WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 49: Operation (1)
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I can't believe he was trying to abandon me like this.
Richard Green ignored Yoon’s rude answer. From what I had seen, these people knew each other far too well. They were probably sick to death of each other’s existence.
Green did not even seem angry at Yoon’s irritated reply.
“Now that it’s come to this, don’t expect to sleep either.”
[Yes, yes.]
No one was surprised by the half-hearted answer.
That must have been how Yoon always reacted whenever Richard Green lectured him.
Any chance of sleep was gone. Everyone gathered around a rusty table in the control room.
A little sadly, most of the seniors did not want to sit beside me. It did not seem like they were uneasy about me attracting creatures. They seemed more betrayed that I had kept silent all this time.
Only Ami and Sylvia were exceptions.
Ami knew my circumstances. Sylvia... did not seem interested in my circumstances at all.
The more I saw Sylvia, the more she seemed like the same type as my senior partner.
Still, I was glad to have people on either side of me. I sat quietly between Ami and Sylvia, keeping my mouth shut.
The seniors spoke to my senior partner over speakerphone. A map of the Safe Point floated in the air.
Still furious at me and everyone who had hidden this from him, Tvein shouted.
“You crazy bastard. You knew too, and you never said a word to us?”
My senior partner sounded indifferent.
[I didn’t.]
He had no intention of making excuses.
Nothing followed.
Tvein, who had gone quiet for a moment because he naturally expected more of an answer, grew even angrier.
“You fucking psycho! Every bastard with something wrong in their brain like you should be scrapped!”
[Sylvia’s there too, right?]
Yoon gave a light snort from the other side of the phone.
[Are you taking potshots at everyone?]
“Stop talking nonsense.”
“Hey. Feels good, right? Getting showered with favoritism from your boss. Come on, tell the truth. You two are screwing, aren’t you?”
“Jason Tvein!”
“Seriously!”
Green and Ami snapped at the same time.
Lee Ho and Bobby, the blond senior, also stiffened. But Yoon himself did not get angry.
His voice, full of mockery, came through the phone.
[Are you saying that because you’re scared? Or because you’re jealous you don’t get Ye-hyeon’s favoritism?]
My senior partner had a natural talent for getting on people’s nerves.
Bang! The table dented. Tvein got to his feet to hit the phone too. In the end, we had to pause the meeting for a while.
Richard Green said he would study the terrain and plan the operation, then ordered everyone out. The seniors headed upstairs in a group.
Lee Ho took care of the agitated Tvein on the way. “Come on, senior. You’re not some amateur. What’s gotten into you?” I heard his usual goat-like voice.
The control room gradually emptied.
I stayed where I was until the seniors had all left.
Then, before leaving, I met Richard Green’s eyes and gave him a small bow.
“You.”
The senior, staring at me with blazing eyes, spoke heavily.
I did not avoid his gaze.
“Yes.”
“You’re prepared, right?”
“Yes.”
Actually, I had been prepared since I accepted Ye-hyeon’s suggestion that I become a Badger.
I had never told anyone. Still, I had made up my mind in my own way before accepting Ye-hyeon’s offer.
I had no intention of being surprised or discouraged now. Personally or professionally, I would not turn away from the problems I created without meaning to.
Ami was waiting on the stairs. Feeling her presence, I bowed to Richard again.
“When you make the plan, I’ll follow it.”
After answering, I turned and headed for the stairs.
* * *
Although we were surrounded by creatures, the Safe Point was also enclosed by a small Breath.
So there was no immediate danger. Ami took me to the second floor.
“You’ll feel awkward around the seniors if you stay on the first floor.”
She gently tugged me along by the arm.
Hearing Ami’s calm voice made my chest tighten a little.
I was grateful for the natural kindness she had shown me ever since we first met.
We went upstairs to the room with the widest windows on the second floor. One wall was entirely made of glass. The moment we pushed open its old door and stepped inside, my vision filled.
The face of a creature, estimated to be Level 7, was right before us in the darkness.
The creature looked directly at me.
With an eye large enough to take up nearly half the window.
“It looks like a weird human.”
Ami trotted into the room and spoke calmly.
“Hilde, do you know Hachishaku-sama?”
“No?”
“It’s a huge, lanky ghost. It kind of looks like that.”
You do not sound scared of it.
Still, I understood what she meant. Gray strands that could have been fur or hair covered its long face like a curtain.
Amid them, huge eyes with black sclera stood out clearly.
Bloodshot eyes looked at me resentfully.
What did I ever do to you?
When I walked diagonally across the room, the creature’s enormous pupils rolled after me. Its body did not move at all, but its pupils faithfully followed wherever I went.
Ami went, “Ugh.”
“Creepy.”
“Yeah. It’s grotesque.”
“Hilde, you’ve never fought a huge creature before, right?”
