The Chaser: The Soldier Series Book 4

By Donald Ha

In Korea, there’s a very famous serial novel website, where the book “The Soldier” was first published. Due to the creativity of the author, it became an instant hit with more than 680,000 readers. “The Soldier” is a fantasy novel with the World War II as its background. The story first generated from the question, ‘What if the world of the Wulin actually existed in real life?’ Through the authors imagination, readers are introduced to characters with supernatural powers that start to reveal their abilities when put under extreme situations and are willing to cast their lives to defend what they ought to protect.

Jackal, the main character, is a former German soldier. He’s a person of misfortune, swept up in war against his will and having to change sides multiple times. Coincidentally, Jackal meets Marie-Louise, a Jewish girl who holds an enormous secret. She holds within her the evil spirit of the Blood Demon, the most powerful martial arts wielder in history. Though the two first meet as enemies, they become allies through their fights together against the enemy. Through the heated battles, Jackal discovers that he possesses a miraculous power he never knew he had, which soon sets him in the crosshairs of the Blood Demon within Marie-Louise.

Will Jackal, who was once called the ‘War Devil’ during the WWII, be able to finally safely flee to Argentina and gain his freedom?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donald Ha
• Release date: Jun 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9788967662288

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The Chaser

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ISBN No. 978-89-6766-228-8

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The Chaser

Chapter 21

Jackal and Marie did not say anything.

They just stood still and glared at Natasha, who had trapped them.

Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to do this either.

Natasha said with a little bit of regret and disappeared with her teleport.

When she reappeared, she was waving her hands sitting on the turret of a tank coming in their direction.

Jackal, what should we do now?

Marie-Louise asked as she looked at Jackal.

…..

They had fallen completely into the trap. Even Jackal couldn’t do anything in this kind of situation.

‘This is an open terrain. The tanks can move at full speed without any hindrance. Even if there were no tanks, it would be impossible to handle that many soldiers, as long as I’m not wearing an armor like that of the Warlord’s.’

Jackal, is there no way out?

Let’s wait and see. They probably need us.

If they had prepared this number of soldiers, there were probably reinforcements that they could not see. They must have prepared thoroughly in case they attempt to escape..

The tanks and the soldiers half-encircled them at 50 meters of distance.

Prepare to fire. Shoot if you see any movements.

The Russian soldiers moved orderly and swiftly. Jackal could see instantly that the soldiers who were surrounding them were seasoned soldiers with plenty of experience on the battlefield.

‘They are not second-class conscripts. They must be soldiers of an elite division designated as guards.’

These soldiers seem well-trained.

It seemed that Marie-Louise had the same opinion about the soldiers.

Clack! Clack!

Countless rifle barrels pointed at Marie and Jackal.

Marie and Jackal silently glared at the barrels pointing at them.

Soon, a black luxury sedan appeared from the line of tanks.

Natasha jumped off the tank and saluted the black sedan.

Colonel, I have brought the two distinguished guests as you have ordered.

The door opened and two people stepped out.

A man and a woman. It was Colonel Rokossowski and his secretary Lieutenant Anastasia.

I’m sorry to have blocked your way.

Rokossowski, wearing a Soviet full-dress uniform, fixed his hat and stood before Jackal and Marie. Lieutenant Anastasia, wearing a full-dress uniform too, stood behind the Colonel.

As Lieutenant Anastasia saw Jackal and Marie, she pulled out her cavalry sword and pointed the sword at the two as she warned threateningly.

Don't even think of making any funny moves.

Jackal heard the sound of airplanes coming from the distance. Soon, four planes appeared above them.

‘IL-2. Sturmovik.’

The fighter-bombers with heavy armor and powerful firepower slowly circled the sky above them.

They were surrounded from the ground as well as the sky. Jackal whispered to Marie.

I think we should do what they say for now.

I agree.

Marie-Louise pulled out a water bottle from her bag, drank from it, and sat on the ground.

But I do feel a little angry.

She picked up a stone and crushed it.

Unlike what she said, she seemed to be quite angry.

Jackal looked at Rokossowski with a bitter smile.

