WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 110

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Premonition (1)

The day after Operation 「Manifest Liberation」 was announced, a battalion-sized task force under Lieutenant Colonel Capston moved north along the Salinas River. Their objective was to seize the San Ardo Oil Field. Thanks to Gyeoul holding the Salinas Dam, the oil field had not flooded and remained intact.

The riverside oil field looked like an artificial desert. Its top layer had been peeled flat, making its barren color stand out against everything around it. Looking east, where the ground rose, countless roads twisted all the way to the ridgeline where sight disappeared. There was no pattern there. And there was no pattern to the mutants charging in from there either.

It really was a ruin. Even inside a moving vehicle, Gyeoul could faintly smell crude oil. It was not his imagination. Some of the facilities might have been damaged. Aerial recon had shown no abnormal signs, so it probably was not serious.

In the distance, Noise Makers blared with thunder-like sound. They would scatter the mutants being drawn in by the operation noise.

[2 o'clock, large mutant group, distance about 250. Meerkat will fire.]

The tank unit still used Meerkat as its callsign. Two tanks running off-road on the right side of the task force turned their turrets. Then two cannon blasts went off. Boom! Boom! They were new shells, aluminum casings packed with scattershot. Nearly a hundred mutants fell in a wave.

“Whoa, what is that? That is insane. So cool.”

Han-byul, Yura squad’s designated marksman, sounded impressed. Riding in the same truck as Gyeoul, she was glued to the view beyond the bulletproof glass. She muttered to herself, Die, die, do not get back up. She was watching the few mutants that staggered back up after 2,200 pellets had ripped through them.

“They are not even making it this far.”

Another squad member, Moon Su-chan, said it. He checked the enemy through his rifle scope and decided there was nothing to worry about. Gyeoul agreed.

If it was a fatal wound by human standards, it was still a severe wound for a mutant.

More than half the mutants survived. Their old, shredded clothes were quickly soaking red. They looked like walking corpses, but mutants were still living organisms. They could not keep going long with holes in their chests and bellies.

Gyeoul watched the impact zone through binoculars. Hungry things dragged their feet forward. The child at the front stood out. Maybe its lungs had filled with blood. It kept coughing red. It wavered, then finally collapsed. Right as it struggled to rise again.

Boom! Boom!

The tanks fired a second time. A rain of tungsten pounded the mutants. You could almost hear it with your eyes, bodies breaking, hard ground shattering.

By then, the task force had entered the south side of the oil field. Mutants were appearing everywhere. Maybe they had seen the ones slaughtered earlier, because even with animal-level intelligence they seemed cautious. An order came from Lieutenant Colonel Capston.

[Switch to dismounted combat at current position. 1st Company secures the line from the south entry route to the eastern refining and storage facilities. 2nd Company advances north of Sergeant Creek. Remaining forces and support units seize the central refinery, then secure the northeast perimeter. Move as preplanned and keep reports thorough.]

Gyeoul jumped down from the transport compartment. Thud. The impact from the tips of his feet felt heavy.

A silhouette was behind a bush. A mutant crouched like a cat and peeked this way, trying to stay hidden. Gyeoul aimed his machine gun. The mutant, recognizing a human weapon, sprang out like it was convulsing.

Rat-tat-tat!

Its spasms looked like mechanical failure. It shook while standing, then dropped to its knees. Blood kept pouring from holes in its body. Sometimes bits of organ came out too. Machine-gun rounds thicker than rifle bullets had ripped through its insides. Step, step. Gyeoul approached, his footsteps clear. The mutant looked up from its knees and only clattered its teeth.

Gyeoul kicked it over. Then he brought a heavy step straight down onto it.

Crunch!

The blow was much heavier than usual. Its rib cage caved in. He ground his foot while pressing down. Each movement gave a crack-crack sensation as shattered ribs shifted. Only when sharp bone fragments pierced the heart did the mutant finally breathe its last.

So this was the weight.

Gyeoul had been testing his changed load. It was because of his new protective suit, 「Centurion」. The suit alone weighed 25 kilograms, built to stop bite damage from mutants.

On top of that, the feed bag carrying 500 machine-gun rounds weighed 16 kilograms.

Add his weapon and other gear, and Gyeoul was carrying over 50 kilograms.

Gunfire continued. There were not many bushes for mutants to hide in. The hard part was clearing those near the drill rigs and oil storage areas. Gyeoul picked off five with precise shots. Then he advanced quickly and laid down suppressive fire, around thirty rounds. Thanks to the feed bag, he did not need to reload.

“Everyone okay?”

