Chapter 74. The Weight of Longing and Regret (2)
“Take your daggers back.”
Kevin slid the weapons Yukgap had given him back across the table.
Yukgap looked doubtful.
“Really?”
“I already know what your true intentions are.”
Apparently, Kevin had only intended to test him.
Then he stared at Yukgap and said something strange.
“To be honest, I was surprised from the moment I first saw you. Even with my disguise, I never expected you to completely fail to recognize me.”
“Isn’t that obvious? How was I supposed to know your face?”
They were supposedly meeting for the first time, and Kevin had even been disguised.
How could Yukgap possibly have recognized him?
Kevin gave him an unexpected answer.
“We’ve met before.”
Yukgap froze.
“...Seriously?”
Kevin gestured lightly.
“Rendell. Show him.”
“Yes.”
Rendell soon brought over an old document.
It showed movement routes through a combat zone, and in one corner was a photograph of armed mercenaries standing in formation.
Kevin pointed directly at it.
“Take a look.”
Yukgap slowly examined the picture.
Before long, shock crossed his face.
“This is... me.”
In one corner of the photograph, among several foreigners, stood a young man wearing military fatigues and holding a loaded rifle.
His features looked much younger than they did now.
But Yukgap recognized him immediately.
The man in the picture was him.
“In the past, I hired several mercenaries in Afghanistan who had served in the French Foreign Legion.”
Kevin pointed at the younger Yukgap in the photograph.
“That was when I met you.”
“Aah...”
A long breath escaped Yukgap, almost like a sigh.
“We weren’t together for very long because we operated in different combat zones. Still, we were both Korean, so we had a few things in common.”
Kevin continued,
“Back then, you introduced yourself as ‘Jeongseon Kim.’ In Korean naming order, that would be Kim Jeongseon.”
Yukgap repeated the three syllables almost as though hypnotized.
“Kim Jeongseon.”
It was nothing like the code name “No. 6” that Abraxas had slapped onto him like a product label.
Nor was it like the alias “Yukgap,” which he had improvised to hide his identity.
This was the name his parents had given him.
The name he should have been called all along.
“After that, I left Afghanistan for business reasons. I don’t know what happened to you afterward.”
Kevin spoke seriously.
“But you were another Korean I met far from home, so you remained in my memory.”
“When you failed to recognize me at the test site, I became certain that something had happened to you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“If you had been acting under Abraxas’s orders, pretending not to remember me as part of some elaborate plan, then I would have been in danger.”
Kevin’s expression hardened.
“Some verification was only natural.”
Then, perhaps sensing Yukgap’s impatience, he added,
“More importantly, if your identity were carelessly exposed, the family you’ve been so desperate to find could be put in danger.”
The moment he mentioned family, Yukgap hurriedly asked,
“D-Do you know anything about them?”
Kevin thought for a moment before answering casually.
“Not much.”
“But you once mentioned in passing that you had parents and a younger sister.”
“I see.”
It was only a short sentence.
But to Yukgap, it was enough.
“So I had parents... and even a little sister.”
He could not remember them.
Yet the vague figures he had been longing for were finally beginning to take shape.
He had always assumed he must have parents somewhere.
But a younger sister was something he had never even imagined.
The thought brought a smile to his face.
And before he realized it, tears began slipping from his eyes.
“Hahaha...”
“Are you crying?”
Kevin asked.
Yukgap awkwardly wiped away the tears that had gathered around his eyes.
“They just started coming out. Hahaha.”
Kevin studied him for a moment.
Then his tone changed.
“Yukgap. In that case, I’d like to make you an offer.”
His voice was both firm and earnest.
“My organization has grown, and because of that, I’ve unintentionally come into repeated conflict with Abraxas, a military conglomerate.”
“We stopped an Archon attack this time, but there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed again.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I want to formally hire you.”
Kevin suddenly extended his hand.
“I’ll provide you with a new identity and a job.”
“Will you fight Abraxas with me?”
Yukgap stared at him.
“Are you serious?”
Kevin had spent all this time distrusting him and putting him through test after test.
Now he had suddenly changed his position and was asking Yukgap to join him.
It was hard not to find that ridiculous.
But Kevin was completely serious.
“This conflict will not end until I’m dead.”
“If that’s the case, I need to gather as many allies as I can.”
“And if one of the Twelve Archons, someone who knows Abraxas from the inside, joins my side, I couldn’t ask for more.”
Then Kevin added an incentive.
“I’ll do everything I can to help you recover your past and find your family.”
“This is a good opportunity for you too. The intelligence network of my mercenary organization will be useful.”
Yukgap glanced toward Victoria.
“...”
She simply stood there without saying anything.
Of course, knowing Victoria, she would never try to hold him back.
She was the kind of friend who would help him no matter what he chose.
And just as Kevin said, this really was a good opportunity.
