Chapter 5: Labyrinth (Pak)
A diagram of the underground passageways leading to the Guild was displayed onto the projector screen. The Tunnels, as Fujimaki called it, was a labyrinth of underground passageways divided into twenty-one levels. All of them involved some sort of a trap or safety system, which, for confidentiality reasons, were not labelled. The headquarters was supposedly located more than 300 meters below the ground—far deeper than most subway systems and bunkers. Descending into the Guild is like descending from the top of the Eiffel Tower. The idea of carrying crates of ammunition all the way back up was not exactly pleasant either.
I had already memorized the name of the passageways, but there were a large number of hidden traps which were not listed. The passageways were littered with mines and booby traps that seemed to be the product of a five-year-old's twisted imagination. But there were some highly advanced traps too. Hinata told me about a chamber in which lasers are used to cut apart the occupants. Lasers were completely alien to me. I knew that optical amplification could be achieved through the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. Albert Einstein established the theoretical foundations in 1917, but no one had managed to construct such a device by 1944. I really wanted to see one in action.
Yurippe had given me a new set of clothes—the standard SSS uniform. It was a comfortable uniform, but it looked more appropriate for boardroom meetings than for entering combat. There were lots of pockets though. I placed my Walther P38 into one of the pockets, securing it with a Velcro strap (another useful invention).
Even though enemy contact was not expected, the SSS members were still armed to the teeth. They carried a hodgepodge of different assault rifles and submachine guns. The only firearms I recognized were TK's Browning Hi-Power pistol and Fujimaki's PPsh-41 Fujimaki submachine gun. Those PPsh-41 submachine guns inflicted huge causalities on Germany infantry forces on the Eastern Front. It was capable of spewing out over a thousand rounds a minute, and the drum magazine he used held 71 rounds. It was a devastating weapon at close range; nothing else came close. And seventy years after its introduction, the PPsh-41 was still being used by humans in a rebellion against humanoid machines. Gerogi Shpagin must be proud of his work.
Most of the other members used more modern automatic weapons. The basic shape of the gun still hadn't changed much. It was still a tube connected to a magazine, a sight, and a trigger. But the materials with which guns were made had changed drastically. Most guns used during World War II were made of stamped iron and wood, but the more modern firearms often contained plastic and a new material called carbon fiber. This made the firearms very light and resistant to corrosion. The bullets the guns fired, though, much to my chagrin, were not guided. People were still shooting each other with the same lead bullets people used more than a century ago. Some things never change.
Oyama entered the room with two boxes of grenades. One box contained Italian Model 35 hand grenades, colored green instead of orange. The other box carried German Model 24 Stielhandgranates; the infantry called them stick grenades. I took one of each grenade. I was a little nervous about the stick grenade. I had heard stories of soldiers accidentally blowing up along with their own squads when the cord of the grenade got caught on shrubs or branches. There was vapid joke circulating among members of the Wehrmacht: "Exposed pull cords could snag when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit."
I felt a little out of place among the nine-member squad. Most were armed with an automatic weapon, a sidearm, and a melee weapon. My only firearm was a humble pistol designed in 1938, and I had no melee weapon. But I felt slightly better when I compared myself to Noda and Shina, who did not carry firearms at all. Shina was still standing on the dark corner of the room, remaining silent. Her only weapons were a katana and shurikens. Noda was standing by the window, busy spinning his halberd outside. He could spin the weapon as if it were only a pencil. I made a mental note to never get on his bad side.
In the meantime, Yurippe was speaking to the Guild on the telephone: "Yes. We will need a crate of .50 BMG cartridges as well. Yes… We are heading out now. Deactivate all the traps… Good. Goodbye." She hung up the phone and got up from her chair. She looked at the clock; it was time.
We filed out of the Principal's Office in an amorphous blob. No one seemed to care about formations and marching in step. No one showed any signs of trepidation or nervousness either. Everyone was calm and laid back, as if we were going to a theater or a stroll in the park. None of the NPCs seemed to notice our weapons. Out of morbid curiosity, I pointed my pistol at random groups of NPC students. Some of them gave me odd looks, but most just continued on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Maybe they were already jaded by the SSS's constant antics.
The entrance to the Tunnels was located in the school auditorium. I was surprised by how simple the disguise was. TK and Matsushita pulled out a cart full of chairs form under the stage, and we had to crawl under the stage to the entrance. The door was guarded by a simple lock. Yurippe unlocked door and was the first to enter the tunnels. I was the second.
The beginning of the Tunnels was slightly more comfortable than the inside of the Wenceslas Mine, but not by much. (A/N: Please read the Jargon Dictionary for this. It's important to the story.) A few rows of lights on the top of the tunnel gave off dim illumination, but most of the support beams were still wooden. Rotting wooden planks covered the ground. The air was hot and humid and reeked of sulfur.
