WeTried Translations x Flame Comics

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 115: 16. The Person Who Travels Abroad to a Conflict Zone During Vacation (7)

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* * *

The best way to solve most problems in society was, naturally, to eliminate their cause.

Not every social problem had a cause that could be eliminated, however. In such cases, a society's leaders usually tried to divert public attention by singling out a particular group within their borders. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong had been authorities in that field.

It was the act of shifting both the cost of social problems and public anger onto a tangible target. Nearly every defeated country had needed to employ this tactic frequently. Blaming the poor cost less than blaming the leadership.

The most common version was, "There were traitors among us."

A slightly more elaborate version went, "It wasn't because the enemy was superior or because we were inferior. It was because of one particular person's overwhelming ability." Japan had even built a shrine for Yi Sun-sin after the Imjin War.

Idealizing an enemy was surprisingly helpful for unifying those within. "Our preparations and plans were perfect, but our opponent just happened to be XX!"

That was the mindset shared by nearly every demonfolk group crushed by the Hero Party.

The enemy had killed even the Demon King, so what could they possibly have done?

The problem was that the dwarves had never directly clashed with the Hero Party. They had served as rear-echelon logistical support or infiltrators behind enemy lines.

So the dwarven leadership created another overwhelming enemy. There was someone they had often clashed with, someone who had killed one of the Seven Dragon Generals, and someone who had truly caused the dwarves measurable damage.

The Black Widow. Major Ivan Petrovich. Krasilov's Dagger, the Great King's Executioner, the Lumberjack, and the despair of dwarven intelligence units.

There was usually one thing to watch out for when creating such an enemy. If that enemy was still alive and active, the whole nation could be swallowed by a sense of defeat and collapse.

That was where the dwarven leadership relaxed. Major Ivan Petrovich had died alongside Aviditas, one of the Seven Dragon Generals. That gloomy bastard they hated had perished together with the one they wanted to tear apart.

Now they could safely begin idealizing evil.

What? A food shortage? Ivan again!

What? Goblins were running wild? Ivan again!

What did you say? Every export route had been cut off? Ivan again!!

Employment instability, population decline, an extreme drop in gross national product, the bankruptcy of countless arms factories, explosive growth in the poor population, and a widening gap between rich and poor.

Whenever they shouted, "Ivan again!" in the face of every social problem befitting a defeated country, everyone accepted it and returned to being obedient workers. To these embodiments of Averagism, Ivan was something like a trump card.

And the people here were paying the price for it.

Not some abstract social price, but a coldly honed, tangible, physical, visible price. It was unfair. The leaders who had used Ivan's name as an excuse had not joined the rebels.

"Ivan Petrovich... again...!"

The command headquarters of the Third Munitions District watched in terror as a dead dwarf hung sideways from a pole in the middle of the street.

In an age when raising the dead was no great feat, the most horrifying resurrection they had ever known awaited them after signing an MOU with a faction considered the pinnacle of necromancy.

* * *

Ivan did not think he held the most important role in this mission. The dwarves certainly did not. All they had to do was advance. Ivan had never expected moles to fill a person's role in the first place.

He had casually named the operation strike east and attack west, but that was not its core. If he had to force the old saying to fit, it should have been called strike east plus strike east plus strike east, and attack west plus attack west plus attack west.

The three operations unfolding from different directions had to complement one another perfectly, while each also functioned as the main thrust.

Ivan was bait for the operations elsewhere, while also serving as the field agent tasked with eliminating Aviditas's agents.

The dwarves were bait to support Ivan and Enrika, while also serving as the core force that pinned down the rebels' main army.

Enrika was bait who drew attention away from Ivan and the dwarves toward herself. At the same time, she was the rescue team, creating confusion in the enemy headquarters' intelligence and extracting the Secretary's son.

No one on this board was bait meant to be discarded after playing their part. Everyone had to do their job, and everyone had to succeed.

That made Enrika's role the most important.

If she was exposed, the Secretary's son could be moved elsewhere, so she could not reveal her location.

Yet she also needed to make the enemy headquarters realize that someone might be targeting the Secretary's son.

The rescue had to be carried out without error, in step with the completion of the other operations.

That was why Lucia was here. There was no need to communicate with the dwarves, but Lucia needed to remain in constant contact with Enrika.

Ivan snapped his pocket watch shut and looked at Lucia.

"Again?"

"Yes. Again."

Lucia closed their eyes, waited for a signal, then nodded. Ivan let out a quiet sigh. Every projected target point Enrika had searched had been wrong. This was already the third.

Day five of strike east and attack west. By now, they should have found the facility holding the Secretary's son.

