A uniform that didn’t consider convenience even a little, so just putting it on made sweat swell up.

"Shhup."

At the same time, I took one deep breath in, and that stale smell of dried sand mixed with dust came in with it.

'Perfect.'

This was the hometown air I couldn’t feel at the Marine Corps camp last time, and now it came through properly.

"For today only, Iam member Lee Sion will become a special candidate and train with you."

Watching the instructor introduce me to the candidates and explain today’s special event made dopamine rise all on its own.

'Is this what you call pleasure with no responsibility?'

Raon and Lee Gahyeon were looking at me from the formation with eyes full of doubt, like they were asking why I was even here.

- This time, the Paldo Man program proposed a troop support performance to us.

It started after Raon and Lee Gahyeon got sold off to the Paldo Man filming crew.

They asked if we could do a troop support performance, and since it was a popular national broadcast show setting aside time to give us a stage opportunity, both I and the members accepted gladly.

But—

- And this is an offer that came to Sion alone. They also asked if you could appear briefly during the program as an event segment.

- An event?

- Yes. They said they were impressed by Sion’s drill skills from the in-house "Iam Goes to Marine Corps Camp!" content last time, and this time they want to add an event where you appear, train together with the cast and the candidates, and face off against them.

After that, when I looked over the detailed contents I received through CEO Kim Sanghyeok, they were requesting that I appear as a special assistant instructor during shooting training in basic military training.

Of course, not to teach the candidates—only to teach the Paldo Man cast separately. Literally, I was a special candidate.

Then at the end, it seemed like I and the cast would compete by shooting scores, and if the cast side was higher they’d get a reward, and if they were lower they’d get a penalty.

- Even if we miss, go for it!

And of course, I accepted the offer on the spot.

Normally, if you lose a gamble, there’s the huge risk of losing what you put up, but this match had no risk at all—because even if I lost, I wouldn’t lose anything. There was no reason not to do it.

And when I heard that if I won, Lee Gahyeon and Raon would get the punishment, it was impossible to hold back.

"From now on, we will conduct shooting training!"

That’s how I ended up coming all the way down to Goesan in secret with the members, without Lee Gahyeon and Raon knowing.

I was the only one participating in training, so the other members went ahead first to the parade ground where the troop support performance would be held, to prepare the stage.

"Lee Sion, when did you get here?"

"Just now."

"Damn it, if you were going to do this, you should’ve just joined from the start!"

"Hey. Don’t you feel even a little sorry with the filming crew listening? They wanted Lee Gahyeon so badly—how can you say something that disappointing?"

At my words, Lee Gahyeon seemed to realize it too late and hurriedly looked around at the filming crew, bowing her head at ninety degrees over and over.

And the filming crew looked at her like she was cute.

I’d only managed to tease Lee Gahyeon for two days at most, but when I was satisfied with the great hit I got from how perfectly she reacted, I felt someone approach at my side.

"So you crawled in on your own feet."

"PD Raon."

Raon threatened me in a low voice, pouring out murderous momentum, so I quietly reached out my hand and stopped her.

"What is this insolent palm? Are you asking me to break it?"

"Easy."

At my attitude, like I was calming down an enraged bull, her face flushed red enough to be obvious.

But—

"If you treat me carelessly right now, you’ll regret it."

"What?"

"Today, don’t forget that your fate and the cast’s fate—no, the fate of every single candidate—depends on my fingertips."

I was confident.

'I might end up firing a perfect score if I keep this up.'

In my previous life, I’d been called a miracle sharpshooter who fired twenty rounds and hit twenty-one.

On top of that, # Nоvеlight # I’d overcome my gunshot trauma too, so I had no weaknesses. A flawless top-tier shooter.

Competing against rookies who’d never fired a gun even once was easier than eating cold rice.

"Lee Sion!"

"Don’t touch me! If you provoke me, during shooting later I’ll have no choice but to do my absolute best."

"You were going to go all-out anyway!"

"How did you know?"

After living with me for about half a year, Raon could predict how I’d act now.

Honestly, I was planning to tease Lee Gahyeon and Raon a little more, then show real shooting and drop them into despair, but I figured I had to give that up.

"Now, we’ll divide into three groups and repeat shooting, shooting standby, and marksmanship practice!"

While I greeted Lee Gahyeon and Raon and exchanged a few words with the participants I was meeting for the first time, it was already time to start training.

Slip.

I pulled out the sunglasses and black cap I’d been issued along with my combat uniform when I arrived at the officer candidate school today, and jammed them on.

