Chapter 8
At dawn, before the sun even crested the horizon, the door to the warehouse holding Muhwa swung open. The pirates checked the ropes binding him. They felt a little loose, but not enough for his wrists to slip free. Besides, they didn’t think a Navy bastard stupid enough to get caught by villagers could pull any tricks.
“If a so-called Captain goes down this easy, tells you everything you need to know about those Navy bastards.”
One of the pirates snickered, sneering down at him.
Despite the blatant ridicule, Muhwa remained silent. Their beatings were all crude violence and zero efficiency—a barrage of sloppy punches meant to inflict superficial pain without causing structural damage. It was enough to break an ordinary man, sure, but Muhwa’s training included advanced torture resistance. This was nothing.
Still, playing the helpless half-wit was the easiest way to deceive them. He remained entirely docile, letting his head snap back as they grabbed him by the hair and buried their fists in his stomach.
When they finally had their fill, they dragged him outside.
“Where are you taking me…?” Muhwa rasped, spitting out a mouthful of bloody saliva he’d deliberately let pool in his cheeks. Hearing that rough, broken voice, the pirates looked convinced he was half-dead.
“Where do you think? The middle of the ocean. You Navy guys bury your fallen comrades at sea, right? We’re giving you the VIP treatment.”
The pirate assumed he was too terrified to squeak, but Muhwa’s mind was already miles away.
The mothership is probably close to the island by now. A four- to six-hour trip, tops. These modified pirate vessels are usually faster than our warships, so as long as the heading is right, we should intercept them right in the middle.
“If that’s the case… at least let me choose where I’m buried,” Muhwa pleaded, letting his voice tremble. Naturally, it was an act.
“I want to be buried southwest of here. My comrade died there. Can you at least grant me that?”
“Hah! You think I’d trust the word of a Navy bastard?” The Vice-Captain, who had been silent until now, let out a harsh scoff.
“You must have reinforcements waiting to ambush us if we head that way, huh?”
“Warships are massive. You’d spot them long before we ever crossed paths, and you could just turn around. Besides, I don’t have a way to send a distress signal. How would they even know where I am?”
At the unblinking lie, the Vice-Captain ground his teeth and violently yanked the dog tag hanging around Muhwa’s neck.
“Do I look like a moron? I know the blinking light on this thing broadcasts a coordinate.”
So he’s not a complete idiot.
Feeling the soft coastal sand shift beneath his boots, Muhwa replied calmly. “That tracks the mothership’s location. If necessary, you can just use it to avoid them. Right?”
It wasn’t a lie. Because dog tags had to be incredibly thin and light, they only possessed enough tech to ping the mothership’s location. What Muhwa trusted wasn’t the tag, but the people on his ship.
From the moment he boarded the exploration craft, he had set it to transmit its current coordinates and heading to the mothership. The beacon would run continuously until the craft completely ran out of fuel or its core circuits sustained critical damage. Assuming the circuits had failed about twenty minutes into the firefight, his location would have been broadcast right up to these coastal waters. With that much data, even if this base was a ghost island, the probability of making contact skyrocketed.
Judging the excuse to be plausible, the Vice-Captain pondered for a moment before snapping the dog tag off its chain and wrapping it tightly around his own hand. Muhwa’s eyes tracked the movement.
To know that the dog tag has a coordinate system attached… Was he in the Navy? But the man lacked the clean precision typical of military personnel. His movements were too sloppy.
Even if he served, it must have been a long time ago. He clearly didn’t know how far the technology had advanced.
Muhwa had no qualms about modifying his own body. It was the exact reason he’d volunteered to implant a vital chip that was still in its trial phase.
It would be great if it transmitted coordinates along with my vitals… If he survived, he’d definitely submit a report on that flaw. But for now, he needed to focus on survival first, and making contact second.
They finally reached the docks. Looking at the pirate ship, Muhwa furrowed his brows. The modified, freshly painted vessel was unmistakably a patrol corvette. It wasn’t the latest model, but it was definitely a decommissioned Navy ship.
The pirates shoved Muhwa forward, throwing him down in front of their Captain. Catching his balance despite his bound hands, Muhwa stood straight and slowly looked the man up and down. The Captain’s eyebrow twitched.
A slow smirk curled the corners of Muhwa’s mouth. “Deserter?”
A pirate with a Navy background. Things are working out nicely.
It seems I’m definitely not destined to die here. Seeing the situation turn in his favor, Muhwa let the smirk linger for a second before dropping it.
The Captain’s face twisted in disgust. With a long, jagged scar running down his cheek, his expression looked incredibly vicious with even the slightest movement.
But Muhwa casually stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Do your subordinates know?”
“…Do you want them to know you’re the only son of the Northeast Pacific Admiral, too?”
The Captain returned the taunt with a half-threat. Muhwa’s true value was the information the Captain intended to monopolize. The last thing he needed right now was a noisy debate among the crew about whether they should cut him loose or hold out for a bigger deal.
“Seeing as you know who I am, you must have been an officer. Don’t worry, I won’t ask for the sob story of why you’re playing pirate. Honestly, I’m just glad to meet someone who knows exactly what I’m worth.”
The Captain slowly shifted his gaze, glaring daggers at him.
Muhwa shrugged innocently. “What? What did you expect from a guy who bought his rank with his bloodline?”
“…It’s because of pathetic bastards like you that I left the Navy.”
“Cowardice does tend to change names depending on how you package it.”
“Then how should I package yours, you cowardly little shit?”
Muhwa’s eyes crinkled in a bright, mocking smile.
Grinding his teeth at the detestable sight, the Captain shoved him up the gangway.
Once everyone was on board, the Captain pointed at Muhwa. “We’re selling this bastard to the Navy.”
