A Space Marine Got a Status Window

Kim Seojun had entered Mog incubators three times during his years of active service.

One of those times had been by accident.

He had entered a cave while trying to survive and, by the time he realized it, it turned out to be an incubator.

The other two times had been during rescue operations.

A transport ship carrying someone of high rank had crashed inside an incubator, so they had been forced to enter to carry out the rescue.

That was when Kim Seojun realized something.

‘For the Mog, an incubator is like a barracks. It’s safer than it looks.’

In the same way that even the most extraordinary soldiers seemed to have several screws loose when they were inside their own barracks, the Mog also showed far less tension and vigilance than expected when they were inside an incubator.

‘As long as nothing goes wrong.’

As long as they didn’t cause an unnecessary commotion, entering and leaving an incubator was much easier than it seemed.

‘But something always goes wrong.’

However, during both rescue operations, Kim Seojun had encountered problems on both occasions.

‘Because of the people being rescued.’

And the cause of those problems had been precisely the people they were supposed to rescue.

Naturally, that was understandable.

Most people who needed to be rescued were in an extremely unstable mental state.

And what happened when they discovered that they were in the middle of an incubator?

The best outcome would be for them to lose consciousness, but normally, instead of fainting, they started screaming.

And in that state, they thrashed around like someone drowning, perfectly turning themselves into dead weight.

And naturally, they couldn’t abandon the person they had gone there to rescue either.

After going through such hell to rescue them, were they supposed to leave them behind?

‘It doesn’t matter what kind of escape plan I prepare. In the end, it’ll be useless.’

In any case, Kim Seojun had learned a lesson from those experiences.

‘So you just have to run out at full speed.’

And this time, he was more than willing to put that lesson into practice.

Whirrrrr!

As soon as he exited the building, he took out the Wulong and started it.

Then he secured Jennifer Jo behind him and began speeding through the incubator.

In many ways, it was truly insane.

For starters, the incubator was filled with all kinds of eggs.

Although a hover bike could travel at a certain height above the ground, among the eggs in the incubator were many that were gigantic in size.

Furthermore, even though they weren’t as alert as usual, the incubator was filled with Mogdogs, Thorn Snakes, and other Mog.

Among them, there was also a high probability that special individuals were present.

Traveling through that place at tremendous speed while avoiding all those obstacles was impossible with normal reflexes and Dynamic Vision.

That was precisely why Kim Seojun had decided to bet on it.

‘I can do it now.’

Of course, for Jennifer Jo, it was different.

As soon as the Wulong began accelerating, she literally felt as though she was going to lose her mind.

“Uuuuuuuugh!”

In that situation, the best thing she could do was desperately suppress any scream.

Meanwhile, she tightly closed her eyes and prayed.

‘Save me, save me, save me.’

Without stopping.

Jennifer Jo repeated that prayer countless times.

And that was where her memories ended.

Whirrrrr!

The Wulong’s tremendous acceleration exerted physical pressure on her body from the gravitational forces.

Screeeeeech!

And the terrifying shrieks of the Mog echoing from every direction exerted equally intense mental pressure.

“Mmmmmph!”

Added to that were all the exhaustion and stress that had accumulated during the time she had remained alone inside the bunker.

Finally, Jennifer Jo’s ability to think shut down.

All strength left her body.

And upon realizing it, Kim Seojun was relieved.

‘She finally passed out.’

Now he wouldn’t have to worry about any unexpected variables.

He only had to keep moving forward.

And so, Kim Seojun managed to escape the incubator and continued speeding forward without stopping.

Screeeeeech!

The Mogdogs frantically chased after him, trying to catch him.

Until, at a certain point, Kim Seojun stopped.

“Private First Class Park Boseop!”

“Here, sir!”

At that location, he met Park Boseop, who had remained hidden while waiting.

Kim Seojun immediately spoke.

“I rescued Jennifer Jo. Take her to Point B!”

Upon hearing that, Park Boseop didn’t ask what Sergeant Kim Seojun intended to do.

He already knew.

He had already been told how the operation would proceed at that point.

“Just as we planned, I’ll take care of the Mog chasing us.”

“Yes, sir!”

As soon as he heard those words, Park Boseop carried Jennifer Jo on his back and got onto the Wulong.

After giving Kim Seojun a military salute, he began speeding away once again.

Meanwhile, Kim Seojun turned around.

In the distance, he could see the Mogdogs running toward him.

Naturally, no matter how fast the Mogdogs were, it was impossible for them to catch the Wulong.

Despite that, Kim Seojun had stopped for a simple reason.

The Wulong couldn’t maintain its maximum speed for too long.

And the Mog were extremely persistent.

Above all, Kim Seojun knew.

‘Once you’ve entered an incubator, they’ll chase you to the death.’

He knew perfectly well what it meant to have caused such chaos inside a Mog incubator.

