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Chapter 2 : Extra-Dimensional Committee
After an unprecedented situation, the barely functioning parliament pivoted all of its meagre resources to securing its borders, internal struggles and censoring every truth of its situation.
A committee would be set and some resources would be allocated to handle external struggles with a strange amount of autonomy.
The small assembly consisted of one representative from the parliament, one from the military, one from the ministry of foreign affairs and one representing several state ministries.
"I will confirm our situation" spoke the representative from foreign affairs. "We, no, our entire country have been transported somewhere, another world if you will… There is no wireless signal or any sort of broadcast for us to infiltrate in, however, the composition of air is identical to our world, thus we should not have any issues in that regard."
"We are securing the borders best we can, but resources are being spread thin." replied the vice marshall of the army, due to the mysterious disappearance of the marshall, he was set to be promoted.
"Does anyone have a rough map of where exactly we have been transported to?"
"About that…" an illustration was brought upon the table, "The ocean is gone and pretty much everything excluding us has been replaced by some sort of… dimensional void, which is why the military is particularly busy." there was silent nod from the second previous speaker.
"I'm sure 'Respected comrade's divinity managed to secure our nation's existence after the rupture." joked the representative from the parliament.
"Hm, I will pretend not to hear that last Christian-esque remarks of yours." the reply immediately came from the representative of the state, there was no hostile intent however, normal people nor even most officials would not have the agency to be talking like these in official meetings, yet those men can afford to.
"Disregarding that, there is… most pressing issue." another illustration would be shown, a map of the entirety of the 'K' peninsular, though the southern bit was represented as a unified part of the country, it was crossed off in light of the so-called celestial level event. "Take your attention to the dots near Pyongsan, Kimhyonggwon and Musan, each represents a 'dimensional rift', all seemingly leading to yet another different world, perhaps the reason we still have air to breathe stems from these portals."
"We tried to blow the portal up, originally it was only near our capital, the portal vanished but two more appeared, after executing the experiment again we now have three portals in our nation."
"In light of that, we sent expeditionaries. The preliminary investigation suggests that there is a world full of life like ours on the other side, all rifts lead to the same world but different locations, but per the secretary general's decree, they are all withdrawn from the other side."
"There is a decree from dear leader…?" None in the committee had seen the leader even before they were transported to another world.
"Yes, alongside this…"
Supreme Extradimensional Committee Directives:
1 Supreme Extradimensional Committee shall have absolute control over affairs beyond the portal.
2 Natives of the other side may not be brought into our soil.
3 Conquered pieces of territory in the other dimension shall be established as communes whose autonomy depends absolutely on the committee.
4 The committee reserve the absolute right to abolish, edit and add to the directives.
Signed xXx xXxX xX
After everyone in the committee had confirmed the decree's validity and signature, most couldn't help but question the level of trust, though there were all high-ranking officials, none of them were madly loyal to the head of state, a congregation of opportunists so to speak.
"Isn't this just grant us practically infinite power…? Are we going to be executed soon? Last minute practical joke perhaps..?"
"I'm sure everyone has concerns in their mind, but let's work with what we can for now." the vice marshall said, nudging everyone else to pay attention to the statistics he brought to the table. "As everyone knows, we conscripted most able-bodied men and women, due to sudden transportation, many were unfortunately not brought with us.
The population of 26 million was reduced to a mere 9.3 million, the elderly demographic was wiped out due to… creative solutions to the lack of food supply problems. Civilian industries and the agricultural sector fundamentally ceased to exist during the war and will not recover easily with the current population.
"The number of current standing troops is classified even to us, but this committee will be allocated 200 conscripts and some commanding officers, I can ensure that they are well equipped so there should be no problem on that end."
"Commanding officer… The conscripts will be green so at least the chain of command has to be competent…" remarked one of the members of parliament in the committee.
"No.. If anything, being shoved into a strange new world, we'll need fervent loyalty so they wouldn't run off."
"Good call, I have a candidate in mind" remarked the vice Marshall "… This may be hasty judgment but no signals indicate no immediate threats, if there's some freak animal, we can just shoot them down… If there are belligerent nations transported alongside us… well, I suppose we could prepare a white flag for an early surrender."
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"Comrade Vice Marshall…. why do we have a patriot locked up in this… facility?" Every citizen of DPRK was committed to the war, so having a commanding officer being 'jailed' instead of outright killed seemed counterintuitive, though he was fortunately in one of the desperate wonder weapon projects which did not go anywhere.
"This man is utterly nuts, brace your ears for what's to come."
"Can't we just send him to the camps or get rid of him?"
"sigh knock on the glasses and see why for yourself."
Two men in military uniform approached a wall of glass. Some scientist-like men evacuated the area upon entry. The facility seemed to be used as a makeshift bunker in the worst-case scenario. With nothing else to do, the junior complied and knocked.
There was nobody on the other end, or so the junior thought before a head sprang up from the originally obfuscated area from the viewing angle.
"I am one of the people to enjoy respected comrade's absolute benevolence, to think that he constructed a room filled to the brim with white, my favourite colour, wrapped me from head to toe in white, my lifelong service had been for nought! …Ah! Comrades! You must visit me out of jealousy, but the glorious leader will reward your service like an exclusive abode like this!"
"Glorious leader…?"
"Don't worry, this lunatic can neither hear nor see us." he pointed at one of the monitors attached to a nearby wall, camera feed from within revealed the glass plane to be a one-sided mirror, only inkling the patient can tell of visitors would be a green colour light bulb which was lit.
The general moved closer, and with a press of a button, the view changed.
"Ah! Comrade Lieutenant! Long time no see!" The restrained man spoke with delight whilst the young accompanier of the general shuddered in discomfort.