The conditions inside the Tunnels varied drastically. For some sections, the walls were covered by plaster and columns of fluorescent lights provided adequate lighting. The section before the laser room even had an elevator. Other sections, like pathway along the river, however, had no lighting at all. We had to navigate by listening to the sound of the stream.
"Oh no! I forgot," Oyama warned, "This trap cannot be disabled. This is the trap where morons get careless and slip and fall into the river.
Noda began to complain, "Don't forget important de—" before slipping and falling into the river. The blade of his halberd snagged his jacket, and he was dragged down to the bottom of the stream.
There was a collective moan and the sound of palms hitting foreheads: "Noda… you moron…" The word "moron" seemed to echo in the tunnels for an eternity.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. No one else died.
The Tunnels ended in a pair of gigantic steel doors that somehow reminded me of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. We had to physically push the doors open. I could hardly believe what I saw afterwards.
The Guild was not just a simple workshop or factory. It was literally an underground city. I had never seen anything like it before. The cavern was a roughly circular dome, about half a mile in diameter. There was a central spire in the middle of the dome, holding up the ceiling. An array of floodlights illuminated the Guild in a yellowish hue. The ground was filled with cranes, smokestacks, factories, workshops, and cooling towers. I had seen underground aircraft factories in Germany during the war, but they were not even close to the size of the Guild. I was once dispatched to Mittelwerk to inspect the production of the jets and missiles. Mittelwerk housed 2500 workers in just over 22 acres. The Guild was over five times its size.
Yuri led me down the slope to the floor of the Guild. There were workers everywhere, hauling carts and operating machinery. A small crowd was waiting for us at the bottom. A man with a beard and goggles approached me and gave me a bone-crushing handshake.
"I'm Chaa," the man introduced in a deep voice, "I'm the head of the Guild. We're always glad to get new recruits, especially engineers like you."
"My name is Ralf Jin Pak," my voice still sounded grainy from the injury, "Honored to be a member of this wonderful team. I see that you have a lot of advanced machinery."
The man chucked slightly, "Very observant. Hopefully, all those designs you learned in Germany will be of great use to us. You do remember them?"
"Right down to the number of number of rivets," I replied with a smile. "I also worked on armored cars, tanks, artillery and rockets."
"Excellent. We'd all love to see the looks on Angel's face as she is crushed underneath the tracks of a tank."
"I'd love to see that as well. The great battle of the machines. Our tanks versus the android known as Angel."
Chaa gave me a pat on the back. "Excellent. We're always happy to have go-getters like you on our team. Guild, let's give Pak a warm round of applause!" The sound of applause resonated throughout the cavern. There must have been one hundred people in the Guild, judging from the volume.
"Yim," Chaa called out, "Show Pak around the factory. Make sure to show him the machine room." Yim is a common Korean name, but the girl who greeted me was not. She was a short girl, about the same height as Angel. She had tan skin and a huge smile on her face. Even though she was wearing dirty overalls and goggles, it was easy to make out her attractive features. She had bright brown eyes and wore her hair in a ponytail with a white bow on the back of her head. She greeted me with a traditional Thai wai.
"Yindithidairujak-kah, Pak!" she called, "It's nice to know you. My name is Sanfan Lerdsakul, but you can just call me Yim. Please allow me to show you around the guild." She spoke with a very cheerful and lively voice, quite contrary to what I expected from the dead. I followed her into the heart of the Guild, gawking at the all the machinery and equipment around me.
Yuri Nakamura's POV:
No one can die in the Afterlife, but it still pays to be cautious. Taking Pak down to the Guild was risky enough, and letting him see the equipment was even more risky. Our plan was a huge gamble. If our bets paid off, Angel would soon be blown away by cannon shells and rockets. But if something were to go wrong, the SSS could well be on the receiving end of those shells and rockets.
We did not feel secure until Pak and Yim travelled so far away that their figures were obscured by the steam and soot. The hissing and pounding of the machines were more than enough to drawn out normal conversations, but we still spoke in whispers.
"So, that's Pak, huh?" Chaa whispered with a hint of disappointment, "He doesn't look scary at all. Looks quite normal, as a matter of fact. And he seemed like a pretty nice guy."
"Don't let your guard down," I replied, "We need to be very careful. If any of you ever suspect that he is up to something, let us know immediately. He is even more dangerous than Angel." I gestured at Takamatsu, who promptly began to unbutton his shirt, showing off his muscular abs and chest. He got a kick to the face in return.
"Not that, Takamatsu," I yelled, trying to ignore the strange glares from everyone else. "Your intelligence report!"