I nodded as I looked at the bloodshot eye taking up half the window. Ami came to stand beside me.
Watching the creature with me, she gave me advice.
“The easiest way is to get under its body, hit its legs, then attack when it loses balance.”
“Ah, I think I understand. Thank you for the advice.”
“Yeah. If you watch your timing and get inside its reach, it won’t be able to attack easily.”
Like Ye-hyeon had done when he slipped into the opening created by the Level 10 creature.
It was truly textbook swordsmanship. The image that would not leave my mind resurfaced.
A flawless draw. Smooth technique. Practiced footwork. Yoon had said he had learned swordsmanship properly.
Who had taught him swordsmanship?
I put my hand over the hilt of the sword at my waist. Thanks to how desperately I had shouted in the underground parking lot where I stabbed the pig to death, Yoon had given me a bigger sword.
As expected, a thick, long sword suited my hand better than a thin, short one.
Sometimes, though, even this sword felt strangely unsatisfying....
It was not that I had any major complaints. It was only a small regret. This sword was doing its job well enough.
After hearing Yoon’s irritated insistence, I would probably use a sword instead of a gun once the operation began.
I really hoped so.
“But how does it really know where you are?”
Ami muttered as she watched the eye outside the window that would not leave me.
“That’s really strange too, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m most curious about.”
“Anyway, let’s kill them all.”
The young-sounding senior proposed it easily.
“For decades, scientists at headquarters tried to tame them, but creatures just can’t be tamed.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Especially the closer they are to human-shaped.”
Her next words were almost a murmur.
“They seem much more vicious than the others....”
I’m telling you, look.
A voice suddenly popped into my head.
A long-haired, black-haired figure was speaking to me. Remember. The things our world has placed in our hands. The things only we can feel. You can feel it, right? Life force that feels ready to explode at any moment. The feeling of being connected. The vivid sensation of life flowing through your body.
He let out his usual hearty laugh.
They don’t know anything. Not that blue-haired researcher, not that narrow-eyed person, not the old people either.
He always mocked the two-toned-haired researcher like that. I sank into the faint memory that had surfaced.
Who knows? Who could ever dare guess at our bond?
In my memories, we were always in an obsessively white room. Whenever the two of us were left in that sterile room, he would honestly reveal the thoughts he kept hidden.
The words he said like a habit echoed in my head.
They’re blind. They don’t know anything.
They don’t know anything....
Then what?
In the end, I could not remember beyond that.
* * *
We would cut the bridge.
Noon. The sun was high in the sky, and visibility was secured.
It was time to begin the operation. Several kilometers away stood a bridge. It was thick and sturdy, still holding its shape even now.
There was a cliff beneath it. If anyone fell, nothing but flying creatures would make it back alive.
I would drive there and lure the creatures after me.
The seniors would follow the creatures as they frantically chased me. They planned to hunt them down one by one from the rear.
Most of the creatures would be too focused on me to think of looking back. No matter how many there were, it would not be too difficult.
Ami and I only had to play our parts well.
Ami had the best mobility, so she would go with me. Her role was to scoop me up and rise into the air beyond the broken bridge.
We planned to eliminate any creatures we could not take out by cutting down the bridge. Ami and I would throw bombs as soon as we crossed it. Boom! Creatures would fall along with the exploding bridge.
It was a simple but effective operation.
There were no obvious problems.
I had memorized the entire map.
“I’m ready.”
Inside a vehicle as sleek as Yoon’s sports car, I checked the gears and reported.
“I’ll leave as soon as the signal is given.”
[Ami.]
“I’m ready too.”
Ami, wearing black gloves, opened and closed her small hands.
“Give the order.”
The radio transmission cut off.
A brief silence followed. I emptied my mind and looked through the car window, then turned at the gaze I felt beside me.
Ami smiled brightly.
“Let’s do our best!”
I smiled too.
“Yes. I’ll floor it.”
“You’re not nervous.”
Ami let out a clear laugh.
“Isn’t this your first time dealing with a creature that big? Hilde, you’re really strange.”
Was I?
I blinked a couple of times. I was not nervous, but I did not think that was unusual.
I did not think Hessi or Tom, my fellow recruits, would have been especially nervous either.
Hessi might have liked this.
Vwooom!
As I wondered how my fellow recruits were doing, I heard the sound that meant the operation had begun.
It did not come through the radio.
But it was too loud to miss.
The sound of the Breath activating.
I kept my foot on the brake and looked at the gate. The gate stood wide open toward the inside. Before it was a translucent barrier.
I heard it tremble and open.
A strange, immense sound. Vwooom. Vwooom.
Like a balloon.
The barrier opened.
I pressed the accelerator.
Screeeeech!
At the same moment I crashed through the creatures gathered before the Breath, the operation began.
Footnotes:
Hachishaku-sama is a Japanese urban-legend ghost known for its towering height.
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