Codename Vestia

Chapter 30

The earth-shaking warning soon ceased.

「Marti has become quite proactive.」

Tora muttered to himself in satisfaction.

“What?”

Captain Tao, who had been startled by the sudden alarm while escorting him to his room, asked.

“Nothing.”

Tora glanced around the room that Captain Tao had just introduced. He offered a brief and pointed evaluation.

“It looks like a chicken coop.”

Thud…

At that moment, the sound of someone approaching made Tora turn around. A woman entered from outside the door. She had short-cropped black hair, dispassionate black eyes, and a military uniform that looked rigid enough to resemble armor.

“This is Lieutenant Summer Jain.”

Captain Tao introduced the woman. Jain gave a silent nod with an expressionless face.

“Nice to meet you.”

The bright surname ‘Summer’ seemed completely out of place for someone with such an emotionless gaze and blank expression.

Captain Tao continued.

“While you’re here, Lieutenant Jain will assist you.”

More accurately, she would monitor him. Tora realized this immediately. Since his intentions were still unclear, they intended to watch him closely by assigning someone to keep an eye on him.

It was understandable, but they had chosen the wrong person for the role of observer.

Tora flashed a charming smile.

“You’re beautiful.”

Although she wore no makeup and had short hair resembling a man’s, her beauty was not concealed. Furthermore, her mixed Asian features perfectly matched Tora’s taste.

After all, men instinctively tend to be drawn to women who remind them of their mothers.

Captain Tao flinched. He knew all too well how much Jain disliked comments about her appearance. However, Jain didn’t break her stoic expression as she replied.

“I’d appreciate it if you refrained from commenting on my appearance.”

Tora, genuinely puzzled, asked,

“Why? I’m just saying that something beautiful is beautiful.”

“It’s inappropriate to comment on a soldier’s appearance,” Jain stated firmly.

Captain Tao was taken aback. He had never seen Jain go to such lengths to explain herself to anyone. Perhaps it was because Tora was an unusual case—someone evidently lacking common knowledge about civilized society—that she chose to explain herself before drawing her weapon.

Tora folded his arms and asked with an intrigued tone,

“A soldier isn’t a woman?”

Jain’s face grew even more expressionless.

“I’d prefer not to be regarded as one.”

“How can you not see a woman as a woman? Especially someone as beautiful as you.”

At this, Captain Tao was visibly dismayed.

“Lieutenant Jain…”

He was about to intervene, but Jain stood her ground and said,

“I have no intention of being rude to a guest.”

Tora had encountered women who feigned disinterest out of pride, but none had genuinely rejected him before.

Tora extended his hand.

“A handshake?”

Jain simply stared at the outstretched hand without moving. Tora smiled brightly.

“As a gesture of goodwill.”

Jain didn’t move, and it seemed she had no intention of doing so. Yet Tora kept his hand extended, long past the point where others might have awkwardly withdrawn. Finally, Jain unclasped her hands from behind her back and shook his hand.

Tora gripped her hand firmly. The muscle above one of Jain’s eyebrows twitched ever so slightly. It was subtle—something even Luas might have missed—but Tora noticed.

‘Of course.’

Thinking this, he released her hand and remarked,

“Your hands are small.”

Jain was tall, and her hands weren’t particularly small for a woman—in fact, they were relatively large. But compared to Tora’s, they were indeed smaller, so he wasn’t wrong.

He also knew that women often found such comments subtly flattering.

However, Jain coolly replied,

“They work perfectly fine for pulling a trigger.”

Tora chuckled and said, “Oh my,” with a faint smile.

* * *

Captain Tao and Jain walked down the hallway. Jain, who had been silent for some time, suddenly asked,

“If I request a reassignment, will it actually happen?”

“No.”

Jain stopped walking and looked at Captain Tao, her face slightly furrowed. Tao turned back with an expression that seemed to ask, ‘What?’ and defended himself,

“You weren’t expecting a yes, were you?”

Jain sighed.

“I’ve never been assigned to a mission as unpleasant as this one.”

When she first entered the room and saw Tora looking at her silently, she finally understood what it meant to be at a loss for words.

She had heard he was born to a white father and a Satadi tribal mother.

Unlike more common interracial combinations like white, black, or Asian pairings, his heritage was so unique she had never encountered it before. For a moment, the unfamiliarity felt almost surreal, but it carried an equally rare and overwhelming beauty.

It was as if the familiar features inherited from his white father mixed with an exotic majesty from his tribal lineage, creating the impression of a masterpiece crafted by an avant-garde artist with visionary insight into a new artistic movement.

Moreover, this Gauguin-like muse possessed the icy, otherworldly beauty characteristic of vampires, as if God had been showing off, saying, “Could I make someone more uniquely beautiful than this?”

“You’re exceptionally capable, which is why you were assigned this task,” Captain Tao said in a placating tone.

“That’s not particularly comforting.”

Her tone was skeptical.

“I wasn’t trying to comfort you. It’s just that the mission is important enough to require someone as skilled as you.”

Then Captain Tao glanced back down the hallway they had just walked through.

“Don’t take your eyes off him for a moment. There’s still too much we can’t trust.”

