Forged in Grit, Risen in Glory

Chapter 1---- The Briefing

Iseul

Present

Iseul, come out. We know you're here. Thumbs up to you. Excellent job evading us all week, but that game is over. Now, come out and save us both the trouble.

I hear them approaching my hiding spot. I know I shouldn't have left it, but if I don't make it to the extraction point, I'll be stranded in this jungle for who knows how long before they notice I wasn't extracted with the team.

However, in doing so, I risk getting caught by these traitors. I was suddenly pulled by my hair, snapping me out of my thoughts, and dragged to the center of the squad hunting me.

"There you are. Now you'll face the consequences of what you put us through in getting you. I intended to be the only one taking you, but now my boy here expects a reward for helping me get you."

I pivoted fast, elbow smashing into the soldier holding the gun to my head. Bone cracked. He dropped.

Another lunged. I ducked low, sweeping his legs out from under him and slamming my knee into his ribs as he hit the ground. Despite exhaustion from sleep deprivation, hunger, and fatigue, I couldn’t afford to stop. My life depended on myself. Even though I once called my attackers my comrades.

The third came from behind—I felt the shift in the air before the hit and twisted, grabbing his wrist mid-swing and driving it into the tree close by. His knife clattered to the floor.

Three down. Two to go.

But the fourth man, my nemesis, didn’t move. He only smiled coldly, his arm already raised.

Click.

A sharp sting hit my neck—small, clean, fast.

My breath caught. The place began to tilt.

I staggered, fists still clenched. “Coward,” I hissed.

My muscles felt heavy and sluggish, causing me to collapse to the ground. I found myself unable to move or speak. Then, my nemesis, Captain Ryu Ji-Hwan, approached, holding a tranquilizer gun and speaking in a calm but sarcastic tone.

“You feel it, don't you, Lieutenant Moon. I spent a lot of money on this. It was totally worth it. You must be wondering what I shot you with." He raised the gun, inspecting his prized possession. "Relax, you won't die, but we will make you wish you were dead. For all you put us through. From the humiliation I've had to endure from you.”

He turned to the team. "You three stand guard. Hey, Dong Woo, bring her." Dong Woo lifted me on his shoulders like some sack of potatoes and followed Ji Hwan to a more secluded area.

He turned to his friend, "Take everything off her."

I found it difficult to move my body, as if every part of me was weighing a ton, and I simply couldn't.

"Are you trying to move? Don't waste your energy. If I were you, I would concentrate on trying to stay alive." He held my jaw, forcing me to look him in the eye. "You see, this is a tranq gun. But I changed the dart into a paralyzing drug. You can feel everything happening to you, but you just can't move. Isn't it genius of me? I've waited for this day for a while now. Now, who got the last laugh?"

He laughed maniacally. Indeed, I couldn't move, but I could feel everything they were doing to me. I saw my uniform pulled off me. I lay there naked in front of him and his friend, Lieutenant Dong Woo.

My little consolation was the fact that they didn't do this in front of the whole squad, which I was a part of. There were five, including him.

I was the sixth member until I realised his purpose for pulling strings to get me on his simulation. Tears started falling from my eyes as I watched my destruction approaching like a storm. I had fought so hard the past week, tarring, hiding, and waiting for the recovery team, but all in nought now.

I prayed to any deity or god in existence to help me. I was never one to believe in gods, having been abandoned as a child, and they never seemed to hear my cries. But today, I hoped that something, someone could hear me. I saw Ji Hwan talking and unzipping his pants. But I couldn't hear what he was saying. He lifted and bent my knees, opened my legs, then knelt between my thighs.

He pulled his dick, which was hard and jutting out of his pants, spat into his palms, and rubbed the spit on his hard dick. He held his dick against my entrance and pushed forward.

I screamed on my bed, heart frantically pounding. My hands searched for my phone. I turned it on and used the light to turn on the lights in my hotel room. I was drenched in sweat. I sat upright on the bed, reeling from the nightmares that kept haunting me.

This particular nightmare keeps haunting me over and over again. It's been over four years now since that incident, and I still can't get over it. I always have that nightmare when I get triggered. You can say it's one of my PTSDs. Most soldiers get ptsd from being in war and stuff, but my PTSD comes from abuse by my colleagues. Even though I've been to war and seen many horrible things, they don't haunt me like what my fellow soldiers did to me.

I wake up and check my watch, seeing it's 3 a.m. I managed to get about 5 hours of sleep. As a veteran, my body is accustomed to sleep deprivation, especially since I was constantly in danger, unsure of whom to trust but myself. Sleep wasn't something I could afford.

