Mercenary Black Mamba

Chapter 54: Chapter 9, Episode 6: The Missing Mole

Of course, the important thing was not the Korean language, but the flag. The two of them glared at the flag as if they were about to rip it and eat it.

“Burimer, is this real? It’s not a fake, is it?”

“It is the 3rd Frolinat army’s flag. It belongs to the best Habib army located in the north.”

“Hahaha, as expected of Black Mamba. Look here, they sewed the sword and rifle in great detail, piece by piece by hand. It’s a piece of art.”

Captain’s face was full of greed. He looked to be ready to roll up the flag and stick it in his pocket.

“Don’t be greedy. We have to hand it over to headquarters.”

Captain licked his lips greedily at Burimer’s reprimand.

“Just close your eyes once for this. If we auction this off, we could easily get a million francs for it. No, it could even be ten million francs.”

“No!” Burimer yelled at him, smiling. The flag that Black Mamba had brought was an exorbitant prize. It was the flag that he had brought while escaping the enemies from the headquarter he erased. It symbolized their team’s success and would become an item worth boasting about within Legion Etranger.

“Black, what does ddoong jjuh mean?”

Burimer could not decipher Captain’s pronunciation.

“Ddoong chuh? Puhaha!” The phrase ‘toong chuh’ which meant to call it even changed to ‘ddong chi ja’ meaning to steal. You couldn’t do anything about the cultural and language barrier.

“It means that I’ve done my part, so don’t nitpick at it any longer.”

“Hm, that’s ddong jjuh. Korean is too hard. Burimer, how should we deal with this monster?” Captain asked Burimer with a smile on his face.

Burimer smiled back.

“Only the highest-ranking commander can deal punishment to a soldier with a call name. Commander Philip or an elder curled up in the headquarters at Aubagne.”

“Then do we have to call it even?”

“We can’t do that. A Corsica proverb says that you can forgive a cheating wife, but you cannot forgive a child who runs away from home. If you feel it is unfair, you can beat him and feed him to the piranhas.”

Captain’s face brightened.

“That sounds good. Black, the results you brought will null your punishment for leaving the team. However, you caused distress to your comrades and so you must receive punishment for that. Do you agree?”

“Yes, sir.”

A call name agent was able to act on his own judgment during battle. Paul knew this but pretended he didn’t. He had been worried sick waiting for him for the last two hours. He thought it wasn’t fair to just let him off the hook.

Ombuti, who was listening, interjected, “We can’t. How could you repay a comrade that has brought the best result of a battle in Legion Etrange history with this sort of treatment? You would beat Wakil, who has saved your lives? If you must beat him, then beat me, his servant, instead.”

Captain and Burimer blinked confusedly.

Even in this situation, a cultural clash happened. Ombuti couldn’t understand Legion Etranger’s culture and traditions.

Black Mamba burst out laughing.

“Hahaha! Ombuti, this is my problem.”

“No. I cannot let my noble master receive punishment from lowly humans. As a Tuareg warrior, I cannot accept this.”

Ombuti stepped forward with his eyes ablaze.

The three people were in a situation where they could neither laugh nor cry.

“Captain, I don’t want my name erased because I angered Azrael. Let’s call it even with Black Mamba donating a million francs to us.”

Emil was trying to arbitrate.

“That sounds good. Black will be rewarded greatly this time.”

All the mercenaries agreed.

“Black, do you agree?”

“Alright. If we return safely, I will hand over a million francs.”

“Wow! We love you, Black!”

Emil ran forward with his hands open. Black Mamba stepped slightly to the side, then hit him in the back of the head.

“What kind of partner steals my wallet?”

All the comrades burst out laughing.

Black Mamba’s body suddenly started to tremble.

Ombuti’s gaze was locked onto the back of Black Mamba. His gaze was similar to a woman looking longingly at a lover.

It was the 11th day of operation “Smoke out Raccoon.”

Lattell team arrived at the location 10km northeast of Tanga oasis.

They had traveled deep into the Bodele lowlands, then turned around to come right back out. Ekiya oasis was 15km north of here.

With Ekiya right in front of them, Captain bypassed it.

As Ombuti suggested, he looked for a location to hide their supplies.

“What a place!” Burimer exclaimed. The location that Ombuti lead them to was a place on top of a boulder that looked like a castle wall. It was practically 4km high. It was surrounded by woods, and there was even a creek with water gurgling up from it. Captain named it Mark Hill.

The mercenaries gathered and dug through the dirt.

The ground was sand, so it was easy to shovel. They shoved the surplus supplies, rations, a motorcycle, and three pickups into the hole. They covered it with a water-resistant tent, then shoveled dirt back over it. To survive, they needed to have emergency supplies hidden away.

The work took about half a day to finish.

The team members collapsed in exhaustion after finishing the manual labor. Their moods drastically sloped downwards. Even though they had destroyed the enemy troops at Toko Doum and Black Mamba had obliterated their headquarters, they were not in the spirit to celebrate their victory. It was because of the information leak. They were kites with strings detached. The downward mood was expected.

Within ten days, they had had four large-scale battles.

The mercenaries who had had to endure battle after battle without rest were exhausted beyond belief. Some of the soldiers were suffering from body aches and ringing in their ears.

North of Chad in Sahel, there are no restaurants or hotels. You could not lay on a comfy bed or order a buttery steak. The only thing they could do was lay their backs on the dry dirt and eat unappetizing army rations while drinking water mixed with limestone.

Their conversations disappeared, and a gloomy silence set over them like a fog. Another reason for the depressed mood was Chartres, who was usually talkative and upbeat, being injured. After finishing up their meal, the team member who was not keeping guard went to sleep.