"What is that? Where did you get that?"

"Lee Sion always makes sure to bring every single thing for posing like that."

"It’s my first time seeing Sion, and she really looks exactly like she does in the videos."

"I watched the Iam Marine Corps camp episode too. It was seriously so funny···."

The cast members tossed out comments as they looked at me.

It seemed like they still hadn’t grasped the situation.

"Silence."

So I gave them one last chance.

Even if someone messes up, giving at least one chance is basic decency.

Even though I said "silence" in a low voice so small it was barely audible, they were still excitedly chatting among themselves, and I couldn’t help smiling.

***

'What is this? Who is she, exactly?'

Captain Lee Daehan couldn’t believe the scene in front of him.

"Stand and fire."

"Stand and fire!"

At my order, six cast members snapped from lying down to standing up, responding in voices that cracked, kicking up dust in the wind.

They were so synchronized that if you saw them, you’d think they’d trained for days.

But—

"Candidate Kim Sara."

"Candidate Kim Sara!"

"Have you lost your mind? Who told you to put your finger on the trigger?" 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"No, sir!"

"If there had been live rounds in that gun, Candidate Kim Sara could’ve shot an ally."

"I’m sorry!"

"If you’re sorry, does the ally who got shot come back to life?"

"No, sirrr!"

Even that, which looked to Lee Daehan like they were plenty whipped into shape, seemed to fall short in my eyes.

I pointed out even tiny motions the instant they were wrong, radiating such vicious pressure that even Lee Daehan, watching, was dragged back into old memories of being corrected by instructors in his own candidate days.

"Prone and fire."

"Prone and fire!"

And I wasn’t someone who was only good at chewing people out with words.

'Ruthless.'

The marksmanship preliminary training commonly called PRI had a reputation for being brutal enough to make you bleed, swell up, and grind your teeth.

But to make it truly miserable, you needed technique.

Like ordering prone and fire and then immediately ordering stand and fire, the way I was doing now—

"Execute the forward unsupported position."

"Execute the forward unsupported position!"

Or mixing in the unsupported position, the posture used during shooting standby, at intervals. Only then could you show the true value of the so-called hell training that was marksmanship preliminary training.

'They don’t even make people do forward unsupported these days, so how does she know this?'

The forward unsupported position I was making the Paldo Man cast do was a motion that had already disappeared years ago, so Lee Daehan couldn’t help suspecting how I knew it and was ordering it.

'There’s nothing for me to step in on at all, is there?'

Truthfully, Lee Daehan had been in a terrible mood today.

No matter if it was for broadcast, an idol girl who wasn’t an officer and wasn’t even someone who’d served stepping up as an assistant instructor and teaching the cast—he thought that crossed a line, even if it was for promotion, so he’d been irritated since before filming.

Of course, the officer candidate school staff weren’t idiots either. Thinking training wouldn’t properly work, they dispatched someone named Daeho to assist from the side.

"Is there anything wrong?"

"...No."

That dispatch felt pointless, because I was grinding the cast down so hard there was no opening for Daeho to step in.

Especially—

"Candidate Raon! Are you throwing away your weapon?"

"Uwaaa!!! No, sir!"

"Candidate Lee Gahyeon, why are you the only one moving slow?"

"I’m sorryyy!"

"Are you showing off because you’re big?"

"That’s sexual harassment! ...Sir."

"I meant your height."

"..."

The digs I kept pouring onto Raon and Lee Gahyeon were so persistent it gave Lee Daehan chills just watching. It was scary.

Under me, the cast members’ combat uniforms were already caked in dirt and dust, and venom had settled into their eyes.

At the same time, their shooting stances had become skilled enough to rival active duty before they even realized it.

And it wasn’t just Lee Daehan—candidates and other soldiers kept glancing over too, and their faces showed admiration, like it looked surprisingly convincing.

Even Lee Daehan, who had a trained eye for teaching soldiers, couldn’t help wondering how someone could make people with no prior knowledge—women, not even men—reach proficiency this fast in such a short time.

At this point, he had no choice but to acknowledge my assistant-instructor skill, watching me twitch my lips upward, unable to hide my happiness.

"Paldo Man group, prepare to fire!"

"Ugh!"

The marksmanship preliminary training ended, and it was finally time to shoot.

Following the firing-control instructor’s direction, the cast members and I stepped up to the range, and Lee Daehan watched it.