I shower, switch off the main lights, turn on the desk lamp, and sit at my hotel workspace to finalize my presentation, which is in a few hours.

The cursor blinked in time with my pulse.

My fingers hover above the keyboard, still trembling from the nightmare. My hair clung to my damp forehead. I had been back in that jungle when they had......

I swallowed hard—no time to fall apart.

The classified files scattered across my desk stared back: satellite photos, heat maps, intercept transcripts, decrypted codes. The conclusion was clear—and terrifying.

A foreign cyber-warfare unit, masked as a global tech start-up, had embedded malicious AI into civilian infrastructure. Energy grids. Water supplies. Surveillance networks.

It wasn’t just a breach—it was pre-invasion reconnaissance.

And in six hours, I had to brief the heads of South Korea’s military intelligence, the Ministry of National Defense, and—possibly—the ministers of all the affected offices.

As a former Captain, now a civilian contractor with a complicated resignation from the military, standing in front of the men who once ignored and threatened to destroy me wasn't what I wanted to do. Men who had jested when I reported the captain, who had almost ruined my life during a jungle drill, weren't what I was looking forward to, which triggered my nightmare.

I shook my head and finished the final touches to my presentations, pushing down the tremor in my chest.

8:42 AM – Private Conference Room, South Wing

I stood near the edge of the long, black conference table, hands pressed against the cool glass surface. Around me, aides moved swiftly, adjusting chairs, syncing digital screens. I used to do briefings all the time without a second thought, but now my heart thudded like a countdown. I was not supposed to be here. However, my immediate superior had insisted that I brief them.

You see, I prefer not to stand in their presence. The hypocrites who preach about equality for women and encourage women to join the military, but in reality do the opposite in practice. If given the choice, I'd prefer not to brief them at all, but I have to do as my job says.

When I resigned from the military, my superior, Colonel Seo Min, recommended me to the Stratagem conglomerate. They are a cluster of companies that specialize in weaponry, intelligence, technology, and security. I was hired to work in intelligence as a Senior Analyst & Strategist in the intelligence Division. I've been working here for a year now, flying under the radar until now.

Usually, this was my superior's job, but he had insisted that I do it as he wouldn't be able to answer every question in detail. So here I was.

My thoughts were interrupted as the door opened.

I looked up and stopped breathing.

He walked in with his entourage.

Wow, not just handsome, but the way he carried himself, the confidence in his strides, talk of an enigma, tall, composed, dressed in a dark, tailored suit that whispered power with every step.

The CEO of Stratagem, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate specializing in intelligence, weaponry, and security, has been contracted by the government to oversee its highest-level security operations. Of course, he was going to be there. This is the highest level of security breach. He wouldn't be anywhere but here, and oh, I work for him.

There’s something about him that feels familiar. Still, I'm certain I would remember him, given his attractive face and confidence. It's as if I recognize that face from somewhere, not just because he’s my CEO, but from a memory I couldn't quite recall.

It's been a year since I joined the company, but I haven't met him until now. Our paths never crossed; I was simply an analyst within his conglomerate, specifically in the intelligence sector, working in a small office to stay out of sight. Some might label me a coward for hiding, but anyone who has been through what I have would understand the need to stay hidden to survive and avoid unwanted attention.

And this briefing is the unnecessary attention I'm referring to. Nowadays, I prefer not to be the center of attention. I used to want to prove to myself that I was the best and see where it landed me. After hiding for a year now, I've been pulled out of my shell, and now I have to parade in front of every wolf I was hiding from. "Thanks, boss," I say under my breath.

He reminds me of someone who helped us on a mission in Vienna, years ago, when I had been forced to join the international joint task forces because of my situation. An operation gone sideways. He wasn’t even supposed to be there, but he’d shown up like a ghost in the firelight and helped us.

I straightened instinctively when my immediate boss, Jason Woo, introduced us.

“Director Dylan,” said my superior, coming to my side, “this is our lead senior analyst for this case, Miss Iseul Lyra Moon. Former Captain, Army Intelligence. She’ll be delivering the brief. Miss Moon, meet Director Dylan Min Joon, former Army General, now the CEO and director of Strategem.”

Dylan turned his gaze on me, his expression measured and calm. His eyes sparked for a second before they were masked. If I weren't observant, I would have missed it entirely. He nodded.

“A pleasure,” he said, voice smooth, unreadable.

