I Became a Black Market Tycoon with an Inventory - Chapter 17

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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017-Deployment
17. Deployment
A small conference room.
My entire team had gathered.
We were supposed to head out for training in the morning,
but I received word to assemble in the conference room instead of the training grounds.
So there we were, my team gathered together.
We trained together every day, but it was rare for us to meet in the conference room.
This was unusual.
The team leader spoke up.
“Everyone here?”
“Yes, sir. Everyone’s accounted for.”
“Then let me get straight to the point. We’ve received deployment orders.”
“Sir?”
“What did you say?”
“Seriously?”
“Sir? Now? There’s no deployment scheduled, is there?”
“We still have time before the regular deployment rotation, don’t we?”
“One company that was deployed had to return home urgently due to inability to complete their mission, so we’re going in as replacements.”
“Where are we going?”
“Democratic Republic of Congo.”
“Ah~~”
“…”
“Damn, we got stuck with a shithole.”
At the mention of the Democratic Republic of Congo, my teammates’ faces twisted in displeasure.
Is it a bad place?
I didn’t even know where the Democratic Republic of Congo was located.
All I knew was that it was somewhere in Africa.
“For now, understand that’s where we’re going. Today, take care of your personal gear and prepare for deployment.”
“When do we depart, sir?”
“In a month.”
I returned to my room and searched for information.
Democratic Republic of Congo… Democratic Republic of Congo…
Huh?
There are two Congos.
Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo.
The place we’re headed is the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The second-largest country in Africa.
The eleventh-largest country in the world.
A nation with a land area twenty-three times that of South Korea—absolutely massive.
Straddling the equator, the weather is intensely hot,
with tropical rainforests and savanna grasslands stretching endlessly.
If that were all there was to it, we wouldn’t need to deploy here at all, would we?
There must be something dangerous, which is why we’re going, right?
The Democratic Republic of Congo had an internationally recognized dictator.
For over thirty years, he wielded absolute power, ruling with an iron fist and bending the nation to his will.
Corruption was simply the way of life in this country.
Desperate people formed anti-government organizations and launched attacks against the regime.
Civil war erupted.
The rebels emerged victorious.
The man who came to power through the rebels’ victory.
He too established a dictatorship.
The new dictator was even worse.
Fearing his former comrades-in-arms might threaten his grip on power, he cast them out.
The expelled men grew furious.
They reorganized and attacked the government once more.
And so civil war erupted again.
ADF, the Rwandan Liberation Army, M23, and other rebel groups and terrorist organizations participated.
Over ten African nations became involved.
It became complete chaos.
Now there was no way to distinguish who was right and who was wrong.
They simply waged war to seize power.
It was infuriating enough that they fought amongst themselves for control.
But there were also forces that incited them.
Corporations and nations coveting the Democratic Republic of Congo’s abundant underground resources supported the rebels,
while neighboring countries supported either the rebels or government forces based on religious and ethnic grievances.
The number of terrorist organizations and rebel groups operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo was beyond counting.
It was an absolute mess.
The victims were overwhelmingly women and children.
Children were abducted and forced to become child soldiers,
while women were often subjected to sexual violence or killed on sight.
It was horrific.
The state had ceased to function.
It abandoned even its most basic duty to protect its citizens.
The leaders pursued their dictatorships,
while foreign corporations stripped the nation’s resources bare.
Whether the people lived or died,
how they survived—the state cared not at all.
That is the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A place where guns are fired and possessions are stolen at any time, anywhere.
A country where kidnapping and sexual assault are not considered problems.
A country where concepts like air rights don’t exist.
It was a country that dangerous.
I finally understood why the senior soldiers’ faces had darkened when they heard the deployment destination was the Democratic Republic of Congo.
.
.
.
There wasn’t much time left before departure.
First, I received vaccinations.
Yellow fever, malaria, tetanus, measles, meningococcal disease, and more.
There were many shots to get.
A passport was necessary.
I needed to renew or obtain a new passport,
but since I didn’t have one, I had to get it made from scratch.
