Etranger

The two people returned to the tent. They began to make solid preparations. This was a military routine. San ordered Biyeon to stand guard at the border with her pistol, while he began to dig a pit. Last night what he had thought was a wall was actually the base of a tree. There were many with a diameter of no less than ten meters scattered about. What was worse, one that was thirty meters was rare. Last night, at least experience had shown that this place was a safe place.

San selected what looked like a suitable tree, and began to dig out the ground around its base with his entrenching shovel. The humus layer of the soil really seems to be providing the perfect amount of nutrition to the plants. Even while constantly digging deeper, black dirt keeps appearing. Even the roots went very deep. With the way things are, the dirt would rapidly develop even further, and as though they were already cut, the smaller trees’ fibrous tissue would not be able to withstand a push. The probability is high that the trees with a large thickness will eventually stop growing after, at most, 2~3 years.

‘ddeuk-ddeuk-‘

Already his body and his face were soaked in sweat.

Is started to get really hot as the sun went up. The geothermal heat rising from the ground was also no joke. San dug a temporary pit waste deep and a mouth measuring 2×2 meters. Then, he gathered the parachutes and all the military equipment in one place, after which he gathered up all the logs and laid them out like rails over the pit. And on top of that, instead of a tent, he covered it with large leaves he found in the surroundings then once again covered it again with dirt. He carefully removed the entrances on both sides and returned everything to how it was before. [TN: No idea what this sentence means]

Now, one would not be able to find the pit when looking for it from outside..

Besides the pit he just made, San also selected two more places to set smaller, but similar, pits.

“I’ll guard the rear!”

San took Biyeon’s K1 rifle and nudged the magazine already loaded in the gun, then committed himself to the rear of the temporary base. He considered various possibilities and fastened the K1 Rifle, latched his bayonet onto the rifle, and set it from being straight up like a bamboo stalk to pointing forward.

“d.a.m.n… “

The inside of San’s head, who was moving forward, was very complicated. Sia (Serer) started getting terrifying nightmares that occurred during training.[TN: Author pens “시어(Serer) 훈련 당시의” but I don’t know what 시어(Serer) means.] Survival, evasion, resistance, escape, and recovery are abbreviations for a military exercise that served as a disgusting memory in her mind. No matter how much training, the fear of hunger, insecurity, and appalling torturous feeling always makes one feel dirty.

It was about time to start a search for food. Unfortunately, there were no easily traversable and viable paths out. It was a situation where they had to make their own roads. They could cut these bamboo(?) trees down and leave, they could even climb twenty meter tall trees with climbable branches and go over, there were a wide variety of methods that they could think of, but the biggest problem is the unknown they’ll face after crossing over.[TN: The question mark is part of the original text] He didn’t dare climb the cliff faces that were like the inside walls of an urn turned upside down.[TN: One of those sentences that I couldn’t fully comprehend][EN: pretty sure it’s like the inside of a kimchi urn…smooth and curving towards the inside in the way down]

To summarize the problem, while staying here for quite some time, they must make their own path. On the bright side, in an elliptical radius of around fifty to a hundred meters, it didn’t seem like this area had any sort of dangerous elements. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really much foodstuffs.

“What do you suppose we should do, sir?”

Biyeon looked at San with an anxious look on her face.

“What should we do? We should kick into survival mode. For now, we should look for drinkable water and edible food. After looking around, there doesn’t seem to be any dangerous factors. However, be wary, act as though something unknown may pop out at you.”

“Yes sir.”

“Also, do you have a whistle?”

“Yes sir”

“We should maintain a signal between the two of us, and always be ready for it. If there are any strange signs or encounters, make sure to contact me.”

“Understood.”

“But…”

Biyeon hesitated and withheld her words.

“I made it over there, go and come back. What, do you need toilet paper?”

San took out a cigarette and acted as though it wasn’t a big deal. Earlier, when San had made the pit, he did so in an area that was out of sight.

“Ah… no sir. I’ll go and come back.”

Biyeon’s face blushed as she went.

San laughed with a beaming smile plastered on his face. San blew out a long line of smoke.

‘She was probably urgent. Afterall she spent one night holding it in… it was troublesome altogether. Rascal.’

“ Oh shoot! I forgot to tell her that the support logs aren’t very st.u.r.dy and to be careful…”

‘ppo-gak’

With one foot in the pit, Biyeon awkwardly looked up towards the sky.