"Vice Marshall and soon to not be vice, actually." with another press of a button, the glass slowly moved down, eventually allowing for passage from the white room to the lab. With a deep sigh, he let out practised sentences.
"Minho, your nation requires your service once more, apologies to be taking you from your… vacation house."
Instead of dividing 500 recruits to explore three portals at once, Minho and 50 men would be sent to one of the portals, supposedly leading to a forested area whilst the remaining troops waited as reserves, equipment for fifty-one men was all they could muster, even with vice Marshall lobbying, the armoury wouldn't budge.
"Children of the republic!" the commanding officer for the operation stood atop the podium, listening to him were men women, and even children, the rag-tag composition of the so-called 500 troops. Some are even older than the speaker.
"We may be defeated, but the glorious leader's divine mandate saved us from extinction."
There was a confused look from the populace, but they nodded solemnly nonetheless.
"With the new world at our doorsteps, we will be responsible for gathering information, making contact, and finding resources to benefit the rebuilding of our broken home!"
The reception was lukewarm at best, though he recovered quickly with "Hold your applause, it is only reserved for our dear leader."
There was no immediate threat beyond the portal, troops discovered that flora is similar to that of Earth, though they do not recognise the specific region or type of trees, the taste of the leaves and grasses are akin to their home.
The area wasn't particularly dense and close to the plains connected to it, though the portal seemed to be concealed by nature which was a true blessing from lady luck, or perhaps yet another divine intervention from dear leader.
"Stop eating those!" one of the more experienced-looking members shouted, only to be stopped by Minho.
"Whilst those shrooms' colour are vivid, we can not ascertain whether it is as poisonous-" Before he could finish his first sentence, there was already one casualty in the expeditionary force, they watched helplessly as their compatriot died to fast-acting poison. "I suppose colourful things are to be avoided even here."
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After losing four more members to… suspicious circumstances, the group managed to trek out of the forest, which was merely about a hundred yards from the starting point…
Headcount: [47/52]
There, a man dressed in textbook European-esque medieval peasant wear would be gathering some berries, his aged form perhaps nullifying the obvious rustlings approaching him.
"Greetings!" Minho shouted, startling the man. Earlier, the committee found out the possibility of some sort of auto-translation in the new world. The case is that foreigners, volunteers and POWs can speak in their language fluently, though they cannot write or understand the language, and their mouth also do not match their words.
The man looked up, he did not panic but continued to gather the berries. There was a tired look in his eyes as if to say come and kill me already if you're hostile. "What is it?"
Minho retraced his mind to the directives given to him, "How dare they taint supreme leader's will with theirs…". In addition to the original four, more were added by the committee.
"We are quite lost! Can comrade gatherer tell us where we are?"
The rest of the group caught up, staring somewhat intimidatingly at the man though it wasn't their intention.
"You people are well uniformed… and strange weaponry too… Are you some sort of mercenary group? As you should know already, the forest you exited is the forest of Tob" he concluded, rising to his feet, the berry basket is full.
"Yes! We are in need of supplies too…" his voice trailed off, the hint couldn't be clearer.
"I suppose we can sell you some supplies-" The hilt of a rifle met the man's head, Type 63 wooden hilt made quick work of the man's consciousness.
"Greedy capitalist bastard." he spat on the man, signalling for three people to search, it took quite a bit before they realised their order and followed.
"Comrade captain.. With due respect, WHAT THE FUCK?!" in this expedition, a single observer from the civilian sector would be appointed to observe and write a report for the committee, a scribe of a sort if you will. However, this man does not look like a citizen of DPRK.
"Comrade Fedorovich." Minho approached, even though the height difference was not in his favour, he looked ten times his size with his cold, ruthless gaze. "You may not understand, but this but that man reeks of swine-like stretch, thus he must be culled. Helping those in need must be mandatory not an afterthought."
"Are you insane? Have you seen your own nation?" were the words not uttered as the civilian swallowed them up, for he already knew the answer. "Regardless of what you believe, what you have done borderline violates the directives, I have the authority to court martial you, try to remember that.
The rest of the expedition seemed to agree, greatly displeasing Minho.
"Tch, these people… So corrupted… Still, even in our sacred nation, the glorious leader allows these ignorants to exist… So I must endure."
Before another word could be said, smoke comes from a certain direction, if they possess binoculars they could spy on the situation, but they do not have even that basic luxury.
"Come now my compatriots, let us see the situation, you three, carry this man to the portal, and call on the other side for further instructions."
A/N
Thank you dear guest for your encouragement.
For clarification, I decided to… westernise the military ranks as you may have noticed,
The culprit responsible for transportation would be ranked 차수.
Minho would be 대위 etc.
Sidenote
I'm quite amazed that someone created one of those commission AI bots on this site… Hopefully, no one fell for those.
Supreme Extradimensional Committee Directives:
1 Supreme Extradimensional Committee shall have absolute control over affairs beyond the portal.
2 Natives of the other side may not be brought into our soil.
3 Conquered pieces of territory in the other dimension shall be established as communes whose autonomy depends absolutely on the committee.
. . .
4 Dispatch may not disclose the nature of our nation beyond name and governance system
5 Dispatch must not lose equipment during an expedition, proof of disposal will have to be submitted
6 Heavy Machines are prohibited from being transported to the other side
7 In case of disease, expeditionary must quarantine themselves for at least seven days after symptom disappears before returning, no matter how severe.
8 Prisoners of war captured must be reported to the committee and kept healthy until further decision from the committee
9 Attempts to provoke war and courseless violence are strictly prohibited.
10 The attached civilian has the final say on any decision and the ability to perform a court martial. Upon the death of said assignee, the company must retreat regardless of circumstances.
. . .
X The committee reserves the absolute right to abolish, edit and add to the directives.