Takamatsu put his glasses back on and sheepishly unrolled the sheets of paper he had hidden in his sleeves. The Guild members crowded around us, trying to get a closer look. On the upper right hand corner of the paper, there was a paper-clipped photo of Pak standing in front of a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter plane. The words "Classified" were printed at the top in bright red letters. Chaa began to quietly read out the contents.
"Pak, Shin-kun. Alias: Pak, Jin Ralf. Born on Sakhalin Island in 1925. Mixed Korean, Chinese, and Russian heritage… Educated in Chongjin, Korea…" Chaa took a slight pause. "You mean Pak grew up in North Korea?" I heard a few chuckles from the Guild members.
"That's not even the most surprising thing we found," I replied, "Keep reading."
Chaa obliged. "He tried to stage a rebellion against the Japanese occupation but failed. He escaped into the USSR, where he enlisted in the NKVD… My god…" Even Chaa was starting to get nervous. Some of the Guild members—the ones who knew about the horrors of the NKVD—also exchanged anxious glances.
"He was sent to Germany under a false identity, Ralf Jin Pak. He studied at Munich Technical University and began acquainted with Willy Messerschmitt and Kurt Tank. He spied on their work and covertly sent blueprints back to the Soviet Union. He also worked on many tanks and rockets and designed machinery for underground German factories… And he worked on chemical weapons as well?"
Takamatsu nodded. "This intelligence was declassified by the Soviet Union in 1990," he affirmed, "Pak could not confirm this report, since he has amnesia and can only remember a small portion of his own past. But we've crossed-checked the Soviet report against records in Germany. There were no discrepancies."
Chaa grunted his teeth and kept on reading: "He was also involved in the July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler and was immediately placed under suspicion. He died on July 23rd, when he tried to escape arrest by stealing a recon plane. His plane was shot down by a RAF plane, and he was killed… He was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union…"
A tense silence broke out among the Guild members. Chaa was unsure how to react. There was murmur in the crowd.
"So Pak is a war hero. That's awesome. Why are we being so secretive about it?" A member of the Guild asked.
"Moron!" I yelled back, "He fought against us, and he's a die-hard communist. There's no way he'd help us if he actually remembered his past. He might even try to kill us."
"Why don't we just get rid of him then?" Another member of the Guild suggested, "We can just lock him in a cell or bury him alive. He's probably going to get his memory back at some point. Let's just play it safe. We've done fine up until now. It's not like that we'll all be suddenly obliterated without his help."
I shook my head. "No, that'd be a waste of talent. Pak still remembers all his designs. With his help, we'd be able to build tanks and airplanes. He could finally allow us to take down Angel."
"And that's why we have to keep his past a secret," Takamatsu added, receiving nods from members of the Guild, "We can't let him find out about his past. We can't even let him find out about his real name. His past is public information. There are statues dedicated to him in Russia and Korea."
"But listen," I continued, "If you guys ever feel as if Pak is up to something, let us know immediately. And be extremely cautious. He fooled the Germans for years, and he can easily outsmart us. We need to keep him for now, so do not mention a single word of his past to him. Don't bring up the July 20 Plot, the NKVD, or communism. And never address him by this real name. They might trigger his memories. Letting him work on his designs is already very dangerous. Do not augment that risk. And do not tell his information to the other Guild members. Some of them have extreme political views and may try to kill Pak."
"I've already told Yim to keep an eye on him," Chaa responded, "Yim is smart. She knows how to read people. But it's our collective responsibility to make sure that Pak does not find out about his past. Watch what you say when he is around. Monitor his Internet, and hide all your history books. Keep him busy." The members of the Guild all nodded in agreement. Chaa went to the nearest furnace and burned Takamatsu's intelligence report.
"Oh, and one more thing," I whispered, "You guys were never assembled here today. And this conversation never happened."
Jargon Dictionar
Italian Model 35 hand grenades
Italian Model 35 hand grenades were perhaps the most distinctive grenades used in WWII. Nicknamed "Red Devils" by the British in North Africa, these grenades were often painted red and gained a notorious reputation for being dangerous when found in an unexploded condition. These grenades strongly resemble the grenades Yuri uses in episode 8.
Wenceslas Mine:
The Wenceslas Mine was a coal mine located near the border between Poland and the Czech Republic. This mine is the rumored location of Die Glock, a purported secret Nazi superweapon. The purpose of the device is unclear; some rumors suggest that the device was devoted to anti-gravity research, while others believe that it was a reactor that generated fissile material for the German nuclear program. Although it is even more likely that Die Glock never existed, most theorists believe that the device had to do with the German nuclear program. The fact that Pak is familiar with this location suggests that he also understands nuclear fission. (In the previous chapter, it was stated that Pak did not know about the atom bomb. Germany conducted fission experiments early on in the war to power its submarine fleet. The idea of an atom bomb was not contemplated until afterwards. It's still possible that Pak knew about fission but was not informed about its potential as a weapon.)