The next morning, Jain stood before the door to the room where Tora was staying. Somehow, this situation felt deeply unsettling.

Swallowing a sigh, she pressed the bell, and the door opened.

“Breakfast is…”

As she stepped inside mid-sentence, Jain’s eyes widened before she could stop herself.

“You’re here?”

Tora emerged from the bathroom—completely naked, without a single thread of clothing.

Apart from the tattoo stretching from his arms to his back, water droplets trickled down his clean, bronzed skin.

“It’s hard to keep track of time here,” Tora said, standing there nonchalantly as if unaware of his current state, towel-drying his hair.

Jain suppressed her voice as best as she could.

“Could you… put on some clothes?”

“Ah, civilized people sure are sensitive about nudity. I’ve been off the island for a while, so I forgot. It’s strange how people fuss over something everyone has.”

With that, Tora walked past Jain as if the situation were perfectly normal.

Jain’s insides simmered with heat, but she swallowed it down with effort.

If it had been another man, she would have already shot him by now. But she couldn’t just kill her surveillance target. On top of that, if word got out that she shot a member of a primitive tribe for being casually naked, it would make her look like an intolerant redneck incapable of embracing cultural differences.

‘He’s not someone from this cultural sphere.’

Jain barely managed to rein herself in by rationalizing this thought.

Still, it wasn’t something she could just accept. After all, Tora seemed to know quite a bit about what he referred to as the “civilized world” beyond the island.

“Are you familiar with the term sexual harassment?”

Jain asked without turning around. She could hear the sound of rustling, presumably as Tora searched for clothes. Amidst the noise, Tora replied.

“Didn’t you say I wasn’t a woman?”

“Sexual harassment is recognized between same genders as well.”

Tora glanced back at Jain, who was stubbornly staring straight ahead, and looked her up and down.

“You don’t look like a man to me.”

“…Would you just put on some clothes?”

Jain gave up trying to reason. She had already sensed since yesterday that Tora wasn’t someone she could easily converse with.

The sound of rummaging for clothes grew louder, followed by Tora grumbling.

“None of these clothes suit me.”

Coming from someone who likely spent half his life nearly naked on an island, this was an ironic complaint.

“Quite the fashion connoisseur, aren’t you?”

“Sometimes I step out.”

“Then you must have a fair understanding of this place.”

“That’s right.”

“In that case, when exactly are you going to put on clothes?”
She couldn’t believe she was calmly conversing with a naked man in the same room, but screaming and running out at this point wasn’t an option either.

“I guess I’ll have to go out and buy new clothes.”

Tora said, and the sound of him putting on pants followed. Glancing over, she saw him pulling down a T-shirt this time. The intricate tattoo, as if finely etched with a thin brush, vanished beneath the shirt over his inhumanly well-developed back.

She couldn’t help but admit that the tattoo was beautiful.

Realizing where her thoughts had wandered, Jain shook her head and looked away.

* * *

On the screen, Father Elio asked worriedly,

[Are you really safe?]

“I’m safe. As you can see, I’m perfectly fine. The mission just took a bit longer than expected.”

Doyeong replied.

Fortunately, his parents hadn’t yet received news of his disappearance.

Given the unique circumstances of his capture, the higher-ups hadn’t hastily concluded that Doyeong was dead and decided not to notify his family. As a result, Doyeong planned to pass off his prolonged absence as a mission that had simply taken more time.

Telling them that he had drifted to an island and barely made it back alive would only cause unnecessary worry.

But Elio’s frown didn’t relax. It was never easy to fool his father, who had been in the same profession.

[This isn’t some fabricated image, is it?]

Doyeong stifled a laugh and replied,

“Alright. Ask me something only I would know.”

[When we went on vacation to Saint Helena Island, what did Julian complain about?]

“‘If cannibals show up here, I’ll tell them to eat you first.’”

Only then did Elio’s face show relief.

[You really are my son.]

Doyeong chuckled and said,

“I’ve got work to handle, so I can’t leave the base right now.”

[They’re putting you to work right after you’ve been gone for a month and a half?]

“There’s something that needs to be done.”

Unable to elaborate further, Doyeong just smiled. Elio, though displeased, seemed to understand as someone who had once done the same kind of work.

At that moment, Doyeong’s mother, Sarang, couldn’t hold back anymore and chimed in,

[I was always anxious whenever Elio went off to work, but not like this. At least back then, the enemy was human.]

Doyeong had no words to offer in response to that.

“I’ll come home soon.”

[You promise?]

“I promise.”

After ending the call, Doyeong stepped outside, only to find Gamal sitting by the door. As soon as she saw him, she sprang to her feet.

“Leaving?”

Doyeong sighed.

“I told you no.”

Gamal replied with a sullen look.

“I’m coming too.”

“Do you think I’m going on a vacation?”

Doyeong raised his voice without realizing it. But Gamal, unfazed, simply repeated herself with the same stubborn expression.

“I’m coming too.”

Doyeong let out another sigh.

Indeed, the previous night they had disembarked from the ship and arrived at the base. From today, he was set to dive into the backlog of work awaiting him.

And Gamal was adamantly insisting on tagging along.