WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
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◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 50: Operation (2)
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The vehicle plowed straight through the Mad Buffalo.
For a moment. The moment the accelerator’s momentum sent us shooting out past the Breath.
But it quickly became clear things would not go so easily.
Creatures filled the windows.
Thud! Thump!
The car shook from the impacts. It was surrounded by creatures as though trapped in a crowd.
Thud! The car came to a stop after crashing heavily into the buffalo herd. The engine could not overcome the dense wall of creatures blocking us.
“Air support!”
Ami shouted beside me as I pressed the accelerator down hard.
“Requesting support!”
[Air support is moving in.]
Sylvia’s calm voice came through the radio.
[All drones, deploy.]
Propellers roared overhead.
Boom! Boom! Booooom! Powerful shock waves struck the side of the car. Drone attacks detonated all around us. Three-eyed goats exploded above the windows. Bones splintered, organs burst.
The varied sounds of death were swallowed by the sharp, continuing explosions.
A narrow opening appeared in our view.
Flashes from the blasts. Torn hide and bone flying apart. The wasteland road revealed between them.
I hit the accelerator.
Vrooom!
“We’ve got a path!”
Ami laughed brightly over the enormous roar of the engine.
“Let’s go! To the cliff!”
Thump!
Heavy footsteps.
They sounded right beside the car. The rearview mirror filled with the giant creature’s legs. The unclassified creature was enormous. If its body was two stories tall, its legs covered in gray fur had to be ridiculously huge too.
If it stepped on us, we would be flattened.
“Two o’clock!”
Screeeech!
“Eleven o’clock!”
Screeeeeech!
I wrenched the wheel wildly at Ami’s directions. Thump! Thump! I could feel the giant creature chasing us. The car was repeatedly swallowed by its shadow, only to barely escape it.
Diagonally, straight ahead. Brake. Accelerator. Hard brake.
Acceleraaate!
Thump!
We weren't going backward.
“We’re getting out.”
Ami twisted around to look behind us.
“Open the roof once we break through the creature wall.”
“Yes.”
I did not take my foot off the accelerator.
“I’ll open it in three seconds.”
The view opened up.
A vast wasteland stretched before us. A place slowly crumbling away under the wind.
We had escaped the creature wall. The giant unclassified creature was still chasing right behind us, but we had gotten out of the wall at least.
I reached out and pressed the button.
Whirr.
The roof opened.
At the same time, an enormous explosion erupted behind us.
Booom!
“What was that?”
“Richard.”
The wind whipped my hair wildly. White strands kept blocking my vision. I narrowed my eyes and looked into the rearview mirror.
A huge cloud of smoke rose where the creature wall had been. Threatening motorcycle engines roared from within the smoke.
It seemed the seniors had begun following us. They would kill creatures from their individual motorcycles and eventually join us.
Creatures flew through the air from within the hazy cloud, defying gravity.
I had a feeling Walker was grabbing them and throwing them by hand.
“Two o’clock!”
Thump!
Thump! Thump! Thump! Deafening noise battered my eardrums. I turned my eyes back toward the side mirror. The giant creature moved its limbs quickly.
Its limbs were so long they looked as though they might tangle together as it scuttled over the ground. It was moving nearly as fast as our car. It was huge, and disgustingly fast.
Bang! A gray hand knocked off the left side mirror.
Clicking my tongue, I urgently turned the wheel.
“Hilde, I’m firing a missile.”
“Yes.”
Ami set an infantry missile as long as she was tall on her shoulder.
The muzzle pointed at the black-sclera creature filling half the rearview mirror.
In a clear voice, she shouted.
“Bang!”
The missile exploded.
With the roof open, the sound hit my eardrums even harder. The creature’s gray leg exploded. Thump! It dropped to one knee. Pale smoke rose.
Unfortunately, it did not seem to have suffered much damage.
“Didn’t do much. It’ll get back up.”
“I’ll keep going.”
“Okay.”
Ami calmly prepared the next shot.
“Let’s head for the bridge.”
I had memorized the entire map at dawn.
Past the wasteland surrounding the Safe Point lay a ruined city. If we followed the broken asphalt road through it, we would reach a pedestrian bridge. It connected two sheer cliffs and had been built for tourists. The canyon was deep. Anyone who fell would have a hard time climbing back out alive.
Once we crossed it and brought down the bridge, the operation would be over.
So far, it had gone smoothly. Four successive blasts had opened some distance between us and the unclassified creature. Drones shot down the creatures flying through the air, while Aki picked off every creature that attacked from range, like the witches.
Creatures still rose into the sky in the scene reflected by the rearview mirror, defying gravity. Shock waves struck the back of my head as they passed. Noise battered my eardrums.
There was not much farther to go. At last, the bridge began to come into view in the distance.
If we could just hold out like this.
We would reach the bridge without any trouble...
Cracklecracklecrackle!
Booom! The rear of the car flew into the air. My vision plunged rapidly toward the ground.
“Aah!”
Ami screamed reflexively. The cannon struck the ground and rolled away.
My vision spun wildly. The vehicle rolled over and over across the road.
The car slammed hard into a building with its rusted framework fully exposed.
Thump!
Searing pain shot through my entire body.
“Ugh...”
“Hilde.”
Ami’s voice was heavy.
We were inside the overturned car. I hung from my seat belt, trapped between the shattered window and my seat.
Ami, who had taken off her seat belt to fire the missile, had already righted herself inside the mangled car. The wounds on her face and body were slowly healing.
The smell of blood. The smell of something burning. Liquid ran down from my forehead, blocking my vision. I must have hurt my head.
My body would not listen.
“We need to get out. It’ll explode soon.”
Ami quickly cut the seat belt supporting me with a knife.