Brandenburg Gate
An icon of Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century neoclassical triumphal arch in Berlin. Located near the Reichstag building, the gate serves as the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the boulevard of linden trees. Since its construction in 1791, it has often been a site for major historical events. It is today considered a symbol of the tumultuous history and current unity of Europe and Germany.
Mittelwerk
Literally translated as "Central Works", Mittelwek was a German World War II factory located underneath Kohnstein Hill. Protected from Allied air raids, the factory produced V-2 ballistic missiles, V-1 flying bombs, and jet fighters for the German war effort. However, it is most infamous for its association with slave labor. The factory used force labor from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. An estimated 60,000 people worked in the factory, and an estimated 20,000 were killed.
Wai:
The wai is a form of greeting used in Thailand. It consists of a slight bow, with the palms pressed together in a prayer-like fashion.
Focke-Wulf Fw 190
With over 20,000 units produced, the Focke-Wulf Fw190 formed the backbone of the Luftwaffe fighter force. Its large BMW 801 radical engine gave it an enormous amount of power, allowing it to function as a fighter-bomber and as a ground-attack aircraft. When it first came into operation in 1941, it outclassed everything the Allies had. It remained a formidable opponent for Allied fighters until the end of the war, thanks to its heavy firepower and maneuverability. This aircraft is featured in the background of the portrait of Ralf Jin Pak, which can be viewed by searching "Ralf Jin Pak" on Google Images.
Chongjin, North Korea
The capital of North Korea's North Hamgyong Province, Chongjin is the third largest city in the nation. Often called the City of Iron, the city developed into an important trading port and industrial base for the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War. Today, the city still serves as one of the most important steel and fiber industry centers in the DPRK. It is home to over 627,000 people, including a considerable number of Chinese and Russian businessmen and sailors.
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated NKVD, was a law enforcement agency in the Soviet Union. It is functioned as the Soviet secret police and is infamous for its political repression during Joseph Stalin's rule. The NKVD conducted mass extrajudicial executions and ran the Gulag system of forced labor camps. It is estimated that the NKVD executed one million people, and millions more were killed in its Gulags.
July 20th Plot
The July 20th Plot was an attempt made to assassinate Adolf Hitler inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters in Rastenburg. The plot was the culmination of efforts of the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government. The apparent purpose of the assassination was to seize political control of Germany and obtain peace with the Western Allies. The attempt failed, and 7000 suspects were arrested by the Gestapo; 5000 were later executed.
Closing
Pak: I'm really liking how the P.A. Works staff designed this place. It reminds me of art. I've always felt that there is beauty to be found in industrial machines. There is beauty in decay.
Yim: This art style is referred to as Steampunk-kah. It fuses together technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery-kah.
Pak: Oh? I guess that explains why it feels like a sauna in here. But are these machines actually powered by steam? And what exactly does kah mean?
Yim: (Shrugs.) Just a verbal tic of mine. It means "yes" in Thai-kah. Most of the machines here are electrical. I'm a big fan of the steampunk art style as well. Especially the Cosplay. I went to the Anime Festival Asia conference in Bangkok dressed as a steampunk girl one time-kah. The people there loved it.
Dima: I've always wanted to go to an anime conference, but I never have the time. I heard that the ones in Japan can get really crazy. The closest thing for me was BronyCon in 2012. And that was crazy enough for me. I did not stay too long.
Yim: BronyCon? What's that for? What's a brony-kah?
Pak: Bronies are men who watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's a strange fetish the author has.
Dima: Ponies are awesome. Ponies are love. Ponies are life. Pinkie Pie is best pony.
Pak: (Rolls eyes.) Whatever. What are you doing here?
Dima: Just wanted to meet our first OC. Sanfan… How do I pronounce this?
Yim: Lerdsakul.
Dima: Right. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout-out to PPsyrius, who submitted the first OC to this story. We will also be working together on his Strike Witches fanfiction.
Yim: (Bows.) Glad to be here. PPsyrius and I are both from Hat Yai. We're both aviation and anime enthusiasts-kah. I'm sure that you guys will get alone really well!
Dima (to Pak in Korean): And you got what you wanted, right? Yim is really cute. Even in those clothes. You should take her and Yuri to the beach. There are some small beaches on the eastern end of the island. Bathing suits these days are a lot less conservative than the ones you're used to.
Pak (to Dima in Korean): Could you please make that happen? It doesn't even have to be a full chapter. Just a small paragraph. Please?
Dima: Depends on how the story progresses. Final exams are coming up soon, so I won't be writing much. But keep the suggestions and OCs coming, guys!