***

"Like I said earlier, today’s shooting has been specially set up so that, depending on the results, on the way back you’ll get bus seating and cold drinks."

Before shooting began, there was a short break while the filming team set up the cameras.

A staff member was energetically explaining the event again, but Lee Gahyeon and Raon ignored it and were facing me.

"You know I don’t go easy on anyone within twenty years above or below me, right?"

"Lee Sion, I’m going out there and killing you no matter what."

"Then I’ll run away on the bus."

Lee Gahyeon couldn’t believe it. I was provoking Raon from the side like the shooting match wasn’t even tense.

My grudge toward me—who joined training purely to mess with them—and toward CEO Kim Sanghyeok, who had hidden it from them, was already beyond words.

But right now, she had to beg me.

"Sion, it’s not just us! If we lose, all the candidates and the other cast members have to walk back."

"Interesting. Doesn’t that sound really fun?"

"Lee Sion! Have you seriously lost your humanity?!"

A shooting-score competition between me and the other six Paldo Man cast members.

A total of twenty rounds will be fired, all in lane firing.

Out of twenty shots, we had to compete over who hit more, and since there were six times as many of them, it was a ridiculously favorable condition for the cast.

"At this level, can’t we win?"

"All we need is for just one of us to shoot a little better."

"We can do it! If I walk back in my current state, I’ll seriously collapse."

Maybe because of that, the other cast members besides Raon and Lee Gahyeon were full of hope, but Lee Gahyeon wasn’t.

'Why do you think we can win?!'

It was only a feeling, but she had an anxious premonition that I would shoot insanely well, and she was pleading for mercy.

But deep down, she already knew.

I wasn’t going to pretend to listen.

I was usually full of openings and acted light, but sometimes I got serious, and one of those times was when I was about to feed someone a mouthful of misery.

In those moments, I focused like it was a college entrance exam, just to make the prank land, and my eyes right now were exactly those eyes.

The eyes of a predator that had found interesting prey.

"It’s useless. That devil came all the way here to torment us."

Raon, the one other person who knew what I really was, told Lee Gahyeon that trying to sway me was pointless, and that the only option was for them to shoot well.

"Prepared shooters, into your lanes!"

The short break ended, and the firing controller’s voice announcing the start echoed through the speakers installed at the range.

Following the range-control soldier’s guidance, Lee Gahyeon stepped into her lane and glanced at me in the lane beside hers.

Seeing me so excited that my grin almost reached my ears, her uneasy premonition grew stronger, but like Raon said, the only answer was focusing on shooting better.

Following the firing controller’s instructions, she attached the magazine and set the selector switch to semi-auto, finishing her preparations to fire.

'I didn’t know gunshots were this loud.'

She suddenly remembered waiting below the range and watching other people shoot, and being startled by the huge sound.

The cold feel of the gun in her hands suddenly felt terrifying, and her hands shook.

"Hey, when you shoot, relax your hands and shoot with your shoulder."

"What?"

"If you shake like that, you’ll miss even what you could’ve hit."

From the lane next to hers, I tossed that advice out like it was nothing.

And strangely, hearing my voice made her heart settle down again, and she calmly took the firing stance just like she’d learned.

'What is this? Why does this feel comfortable?'

She didn’t want to admit it, but because she’d been brutally worked over by me the whole time during PRI, a solid-looking stance came out without her even realizing it.

"Commence firing from prepared shooters!"

Along with the firing controller’s command, the targets rose up.

Bang! Bang-bang!

The shooters in the lanes began firing, and she held her breath and pulled the trigger at the rising target board.

'Hit!'

After confirming the target had been struck and dropped, she cheered inside.

But there was no time to celebrate as a new target rose again.

Bang!

Focusing all her nerves on the target alone, she managed to hit every target that rose for several rounds.

The problem was—

"Easy. Easy."

So far, among the cast members, the only ones who had hit every target were her and me.

And unlike her, who was pouring all her focus into landing each shot, I was in the lane next to her, casually dropping targets the instant they rose, and she grew anxious.

She’d hit nineteen out of twenty, but maybe because she was flustered—

"No!"

Seeing the last target miss, she couldn’t help screaming in despair.

However—

Bang!

At that moment, a gunshot rang out from the lane next to hers, and her target fell.

"Lee Sion?"

No matter how she looked again, what fell just now wasn’t my target.

It was hers.

Startled by the unbelievable thing, she hurriedly looked toward me—

"Ah, damn. I looked at the wrong target."

I scratched at my ballistic helmet like it was just a mistake.