That was why Kim Seojun had to cause as much commotion as possible there to make the Mog completely lose interest in the Wulong.

And he wasn’t too worried about that.

‘I did exactly the same thing during my active service.’

After all, that was the kind of thing Space Marines did.

In fact, his current situation was much better than during his years of active service.

That was why Kim Seojun aimed at the approaching Mog without hesitation.

Click!

At that instant, the Status Window spoke.

[You have initiated combat inside an incubator.]

[An event mission has appeared.]

[Points obtained during this combat will be multiplied by 3.]

When Jennifer Jo opened her eyes, the first thing that greeted her was an unfamiliar ceiling.

Looking at it, she remained motionless for a few moments, simply blinking.

Shortly afterward, she smiled.

‘Even my dreams are shit.’

“Phew.”

Thinking that everything she had just experienced had been a dream, she let out a sigh of relief and closed her eyes again.

As she settled back beneath the blanket, the corners of her lips trembled with an incredulous smile.

‘It really isn’t funny at all.’

It was inevitable that she would think that way.

‘I get trapped in a bunker, suddenly one man appears to rescue me, and then he pulls a Wulong out of an invisible space? It’s so absurd I don’t even know what to say.’

Everything she had seen, from beginning to end, had been filled with completely absurd things.

None of it could be explained by the laws of the universe.

Accepting it as reality would be equivalent to destroying all the theories Jennifer Jo had built up until that point.

‘I really must have been too stressed lately. I haven’t had such an absurd dream since the day I first met my grandfather. Ah, that really was horrible. He gave me a problem, and when I couldn’t solve it, he started humiliating me in every possible way…….’

It was then.

Suddenly, Jennifer Jo felt all her thoughts come to a halt.

At the same time, she felt all the blood in her body run cold.

She could no longer go back to sleep.

She became completely lucid and abruptly sat up.

Then she turned her head to look around.

And she saw it.

A person who appeared to be a medical officer was staring intently at her.

“U-Uh…… you’re awake?”

Shortly afterward, the medical officer, who had been watching Jennifer Jo closely so he could speak to her as soon as she woke up, carefully explained.

“This is the Polish headquarters. We rescued you in response to your request.”

He informed her that she had been rescued, and as soon as she heard those words, one person immediately appeared in Jennifer Jo’s mind.

“W-Where is he?”

“I’m Sergeant Kim Seojun.”

As soon as he heard that Jennifer Jo had awakened, Kim Seojun immediately went to see her and introduced himself.

Jennifer Jo nodded and spoke.

“Th-Thank you for saving me.”

After receiving her thanks, Kim Seojun immediately looked at the medical officer in charge of the infirmary.

“Could you leave us alone for a moment? I have something to discuss with her.”

The medical officer immediately nodded and left.

Once Jennifer Jo was alone with Kim Seojun, her eyes quickly swept over his body.

Kim Seojun spoke.

“We took considerable risks to rescue you.”

“What? Ah, thank you.”

Jennifer Jo expressed her gratitude again.

And she sincerely meant it.

“This debt…… truly, even if it takes me my entire life, I’ll repay you. I’ll repay you in any way I can.”

If it hadn’t been for Kim Seojun, she would have suffocated to death inside the bunker.

Kim Seojun spoke.

“Please keep everything you saw and heard during the rescue a secret.”

“What?”

“Everything I showed you is classified information.”

As soon as she heard that, Jennifer Jo’s gaze wavered.

Then she understood.

Kim Seojun hadn’t gone to see her to demand a reward for saving her or to tell her that he was glad she had survived.

He had come to warn her.

And also to threaten her.

Just as she had imagined.

During Jennifer Jo’s rescue, Kim Seojun hadn’t tried to hide his abilities.

If he had hidden them, he wouldn’t have been able to save her.

But that didn’t mean he had the slightest intention of revealing his abilities to everyone either.

Someday, they would eventually discover them, but he had no reason to deliberately hasten that moment.

And Kim Seojun was fairly certain of one thing.

“U-Understood. I’ll never say anything. Even if my grandfather asks me, I’ll keep my mouth completely shut.”

Jennifer Jo would probably be quite good at keeping the secret.

Naturally, it wasn’t because she was a beauty capable of making anyone lose their mind just by looking at her.

“Thank you.”

Nor was it because Kim Seojun possessed any special information about her.

“And I have another request.”

There was only one reason.

“Even as they were dying, the American Space Marines wrote the location of the bunker you were in on several walls in the corridors of the American headquarters.”

The dead Space Marines had personally proven it to him.

“Please thank them as well.”

She possessed enough value that they had been willing to give their lives for her.

“What?”

“I have photographs here.”

To Jennifer Jo, who was surprised by that revelation, Kim Seojun showed the photographs he had taken during the rescue operation and later printed.

“Jefferson, Uncle Carlton……!”

As soon as she saw them, Jennifer Jo began to cry as she looked at the mangled corpses of the Space Marines in the photographs and called out their names one by one.