“What?” Led by the Vice-Captain, the crew exchanged baffled looks.
But the Captain, whose hatred for the Navy had only festered in the shame of his desertion, didn’t even notice their reactions.
“This guy is the son of Navy top brass. The ransom they’ll pay for him is astronomical. He’s an idiot who let himself get caught by civilian villagers instead of actual combatants, and all he cares about is smearing shit on his old man’s face while they pull their hair out over the ransom. We’ll take what we can get and run.”
“But what if we get caught, Captain!”
“Warships aren’t faster than us. And if there’s even the slightest chance the Admiral’s son is alive, they’ll send a destroyer or something bigger. A ship that size won’t be able to catch us in these waters.”
“Former Navy really is on another level,” Muhwa muttered lightly, playing the hopelessly spoiled rich kid to perfection.
The Captain clenched his jaw. Yanking a military dagger from his coat, he slammed the heavy pommel into the side of Muhwa’s head with a sickening thud.
Muhwa’s head snapped to the side, hot blood instantly trickling down his temple.
“You know why I left the Navy? Those bastards destroyed my hometown, claiming they were building an intermediate naval base in Sector 2. My older sister went blind in the crossfire.”
Muhwa said nothing.
“The second we get the ransom, I’m going to decorate your body with machine-gun holes.”
Muhwa didn’t answer. He simply slipped his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, lazily licking away the blood flowing down his jaw.
“Set sail!”
The massive anchor cable, thousands of steel wires woven into strands and thousands of those strands woven together, was hoisted up, and the ship glided forward. Breathing in the thickening scent of the sea breeze, Muhwa stared at the receding island.
Three hours later.
“Y-you military son of a bitch…”
Muhwa barely made out the Captain’s words over the deafening roar of the military helicopter hovering above them.
The Captain was currently pinned, the very same knife he’d used to strike Muhwa now pressed flush against his own throat.
I thought he was just some sheltered rich kid who parachuted into a cushy position…
The hostage, who they assumed was completely ignorant of the real world, earning his epaulets purely through his father’s backing, had silently knocked out his three guards while the crew was busy communicating just outside artillery range. And how had he escaped his bindings? He had deliberately dislocated his own fingers. Completely ignoring his swollen, bruised hand, he had marched straight up and ambushed the bridge.
It had all happened in a flash.
The deck was already secured by Navy special forces fast-roping down from the chopper. His frivolous, spoiled-brat demeanor entirely gone, Muhwa looked down at the disarmed Captain with a terrifyingly cold expression. Slowly, his lips curled into a smile.
Waves frozen in the winter sea sometimes resembled delicate ice flowers. With a face just as chillingly beautiful, Muhwa leaned in.
“What? What did you expect from a guy who bought his rank with his bloodline?”
* * *
When Number 8 woke up that morning and heard that all the adults, including the man, had already set sail, he couldn’t hold back his sorrow. He finally burst into tears. Number 3’s hard work to cover up his rule-breaking had been for nothing.
Number 3 stomped his feet in distress as he watched the remaining adults interrogate him about why he was crying. It didn’t take them long to figure out the whole story and scold Number 8 severely.
That idiot!
Terrified of losing one of his few younger brothers again, Number 3 tried to intervene.
“He just doesn’t know any better! He’s an idiot!” he cried. “He never listens anyway, he’s always just spacing out by himself.”
Number 8 swallowed the urge to protest that he absolutely wasn’t an idiot, his chest heaving as he stood there with a swollen, tear-streaked face.
“That man is gone anyway, so we just have to tell him not to do it again. Right? You won’t do it again, will you?”
Number 8 stared at the ground.
All he had to do was give a simple answer, but as Number 8 kept his mouth stubbornly shut, Number 3 looked ready to lose his temper.
But Number 8 had his reasons.
If he promised never to do it again, it would be like admitting he would never meet another souvenir like that, no, a person like that, an adult like that, ever again.
He hated that thought.
Even though it had been a short encounter, Number 8 really liked the man. The wonderful voice and gentle tone directed at him had been completely unfamiliar. That unfamiliarity had brought excitement, and that excitement brought a sudden spark of vitality. It wasn’t until he met the man that Number 8 realized just how desperately he had been waiting for something new.
The man had even been the one to make the promise first. He said they would get on the ship together… but he’d left alone.
“Just promise us. It’s for your own good. If the Captain comes back and finds out, you’ll be in even bigger trouble. Besides, you never know. That guy might come back as part of our family.”
Perhaps the other family members felt a lingering regret about the man too, because one of the adults gently chimed in.
Number 8 felt a brief glimmer of hope, but quickly grew sullen again.
He didn’t know why, but he had a strong, sinking premonition that the man, a former Navy officer and not a monster, would never live with them.
But just in case… If by some miracle he did return… it would probably be better for the man if Number 8 pretended not to know him.
Number 8 sniffled and finally nodded.
“I’ll pretend I don’t know anything,” he mumbled. “From now on, too…”
Having barely squeezed out the answer, Number 8 started crying again, unable to shake his deep sorrow. Eventually, the adults sighed and told him to roll up his pant legs.
After taking a harsh beating on his calves, there wasn’t a single unbruised spot left on Number 8’s body. Covered in welts and scratches, he was finally released. He headed glumly for the beach.
There wasn’t a single trace of sea foam left on the shore. It had been hours since the ship departed, and the waves had already washed it all away.
In this state, he couldn’t go back into the sea today, either. Number 8 crouched next to an abandoned ship, sniffling as he squeezed out the last of his tears.
Liar.
From now on, Number 8 decided he wouldn’t believe in the word “souvenir.” “Loot” was better.
Because loot was something he could keep forever.
