WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 45: Sector D (2)
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The senior members sprang out of the military vehicle in an instant.
“Bring Hilde out.”
Ami said it lightly, then slipped out the door.
It must have been directed at Walker. The only people left in the vehicle were him and me.
Surprisingly, Walker, who supposedly had the least seniority aside from me, did not answer.
Still, even with his mouth shut, William Walker had an overwhelming presence.
He was the biggest person I had ever seen. He grabbed my arm in a heavy grip and jumped out the door, dragging me along with him.
He was incredibly strong. Strength that suited his build. Walker had the kind of face that would make me avoid eye contact if I passed him on the street.
I landed in the cold wind.
A wide horizon spread before my eyes.
A decaying city filled my vision. Empty buildings and worn-down asphalt.
Unknown things crowded close by.
The bestiary cried out.
[Creature “Plague God.” Level 6. It inflicts damage by ramming its rotting body into targets. Its true body is a black parasite that lives inside a host. A host dies one week after becoming a Plague God. It is highly aggressive, and some individuals possess powerful poison....]
[Creature “Witch.” Level 5. It floats through the air as it approaches and fires energy blasts. The more skilled the witch, the stronger its energy blasts. Spears and swords are more effective against it than guns. Its weakness is....]
[Creature “Young Goat.” Level 4. It fires poison from its three torn mouths. The more skilled the Young Goat, the more eyeballs it has. Its weakness is....]
[Creature “Flying Bug.” Level 4. It flies through the air with its small body and self-destructs. It moves in swarms, setting off small explosions one after another. Its weakness is....]
[Creature “Young Goat.” Level 4. Its torn....]
[Creature “Young Goat.” Level 4....]
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The goat’s head exploded.
“I’ll take the goats.”
Aki tucked her short hair behind an ear and declared it.
“Let me know if you need help elsewhere.”
“Jason! You’re taking the Plague God with me!”
Richard Green ran off carrying a gun as large as his upper body.
The Plague God approaching from afar was the largest of the creatures. It was also the most intimidating. Did being Level 6 really make that much difference?
Tvein clicked his tongue and loaded his gun.
“The rest of you, clear out the ones nearby!”
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Headshot! Headshot! Headshot!
Aki’s bullets accurately burst the goats’ heads. The speed was breathtaking.
I stood still where I had jumped down, watching the senior members clear out the creatures. My hand moved to my sword sheath by reflex, but I could not tell where I was supposed to fit into the flow they had created.
If I jumped in carelessly, I would only get in the way.
Walker let go of my arm and strode forward.
“Newbie.”
He spoke in a deep, heavy voice without turning around.
“Yes.”
“Put the military vehicle back upright.”
What?
“That’s the only vehicle we have.”
Why was everything so awful here?
The library in E Zone had several motorcycles that could drive themselves.
Of course, I did not argue. I quickly turned and ran toward the military vehicle lying alone on the asphalt.
I grabbed the wheels of the vehicle lying on its side and pushed.
When I pressed down hard on the wheels, the vehicle rose smoothly and stood upright.
“Oh. It worked.”
Squelch.
Something was crushed behind me.
I whipped my head around and saw Walker’s massive fist. Blood and saliva dripped between his solid fingers.
I stared blankly at the man who had crushed a Flying Bug to death with his bare hand.
Where was this person’s weapon...?
“Flying Bugs gather around you.”
Walker swung his bleeding fist.
Whoosh!
The senior member swung his arm like a pitcher. His thick arm cut across my vision at incredible speed. The Flying Bug’s corpse flew through the air like a baseball.
The curled-up body struck the Flying Bugs coming through the gray air.
Thud, thud.
The creatures were hit by their comrade’s corpse and fell to the ground.
This guy fought with his bare hands.
“Stay by the vehicle. You’ll be in the way.”
The man spoke roughly as he swung fists bigger than Richard Green’s. I watched in stunned silence as Flying Bugs died one after another from punches so fast they frightened me, and from volleys of corpses.
Maybe I did not need to step in at all.
After Walker burst all the Flying Bugs that had been buzzing closer, killed the rest by bombarding them with corpses, and moved away from the military vehicle, I became certain of it.
Just as Ami had said, everyone here was among the top ten, even without excluding Yoon, Ye-hyeon, and Ska.
Richard Green and Jason Tvein were war heroes who had survived the First and Second Wars, like Ami. But Aki and William Walker had been hired through open recruitment. Reportedly, they had never experienced war, nor had they lost family to creatures or anything like that.
They were experts who had risen above experience through natural talent.
I heard that Aki had been a representative shooter from an outlying Core. William Walker had been a fixer at Center Core.
‘When it comes to talent alone, could they be better than anyone among the Badgers?’
Ami’s words lingered in my head.
The attack had been sudden, but the defense posed no problem. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat! Aki’s continuing gunfire. Walker shattered energy blasts with punches, somehow, then crushed the heads of ghostlike witches with his hands.