Five locations had been shortlisted. They had carefully selected sites capable of imprisoning a kidnapped target, blocking rescue attempts by special operations units, and easily communicating with the outside in an emergency.

They had now searched three of them. This was not simply checking a building. They had to search an entire enemy formation's encampment, where they had no intelligence at all, without being exposed. The mission was no less difficult than Ivan's.

Still, three out of five meant they should be right soon, unless the hostage had somehow ended up in the final candidate by pure chance.

"Ah, Senior Brother! Another group just came out! Wow, they're packed tightly together this time!"

"Move to position C-11 and hide. I'll hit them in fifteen seconds."

"Ah, ah, wait, wait a moment!!"

Lucia hurried through the shadows, moving to the other side of the building. Ivan shouldered his rifle and shifted his gaze.

A dwarf stood trembling in the square beyond the broken window.

The dwarf was wounded, sobbing and screaming. Ivan studied the dwarf's distorted face through his scope, then calmly shifted the muzzle.

"Hold on a little longer! We'll be there soon!!"

A frightened group of dwarves approached, wearing armor plates that exceeded standard equipment specifications.

Five of them.

Ivan carefully studied their equipment through the scope. Their frontal armor could not be penetrated by the round in his rifle.

He narrowed his dry, gritty eyes and slowly controlled his breathing. After several test shots, he had already understood the weapon's specifications. Like all dwarven firearms, it was a brutally precise machine.

He exhaled halfway, stopped, and slid his index finger into the trigger guard. The spring's resistance settled pleasantly against his fingertip.

He aimed 1.5 centimeters below the shoulder plate, at the chain link exposed when they raised an arm. Even that could not be penetrated with one bullet, but it was the weakest point from the front.

-Bang!!

The lead dwarf jerked their head up the instant Ivan fired.

'They have line-of-fire detection.'

They had not spotted Ivan, but they seemed to have identified his hiding place. The dwarf quickly signaled with a hand and shouted something.

Ivan's enhanced hearing caught a whoosh. Artillery was coming in. They had pinpointed his location and were trying to bombard it.

There were about three seconds between firing and impact. For superhumans, three seconds were more absolute than the number suggested. Ivan was already moving, his eyes narrowed.

-Click.

Before the sparks from the first hit had even died down, he had reloaded. Still shouldering the rifle and controlling the recoil with both arms, he fired again.

-Bang.

-Clang!!

The bullet, embedded within 0.1 millimeters of the first, struck the chain link precisely. The impact exceeded its tensile strength, loosening the link.

The moment he saw the sparks fly, he reloaded with a click.

Creaking, he tightened his muscles and aligned the sights.

Hoo... He released his final breath and steadied himself.

-Bang!!

-Crack!!

The chain link snapped, and the shoulder plate came loose. Ivan threw aside the rifle and grabbed a throwing spear. Repeating the same attack was pointless when they had line-of-fire detection. From the moment the armor broke, they would certainly dodge.

Dodge.

Ivan's right arm stretched to its limit with a crack. He twisted at the waist and hurled the spear with all its stored force.

Whoom, the spear tore through the air like a streak of rain. The instant it flew, Ivan lowered his body and ran.

-Tat.

He stepped on the window frame and kicked off. In that dizzying moment of weightlessness, he twisted his body. The moment he exposed himself, more than seven shots detected by line-of-fire detection came at him.

He deflected what he could, dodged what he could, and redirected the rest as best he could with his armored left hand. Ivan's body blurred for an instant.

-Clang, clatter!!

He kicked off the wall that rushed toward him. Next. He kicked off another wall. Even as he ran through the air, Ivan's eyes remained fixed on the square.

Whenever Line-of-Fire Detection warned him, he twisted his body, corrected his altered path, sprinted again, and kicked off another wall. Finally.

-Crunch!!

The dwarf barely dodged his throwing spear and hurriedly regained their footing.

"You bastard!!"

Ivan landed before their eyes and pulled the throwing spear from the ground.

The spear, buried deep in the ground, still had enough force left to tremble. Ivan raised it and drove it straight into the startled dwarf's shoulder.

The spearhead shattered the shoulder blade, crushed the kneecap as it traveled, then tore through the neck and burst out the other side.

Feeling the crunch in his hand, Ivan released the shaft and immediately ducked.

-Bang!! Ratatatat!!

Countless bullets slammed into the dwarf's body before they had time to scream. It was fine. A dwarf's armor plates could not be penetrated from the front, not even by dwarven rounds.

They needed to bring in heavy weapons. And the heavy weapon had only just struck Ivan's first hiding place.

-Kaboom!!

Feeling a wave of heat rush against his back, Ivan reached behind himself. His hands closed around an axe and a dagger.

He drew them and threw himself toward the next target. The dwarf, only just recovering from their shock, rushed at him with a battle hammer.

