Empire of the Ring

The city was quite chaotic because the fire happened overnight. The old school building had completely collapsed except for a few pillars. The windows of the houses near the building were all damaged because of the explosion.

Youngho was so focused on demolishing the IS headquarters, he had forgotten about the city’s high population density. But fortunately, the explosion did not spread the fire around the building. He wanted to look for a way to repay the owner of the houses for their damaged windows. It would be such a pain to endure the cold winter without windows.

Judging that it was not a small case, the Kyrgyz government started an investigation on the explosion at the closed school building.

At the same time, Youngho’s group was moving to another hideout of the IS organization.

This hideout seemed to be where the point of contact was located. The cars from the old school building were also spotted in this big grocery store.

“Are you sure they didn’t come here to pick up groceries?”

“Their boxes were quite big for groceries.”

“Then, this must be where the weapons are transported.”

“What do you know about the owner?”

“We’ve only seen some young workers but have no idea who the owner is.”

“The owner might not exist at all. Look at those workers. They can’t work like that if the owner actually existed.”

The grocery store was open, but the workers did not care for customers at all. They even turned them back quite a lot.

The workers kept calling somewhere, but no one would answer them. It probably was because the headquarters was demolished last night, and everyone in the building should be buried under the collapsed site. They would be calling to another leader soon.

Youngho’s group watched the grocery store for hours from a distance. Eventually, the workers closed the store and left the building. They kept checking if anybody was following them, but obviously, they were not doing a good job at that.

“It’s a shame that all three of us are following that little group of rabble.”

“We don’t know how many people are there at their destination. We were fortunate last night since we got them while they were off guard, but it’ll be different tonight.”

“Doesn’t it look like they are trying to run away?”

“No, they keep looking around to see if they are followed by others. They are obviously going to meet another point of contact.”

They seemed to be quite shaken by what happened last night. It was understandable since the group with strong firepower that put the whole city of Osh into fear got demolished overnight.

“I can’t believe that the IS recruited such weaklings to build their nation. I am already bored with this. Did we overestimate them?”

“Wake up. They are highly brainwashed with their religion. Once they receive a mission, they won’t hesitate to do it. It’s scary to think that a normal civilian standing right next to you is about to bomb a city.”

“Eh… Can’t they come back to having a normal life?”

“I don’t know. They are already fanatics. They would turn into warriors at any time even if they seemed to be back to their normal selves.”

After roaming around the streets for a while, the workers made a turn at a street.

Now the guys were dashing to an inclined alley without looking back. It seemed like they thought that they had lost any potential followers.

***

“Normally I feel crabby after going on a mission to strike a group, but it feels fine this time. You don’t think the IS wouldn’t do anything dumb for a while in Osh, do you?”

“It won’t last long. Soon, they will fill up their members again. It won’t end unless the leadership group was killed once and for all.”

“Good grief. We don’t even know where they are.”

“Let’s ask Koryoins in Osh if they want to move to our state first. If they don’t want to, we will be out of here.”

The autonomous state would try their best to convince Koryoins living in Osh. But if it took too long to move those Koryoins, it would eventually give the IS time to track them down to the Arirang Autonomous State. If Koryoins in Osh refused to move, there was no point in protecting them from the IS while risking the whole state since it would become a target of the IS.

The workers stopped at a middle-class house. Two relatively old looking IS members were waiting for them at the door. Through the window, Youngho could see the high-end interior of the house. This meant that the owner of the house could be someone in a high position in the city.

Youngho’s group rushed into the house and took control of those guys, but they could not gain any information from them. They tried torturing them with pressing pressure points, but they were not giving out answers. Youngho was already tired of dealing with them since nothing was going to change even if he spent quite a while harassing them.

Since their faces were already exposed to the IS members, there was no other option but to get rid of them.

As the group walked down the hilly alley leaving behind the burning house, Youngho’s heart was light. It would take at least a few months for the IS to rebuild their organization.

While they are gone, all there was left to do was to convince Koryoins and bring them to the state.

After they came back to the state, Jong-il, Il-kwon and Youngho were brainstorming to recruit more agents because the agents in Osh made a big difference in their recent mission. More agents would mean more quality information. There would be no reason not to recruit more because it would strengthen the asymmetry warfare capabilities of the autonomous state.

