“Not badmouthing my hand-picked officer now, are we?” said a voice, booming from the distance. Reno and Yeonwoo immediately looked in the direction of the voice. Standing in front of the entrance of the facility was another officer. Decked from top to bottom in full military attire, his outfit was quite similar to Minjoon’s except for the number of stars on his uniform. Yeonwoo was quite attentive to details and it didn’t take long for him to figure out this man clearly outranked Minjoon. He felt his heartbeat quicken in anticipation. Minjoon had already revealed his cruel and sadistic tendencies, what if his senior was way worse?

Reno whispered into Yeonwoo’s ear, “Is that the boss?”

“Superior.” Whispered Yeonwoo back. “The boss is probably the king, right?”

With slow and confident steps, the man walked towards them. Minjoon’s face turned into a scowl, clearly displeased with the senior’s appearance. As he walked closer and closer, Yeonwoo’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. His name batch read, “Kim Jinuk, General of Imperial Regime Force.” Was General the highest rank among the army? He had no idea.

He grinned at Reno and Yeonwoo, “So these are they new outsiders, eh?”

Appearance-wise, he didn’t look much older than Reno or Yeonwoo. He had neatly combed black hair with striking eyes. His eyes were so piercing that neither Reno nor Yeonwoo found themselves able to look away from them. He was tall and lean, but his experience as a military officer could be seen on his body. He had subtle muscles and Yeonwoo had a strong suspicion that he probably had abs underneath that uniform. While Minjoon had the more feminine and foreigner type of beauty which was cold and distant, this senior officer was a picture-perfect definition of a typical handsome Korean man. Yeonwoo turned and looked at Reno. Reno was a very good-looking person, and he always thought Hyuk and Reno both had looks on par with celebrities but the officer in front of him seemed to give them tough competition as well.

Despite the officer’s good looks, he found himself frowning. Did this Imperial Regime appoint only good-looking officers to high posts? Especially Minjoon. He really had nothing going on for him except for his face.

Minjoon rolled his eyes and but since he was stickler for rules, he had no choice but to answer to his superior, “Yes. There is one more youngster but since he was injured, he’s currently being treated by Miya.”

The grin vanished from Jinuk’s face. “What did I tell you about mishandling the outsiders?”

Without an ounce of emotion in his eyes, Minjoon answered, “A conflict had broken out. As an act of self-defence, I had no choice but to shoot him.”

Jinuk looked at Minjoon, clearly not buying his excuse. But he had no choice but to give up this argument. After all, regardless of whether Minjoon shot the youngster or not, he had an equal amount of blood on his hands for leading an army in the first place.

He turned towards the junior officer who was standing there, uncomfortable with the power dynamics present in the place. “Continue with the examination. You are directly under my command; there is no need for you to listen to the insults presented by the Major Minjoon. He may lead the rear force, but that power lies outside the imperial gates.”

He turned and gave Minjoon an icy glare, “Inside the imperial gates, the army is wholly under my command. I hope that’s understood.”

Minjoon stared back, emotionless and not willing to back down.

The poor junior officer looked between the two officers as if wanting to do nothing more than run away from there, but he just looked at Reno and Yeonwoo, with a pitiful expression.

“Which one of you want to go first? Don’t worry, we just attach a bunch of these devices on you and this machine gives us a reading.” He said, pointing to bunch of wires in his hand and a tiny machine in hand.

Yeonwoo volunteered to go first. He too was beginning to feel suffocated the power dynamics in front of him. He couldn’t care less who outranked who, in his eyes they both were equally responsible for killing his entire team. No matter how well he was treated here, no matter how much he claimed he wasn’t attached to his team, he still felt an immense amount of guilt for being one of the only survivors.

The test took only 5 minutes, and the officer noted his result onto notepad before doing the same thing for Reno, who took the test quietly since it wasn’t needles. He also seemed to be drained from overwhelming atmosphere in the facility.

“Okay! We have the results in our hand.” He said, handing it over to Jinuk. Yeonwoo and Reno were anxious. Even though Yeonwoo had no idea how many sectors existed in Banyeok or what they did, he hoped by some miracle, he would end up in the same sector as Reno and Hyuk.

Jinuk raised his eyebrow in surprise and smiled. “Alright, so Reno…right?” His gaze was then directed towards Reno. Reno gulped and nodded.

“So based on your results, I think you’d be suited for either Minezu Zoko or Hyokshin. Which one do you want to go to?”

Reno’s jaw almost dropped. His face was clearly saying, Why the hell are you giving the option? I don’t know shit about either of them!

“Um…” said Reno, his voice barely audible.

“Hurry up, we don’t have the whole day.”

Reno looked at Yeonwoo, asking for help with his eyes. Yeonwoo just shrugged in return. He was just as clueless as Reno and had no idea what these sectors did. He didn’t want the weight of making such a crucial decision for Reno on him.

Reno finally sighed. “The first one, I guess.”

Jinuk gave another beaming smile. “Excellent! I’m sure they’d be glad to have a new member. By tonight, you shall be nicely settled in. Food, lodging and work. Everything will be provided for.”

Reno almost wanted to roll his eyes. Nicely settled in?  As a slave, probably.

Jinuk then turned his attention towards Yeonwoo and gave him an even bigger smile. It sent chills down his spine, making him beyond uncomfortable. “As for you Yeonwoo, welcome to the Imperial Regime Force!”

….?!

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 a/n :- tapas having a word limit on novels is the stupidest thing ive ever seen ; i hate having to cut my chapters into too cos they're "too long" like what??