The man, who was commanding the elite soldiers and the war machines right behind him, had quite an intimidating aura.

Colonel, sir.

Jackal spoke. Rokossowski nodded to signal that he was willing to talk.

Jackal said as he walked slowly.

You’ve got such good weapons and capable soldiers. Why do you need us?

I don’t want to start another world war. Mobilizing the army would mean starting an all-out war.

But I have already fought numerous times in your city. I even sprayed mortars just a few days ago. Captain Natasha must know about it.

Jackal, we’re not here to negotiate with you. We’re here to conscript you.

Colonel Rokossowski raised his hand. The soldiers took a step toward Jackal and Marie as they pointed their guns.

Wait, don’t do this. I’ll decide if you tell me how long the service is.

Jackal shouted as he raised his hands in the air.

One year maximum. But if you can drive out the uninvited guests in Berlin earlier, the service can be shortened.

Jackal let out a laugh at Rokossowski’s words.

‘Good. You’ve shown me your intentions.’

Thinking this, Jackal asked the Colonel again.

What’s the reward?

It was a question that Jackal always asked when he took up a job.

Hmm. A reward, how much would suit you?

The Colonel asked back with a smile.

Ten thousand dollars.

Ten thousand dollars. It was an amount that would qualify as middle-class in America, and a millionaire in a third-world country.

Only Jackal and Rokossowski were not surprised by the huge amount. Anastasia kept her cool, but glanced at the Colonel. Natasha stood up and looked at Jackal in surprise.

Good.

Rokossowski answered right away. There was no hesitation in his voice.

It was a big decision that was enough to surprise everyone. Everyone around them thought the same way.

But,

Per head.

Jackal said again.

There was a roar of anger from the Russians.

That’s completely insane.

It was Natasha. Anastasia also glared at Jackal with a murderous look.

Good.

But this time too, the Colonel accepted right away.

That’s a lie.

He’s lying.

Jackal and Marie whispered quietly as they heard the Colonel’s reply.

What should we do?

Marie asked as she stood up and stretched her arms. Judging from the murderous look in her eyes, it looked as if she would kill the whole army.

Obviously.

Jackal walked toward the Colonel with his hands up.

An eye for an eye. We are going to cheat on them too.

As he looked at the planes circling them and the steel beasts roaring, Jackal started to make a new plan in his head.

*

Jackal and Marie were assigned to individual rooms deep inside the Soviet barracks.

Natasha said their rooms were at the opposite wings of the building, so they had to separate here.

Marie-Louise expressed her anxiety.

Don’t you think we’re putting our heads into a lion’s mouth?

The Russians were not to be underestimated. They had established a network of surveillance without Jackal Marie noticing and trapped them as they were about to leave Berlin.

They may not be as powerful as the Wulins, but the exiles were far better at conspiring.

Let’s just wait and see. At least you can escape by yourself any time.

Jackal didn’t like ambiguity.

An attack should not stop until the end. It was not late to stop the offensive and retreat when defeat became obvious.

Even if they had stopped the attack halfway, they would still receive serious damage from the enemy counterattack.

See you in battle.

The two separated and went to their respective rooms.

The one who was guiding Jackal was First Lieutenant Anastasia Lennenkampf, the secretary of Colonel Rokossowski.

She had once guided Jackal to the Colonel’s room and now she was guiding him to his room.

Jackal looked at the cavalry sword she was wearing at her waist.

Here you go.

It was a quite comfortable room. There was a bed and an individual bathroom. It was much better than the room that he had in Berlin.

Anyway, aren’t there any advance payments?

No such thing.

Anastasia replied coldly. She was not the polite secretary that he had seen when he met her for the first time.

‘What is this woman anyway?’

A hostile aura like that of snakes and scorpions was disseminating from Anastasia.

From now on, you’ll be fighting as a second lieutenant of the Soviet Union military.

A second lieutenant?

If you don’t like the rank, we can promote you. But you won’t get beyond the rank of Captain. And one more thing, keep in mind that higher rank means more responsibility and work.

Then why don’t you just make me a recruit?

Anastasia frowned upon hearing this. She raised her hand and her hand was flying right toward Jackal’s face.