Green and Tvein were practically turning the Plague God into a beehive.
What about Ami?
[Creature “Mad Buffalo.” Level 5. Each individual is not especially powerful, but they always travel in herds and...]
“The crazy cows are here!”
Ami shouted from the air.
“Run! We’ll get trampled to death!”
The ground shook.
I turned toward where Ami was looking. Then I saw a cloud of dust covering the base of a ruined apartment building.
What was that?
I stared in shock at Goat creatures being flung into the air and a herd of twisted water buffalo emerging from the dust cloud.
There were creatures like that too?
What was the point of creatures like that? And why did creatures keep appearing here without end? Was it my problem, or the Zone’s problem?
Both?
“Hey! Start the engine!”
Tvein, who was running toward us, roared.
“Get the vehicle moving!”
“What?”
I didn’t have a license.
“Are you blind? Can’t you see that?”
“I can see it, but....”
“This is practical training!”
Ami dropped down from the sky with a bright smile.
“Hilde, get in the driver’s seat! Brake on the left, accelerator on the right!”
Wow, that was really simple.
There was no time to argue. Without thinking, I ran to the military vehicle I had just set upright and flung open the driver’s door.
As I jumped in, the road spread out beyond the half-destroyed window. I heard people climbing in. Walker. Aki. Tvein. Green.
Ami hopped into the passenger seat.
Wait. I think I knew this.
“Hilde, that’s the accelera...”
Screeeech!
I pressed the accelerator all the way down.
The vehicle shot forward. Ami, who had been pointing at the accelerator, cried out and pitched forward before catching herself. I could hear the senior members in the back shouting by reflex too.
But I had no time to turn around and apologize.
A herd of water buffalo was closing in through the rearview mirror.
I pressed the accelerator again and sped up even more. The battered military vehicle could not go as fast as I wanted, but it did have the advantage of plowing through the broken road.
I just had to maintain this speed. I turned the wheel and avoided the obstacles rushing toward us.
“Argh! Hey! Use the turn signal before you turn!”
“You’re good!”
Tvein complained. Ami stuck her head out and burst into laughter.
“So you only didn’t have a license, Hilde!”
Exactly.
A memory I had forgotten surfaced. As I held the steering wheel, my vision overlapped and a fond memory came back to me.
A memory of driving.
Someone had been sitting beside me. A person with an androgynous, friendly voice. A whisper saying, “You’ll get your license in no time.”
Ah. That person almost always wore a white lab coat. Their hair had two colors. Black and blue? Blue and purple?
Anyway, -- had thought that person was foolish. Someone who knew nothing, who could not even guess what would inevitably happen in the future.
But they were friendly to us, so we should treat them well on the surface.
-- would say that while brushing aside black hair that hung like a curtain.
Who would have guessed we would live this comfortably?
By the way, we have some free time. Want to spar with swords?
Like the good old days?
Boom!
A crazed buffalo rammed the rear of the vehicle.
“Don’t stop!”
Richard Green shouted heavily as he opened the roof hatch.
“Just keep driving! We have to clear them out at some point anyway.”
“Richard. I’ll do it.”
Ami slipped backward from the passenger seat.
In the rearview mirror, I saw her jump up through the open sunroof. Ami was still wearing those strange boots.
Was she going to fly up with them and kick the buffalo away?
Even as I drove down the endless road, I kept looking at the rearview mirror.
Ami disappeared from view while Richard Green offered no particular objection.
For about two minutes....
Crunch!
A tremendous noise came from behind us.
Startled, I looked at the rearview and side mirrors. But the windows and mirrors were all covered in blood, so I could not see anything.
What was this?
“I rounded up about twenty of them and took care of them.”
Ami slipped back into the vehicle.
“There’s a mountain of corpses now, so we should have some distance between us.”
Green grunted in agreement. The other senior members sat calmly.
The vehicle reeked of blood. I had to make an effort not to stare stupidly at Ami as she casually brushed herself off.
I had no idea what she had done. Judging from the creature bones and chunks of flesh splattered across both side mirrors, it did not seem like she had simply kicked them away.
She rounded up about twenty of them?
The person who had always seemed like a youthful younger sibling took off her pitch-black outerwear and returned to the passenger seat.
Then Ami looked at me and smiled.
“You can slow down now!”
“...Yes.”
“If you drive too fast, the impact will be worse if we hit something.”
Let’s go slower. But you really are good at driving.
I only kept nodding at Ami as she spoke cheerfully.
I ignored Richard Green grumbling from the back, “With this kind of skill, you should have gotten a license long ago,” and Aki asking Walker, “Could that newbie be from your world? Why did he never get a license?”
I opened the window, wiped the side mirror with my hand, and kept driving.
Until we reached our destination.
* * *
The Safe Point stood in a wide, open wasteland.
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