Thus, they decided to recruit some bright young Koryoins from Kyrgyzstan as new agents. It would be practical to give them short and intense agent training so that they could have a stable career.

As the state announced that it would be recruiting more agents, young Koryoins from Kyrgyzstan got exuberated. They looked up to the agents after they found out that they were the ones who helped them to move to the state back in Kyrgyzstan. Since people needed to have self-motivation in order for them to follow through harsh physical training and intelligence education.

After a strict recruitment process, 22 young Koryoins from Kyrgyzstan was selected to be the autonomous state’s intelligence agents. Six months of intense training and education which would include foreign, intelligence, and military education, would turn them into backup agents. Then after a year, they would become great regular agents of the state.

The reason that the state hurried to recruit more agents was that it needed a force to fight against the IS.

Although it would only be a small number of agents, the state would be able to defeat the enemies one by one with the help of agents. This was what Youngho felt after defeating two local groups of the IS once in Sary-Tash and once in Osh. Although the organization was huge, individual local groups were no threat to the autonomous state. If the state could not do it alone, Youngho was willing to ask for aid from the CIA.

***

“How come they are extremely vicious?”

“They must’ve learned their lesson this time. Without power, there is nothing but misery.”

“We better not send them to Kyrgyzstan.”

The agent training began with military martial arts. Youngho and Jong-il were impressed that not even one of them gave up throughout the course of the state’s intense training. They did not have well-built bodies like young well-fed Koreans. However, since they always walked and ran to travel in Kyrgyzstan, there was no question about the level of their endurance. Not to mention, they were all determined to become agents.

They had to be vicious because they got paid during the training period. What they received was more than enough for their families to maintain a relatively comfortable life. Compared to how they lived in Kyrgyzstan, they were living a dream now in the autonomous state. They suffered from being a minority, but now they had a hope to be a mainstream of the new land.

“They insisted to continue with the hiking training even though they were puking all over. I am afraid that they might ruin their body or something.”

“Tell the instructors to take it easy on them. What is wrong with them?”

“It’s not the instructors’ fault. It’s that Sung-ki and Sang-ho are pushing them at the training ground.”

“Oh, man. We’ve got to find dates for them. I asked them to build a new Siberian expedition team, and it turns out that they had been playing at the training ground instead.”

“I know. Why can’t they find a woman for themselves like other guards? Are they missing body parts or something?”

“They claimed that they lost the sense of romance because they were working on the sea for too long.”

“Right… What a pathetic excuse.”

“Man, now it’s our duty to find girls for our juniors.”

It was a divine move to recruit the guys from the Korean Navy Special Forces since they did not have decent jobs after being discharged from the Navy. But now, because they had worked so hard, they had lost their chance to find girls. They were getting older now.

Since people commonly got married before they were 25 in eastern Europe or in Central Asia, it was considered to be abnormal if people were not married until they were older. People thought that they must have a major defect. This was not good for the Korean guys who were over 30 now. They were losing their chance to get married as they were getting older every day.

.

“Maybe we need to make a marriage committee. If not, they might take out their stress somewhere else.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea! How about letting Commissioner Kim be the chairman of the committee?”

“He’s going to make a huge fuss about it.”

Kim Chun would be a perfect candidate for the job, but he might get carried away with it and take it too far. Youngho was a little worried.

He might even try to draw Miss Kazakhstan ladies into this. Ladies from Baku would be the best, but their religion could be an obstacle.

Most people from Baku would only consider Islam region practitioners for their spouses. Although Jong-il married Karajan, it was a very unusual case. If Youngho had not supported him and Karajan with his full force, it might have not happened at all.

“Let’s try to find women whether they are Serbian or Azerbaijani. I’ll ask for Karajan’s help too.”

“Only if the women from Baku are not so stubborn…”

“Karajan used to be beautiful and naive before she met you. Look how you turned your wife into a stubborn lady.”

“I’ve never said Karajan is stubborn.”

“Chill out. You are lucky to marry Karajan. You don’t deserve her at all.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You think about what I meant. I am not going to say it.”

Jong-il used to be a big womanizer before he met Karajan.

“Fine. Fine. I will ask Karajan to be the chairman of the marriage committee.”

“Great. It’s about time you say it.”