‘Should I just take the blow?’

There was no need to let them know that he had trained in Wugong. The exiles probably didn’t know that Jackal had learned Wugong.

They probably thought that he was just a lucky soldier with great combat powers. That was Jackal’s theory.

Thinking that, Jackal clenched his teeth.

Slap!

A clear slap echoed in the room.

Her blow was quite powerful.

It was powerful enough to make his mouth all bloody.

I think you should understand your position. You’re merely a hostage to keep that girl here.

Oh, is that so?

Jackal said as he wiped the blood flowing from his mouth.

If the prophets didn’t ask for it, you’d already be dead.

….

Jackal listened quietly.

‘How did she become a secretary with that temper?’

We’ll get you a uniform soon. I’ll send a soldier soon, so just stay where you are.

Uh, what about the advance payment?

Anastasia just smiled coldly and left the room.

There was silence in the room.

Jackal looked up blankly at the ceiling and looked around the room.

Jackal’s room was on the third floor. There were no iron bars blocking the window. He could jump out anytime, but there were soldiers patrolling the garden below with military canines.

They seemed to be guards who were in charge of the gardens between the buildings.

‘The security is quite tight, but I’ll be able to manage. But there are probably illusionists looking at me from somewhere.’

Jackal recalled the naïve-looking boy during the fight with the Wulins. The incompetent-looking boy surprisingly showed them the battlefield with an illusion that looked like a movie screen.

‘I should have asked him about his capabilities.’

He should have asked the range of the illusion, whether the illusion can also receive sounds, or how long he can keep up the illusion.

He regretted not having asked him when he had the chance.

One thing was sure: that Jackal and Marie were being watched by the illusionist even at this moment.

‘There must be some clue. Peeking secretly without any penalties is not fair.’

Jackal slowly approached the door and turned the knob.

The door did not open. It was locked.

‘Is this locked from the outside? This is a jail!’

Faint images of complex puzzles flashed in Jackal’s head.

Solving complex puzzles should start by deciding where to start. To do this, he needed a good understanding of the situation.

Jackal lay in the bed and waited for time to pass.

He thought that he should know his daily schedule to pull off something.

‘I wish I could go out.’

The soldier who was supposed to give him uniforms did not come.

The orderly brought him his meal, and there was nothing else special. Jackal asked for some drink and the orderly brought him some cheap vodka.

‘I don’t drink this stuff.’

Jackal had a taste for expensive drinks. For Jackal, who used to drink expensive Brandy, vodka was just tasteless alcohol only for getting drunk. 

He smelled it once and put it in a corner.

‘I guess it’ll make a good fire.’

It might come in handy some time.

As he blankly stared at the ceiling, Jackal murmured.

I guess the greatest risk is….

Then Jackal chuckled.

‘Marie-Louise running away without me.’

He prayed that Marie would not run away without him, and Jackal went to sleep early.

Three days passed since he was locked away in the Soviet barracks.

It was quite dull. The exiles didn’t give Jackal anything to do and nobody even looked for him.

It was the first time after the war that he spent his time so meaninglessly.

‘Well, I guess Marie-Louise is okay since the Russians are not looking for me. She’s also very cunning like me, so she won’t do what the Soviets want her to do.’

Then Jackal decided to test the illusionist who may be watching over him.

He had to do it carefully as the Soviet soldiers were not stupid.

‘First, I need to find out whether they are watching me or not.’

Jackal tried to befriend the soldier called Sergey who was guarding his door.

Befriending him was not hard. You just needed money or alcohol to befriend a Russian soldier. Jackal asked the orderly for drinks and gave them to private Sergey.

Umm.. I think my superiors will like it.

Private Sergey was a naïve-looking young soldier. His hometown was near Kiev and he didn’t have a lot of battle experience.

Jackal asked Sergey for books to read. Sergey brought a book from somewhere in the building and handed it to Jackal.

The Decline of the Roman Empire? Book 9?

It’s the only thing I could get.

At least it was a book. Jackal started to read ‘the Decline of the Roman Empire’ all day.

The Decline of the Roman Empire Book 9 talked about the advent of the Islam powers in Arabia until the fall of Constantinople by the Osman Empire.