“Or we’ll get crushed under that creature’s arm.”
The instant she finished speaking, the creature's footsteps stopped.
But I could not move at all. I tried, but I could not even twitch a finger. I could only watch as Ami skillfully kicked the crushed car apart and made an exit. She went out through it, then stuck only her arm back in, grabbed me, and pulled me outside.
Cold wind struck my body.
The giant creature stood before me, looking down at us.
“I’ll keep it busy, so pull yourself together, get up, and head for the bridge.”
Ami shot up into the air as she tossed the words lightly over her shoulder.
My vision filled with the creature raising its arm to strike her. Blue light shimmered across its gray fur.
Blue electricity. Crackle, crackle. The current surrounding its body made an ominous sound. Crackle. Crack.
It uses electricity?
Something we had not known because it was an unclassified creature. It had been what bothered the seniors most when they planned the operation. They did not know what the giant creature was. They could not know what sort of attacks it had, or how powerful they were, until they faced it.
Even now, we did not know exactly.
Ami kicked off the ground and soared into the air.
Booom!
For a while, I could only watch the battle helplessly.
All I could do was watch in misery until my body obeyed me again. I realized just how fatal it was here when your healing ability did not work properly.
What was more miserable was that I was the cause of all this. Ami was too fast for my eyes to follow, but she was losing in strength. Gritting my teeth, I tried to stand.
Get up. Get up.
Get up and grab your sword!
Bang!
Ami was slammed violently into the ground.
“Ami!”
My heart dropped.
At last, my limbs began to listen. Gritting my teeth, I pushed against the ground with my palms and forced myself upright. The creature slowly turned its head to look at me.
The right arm that had swatted Ami down like a fly.
The moment I bit my lip and reached for my sword hilt, that arm was bound tightly by light-reflecting wire.
“Hilde!”
Ami sprang into the air as though she had springs attached to her feet.
The wire extended from her gloves. I watched Ami rise to the creature’s head height, then dive down as swiftly as a hawk, pulling the wire taut.
Blood burst from the arm caught in the wire.
“Go!”
“Together...”
“If you don’t go to the bridge, the operation will go wrong!”
Flesh burst away, but the arm did not sever. Was the force of her dive not enough? She had easily shredded Mad Buffalo with that wire before.
This creature held on stubbornly, and Ami cut away the wire binding its arm.
Back to square one.
The creature twisted its body and swung its right arm, which coursed with electricity.
Cracklecrackle! Boom!
The arm struck the asphalt and discharged a powerful current nearby. If I had not dodged it, my body would have burned. I rolled away from the current, then quickly got up.
Pain still remained, and my movements were not fully recovered. But they were slowly improving.
Ami bounded between the creature’s legs.
“The bridge is just ahead. Run!”
I bit my lip until it bled.
I could not bring myself to leave. But I knew I had to go. Toward the bridge. To lure the other creatures toward the bridge that had been our original target.
Even as I turned away, I could not stop myself from looking back at Ami.
Ami shot into the sky, then lightly furrowed her brow when our eyes met.
“Hilde!”
She wrapped the creature’s neck with wire and shouted.
“You should’ve been ready to stake your comrades’ lives the moment you came out here!”
Blood burst from the creature’s neck.
The sound of flesh splattering. The creature's shriek scraped like a sheet of metal. I couldn't watch the blood spray. The instant I heard Ami's words, I ran.
There was not a single thing wrong with what she said. The operation had to succeed. The bridge had to be cut. And I had to believe my comrade would win and return.
I ran toward the bridge.
It seemed the creature’s neck had not been severed. Electricity exploded along with its furious roar, shaking the air. This blast was so powerful that the shock wave struck my back hard as it passed.
The motorcycle engines grew louder too.
It sounded like Aki was calling Ami’s name behind me. Concern colored the seniors’ voices as they called for Ami. Ignoring the worry constricting my heart, I ran.
I felt the ground shake. The creatures chasing me seemed to be closing the distance. The reasons were obvious. First, I had become noticeably slower. Second, the seniors who had been slaughtering the creature horde seemed to have joined Ami.
Level 7? That thing was more like Level 8.
“Why did you come this way?!”
Ami’s desperate voice grew farther away.
“Richard, Richard! Help Hilde! There are still too many left!”
“Ami, come over here!”
The seniors’ urgent voices were swallowed by the creatures’ footsteps.
“You’ve lost too much blood!”
“Richard! Go to Hilde!”
“Come to think of it, that bastard is the root cause. He should take responsibility himself!”
Jason Tvein’s furious voice rang through the air.
Loud enough to be heard even amid the massive electrical explosions.
“What the hell did you lure in?!”
The bridge.
The wide bridge stretched out before me. It connected one canyon to another. I gritted my teeth and ran. I put all my strength into my legs. Biting my lip, I raced across the bridge without looking back.
It was truly close now. I could feel the creatures’ heavy presence behind me.
But they did not catch me in the end. Keeping some distance from the target, I finally completed the operation. I crossed the bridge, then spun around the moment I reached the other side. The bridge was wide enough for ten people to cross side by side, and it was swarming with creatures. Mad Buffalo. Young Goats. At some point, Plague Gods had joined them too.
We should have blown it up with bombs, but they had flown away when the car overturned.
But it was not as though I had no weapon.
Kraaaaaash!
Quick Draw.
I cut without hesitation. The sword fit my hand. And my body had finally regained enough strength to perform the technique it remembered.
The end of the bridge was cleanly severed. Along the path of the huge sword Yoon had placed in my hands.
It was cut cleanly, then dropped helplessly.
The bridge and creatures sank away.
When I closed and opened my eyes, they were no longer in sight.
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