Beyond that, I had to prepare team equipment and personal gear.
A checklist was created for people like me who didn’t know what to prepare.
There were countless items each team and individual needed to bring.
I received education about the Democratic Republic of Congo region.
I studied the history, scale, and habits of the rebel forces in the mission area,
and received instruction on regulations as a UN Peacekeeping Force member.
We conducted training assuming the Democratic Republic of Congo region as our operational zone.
I received ideological education as well.
Laws of Armed Conflict, civilian protection protocols, and prevention of wartime sexual violence.
I thought since deployment was a month away,
I could just pack a bag like going on a trip,
I thought I only needed to bring my rifle, but there was an enormous amount to do.
Finally, the day of departure arrived.
We boarded a transport aircraft and landed in Burundi, the neighboring country, not the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ndadaye International Airport.
Our deployment destination of Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo has no airport.
Ndadaye International Airport is the closest international airport, so we had no choice but to come here.
As soon as we disembarked, a wave of intense heat washed over us.
It was hot, as expected for a location near the equator.
After gathering our equipment and descending from the transport, someone was there to greet us.
“Welcome~”
“It’s been a while.”
The person greeting us seemed to know Song Gyu-tae.
The two exchanged warm greetings.
“Everyone, meet Captain Jeon Young-ho, our deployment site’s supply officer. He’s my academy classmate.”
“Unity”
Our team saluted Jeon Young-ho, the supply officer.
Jeon Young-ho returned the greeting casually.
“Alright, everyone. It’s hot—let’s get in the vehicle. I’ll explain on the way.”
We boarded a white armored vehicle.
It had “UN” written in large letters across its side.
Captain Jeon Young-ho was driving.
“It’ll take about an hour to reach the unit from here. When we arrive, you’ll report to the unit commander. Does anyone have questions?”
“May I ask what the situation is like here?”
Captain Jeon Young-ho’s expression darkened at the question.
He looked grave.
“To be honest, it’s not great. This place has good transportation and borders nearby, so rebel groups frequently appear. They often fight among themselves too. Still, if you follow protocol, there shouldn’t be major problems. Don’t worry unnecessarily.”
“Yes, understood.”
That statement meant the opposite—worry.
In the military, you learn to interpret everything backwards.
On the road from the airport to the unit.
To the left stretched Lake Tanganyika, vast as an ocean.
To the right lay endless plains.
But they appeared completely neglected.
Weeds grew wild and thick.
Ruined buildings and half-finished structures dotted the landscape.
It was far more desolate than I’d imagined.
The roads were poorly maintained, as was everything else.
I thought things might improve once we entered Uvira,
but I was decisively wrong.
Upon entering Uvira,
the roads became unpaved,
and the surrounding landscape looked even more barren.
If not for the occasional person, I could have believed it was an abandoned city.
.
.
.
After passing three heavy-looking barricades,
we could enter the unit compound.
Upon arrival, we immediately reported to Colonel Son Tae-sik, the unit commander.
“Sir, reporting. Captain Song Gyu-tae and eleven others have received orders for transfer to the Congo Protection Unit. We report our arrival.”
“Welcome. You’ve had a long journey. Rest today, then take about a week for orientation, and after that we’ll deploy you to operations.”
“Yes, sir.”
Now the deployed unit came into view.
Shipping containers served as barracks.
Containers were arranged in rows with roofing stretched between them.
It appeared to have been constructed that way to shield against sunlight and rain.
As I stepped into the container, cool air conditioning swept over me.
Now I felt like I could actually live.
Six of us would be living in this container.
I couldn’t say it was enormously spacious,
but it seemed comfortable enough for daily life.
.
.
.
After a week of adaptation,
I went out on my first operation.
The operation, if you could call it that, was nothing special—
more like a patrol.
We stood guard at the passages the rebels frequently traveled.
If they appeared, we’d turn them back.
We were absolutely forbidden from initiating an attack.
We maintained a purely defensive posture.
We weren’t here to exterminate the rebels.
