole group was divided into two rooms.

There was only one door that led to the inside of the house, so Youngho and Jong-il would be cannon folders if they went through the door. So, they decided to take each room and use the windows to get in.

Youngho went near the windows to see what was going on inside. Four guys were talking quietly. He looked to Jong-il’s side and Jong-il informed him that there were five guys in the other room with his fingers. Youngho thought that Jong-il would not complain later since he got more guys than him.

He was not too worried about taking down the guys since they had no idea that the two was coming for them. It was the beauty of raid.

The two counted three with their fingers then jumped inside breaking the windows.

He knocked down one guy as he broke in and struck another one’s temple as he was about to take out his pistol. The other two held their chairs up in the chaos, but Youngho crashed the chairs with his kicks and knocked their head down with the grip of his pistol. The situation was easily taken care of.

It happened in a quick moment, so Youngho also was rather surprised how easy it was. Since they might wake up soon, he hit each guy’s temple with a full force. They would be spending the next several days with swollen temples.

He opened the door to see what happened in the other room. The living room had a fireplace. Jong-il soon opened the door of the other room as he had just finished his job.

“Did you take care of them?”

“They won’t be waking up anytime soon.”

Although they did not use big motions, they were still panting because of the tension.

“I checked all of the open rooms but no one else is here. That locked room looks suspicious. Let’s get all the guys in one room and tie them before we do other stuff.”

“Shoot, I’ve got to break one of their body parts. It’s such a waste.”

Jong-il grumbled as he moved the guys.

Youngho also thought that he might be going too easy on them but since he did not know what would happen next, he decided not to take further steps.

He felt that this would not be the last time he would be facing them.

The bodies of the guys seemed to be strong and toned. This was proof that they must have been trained systematically.

The two picked up the nine guys on the floor and tied them together in one room.

Next, they knocked on the locked door and shouted to ask if someone was inside in English.

Youngho could hear people busily moving inside. Someone asked to turn on the light for them. He turned on the switch next to the doorknob and asked in Korean if they were the Korean road survey team. And soon, people inside the room shouted that they were Koreans. They were tearful to know that someone had come to rescue them.

As the two crushed the lock and opened the door, a terrible odor came out of the room.

The road survey team that looked dirty and exhausted all came out to hug Youngho and Jong-il as they cried in relief.

***

It seemed impossible to seat six adults in a compact car but it was actually possible when they were squished together. They could find two vehicles that the criminals used there, so they were divided into two groups to head back to the town.

As they arrived at the lodging facility, everyone gulped down some food and took a shower. It was already three o’clock in the morning.

“We can breathe now. We all thought that we’d end up being killed.”

“I’m sorry for what you had to go through. It was our fault that we left you alone here without realizing how dangerous this place could be.”

“Who would have thought so? We’re grateful that you’ve come to save us.”

H Corporation’s construction civil engineering director Ahn Sung-man, who was the leader of the survey team, thanked Youngho and Jong-il repeatedly. Thankfully, all of the members of the survey team was exhausted but no one was hurt. They were given food by the criminal organization but they could not eat well since they were gravely worried for their lives. They looked skinnier but no one needed to go to a hospital.

Although it had been only four days since they were abducted, it would have felt like years for them. Despite the fact that they must have experienced great distress, they were rather calm.

“They abducted you as hostages to get money from your company?”

“They told us that they’d be moving us to Afghanistan. They identified themselves as members of the IS.”

There was no case when the IS has asked for money in exchange for a hostage. The organization was known to abduct people to take their lives to show off their existence. Youngho did not see a reason that the IS was going to ask for money.

“The owner of the inn said he had no idea where you went. Did you see people’s faces when you were abducted?”

“The owner is the main guy of the organization. We were held at gunpoint while we were sleeping. I think there were a lot of people who had been taken the same way as we had. We saw other people’s belongings at the place we were locked in.”

Jong-il was outrageous to hear that.

“That b*st*rd! He pretended that he doesn’t know about a thing and shrugged us off. I need to get back at him immediately.”

“Oh, please. We are not sure if we’re going to report this to the police yet. It’s not going to do us any good if we spread the word.”

There was no good in reporting this to the local police since it would only complicate things for the autonomous state. It was the best to just return to the state as soon as they could.

“Let’s retreat back to the autonomous state for now and figure out what to do from now on.”

“But we’re almost done with our survey. We only need to investigate the route at Tajikistan’s border. I’m afraid that we will never have the courage to come back again if we return to the state now.”

It was understandable that the survey team would never want to come back to the place where they experienced life-threatening danger. That was why they wanted to complete the job when they had the Countryside Force guards around them.

“You’re not at the stage to conduct a subsurface investigation yet, are you?”

It was a survey to come up with the estimated construction cost, not a survey to do the execution drawing yet.

“We at least want to do a level survey for now. The topographic map that was provided by the government was not exact, so we wanted to conduct a sample examination.”

“We got a drone inside our light-armored vehicles. Can you utilize that? Wouldn’t aerial photographs enough for such examination?”

“You’ve got a drone?”

“Each vehicle is equipped with one drone.”

“Then we’ll be able to simulate three-dimensional images of the region with the pictures. That’ll save time.”

“Alright. If you need to do it now, we’ll accompany you until the filming process is finished.”

It was concluded that the road survey would be conducted through drone pictures. It was because it would be impossible to fight with the IS organization, which might strike back at the survey team, with only a small number of people.

The roads would not be built on flat land anyway since they would be built on bridges and tunnels, and the pictures would suffice for such purposes.

“What do we tell the cops?”

“We’ll tell them that they were lost in the mountains and found by shepherds.”

“Are we just leaving things like this?”

“Heck no. We’ll say goodbye to the Countryside Force guards and the road survey team at Kazakhstan’s border and come back to see what they’re up to by then.”

Youngho wondered how the IS organization would react now that the survey team had escaped. Would it hide now that its identity was revealed, or would it still be active shamelessly as it used to? He would be able to find out through the autonomous state’s agents here.

“I heard that there are hundreds of IS members from Kyrgyzstan. Are we going to fight all of them?”

“If necessary, we will. The organization is going to harm the construction team in the future too. Let’s see what they got.”

“They must know that the Korean corporation has its base in the autonomous state. Won’t they suspect us?”

“They’ll see the survey team and the guards leaving Kyrgyzstan. How are they going to suspect us when we’re gone?”

Jong-il smiled at Youngho’s response.

There was his face that was of a boy with a fun toy again.