“Thank you…… Thank you…… Truly, thank you.”

Seeing her thank them over and over again, Kim Seojun inwardly let out a sigh of relief.

Only then could he finally release the tension he had maintained until that moment.

In truth, when he had met up with Park Boseop and seen Jennifer Jo unconscious, Kim Seojun had been worried.

‘I was worried she might have lost her mind…….’

He was worried that she had suddenly gone insane.

And that wasn’t an exaggerated concern.

Jennifer Jo had lived a difficult life and intense days in her own way, but from Kim Seojun’s perspective, she was still a flower raised in a greenhouse.

She was a woman who had spent her entire life taking the thought, ‘Am I really going to die?’ for granted.

The experiences she had just gone through had been too shocking.

And there were many people incapable of maintaining their sanity in the face of such a shock.

Even Space Marines, who often said that life could end at any moment, frequently lost their minds when tragedies happened one after another.

That was space.

And if Jennifer Jo lost her mind, it would be an extremely serious problem.

If a Space Marine lost their mind, it was enough to give them a medical discharge and assign another Space Marine in their place.

But at that moment, there was practically no one there capable of replacing Jennifer Jo.

‘What a relief.’

However, that concern had turned out to be unnecessary.

It was then.

Knock, knock!

Suddenly, someone knocked on the infirmary door, and Kim Seojun turned his head.

“Come in.”

“Sergeant Kim!”

As soon as he saw Park Boseop enter, Kim Seojun sensed that another concern had just arisen.

“What is it?”

“It’s about the Wulong.”

Just as he expected.

“We have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Right now, it won’t even start. It looks like something broke…… The Polish mechanics don’t even know where to begin.”

As soon as he heard that, Kim Seojun felt a twinge in his temples.

In truth, it was something he had already expected to some extent.

For starters, hover bikes weren’t particularly durable vehicles.

To achieve speed, weight reduction had been taken to the extreme, and durability was sacrificed in exchange.

Furthermore, the Wulong was an extremely specialized vehicle.

It was a hover bike focused exclusively on performance over durability.

After using it so brutally without performing proper maintenance, it was only natural that it would eventually break down.

The inevitable moment had simply arrived.

“I suppose I should be grateful it didn’t break down during the rescue operation.”

In fact, he could consider himself lucky that the problem had only appeared after returning to the Polish headquarters.

Even so, Kim Seojun couldn’t help feeling frustrated.

They had no other means of transportation capable of replacing the Wulong’s mobility.

Kim Seojun frowned at that fact.

“Uh……”

At that moment, Jennifer Jo, who had been listening to the conversation, spoke.

“The Wulong…… you mean that Chinese hover bike, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Uh…… could I take a look at it?”

At those words, Kim Seojun’s and Park Boseop’s expressions changed.

Their faces seemed to be asking what she intended to do with it.

Jennifer Jo responded to those expressions.

“My specialty is mechanical engineering. What I do here is develop weapons and test new armaments. Didn’t you know? Ah, right.”

At that instant, she seemed to remember something.

“That was classified information.”

Kim Seojun immediately understood.

He understood why the Space Marines valued her so highly.

For Space Marines fighting on the battlefield, someone capable of making their weapons more powerful was practically a God.

He also understood why the American government kept her hidden.

No one would want others to know that one of the greatest experts in weapons development was on their planet.

Naturally, Kim Seojun didn’t need to think about it for long.

He asked.

“Can you repair the Wulong?”

“That’s nothing.”

Jennifer Jo answered as though she found the question ridiculous.

“Several of the technologies used in the Wulong are technologies I developed.”

“What? What do you mean by that?”

This time, it was Park Boseop who asked in surprise.

Jennifer Jo smiled.

“It uses quite a few technologies I developed.”

“But…… then why are technologies developed by the United States in a Chinese Wulong……?”

“Do you really find it that strange and surprising that China uses classified technology from other countries?”

“Ah.”

As soon as they heard that explanation, both Park Boseop and Kim Seojun immediately understood.

And at the same time, a new expectation arose.

The expectation that Jennifer Jo could repair the Wulong.

“Let’s go right now. I’ll repair it for you immediately. What a relief! It looks like I’ll at least be able to earn my keep while I’m here.”

Jennifer Jo even showed tremendous determination.

And Kim Seojun had no intention of unnecessarily discouraging her.

“I appreciate it.”

‘One less concern.’

It was then.

Knock, knock!

Someone knocked on the infirmary door again.

Kim Seojun spoke.

“Come in.”

“Sergeant Kim.”

Then Major Lee Hyena entered.

As soon as he saw her, Kim Seojun realized that an even bigger problem had arisen.

“The Japanese headquarters has contacted us.”

“A rescue request?”

“It’s worse.”

And that prediction soon became reality.

“A Ghost Bat has appeared.”

“……This is insane.”