I opened her mouth—then shut it.

No time. The main doors opened again. The generals were here.

And just like that, I walked forward, the screen lighting up behind me, nerves taut as piano wire. I could feel the judgment in the room like a rising tide—men who once dismissed me, now forced to listen.

But none of them mattered. The country was at risk.

I tapped my remote. The map zoomed in.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” I began, my voice steady despite the war inside. “What we’re about to show you is a coordinated, deliberate threat to our national security. And it’s already begun.”

The room dimmed as the presentation screen came to life, casting a cold glow over a sea of stars, medals, and stone-faced officials. My fingers gripped the clicker tightly—too tightly—but my voice was calm.

“Three months ago, our company was contracted to look into some system cliches. Our systems picked up an anomaly buried inside a civilian energy software update,” I began, flipping to a slide with a visual of network nodes. “At first, we thought it was a bug. Then it spread—quietly—into four other essential services: water filtration, hospital diagnostics, transit communication, and telecom satellites.”

Murmurs rippled across the room.

I pressed on. “All five systems are now partially controllable—remotely—through backdoors written in non-native AI code. The command strings trace back to a proxy network headquartered in Belgium, operated under a company called Orvenyx.”

The name triggered a subtle reaction from the CEO—Dylan’s jaw flexed almost imperceptibly.

I paused for effect. “Orvenyx is a front. It’s being used by a state-backed cyber-warfare unit with ties to a nation hostile to our interests. We believe these implants are not just reconnaissance—they’re groundwork for infrastructure sabotage.”

One of the generals leaned forward. “You’re suggesting a digital siege?”

“No,” I replied coolly. “I’m saying we’re already under one. They’re waiting for a trigger. One flick—lights out, hospitals fail, water turns toxic. The strike wouldn’t need tanks or missiles. Just a keyboard.”

Dead silence.

Then came the questions—sharp, skeptical, some thinly veiled in condescension.

“How did this slip through our own military firewalls?”

“And why is a civilian briefing us on this?”

That last one stung. I met the speaker’s eyes. “Because your systems flagged the anomaly, but didn’t follow the pattern. Ours did. And I’m here because our team, our company,”—I nodded to Dylan—“was brought in after your top analyst suggested the threat was a false positive. It wasn’t.”

More silence. But something shifted.

Dylan stood, calm and commanding. “She’s right. I’ve reviewed the data. If we don’t act now, we risk being caught off guard. Miss Moon has my full backing—and the blue house.”

That shut them up.

My heart thudded once, not just from vindication, but from the weight of his words.

As the meeting drew to a close and high-ranking officials gathered to deliberate, I stepped aside, finally allowing myself to breathe.

Director Dylan approached me quietly.

“You were extraordinary, Miss Moon,” he said, voice low. "You did a very good job with the briefing. You stood your ground under pressure."

"Thank you, Sir," I responded. Not sure what to say in this situation.

I was saved from the awkward situation when someone called my name. I turned to see the military analyst. I was supposed to share some essential files.

"Well, Sir, if you will excuse me, I have to share some data with their analyst."

"Of course, go ahead, Miss Moon." He nodded curtly.

I walked away, reminding myself not to turn around to avoid meeting his gaze. I still couldn't resist and turned around, but he was gone. Well, so much for wishing. I laughed at myself internally.

After a long, exhausting day of being drilled with questions, misogynistic pricks poking at my intelligence, I could feel a headache approaching. I had to review the data and explain the threat in detail before their analyst finally agreed that there was indeed a threat.

Our job is done. We have provided them with the needed information. Hopefully, they will work quickly to resolve the issue. I retired to my hotel room at around midnight.

As soon as I stepped into the room, my foot kicked something. I immediately turned on the light to find a brown envelope with no address, nothing. I picked some gloves from my briefcase and carefully opened the package.

Inside, it was a typed threatening letter of how they had finally found me and how they would destroy me like I destroyed him. As soon as I saw the message, I knew who it was. Only one person is languishing in jail because I put him there—disgraced Former Captain Ryu Ji-Hwan. Well, no surprises there. It's just been a while since I received these threats. I suppose my peaceful days are behind me.

I'm torn between cursing at my immediate boss and thanking him for putting me in the spotlight again.

Despite my headache and exhaustion, sleep eluded me. The sight of the generals' faces resurfaced memories I had buried a year ago. I never expected to see them again after leaving the army, but they returned like a haunting nightmare. I lay in bed, reflecting on how it all began and wishing I had never joined the military.

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