After firing, he turned and saw twenty people in the same protective suits jogging over awkwardly. Every member of Jin-seok squad and Yura squad was in one. One squad from each other platoon was huffing along too.

“Man, I could already feel it when we put this on, but this thing is no joke.”

Yura had only run a little faster, but her face was already flushed red.

“If they are going to issue new gear, should there not at least be an adaptation period?”

After taking position, Jin-seok asked sharply. He was always cynical, but this time he was not being difficult. Gyeoul thought the same.

This feels too rushed...

The regimental combat team had received the Centurion suits yesterday afternoon. Then today, blockade command immediately ordered them field-tested in live combat.

Still, they needed to settle the complaints for now. Gyeoul spoke to Jin-seok.

“Look at the environment we are in. If we want to minimize pipeline and refinery damage, we have to hold back firepower, and that raises the risk for soldiers.”

That was also true. Pipelines were everywhere. If they were damaged, repairs would be difficult. They already depended on air transport for all materials in the first place.

That was why tank platoons, which could not finely control firepower, were assigned to outer perimeter duty. One tank each to north, south, east, and west. With the new scattershot shells, they could overwhelm mutants with crushing force.

Jin-seok still looked sour.

“It feels like they are treating refugees like guinea pigs.”

“Chief Park, we are not the only ones having a hard time. We are in the middle of an operation, so we can talk later. Everyone, lower your visors. Lock them too. We switch to radio comms from here.”

The protective suits had visors for face protection. Once lowered and locked, ordinary mutants had no way to bite the wearer. That meant complete safety from direct infection. The tradeoff was that communication had to go through radio.

Could it really withstand a Beta Ghoul’s bite force?

That was the claim in the catalog.

Gyeoul led his troops north along the road and railway. Other units advanced in parallel on both flanks. Humvees and armored trucks followed in formation.

The oil field was as wide as a decent-sized city. From the southern end to the central refining complex, they had to walk over a kilometer. Troops short on stamina were already sweating. The weather was still cool, and the suits even had separate cooling systems.

Then Gyeoul spotted mutants jumping out from behind a drill rig.

“Enemy at 11 o'clock! Hold! Hold! Fall back ten meters!”

Pipelines ran alongside the road, so firing was restricted. The closest pipeline was only thirty meters away. Gyeoul signaled the following vehicles too, back away. At a suitable distance, he raised his fist. The Humvee gunner got ready to fire.

At the same time, he shouted to the two squads.

“Use me as your reference! You there, too far back! Move in a bit, then aim high if possible!”

Gyeoul delayed the squad fire. As always, the mutants came charging with tongues hanging out. That momentum crushed distance fast. The soldiers grew visibly tense, their whole bodies tightening under the sense that the enemy was closer than it looked.

“Now! Fire!”

The mutants’ upper bodies burst apart at once. He had told them to aim high, and their sights had already been set.

Tutututututut!

Overkill fire poured onto fallen mutants twitching on the ground. One soldier was especially bad.

[Aaah! Why is this bastard not dying!]

Maybe he had let them get too close. He seemed to mistake post-hit movement for being alive. A panicked scream crackled through the radio. Panic spread easily. Gyeoul shouted hard.

“Stop! Cease fire! Cease fire!”

The spraying did not stop quickly. Jin-seok finally stepped in and physically stopped him, grabbing the barrel and wrenching it upward by force. But by then more than a hundred rounds were gone.

With magazine swaps, even untrained personnel naturally slowed ammo burn, because firing broke every 25 to 30 rounds anyway. Feed bags were different.

No reloading becomes a problem at moments like this.

Five hundred rounds sounded huge, but in full auto it disappeared in forty-six seconds.

That was both weakness and strength. At least there was no firepower gap. Against overwhelming numbers of mutants, uninterrupted automatic fire would help a lot.

A little later, Gyeoul and his combat group approached the first control facility in the refining complex. Charlie Company 2nd and 3rd Platoons joined them after clearing other routes. 1st Platoon and Weapons Platoon were elsewhere seizing the dry-river bridge crossing the oil field. Company commander Ensign Sullivan was handling that side too.

After deploying each unit into all-around security, three platoon leaders came over to Gyeoul.

“I heard a lot of gunfire earlier. What happened?”

That was Ensign Hicks, leader of 3rd Platoon. Gyeoul shook his head.

“Nothing major. Were you two okay on the way in?”

Gyeoul’s voice came through the amplifier plate. The two ensigns looked at each other. 2nd Platoon leader McCoy answered.