After Black Mamba became part of the operation, he became obsessed with his training. He did not stop, even on the days he had fought vigorous battles. It was a way to maintain his sanity and to rid himself of his dejected feelings. Once his comrades fell asleep, he crept out of the cantonment.

After Black Mamba had experienced the resonance, he understood what hollow gravity felt like. Gravity was a force that pulled on outward bodies. His teacher had told him of a way to open up the door to his chi.

Once he understood this concept, he was able to resist the pull of gravity. The opposite force was the core to realize gravity. The forces of nature have been disturbed. As his teacher had said, when the time comes, he would understand it.

At the 36th hour, he figured out 216 positions from the time the sun rose to the time it set.

Black Mamba faced the east and stood up straight.

Papapat! He sped through the air so fast, his uniform looked like it would rip. His five fingers were spread out as he swiped the air up and down.

He looked like a deer waving his antlers at its predator. A whoosh of air sounded. Following it, he placed his two hands to his chest then thrust it forward fast as lightning. Now the deer had hit the predator with its antlers. He repeated the movement of the deer attacking with the antler, retreating, then making contact, then retreating again.

Ho- heup heup heup-, Ho- heup- heup- heup, Ho-

His breathing and movements were coordinated as he moved. It was a breathing technique he had grown accustomed to. He would take the smallest of breaths inward, then exhale long and thin.

If normal people breathed this way, they would get cyanosis. When he too first started, he had fainted. He had collapsed after turning blue. That’s how difficult this sort of breathing technique was.

“The start and end of achieving resonance is in the breathing. You must be able to control your breathing to read the breathing of others. You must know your breathing to reach the end of resonance.”

He could practically hear his teacher’s voice.

“It’s been 20 years. It means I’ve figured it out already.”

He wanted to show the teacher who had nagged and beaten him with a cane what he had finally become. Black Mamba, who was now called the angel of death, would only be remembered as the pathetic underling hitting a moktak to his teacher.

The breathing technique’s goal was to increase the VO2max and the Lactate Threshold, LT.

The VO2max measures the amount of oxygen intake needed to reach the highest intensity of exercise specific to each person. It takes into account the amount of oxygen intake during cardio against the time it takes for it to create usable energy. It is measured in mL/kg/minute.

The higher the VO2max, the longer a strong force could be applied. To put it in other words, the VO2max measures the combination of the amount of oxygen intake by the lungs, the blood circulation of oxygen through the body, and the muscle oxygen usage.

Backward, it means that the more strength you need or the faster you move, your body requires more oxygen. The reason Black Mamba was stronger and could move faster than the average person was because of the difference in their VO2max measurement.

VO2max is determined by genetics. With training, the max it could be increased is only 10%. His teacher snorted in laughter. “Have you tried it? They don’t know squat when they talk about extensive training.”

His teacher’s logic was that they never raised the extent of the training to match the extent of their desired increase.

At his teacher’s unreasonableness, Mu Ssang was left in shambles.

He had to carry two 80kg tires or a tree stump and run up and down the mountain.

The average person’s VO2max is 45ml/kg/m, a marathoner’s is 80ml/kg/m, and if you are obese, it could decrease to 20ml/kg/m. It was something he already knew also.

The problem was that his teacher proposed his goal as 450ml/kg/m, which was 10 times that of an average person. He was telling him to be a mammoth wearing the skin of a human.

The second was the Lactate Threshold.

The Lactate Threshold was also called the No Oxygen Threshold.

If you raised the intensity of exercise, lactate acid builds up in your blood and muscles. The point where this rapid build-up happens is the Lactate Threshold. If you surpass the lactate threshold, you create energy without using oxygen. It means that once you surpass this limit, the muscles grow exponentially more tired faster, and so causes pain. If you do not reduce the intensity of exercise, you will eventually reach a state where you cannot move at all.

The Lactate Threshold measures the degree of intensity of the exercise by the percentage of oxygen intake. Meaning, if the VO2max at 60% makes the LT drastically increase, then the LT will be measured as 60%.

Unlike VO2max, LT can be raised through training. It is estimated that an average person can raise their LT from 50% all the way to 90%.

If a person with a VO2max of 50ml has an LT of 70%, then this person could function with less than 35ml of oxygen. It would be harder to raise the extent of the exercise past this point. If the max oxygen intake is based on one’s skills, then lactate tolerance is based on energy efficiency.

At the time, Mu Ssang had researched his VO2max, LT, and ATP usage to figure out part of the secret to building the perfect body. He had manipulated and inserted ancestral bone to change the composition of his muscle, bone, skin, and blood. If he had changed the cells of his body itself, he would have mutated his entire genetics.

If the DNA is changed, the VO2max and LT would obviously change as well. The total amount was exchanged for efficiency.

His teacher had told him to elevate his VO2max to 10 times the average person and to max out his LT. It meant that his physical skill would be 20 times that of the average person. Of course, this was all based on endurance.

Muscular strength was another problem.

A chimpanzee’s strength is five times that of humans. Even though they are about the same size, a human messing with a chimpanzee would be annihilated. Humans’ civilized way of life has caused their muscular strength to be downgraded.

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Homo Sapiens have directed their energy use to grow the brain instead of muscle. It would have changed the direction of the Evolutionary Arms Race.

A bored official in Australia experimented on this by making a person and a horseplay tug of war. He made a thoroughbred horse compete against 20 adult males. The horse weighed 1,100kg, and the combined weight of the 20 men was 1,650kg.

The victor did not speak.

What would have been the reason that a heavier force lost?