Our mission was to ensure the citizens of Uvira could live safely.
That was our duty.
Setting out on patrol,
the roads were entirely unpaved and filled with garbage.
A country where dumping trash on the streets posed no problem whatsoever.
The conditions were far worse than I’d imagined.
I’d thought I’d lived as a beggar,
but seeing this place, I realized I’d lived like a king.
I was humbled.
Here, anyone who saw a foreigner demanded money.
Why?
There was no reason.
They simply demanded money.
Adults and children alike—everyone just demanded money.
But none of us reached into our pockets.
We’d been instructed beforehand.
Never to give money.
Our driver had emphasized it multiple times today.
“You must never give money. If you do, that child is more likely to face harassment.”
When a child receives money,
those around them often beat that child to steal it away.
So refusing to give money was the best approach, he’d said.
Fortunately, the money had solidified—we’d secured our funding.
We had arrived at our destination.
We slowly drove around the perimeter of Lake Tanganyika.
Lake Tanganyika is the second-largest lake in the world.
Though calling it a lake hardly does it justice.
Its size is nearly that of a sea.
With a maximum depth of 1,470 meters, it is extraordinarily deep.
This lake is frequently used for human trafficking and illegal border crossings.
That’s why the Congo Protection Unit guards this place.
We moved in an armored vehicle.
UN armored vehicles are white.
The helmets were a blue that bordered on sky blue.
Apparently, it’s designed to be visible from a distance.
I was assigned to operate the machine gun mounted on the roof.
I leaned halfway out through the sunroof-like opening and gripped the machine gun.
I scanned the surroundings vigilantly.
The driver, acting like a tour guide, continuously shared information about the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The Democratic Republic of Congo is truly impoverished. A monthly salary is only about 150,000 won, or so.”
“I saw on the news that most people live on less than two dollars a day.”
“Since they can’t manufacture goods, they depend almost entirely on imports, which makes prices incredibly expensive.”
“In fact, some items cost more here than they do in Korea.”
“If you build a brick house and live in it, you’d be incredibly wealthy. But even that takes time because bricks are so expensive they can’t complete it all at once. The Democratic Republic of Congo way is to buy a few bricks with each paycheck and gradually finish it.”
“Usually, people live in houses made of corrugated metal sheets. They’re literally just enclosed with metal panels, nothing more.”
As I listened to the driver’s explanations while conducting patrol,
I became a bit confused about whether I’d come on a tour of the Democratic Republic of Congo or on an actual operation,
but the information seemed useful, so I was satisfied.
I thought the first day would pass without incident,
when I detected something unusual in my field of vision.
I caught sight of several people suddenly disappearing into the brush connected to the river.
It happened so fast I wondered if I’d misread it,
and when I looked again, I couldn’t see anyone, so I could have simply let it pass,
but something about it felt off.
I transmitted a radio message.
“Team leader, I think I spotted unidentified personnel hiding in the brush at ten o’clock. Could you confirm?”
“Really? I didn’t see anything.”
“Neither did I, come to think of it.”
“Let’s stop and check it out.”
We stopped the vehicle and the team members dismounted.
I got out with them.
Our twelve-person team was divided into Team One and Team Two.
Since we couldn’t fit twelve people in an armored vehicle, dividing into two teams was inevitable.
I was assigned to Team 1 along with the team leader.
We passed through a corroded, dilapidated metal shack and immediately encountered dense vegetation.
Being tropical rainforest, the undergrowth had grown to at least a meter high.
Beyond that vegetation, Lake Tanganyika stretched out vast and wide.
That’s genuinely a sea.
We spread out in search formation,
and searched for a hidden person among the vegetation.
But no one was visible,
and I wondered if I’d misread something.
It really seemed like a person.
Just as I was about to radio in an apology and say I must have been mistaken, a whistling sound reached my ears.
And moments later.
Bang!
Gunfire erupted.
The instant the gunfire rang out, we immediately hit the ground and returned fire at once.
“Damn it, what is this on the first day? Is this really the Democratic Republic of Congo?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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