“Intermittent pop-up stragglers were the only issue. But we had Heavy Infantry on our side too. Two got jumped and came out fine. One of them almost pissed himself, though.”

Heavy Infantry meant suit wearers.

Then Ensign Hicks added his report.

“On our end, we just blasted whatever was latched onto them. We heard rifle rounds would not penetrate the suit anyway, so we figured it was fine. Centurion itself seems pretty usable.”

Gyeoul nodded and pointed out the buildings to seize.

“We have time, so let us do this safely. We have four Heavy Infantry squads here now, so we will rotate entries. These buildings are not big anyway.”

McCoy asked, “How do you want the order?”

“I will go in first for two runs with support troops. Then 2nd Platoon, then 3rd Platoon. Sound good?”

“No objections. We will cover.”

Hicks agreed with a nod.

Gyeoul led Jin-seok squad. They reached the endpoint of the crude pipeline used for vehicle loading. One tanker truck had been abandoned, and several passenger cars were left in the lot. A mutant strapped in by its seatbelt was thrashing inside one car. It had no strength left, though. It was skin and bones.

Gyeoul stepped up and silenced it with a single shot.

Inside the car was full of dried feces. It looked like it had been trapped there for quite a long time before infection.

Makes sense. If it had been infected early, it would not have starved like that.

Once mutants entered metabolic suppression, they could survive for years without nutrition. Oxygen was a separate issue.

Now Gyeoul entered the building at point. It was a single-story facility about the size of a normal house, but inside was cramped and complex because of all the equipment. A narrow one-way path ran through it.

“Kyaak!”

A mutant that had been lying in wait in the shade leaped at him, and Gyeoul let it bite his left hand.

Crack-crack.

[Boss!]

At the scream from behind him, Gyeoul raised his right hand.

“I am fine. Totally fine. Do not shoot.”

The gloves were ballistic material.

The mutant clamped onto his hand and chewed desperately. Right in front of them, its gums were getting crushed. Blood streamed down and teeth shattered, but the starving thing would not stop. Crack, crack. Broken tooth fragments spat outward. Gyeoul only felt a little pressure.

He grabbed the mutant’s jaw like a handle. It thrashed. But he now had a weight class over one hundred kilograms. He could be shaken, but not swept away. He let go of the gun, pulled his wrapped right hand back past his shoulder, then slammed the mutant down with his full body weight behind it.

Its lower jaw tore off in one hit. It staggered, so this time he grabbed its neck and struck it again. Once, twice, three times. The more he repeated it, the weaker the struggling became. A shattered eyeball slipped from its collapsed face. He released its neck. The mutant slumped and its legs trembled. Gyeoul picked up a steel pry bar for breaching doors. He lifted it high and drove the sharp edge down into the crown of its head.

He did it to make a point.

People were scarier than monsters.

============================ Author's Afterword ============================

#Naver N Store Serialization On Hold

N Store serialization is being put on hold for the time being.

The reason is... violence, apparently.

I felt really upset even when I got the recommendation to revise Seal Breaker, but this is even worse. I had fixed the adults-only scenes, so I thought there would not be any major problem.

They say this is the first time serialization has been paused for violence... and content-wise, there are already novels up there that are even more violent than this...

Anyway, that is what happened.

For those waiting for pay-per-episode purchase, I am very sorry, but please wait a little longer.

#Q&A

Q. OnionMushroom: @Author. Be honest. What exactly is your relationship with author WhiteBean? Barbyeol is obviously farther from your childlike innocence than a thousand leagues...

A. In the Ossuary universe, liquor tax gets raised by 400% in 2040. WhiteBean, who was still writing Barbyeol at that time, can no longer afford one can of beer a day, gets enraged, hulks out, and becomes BlackBean. Then, instead of beer, he drinks black-bean soy milk soaked in kin-slaying tragedy, and changes Barbyeol's genre into ocean mystery horror mukbang.

That is official canon. :)

Q. Majikar: @At this point this novel has infiltrated deep into my life. So deep I can no longer tell where I end and it begins. Writing this with my middle school memories revived!

A. That is a big problem. If you reach the point where you cannot separate yourself from this novel, you get cursed to never date for life.

Q. SmilePlay: @Thanks for another great chapter~ By the way, is the new monster like a commander type? It stayed in the rear and got protected, and intelligent plays that never happened before started happening around it lol

A. The commander role is already being handled by the Trickster.

Q. rumen: @Does the Public Affairs Office have a lot of Gyeoul fans? That PR officer's attitude changed way too much from before lol

A. Of course. They have to. And the Major himself too... hahaha.

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