-Crunch!

Ivan twisted away from the hammer and drove the dagger between the chain links around the wrist. As strength left the dwarf's grip, he swung his right arm and smashed the axe down.

Crack! Sparks burst from the back of their neck. They had blocked the axe blade, but they could not handle the impact. Their stance twisted.

He drove the dagger into the loosened chain link again. Bang, bang, bang. Three strikes in one breath. The armor securing the helmet and shoulder plates tore free.

Ivan called this "the can opener." About five agents in the Annihilation Unit had been capable of doing it.

-Clang!!

The instant the helmet flew off, he swung the axe to finish the dwarf off. Once he felt the cervical vertebrae at the nape of their neck completely shatter, confirming the kill, he threw himself onward.

"Y-you monster...!!"

The remaining dwarves screamed and fled. He could not drag this out any longer. The gunfire caught by line-of-fire detection was beginning to exceed what he could react to.

Whoosh, he heard the next artillery shot. Ivan immediately raised his left arm and shielded his neck with the armor plate. Twing, a bullet struck the back of his hand, slid away, and bounced off.

"Black... Widow...!!"

The dwarf hanging from the pole gasped, glaring at Ivan with eyes filled with resentment. Ivan gave them an indifferent glance, then raced away beyond the city.

Gunfire and artillery continued for a long time after he vanished from the square. Only after several more rounds struck the square did silence return.

The dwarf slowly lowered their head and sobbed.

Like prey hanging in a spiderweb.

In less than ten seconds after the rescue team appeared in the square, two of their kin who had rushed to save them had collapsed into corpses.

That was the Black Widow's way of fighting.

* * *

The Annihilation Unit's standard manual recorded a tactic called Antlion Pit.

It meant leaving a wounded soldier in a highly visible location, then picking off the forces sent to rescue them one by one.

The existence of an ally screaming day and night in plain sight damaged the entire army's morale by itself. The enemy was forced to choose between personally shooting the wounded soldier dead or accepting losses and attempting a rescue.

The usual solution was to send superhuman soldiers as the rescue team. It was only natural. This manual focused on neutralizing enemy reinforcements through sniping.

Superhumans could not be killed by sniping because of line-of-fire detection. That made the original Antlion Pit useless against them.

That was when Ivan's reputation began to echo among his enemies.

Whenever they dispatched elite troops like superhuman soldiers, he appeared from somewhere to ambush them, then shook the bait again and waited for the next superhuman to be deployed.

Like a spider spreading its web, sharpening its fangs in the darkness.

They said that was how he earned the name Black Widow. The dwarves came to know the insult before they knew Ivan's real name. By the time his name became known, he had become a legend within dwarven intelligence.

The legend Aviditas had killed was once again looming over dwarven society.

* * *

The headquarters had anticipated Ivan's intrusion and prepared a trap, and its decision was swift and accurate. Their rapid initial response had minimized pointless losses.

The heart of the munitions factories was lined with enough firepower to face even a Hero head-on. This would be enough. That was what they thought.

If he wanted to kill dwarves and shut down the factories, he would have to charge in from the front. They had blocked every other route.

Then the first night passed, and a dwarf was caught in the web. They remembered the Black Widow.

Even if they blasted the area where they expected him to be stationed, another dwarf would be hanging from a pole the next day.

If they sent out a search party, the entire group vanished, and one survivor was hung from a pole again.

When they mobilized every goblin and attempted a wide-area search, everything remained deathly quiet. Then, before long, another pole appeared somewhere else.

Naturally, a dwarf hung from it.

Days passed like that.

Whenever a screaming dwarf fell silent, another dwarf was tied up.

Ivan openly demonstrated that he could infiltrate at any time, silently kidnap someone, and hang them in the square.

Two more days passed.

When they realized they had not set a trap but fallen into one, and chose to hold out to prevent further losses.

When the remaining dwarves had finally lost the will to fight and were convulsing in panic.

-Kugugugugu!!

The entire munitions factory began to hum.

Flutter, flutter. The beating of wings echoed through the whole cavern louder than artillery fire. A dwarf looked up and whispered, a small hope flaring like an ember.

"Have they come...?!"

A swarm of bats flew up and filled the cavern ceiling. Underground vermin such as snakes, lizards, centipedes, and rats began pouring from tunnels beyond the cavern like waves.

Hissing filled every direction, and when they had finally spread throughout the factory district,

[IVAN PETROVICH!!!]

a voice like scraping metal plates thundered throughout the factory district.

Ivan snapped his pocket watch shut and stood.

Day seven of Andgrund's strike east and attack west.

05:30.

At last, the target had arrived at the trap.

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Footnotes:

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