Jackal wasn’t fond of reading, but he read all day since there was nothing else to do. Then Jackal asked Sergey for a candle and a match.

Why?

I want to read at night too.

You’ve got electric lights.

I prefer the candlelight to the artificial light of the light bulb.

A candle wasn’t so expensive, so Sergey got it for him quickly.

That night, Jackal read through the night with the candlelight on.

Jackal fell asleep on the desk. If anyone saw him, they would think he was a bookworm.

Do you have anything else in the series?

Jackal had completed the Decline of the Roman Empire book 9 and was asking for more. Sergey went to fetch some more books and handed him ‘The Capital’ by Marx.

‘This is no fun.’

Jackal loved money, but he was not good at complicated stuff such as economics. As for economics, the best he could do was to come up with tangible numbers like ten thousand dollars.

On top of that, ‘The Capital’ was a very complex book. Jackal, who hadn’t studied for a long time due to war, found the book too hard to read.

Jackal read until chapter 3 section 3: currency and stopped.

‘Did he really have to bring me this? An interesting novel would have been much better.’

But he had to keep pretending to read. The important thing was not reading itself, but looking like he was reading.

Jackal continued reading under the candlelight just like yesterday. He was perplexed by the complex arrangement of text, but he couldn’t stop.

His long hard work would finally be paying off soon.

Before he started, he took a glass of vodka he received from the orderly and dipped the candle in the glass.

The surface caught fire. The vodka was flammable.

‘There are inflammable vodkas too.’

But luckily, this one was the flammable one that Jackal was looking for.

As he confirmed this fact, he thought about his next move.

Jackal pretended to accidentally spill the vodka on the curtain flapping beside the desk. He also rubbed the curtain so that the vodka would smear evenly through the curtain.

When Jackal finished the prelude, he put the candle where the curtain could reach it and kept on reading.

The plan was the same as the one he pulled off when he was rescuing the German scientist, but there was one big difference: Jackal, the arsonist, had to stay on the site.

‘Let’s see what they do if it catches fire.’

Jackal pretended to read and waited for the curtain to catch fire.

Then, there was a problem. 

…!!

He was actually falling asleep. He was used to sleeping early these days, and on top of that, he was reading a difficult book. His eyelids closed.

‘If I fall asleep now… I might die! For real!’

Jackal bit his lips and countered the oncoming sleepiness as he recited the Heart Sutra that he had learned from an old monk before.

It was not long after.

Crackle!

The curtain finally caught fire. Jackal glimpsed at the fire and pretended that he was asleep on the desk.

The weak fire started to spread rapidly through the curtain.

‘Now, what are you going to do?’

Jackal pretended to notice the fire and stood still as he pretended to look at the fire with his mouth open in awe.

Bam!

At that moment, the door slammed open, a man came in hurriedly and put the fire out with an extinguisher. Jackal looked at the man and smiled as he saw his face.

‘So this is the guy.’

It was none other than Sergey.

Lieutenant Jackal, are you all right?

I’m okay, thanks to you.

You could have killed yourself. I think you should stop reading at night, and get rid of the candle too.

Sergey firmly advised Jackal. Jackal put his head down and expressed his regret.

Anyway, you saved my life. Was my scream that loud?

It was loud enough to echo through the corridor.

Jackal’s eye beamed as he heard this.

‘I never let out a scream like a girl. I just pretended. Then, this guy must be the illusionist.’

He slowly understood the range of the capability.

He found out two things. One was that an illusionist could locate the person only if he was relatively close. He already guessed this when he first saw an illusionist.

The second thing was the important one. The illusion only carried the image, and not the sound.

This fact was quite important.

‘The illusion cannot carry sounds. This may be useful.’

To be sure, Jackal roamed around the room as he cursed Sergey’s mother relentlessly. He didn’t swear much, but as he had met a lot of rough men in the battlefield, he knew a lot of offensive swears.

Jackal knew swears that would offend and embarrass even the wisest person. He just didn’t use them because he considered himself an intelligent man.

After he talked badly of Sergey in the room, Jackal waited for him.